“Teens, social networks and challenges: a time bomb”

Do you have children with access to a mobile device? Then you have heard about the new viral "challenge" that teenagers are doing. Exactly, the "skull-breaker", which can literally cause physical injury, brain damage, and even death. Are you one of those who doesn't know exactly what we are talking about? I am afraid that your children may have many advantages in the use of social networks and therefore be dangerous, not only virtual but real. I invite you to read until the end so that as parents manage the best strategies that your family, in particular, helps them minimize the risks to those that your children are exposed on the internet.

A few days ago, when the news of a young man with a skull fissure began to circulate, derived from a challenge uploaded to the TikTok social network, in which two teenagers, ask a third party to jump with them, to surprisingly unbalance it and to make this fall on his back, a mother expressed her doubt about talking or not to talk with her children about this issue, because to say about this, if they still didn't know anything, it would be to give them ideas, that is, to encourage them to do so, I asked that together we analyzed the reality and scope of social networks and we concluded that the safest thing was that their children had already seen at least a couple of videos not only with this challenge but with many others and that most of the times, we are the adults who find out what arises in social networks after adolescents. Yes this is so, how could we help our children to take care of themselves on the Internet, which is advancing by leaps and bounds and today this challenge is viral, as yesterday was that of the "Blue Whale" or that of "Momo"? To mention just a couple of them.

What can we do as parents?

The adolescence of today, shares similarities with which many of us had at the time, as it is a vulnerable period of life in the sense that judgment, reasoning and decision making, is still immature, and explained in a past article ("ISQ for digital citizenship")that it is this same cause, which causes adolescents to have impulsive and irrational behaviors that can be dangerous, the critical difference is that now social networks are part of the lives of young people and that it becomes a factor of risk for this stage of development, however, it is this same characteristic as parents, we must know how to use it in our favor,This reminds me of what a few days ago Cristina Fortuny writes about it in her Blog and I share below: “As I am a very rare mom, I silently thanked for the existence of Tik Tok, Instagram and WhatsApp, because for being in them, I was able to find out about this challenge and be able to have conversations with my children that as a teenager I did not have with an adult."

Esto nos lleva a pensar que lo primero que debemos hacer es informarnos bien sobre esta y otras redes sociales populares entre niños y adolescentes, para determinar si nuestro hijo está preparado para usarla, una vez que hicimos esto, el terreno de la confianza y la comunicación debe estar abierto this leads us to think that the first thing we should do is inform ourselves well about this and other popular social networks among children and adolescents, to determine if our child is prepared to use it, once we did this, the field of trust and communication must be open to be able to make assemblies in this regard, to guide them on the good use they should have of the internet and the risks that may involve participating in challenges or heavy jokes that are suggested in the networks, consequences that by the way, do not become viral as the initial challenges do, so that adolescents have a “blind spot” in this sense, which as responsible adults for them, it is up to us to make visible , I also told you about this in previous articles, where I commented that the consequences are based on the ethical, disciplinary, formative and even the legal (the parents of this minor with a skull fissure, are already taking legal action against the classmates who played “the joke” on their son.)

The following is to establish a proactive supervision on the limits in the use of mobile devices and control the time that our children dedicate to this activity, remembering that the limits are protections that are established based on the safety and integrity of all and that in the adolescence are key to helping children themselves to practice self-regulation more, at this point, it will be very useful for you to give your children alternative activities that suppress excessive spending of time online, sports, art classes, music, etc.

In ISQ, we speak out against any act of violence against any member of our community or outside it, even if it is under the “pretext” of “joke”, “game” or “challenge”, so we invite you to open the dialogue with your children and agree to respect the school rules regarding the regulation that is indicated regarding the use of mobile devices. We have already mentioned it before, that student safety is a co-responsibility, so we will only see results if there is teamwork and each family exalts education, communication but above all, the practice of nonviolence as a philosophy of life to imitate.

If you have more questions or suggestions, approach your section director.

Psic. Alejandra Morales Arroyo

ISQ Safe Program