The challenge begins with a rather innocuous idea: teens must put on a scented labello, then kiss a partner so that the latter does not guess the taste. There are tons of videos on this subject on Tik Tok, with the hashtags Labello Challenge or even Chapstickchallenge. But the idea is taken up and then distorted by some Internet users to become a dangerous “game”, as Le Parisien points out.
From kiss to suicide
After the kiss teens are urged to commit suicide once labello’s hit is over. And it is this new “version” of the challenge that worries parents. Anxiety wins the canvas, but no death has been caused by this trend.
This is far from the first time that the Tik Tok platform has hosted dangerous challenges. We particularly remember the scarf game (Black out challenge) which consisted of filming oneself without breathing for as long as possible, which had caused the death of a 10-year-old child. But also the Tide Pod Challenge, the aim of which was to keep a dose of detergent in your mouth for as long as possible. Or the Lug Nut Challenge, as the Journal du Geek reminds uswhich was intended to film a car after removing the bolts from the wheels.
How to react as a parent?
Faced with these dangerous challenges, one might want to deny access to the social network to one’s children. But we also know that the forbidden often makes you really want to be exceeded when you are a teenager… If we are to believe the child psychiatrist Emmanuel De Becker, questioned on this subject by RTL Infoit would be better talk about it with your child, highlight the dangerousness of the challenge (and social networks in general) and leave the door open to communication on these challenges, without panicking.
With Le Parisien, Justine Atlan, general manager of the 30.18 e-Enfance association, reassures: “80% of them go through this period with mood swings but without falling into ill-being. Those will be impervious, they will even make fun of it and it will have no impact”. On the platform, there are already a lot of prevention messages around the Labello Challenge.
Sources : RTL Info, Le Parisien, Journal du Geek
Read also:
- Tiktok is concerned about the impact of its content on the mental health of teenagers
- Anxiety, depression in children or adolescents… What signs should alert parents?
