Most people have come to the consensus that junior high school is a nightmare. Kids are going through puberty, figuring out social skills, making lots of mistakes, and generally making life hell for everyone else, including their peers, teachers, and parents.
Well, here’s another thing to look out for. Nurse and mom @the.funny.nurse used her TikTok account as a public service announcement platform to warn other tween parents about a game that’s circulating on the playground in their area: The Fire Truck game. And this is not four square or hopscotch, it’s seriously disturbing.
“PSA to parents of children in junior high: My 11-year-old daughter just informed me that the boys are playing a game called The Fire Truck Game,” The Funny Nurse begins. “I will preface this by saying that I know that kids will be kids and kids will do some stupid shit. But we’ve got to do better teaching our boys to keep their hands off of other people and teaching our girls that it’s okay to have boundaries.”
She goes on to describe the “game,” which really isn’t a game at all so much as a way for boys to bypass consent and violate girls.
In the game, boys put their hand on a girl’s lower thigh. Their hand is a “fire truck’ that “drives” up the girl’s thigh — but they can say “stop sign” at any time to stop the touching. But when they ask for it to stop, the boys say, “Fire trucks don’t stop at stop signs,” and continue to touch the girls, sometimes “all the way to their crotch,” according to this mom’s report.
And of course, this could be happening to boys and non-binary kids, too.
“So, just beware aware if you hear about your kids playing the fire truck game, you have been informed,” she concludes.
Down in the comments, many viewers said that the fire truck game has been around for a while, with some saying they’d grown up with it in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Others said there’s also a similar game known as “The Nervous Game,” in which girls are similarly touched past their consent (which, yes, is technically assault).
Parents had a strong reaction to the game, too, whether they’d heard of it or not.
“We’d be playing a game called Ambulance next,” one person wrote.
“Throat punches are discussed in our house,” said another.
“Press charges,” said a third, simply.
Before resorting to violence though, the for-sure best thing to do with your tween kids right now is to sit down and talk to them about consent, touching other people, and downright dangerous games like this. Things aren’t going to change until kids are educated about what’s right, what to do if it happens, and parents are willing to talk to their kids about situations like these.
Junior high might always be kind of terribly, but maybe we can get rid of games like these and make it at least marginally better.
