There is something seriously wrong with society!!

seamus · 27-11-2012 03:51PM

Grimebox wrote: »

I think this is just unrealistic in this day and age

Nope. Smartphones can be configured to disable web access over 3G/GPRS and only allow connections to specific WiFi networks.
WiFi networks can be configured with a man-in-the-middle gateway that logs all accesses, even over secure connections.
Parents of younger teenagers should make a point of looking at the child's phone every now and again to see what they're at. Older teenagers can be given more leeway.

There will always be ways around it, like going to a mate's house, but provided that this stuff doesn't happen on your watch, it'll be mostly fine.

Spiritual · 27-11-2012 03:53PM

When I was younger, there were no social networks. You had your friends, there was a natural attrition of these as you grew older and developed your personality. Now everywhere is awash with information and chit chat, friends on something like FB became a status symbol but truly how many of these can be classed as friends.

I do not envy kids trying to fit in these days in is a bloody minefield. I have spent many an hour with a crying child, trying to explain that not everyone is a friend because of being upset by a mean comment. The challenges that seem to be there with kids were not as prevalent as they are today. It is all about wanting to fit in.

Society has contributed greatly with it's consumer lifestyle, the message that you have to be "cool". Also the non stop bombardment of the live's of the nouveau rich that kids seem to hold as the only way to live. Kids trying to be adults before their time, I am shocked at some of the behaviours that I see from kids in my town, they are little scummers once away from their own doorstep. Long gone are the days that you would get a boot up the arse and another one at home when you arrived home to complain.

Also I have nieces and nephews and it seems to be the nieces that have the problems with bullying, primarily from other groups of girls. Girls can be right little bitches and unbelievably vindictive towards each other.. It is scary some of the things that they are dealing with.

Keep an eye on your kids.

lounakin · 27-11-2012 03:54PM

As far as bullying in school goes, if more kids dared to help, support those they see are being a target, there would be much less despair amongst the victims. I remember in school there always been one child that was abused by a group on a daily basis and all the other kids just standing by, I find that repulsive and just as bad. I would always try to help but I was one person and we needed more. It's the same with cyber bullying, I'm sure it doesn't go unnoticed and people do stand there and ignore it.

TURRICAN · 27-11-2012 03:57PM

seamus wrote: »

Nope. Smartphones can be configured to disable web access over 3G/GPRS and only allow connections to specific WiFi networks.
WiFi networks can be configured with a man-in-the-middle gateway that logs all accesses, even over secure connections.
Parents of younger teenagers should make a point of looking at the child's phone every now and again to see what they're at. Older teenagers can be given more leeway.

There will always be ways around it, like going to a mate's house, but provided that this stuff doesn't happen on your watch, it'll be mostly fine.

Please show what your talking about.
Thanks.

kunst nugget · 27-11-2012 04:03PM

Spiritual wrote: »

When I was younger, there were no social networks. You had your friends, there was a natural attrition of these as you grew older and developed your personality. Now everywhere is awash with information and chit chat, friends on something like FB became a status symbol but truly how many of these can be classed as friends.

I do not envy kids trying to fit in these days in is a bloody minefield. I have spent many an hour with a crying child, trying to explain that not everyone is a friend because of being upset by a mean comment. The challenges that seem to be there with kids were not as prevalent as they are today. It is all about wanting to fit in.

Society has contributed greatly with it's consumer lifestyle, the message that you have to be "cool". Also the non stop bombardment of the live's of the nouveau rich that kids seem to hold as the only way to live. Kids trying to be adults before their time, I am shocked at some of the behaviours that I see from kids in my town, they are little scummers once away from their own doorstep. Long gone are the days that you would get a boot up the arse and another one at home when you arrived home to complain.

Also I have nieces and nephews and it seems to be the nieces that have the problems with bullying, primarily from other groups of girls. Girls can be right little bitches and unbelievably vindictive towards each other.. It is scary some of the things that they are dealing with.

Keep an eye on your kids.

Aye, give me the simpler times when you only got oranges at christmas, women could be conveniently locked away in the laundries for shaming themselves and teachers could beat several shades of sh¡te out of kids. And the neighbours would talk to you and everyone was hungry but we all had smiles on our faces and Jesus in our hearts…

Kids have always wanted to be cool to fit in and they always will. Kids have always been bullied and always will. These aren't new conditions, just the media that they use is and parents need to keep themselves up to date on all these things.

seamus · 27-11-2012 04:03PM

TURRICAN wrote: »

Please show what your talking about.
Thanks.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1466

Lets you configure your iPhone in a certain way, then lock it down to prevent further changes. The only way for a child to get around this would be to complete a full reset of the device.

