13 year old lad hung himself near ours last night.



Okay we’ll start off with the more obvious ones

1. In case of an emergency
2. So their parents can contact them

Fair enough, something very basic where you can literally only make and receive calls makes sense. I was thinking more smartphones.
Like it or not (and I don’t) a phone is essential nowadays.

Even for children under the age of 14 or so? Again, I'm on about smartphones with all the bells and whistles here, not just your basic phone that can make and receive calls.
 
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Even for children under the age of 14 or so? Again, I'm on about smartphones with all the bells and whistles here, not just your basic phone that can make and receive calls.
Yep, from starting senior school they would have been very much in the minority if they didn’t have one. Suppose I’m lucky I have sensible kids, but you still have to keep and eye on them. As others have said I’m glad I grew up when I did, I don’t get all this social media stuff.

Do you have kids? Difficult not letting them have what all their friends have.
 
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When kids were bullied at school it was bad enough but at least they could escape to some extent outside of school . Now with WhatsApp Snapchat etc there is no escape 24/7 365 days a year . Kids didn’t suddenly become less judgemental either. Even the grown ups apps like Twitter exhibit bullying behaviours to anyone who doesn’t conform to a certain view or way of thinking.

I’m not saying the online world has contributed in this case but I feel very very sorry for kids these days

Some primary schools have serious issues with group bullying on WhatsApp. Imagine being 10 year old and having all the school bullies or popular groups slagging you off or making fun of you for bragging rights, as used to happen in playgrounds. Looking at your phone in the evening and knowing you have to go to school tomorrow. It’s widespread
Don’t have kids but think about this a lot, must be awful for kids in schools these days
 
Yep, from starting senior school they would have been very much in the minority if they didn’t have one. Suppose I’m lucky I have sensible kids, but you still have to keep and eye on them. As others have said I’m glad I grew up when I did, I don’t get all this social media stuff.

Do you have kids? Difficult not letting them have what all their friends have.

Absolutely, which is why I suggested in a previous post that the key to this is parents coming together and agreeing as a group not to buy smartphones for their kids before they reach say 14 years old. This then removes the peer pressure element.

I know it'll likely never happen but it would be so much better for kids long term if it did.
 
A tragedy, and I can't begin to understand what it must be like for the family.

Although I know it's well-intentioned, I think it's a really really bad idea for people on here to speculate - with no knowledge of what's happened here - on what this poor lad's reasons were. Just strikes me as really bad taste, especially the comment about the family maybe being to blame.

Not that such things don't happen, but on something relatively local, and really fresh, I think it's out of order to speculate so directly with not a clue about what was behind it.

(The conversation about general reasons for teenage suicide feels different.)
 
No recovering from that for the parents, absolutely tragic. How does such a young mind even contemplate it man.
You hope that isn't the case and that they can start to re-build their lives over time. However, I've seen something similar to this first hand and the torment it causes. So sad. :(
 
A tragedy, and I can't begin to understand what it must be like for the family.

Although I know it's well-intentioned, I think it's a really really bad idea for people on here to speculate - with no knowledge of what's happened here - on what this poor lad's reasons were. Just strikes me as really bad taste, especially the comment about the family maybe being to blame.

Not that such things don't happen, but on something relatively local, and really fresh, I think it's out of order to speculate so directly with not a clue about what was behind it.

(The conversation about general reasons for teenage suicide feels different.)

Phones were being blamed earlier. Weird thing to do at such awful news.
 
Yep, from starting senior school they would have been very much in the minority if they didn’t have one. Suppose I’m lucky I have sensible kids, but you still have to keep and eye on them. As others have said I’m glad I grew up when I did, I don’t get all this social media stuff.

Do you have kids? Difficult not letting them have what all their friends have.

My little ones in year two - you’d be in a minority in her class without a phone. Been a godsend for her this lockdown tbf - been able to keep in touch with a large portion of her class via WhatsApp and FaceTime video calls.
 

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