When their mom took away their mobile phones for the day on Good Friday, sisters Lillie and Harper O’Reilly were given the old-fashioned order to go outside to play.
That’s when the O’Reilly sisters noticed a huge puddle across the street from their house in St. Thomas, Ont. They decided to craft a sign that read, “Splash us,” and then stood in front of the puddle, waiting for vehicles to drive by.
“We thought why don’t we create a sign and get cars to splash us with the puddle,” said Lillie, 11. “A lot of cars drove into the puddle and splashed us, we were wet … really wet,” added Harper, 10.
Some vehicles even went around the block and made a U-Turn, accelerating through the puddle for a second round of splashing, the girls said.
Impressed by the response the sisters got from passersby in real life, their mom, Taylor Brooks, captured a video of the splashing and posted it on TikTok with the caption, “Remember when kids played outside?”. It has since gone viral and garnered more than 10 million views, along with thousands of comments.
“Every single one of those vehicles went home and told someone what happened to them today. I know I would,” wrote one TikTok user. “I think the adults had more fun than the kids,” another viewer commented.
“You just know someone who had a rough day at work instantly started cackling when they did this. Entertaining for both sides,” read another comment.
Brooks said she didn’t expect the post to get so much attention and the family was stunned to see how many people found themselves relating to the video. She believe it’s because kids playing outside without tech devices isn’t as common anymore as it was a few decades ago.
“I personally think it’s 90s nostalgia,” said Brooks. “Lots of us grew up in the 80s and 90s, we had fun before technology and it just really resonated with people to see kids having fun, no devices and it just hit home for a lot of people.”
The comments on the video tend to agree. Many viewers recalled doing similar activities when they were children and complimented the O’Reilly sisters for being good sports.
Brooks’s message to other parents? A little boredom every now and then doesn’t hurt and can motivate kids to come up with innovative ways to entertain themselves without technology.
“Just let them be bored for a few minutes, and they will come up with something. It was nice to see them doing something together, they were just outside enjoying every minute of it, so they will figure out something and they will have fun. It’s instinctual for them,” she said.
The girls said they “definitely” plan to do this again, and the experience taught them that they are able to have fun with less screen time and more outside time.
“We learned that you don’t need to spend every rainy day inside on your phone,” said Lillie.
