Strollerderby : teens

They Say: Staying Together for the Kids? Don't

JeanneSager — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:01:00 GMT

How many times have you heard someone in marital distress say they're just trying to make it through for the kids? Might want to give them a hug next time and tell them they shouldn't worry about it.

A new study has found what plenty of kids of bitter, bickering parents already knew: staying together for the kids doesn't work.

Looking at teens from almost two thousands households and tracking them through to their early thirties, the study out of Cornell University in New York linked "exposure to parental conflict in adolescence . . . with poorer academic achievement, increased substance use and early family formation and dissolution, often in ways indistinguishable from living in a stepfather or single-mother family."

Again, not totally surprised here. But it's an important finding FOR parents who have long sought comfort as they navigate the difficult road of divorce. The dissolution of a relationship is almost never easy, and blame is quite often the name of the game. When kids are involved, the ante is upped as couples have to factor in more than just the two people in the marriage itself.

Studies have already found that divorce does not change the way a person parents. If you're doing a good job before the split, there's no reason to think you'll fall down on the job after the decree becomes final.

Parents should also take a long, hard look at their kids pre-split. Poor behavior that parents have often associated with post-divorce stress has been found to be something parents were overlooking in the midst of their marital discord. It was already there. The good news? Researchers say it doesn't actually get worse.

At the end of the day, I could never tell someone, "hey, yeah, get divorced." That's a very personal decision. But knowing you're worrying about your kids in the process means you're already far ahead of a lot of parents.

Image: OrlandoNest

Kids on Cell Phones: Big Brother is Watching

KeriF — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:01:00 GMT

Do you spy on your kids?

For those of us still in the diapers and preschool stage, that question isn't up for much debate--who doesn't quietly peek into their kids' rooms to watch them play or sleep or fight with their siblings? But for those of us deep in the throes of teenage parenting, it can literally be a question of life and death.

Or can it?

Companies such as My Mobile Watchdog and Mobile Spy are marketing to parents of teens with visions of sexual predators dancing in their heads. Are your kids texting known sex offenders? Are they planning on meeting up with a stranger they met on MySpace? Are they "sexting" their friends? By installing the companies' software on your teen's cell phone, you'll be able to see who's texting your child. You can set up a list of approved texters, and any time your child receives an "unathorized" text, you'll get a real-time text message alert. The service costs about $10 per month.

Parents aren't the only ones using the services; Mike Harris, a member of the Child Sex Internet Investigations Unit in Jefferson County, Colorado, installed it on his own cell phone, then posed as an underage child on social networking sites. Since then, Harris arrested 83 alleged sexual predators, more than half with the help of the monitoring service.

But does that mean we should be infringing on our childrens' privacy? Some child privacy advocates don't think so. But most parents disagree.

"I wasn't going to get my 15-year-old a cell phone and not know how she was using it," says James Green of Sulphur, Louisiana. "I think it's a caring father that wants to know what's going on in her life."

What do you think? Is this sneaky wiretapping or responsible parenting?

UPDATE: Jamie Foxx Apologizes To Miley Cyrus

Brett Singer — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 03:30:00 GMT

Jamie Foxx issued a mea culpa on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. EOnline.com reports that Foxx responded with a "Yeah" when Jay Leno asked him "Did you say something inappropriate?" Here's the rest of it from EOnline:

"I so apologize to [Cyrus], and this is sincere...I am a comedian, and you guys know that whatever I say, I don't mean any of it. And sometimes, as comedians, as we do, we go a little bit too far. I have a radio show...We're really the black Howard Stern. We go at everybody. There was a situation with Miley Cyrus, and I just want to say, I apologize for what I said. I didn't mean it maliciously. You know I'm a comedian."

Then, looking at the camera, "Miley, I apologize, so I'll call you. I got a daughter too, so I completely understand."

So there you go. Good enough? I think so. Do you agree?

Original post follows below.

*-*-*-*-*

So, like, hey now.

A little background. Jamie Foxx has a channel on SiriusXM Satellite Radio where he does a show called The Foxxhole. He said some... things about Miley Cyrus (aka Miley Ray Cyrus Hannah Montana Stewart Lipschutz). Someone called in and mentioned Miley's little dustup with Radiohead (she wanted to meet them, they said no, she got pissy and yakked about it on some radio show). The Oscar-winning Mr. Foxx then went off a bit. Here's the audio, which is not safe for work. At all. Seriously. You have been warned.

So yeah. He said it. There are a few other people in the mix, and I'm not sure who said what. I'm fairly certain it was Jamie Foxx who said that Miley should make a "sex tape", and then a female voice added "with your dad." "White bitch" was in there. Also something about doing heroin "like Britney" (I must have missed that headline about Brit nodding out), as well as a suggestion that Miley catch VD from a bicycle seat. (I didn't think that was possible, but hey, what do I know?)

A few things to say here. First, Foxx said this on his radio show this past Sunday. It appears to only be coming out now. That doesn't diminish it, but it does mean that not a lot of people heard the comments. Second, he was trying to be funny. That doesn't excuse the comments at all, of course. But in theory performers get more latitude when it comes to humor.

As for what was said: it was completely inappropriate and in incredibly poor taste. I'm not a fan of Miley's; I think her music is horrible, and the message of her entire persona seems to be that fame is a goal worth trying for, which is something I don't agree with. (That's the short version of a longer thought that I'll share one of these days.) In my opinion you can make fun of anything and talk about whatever you want. But when its an underage person, boy or girl, and you start saying "white bitch" and suggest that she make a sex tape with her dad, that seems unnecessary. He has the right to say it. But why would he? (A commenter at LATimes.com says that the Foxx clip is somewhat out of context, but, like the Rodney King video, I'm not sure that context matters in this case. Maybe it does, but I doubt it.)