WiFi routers come with all sorts of security nowadays. Parental controls (filtering) would be fairly standard, but most will also let you log everything on an external harddrive, and review them at your leisure.

Also straightforward to install keyloggers and similar applications on your PC to capture everything they do there.

Spiritual · 27-11-2012 04:09PM

kunst nugget wrote: »

Aye, give me the simpler times when you only got oranges at christmas, women could be conveniently locked away in the laundries for shaming themselves and teachers could beat several shades of sh¡te out of kids. And the neighbours would talk to you and everyone was hungry but we all had smiles on our faces and Jesus in our hearts…

Kids have always wanted to be cool to fit in and they always will. Kids have always been bullied and always will. These aren't new conditions, just the media that they use is and parents need to keep themselves up to date on all these things.

I am not saying kids were not bullied before, it just seems to be easier with the advent of social networks.

As for the first part of your post, that is just hyperbolic crap or wishful thinking, I am not sure which.

Gee_G · 27-11-2012 04:09PM

I just think this is all absolutely awful, all these poor kids. 12,13,14 year old kids should be stressing about stupid, pointless stuff. Ending their lives should not even cross their minds, its unnatural, the poor little things. Don't know how their families will get through it .

kfallon · 27-11-2012 04:10PM

bluewolf wrote: »

Or training/school/etc finished early for some unpredictable reason and you were standing around in the rain for an hour, great.

I don't ever remember a day when school finished early for some unpredictable reason and we were all turfed out onto the street, the teachers washed their hands of us, closed the school gates and basically said, "Not our problem anymore!"

seamus · 27-11-2012 04:12PM

Just to add to my last post, I will admit that technology providers are very slow to provide tools for parents to manage this kind of thing. For example, it should be possible for a parent to set up a Facebook page for the child which gives the child autonomous Facebook access to chat to their schoolfriends and Auntie Joan, but the parent retains full administrative access over the account and can add/delete friends, review all content and private messages, etc. Same should be possible with an email account.
It should be possible to buy a child a PAYG mobile phone and then link that to a paret billpay account, and access logs of who the phone has called and who has called it, and so forth.

These are all painfully simple things which already exist at a business level for managing employee access and such. So a parent in the know can set these up, but for those who don't know technology, the providers are very slow to offer any kind of assistance to parents on controlling their child's communications.

27-11-2012 04:16PM

kfallon wrote: »

I don't ever remember a day when school finished early for some unpredictable reason and we were all turfed out onto the street, the teachers washed their hands of us, closed the school gates and basically said, "Not our problem anymore!"

That's lovely for you, I do

Or parents were delayed for whatever reason and I had no way of knowing was it 5 mins, 30 mins

gobnaitolunacy · 27-11-2012 04:26PM

Spiritual wrote: »

I am not saying kids were not bullied before, it just seems to be easier with the advent of social networks.

As for the first part of your post, that is just hyperbolic crap or wishful thinking, I am not sure which.

Way easier, it's 24/7 bullying which follows them around after school unlike the physical bullying and namecalling of yore which stopped after school bell rang at days end.

Plus, I guess the bullies don't grasp the impact of what they're doing, being kids after all.

Parents vetting websites/social media is the only way, legislation of sites won't work esp. if they're outside the country. Mobiles without internet access etc.

27-11-2012 04:40PM

This might not have anything to do with bullying at all.

Children can have mental health problems, but form some reason people cling fiercely to the idea of childhood being a time of innocences and happiness.

To a child the problems they have are the same size as our problems, again people cant seem to accept that.

Perversely talking about suicide and suicide prevention can make suicide seem moe acceptable. Weather we like it or not when suicide was more hidden and shamefull...., the shame might have been enough to stop some people from going through with the action.

The human brain is very complex and despite all our knowledge, how our thought and actions interact is not full understood.

donegal_road · 27-11-2012 05:03PM

the article mentions that she was a huge fan of this band called the Black Veil Brides, a quick look on Google and I found this

Tragic story, rip

.

