Parents Warn of Popular, Dangerous Teen Trends
Many parents are unaware of the dangers or even the existence of such popular activities as conversing on MySpace.com and playing ''the choking game.''
Teens today are engaging in cultural trends that seem harmless at first, but have resulted in a number of deaths. Many parents, however, are unaware of the dangers or even the existence of such popular activities as conversing on MySpace.com and playing "the choking game."
In the latest report involving MySpace.com, a Chicago 14-year-old faces felony harassment charges for threatening the life of a school official on the highly popularized website. The threat was posted on the Internet site at the beginning of the school year, but discovered only recently, according to the Aurora Police Department.
The report is only one of a long string of cases that brought charges on sexual predators and teens who have made inappropriate postings and other forms of threats since the launch of the new online phenomenon in 2003.
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According to Focus on the Family, many parents are in the dark about the widely popular online meeting space. Bob Waliszewski, director of Youth Culture at Focus on the Family, called MySpace.com the "good, the bad and the ugly" in a Focus on Radio segment Thursday. Waliszewski reported 74 million profiles currently on MySpace.com, which is almost as big as Yahoo!. And everyday, around 85,000 new profiles are added to it.
For those unaware of the website, it's like a "computerized locker space," Waliszewski simply put it. Users can post up their favorite music and films, pictures, blog entries and even share their faith. The "bad" aspect, however, has seemed to dominate over the "good."
The search phrase "Bible Study" gets 246,000 hits, according to Waliszewski, compared to the 2,300,000 hits the word "porn" receives.
"It can be very pornographic," he said.
Another popularized teen trend less known to the public is "the choking game" or what some call "the dream game" or "blackout." In a usually group setting, teens use their hands or other devices to choke each other or themselves until they pass out. It's a game that has been around for generations yet that has recently resurfaced among today's youths.
The game is "comparable to a high from drugs and alcohol," described Tim Wilson, pastor of River of Fire Church in Kansas and parent of a teen daughter who accidentally died from the playing the game on her own last year. With an addictive nature to the game, some children do it for hours at a time.
Doctors warn that cutting off oxygen to the brain can cause permanent brain damage or, like Kimberly Wilson, death.
Parents of victimized children are now trying to spread awareness to other parents and warn them before it's too late. Tim and Carol Wilson have resolved to save as many children as possible from this fate that kids are, in many cases, playing completely unaware of the dangers.
Some of the warning signs parents need to watch for include unusual marks around the neck, complaints of headaches and blood shot eyes.
Regarding the more talked about and widely used activity of MySpace.com, youth expert Waliszewski suggests more involvement on the part of parents.
"Because this is such as seedy world, if parents are going to let their children have a MySpace account ... the ground rules are the parents have to be involved in this world," he said. "They have to have the freedom to access the discussions that are going on their children's MySpace account and that they're keeping it entirely private where the friends that come in are a very close circle of friends that the parents know."
While parents may be concerned of the violating their children's privacy, Waliszewski and the Wilsons call today's world "a different world."
"We as parents have to be involved," said Waliszewski.
For more information, visit www.family.org.
