Strollerderby : preteens

Teaching Teens to Recognize Abusive Relationships

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:49:00 GMT

A recent study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that a full third of college students were involved in an abusive relationship at some point before they started college. And a survey of 1,000 children found that 25 percent of kids aged 11 to 14 had been harassed and verbally degraded by their boyfriend or girlfriend through phone calls or text messages, often late at night when their parents were sleeping.

One of the main reasons for these alarmingly high numbers is that teenage romance is bound to be sticky and confusing, so youth are often blind to behaviors that could be a harbinger of violence. High school boys are often so shy or wary of commitment that a boy who calls all the time or is possessive can be seen as confident and romantic, not dangerous. “Few adolescents understand what a healthy relationship looks like,” according to Dr. Elizabeth Miller, who has been studying teen dating violence for a decade.

Fortunately, many states are implementing programs to help teach teens about healthy dating, and to help parents, educators, and police officers recognize the signs of dating violence or verbal abuse. Texas has started requiring schools to include prohibitions against dating violence in school safety codes, and Rhode Island requires schools to teach grades 7 through 12 about dating violence and abuse. Indianapolis has started training police officers in public schools to recognize the early signs of abusive dating.

Deborah Norris (pictured), the mother of a teenager killed by her boyfriend, has started heathersvoice.net in an effort to teach teen girls about healthy romantic relationships. Loveisrespect.org is another widely utilized resource for teens seeking a way out of an abusive relationship.

These programs are a great start, but I would argue that we shouldn't focus only on teaching teen girls (who are overwhelmingly the victimes, not the perpetrators, of violence) to recognize an abusive relationship; we should also be teaching teenage boys how to be in a respectful, healthy relationship. As Harvard psychologist William S. Pollack puts it, "Usually when adolescent boys get involved with girls, they fall into the societal model which we call ‘macho,’ where they need to show they are the ones in control." It's way past time we offered these boys a different model.

Photo: New York Times

Malia Obama Likes Her Parents' PDA

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 21:36:00 GMT

It’s an unspoken rule of teendom that parents kissing, holding hands, or making ga ga eyes is to be met with an emphatic, “Ew.” How many preteens do you know would openly admit that their parents’ public displays of affection make them feel good? Personally, I didn’t know any until just now.

The Huffinton Post dug up a clip from this summer’s Access Hollywood interview with the Obama family in which 10-year-old Malia Obama professes to like her parents’ famed PDA. When asked what romantic things she does for her husband, Michelle jokingly answered, “I take care of his kids” (with Barack agreeing that motherhood is “pretty romantic"), before going on to say that she thinks smalls affections go a long way—giving him a hug or kiss or sitting on his lap.

Malia eagerly interrupts to say that she likes to see her parents cuddling. "Kids like it when their parents are all...except sometimes when you get to be a teenager and people think it's embarrassing," she said. "I like it though. It makes me feel good."

In case you want to know what Malia feels so good about, the Huffington Post has also posted a slideshow of the best Obama PDA moments. Here are a couple of highlights:

Photos: Huffington Post

Explaining Financial Troubles to the Kids

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:57:00 GMT

With disappearing 401(k) savings, exorbitant gas prices, and piling up medical bills, many families are being forced to make serious changes in their spending patterns. This can be a shock for teens and preteens who grew up in the 90s, during affluent times in which the prevailing wisdom in the U.S. extolled making your kids happy. Average teen allowances nationwide are upwards of $100 a month, and many high schoolers have credit cards.

But last week, a survey found that teen spending had dropped by 27 percent. Considering that much of this spending money comes from allowances or gifts, we can be pretty sure the kids are not being thrifty out of choice.

As parents struggle to explain the crisis to teens freaked out by dire newspaper headlines and cutbacks in family expenditures, parents may see their kids as spoiled or bratty, while teens may see their parents as unreasonable or over-anxious. One mother interviewed by the New York Times started showing her confused and upset teenagers the monthly bills. Another father threatened to charge his kids’ friends rent for sleeping over.

Some families have found the crisis to be a good opportunity to become close with their children in new ways. Asking your kids to brainstorm about ways to cut back on family spending makes them feel valued and useful, and helps prepare them to find their own way in less than optimum economic times. Some parents have stopped hiring lawn cutters and housecleaners, choosing instead to pay their kids (far less) for the same services.

How have other parents changed your families’ spending patterns? Have you talked to your kids about the changes?

Photo: New York Times

Pregcellent: Eat Well, Period. Prenatal Diet Influences Puberty Onset

Kelly Mills — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:34:00 GMT

Just when the pregnant ladies thought they got enough flack about what they ingest during gestation. Now check this out: Researchers say a mother's prenatal diet can influence the early onset of puberty. Sheesh, I was chalking it up to non-organic milk and Bratz dolls. You mean my nutritional choices during the most hormonally insane period of my life are to blame for my daughter's precocious eye-rolling?

Well, in case you were wondering, it's a high-fat diet that the researchers tie to the age of your offsprings' puberty. And of course we are talking about girls going through early puberty, because no one seems to care if boys sprout a little peach fuzz early and start spending hours in their rooms with blacklight posters at an early age. The folks who studied this say prenatal diet may have more influence on menstruation happening young than early childhood nutrition. Of course, the study was on rats, so we can always hold out hope for an species reprieve from regular pregnancy Ben & Jerry's transgressions.

