The world just seems to be going crazy by the minute. During the course of the year 2018, several bizarre social media challenges went viral.
From the #KikiChallenge to the #IceBucketChallege, #BoiledWaterChallenge, #FireChallenge, and #TidePodChallenge, which involved biting a detergent packet and either spitting out or ingesting the contents.
Now another challenge seems to have reared its ugly head.
According to CBN News, a new social media challenge has been initiated specifically to scare parents and cause unnecessary worry and stress with the Police force.
It involves teenagers disappearing from their families for 48 hours just so they can see how much reaction and cheers they can receive on social media.
According to the local news reports, each individual receives points for every like, share, view, and post about their disappearance.
Of course, this has led to panic-stricken families and agitated authorities. In an Interview with a parent of six children; Cheroy Murphy complained
“If you pretend to be missing and then something actually does happn, then how is anybody going to know about it,”
“It is a scary thing to know that your kid is missing, and it is harder to know that they could just be joking. And then as a parent when do you decide the line of if they are really joking or really missing is?”
We are even yet to recover from the #BirdboxChallenge which took place in January. It began shortly after the release of the Netflix Movie starring Sandra Bullock.
The challenge dared people to film themselves walking around blindfolded and of course, this led to terrible consequences.
Just this week, I heard about a community online called the “Dark Web” which is a collection of websites that exist on an encrypted network and cannot be found by using traditional search engines or visited by using traditional browsers.
The saddening part of this is the content being shared in this “Dark web” varies from Child Pornography, Ilegal drugs, watching a live murder and other fraudulent activities take place in the “dark web”.
According to The One Spy Blog;
There is a regular presence of immortal explicit material and misuse of social media platforms and the cyberspace.
The young generation is continuously deviating from the path of righteousness such as children are lurking towards crazy in human social media challenges and trends.
It’s happening all over the world and every year our children and teenagers are prone to fall into all forms of pressure both through the internet and even in their environment.
As a Christian Community, it is important that we stay woke to these pressures and ensure that we create ways to monitor them as often as we can.
Most importantly, praying and grooming them in the way of the Lord can never be overstressed.
In the midst of the chaos there still children who choose to stand for what is right. These set of children exist which proves that it is very possible to raise our children in the right direction.
And if you’re a struggling parent and your kids seem to be getting out of hand, don’t lose hope. Make the necessary adjustments and keep praying for them but you also have to trust and believe that the Lord will pull them of that pit.
I pray today that the Lord releases his Strength, Grace, and Wisdom to every Parent out there who is in need of a Breakthrough and Transformation upon their Children.
I Pray for Restoration over every child that is lost, they will experience a divine encounter, they will see the Light just like Saul and be restored back in Jesus name.
Written by
Oluwatobi Adeboye-Joshua
