Prankster parents who shot to notoriety after posting videos of stunts involving their children to YouTube have spoken out about their behaviour.

In an interview with Good Morning America , the tearful US couple said they tried for “shock value” with their videos but denied they were bad parents.

The Maryland parents ran a YouTube channel called “DaddyOFive” which featured videos of their antics featuring their children: Jake, 14; Ryan, 12; Emma, 11; Cody, 9 and Alex, 9.

In one video, MummyOFive Heather Martin screams at her nine-year-old son for leaving ink on the floor. The embarrassed child profusely protests it wasn’t him, before bursting into tears.

“What the hell is that,” Ms Martin screams, continuing to berate him for up to a minute before revealing the ink is ‘trick ink’ that will disappear from the floor.

Numerous videos feature the parents screaming and yelling at their children, who appear visibly upset.

The videos have sparked controversy on social media over allegations of cruelty and abuse.

“We love our kids. They’re the most important thing in the world to us and we made some bad parental choices by portraying ourselves this way but we are not bad people,” an emotional Ms Martin told the news program.

“The characters you see is not a reflection of who we are.

“Some stuff is real, some stuff is acted out and scripted,” she said.

Mr Martin said it started out as “family fun” and the children were excited to be a part of it, adding on some occasions, the children exaggerated their emotions as part of the act.

Baltimore police told ABC News they are investigated the “DaddyOFive” YouTube videos “to determine if any of the videos were created in Baltimore County and if any of those involve criminal violations”.

It comes after the parents deleted all of their videos from the channel last week, bar a public apology.

The couple initially refused interviews, before agreeing to the tell-all discussion with ABC.

“I felt like I’m not being a dad they deserve… but then starting YouTube and seeing how happy these kids get when they get these views,” Mr Martin said.