To feel shaken by Liam Paynes death and wonder how we keep our kids safe

[middleagedandinarage]

Just that really, I'm a bit old to be a 1D fan and didn't know a huge amount about Liam Payne apart from him being part of one of the worlds most famous boy bands and having a son with Cheryl Cole but I feel very shocked and upset by his death. He was clearly a very troubled man, which I imagine came from being shot to fame at such a young age. Obviously not every child has that pressure but I feel incredibly worried for my own children. How do we keep our children safe and on the right track in a world that seems to have so so many pressures for them

I think the answer depends on the question. Your question is very ambiguous so it’s very difficult to answer it.
How we protect our kids from pressures of everyday life?The obvious answer is that we create loving and supportive environment for them and work on their resilience.
But the devil is in the details.

I'm sorry – I really don't see that this has anything whatsoever to do with Liam Payne. Troubled celebrities have died young throughout history. Yes, young people are vulnerable to social media impacts and substance abuse, but the connection to Liam Payne's death is tenuous.

Lots of young men die due to drug and alcohol problems every day.

I guess it's not really related to Liam Payne, maybe it's just his death has made me think about things more

@PalePurplePumpkin looks do increasingly matter, far, far too much. They are linked to status & power. ‘Downfall’ Black Mirror, if you’ve seen is the quickly becoming reality. A top tier & then the 6-7 out of tens as non threatening sidekick friends, look at the increasing envy/spite out there if anyone steps outside of early defined footprint.

Will the next gen have kids much more ‘off line’ I wonder & realise where we’re heading? My Granny gave me 10p to do the garden weeding in her garden & clean up her dog, I had little time for navel gazing. Getting kids back to physical books, youth club disco and sports. Is it too late to learn from the positive past?

His life will be completely irrelevant to the vast proportion of young people so not sure why you would latch on to his death in particular? It's very sad yes but don't really see the connection to random children.

I can understand it in the sense that we all really know him as his 14yr old self – which makes it feel a little more heartbreaking that if it had been a 31yr old celebrity only known to us in adulthood.

Exactly this.

I think this is absolutely it, I keep picturing this 14/16 year old boy.

I think help your children understand that for most people achievement comes through hard work, through getting the most out of their education at whatever level, and through working in an industry or profession where you are seen as a valued person not as a product to be exploited for other peoples gain.

Yeah, I still don't understand your posts or the connection to a celebritys recent death, seems in poor taste.

So scary isn't it. Must be a huge worry for you. Drugs seem to be everywhere. What can we do to give them the best hope of making the right decisions in these situations, I don't know

YABU to make a stranger's death all about you, yes. Absolute ghouls.

In the words of Hunter S Thompson ‘The music industry is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side’.

Maybe teach kids that money and fame won't make you happy. As proved by so many celebrities.

He got famous far too young and clearly didn't have the right support network behind him (which is NOT his family's fault - they were as ill-equipped to deal with a high profile media career as he obviously was). With all that money and no job to keep him on the straight and narrow, it must be so easy to fall into a lifestyle of partying and excess. I've got a few friends who were/are a bit too into drugs and drink, but they don't have loads of money and they have to work, so that has stopped them from ending up like Liam. Otherwise I'm pretty sure a few would have gone down the exact same route.

The music industry needs to be much more responsible about child stars. They nearly all end up totally fucked up - look at Britney, Justin Bieber, and they're just the ones we know about. The rest are hiding behind 'perfect' lives on Insta.

Liam was 31 - an adult who was completely free to make his own choices. I'm not really sure what you think his parents could or couldn't have done to change any of this.

Don't make this about you. He was a celebrity, it's unlikely your child will ever taste any level of fame, so the demons that he was dealing with will likely never come for your child.

You can't.

This. Imagine if his family is reading this and the implication that they should have done something more.

Edit title perhaps OP as I think your point is being lost, it’s not abt Liam really.

Don't let them go on BGT at 14 years old 🤷‍♀️ It's not difficult.

The key phrases in your post speak volumes.
"I don't know a huge amount about Liam Payne"

"I imagine came from being shot to fame at a young age"

This is speculation. No more and no less. This sort of speculation is harmful to his young son and the family left behind. You cannot use his death to compare to your children's struggles. Unless they are heading towards fame at 14 what has Liam Payne got in common with your kids? Why link this question to him at all?

You summed this up much better than my post!

Yes, in a nutshell, kids have too much time to navel gaze and they are encouraged to navel gaze, as a society we positively revel in navel gazing and it does no one any favours.

Having just been through this sadly ( and I have name changed) sometimes there is little you can do except try your best to be there, keep communication open, support but not enable. Fight for help ( which truly isn't there).

A step son with MH issues (bipolar), it appears a genetic predisposition to addiction (alcohol and prescribed drugs), lack of accepting responsibility in his personal life. Separating himself from those that tried to hold him to account. Contact with his children frustrated by his ExW. Risky choices in relationships, a neediness, which creates the whole cycle again - alcohol and meds needed to relieve the stress of the poor choices made. Lack of NHS support and attention to detail.

A devastating cycle.

Very sadly, an expected outcome. Always a possibility that he would not live beyond his mid twenties. As parents you go over and over ‘what could we have done differently’. End the financial support earlier than we did. Give more advice about his relationships, talk to him and his wife when they were married, we did try. We don't know what else, in all honesty.

His real success was as a teacher. Much loved. Dedicated. A set of books to be marked, found in his car.