There's also plenty to make fun of when it comes to Miley. The Radiohead thing. The fact that she sleeps in her parents bed sometimes, despite being sixteen years old. Her music. Her TV show. Lots of material to work with before you go to "white bitch" who should do heroin and make a sex tape.

What do you think? Should underage famous people be off-limits, at least in some ways? Or did Miley deserve it?

Source: EOnline

Image: Amazon

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Judge Sentences Families to Do Puzzles

JeanneSager — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:25:00 GMT

Riddle me this: how do you make parents and their teens work together to create something meaningful?

If you're Judge John Sholden, you assign them a thousand-piece puzzle to put together . . . or pay a $500 fine.

I'd be picking the puzzle, how about you?

With recent news about judges who require their parents to spank their children and judges who give the go-ahead for desperate mothers to collect their dead sons' sperm, it was nice to hear about a magistrate whose taking out-of-the-box justice seriously.

So what if it's out of the puzzle box? It's still sound reasoning - if parents and their teens are so disconnected that the kids are getting in the type of trouble that lands them in a courtroom, putting them in a room together to work toward a common goal puts them on an even playing field. And doing so with a pile of puzzle pieces instead of requiring the traditional "sit down and talk it out" method allows for an icebreaker, lets two people who might have been doing a lot of fighting instead of talking to focus on something outside themselves.

Sholden has a second motive - getting kids who are skipping school to understand that they can tackle major undertakings and come out on the other side. "When you open a puzzle up, it's a mess. But you get it in your head that you can solve the problem. Once student have a sense of accomplishment, it transfers to accomplishment at school also," the judge told a Dallas newspaper.

Some judges are hanging judges, but I'd take the puzzling judge any time.

Image: TheCincyBlog

School Expels Teen for Birth Control Pill

JeanneSager — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:32:00 GMT

A teenager who popped her birth control pill during her lunch period at a Virginia school is spending her spring break fighting the district not to be expelled.

The problem? That she did so during school hours. . . specifically, that she took a pill without supervision of the school nurse.

Her mother says she's aware the girl violated school rules, but she's questioning just how far a school should go with its punishment. Two weeks suspension and recommended expulsion for taking a legally prescribed drug? Does that sound fair?

It's a problem for plenty of parents in America - not birth control per se - but medicine. Kids take a lot of it - just this week, a study showed the precipitous rise in the number of kids who require medication to control their blood pressure and diabetes. And those are just two diseases. What about asthma, allergies, ADHD? Not to mention your standard headache or menstral cramps which could use an over-the-counter fix. All legal drugs, and not always feasible to take at home. Some medicines require several dosages in a day, for example, spaced out over time. Others require kids take them at the same time of day, every day. And a headache doesn't come on to suit the school schedule.

Meanwhile, schools are steadily trying to fight the tide of youthful prescription drug abusers in the America - a number that's up fivefold in the twelve-to-seventeen bracket in the past decade and a half. They call for students to take all medicines to the nurse's office, where the school health official is charged with handing out the prescription drugs to the students at the appropriate time in the appropriate dose.

It's what the girl in Fairfax should have done, what even her mom admits she should have done. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for every kid. In part because some school districts refuse to condone over-the-counter medications because they do not come with a doctor's note that can be kept in the nurse's office. And in part because kids need medicines at different times during the day; times when the nurse's office isn't always open. Some schools have cut back on the availability of nursing staff too, sharing one nurse for several buildings - so kids end up handing their medicines over to office staff, who parents argue are often even less informed about the proper use of the medication than the kids themselves, who have been taking the drugs for years.

And school districts have gone overboard. The Washington Post article that shares the Fairfax family's story cites a since-overturned law from Maryland that required a doctor's note for kids to put on sunscreen. Really? Because we'd rather the kids all end up with skin cancer over a legal substance that's available over the counter in any Wal-Mart in the country, for sale to anyone of any age?

With birth control too there's the worry that being so strict on teens dulls the efficacy of the fight against teen pregnancy. Wouldn't we rather our teens were taking the pill than skipping it? And despite the school's claims that this wasn't about what kind of drug but the fact that it was a drug, period, I can't help but wondering if they would have threatened explusion over, I don't know, aspirin? I'm not defending the girl in Virginia for her actions - birth control pills are to be taken at the same time every day, but there's no reason she couldn't have been on a schedule of taking them in the morning before school or at night.

She was wrong and deserved to be punished, but isn't expulsion for a LEGAL drug a little much? Do you feel the schools have gone too far in reaching into our medicine cabinets?

Image: AC

Schools Start Later So Teens Can Sleep In

KeriF — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:30:00 GMT

It's tough to be a teenager these days. Between MySpace, Wii, texting, and the like, not to mention activities that actually require you to leave the house, it can be hard for a teen to get to bed before midnight. How, then, are they supposed to get up at the ungodly hour of 7am to go to school?

What? Go to bed earlier? No, that's not the right solution.

Why not have school start later instead?

For a handful of schools in Britain, that indeed is the solution. The Hugh Christie school in Kent has been running classes for 16- to 18-year-olds from 11am to 5pm, specifically so teens can sleep in. Here in the United States, schools in 19 states have delayed their start times. And apparently 100 more school districts are considering the move.

