The Choking Game

[auntie k]

Did anyone see that segment on the TODAY show yesterday? It's the way Middle school aged children get high - by choking each other until they pass out...evidently it is euphoric. Kids are dying all over the US doing this!!
They think it is safe because it isn't a drug!

I thought to myself - what will they come up with next - thinking this is a NEW craze so I mentioned it to my 22 year old niece last night...and she said oh yeah, we did that in middle school too!

As I stated in another thread - I MUST live under a rock!

Just thought I would mention it to - if you have a middle school child - I'd be talking to them!

On TODAY they mentioned several websites that tell about it...another term for the game was GASP - I can't remember the others.

 

[ashjohnson80]

i think there was a thread about this on the cb a few weeks back.

 

[caitycaity]

any kid who thinks this is safe just because it is not a drug has bigger problems.

 

[vettechick99]

I, too, had friends doing it in high school and that was 13 years ago. I'm still wondering the appeal.

"Hey you! I have a fantastic idea. Sit on my chest, I'll struggle to breath, you can do naughty things to me while I'm passed out, I'll have raging headaches for days and lose several hundred brain cells".

Sure makes alcohol seem lame.

 

[cats7494]

I had neighbors who did this when I was a kid - about 15-17 years ago..not a new thing....
Still scary though!

 

[Rajah]

I admit that when I was a kid, about 10, we tried this once. Scared us all enough that we were wondering WHAT we were thinking and never did it again, but that was 20 years ago. Not new.

 

[Tinkim]

WHT? I never heard of this and I'm 33. No wonder at times I feel so inadequately prepared to be a parent.

 

[tlgoblue]

we used to play a version of this where we would hyperventilate while bent over with our heads hangnig and then upon standing, a "friend" would hive you a bear hug/heimlich and you would pass out. I never understood the attraction.

I have talked with both my kids about this practice and they just counter with "How stupid do you think we are?" If they only knew! Still we talk a lot about these kinds of things kids do to fit in. Not stupidity, just growing pains. Though some kids suffer these pains more than others.

 

[Disneyworldreaming]

we used to do this all the time in our school to. we did it when we had sleepovers. and that was 25-30 years ago, but we called it passout!

 

[theSurlyMermaid]

I have talked with both my kids about this practice and they just counter with "How stupid do you think we are?" If they only knew! Still we talk a lot about these kinds of things kids do to fit in. Not stupidity, just growing pains. Though some kids suffer these pains more than others.

Smart kids you have there!

I have never heard of this, but I did post a thread on this a few weeks ago because a kid had died from doing this and it made the news. Many DISers said they had heard of it...yet another thing for parents to worry about!

The reaction of your children makes me feel a little better about being a parent one day though. Hopefully, my kid/s will be the same.

 

[tlgoblue]

The reaction of your children makes me feel a little better about being a parent one day though. Hopefully, my kid/s will be the same.

Not so fast. I mean, have all the kids you want, but just because they say one thing, doesn't mean they really believe that those things are all that dangerous. They tell us parents things to get us off their backs as often as they are really listing and understanding what we're saying. I still think my kids are vulnerable to all sorts of peer pressure. It is a fact of growing up, and all I can do as a parent is pay attention to what I see and hear and trust my gut. I keep talking to them and keep the doors of communication wide open.

I remember, as a teen, feeling like I had my mom completely fooled, and I did. But I looked like the perfect kid. Staight A's, honor roll, popular, etc. But the things I did to be popular would have been devastaing if I had been caught. Pressure to fit in is so incredible during that period of our lives, and we find ourselves doing things that we know our parents have warned us about, but somehow think that they are just trying to scare us, or they really don't know what it's like and so on. This is the point I try to impress upon my kids. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm not trying to keep you from having friends. I'm not some evil person who had children just for the pleasure of torturing them. (That point is the biggest stumbling block! ) I point out how everything we do, as parents, is to make sure they actually get to grow old, and when we tell them that something is dangerous, it is because it is. Period. And if they choose to ignore us, they may not get to be "tortured" by us ever again. You know, no more Disney cruises, trips to Cedar Point, overnight visits with their best friends, yummy meals, bar-b-ques, gelato, video games, and all those awful things we do to torture them. I also pray hard that they believe I love them more than air, and that is something that they can't get from anyone who would ask them to do something dangerous.

