Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
This week Doug Fields posted an article of mine on his blog encouraging parents to use the “pause button,” the “fast forward button”… and even the “off button” on their TV remotes as they co-view media with kids. Which button does Fox’s Glee require?
This week Glee featured two of the show’s teenage couples each losing their virginity, a homosexual couple (Kurt and Blaine), and a heterosexual couple (Finn and Rachel).
Parents that took time to even notice the show’s content this week are debating the appropriateness. The PTC is outraged (as always), and articles are beginning to emerge asking relevant questions, like this article from Time, What Teen Sex on Glee Really Teaches Kids.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Glee address the subject of teenagers losing their virginity. In the 15th episode of Season One, an episode titled “The Power of Madonna,” Glee introduced the same scenario when three couples faced the decision to lose their virginity (the episode was watched by 12.98 million American viewers and was critically acclaimed). After a dream sequence performance of Madonna’s Like a Virgin, two of these teenagers took the plunge and “went all the way” (Finn and Santana), while others didn’t (Rachel, for example). Read the rest of this entry »
USATODAY.com By
Kim Painter
Lauren Biglow, a college freshman, once was one of those high school students with crazy, stressful schedules — high-level academics mixed with sports, clubs, community service, and way too little sleep, real food or unstructured fun.
But her parents, she says, were not part of the problem.
“I would come home overflowing with stress over the fact that I had so many things to do simultaneously. And they would say, ‘This is crazy, listen to yourself. You need to take a breath, re-evaluate and decide what you need to cut down on.’ ”
Biglow says she did cut down, a bit, and ended up taking fewer Advanced Placement (AP) classes than some peers. She dropped one of her three sports. It worked out: The spring graduate of Los Altos High School, in California, is at highly regarded Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s the news no parent wants to hear: Their teenage daughter has been sending demeaning e-mails to another girl in her grade or that their son has been regularly harassing another boy in the hall at his school.
While it’s painful and confusing if your child is the victim of bullying, it’s also painful and confusing if your child is the one who is dishing it out. If it’s the latter, what do you do?
Let’s face it, to be confronted with the fact that your kid has been a bully is embarrassing. It’s not just a mark against your child, but a mark against you. You can just imagine what the other parents are saying.
“They always seemed like good parents. But it just goes to show you never know.”
You are mad at your kid for their behaviour, but also at how this behaviour reflects on you. To feel this way is very normal, but many kids of nice, loving parents engage in bullying behaviour. Having a kid who’s a bully does not mean that you have been a bad parent. Read the rest of this entry »
By LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor
April 19, 2011 8:52 a.m. EDT
Editor’s note: LZ Granderson writes a weekly column for CNN.com. A senior writer and columnist for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, he has contributed to ESPN’s “Sports Center,” “Outside the Lines” and “First Take.” He is a 2011 and 2010 nominee and the 2009 winner of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for online journalism and a 2010 and 2008 honoree of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for column writing.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=us/2011/04/20/natpkg.opinion.lz.tramp.clothes.cnn
Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) — I saw someone at the airport the other day who really caught my eye.
Her beautiful, long blond hair was braided back a la Bo Derek in the movie “10” (or for the younger set, Christina Aguilera during her “Xtina” phase). Her lips were pink and shiny from the gloss, and her earrings dangled playfully from her lobes.
You can tell she had been vacationing somewhere warm, because you could see her deep tan around her midriff thanks to the halter top and the tight sweatpants that rested just a little low on her waist. The icing on the cake? The word “Juicy” was written on her backside.
Yeah, that 8-year-old girl was something to see all right. … I hope her parents are proud. Their daughter was the sexiest girl in the terminal, and she’s not even in middle school yet.
Abercrombie & Fitch came under fire this spring for introducing the “Ashley,” a push-up bra for girls who normally are too young to have anything to push up. Originally it was marketed for girls as young as 7, but after public outcry, it raised its intended audience to the wise old age of 12. I wonder how do people initiate a conversation in the office about the undeveloped chest of elementary school girls without someone nearby thinking they’re pedophiles?
What kind of PowerPoint presentation was shown to the Abercrombie executives that persuaded them to green light such a product?
That there was a demand to make little girls hot?
I mean, that is the purpose of a push-up bra, right? To enhance sex appeal by lifting up, pushing together and basically showcasing the wearer’s breasts. Now, thanks to AF Kids, girls don’t have to wait until high school to feel self-conscious about their, uhm, girls. They can start almost as soon as they’re potty trained. Maybe this fall the retailer should consider keeping a plastic surgeon on site for free consultations.
