Choking Game - Parents be aware

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I was pretty shocked to read in this morning’s L.A. Times about a “new” way that middle-school and high school kids are getting high – by choking themselves. As a mom of 2 teens (and I’m a middle school teacher) I would have thought I’d know about this kind of thing. My 15-year-old D said she’d never heard of it either. The story is truly gripping and saddening. </p>

<p>“The game is seen as a clean, quick, drug-free high by teens like Sasha — children with good grades, nice homes, doting parents and too little life experience to consider its dangerous side.”</p>

<p>“An honor student, athlete and talented artist, Sasha was liked by the jocks, the nerds, the popular kids and most everybody in between. Her stresses were typically adolescent — friends, her weight, her parents’ separation — but she wasn’t brooding or unhappy, at least not so any of us could recognize.”</p>

<p><a href=“Sasha Is Dead, but Why?”>Sasha Is Dead, but Why?;

<p>You will need to register to read beyond the first page, but it’s free.</p>

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<p>So sad :frowning: </p>

<p>I believe a young kid in our city died this way a few months ago. My kids had never heard of it before I asked them at that time.</p>

3

<p>This game has been around for ages. Kids try to knock eachother out, and then experience a ‘pleasant’ light headedness. Its pretty scary.</p>

4

<p>You’re right this is not a new phenomenon…perhaps you are more shocked because of the young age of some participants. It is usually done in groups of students so keep the lines of communication open with the tweens…by teens it is too late.</p>

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<p>Ditto. We played this a LOT at my elementary (yes elementary) school back in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Had nothing to do with getting high or even having a pleasant lightheadedness. We just thought it was cool. A teacher finally found out and the grownups – thankfully – went on the warpath to educate us.</p>

6

<p>:eek: I have never heard of this, and I’m quite disturbed! Trying to get “lightheaded”. I’m shocked personally.</p>

7

<p>I remember kids, a couple of them anyway, doing this back in the 60’s in elementary school as well.</p>

8

<p>It was widely reported about here a few months ago. Very common in middle class kids I guess. Maybe smoking a few joints is not so bad afterall.</p>

9

<p>I think a difference may be that now kids are attempting to do this alone in their bedroom closets or bathrooms, with belts, dog leashes, etc… and the results are often tragic, as the story details. </p>

<p>barrons, the dad in the story was quoted as saying he wished his daughter had tried crack instead because at least he knows what crack is and could have taken her to a clinic.</p>

<p>Two parts really got to me: </p>

<p>1) this is the third teen to die recently in the reporter’s daughter’s circle of friends. (If you’ve been a longtime reader of the Los Angeles Times, you might remember Sandy Banks had a column for many years, in which she detailed her experiences raising her daughters as a single mom after her husbandd died). One teen committed suicide and the other died after sniffing some kind of paint or gas out of a baggie. The parents, as the story relates, of this group of kids, had no idea this kind of thing was going on. </p>

<p>“For us, it was an unsettling testament to the dangerous combustion of adult ignorance and adolescent vulnerability. How could our responsible, level-headed kids be stupid enough to play such a game? How could we — worldly, educated baby boomers — be clueless enough not to know?”</p>

<p>2) And this: "But are our kids really sexobsessed emotional cripples, or just bored and restless teens, bred to be afraid of drugs but craving momentary escape from the pressure to get good grades, excel in sports, manage busy social lives?</p>

<p>Adults unwind with a drag on a cigarette, a stop at happy hour, a glass of wine with dinner. Why does it shock us to imagine that our kids come home from school, finish their homework, then retreat to their closets with a belt?</p>

<p>It just feels good."</p>

<p>(sigh)</p>

10

<p>Oprah just did a story on this on her show today.And my local newspaper (suburban NY) had an article about a kid found dead under a tree where ropes had been strung…the tree was in a wooded area off a neighborhood cul de sac where groups of kids hung out.They implied that he had been participating in this “game”.
Pretty scary.</p>

11

<p>This is very similar to autoeroticasphyxiation, what I thought this thread was orignally about. I thought I had heard it all when people were sniffing cow poop to get high off of the methane.</p>

12

<p>wow, that sounds really dumb if you read it out loud…</p>

13

<p>momof2inca—I too was shocked to read this morning’s LA times (I’m a momof4 in socal). So so sad. But the one mom said: “I could clamp down, bombard her with questions, scour the websites she visits…but what would that accomplish?” I submit that would accomplish plenty! Parents need to wake up, ask lots of questions, check out the IM chatter —don’t be naive. Check on where your kids are and what they are doing. Be the parent, not a buddy.</p>

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<p>maryc, I thought the same thing when I read that quote. There’s a big difference between a 14-year-old and an 17/18-year-old in terms of what kind of privacy and the extent of autonomy that I allow. In my job as a teacher, I see parents handing over their authority as parents as early as their kids’ 7th grade year because they don’t want to be mean or snoopy.</p>

15

<p>And it has come to this - we have to worry about finding a belt, out of its appointed place, in the kid’s room… Jeez-oh-man, I have to say I don’t know how it has come to this.</p>

16

<p>i really do feel this is a minority of all kids, just trust yours (to a reasonable extent) and hope they don’t do anything stupid… :)</p>

17

<p>Well, I’m not going to be worrying about out of place belts, but I did have a frank discussion with my 15-year-old D about this “game.” (She had never heard of it). I think communication is the key. Kids need to know that this kind of thing is more dangerous than most drugs.</p>

<p>Perhaps we parents need to question what kind of high-stress life we are asking our kids to lead, that they need to choke themselves to feel high. I know that I am doing a lot of soul searching because the parent who wrote the article and the parents of the dead girl are my demographic peers. Their daughters could easily be my daughter.</p>

18

<p>Kids used to do this in elementary school, my “friend” did it once in art class, passed out and busted his lip</p>