"There's a chagne in hormones in teenagers' brains that requires some rewiring in the brain," says Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Center at Loughborough University in England. "That rewiring can only be done in deep sleep," so teens need up to an hour more sleep each night than adults.

I need a lot of sleep too. That's why I go to bed around the same time as my 4-year-old most nights, so I know I'll be well-rested when my 10-month-old wakes up with the sun. And when I do stay up too late watching Grey's Anatomy, er, I mean Nova on PBS, my daughter doesn't sleep three hours later to accommodate me. (Though that would be nice once in a while.)

Is it just me, or is this move patently ridiculous?

"It's possible this could be solved with better parental control," says Horne. Okay, it's not just me.

Photo: HPIRC.com

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Why Teen Girls are Taking Drugs Meant for Cows

JeanneSager — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:01:00 GMT

It's rumor and conjecture at this point, but Wisconsin health officials are taking seriously claims that a rash of teenage girls have taking drugs commonly used on cows to force their bodies to abort babies.

The kids allegedly got hold of prostaglandins, drugs used by farmers to regulate cows' heat cycles for breeding, and ingested them as "a cheap and easy way to end their pregnancies without their parents finding out."

According to officials, as many as ten girls ages fourteen to eighteen have owned up to the home abortion practice, and the American Veterinary Medical Association has gotten pro-active, sending warnings to practitioners about the usage and storage of the drug to discourage the practice from spreading.

Though the numbers are still small, that it's happening at all is clearly indicative of the fact that these kids are just that - kids. Shannon reported on the alarming spike in teenage pregnancies recently, pointing to the fact that at least half of American teens are having sex. Throw in kids' fear of being proactive with pregnancy preventions, and it's not hard to imagine how kids end up in this predicament.

They're having sex like adults. But they're still kids. And at the end of the day, they are afraid of how to properly deal with the consequences of their actions. They're afraid of owning up to their parents that they've made a mistake.

What should happen? It's really up to the kids and their families. Whether it's a baby given up for adoption, a baby kept or an abortion (pro-life groups are naturally using the news to once again decry legalized abortions, somehow arguing that legalizing abortions has actually encouraged these types of home abortions despite the fact that the legalized abortions means kids have much better options) is dependent on the family and their situation, but what's important is that these kids get the support of adults, adults who have the good sense not to feed their kids dangerous drugs meant for massive animals with drastically different genetic make-up.

But as Shannon pointed out recently, with abstinence-only education comes a lack of discussion about what happens when. . . and if . . . And pregnancies are happening, have always happened. Shrouding sex in mystery is not stopping it, but it is still putting our kids at risk.

Image: SFGate.com

School Assignment Forces Kids to Buy Birth Control

JeanneSager — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:23:00 GMT

What would you do if your kid was sent out to buy condoms . . . on a school assignment?

If you're Linda Strobl, you take it to the Canadian newspapers in outrage.

The irony? Strobl is a public health nurse, who says it's OK to teach kids about sexually transmitted diseases. She's horrified, however, that her fourteen-year-old was directed by his class to A. buy condoms and B. participate in a contest to see who can put a condom on a wooden phallus.

Strobl told the National Post that her son came home complaining that he didn't want to do his health homework, embarrassed by the assignment.

Part of me is thanking my lucky stars, once again, that my daughter is still a pre-schooler, and I don't have to deal with this. HOWEVER, I'm still shocked that parents will profess how open-minded they are - hey, it's OK to teach about STDs - but in the end how impractical they are. Essentially, Strobl is saying they can teach kids about STDS but not actually help kids prevent them.

It's embarrassing to buy condoms for kids. I get that. Researching a post about actor Zac Efron's mom buying his condoms, I found surveys showing thirty percent of sexually active teens are too embarrassed to actually condoms. But with condoms still leading the pack in prevention of STDs (not to mention pregnancy), that's a hurdle every kid has to cross if they're going to have sex. And if they're not sexually active, I'd like to think that they're figuring out how to properly use a condom before they end up in the dark in the backseat of a car, fumbling with this thing and eventually tearing it because they just don't get it . . . and go ahead and have sex anyway because, hey, they're teens and they're infallible.

Is making a fourteen-year-old buy condoms really that bad? Is making a fourteen-year-old practice putting a condom on a fake penis really something to be horrified about? These are life skills, and skills that most teens still have a harder time taking a lesson on from Mom and Dad than they do an unrelated adult (like a health teacher).

There are a lot of occasions where embarrassing kids is potentially harmful to their psyches, but people get embarrassed. It happens. Sometimes, it's necessary. And until you practice something you're uncomfortable with, you're always going to be embarrassed.

In this case, an ounce of embarrassment is worth the pound of prevention.

Image: The Sun

Half of Kids Surveyed Think Rihanna Had it Coming

JeanneSager — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:21:00 GMT

I've read some awful survey results over the years. But this?

Almost half of the kids surveyed by the Boston Public Health Commission said they thought singer Rihanna was "responsible" for the beat-down she received from boyfriend Chris Brown.

Forty-six percent the domestic violence case was Rihanna's fault, and fifty-two percent said it was both Rihanna and Brown's fault. Fifty-one percent blamed Brown. The numbers are particularly shocking after reading the good news about teen responses to the issue reported by my colleague Shannon last week. Kids in Chicago are speaking out in a "Beyond Chris and Rhianna" project there that clearly needs to be transplanted to Boston.

