Your Asshole Kid Is Not Your Fault, But We Must Give Them Shock Therapy

“The American Academy of Pediatrics released new guidance last week about how to evaluate and treat children who are overweight or obese…arguing obesity should no longer be stigmatized as simply the result of personal choices, but understood as a complex disease with short- and long-term health implications. Based on that rationale, the guidelines say there is no evidence to support delaying treatment for children with obesity in the hope that they will outgrow it. Pediatricians and primary care physicians should take a more proactive tack, offering prompt referrals to intensive health behavior and lifestyle treatment programs, in addition to prescribing weight loss drugs or advising surgery in some cases.” – The New York Times

After our controversial guidance on childhood obesity, we here at the American Academy of Pediatrics are issuing new guidance on an issue of equal, if not greater, importance to our society: asshole kids.

We all know an asshole kid. They’re juggling avocados in the produce aisle at Trader Joe’s and dropping all of them on the floor. They’re eating a bowl of cereal with milk on an international flight while playing Candy Crush on an iPad with the sound on. They’re reminding the teacher about yesterday’s homework assignment.

Our new guidance is that it’s not the child’s fault they’re an asshole. It’s not their parent’s fault either—even if their parent is a total asshole. We at the American Academy of Pediatrics believe assholery in kids is actually a “complex disorder” with no culprit but many victims. This means you can’t stigmatize asshole kids, even if they’re being an asshole to you. Being an asshole to an asshole kid makes you an asshole.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, we have another piece of guidance regarding the asshole kid epidemic: we need to give them all shock therapy.

I know, I know, sounds a bit extreme. But the asshole kid epidemic has been on the rise for years. If we don’t nip it in the bud now, we’ll soon be overrun with Barron Trumps. To be clear, just because we want to give asshole kids shock therapy, doesn’t mean we’re stigmatizing them. We think it’s in their best interest to receive shock therapy. The fact that we have a big grin on our face while we shoot 100 volts of electricity into their puny brains is purely coincidental.

To those of you saying kids can be assholes and be happy. That we’re being “anti-asshole” and should instead use terms like “considerate-challenged” and “kids who make TikTok videos”—think about what you’re saying. We’ve been embracing assholery in kids for years now, and what has it brought us except a bunch of incels, e-girls, and George Santos. If we decide to normalize adolescent assholery, pretty soon everyone will be a “brand ambassador” with “Forbes 30 Under 30” in their bio. We at the American Academy of Pediatrics will not stand for that.

One might wonder why we’re recommending such extreme measures now? After all, assholery in kids has been on the rise for years, and coincides with other seemingly related macro trends, such as a decrease in unstructured outdoor playtime and an explosion in social media usage—not to mention the rise of over-involved parents willing to engage in criminal conspiracy so their child can attend Stanford.

Perhaps we as a society should hold these helicopter parents and their kids more accountable for this asshole behavior, instead of recommending dramatic medical intervention not covered by insurance? Even further, maybe we should be proactive about limitings kids’ screen time, and demand more funding for public education so that kids from all socio-economic statuses can better learn how to self-regulate? After all, kids weren’t always huge assholes—if we look at the leading indicators of this asshole epidemic, perhaps we can reverse some of its effects?

To that we say: shut up and let us electrocute your children.

When it’s done, your kid will be physically and emotionally scarred for the rest of their life. But we here at the American Academy of Pediatrics have decided that’s better than allowing them to go on being an asshole—which, again, is nobody’s fault.