27-11-2012 05:17PM

donegal_road wrote: »

the article mentions that she was a huge fan of this band called the Black Veil Brides, a quick look on Google and I found this

It is than a bit unhealthy for impressionable young people to be listening to bands that make open reference to such things, imho
Tragic story, rip

Great idea lets ban any song that's about suicide. Mad World, Adam's Song, For You, Quicksand, Hurt, Jimmy Jimmy, Last Goodbye, Let Me In, Hey Hey My My, Hey Man Nice Shot and Today are just a few examples of songs about suicide. There are dozens more great songs but you're right we should stop kids listening topeople like Black Veil Brides and Bruce Sptingsteen as they write songs dealing with suicide. Maybe we should also stop kids listening yo songs that are about sex, violence, feature language etc. After all its music that leads kids to do stupid things, sure didn't Colombine happen because the kids listened to Marilyn Manson.

kunst nugget · 27-11-2012 05:35PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Great idea lets ban any song that's about suicide. Mad World, Adam's Song, For You, Quicksand, Hurt, Jimmy Jimmy, Last Goodbye, Let Me In, Hey Hey My My, Hey Man Nice Shot and Today are just a few examples of songs about suicide. There are dozens more great songs but you're right we should stop kids listening topeople like Black Veil Brides and Bruce Sptingsteen as they write songs dealing with suicide. Maybe we should also stop kids listening yo songs that are about sex, violence, feature language etc. After all its music that leads kids to do stupid things, sure didn't Colombine happen because the kids listened to Marilyn Manson.

Hey Hey My My is not a song about suicide.

27-11-2012 05:43PM

kunst nugget wrote: »

Hey Hey My My is not a song about suicide.

It's about his Young felt that he was no longer relevant and while its not out and out about suicide it is about feeling like you no longer matter, how the world has left you behind. Somethings that mist suicide victims feel and following Kurt Corbain's suicide Young changed the manned in which he sung the song emphasing the more upbeat elements.

kunst nugget · 27-11-2012 05:49PM

Deleted User wrote: »

It's about his Young felt that he was no longer relevant and while its not out and out about suicide it is about feeling like you no longer matter, how the world has left you behind. Somethings that mist suicide victims feel and following Kurt Corbain's suicide Young changed the manned in which he sung the song emphasing the more upbeat elements.

Yes it's about Young musing on his relevance with the death of Elvis and the arrival of punk but it's not about suicide. Kurt Cobain chose to completely misinterpret the song.

donegal_road · 27-11-2012 06:09PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Great idea lets ban any song that's about suicide. Mad World, Adam's Song, For You, Quicksand, Hurt, Jimmy Jimmy, Last Goodbye, Let Me In, Hey Hey My My, Hey Man Nice Shot and Today are just a few examples of songs about suicide. There are dozens more great songs but you're right we should stop kids listening topeople like Black Veil Brides and Bruce Sptingsteen as they write songs dealing with suicide. Maybe we should also stop kids listening yo songs that are about sex, violence, feature language etc. After all its music that leads kids to do stupid things, sure didn't Colombine happen because the kids listened to Marilyn Manson.

thats not what Im saying at all. Who knows what meaning people derive from a few lines of a song. Mark Chapman found his reason for killing
John Lennon in the lyrics of the Beatles's song Helter Skelter

kunst nugget · 27-11-2012 06:19PM

donegal_road wrote: »

thats not what Im saying at all. Who knows what meaning people derive from a few lines of a song. Mark Chapman found his reason for killing
John Lennon in the lyrics of the Beatles's song Helter Skelter

Haha. Obvious troll is obvious.

Gummy Panda · 27-11-2012 06:50PM

seamus wrote: »

It should be possible to buy a child a PAYG mobile phone and then link that to a paret billpay account, and access logs of who the phone has called and who has called it, and so forth.
.

There is parental controls on pay as go phones. Most networks don't record incoming calls in a customer readable format.

Irishchick · 27-11-2012 07:11PM

This is a bit harsh but I think teenagers these days have just gone flipping mental. Do you remember a few years ago there was a set of teens involved in a suicide pact because they all thought they'd be famous after it. (Facebook pages set up for them, news, radio shows etc)

This seems to have the same disturbing air to it. It can't really just be about bullying alone.

I know a lot of people who were badly bullied at school but they never committed suicide. You rarely heard of any teen suicide for that matter.

27-11-2012 07:41PM

donegal_road wrote: »

thats not what Im saying at all. Who knows what meaning people derive from a few lines of a song. Mark Chapman found his reason for killing
John Lennon in the lyrics of the Beatles's song Helter Skelter

Then what ate you saying? We should stop kids listening to bands that make obvious references to suicide but not songs that do it in a less obvious way?

