WEDNESDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) — Brief, voluntary and non-judgmental conversations with teens about marijuana use may significantly reduce their use of the drug, according to a new study.
Researchers also found that a motivational approach to these discussions about marijuana was more effective than merely educating high school students on the health effects of the drug.
Marijuana is a common drug choice for teens around the world. In the United States alone, nearly one-third of high school students report smoking pot. Many of them do so because they don’t realize the health consequences of using the drug, according to researchers at the University of Washington.
“It’s not a risk-free drug,” Denise Walker, co-director of the University of Washington’s Innovative Programs Research Group, said in a university news release. “Lots of people who use it do so without problems. But there are others who use it regularly — almost daily — and want to stop but aren’t sure how.”
Complicating matters, the risks associated with marijuana use are greater for teenagers than adults, noted Walker. “Adolescence is a big developmental period for learning adult roles. Smoking marijuana regularly can impede development and school performance, and it sets kids up for other risky behaviors,” she added.
The researchers found, however, that marijuana use among teens could be reduced significantly through Read the rest of this entry »
The top public health problem in the United States is not obesity, as many might guess, says one public policy organization. The National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse, also known as CASA, leaves no question as to where it stands on the subject, titling its latest study “Adolescent Substance Use: America’s No. 1 Public Health Problem.”
The report released Wednesday finds that the consumption of alcohol, the use of tobacco and marijuana and the abuse of prescription drugs is on the rise among teens. That’s not terribly surprising but this might be: CASA found that 9 out of 10 adult addicts started using before the age of 18, compared with 1 in 25 Americans who started using these substances at age 21 or older.
Another finding: 75% of high school students have used addictive substances Read the rest of this entry »
Published 05/29/11
Early this month, Lt. Tina Pitner was working her usual shift at Fire Station 35 on Forest Drive.
It was routine except that a paramedic student would be doing one of his required ambulance ride-alongs. The young man checked in, introduced himself and went on his rounds.
When he returned, he put his information folder on Pitner’s desk so she could sign off.
“When I looked down and saw the name on the folder the hair stood up on my arm,” she said last week.
“I said, ‘I know you.’ ” Read the rest of this entry »
They call it “Corporate Pedophilia.”
It’s when corporate America sells out by pimping material to our kids that they know is slowly destroying them.
This 8-minute ABC video is a must see. The video not only reminds us of the American Psychological Association’s research about the harmful effects of the sexualization of young girls, but it also shows you some great examples of this in the media today in tween role models like Miley, Katy, Ashley Tisdale, Amanda Bynes, etc.
http://abcnews.go.com/assets/player/walt2.6/flash/SFP_Walt_2_65.swf
Jaws dropped when she emerged from the dressing
room wearing a sheer black sheath with a single
strap.
“You look absolutely fabulous,” her mother said, then
gasped, after eyeing the stunning head-turner.
“She did look good in it … but it wasn’t age
appropriate,” recalled Diane Goldie, who nixed the
purchase for her 12-year-old daughter, Grace.
Billions of dollars are on the line in the fashion
industry which targets the 8-to-12 set known as
tweens. But it’s a line increasingly blurred between
cute and hot, adorable and sexual.
In addition to spending $30 billion of their own
money, American tweens hold sway over another
$150 billion spent by their parents each year. It was
just about a decade ago that the marketing and
advertising industries popularized the phrase “tween”
to sell 8- to 12-year-olds everything from
entertainment to clothing.
“You go into a juniors department, you have a rack of
clothing that is appropriate for an 11-year-old next
to a rack of clothing that isn’t,” said Alex Morris, who
recently reported on tweens and fashion for New York
magazine. “It’s certainly blurring the lines. … It’s
making it harder for parents to set boundaries.”
New research released by The American Psychological
Association earlier this year found that sexual
imagery aimed at younger girls is harmful to them
and increases the likelihood they will “experience
body dissatisfaction, depression and lower self-
esteem.”
The entertainment industry isn’t making it any easier.
A few years ago, Miley Cyrus played the sweet Hannah
Montana on the Disney Channel. Now she’s in black
leather hot pants. She’s 17. Other teen stars have
done similar things. Britney Spears’ bubblegum pop
image morphed into provocateur. Ashley Tisdale went
from “High School Musical” to “Cranking It Up.” And
Nickelodeon’s Amanda Bynes is now on the cover of
Maxim.