Adult "Bimbo" Players Mad at Parents

Kelly Mills — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:33:00 GMT

There's no such thing as bad publicity, right? In the wake of the widespread hand-wringing over the Miss Bimbo game--hand-wringing I partook in as well--there's an article on how regular adult users are peeved because the site is now getting so many hits people can't log in. Aw, poor locked out Bimbos. And let's face it: After watching a few news clips, it's clear the site creators have been intentionally milking the media attention. I mean, they say ridonkulous stuff about how the game promotes good values because you can send your Bimbo to university instead of the more obvious damage control things like, "It's intended for grown-ups," and no one is actually that stupid, are they?

One irate Bimbo user says that only the worst parents ever would actually let their kids play the game, and that the controversy must be manufactured. While I'd never, ever let my six-year-old play, and I hope I'll be up on her internet activties for a while, I believe there may come a time when I can't oversee every site she visits, nor block every potentially problem webpage. But even after I wrote about the site, I started getting irked by the media coverage, screaming that children will develop eating disorders if they just look at the site. (If we did everything our avatars did, why there would be far more shootings and leaping over mushrooms and I would totally be a lead guitarist in a kickass rock band.) Yeah, I wouldn't ever want girls playing the game. And sadly, they can also learn about tramp clothes and crazy body image from their Barbies and Bratz; they can get the message that a woman is complete when she lands a rich guy from maybe 90 percent of the Disney catalog; and they'll learn about their movie and music idols getting plastic surgery and taking diet pills from any gossip magazine on supermarket stands. Miss Bimbo just happens to be an obvious collection of all that shit in one lame place.

What a Relief: School Did Not Ban Farting

Kelly Mills — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:33:00 GMT

Despite media reports, the principal of Camden-Rockport Middle School has clarified that the school did not ban farting in class. Good thing, because libertarians would have had a field day with that one. But it is kind of funny that the story spread faster than a noxious gas filling a room, even reaching the WSJ online and other media outlets. The culprits who dealt the news item in the school newspaper have been identified, though they could not be named because of school confidentiality.

Student journalists filing for the school papper erroneously reported that the intentional farting and subsequent class disruptions of some eighth-grader boys had led to a rule prohibiting intentional farting in class. Supposedly offenders would be punished with detention. (What about shutting them in a small room with the fruits of their own labors? That would be real justice.) I'm sure teachers are relieved to know the rule was never in effect, because who wants the job of detemining whether or not a burst of flatulence was intentional? However, we should note that kids who intentionally rip one can still be disciplined, under the much broader "class disruption" rules. Yes, innocents will not have to suffer because school admins are soft on intestinal crimes.

Principal Pulls Awesome Stunt To Boost Grades

Kelly Mills — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:33:00 GMT

What can I say? I'm a sucker for serious dedication to kids and a flair for showmanship. In an effort to boost grades and win better behavior from students, Principal Bob Vicari has basically made students offers they couldn't refuse: Improve, and I'll take one for the team. In his six years as a middle school principal, he's rewarded students for meeting his challenges by lettting them peg him with water balloons and smash pies in his face, and he's moved his office to the roof--twice.

So how do you top that? Well, this time he promised to eat bugs if students stepped up. And actually a record number of them made the honor roll, so he chomped down live crickets three times, one for each grade. "I was told you have to floss afterwards because the legs get caught between your teeth," he quipped to students. It's truly a nice story to read, and he sounds like a helluva guy.

Wal-Mart Removes Sleezy Holiday Panties For Girls...Errrr...

Kelly Mills — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:21:00 GMT

Moving quickly past that headline, let's get into the ick story: Wal-Mart was selling some hot pink underwear in the juniors section. On the crotch it said, "Who needs credit cards" and on the ass, it finished with "When you have Santa". Perfect for our young girls, right? While the message is gross on a number of levels, we'll go with the most obvious: the conflation of young girl parts as a money-maker, and the presentation of Santa in a way that is far creepier than anything I could create on a personalized video message. Sugar daddy Santa Claus for our young ladies. Well, deck the halls.

So what happened? Feministing posted about them, letters were written, and Wal-Mart took them off the shelves. How much do we love the power of the blog to make things happen? Super duper kudos to Feministing--the post had this great line: "There's nothing quite like telling adolescent girls that they don't need to worry about finances since they have their very own moneypot between their legs." So score one for folks who would prefer preteen girls not measure their worth and security by what they have in their underwear.

Bookbags? Nope, Kids Want Electronic Crap.

Kelly Mills — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:01:00 GMT

This shopping website did a survey of kids ages seven to twelve, and asked them what was on their wishlists for back-to-school items. "73 percent of kids between the ages of seven and 12 want to head back to school with their gaming systems in hand, and an equally strong 70 percent want a new computer. And to keep in touch while on the playground, 69 percent say they strongly desire a cell phone to complete their back-to-school wares, even naming the new iPhone as one of their choices." Well, isn't that nice. You know what's at the top of my back-to-school wishlist? A million dollars.

Perhaps ~~surely~~ I am exceptionally stupid, but I thought back-to-school stuff was supposed to be for, you know, using at school. Perhaps school administrations have changed since my day, but I find it hard to imagine teachers smiling on the use of handheld gaming systems in the classroom. Shoot, we couldn't even chew gum. I'm going to assume that this was a case of a lame question: ask kids what they want the most, and they'll tell you their ultimate desire. Make the age demo a little higher and you'd probably hear about gold-plated SUVs and the chance to bang Eva Mendes.