Forget "violence is not the answer." That's obviously lost on these kids. What about the simple lesson that no one can CAUSE someone else to hurt them? That it's always the choice of the person doing the beating?

The survey of kids twelve through nineteen in the Boston does not distinguish what kinds of homes the respondents come out of - so there's no way to determine what sort of homes these kids are coming from. What do you want to bet a fair share of those blaming Rihanna in some way aren't the nicest of homes? Because where does violence start? You got it. Different studies put the number of kids who get their first taste of domestic violence by watching their parents around three million annually.

According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, "Constant exposure to violence in the home and abusive role models teaches these children that violence is a normal way of life and places them at risk of becoming society's next generation of victims and abusers."

It also makes them more likely to place blame on the abused rather than the abuser, and for kids to become abusers or be abused. Which means the Boston Public Health Commission may well be seeing half its survey subjects in a social services setting.

Chilling, isn't it?

Image: People

How to Find a Job in This Economy: Let Your Kid on YouTube

JeanneSager — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:47:00 GMT

Things were looking bleak for the former vice president of marketing at the Tampa Bay Lightning - until his son got involved.

Mark Gullett lost his job the Florida hockey team on Thursday. That night, his fourteen-year-old posted a heartrending video on YouTube and job offers started pouring in.

By this weekend, "Mark By Ben" had already been seen by more than thirty six hundred people, and dad Mark has a few promising leads to keep the family alive. I'll let the video speak for itself, which it does in an understated way. There's no speaking - just Ben Gullett, fourteen, holding cue cards for you to read off the story of his father's life. He bought his kid a drum set. He makes 'smores. He has a Stanley Cup ring.

Oh yeah, and thanks to "restructuring," he doesn't have a job. The younger Gullett shares all the reasons his father will make a good employee again some day, but his best quality? "Most importantly, he is my dad," Ben spells out in a series of cards.

The whole thing was Ben's idea - although he did ask his father for help and checked in to make sure it was OK to broadcast his story across the world wide web. The teen says he wanted to do it to show his dad he loved him, and his dad was sufficiently touched. I don't see how anyone watching WOULDN'T be touched. This is one of those stories that reminds you the bad economy may hurt families, but it doesn't break them.

Did this one break your heart?

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Bedtime: Does Your Kid Have One?

Kate Tuttle — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:01:00 GMT

Do your kids have a regular bedtime, like Sasha and Malia Obama? (The first kids, aged seven and ten, are in bed by eight p.m., according to reports.) Or do they just keep going and going, exhausted little energizer bunnies, till late into the night? Growing up in the freewheeling 70s, I remember being smug about my family's lack of set bedtimes -- and I remember falling asleep in school all the time. In fact, my bedtime-free childhood seemed less and less fun as I got older, leading to mornings of scrambling out of bed, late as usual, and arriving at high school (college, work) with wacky hair and bleary eyes.

Most research now indicates that kids -- even tweens and teens -- need far more sleep than they get, and that their sleep needs don't change much as they grow up. Most adults, too, are chronically sleep-deprived, getting far less than the eight recommended hours (the number for school-aged kids is ten hours, for young teenagers at least nine).

As one pediatric sleep expert said in a recent column in the New York Times by Dr. Perri Klass, the problem comes when people underestimate their own sleep needs, and those of their kids:

“It’s a bell-shaped curve,” she said, with just 2.5 percent of the population needing significantly less sleep than average. “The problem,” she went on, “is that 95 percent of us think we’re in that 2.5 percent. You should assume until proven otherwise that your kid needs that much sleep.”

It's these night owls who end up nodding off during circle time, first period math class, and, later, morning meetings. So how to fix the problem? Set bedtimes, such as in the Obama household, are a good idea, according to researchers. And we all know, or should, to keep the TV out of the bedroom (for kids especially, but it's good for parents as well). Beyond that, simply understanding and trying to account for a child's changing sleep needs and routines can be extremely helpful. Teenagers' sleep needs scarcely change, but their circadian rhythms undergo a shift that pushes them -- biologically, not just through their lifestyle demands of homework, facebook, etc. -- toward later and later bedtimes. Some researchers are now calling for later high school start times to allow these weary teens to at least get some decent sleep -- but it seems unlikely to happen, especially in an era when many are pushing for more and more schooling, period.

Having grown up in a household bereft of healthy sleep habits, I'm trying to instill a slightly more organized routine for my kids -- the toddler's asleep by eight, the teen by eleven (still not enough sleep, but better than she would do on her own). What do you do in your house to ensure that everyone gets enough rest?

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Teen Dad's Father Wearing Halloween Mask In Public

Brett Singer — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Most grandparents are blissfully happy to have grandchildren. They are so proud that "proud" doesn't sufficiently capture the feelings they have for their offspring's offspring. They want everyone to know that THEY! ARE! GRANDPARENTS!

Some, however, would prefer to keep their identity a secret.

The father of 13-year-old new dad Alfie Patten is shown here arriving at the hospital to visit his granddaughter, little Maisie Roxanne. (Which is a great name, although the story is of course not so great.) He is wearing a Halloween mask. A kind of scary Halloween mask. He is also putting a sign on his car windshield that says, "No Comment Ring Max." Max is Max Clifford, a British PR man. So while Alfie's father may be cashing in on this whole sordid business, he's doing it while keeping his own mug out of the papers.

