"The Salt and Ice" Challenge: the Latest YouTube Craze

Children and young adults have been video taping themselves doing dangerous and harmful things for years now in order to obtain their fifteen minutes of fame on YouTube.  What parent will forget the deaths and injuries that occurred from things like "planking" or the Hanging Game.  The latest in the YouTube video craze is "The Salt and Ice Challenge" which involves putting salt and ice on bare skin and seeing how long one can stand to keep it there.  It mimics frostbite and can cause severe damage to the participant.  Pictures of one Pittsburgh teen can be found in the AOL headlines.  I will warn you, the pictures are not pretty, but the damage is most certainly permanent.

What can we do as parents to ensure that our children don't take the "Salt and Ice " Challenge, or attempt to get their fifteen minutes of fame in some other dangerous way?  Sit down with them and talk about the dangers of these stunts. Show them the pictures of this boys back and talk about how much pain he will be in for a long time.  Ask them if they can remember any of the "planker's" or hanging game victim's names who died trying to gain notoriety.  Point out that they are not remembered or famous, they are just dead.  Talk about other ways to gain the desired notoriety that are not dangerous:  inventions, sports achievements, academic accomplishments,

I am really concerned that society, with all of it's "reality" shows, is pushing our children toward more and more dangerous activities with the prize being 15 minutes of fame.  How many more children have to die before the social networks ban these dangerous videos?  No outlet for these videos to go viral and I bet money on the number of injuries drops dramaticly. 

Safety 101: Teens and Twenty Somethings Love of Risk Taking

As children reach their teens or twenties, they may begin to think of themselves as indestructible and are prone to engage in risky behaviors that they would not even consider doing at other stages in their life.  You need to look no further than youtube to know what I am saying is true.  It is becoming more common for children in this age group to post videos of themselves engaging in risky behaviors like planking, choking, unprotected sex, or binge drinking.  Hard to fight against fifteen minutes of fame or 100,000 hits for their posted video.  Additional reasons for children in this age range may be their lack of impulse control due to hormone fluxuations or the important role peer pressure plays in their life. 

Understanding where these behaviors are coming from is a start, but you are going to need to do more to keep your child save.  Talk to them about what could happen to them if they participate in these behaviors, and show them pictures of the misfortune of others who have engaged in these behaviors.  Research suggests that just talking to them may not be enough because they listen more to their friends then their parents.  You may need to monitor their behavior closely and set down consequences for them if they are caught engaging in these dangerous behaviors.  Following through with the consequence will be key to keeping them safe.

If you get them to think twice before doing something crazy, you just may save their life.

Planking and Other Thrill Seeking Behavior in Your Teen or Twenty Something Child

The latest thrill seeking activity to hit our teens and young adults is Planking, but the idea of engaging in dangerous life threatning behaviors for that age group is far from new. You may be asking yourself what we, as parents, can we do to stop our children from participating in these activities before they get hurt or die. Understanding the whys may help us to better counteract our child's interest in these activities. I believe that the reason this age group participates in these activities is because they see themselves as invincible, they like the adrenalin rush that they get and they enjoy the attention that they receive from their peers for engaging in these behaviors.

Talk to your children about the fact that children their age have died taking part in these types of activities, and that they can receive the adrenalin rush and peer recognition through sports, academic excellence and using their talents. It can't hurt to try and it just may save your child from a great deal of pain in the future.