<p>Had lunch with a group of colleagues today and learned something about one of them that I hadn’t known in the two years I’ve worked with him:</p>
<p>His daughter, 14, died a few years ago from playing a game called “Flatliner”…where kids make themselves or each other pass out by applying pressure on a major artery. </p>
<p>Reports are that the kids in one area were playing this game at slumber parties, in school, at each other’s homes, etc. </p>
<p>I’ve heard of this before, but have never heard of it being done outside of the sexual context. I would never think of a group of middle school girls playing this game at a sleepover. But, it’s happening. </p>
<p>In some cases, the kids try it alone and wind up dead. The deaths are then ruled as suicides because they resemble hangings. Only later is it determined that the kids have been playing the game with others and were probably experimenting when something went wrong while they were alone. </p>
<p>For those who play the game, but don’t die, the results can be very damaging. Some kids have ongoing learning problems that are traced to their early experimentation with asphyxiation. </p>
<p>After hearing about this today, I feel compelled to pass the word along. Talk to your kids about this. As I said, I’m surprised to hear that middle school students are involved in a non-sexual, “game” type of way.</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up. We live in the midwest, so “popular” stuff is likely to show up much later here than in other places. Even so, I’m going to be checking with my kids to see if they’ve ever heard of this and to warn them of the danger.</p>
<p>I remember something similar to this being popular when I was in middle school. I think it involved someone’s going behind another person and squeezing them tightly around the chest area in an effort to make them pass out. I was, fortunately, too “chicken” to try it.</p>
<p>I hadn’t heard of the Flatliner Game per se, but there was a movie quite a few years ago by that name in which a group of people tried to see how near death they could come and still recover. I can’t remember the method they used though.</p>
<p>Again, thanks for the warning…that must have been devastatingly painful for your colleague to lose a child in that senseless way.</p>
<p>Well, I asked two of the kids about flatliners and they hadn’t heard of it. But apparently the chubby bunny game is VERY common, though I had never heard of it until this thread. My daughter (15 yrs. old) said it is a “campfire” game and knows a lot of kids that have played it, though she says she has never played it herself (??). Wouldn’t tell me what camps it was played at, though I am now convinced that is was played at one of the camps she has attended. Wouldn’t tell me where or when she saw her friends playing the game. I assume it was at a party or slumber party. She says there is nothing wrong with it and won’t talk to me about it. Anyone have any suggestions as to how to convince a pigheaded teen something is dangerous? I already told her about the death of the girl in the article.</p>