A blog post I read recently made the case that pranks are a form of bullying that can "fundementally undermine trust."
When I was growing up, my grandfather was a master of deadpan teasing and snark. It was so bad, that I never trusted anything bad that anyone told me because I knew, deep down inside, that it wasn't true. When my mother told me that my kitten, Bandit, had died, I was trying not to smile because I knew she was lying. She wasn't. This is what my grandfather did to me with his "harmless" jokes. It was days before I realized she'd been telling the truth (partly because I didn't live with her and partly because, when I was there, I was usually in my room with the door closed.) Because of my grandfather, I didn't trust adults, and I reacted to the news of my cat dying with amused disbelief. How messed up is that?
