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

This thread is really in bad taste.

Oh ffs what is wrong with people... Every time some poor sod dies, people somehow find a way to make it all about them and start lighting candles and holding their children tighter. Bloody grief thiefs.

Don't do more drugs than you can handle.

Dun worry he is with the angles now xxxxxx

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

We just have to do our absolute best to keep them grounded. Don’t put pressure on them. Always tell them to try their best, and if things don’t work out then that’s okay. Exam results don’t matter, all that matters is that they try their best.

Friendships and relationships may come and go, but treat everyone with kindness and compassion. Encourage them to travel, to try new things. Meet people from different walks of life, cultures. Explain to them that people are different and unique -and that makes them special.

Teach them there is so much more to life than social media. “Perfect lives” that influencers portray on social media isn’t real life. No one is perfect.
Drugs/alcohol/vapes aren’t cool. Never have been. They’re just an escape for people.

Always make sure they can come to you when they have a problem. Be someone that they can confide in, not rebel against.

To be honest @middleagedandinarage although it's sad, it's not new.

For decades, music stars have been dying young because of drugs, mismanagement of their talent, and more.

I'm old enough to have lived through when Elvis died, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, some of the Rolling Stones etc.

Unless your kids are rock n roll stars, I'd stop dwelling on this. It's not helping you.

A common thread is that successful artists across all industries (music, social media, acting etc) come from wildly different backgrounds. The ones most at risk all come from more humble backgrounds where family members and friends lack the knowledge or connections to help them manage insane amounts of money that gets earned in a very short space of time. It has nothing to do with putting the "blame" on their family, but literally there is nothing their family CAN do to help them navigate life on such a precarious level of success.

The reason Taylor Swift is a billionaire is because her parents were already millionaires. They managed every step of her career and kept her away from all the dodgy sides of the industry. Britney Spear, Justin Bieber and obviously Liam didn't have that same privilege and were sucked into the underbelly. Successful execs in the industry also know exactly who to prey on. They can spot the wildly talented kids who come from families who lack the knowledge to keep them safe.

I personally think any adult diagnosis of ADHD - of someone who had (it now appears) to have been in and out of hospital with serious medical conditions as a child, then developed drug issues from quite a young age due to the environment and hangers on he was around, experiencing a likely sense of lack of emotional safety as he was propelled into an adult world before he was ready - is highly questionable.

Yes, because none of us who grew up without social media or the internet ever had issues. We were just suddenly resilient and sensible one day.

Just kidding, all the teenagers I know (myself included) were wild! Even without fame and social media. In fact, the lack of internet/social media to keep me home meant that I spent the vast majority of my teenager years drinking cheap vodka at a skatepark, snogging, and smoking ciggies 😂😂

I totally agree about keeping kids safe, however this guy was an adult man in his 30s and well past the stage of needing keeping safe by others.

I work in entertainment and I would say that you get some very very pushy parents who like the glamour, fame (and money) by proxy - it's really something not to encourage or could well bite you on the arse later

Having attempted to navigate the system myself I don't think it's at all questionable. Everything would have been put down to the drugs/alcohol/fame rather than looking at it in reverse.

Social media has ramped up anxiety/depression tenfold.

The constant comparison to others, the self critiquing, it has created an almighty mental health epidemic.

The internet has been great for access to information and communication (as we are doing now), but get the hell off social media and live your life.

You're creating a very tenuous link between LP and 'children in general'.

Your kids are not LP or Elvis.

If you want to start a thread about mental health and the 'youth of today' that's one thing.

To bring in the death of a pop star, with all the pressures and risks that comes with, and somehow 'equate' them with your children is just wrong.

They are completely different.

It's all about biological wiring. If you're wired for addiction, you have to work hard for it not to find you. And most people don't know whether they are or aren't.

I think a lot of these problems would be resolved with some kind of way to test if an individual is prone to addiction or not, and to make it a standard practice.

Helpful for prescription drugs and process addictions too.

Given that he was being ridiculed and bullied a lot online in the last few weeks I think teaching children to be kind and decent people and to not become these invisible tormentors online

I find it all very sad.
He did go to Diddy parties, which I'm down a rabbit hole with at the moment, where young men seem to come out absolutely destroyed.

I think its ramped up the concept of anxiety and depression (and other disorders), the pathologising of a number of normal human emotions.

So on top of the constant comparison and critiquing and navel gazing which causes emotional discomfort, you can now add on the various emotional issues that are extrapolated from that.

As PP have pointed out, LP was an adult parent in his thirties, so I don’t understand why you are referencing how we keep kids safe.

You can keep your kids safe. You can’t keep your grown adults safe though, which is what he was at 31…

Lots of fame bashing on this thread but I grew up with someone who met a near identical end at 27. Not famous, we both hung with the same crowds, came from the same type of backgrounds and family set ups. The only difference between me and them is they had an addictive personality and I didn’t. I truly think a lot of it is just luck of the draw.

It's sad, but foe every drug/alcohol addicted pop star that dies in a glamourous hotel and is the focus of the world media, there's probably dozens/hundreds more addicts that die in back alleys or skanky living conditions.

Surely this is nothing new? Rock and pop stars, male and female, have died at a young age and been troubled by drink/drugs etc for many decades. I mean his death is obviously very sad but I don't think it's anything specific to the current culture.

And in film stars/actors/models etc.

Following from my point above, a simple example would be families who know how to manage huge amounts of income. If one person starts earning five or six figures a month, how much do you save, how much do you invest, how much do you need to expect to set aside for tax and other unavoidable costs? How would an average working or middle class family whose members are used to living on a few thousand a month have any idea what to do? Financial advisors, manager or gurus are usually just as predatory and you have no idea who to trust.

Another example would be anywhere that contracts are involved. If there's a lawyer in the family or as a personal friend then it would be a piece of cake and done for free. How would a working class family find the money to pay industry standard law fees just for someone to look over a contract? Same for doctors. Once the stress of fame gets too much, the artist may get prescribed drugs to help them cope. If one parent is a doctor then they would have an immediate overview on what treatments are reasonable and where to draw the line. Families without medical backgrounds may just trust the manager and once the artist get addicted onto medication, that's already the beginning of the downwards spiral.

I feel it has far less to do with social media but financial literacy, family connections and financial power. Many talented artists are also neurodivergent and families who are able to identify and support their children from a young age are already making a massive contribution. Undiagnosed ND combined with the pressures of fame, MH issues and addiction is what usually causes the worst case scenario.

This

How about don't do drugs at all? Nothing good or clever about taking drugs so don't start on them in the first place