Does calling ‘Jessica’ stop a kid’s tantrum? The algorithm wants you to think so | Canada Voices

I’ll say it: Social media made me a better parent. I know – the platforms are owned by one evil empire or another, and they’ve shredded our collective attention span to sawdust. But the truth is, the connections and confidence I found on apps such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram when I was a new mom buoyed me out of a sinking feeling that I was alone – and failing.

When I struggled to breastfeed, when sleep training didn’t feel right, when every solid food looked like a choking hazard, I found my tribe. For every new challenge my baby girl unveiled, there was a solution waiting for me online: a five-point slide or a reel with an easy-to-remember mantra (“My calm is contagious!”). Breastfeeding hacks (try the football hold). Creative solutions for picky eaters (put everything in a muffin tin). Boundary-holding scripts when your kid won’t leave the park (Would you like to walk home or get in the wagon?).

Fast forward five years, and something has shifted. The same spaces that once offered community and knowledge-sharing now feel like something else entirely – overwhelming platforms that prioritize views and shares, reducing parenting to something that should be optimized or eased around. They’re no longer about finding connections and genuine help.

Failing is good for kids, if only parents knew how to let them

The latest viral parenting “hack” on TikTok – clocking hundreds of thousands of posts and counting – is known as the “Jessica.” Parents shout this random name when their toddler is mid-tantrum, and, as the videos suggest, it magically snaps the child out of it. The more it works, the more it’s posted; the more it’s posted, the more it appears to work.

Scroll through the trend and you’ll find mostly mothers showcasing just how quick, easy and apparently effective it is. Something else you’ll find: an unsettling feeling, from watching young kids – crying, upset, dysregulated – who are being filmed by their parents for content.

The “Jessica” is framed as a sanity-saving shortcut. But Tammy Schamuhn, a registered psychologist and co-founder of the Institute of Child Psychology in Leduc, Alta., says toddler tantrums are actually not a problem that need solving at all.

Young children, she explains, need to release cortisol, a stress hormone, and “Mother Nature has a great solution,” she says: tears.

What the “Jessica” does, she adds, is simply distract. It may interrupt the moment, but it doesn’t resolve the underlying emotion. “Please understand – it’s going to come out eventually. And that’s healthy. It’s necessary for a well-functioning nervous system,” she says. “It’s great for the child. It’s just inconvenient for the parent.”

If parents want to support emotional regulation, she says, there are more intentional approaches, including laughter, movement, or time spent outside, that naturally reduce cortisol and help the body return to baseline. But a quick distraction, however many likes and shares it earns, leaves the child’s stress response unresolved.

Schamuhn also notes many parents today didn’t grow up having their own emotions supported or validated. So when our children express distress, it can feel overwhelming – even threatening.

“No one was there to hold our tears,” she says. “So now it feels like a threat to our safety, when really it’s just a two-year-old crying.”

For Caitlin Slavens, a registered psychologist in Lethbridge, Alta., director of Couples to Cradles Counselling, and a creator behind Mama Psychologists on Instagram, the pressure to grow an online parenting platform is often at odds with offering thoughtful, evidence-based advice.

“It’s so much harder to grow on social media than it was four or five years ago,” she says. “You have two seconds to grab someone’s attention or they keep scrolling. The educational content we are likely to share doesn’t always take off – but then I see something like ‘Jessica’ is instant. It’s entertaining. It’s highly shareable.”

Parents today, Slavens adds, are primed to seek shortcuts. “So many are overwhelmed,” she says, and constant messaging about doing things “the right way” can override common sense.

Slavens says the firehose of advice on social media can make things worse, not better, especially when it comes from unqualified sources. “I often advise my clients who are already struggling to minimize, if not entirely eliminate, social media,” she says. “It can be flat out quite harmful in many scenarios.” She suggests parents only follow accredited resources – think child psychologists, instead of parent coaches. I’ve reduced my follows to parents I know, and the very few accounts that are rooted in evidence, not viral views.

I had no script in mind when my youngest – now four, and mostly past the phase of seemingly inexplicable meltdowns – had one recently. After swimming, she wanted absolutely no help getting changed, then desperately wanted help. She told me to leave her alone. I did. She screamed until I came back. I didn’t know what to do.

So I sat on the other side of the door, just within sight, and said nothing.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, the door opened and tears were dried. I may have aged several years.

“Mama, you left but you didn’t really leave,” she said, with a red-faced, sniffling, smile.

Just a kid, having a hard time. And a parent, with no magical workaround or recording phone in hand, staying long enough to let it pass.