by Laura Falin posted in Life

It's the question that has divided most parents I know for the last few Halloweens. Is Jimmy Kimmel's annual prank, where parents tell their children they ate all the kids' Halloween candy, funny or mean"
I've always found it unsettling. I swear I have a sense of humor. I like joking with my kids. I really like Jimmy Kimmel and I think he's hilarious, too. There were a few years when I wondered if I was being too uptight. But this particular prank never sat well with me.

Then today, I stumbled across this Washington Post article that perfectly articulated all the reasons it made me uneasy. This sums it up here:
"I have a different view. In my opinion as a longtime child psychiatrist, the children in the clips -- most of whom appear to be between 3 and 7 years old -- are reacting not so much to the temporary loss of candy but to a sense of betrayal that will linger long after their parents own up to the joke." Aside from the fact that we have plenty of crying around here already, and I do not need to introduce reasons for more of it, there's that sense of betrayal. The writer, a child psychiatrist, states that kids see things as strictly right or wrong. We don't understand nuance, or shades of gray, or pranking, until we get older. So either you're a good guy, or a bad guy. When parents deliberately lie to their kids, and steal on top of that, it confuses them.
The author also points out that this is the first time a lot of kid...