We’ve been here with Abercrombie before — if you recall, about 10 years ago they sold thongs for 10-year-olds — but they’re hardly alone in pitching inappropriate clothing to young girls. Four years ago the popular “Bratz” franchise introduced padded bras called “bralettes” for girls as young as six. That was also around the time the good folks at Wal-Mart rolled out a pair of pink panties in its junior department with the phrase “Who Needs Credit Cards” printed on the front.
I guess I’ve been out-of-the-loop and didn’t realize there’s been an ongoing stampede of 10-year-old girls driving to the mall with their tiny fists full of cash demanding sexier apparel.
What’s that you say? Ten-year-olds can’t drive? They don’t have money, either? Well, how else are they getting ahold of these push-up bras and whore-friendly panties?
Their parents?
Noooo, couldn’t be.
What adult who wants a daughter to grow up with high self-esteem would even consider purchasing such items? What parent is looking at their sweet, little girl thinking, “She would be perfect if she just had a little bit more up top.”
And then I remember the little girl at the airport. And the girls we’ve all seen at the mall. And the kiddie beauty pageants.
And then I realize as creepy as it is to think a store like Abercrombie is offering something like the “Ashley”, the fact remains that sex only sells because people are buying it. No successful retailer would consider introducing an item like a padded bikini top for kindergartners if they didn’t think people would buy it.
If they didn’t think parents would buy it, which raises the question: What in the hell is wrong with us?
It’s easy to blast companies for introducing the sexy wear, but our ire really should be directed at the parents who think low rise jeans for a second grader is cute. They are the ones who are spending the money to fuel this budding trend. They are the ones who are suppose to decide what’s appropriate for their young children to wear, not executives looking to brew up controversy or turn a profit.
I get it, Rihanna’s really popular. But that’s a pretty weak reason for someone to dress their little girl like her.
I don’t care how popular Lil’ Wayne is, my son knows I would break both of his legs long before I would allow him to walk out of the house with his pants falling off his butt. Such a stance doesn’t always makes me popular — and the house does get tense from time to time — but I’m his father, not his friend.
Friends bow to peer pressure. Parents say, “No, and that’s the end of it.”
The way I see it, my son can go to therapy later if my strict rules have scarred him. But I have peace knowing he’ll be able to afford therapy as an adult because I didn’t allow him to wear or do whatever he wanted as a kid.
Maybe I’m a Tiger Dad.
Maybe I should mind my own business.
Or maybe I’m just a concerned parent worried about little girls like the one I saw at the airport.
In 2007, the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls issued a report linking early sexualization with three of the most common mental-health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression. There’s nothing inherently wrong with parents wanting to appease their daughters by buying them the latest fashions. But is getting cool points today worth the harm dressing little girls like prostitutes could cause tomorrow?
A line needs to be drawn, but not by Abercrombie. Not by Britney Spears. And not by these little girls who don’t know better and desperately need their parents to be parents and not 40-year-old BFFs.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.
From Remy Melina, LiveScience Staff Writer
Few parents of teens who drink or smoke pot are aware of it, suggests a new study that also finds that most parents are concerned about substance use by teenagers and believe that more than half of 10th-graders drink alcohol (just not their own 10th-grader).
Only 10 percent of parents think their own teens drank alcohol within the last year, and 5 percent believe their teens smoked marijuana in the last year, according to the latest poll by the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.
These low numbers severely clash with the university’s 2010 Monitoring the Future survey, in which 52 percent of surveyed 10th-graders reported drinking alcohol in the last year and 28 percent reported using marijuana within the last year. Those numbers were based on an annual survey of about 420 public and private high schools and middle schools that are selected to provide an accurate representation of U.S. students at each grade level.
“There’s a clear mismatch between what parents are reporting in terms of their children’s possible use of substances and what teenagers report themselves,” said study researcher Bernard Biermann of the department of psychiatry at the University of Michigan. He is also a medical director of the university’s Child/Adolescent Inpatient Unit.
The C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health was administered in May to a group of 667 parents with a child between the ages of 13 and 17.
While most parents seem to assume their own kids aren’t trying alcohol or drugs, they certainly don’t think their child’s peers are as innocent. In the poll, researchers found that many parents of teens are very likely to believe that within the last year at least 60 percent of 10th-graders drank alcohol and 40 percent of 10th-graders used marijuana.
That parents are more likely to expect drug and alcohol use by other teenagers than by their own indicates a need for awareness about teenage substance use, the researchers said. They suggest parents broach the subject with their teens in a nonthreatening way and speak to them about the importance of resisting peer pressure.
“Awareness is a means of opening the door to communication. If parents acknowledge the possibility — and in fact, the likelihood — that their child may have experimented with or used alcohol or marijuana, they can begin to talk to them more about it, provide some guidance, and allow their kids to ask questions,” Biermann said in a statement.
