Elliot's statement and a lot of his Facepunch comments have been taken down. As an educator, I found a lot of the comments there pretty alarming... and want to

Elliot's statement and a lot of his Facepunch comments have been taken down. As an educator, I found a lot of the comments there pretty alarming... and want to ask everyone here to consider a few things when posting about anything related to kids. Kids (and like it or not, that IS what they are) are notoriously dramatic and these kids are definitely experiencing this as a crisis, no matter how they present in their comments. They are also now being border-line, and in some cases overtly cyber bullied by some of their peers online which may be devastating if they don't have great face-to-face support. As adults, we have a responsibility not to add fuel to that fire and remember that if teenagers were predictable and transparent, there wouldn't be so many tragic cases in the news where they hurt themselves and each other. Part of the problem is that teenagers and young adults aren't great at predicting consequences. This isn't opinion - it's science. Especially in males, the part of the brain that is responsible for predicting consequences is not fully developed until the early to middle twenties. This is a double whammy because it leads to their bad decision making, but also to their belief that when something bad happens as a result, that it's literally the end of the world... that there is no way out. There is no disputing that what these boys did was a big deal and that there have to be consequences. But it's also just a symptom of a bigger problem: as a society, we have failed to keep pace with the challenges that are the result of the first generation of digital natives (kids) being raised and educated by a generation of adults who are (at best) digital immigrants. This post is getting way too long so I'm going to finish it on my blog @ thenewtag.com But thanks, criticsquid and nbpoole for posting some of the aftermath. I hope that one of the 1st things phpfog (or the authorities) did was involve these boys' parents?