If Alfie were my son, I don't think I would go the same route. I would try and find a way to avoid photographers, and I imagine there is a method other than visiting your grandchild dressed like a trick-or-treater. Of course, that wouldn't garner nearly as much attention.

This started as a "hey, this will be funny" post, but I think I'm annoyed now.

What would you do if Alfie were your son? Hide your face or shout it from the rooftops?

Source/Image: DailyMail

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They Say: Teens WANT to Help Their Parents

JeanneSager — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:28:00 GMT

Toddlers are always thought of as the people pleasers and their teen counterparts as the surly loner types. Not so says a new study from researchers at three American universities.

The small study finds teens may actually WANT to help their families.

Researchers at the University of Rochester, the University of Missouri-Columbia, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, presented one hundred twenty kids in grades seven through ten and their parents with stories in which teens or parents asked for help. The study subjects were asked to determine whether the protaganist in the stories should provide the help or not, and decide whether it was OK to opt for personal desires instead.

The results indicate that parents believe kids are more selfish while the kids are more likely to put personal desires aside to offer their assistance. No wonder teens and parents collide!

The results were most interesting in light of the comments on my recent post about the benefits to having a big family in economic times. Based on the experiences of larger families I know, I suggested that having a large age gap provides for built-in babysitters when parents are forced to get a second job or a non-working parent finds they must take a job to make ends meet.

Not surprisingly, the responses ranged - some parents refuse to make their kids babysit, others felt it was the responsibility of teens to kick in. As a much older sister who did almost all of the babysitting, I concur that it's irresponsible for parents to put their own burdens squarely on the shoulders of their older kids. Before giving birth, parents need to look at their situation and determine how to ensure all of their kids get equal advantages - the new baby is the responsibility of his or her parents, not his or her siblings.

But babysitting is a chore. And kids have responsibilities to do chores as part of the family unit. If that's the chore parents decide to assign, cutting out other chores to ensure teens still have the ability to enjoy childhood and take advantage of after-school activities at school or other pursuits, parents should take heed of this study. It shows they're on the right track.

This study seems to further evidence that kids - no matter their age - want to be part of the family structure. They crave structure, and with that comes some sort of responsibility to prove they're vital cogs in the family wheel.

Does this mean we can stop dreading the teen years?

Image: Cincinnati Children's

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They Say: Kids Need To Be Taught to Handle School Stress

JeanneSager — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:04:00 GMT

Could teens who turn to drugs and alcohol just be plain old stressed?

A new study out of Britain states thirty-six percent of kids who were stressed about exams, peer relationships and the volume of homework turned to drinking to drown their sorrows. Another sixteen percent smoked cigarettes, while six percent used drugs to make the stress go up in a puff of smoke.

The study, presented at the British Psychological Society's Division of Educational and Child Psychology annual conference, focuses on stress; but I wonder how much time they spent examining these kids' home lives. Because school is stressful; and not just because of the pressure of impending college applications but because it's the time when hormones are starting to drive every child a little bit loony!

But handling school stress and turning to drugs are two different things. Where are these kids' parents? I know that's often the response when anyone talks about kids on drugs or using alcohol . . . but that makes it no less of an obvious. I run the risk of sounding like an old fogey here, but in my day, when we started drinking, we did it as much because we could get away with it as we did for any sound psychological reasons. Who answered, "Hey, want a Zima and some Skittles?" with "yeah, my teachers are really riding me?"

In college, maybe. But in high school, we didn't sit around moaning about the SATs when we were drinking. So are kids actually more stressed? Or are they suffering a lack of parental intervention in their lives . . . which could translate into stress and give them the free time to indulge in vices that more-involved parents are able to weed out?

Image: NPR

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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

They Say: Shunning Gay Kids Bad for Their Health

JeanneSager — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:36:00 GMT

Gee, who would have ever thought being told they're just not good enough could be bad for kids?

Apparently researchers at the César E. Chávez Institute at San Francisco State University. They actually took money and did a full-fledged study to figure out gay kids are at higher risk for a number of health problems if they're shunned by their families. Ya think?

What ever happened to funding studies that do things like - oh I don't know - find a cure for children's cancer?

The study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics showed a link between the family rejection of lesbian, gay and bisexual kids and a higher risk of a serious health problems, such as depression, illegal drug use, risk for HIV infection, and suicide attempts. Compared to kids who came from families who were accepting of their sexuality, those who experienced rejection were more than eight times more likely to have attempted suicide, almost six times more likely to be depressed, three times more likely to use illegal drugs and three times more likely to have unprotected sex.

I'm not excusing the parents here - they need to get a grip. But let's say they struck sexuality from the criteria and looked simply at kids who were rejected by their families versus those we were accepted. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a child who's mom or dad tells them they're worthless who hasn't contemplated suicide or wouldn't qualify for a dose of Prozac.

It's encouraging that researchers are willing to look at sexuality in children - lending further credence to the fact that people are born gay (or straight), and evidence of sexuality in kids is natural. But sometimes, they just go too far to categorize kids and families. Gay kids need love. So do straight kids. If parents can't provide it, their kids are in trouble, period.

Image/Source: RedOrbit

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They Say -- Kids Who Skip Breakfast and Hate Mom Have Sex Sooner

Brett Singer — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Sometimes I read a news story and feel like I'm actually reading The Onion. Does that ever happen to you?

For example: this report from Japan that finds a link between middle school students and teen sex. Basically, middle schoolers who do not partake of the most important meal of the day are more likely to get a head start on making the out-of-wedlock beast with two backs. (That's an unnecessarily silly way of saying "having sex.")

