Schoolboy, 12, died from inhaling Lynx deodorant after copying viral social media ‘chroming’ trend, inquest hears

I teach in secondary and I’m seeing more children in year seven not being given smart phones, it’s about 60/40 maybe 70/30. It has only happened in the past couple of years. I hope it is a trend that other schools are noticing too. 

What happened is dreadful for the parents and I really feel for them, I can’t imagine the pain. 

While it seems callous to assign responsibility for the death, the parents cannot be absolved of it completely. The claim that they had no idea what he is up to on the phone is alarming. What other potentially dangerous device would you hand to your child? It beggars belief that the generation most acutely aware of the content on the internet would willingly hand their child unfettered access to it. A 12 year old nonetheless.

Parents can have a great degree of control over what apps, what content and how long the content is accessed for. They need to put in the effort to set up the controls. The idea that children are “techy savvy” and will get around said controls is bogus. They are technological morons.

I remember back in high school students used to use lynx to give themselves freeze burns on their skin. I kind of assumed it would stop there, but now this? Travesty