‘He was legitimately scared’: Nurse Hannah’s flinching son prompts a tragic new trend to rise

Nurse and parenting influencer Hannah Hiatt — known as Nurse Hannah — has been making waves on TikTok, following a video in which her son flinches while being approached by his father. 

For context, the now-deleted video shows Hiatt’s son seems to flinch when her husband approaches him while in a grocery store. The video has since been scrubbed from Hiatt’s TikTok page, which boasts over 250,000 followers, but not before the reshared snippet of her son flinching took over the algorithm and stoked concern that the son’s reaction was borne out of fear.

“Why is a toddler that age FLINCHING at anything?,” one concerned TikTok user wrote while resharing the clip, with another commenting that the son seemed “legitimately scared.” Others questioned why “put his hands up like he already knew” something was coming, or declared that he displayed “purely defensive body language” and needs to be “taken somewhere safe.” It wasn’t long before other moms on TikTok tested their theory, making movements at their own children to see whether their first reaction was to flinch.

“I’m not convinced,” one mom wrote to Hannah alongside a video of her making movements towards her daughter, “I genuinely tried multiple times.” In that clip, the child seems far less fearful of the sudden movements than Hannah’s son did, a sentiment shared by another mom whose child was laughing, instead of flinching, when approached by his father. 

“It’s not normal for your kid to flinch out of fear,” the mom wrote, while another TikToker agreed that their child had “not a single flinch” when she tested it on her son. Elsewhere, yet another mom admitted that while she thought “flinching was a natural reflex for kids,” she changed her mind when she tried to startle her daughter but she had a positive reaction. 

While TikTok is flooded with moms who believe Hannah’s son flinching is a sign of something more sinister, it’s important to note that his reaction could have been because of a variety of other reasons. Some TikTok users who are on the Autism Spectrum Disorder said the son’s reaction is common for those who have sensory issues or suffer from overstimulation, while others said it could simply be an instinctive reaction to the son’s surroundings. In some cases, however, flinching may be a Post Traumatic Stress response, or a sign that some action, including past abuse, has caused a child to flinch out of fear. 

In response to all the chatter, Hannah shared a video defending her husband, saying he is the “most loving and most nurturing father in the entire world.” Later in the three-minute clip, which has garnered over 17 million views, Hannah says that her husband and son “were just playing” in the original video, and that “nothing’s going on” between the father and child.

Hannah’s post is the latest to overrun ParentTok, with the platform delivering us everything from would-be palaeontologist children to a daughter upstaging her father and grumpy toddler who seems wise beyond her years. In terms of the source of their newfound TikTok fame, well, these little kids have the Four Seasons Orlando baby to thank.