What exactly inspires a study like this one? Were researchers conducting interviews with sexually active middle schoolers in the morning hours and thought that they looked a little hungry? Not exactly. The survey isn't talking about sexually active middle schoolers. That would be creepy. It specifically found that the "average age of first-time sex for those who said they ate breakfast every day as a middle school student was 19.4, while for those who skipped breakfast, the average age was 17.5."

It gets better. I'm going to quote this line because it may be one of the greatest sentences in the history of journalism: "The average age of first-time sex was lower for those who found their mother annoying." (See what I mean? Doesn't that sound like it should have been in The Onion?) Those who "said they disliked their mother" starting gettin' it on at the age of 16, on average. Folks who "appreciated their mother" didn't lose their virginity until the ripe old age of 19.

No word on whether or not girls with "daddy issues" were slutty, or whether or not sibling rivalries were the main cause of homosexuality. (I'm kidding, of course. But if that's the next survey this association conducts, I won't be all that shocked.)

Kunio Kitamura, executive director of the Japan Family Planning Association, conducted the survey. The quotes attributed to Kitamura are hopefully the result of a poor translation from Japanese: "The fact that people can't eat breakfast may show something about their family environment. Before blaming individuals for having sex at an early age, it may be necessary to look into the sort of homes they are from." In other words, it's not your kids' fault they're having sex. It's because the muffins were stale that morning. Oh, and you're a crummy parent. And your kids don't respect you as a mother. Or all of the above.

Hey, here's an idea. How about studying the TYPE of breakfast consumed? That is, are middle schoolers who consume mostly oatmeal in the morning more or less likely to engage in sexual activity before they turn 18 than children who eat pancakes? And what about if they have bacon with their pancakes? And why stop at breakfast? What about lunch? Does french fry consumption increase or decrease the likelihood of future sexual activity?

So if you don't want your kids to start having sex too young, make sure they eat breakfast. In middle school.

Ah, science. We have come so far. And yet, not so far at all.

Source: Reuters

Image: tamarackwv.com

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Chicago Kids Held in Hospitals, Jails Instead of Foster Homes

Miriam Axel-Lute — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Remember this next time you hear people arguing that we should limit who can take care of, or adopt, kids in need (or that we shouldn't build a group home in their neighborhood):

Investigations by the Chicago Tribune have found that some kids are being held in psychiatric wards, hospitals, and jails long past when they were supposed to be released because there is no where for them to go. Often when they are released, they are being sent to placements that don't meet the recommendations made for them (such as residential drug-treatment first or a home ready for special-needs kids).

These are tough-to-place kids, mostly teens, with multiple problems. But as the article so clearly points out, there are few ways to better ensure that someone's mental health and behavior issues don't get better than to essentially imprison them somewhere where they are no longer getting the services they need/serving the sentence they received. The investigation was sparked by a 14-year-old who had been in a mental hospital for 105 days, when doctors had cleared to leave after a couple weeks. She hadn't been outside or to school that whole time.

It's sad enough to not be able to find an adoptive home for a mentally ill teenager, but nowhere for her to go outside of the psych ward? That's seriously depressing.

Photo by Skelekitten.

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Is Miley Cyrus' First Photo Shoot Creepy?

Brett Singer — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:15:00 GMT

Miley Ray Cyrus Hannah Montana Stewart Lipschutz's first photo shoot has surfaced. The shots were taken back in 2002, and some of them are way creepy. At least that's my opinion. You may feel differently. Let's take a look, shall we?

Some of the images are fairly tame, even for kiddie modeling shots.

Then comes the belly shirt. And the quasi-pouty face.

Actually, I can't decide if this last one is a pout or a "Why am I doing this?" expression.

I'm not a big fan of putting your kids into the entertainment industry. There are obviously cases where the kid wants to do it, and sometimes the kid wants to do it and actually has some talent. But how does a parent participate in a photo shoot where their daughter is wearing a midriff-bearing t-shirt? I feel a bit creepy just writing about this.

Here's a shot with, I think, Miley's mommy.

Not sure if this was candid or staged. I’m thinking staged. She appears to be primping Miley Ray Whatever for the next shot. Either way it's… well, I can't come up with a better word than creepy. And I'm not sure I need to.

One thing for sure – the next time Miley Ray Cyrus Hannah Montana Stewart Lipschutz and her crew complain that Annie Leibovitz or some other celebrity photog somehow tricked them into a racy photo spread, we need not take that seriously for even a second.

As little girl role models go, Miley is certainly better than Tila Tequila or Britney Spears. But would you want your daughter dressing like this? And would you take pictures of it? This isn't JonBenet Ramsey creepy, but it's close. What exactly are you going for when you dress a ten-year-old girl (the age she was in the shoot) like this?

I know I’m getting all moral majority butthead on you. But what do you think of these pics? (Links to the full gallery, which is enormous, are below if you really want to see them all.) Creepy? Not creepy? Would you let your daughter do a photo spread like this at age 10?

Source: MileyWorld via OceanUp via Buzzfeed

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Students Watch Autopsy of Teen From School

JeanneSager — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:04:00 GMT

I'm not really crazy about sending my kid out to watch an autopsy to begin with. Yes, even in the name of science. But when the body a class of teens is watching the medical examiner cut up belongs to a fourteen-year-old from their school district, you've lost me completely.