“The easiest way for a celebrity to transition from
being a child star to an adult star is the pathway
through their sexuality,” said Morris. “Children are
attracted to this kind of look, it’s what they see Mylie
Cyrus wearing, Demi Lovato wearing, Lindsay Lohan
wearing.”
It’s also what Gossip Girl’s Taylor Momsen is wearing
on the pink carpet as the face of Material Girl, the
newly unveiled clothing line created by Madonna and
her 14-year-old daughter Lourdes. Critics say the
line is perfect for a woman in her 20s but far too racy
for girls in elementary or middle school.
Says Momsen, “It’s very much about putting your own
look together to be yourself.”
While searching for their own look, tweens are
strongly influenced by the celebrities they idolize.
Grace, whose image is “something edgy, but also
looks high fashion, like urban chic,” was on a
shopping spree when she grabbed a chunky sweater
that exuded that aura. “It’s the one on the Glamour
cover! Like what Taylor Swift was wearing!” she
exclaimed.
Fashion’s Sexualization of Tweens
Some fashion watchers say the pendulum is swinging
back, away from trashy 12 and closer to sweet 16.
“I think we are having a return to modesty,” said Ann
Shoket, editor of Seventeen magazine, the oracle of
fashion for teens and the tweens who follow them in
lock step.
“The girls that (teens and tweens) are looking up to,
Miranda Cosgrove (“iCarly”), Victoria Justice
(“Victorious”), Selena Gomez (“Wizards of Waverly
Place”), these are teen stars that are good girls. You
would never see them behaving badly or rolling out
of a club,” said Shoket.
Madonna and Diane Goldie agree it’s a mother’s
responsibility to guide a young daughter to make the
right choices.
“I don’t have to be her friend. I’m her parent,” said
Goldie. “We can be friends when (she is) 30, but for
now we do have the back and forth.”
Madonna told ABC News that a mother’s job is to “say
‘no!'” She added, “I’m very strict about the way my
daughter dresses. We have arguments about how
short the skirt is … is there cleavage?”
Lourdes said she pushes the envelope, knowing her
mother won’t hesitate to push back. “I mean obviously
I don’t agree with all of her decisions. I know it’s
coming. But I might as well try and see what
happens.”
Seventeen’s Shoket says that attitude is only natural
for girls in a crucial stage of development. Said
Shoket, “They are starting to develop their own sense
of personality, and what feels right and it’s about
pushing boundaries.”
I’m not saying that the new FB video chat function is bad, good, or otherwise, but if our children are going to be using it, we as parents need to be aware of the upsides and downsides…
Let the Facebook video chat fear mongering begin!
By Helen A.S. Popkin
Less than 24 hours after Mark Zuckerberg’s “Awesome!” announcement — getting Skype all up in your Facebook — and we already know the many ways it may destroy your life, or worse, the life of your children! Won’t somebody please think of the children?!
From Facebook scams evolving into the video ripoff realm and humiliating new ways to get yourself Facebook fired, to the possibility of preteens video sexting, there’s plenty of speculation on how video calling right from your Facebook account could be bad bad bad!
Same old Facebook scams, new venue!
Agreed, nobody should have to tell you not to wire $1,000 to “friends” who contact you over the Internet, claiming to be trapped in a foreign country with no money or passport. Then again, nobody should have to tell you not to click on that Facebook link to a video that allegedly shows Justin Bieber punching a girl in the face. But if you’ve ever had your Facebook wall junked up with such spam scams, you know plenty of people do.
“Don’t let your guard down just because you’re video calling directly from Facebook, where you’re used to having fun,” writes Paul Ducklin on the Sophos blog Naked Security. “In particular, review who your friends are. And watch out for calls from hijacked accounts, or from borderline ‘friends,’ just as you ought to do via any other messaging service, including email.”
Ducklin predicts Stranded in [Foreign Location] and Fake Support Call scams will transfer nicely to this new Facebook service. Fuzzy videos with poor sound quality fit the drama of an unlucky friend or relative trapped overseas. And anyone who has trouble connecting with Facebook and Skype might not be surprised to receive a call from a Facebook or Skype “representative” calling from “the hacked account of a friend — unusual, of course, but this is an emergency! — to advise all the friends of that friend that they, too, may be compromised.” For $300, the rep will quickly make your problems go away!