 

[magicfan]

Somebody was telling me about this. Believe it or not, kids used to do this when I was in grade school (many years ago!). I always thought they were faking it. I don't know what to think now. Sounds crazy. Can't they get thier thrills another way?

 

[jellymanoffspring]

Isn't that basically how the INXS lead singer Michael Hutchins Died?

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

No no no...the way I heard it, Micheal Hutchins died of "erotic asphyxiation". Not the same thing at ALL!

I also seem to remember a period when I was in Jr.High when kids would thump each other HARD on the chest. They called it 'frogging' and there was a rumor that if you did it hard enough, you could cause the person you 'frogged' to have a heart attack.

TOV

 

[theSurlyMermaid]

Not so fast. I mean, have all the kids you want, but just because they say one thing, doesn't mean they really believe that those things are all that dangerous. They tell us parents things to get us off their backs as often as they are really listing and understanding what we're saying. I still think my kids are vulnerable to all sorts of peer pressure. It is a fact of growing up, and all I can do as a parent is pay attention to what I see and hear and trust my gut. I keep talking to them and keep the doors of communication wide open.

I remember, as a teen, feeling like I had my mom completely fooled, and I did. But I looked like the perfect kid. Staight A's, honor roll, popular, etc. But the things I did to be popular would have been devastaing if I had been caught. Pressure to fit in is so incredible during that period of our lives, and we find ourselves doing things that we know our parents have warned us about, but somehow think that they are just trying to scare us, or they really don't know what it's like and so on. This is the point I try to impress upon my kids. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm not trying to keep you from having friends. I'm not some evil person who had children just for the pleasure of torturing them. (That point is the biggest stumbling block! ) I point out how everything we do, as parents, is to make sure they actually get to grow old, and when we tell them that something is dangerous, it is because it is. Period. And if they choose to ignore us, they may not get to be "tortured" by us ever again. You know, no more Disney cruises, trips to Cedar Point, overnight visits with their best friends, yummy meals, bar-b-ques, gelato, video games, and all those awful things we do to torture them. I also pray hard that they believe I love them more than air, and that is something that they can't get from anyone who would ask them to do something dangerous.

More sage advice!

LOL on the have as many kids as you want thing....

You are so right though...I remember as a teen that I thought my parents were overly concerned about things they should not be. However, I did some DUMB, DUMB things and they had every reason to ask the questions they were asking and give the lectures they were giving. To some degree, I was very lucky and I know not everyone is as fortunate. All we can do is what you are saying....and I particularly like your style. Your kids are lucky to have such a great parent.

 

[Disney01]

I'm 37 and I can remember doing this in 6th grade...So, that was 26 years ago. We would bend over, breathe really hard, straighten out, then somone behind us, would wrap their arms really tight around us, while we would hold our breath until we passed out.

 

[luvthatduke]

I also started a thread on this last month,
and I am glad it's being brought up again!
Talking about what kids will tell their parents
to get them off their back, one of the boys who
died this year doing the choking "game" told his
mother a day or two before he did it for the last time,
"Relax, Mom, they're not hickies."
His reply was in response to her noticing the ligature marks on his neck.

Shortly after that his brother found him hanging from a belt on his bedroom door.
The mother recalled in her interview how she heard the brother
call his name and when she got to them the one boy was
holding his dead brother from the armpits while he hung there...

God help us.

 

[grinningghost]

This is WAY weird and really scary.

 

[Feralpeg]

No no no...the way I heard it, Micheal Hutchins died of "erotic asphyxiation". Not the same thing at ALL!

I also seem to remember a period when I was in Jr.High when kids would thump each other HARD on the chest. They called it 'frogging' and there was a rumor that if you did it hard enough, you could cause the person you 'frogged' to have a heart attack.

TOV

Unfortunately, that is true. It just has to be at the right time during the heartbeat. Crazy what kids will do.

 

[tlgoblue]

More sage advice!

LOL on the have as many kids as you want thing....

You are so right though...I remember as a teen that I thought my parents were overly concerned about things they should not be. However, I did some DUMB, DUMB things and they had every reason to ask the questions they were asking and give the lectures they were giving. To some degree, I was very lucky and I know not everyone is as fortunate. All we can do is what you are saying....and I particularly like your style. Your kids are lucky to have such a great parent.

Could you tell them that? LOL! If you stay young at heart, you'll remember thei pain/frustration. They may not tell you, but you'll know. That is your advantage as a parent.