“It’s shocking there you know and knowing that there is potential that they have been successful in having kids hurt themselves,” Lt. Carter said.
The Momo Challenge’s avatar, the creepy face pictured above, is a Japanese sculpture that, somewhere along the line, was adopted to represent the fictitious “Momo.”
Why is the Momo challenge popular?
Dr. Carolyn Ievers-Landis, a pediatric clinical psychologist with University Hospitals in Cleveland, told the news station that kids often participate in these challenges due to the timeless “peer pressure,” and not wanting to seem “boring.”
In general, kids and teens also, just want something that is exciting. I mean they’re looking for something that’s different, that maybe their parents wouldn’t approve of also,” she said. She also cautioned that parents need to get involved in these situations, no question. “If we don’t get involved,” she says, “something happens a lot of the time. And then we’re like, ‘oh, I should’ve called earlier, I should have said something earlier.”
The Momo challenge is nothing to mess around with; it is currently being blamed for the suicide of a twelve-year-old girl in Argentina. While incidents of suicide attributed to the challenge are scarce, we should still keep our kids OFF of WhatsApp. I mean, isn’t the loss of life in ONE child enough? And do you REALLY want your kid performing dangerous dares because some social media stranger with a creepy icon is telling them to?
PLEASE tell me you just said “NO!” No to the Momo challenge, and NO to your young tweens and early teens having social media. Teens and tweens do NOT need any help or encouragement in making impulsive, rash decisions…let’s stop giving them the tools to do so.
