Reports of children mimicking ‘Squid Game’ alarm Quebec parents and schools
Global News
Several school boards in the province have recently issued statements warning parents about students imitating the games on playgrounds.
The massive popularity of the Netflix series Squid Game which features adults playing children’s games turned deadly, has led to fears among Quebec parents and school boards that the violence is being mimicked on school playgrounds.
Guillaume Taillon-Chrétien said his eight-year-old daughter came home one evening last week visibly shaken up, afraid to return to school. “She told me older kids were playing the games from Squid Game,” said Taillon-Chrétien, whose daughter is in Grade 3 at an elementary school in Massueville, northeast of Montreal.
He said the series is “absolutely not suited” for young children, but one girl in the school was playing the role of a doll who determines which characters die. “And she was reproducing it, reproducing when they get shot, lying face on the ground,” he said.
Several school boards in the province have recently issued statements warning parents about students imitating the games on playgrounds. The South Korean series features 456 desperate, indebted adults fighting each other to the death for a chance to win a prize worth roughly $48 million.
Sylvain Racette, director general of Riverside School Board in the Montreal suburb of Longueuil, said the board sent a notice to parents Monday because it wants them to understand how disturbing Squid Game can be. Racette said he was concerned about reports from other schools that had witnessed kids mimicking the show.
In the first episode, tournament participants play a twisted version of the children’s game “Red Light, Green Light” in which those who are caught moving during the red light by the doll character are shot dead.
The show is rated for mature audiences only, and schools from Australia to the United Kingdom are reportedly asking parents to make sure their kids don’t watch it following reports of Squid Game play at recess.
“We wanted to make sure all our community knows what this show is about,” Racette said. “And that they take the time, as I did with my two boys, nine and 13 — I sat down with them to talk about it. It’s important that we all do that.”