‘I dare you’: why children and adolescents accept virtual challenges and how to teach them to measure danger

The challenges are not new; some of them precede the appearance of the internet. The real danger of the current challenges, say specialists, is that the web has increased its exposure (they have gone viral) and they reach young people all over the world, many of them in unstructured family situations, which does not necessarily imply that parents are separated; It is enough with the effort to live at the current accelerated pace, in too much of a hurry to accompany the natural development process of children, rushing them so that they grow at our pace.

Today, a minor with reduced social skills is exposed to an enormous amount of unfiltered information, which can become a challenge that not only consists of fulfilling it, but also making everyone aware of it and applauding it through a like.

Digital platforms deprive children of important social cues that they would normally learn through in-person communication. This can make them more callous, anxious and insecure, says Dr. Glenda Pinto Guevara, clinical psychologist and cognitive behavioral therapist.

“Social interaction is basic and functional for us as a species. The networks have displaced the way of socializing from person to person that we knew and, with it, all the known codes for that interpersonal communication”, he points out.

What do we do without codes? Missing out on important skills. Traditional socialization, although it produces nervousness and some anxiety, is necessary to achieve goals such as personality maturity, language development, sensory perceptions, and cognitive development.

In a digital context, body language, facial expression and the smallest verbal reactions become invisible. “This is hard to make a friend and it’s hard to keep friendships as well.”

For example, maintaining friendships requires courage, honesty, listening. Faceless online encounters are less personal and intimidating. But fear returns as soon as you have to speak in person and in real time. “That’s where it comes from anxiety, of facing the activity that characterizes us as humans: speaking”.

Impulsive and vulnerable: adolescents in networks

An adolescent is more self-sufficient and impulsive than a child, and is more peer-oriented than family-oriented. He hasn’t fully developed his brain; he has not adapted to the complexities of social interaction. Your prefrontal cortex cannot yet effectively carry out decision-making processes, the planning of tasks and times, nor the inhibition of inappropriate behavior.

But you need to prove to yourself that you are capable, smart, brave, cunning and other characteristics that make you stand out in your social group. The electronic device allows it, saving you the task of talking and interacting in person. The conjunction of all this makes him vulnerable to media manipulation.

In adolescents, the limbic system responds more strongly, which rewards them for each challenge with a dopamine discharge.. What more exciting than recording yourself on video and sharing it to gain popularity?

“These children and young people lack a more functional parental communication, which serves as a reference and refuge for the difficult moments they go through and will go through during their development as human beings,” says psychologist Pinto.

“Lack of true family cohesion, which allows the development of two very important factors for the safety of children and young people”, is the position of Kathalina Urquizo, a master’s degree in psychoanalysis and specialized in emotional education and positive discipline. Those factors are:

• A secure attachment, which is how bonds are formed from childhood with mom and dad or their caregivers, the people the child perceives as capable of meeting their immediate needs. This will be the bonding model in future affective and social relationships. “We are social beings; we need to feel connected. We are a species that is not released at birth; we need to develop security features to feel like we can take on the world.” This base, says Urquizo, is not well directed. “We have absent families, without a real structure.”

This last reality develops other types of attachment: the anxious one, in which the child does not trust his caregivers, has a feeling of constant insecurity; avoidant attachment, in which he feels that he must defend himself from the elders; disorganized attachment, in which caregivers have negligent behaviors, do not pay attention, do not set limits.

• Sense of belonging. “Our families, the world, go fast; We don’t allow the children to be part of the dynamics of caring for the house, and we hurry them when eating, when dressing”. Since they are learning and taking time, we do it for them. This makes them feel that they do not have an active role in the family structure. “The search for belonging is innate to our need to bond; if it does not happen, that will not remain there, but we will be constantly looking for where to belong”. In adolescence, this makes us fall into risks, such as hyper-public social systems, represented, for example, in fashion challenges.

Strengthen your children against peer pressure

Reflect on your behavior as a parent and guide of your child or children. Pinto recommends knowing the digital world to educate and accompany in the responsible use of technology. This is parental mediation.

• Talk about digital citizenship, the importance of being respectful online, how negative messages can hurt others. And remember that you are the example.
• Be careful. Ask your children what kinds of messages they are seeing, sending, or receiving, and how they affect them. Early online experiences can set the tone and expectations your child has from then on.

• Make a family media consumption plan: technology-free zones and times, where no one connects, not even mom and dad. “Our children should get used to seeing our faces and not our heads bent over a screen.”
• Start conversations about the challenges. Ask calm questions and try not to judge what they think. In the current case, talk about the challenge of suffocation or taking substances or medicines not prescribed by a doctor and its possible consequences.

If this hasn’t happened in early childhood, don’t think there’s nothing you can do. “We can restructure our family work. Let’s take a turn, strengthen ties, spend time together, have spaces for analysis without being critical, let’s start letting ourselves be seen (by the children)”. The latter is something that Urquizo highlights. “Children and young people do not really know their parents; very few know what their elders do at work, what they were like as children, what was the history process of that family”.

Signs of emotional fragility in children

Get used to watching your children and notice the changes. Many parents are absent, immersed in technology, and miss the changes in children in their day to day. “Let’s ask ourselves who our son is, what he likes, what he believes in,” suggests Urquizo. Here are the signs:

• The child finds it difficult to solve his problems alone. Parental assistance should decrease as the child grows, so that he can function with increasing independence. But the speed of today’s life can cause a parent to continue feeding a four to six-year-old child by mouth, because he “wastes time” if she lets him eat alone. “We are not helping him solve something as basic as feeding himself. Accompanying does not mean doing for them”, says the psychologist, stressing that the lack of independence makes children more vulnerable.
• The child finds it difficult to respond to social pressure. This will always exist. You have to work on the child’s ability to gauge danger; this is not innate: it can be developed from an early age, such as by teaching a child not to cross the street alone. If at 6 or 7 years the child does not incorporate this limit, it indicates that he does not know how to measure the danger. It is important that this is resolved before the arrival of adolescence. Around 12 years of age the most notable changes occur; “But if we don’t have links, we won’t be able to see them.”

How to achieve it? Use the communication process with children; carry on a normal conversation instead of an interrogation. “We can watch movies or read stories that encourage conversations that allow us to see what the position of the children is on certain issues and address what is worrying us”. Families can make the mistake of requiring children to listen, but not listen to them. “We are missing out on a very important wealth: knowing what they think, what they believe in, in order to overcome the generation gap and guide them well.” (F)