It's exactly what happened at a Michigan ME's office; even after the teacher was warned that the teenagers in her high school science class would be subjected to the autopsy of a middle school student from the same school district who had committed suicide.

The Detroit News reported the teacher put it out to her students, kids in the eleventh and twelfth grades at Waterford Kettering High School. None of the kids actually knew the girl, although one student knew the deceased's brother. The ME's office in Oakland County has decided to stop all future high school tours because of the case, but I'd say all the adults involved here need to be reviewing their actions. Kids watching dead kids be examined? It's the stuff that can cause some pretty severe nightmares, not to mention a host of issues for the child's family.

That older teens might be sent to see an autopsy as part of their exploration of potential careers is one thing. Personally I think that kind of thing should be limited to kids who have expressed an interest in the medical field, not required viewing for a regular upper-level science class. If kids feel they're going to be upset by watching a body carved up, by all means, let them stay back in the school building and do busy work.

And the kids who choose to make the trip? They should not be watching the process being done on another child, especially one who they might know in one way, shape or form. Adults have a hard enough time stomaching the thoughts of harm having come to a child. Professionals who deal with this type of thing on a daily basis, despite all their attempts to become immune to the horrors specific to the loss of a child, still struggle. Ask any district attorney who has had to prosecute the case of a child's death if he doesn't go home at night and hug his kids just that much tighter. To expect teenagers, still kids themselves, to process that sort of thing - or to think that asking them beforehand if they're OK with it and expecting their teenaged-bravado not to get in the way - is a failure to protect a piece of their innocence.

Yes, they can see this sort of thing on CSI. But a fake body on a screen has nothing on a real body laid out in front of them, the body of a child they know has walked through the same halls where they once studied math and science.

Let's let kids be kids - as long as we can.

Image: The Detroit News

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For Those Teens Puttin’ on the Ritz and the Parents Who Can Afford It

SunnyChanel — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:41:00 GMT

I have no desire to be a teenager again. Those years are, thankfully, long gone. But the Ritz-Cartlon is making me wish that I could once again be a teen conveniently aged 13-19. Why? ‘Cos they just launched their Teen Lounge program at a few of their properties in Florida, a place just for the teens where no parents are allowed. Yes, that means you.

At the Ritz Carlton in Naples your teen can chill in the new VUE Lounge that is decked out with Xboxes, Sony Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wiis which are hooked up to 40” LCDs, iMac computer stations, and personal flat screens equipped with DVD Players. The club in Ritz at Amelia Island has flat screen TVs for personal viewing and video game playing, laptops, Ipods, air hockey, foosball and pool as well as their own movie theater. The new teen club Coast in the Ritz in Palm Beach, that opens later in the month (UPDATE: It's open now!), they have equipped with a “state of the art production studio”, a DJ booth, a photography set, along with a pool table. A DJ Booth?! I’m like so jealous.

You know, I’d rather be in the teen lounge than probably anywhere else in the resort. Give me that instead of swimming in the pool, playing golf, or getting a spa treatment. Seriously, they should make an activity club like that for us old folks too.

Yes, the Ritz-Carlton is a pricey place to lay your head, but with activities like these for the whole family, it might end up to be less expensive and more accommodating for all just to shack up here for a little bit. It may be a doable option instead of jetting off to who knows where and have your teen utter those dreaded words, “I’m bored”. With these clubs, that won’t be happening. And yeah, don’t even try to lie about your age to get in, you won’t fool anybody.

Cheetah Girls Banned From Macys Thanksgiving Parade

Brett Singer — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Fans of Disney Channel girl group The Cheetah Girls will be disappointed to learn that the trio will not be appearing at the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade this year.

The reason? Semi-nude photos of Adrienne Bailon, who plays Chanel Simmons in the band/movies about the band/TV show about the band/something or other (I don't fully understand all of the identities involved here so forgive me) that have appeared all over the Interwebs.

Particularly weird is the possibility that Adrienne had a publicist leak the pics and then claimed that her laptop had been stolen. Jonathan Jaxson, a publicist and/or blogger, claims that he was hired by Bailon to release the steamy snaps (sorry, dropped into gossip-language there for a moment) so that Bailon could "distance herself" from Disney and start developing a more "adult" image. This story doesn't appear to have been confirmed by Adrienne or her people, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.

Many news outlets are comparing this to what happened with Miley Ray Hannah Montana Stewart Cyrus Lipschitz and Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical), two more Mouse House mamacitas (ouch! Gossip talk! Stop that!) that had nude (Hudgens) or semi-nude (Cyrus) photos appear in the wild. But there are a couple of differences. First, Miley Ray Hannah Montana Stewart Cyrus Lipschitz was under 18, and some of the "controversial" photos appeared in Vanity Fair, and the ones that didn't certainly looked like they were candid cell phone snaps. Hudgens was just 18 when her nekkid self showed up on the web. Also, HSM's Hudgens (ah, I give up, gossip speak will happen on occasion) immediately apologized for the racy pics. So if it was a nefarious plot to let the entire world see what she looks like in her birthday suit, it was a well-hatched one.

Why does their ages matter? Because teenagers do dopey things sometimes. So do people in their mid-20's, but if Bailon, who is 25, actually did have someone release these pictures on purpose, she's a huge dummy.

I know this is becoming a trend, but I have mixed feelings about this story. On the one hand, who cares? On the other hand, I would have preferred not to have to explain to a 7 year old what a DUI was when Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain got pulled over a couple of months ago.

