As adolescence steps in a child’s life, the first thing it replaces is parental authority. Teens struggle to find their place in the real world. They want privileges that adults get but fail to display the maturity and responsibility that is required of an adult. In an attempt to fit in, they tend to ‘act out’ in typical teenage fashion to establish an identity for themselves among their peers. This makes them do dangerous things. The feeling of invulnerability, the need to impress their peers and the excitement and thrill is not alien to teenagers. This has given birth to a lot of harmful teenage trends. 

Vodka Eyeballing

With under-age drinking a major issue, parents of high school teens are constantly fretting over what their kids might be been up to when they stay out late and miss curfews. Parents’ preventive measures have not been able to stop teens from doing what they want to and drinking is one of these things.

Vodka eyeballing is one of the most popular ways among teens to consume alcohol without the very obvious smell of it on their breath. It involves streaming vodka in the eyes. The mucous membrane absorbs it and it enters the bloodstream through veins near the eyeballs and gives the teen an instant buzz. Consistent use of this method can burn or scar the cornea while, in extreme cases, might even result in blindness.

Snorting the wrong thing

Still feeling embarrassed over 'The Condom Talk' you had with your teen a few months ago? Well, wait till you hear what else teens are doing with condoms. A teenage trend that has originated from YouTube is generating reactions of disgust but that is not enough to stop teens from doing it. Teenagers snort it up their noses and then pull it out of their mouth. The aim is to achieve this without choking to death.

Gallon Smashing

Gallon smashing is one of the latest YouTube generated teenage pranks. A video named ‘Gallon Smash Prank’ which shows the whole prank taking place, already has 2 million hits. The pranks consist of a teenager walking into a crowded place with gallons of milk or jugs of juice and then faking a fall while throwing the containers to the ground. All the milk and juice splashes on all the people nearby while a friend records the video of the prank.

Teen shamming

Also, a form of cyber bullying, teen shamming on the social media can reach to the extent of being illegal. The bully takes photos of other users and alters them. Sometimes made in a meme styles, these photos are displayed with rude comments. Although teen shamming is often seen on the social networking sites, internet security and privacy laws call defaming, harassing or negatively targeting someone in any possible way, illegal.

Snap Chat

Kids can go all Houdini with Snap Chat. They can share pictures and videos and the thing that attracts the teens is that the shared content disappears after a few moments. A lot of teens share sexually explicit videos and pictures even though minors are not allowed to do so. Most teens wouldn’t do this if they knew that the content of their messages does not completely gets wiped off the face of the earth. The truth is that there are servers that manage the whole system and record each and every message being processed. FBI also sifts through the messages for sexually explicit content sent by minors.

Salt and Ice Challenge

Predominant teen accidents that are being reported more often now are cold injuries. These, however, are not normal injuries. Teens are challenging themselves with the salt and ice game, in which the teen wets the skin, sprinkles some table salt on it and presses the skin down with ice. This continues until the teen can bear it no longer.

The results, of this seemingly harmless activity,  might be more harmful than what the teens anticipate. The injuries resulting from this are similar to frostbite but much greater in intensity.

Drinking Hand Sanitizer

Teens have been known to device ingenious ways in which they can get an instant buzz from household items like mouthwash and cough syrup.  Here is yet another way: drinking hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizers have around 62% of ethyl alcohol and consuming it in a large amount might mean some medical intervention. A better option is using the foam hand sanitizer to prevent teens from indulging in alcohol craving of this kind.

Cinnamon Challenge

Eating a spoonful of this harmless spice which is often used to enhance the taste of baked goods ,might not look as a daring a challenge but as most teens have discovered, it is quite a thrilling thing to do. Eating a spoonful of cinnamon without any water can cause coughing, vomiting, choking or even pneumonia, in a worst case scenario. A popular video on YouTube with around 2 million hits shows a teen swallowing a ladle-full of cinnamon and then screams and writhes in pain as it gets stuck in her throat.

Chubby Bunny Marshmallow game

It is hard to believe that something as harmless as a marshmallow has caused a number of deaths during the past decade. Chubby Bunny game involves teens stuffing their mouth with marshmallows and then saying the words ‘Chubby Bunny’. As marshmallows are difficult to cough out, several deaths of teenagers have occurred while playing this game.

Planking

While planking might not seem as dangerous on paper, it has reportedly caused  deaths among teenagers. Planking involves a teen lying face-down on a dangerous place. The teen,then, balances himself/herself on things like terrace railings. The first person to die of planking was Australian action artist Beale who was followed by several more teenagers.

Don't chalk these things up to typical teenage behavior. Protect your teen before any real damage happens.