Okay, perhaps it's because I'm a father whose daughter sometimes seems like 11 going on 21, but this interview certainly makes you stop and think about what we're doing motivating girls to grow up so fast. Originally this interview aired on WBUR with NPR's On Point Monday, March 10, 2008. You'll hear Camille Sweeney, contributor to The New York Times, who wrote an article "Never Too Young for That First Pedicure" which appeared February 28th 2008; Samantha Skey, senior vice president of strategic marketing at Alloy Media and Marketing in New York; Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, professor of child development and education at Columbia University, and director of the National Center for Children and Families; Joan Jacobs Brumberg, professor emerita at Cornell University and author of "The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls" interviewed by guest host Jane Clayson.

If your son or daughter put a new cell phone on his or her wish list this holiday season, consider making it a third-generation (3G) phone with GPS. That is if you want to future-proof your purchase for at least a couple more holidays (before 4G phones get their official launch in 2010)!

While many high schools are just starting to consider doing what Empire High School did way back in 2005 (laptops instead of textbooks for every student on an all-wireless campus), colleges are now using cell phones as well as laptops.

Not just for the obvious testing via text message or in-class responses, but for security too. Boston University recently announced requiring students to sign up for their cell phone alert system. While many campuses utilize such technology, BU would be the first to require it. Some tech-savvy parents parents have already tapped into this emerging technology compliments of their mobile carriers family-plan service options.

Verizon's Chaperone service now includes "Child Zone" locations defined around specific areas, such as school and home. Parents can get text messages whenever a family member enters or leaves the "Child Zone" with his or her handset. Sprint Nextel also has a location-based service Family Locator which will let parents use a phone or PC to pinpoint the location of a child on a map. The service can also notify parents when a child arrives at a specified location. Sprint even teamed up with Family Watchdog a company that has mapped the home and work addresses of registered sex offenders in all 50 states. One feature kids like enables the service to notify the child by text message whenever a parent is snooping on them.

The U.S. Census Bureau released a current population report that focuses on household and family characteristics for today's kids. The good news - children's quality of life is on the rise. More kids at grade level and on track academically. More kids taking after-school or weekend lessons. More kids (under six years old) eating breakfast with at least one parent. And even more parents placing limits on TV viewing.

The bad news is that the study also found that between 14.7 and 48.1 percent of kids under 18 (depending on where they live) are kept in their homes as much as possible because of perceived danger in their neighborhood? Sure some of those perceptions of danger are valid, yet some parents in relatively low crime neighborhoods were also more inclined to keep their kids from playing outside. Wonder how those percentages compare to childhood obesity trends? Thomas Lasley, School of Education Dean at the University of Dayton says: "I personally don't think kids are any more at risk today than they were 50, 60, 70 or 100 years ago. We live in a society that has played off fear in a more pronounced way than was evidenced in the past."

Really?! Can parents just blame increasing waistlines on the perceived condition of their neighborhood? Remember what they say: "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

What if computer and video games are in fact preparing our kids for 21st century success? Mark Prensky would say yes. Sure, he’s the founder and CEO of Games2Train, yet his take on students today being “digital natives” and the rest of us being “digital immigrants” might be more than just a postmodern perspective.

Now, before you jump to any conclusions please realize Mark’s an MBA graduate from Harvard and has a Masters in Teaching from Yale. He knows how important learning is. Mark has concluded that today “engagement is more important than content.” After all, kids have to get into it before they will get it.

If you’re a “digital immigrant” you might be thinking “WHAT! Next you’ll be telling me that there’s a good side to junk food and that everything bad is good for you!” Well..., what if today’s pop culture actually makes kids smarter? Even all of us smarter? Perhaps if we keep our mind wide open, we’ll consider this postmodern prescription so that the “virtual world” actually improves the “real world.”

TV-Turnoff Week 2006 is this week April 24-30th. Many schools and organizations are celebrating in all sorts of ways. (Although you probably won't see much of it covered in the television mediaspace, due to the NAB2006 Show happening during this same week.) Ironically one organization, Adbusters has TV spots to promote the week. They also have posters available.

With TVs popping up everywhere – from standing in line at amusement parks and shopping at Walmart, to restroom stalls and urinal walls in public facilities all over America – turning them all off might be quite a challenge. Yet it's a challenge well worth it. A national longitudinal survey of youth conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that early television exposure (from ages 1 to 3) is associated with "attentional problems" by age 7 and beyond (i.e. ADHD, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder). Their recommendation? Limiting television viewing in early childhood. However, the problem continues as this TV-watching habit starts so early in life for so many kids.

Consider the following: Before the age of 18, the average kid in America will have seen 18,000 simulated murders on TV and since 1998, the number of sexual scenes on television has almost doubled. Based on current research, by the time today's kids are 70 years old they'll have spent about 10 years of their life watching TV!

Given current family media habits, the impact that TV potentially has on kids, can be startling according to the

Posted by Fran Kick at 12:19:28 PM in Kids @ Home (6)