Today on the Howard Stern Show on Sirius XM Radio, Robin Quivers theorized that some of the young actresses on the Disney Channel are so desperate to be uber-famous that they'll do anything to get there. If it turns out the photo thing was a leak and not an accident, I'd say she's right.

Should Macys keep the Cheetahs out of the parade? After all, one of their members may be have contributed to the downfall of civilization by putting out pictures of herself in a bra. (Or maybe not. Like I said, I'm conflicted.) More importantly, are they as popular as the amount of news stories about them would indicate? My kids don't want a lot of Disney Channel, but Hannah Montana I know about. The Cheetah Girls, not so much. Any fans, or parents of fans, out there in Internet land want to set me straight? Or even just explain the whole dual-identity thing?

Source/Image: Fox News

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They Say: The IVF Kids Are All Right

Amy Kuras — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:06:00 GMT

Here’s some good news for families with kids conceived through IVF – at adolescence, they show no differences with families with children conceived “naturally.”

A study from the University of Leuven in Belgium, published in the journal Human Reproduction, looked at families with 15 and 16 year old children who had participated in a similar study when their children were two years old. Both parents and children of IVF families and non-IVF families filled out questionnaires assessing the parents’ parenting style and stress, and the teens’ psychosocial adjustment. Both teens and parents filled out both surveys.

The sample size was small; only 24 families in the study group and 21 in the control group.

The study found no significant differences in parenting style or in parenting stress between IVF mothers and fathers and mothers and fathers in the control group. There was also no significant difference between the groups in self- or parent-reported behavioral problems. Interestingly, a comparison of behavioral problems between IVF adolescents informed or not informed about the IVF conception did not reveal significant differences. That surprised me – I always thought the conventional wisdom that telling children is much more healthy that not would be borne out by research.

According to the research team, the study is the first psychosocial follow-up of IVF parents and children in mid-adolescence, and adds to the evidence that IVF children and their parents are well-adjusted.

They Say: Teen Violence Has Many Mothers

Kate Tuttle — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:30:00 GMT

Not literally, of course! But a new study published in the journal Child Development suggests that neither genetics nor environment alone can be blamed for causing violent behavior in teenagers. As reported in the New York Times, the researchers found that for most teens, an early history of small behavioral problems tended to snowball into bigger issues, usually as parents pulled away from difficult children and schools washed their hands of them. Led by Dr. Kenneth Dodge at the Center for Child and Family Study at Duke University, researchers followed 750 children from preschool to high school.

What they found, in Dodge's words, confounds both typical liberal and conservative responses to teen problems. From the article:

“It’s not that they are super-predators or biologically destined to life as a criminal,” Dr. Dodge said of the children. “It’s also not the story the liberal folks tell: that it’s entirely a bad environment. It’s a combination of an impulsive, temperamentally difficult child, who elicits problems from the environment that propel the child toward a violent adolescence."

As one of those liberal folks myself, I'd say that such a survey does confirm a few parenting philosophies on my side of the ledger. When young children have mild behavior problems, the article reports, "harsh discplinary action from parents and teachers" often made the child "more aggressive" and thwarted the development of "important social and cognitive skills."

Bottom line: for most troubled kids, a combination of nature and nurture is at the root. While we can't control our kids' nature, we can certainly aim to nurture them in a way that doesn't make things worse.

Disney Pulls Hannah Montana Diabetes Episode

Brett Singer — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:15:00 GMT

Hannah Montana has managed to piss off a bunch of parents. But it wasn't with her music.

Apparently the Disney Channel pulled what was going to be the first episode of the new season because some parents who saw it early complained. "The episode, titled 'No Sugar, Sugar,' finds Hannah’s friend Oliver learning he has diabetes and was intended to teach audiences that the disease is one that can be managed." Some parents, "had concerns about how the disease was portrayed," although the New York Times article I saw doesn't mention any specifics. The title does sound a little bit jokey. (Maybe they were trying to revive Miley's dad's series "Doc".) But come on -- what did they do? Put a Snickers on a fishing pole and dangle it in front of a diabetic character?

One thing that "Seinfeld" was supposed to have taught us is that the "very special episode" is usually a bad idea. I'm not saying that it's not a nice thing for a show watched by zillions of tweens to actually try to teach a lesson now and then. But usually it comes across as forced. (David Spade, before he was famous, used to do a funny stand-up routine about "a very special episode of 'Family Ties'" where Alex is caught masturbating. "Aw Mal, can't you knock?") I've never seen Hannah Montana, but my guess is that people don't usually watch the show looking for issues-oriented television.

For that, everybody knows you should watch the new "90210". I mean, really.

Interesting twist: Apparently Nick Jonas is diabetic, and Miley Ray Hannah Montana Stewart Cyrus Lipschitz used to wear some sort of "diabetic dog tag" in support of the Jonas Brother that she either was or wasn't dating. (I can't remember and don't care enough to look it up.)

I do think it’s a little weird when a network yanks a show – in this case before it even officially aired – based on the complaints of a few people. How bad could it have been? I remember an episode of "The Brady Bunch" where Mike says to Carol, "If I ever caught one of my sons playing with dolls, I'd send him to a psychiatrist." (Cue laugh track.) My mother heard the line and asked me if I thought that was an OK thing to say, especially since I played with action figures, which are very doll-like. So maybe a better move is to watch the show with your kids and talk to them about anything you find objectionable.

Or just shut the TV off. But let's not get too crazy.

Source: NYTimes, EntertainmentWise

Image: EntertainmentWise