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US Mum shares a shocking warning about young kids using YouTube and online gaming.

Meridy Leeper took to Facebook to share her warning.

She wrote:

“This is an exceptionally hard thing for me to post. I’ve thought long and hard about this. I’ve decided it’s way too important not to bring awareness to other parents. This is not up for criticism. I only want to let all parents know what to watch for….

“Kids youtube, roblox, fortnight… no matter how much you think you are monitoring your child.. notifications to what your child is watching.

“It doesn’t matter. My 7 year old child was taught how to attempt suicide by kids youtube and these games. She has expressed that she doesn’t feel neglected or unloved. Instead, she was constantly told to ‘go kill yourself’ by other gamers, by kids youtube. Shown HOW to.

“Sunday night, she had a full blown anxiety attack. Which I held her and sang to her while she got through it. Monday, she drew this in school.

“This is a VERY real danger! I NEVER thought I would find myself helping my SEVEN YEAR OLD CHILD through an anxiety attack.

“PLEASE, keep your children away from these things.

“I’m just so glad my child was able to express her feelings before she actually tried to harm herself.

“I never thought something as ‘innocent’ as kids youtube would have these subliminal messages. Again, I’m only sharing our experience in the hopes to prevent another child going through this.”

Her post has received over 129,000 shares and over 30,000 comments

The Cyber Safety Lady also shared Meridy’s post:

“This is very distressing. YouTube Kids should not have any content on it that has these messages. I personally have not seen anything like this but YouTube Kids has a lot of user generated content.

“It is important to curate the videos your younger child watches on YouTube Kids and switch off suggestions and search.

“Unfortunately YouTube Kids looks like it is safe out if the box, but it isn’t, parents must supervise and set the parental controls.

The Cyber Safety Lady advises parents, “It is always safer to have kids watch only high quality video from recognised providers like ABC Kids, Nickelodeon and Disney.”

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  • just shocking and disgusting. I feel for the parents of this child. What a horrible thing to have to deal with but thankfully this child spoke up as it could have been so much worse.

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  • Oh my gosh, this is so incredibly scary and distressing. Thank though for bringing out attention to this.

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  • Unbelievable that they could be ths stupid.

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  • You can find horrendous content far too easily.

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  • Omg this is terrifying!!! My baby is in my arms now and im thinking how do i protect my child from technology
    I hope this little one gets through it

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  • Time to ditch the screens and be hyperaware what your children are doing. It’s not enough to leave them with a “trusted” game or activity online – you have to be there with them now!!

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  • I’m so glad she was able to help her daughter through this. What is happening with this world we live in these days. Children’s biggest problems should be what the weather is going to be like the next day

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  • How sad and scary! Parents deff need to be extra vigilant these days with the internet. You never know what kind of stuff they are being exposed to

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  • Very scary

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  • This is so scary!

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  • So terrible, but thankfully her mum was able to talk her through her fears so that she only drew the problem rather than act it out.

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  • My goodness this is terrible I’m going to have to look further into how to turn off the suggestions on YouTube etc thanks for the heads up

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  • Unfortunately it’s not safe to turn your child on a computer alone, not even while you go to the toilet OR quickly change a baby’s nappy. Kids can change what they are watching so quickly. I had to literally turn my computer off whilst occupied with other things. Kids don’t know any of my passwords and they aren’t written down

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  • Very distressing indeed ! Some kids will be far more perceptible for this then others and seeing this can be totally dangerous for them.

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  • What a strong picture. And the girl is just 7. I’m glad her mother was able to talk to her and comfort her. Other kids, sadly enough, wouldn’t just draw that. :-(

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