The article below is taken, in part, from Reuters Health Information
Parents, do you know what the “Choking Game” is? One in 16 eighth-graders play it and it’s dangerous, very dangerous. The article below is taken from Reuters Health April 16, 2012. It is based on a 2009 survey of eighth graders in Oregon, published in the on-line journal, Pediatrics April 16, 2012.
These young teens may call it a game, but it is anything but a game. The Chocking game involves putting pressure on the neck with a towel or belt to cut off someone’s oxygen supply, then releasing the pressure to give a “high” sensation.
“Of more concern in these studies that have been coming out over the last several years is that among that group… there’s a smaller subset that seem to like the phenomenon enough to continue doing it on a regular basis,” said Dr. Andrew, who has studied asphyxia games but wasn’t involved in the new research.
Researchers found that, “Oregon kids who said they’d played the choking game, close to two-thirds reported having done so more than once, and more than a quarter had played at least five times.”
“Some kids may experience it and say, ‘This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m never going to do it again,'” Dr. Andrew told Reuters Health. “The kids that go on to repeat it, it may not be in groups anymore. It could escalate into doing it by yourself with a ligature, and of course that’s the highest risk of all.”
As any parent might imagine, the choking game comes with a chance of asphyxiation and brain damage, as well as fatal head injuries from falling and hitting the ground after their air supply is cut off. Of course, the chance for a bad outcome increases every time the activity is repeated.
The findings are based on a 2009 survey given to more than 5,000 Oregon eighth graders. The researchers also noted “…that kids who were sexually active and those who used drugs or alcohol were more likely to have played the choking game — also known as Knock Out, Space Monkey or Flatlining.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 82 media reports of kids dying from playing the choking game from 1995 through 2007 — but that the figure is likely an underestimate. If a kid asphyxiates trying to get high alone, the death could look like a suicide.
This “choking” can be seen to increase the pleasure of sexual activity and even adults have used it as a sexual excitant. I know of a doctor in Wisconsin who died in middle age of “Auto-erotic Asphyxiation syndrome”. Think of the embarrassment it brought to his family of teens!
“The activity itself is not new, but I think the ability to spread the word about it via the Internet is adding some fuel to the fire,” said Dr. W. Hobart Davies, a psychologist from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has studied the choking game but didn’t participate in the new research. “If you watched the kids doing it on YouTube, you’d think it was the most fun thing people have ever done,” he said.
Use this article to discuss the chocking game, and other dangerous activities kids may hear about or do. Parents parent best by using daily situations like this to begin a mini-conversation or a so called, “Teachable Moment.” Other dangerous activities which need discussion in frequent mini-conversations are; texting while driving, underage drinking and the resulting increased risk taking – driving, speeding, casual sex, drug use, diving into shallow pools, and many other things kids would not do if their judgement were not impaired.
And don’t worry that your conversation will introduce kids to dangerous activities; by eighth grade, kids already know, probably more than their parents do, about these activities. But, they may not be aware of how dangerous they really are.
The Reuters article quoted Dr. Andrews as saying one study, “…showed 40% of kids surveyed in Texas and Canada didn’t see any danger in playing the choking game, whether or not they had ever participated themselves.”
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Pediatrics 2012.