Any person who has kids knows just how awful they can be to each other at times. Bullying is an unfortunate part of childhood that parents everywhere are struggling to combat for the sake of kids' safety. While hurtful playground taunts may be one thing, when bullying escalates into incidents like this one, it warrants a serious conversation. A summer sleepover turned into a nightmare for 11-year-old Jamoneisha Merritt when she woke up to boiling water being poured onto her face by someone she thought of as a friend.
The incident is suspected to be a part of the hot water challenge, a dangerous social media trend that left an 8-year-old girl dead last week from internal injuries stemmed from drinking boiling water through a straw.
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In Jamoneisha's case, the water left her with severe burns on her face, neck, chest, and shoulders. While she is expected to make a full recovery, her mother, Ebony, states that her daughter is in severe physical and emotional pain. "She's very sad. She's emotionally messed up," she told NY1. "She don't understand why they did that to her. She thought they were her friends."
Ebony also alluded to a more sinister plot, one stemmed from the bullying her daughter was subjected to by the girl who poured the boiling water. "I was told that they didn't like her. And they just been bullying her," she went on to say. "The girl admitted it. 'I don't like her. I wanted to do it.'"
Stories as extreme as Jamoneisha Merritt's are ones that we thankfully don't see too often. The harmful combination of bullying and damaging social media influences led to the traumatization of one girl and felony assault charges for the girl who poured the water.
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For parents, it is important that we talk to our kids about bullying and the consequences of their actions. Whether you think your child is the victim or the perpetrator, steps should be taken to ensure that incidents like this one stop happening.
