Have you heard about this incident?

Try and convince them they are truly loved and needed no matter how shitty things seem in their life right now.

I’d teach them not to believe any single shit they read on the internet, for this is obviously not for kids. And why the hell is an 11 year old having a girlfriend anyways? Shouldn’t 11yo be playing with action figures and shit?
Jesus Christ, sometimes I truly feel we’ve made a world of fucked up cretins.
Seriously, taking your life over a stupid prank? More importantly, raising a kid in such an idiotic manner it would take its own life over a stupid prank?
I don’t know where, how and who screwed it up, but something’s obviously off here.

at 11 I couldn’t differentiate between Coriander and spearmint….

When I found out that kids in my son’s class were talking about being ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ I sat him down and had a long talk. He isn’t allowed a facebook page because he’s not old enough yet. He’s 13. He only just got a phone last year and the only student he talks on his phone is his best friend. He also texts one girl I approve of that doesn’t go to his school. We met her and her family on the beach this past summer and we all spent the entire afternoon together and they are a ‘blended family’ (American and Norwegian) so I encourage him to talk to her as a friend who knows what it’s like to be different here. They are not boyfriend and girlfriend. Months can go by between their texts. My son is concentrating on what is important to him. School and playing and learning about computers.
I also read his email, Skype and his YouTube comments to make sure there is no dramas going on. I’ll be able to stop when he’s older, but for now, I think he still needs some gentle guidance about what’s appropriate and what isn’t. We’ve had long talks about it. ‘Appropriateness’ doesn’t come automatic to my kid because he’s on the autism spectrum and has pretty extreme ADHD.

My first thought is to not let an 11 year old child have a Facebook account…

I’m far from certain that you can insure your kids from the many hazards of the internet. I’m trying to imagine just what sort of bullying can result in so horrific a reaction. The poor kid is gone, but I shiver for his folks and frankly wonder how they will manage anything resembling a normal existence from here on out. Were my kids still teenagers, this is the sort of thing that would scare the shit out of me. I mean how could you possibly anticipate something like this?

That’s the thing. It’s not even a teenager. At least then you can blame hormones or angst or something. It’s fairly normal for teens to withdraw from parental oversight without being depressed or suicidal.

This is a little kid. A kid who likely has never seen a dead person in real life, who might not even have completely understood the concept of death.

From f3news.com’s article about the incident: “Using a cellphone he bought without his mother’s knowledge, Tysen on March 14 was reading texts and other messages about the faked suicide”

There’s so much going wrong there I don’t know where to start.

Many people think children are sweet tempered. They are often wrong. Kids can be unfeeling assholes. They should teach empathy in school.

Can you ensure that it won’t happen to your loved ones? I think the answer is no.

Everyone can do the very best to try and prevent bad things happening to people they care about but shit happens. Always has. When I was in Grade 5, 50 years ago, one of our classmates suffered kidney and brain damage from glue-sniffing. Did her family expect it? no. Would they have prevented it if they could? yes. Kids were experimenting with sex then too.

There’s really nothing new under the sun. The way we communicate about it is different but the basics have been the same for many generations . There have been unexpected pregnancies and dramas etc etc forever.