From the beginning of time, parents have sought imaginative ways to keep their cheeky young ’uns in line.
And this weekend York dad Jonny Corbett hit on a new ruse – he threatened to send his son Charlie, four, rocketing into space.
When joker Jonny looked like he was going to press the “ejector seat” button in his BMW – actually a button that sends an SOS message in the event of an accident – his panicking son shouted: “No!”
The exchange was captured on video, which has now gone viral.
The episode took place on Sunday (February 15) as Jonny, 28, waited in the car with Charlie while his wife Bethany, 31, and 18-month-old daughter Annabelle, nipped into Tesco.
The 90-second video show Charlie squirming in the back seat as his dad distracts him from wanting his smart phone with the teasing reference to the ejector seat.
At one point the exchange goes…
Charlie: Yeah?
Dad: Tell me what happens if I press the button?
Charlie: I go into space?
Dad: And who will you never see again?
Charlie: Mummy…?
When Jonny looks like he’s going to fire the button, Charlie shouts: “Don’t press the button!”
Why not? “Because I don’t want to go into space…”
Then Charlie adds: “Daddy, if I say I love you, and I kiss you, and I want to play with you, that means I’ll never go into space, and you shouldn’t press that button ever again.”
His dad replies: “I’ll never press the button, I promise. Unless it’s a real emergency.”
After uploading the video to his Facebook page, it soon went viral. By 8pm on Tuesday it had been seen 262,000 times.
Jonny told the Mail and the Mirror:
“I now reveal the button if Charlie gets a bit twitchy when he’s sat bored strapped in the car.
“I often video us doing things and thought Charlie looked really funny. It was only when I uploaded it to Facebook that I was astounded by how many people started liking it.
“It is a funny video. I’m really not that mean to Charlie. We’re just having fun.”
The internet reacts…
It has also garnered hundreds of Facebook comments, including these…
– Fred J Ireland
– Ryan Christie
– Scott Keohane
– Rachel Cadman
– Dean Nicholls
– Kathie Bell
– Jonny Corbett