[user104658]

Originally Posted by Ashley.

It wouldn't be a described as a "challenge" if people had no idea that it could be harmful.

A lot probably think that the challenge is just that it doesn't taste good. Not that they contain harmful and corrosive substances that could cause major damage to their stomachs. They get the idea that loads of people are doing it and assume that it can't be all that dangerous.

I'm not saying that doing it isn't completely and utterly daft - I'm just taking objection to the idea that a silly 10 or 11 year old deserves to permanently damage themselves or die "for the sake of the gene pool". I mean really.

Yes an adult doing this would be totally on them, but any young person doing something stupid and accidentally harming themself or even killing themself is nothing short of a tragedy. I really can't understand any mindset that would dictate otherwise.

[edited to add] I have hammered home how harmful this is to my daughter. She's 8, she's easily one of the brightest kids in her class, she's quite "grown up" for her age in many ways... And yeah I have felt the need to make the consequences of doing something like this very clear, because I can TOTALLY see her being daft enough to do it if "her friends did it" and she thought it would be just like getting soap in your mouth.