What about the children?!
“In a time when sexting has become almost a prerequisite in teen dating, this easily available video integration is only going to cause more problems,” writes Danielle Sullivan on the Babble blog Strollerderby. True, video chat has long been available outside of Facebook, but it’s the new proximity Sullivan finds problematic. “Preteens and teens go on Facebook everyday and chat through text now daily, recapping their day, making plans, or just killing time. The video chats will no doubt be widely popular among teens, which means all these kids on video chat in their rooms, often late at night. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
While it’s arguable just how detrimental sexting is to curious teenagers, Sullivan does have a point. Kids do lie about their age when registering on Facebook to get past the 13-year-old minimum age requirement, and plenty of parents are cool with that. And Chatroulette isn’t the only place kids have been flashed by exhibitionist adults. SafetyWeb weaves a tale of Skype terror that occurred just last year:
September 1st marked the first day of school for a 10-year-old girl in Lake Forest, Illinois. That evening, she used Skype, a free video chat and instant messaging service, to talk to her friends about their first day and discuss homework assignments. Everything was going great until an unfamiliar screen name popped up and requested to chat with the girl. Thinking it was a neighborhood friend, she accepted the request, and what she saw next was extremely shocking.
The video revealed a naked, middle-aged man inappropriately touching himself and sending tasteless messages. The girl screamed for her mother who quickly notified the police. The incident is currently under investigation, and highlights how truly dangerous the Internet can be. As parents, we must continue to make online safety a priority, and do our best to keep our children out of harm’s way.
SafetyWeb’s tips for Skype safety transfer easily to any aspect of the Web, so check ’em out.
A new way to get yourself Facebook fired!
You have an imagination. Think about it. “The way I see it there are two audiences for video chat,” writes PC Magazine’s Dan Costa. “One is family members that want to see their kids.”
Now here’s the sticky part.
“The other audience is the Chatroulette crowd,” Costa writes. “I apologize if this shocks you, gentle reader, but people have been sharing naked pictures long before Congressman Anthony Weiner bought his first BlackBerry Curve. (Or was that a Bold?) Indeed compared to the sewer streams of pornography that flood out onto the Net each day, a one-on-one video chat between two consenting adults seems positively quaint. Although even here, I think the appeal is limited. Who wants to exchange sexy videos when your mom’s thumbnail is in the same Window. Not me.”
Me neither. But somebody does. And if that somebody is you, just don’t do it at work.
by Jonathan Mckee from the source4youthministry.com
Katy Perry is at it again, and as always, our kids are paying attention.
Katy’s new video for Last Friday Night is already #1 on iTunes and has millions of views on YouTube. This funny but racy video features plenty of popular cameos, drawing viewers of all ages. Like much of Katy’s work, the song and video are really well done, but they are also chock full of subtle lies that our kids are definitely consuming a gallon at a time.
Sadly, most kids will call this video “clean.” It doesn’t have any sex, nudity or cussing.
Clean… right? Read the rest of this entry »
Some food for thought that all of us should remember…
Melanie Pinola — A little goodwill goes a long way. Small acts of kindness or shows of support don’t take a lot of effort or time, but they do build up a strong “account” you can draw from in the future.
Thomas Sowell, an American economist and columnist, said that “politeness and consideration for others is like investing pennies and getting dollars back.” Do you remember the last time someone did some small, thoughtful thing for you? or paid you a compliment or showed some sign of appreciation? That gesture probably made a very favorable and lasting impression on you.
In both your work and personal life, remember that the little things—a thank you note, an offer of support, a referral—matter a lot in the long run; consideration for others is an investment with a very high ROI.
Teen drug use shouldn’t be looked at as a rite of passage but as a public health problem, say experts, and one that has reached “epidemic” levels.
In a new report on drug, alcohol and tobacco use among teens in the U.S., the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University finds that 75% of all high school students have used alcohol, tobacco or either legal or illicit drugs and that 20% of these adolescents are addicted. Read the rest of this entry »
WEDNESDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) — Brief, voluntary and non-judgmental conversations with teens about marijuana use may significantly reduce their use of the drug, according to a new study.
Greggornation 