27-11-2012 07:44PM

kunst nugget wrote: »

Yes it's about Young musing on his relevance with the death of Elvis and the arrival of punk but it's not about suicide. Kurt Cobain chose to completely misinterpret the song.

Not obviously about suicide but it is about no longer feeling relevant, feeling alone, lost. All things that those who commit suicide go through and yes Corbain didn't understand the true meaning but its quite easy to think that the song is about suicide.

Edited to add that this had gone way off topic,happy yo continue to discuss it with you through pm or even a thread of its own.

laugh · 27-11-2012 07:51PM

I had never heard of people this young committing suicide until recently.

27-11-2012 07:56PM

laugh wrote: »

I had never heard of people this young committing suicide until recently.

It is not a recent phenomenon. Has been occurring since the dawn of time but thanks to the media its getting much more coverage which would be a hood thing were it not for the manner in which they twist it to suit their own agenda.

jasonmcco · 27-11-2012 08:02PM

kfallon wrote: »

I don't use social media like FB, Twitter etc but I'm wondering if it should be made illegal for people under 16 or 18!
Maybe include it in those Family Filter/Parental Control things that you can set up on your internet access.

These cases would break your heart!

wondering if we should make suicide illegal coz that might work.

jasonmcco · 27-11-2012 08:08PM

RobbieTheRobber wrote: »

The death of a 12 year old child is and always will be a very sad event no matter how it occurs!

Please however I urge not to turn this tragic death of a young girl into something its not.

The IMF debt stuff has nothing to do with this case so please leave it out of this discussion.

You claim to know what it's not... how do you know?

Imf debt could indirectly be a factor......families under massive stress and the stress manifests in many different ways.

So please don't tell people what is and isn't part of discussion it's very arrogant.

itac · 27-11-2012 08:28PM

Irishchick wrote: »

......

This seems to have the same disturbing air to it. It can't really just be about bullying alone.

I know a lot of people who were badly bullied at school but they never committed suicide. You rarely heard of any teen suicide for that matter.

I genuinely think it can. One of the biggest problems with bullying (imo) at the moment is that it's 24/7. When I was younger (am 29 now) bullying was done at school, on the bus on the way home, or in town on a weekend afternoon. You might have gotten a phonecall to your house, but rarely. Now it's on your phone, it's on your facebook page, public or private. It's in your emails before school, at school, after school, when you're at home....it's just non-stop. That embarrassing photo that might have only been seen by a few people in your year from school can now be shared between hundreds of people in a matter of minutes. It can haunt you every week of every month at school, on someone's phone, at a school event-everywhere.

I work with teenagers 2-3 times a week, and the slagging they give each "in jest" is just plain nasty a lot of the time. There's so much pressure on the girls in the class to look beautiful and be skinny-if they're not, they're obviously gay, if they're fat, it's an in-class joke i.e. sure Sinead could break a chair just by looking at it..." And the same goes for the lads a lot of the time-if there's a good looking guy in the group, he's either (in their words) in the closet, or a cocky fcuker. If there's an overweight kid, he's the comedian "cos he's fat and that's funny".

The problem is, when you're 12/14/16, certain things can feel like the end of the world. And no, you're not thinking of the people you're going to leave behind. You're thinking of yourself, that you're finally going to be free of all the bad **** in your life. When you're that age, you rarely have the life experience to know that things usually work out ok in the end, and that in ten years time, you probably won't remember most of your teenage years anyway!

Even as an adult, sometimes you feel it won't be ok in the end. Having known several people who've committed suicide, (teenagers and adults) the only thing I can fathom is that it's unfathomable to everyone except the person who does it.

I live in Maynooth, and this is one of several suicides in that school alone in the last 3 years-my heart goes out to her family and her friends, the only good thing that could come of this would be for people to feel comfortable talking about it more, and to get kids to realise that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

jasonmcco · 27-11-2012 08:34PM

Is it possible to find data showing why kids are committing suicide? Not sure you can.

Society needs to decide on the most important issues affecting our children which have a detrimental effect.

Bullying seems to be one of these and we know without doubt that sexual abuse is the biggest.

My opinion is that our children in primary school from day 1 should be educated to inform on family members who are abusing them.
Life classes for our children which has a designed syllabus discussing the big issues would have to help.

Ethos of schools to include the education and well being of it's students. Should be part of curriculum that all students spend a certain amount of time weekly with a consellor of some description. Use time spent on religious classes to find the time needed.

There is something seriously wrong with society!!

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