Parents have discovered a very surprising way to end their toddlers’ tantrums: shouting the name Jessica.
A new TikTok trend has shown parents documenting methods for calming their crying children. In one clip posted by a woman named Tiffani Ortega, her son could be seen crying in his car seat while his father was buckling him in.
“Jessica, come here,” he said as he stood outside the car with his head turned. Only mere seconds later, the toddler’s crying came to a halt while he looked around for the person his dad appeared to be calling for.
“Come here, Jessica. He’s crying,” Ortega’s husband continued, pretending to call for someone. “Are you going to stop crying? Because Jessica is coming. You want Jessica to come?”
“Yes,” the toddler responded, while he leaned back in his car seat and completely stopped crying.
Ortega was stunned by the parenting hack in the caption, writing: “I actually can’t believe this worked.”
In the comments of Ortega’s TikTok video, which has more than 19 million views, people were impressed by the effectiveness of the trick.
“Jessica gonna be the new boogie man,” one quipped, while another joked: “Jessica, the new HR director of toddlers.”
“Jessica must run a strict program because these kids are shook,” a third added.
Another video posted by a woman named Evanthia showed her daughter screaming and running towards her. However, the toddler stopped crying moments after Evanthia tried the trick.
“Where are you? Jessica?” the mother continued, prompting her daughter to look around the room in silence.
“Jessica. Do you see Jessica?” the parent asked her daughter. “Say hi, Jessica. Uh-oh. Where’s Jessica?” Evanthia’s daughter shrugged in response while she looked at her other family members, who were also pretending to search for Jessica.
Speaking to Today.com, Dr. Deborah Gilboa, a family physician and resilience expert, explained why that method works for soothing crying children. She said that while it’s easy to redirect a baby’s focus, that’s not necessarily the case for toddlers.
“They have more perseverance, and they have object permanence,” she explained, meaning that toddlers don’t easily forget what caused their tantrums. However, calling out a random name can briefly end their tears, since it’s an unexpected break in their routine.
“It works because the brain is like, ‘Wait, what?’” Gilboa said.
The trick comes months after the name Jessica earned a bad reputation from Gen Z, who have used it to replace “Karen” — one of the biggest insults of the last decade.