The researchers also suggest that parents carefully monitor their kids and look for signs of substance use. They warn parents not to overreact over a single instance of substance use, and to instead use the experience as an opportunity to talk to their teen in a nonjudgmental way.
When Brooke goes out this weekend, she might have a great night, even meet a guy, and make memories with friends that last a long, long time.
But, if new research is true, what she drinks could be what stays with her the longest.
A Wasted Wizard…and Others
Recently, several high profile stories about young people and their abuse of alcohol have captured the attention of parents around the country.
Daniel Radcliffe, the spectacle-wearing and wand-waving face of the history-making Harry Potter franchise recently reflected on his fame and how he used alcohol to deal with it. (Yeah, I know he’s British…but his final Harry Potter flick just snagged 169.1 million of our dollars on this side of the pond…in the opening weekend alone!) Evidently, a “few” American kids are paying attention to the English actor….
Unbeknownst to most, alcohol played a massive role in his life for several years. In an interview with The Telegraph, the young wizard admitted, “I became reliant on [alcohol] to enjoy stuff…. There were a few years there when I was just so enamored with the idea of living some sort of famous person’s lifestyle that really isn’t suited to me.”
But, Radcliffe’s bout with booze isn’t the only “young-person-wrestles-with-alcohol” story buzzing right now. There’s another one, and sadly, it didn’t end in sobriety. The grievous death of 14-year-old Takeimi Rao in the wine country of Santa Rosa, California has turned heads, as well. In mid July, Rao invited some friends over for a slumber party, and at some point during the night, the girls began mixing soda and vodka. While three of the girls were found vomiting at 2:00 a.m. by Takeimi’s mom, it wasn’t until the next morning that Takeimi’s body was discovered lifeless in the bathroom.
Stories like these continue to cause many American parents to worry about their teenagers’ interactions with alcohol. Rao’s death has left many parents searching for answers in the midst of the tragedy…and wondering if their attempts to avoid a similar family pain will work.
But it may be parents of girls who have the most reason to worry. 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 »
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to what we can do about dating violence.
The first step, though, is to realize that it does happen, and it can happen to your child.
It is important to understand that the more you try to pry your child away from the situation, the more she or he will run to it.
Nothing will happen until your child realizes on their own that the abuse she or he is facing is not love. That can come from flyers, magazines, websites etc. Why not find a couple of flyers with a hotline on them and leave them lying around? What about leaving the name of a website around? Here are a few that I find are extremely focused on helping your child:
From Liz Clairborne(click on the image): 
LoveIsRespect.org is probably my favorite site to give to people about teen dating violence. A young person can come across this site and learn what abuse is, what you can do if you are being abused, even what can you do if you are an abuser. Please use this site. It is simply there to help your child.
Another one from Liz Clairborne, but for parents – 
This one is good to help kids respond to bullying, violence, text harassment etc:
Please use these if you need to. Pass them on to your kids. Pass them on to your neighbors and friends. Remember that violence and bullying happen.
Peace,
Greg
- Only 33% of teens who were in an abusive relationship ever told anyone about it.
- Teen victims of dating violence are more likely to abuse drugs, have eating disorders, and attempt suicide.
- A recent survey of schools found there were an estimated 4,000 incidents of rape or other types of sexual assault in public schools across the country.
- In a study of gay, lesbian and bisexual adolescents, youths involved in same-sex dating are just as likely to experience dating violence as youths involved in opposite sex dating.
- One third of high school students have been or will be involved in an abusive relationship.
- Dating violence is the leading cause of injury to young women.
- Nearly one quarter of girls who have been in a relationship reported going further sexually than they wanted as a result of pressure.
- About 40% of teenage girls ages 14 to 17 say they know someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.
- Approximately 70% of young women rape victims knew their rapist either as a boyfriend, friend or casual acquaintance.
- Six out of ten rapes of young women occur in their own home or a friend or relative’s home, not in a dark alley.
- Females who are 20-24 years of age are at the greatest risk for intimate partner violence.
5 months before the suicide of Phoebe Prince, the town of South Hadley brought in Barbara Coloroso to talk to parents, teachers, and administrators about how to combat bullying in the schools.
Coloroso knows as much about the subject as anyone. She was brought into Columbine after two kids who were bullied decided to get even with guns. She was brought into the Red Lake reservation in Minnesota after a 16-year-old shot seven people dead at the high school where he was bullied.
And she was brought into South Hadley, ahead of the curve, ahead of a tragedy, five months before Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old freshman at South Hadley High, hanged herself after being tormented by a group of girls who just wouldn’t leave her alone. Read the rest of this entry »
Greggornation 