Filed under: High school, Pre-teen, Teenager, Feminism, Marketing to kids, Bullying, In the NewsHigh school girls in Brisbane, Australia recently created an elite group they called “Club 21.” The girls ranked themselves and each other based on weight, appearance, and popularity with boys — the higher the number, the higher the ranking — and then wrote their number on their wrists. One student wrote, “Ugly girls need not apply.”When the club was discovered, parents and local media were outraged. The club made the front page of many local papers. The school principal, however, is now defending his students, saying they’ve been devastated by the negative attention. He’s asking everyone involved to remember that these are teenagers, vulnerable young people who make mistakes.I was surprised when I found his view refreshing. As a former sensitive girl who is now a mother to two sensitive girls, I’m concerned about the high school years ahead. The “mean girl” culture scares me; I worry that my girls will be a target of it or that, maybe worse, they’ll be a part of it. While I think the behavior of these girls is unacceptable and needs to be dealt with, I have to agree that the harsh media criticism their getting is likely more damaging than it is helpful. Instead of attacking children, maybe time would be better spent changing the environment that creates these types of behaviors in the first place. One of the best books I’ve read about parenting girls is Packaging Girlhood (they also have a blog), and in it, they spend a lot of time discussing how the “mean girl” culture was born and is cultivated, as well as ways that we as parents can put a stop to it. I’m curious — what do you think? Is the media being too harsh on the girls from Brisbane, or are they getting what they deserve? How do you support (or plan to support) your girls in their teenage years?Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Helicopter parents vs. free range kids
Filed under: health and Safety, Doing it myself, Toddler, Preschooler, Pre-teen, Teenager, Blogs, parental relationships, In the NewsWhen I was 11, I had a summer job. Five days a week, I rode my 10-speed two miles into town and babysat three kids. The oldest was 10, furious that her babysitter was only a year older than her. The youngest was only one. I can’t even imagine leaving my kids with an 11-year-old today, but in those days, it was the norm. All of my friends had babysitting jobs, and all of them also got around on their 10-speeds, just like me. By all accounts, children in the United States are safer than ever. Crime is down, accidents and illness are less common than before, and the chance that your kid will be abducted by a stranger, say experts, is about one in a million. Yet many of us, myself included, have a white knuckle grip on our children’s lives. Lenore Skenazy, a Manhattan mom and New York Sun columnist, recently wrote about letting her nine-year-old son ride the subway on his own. Critics and supporters came out in droves, calling her both neglectful and a breath of fresh air. She used the incident to create her own blog about kids and independence, called Free Range kids. The idea behind the concept is to live responsibly (seat belts, helmets, airbags, etc.), but not to restrict your child’s actions out of fear.I’m working every day to balance my own fears with my girls’ budding desire to get out and experience the world on their own terms. But I also think one of the reasons why our kids are so safe is because of the many rules that have changed since we (or our parents) were kids. How many times have you been forwarded that email that says, “You know you were born in 1950/60/70/80 if…”? It always says things like, “We didn’t have bike helmets and we still survived!” Sure, that’s true. But the fact remains that bike helmets have significantly reduced the number of head injuries in children. So I think that we need to be careful when judging what is safe and what is over-protective. It’s far too easy to say, “Well, I did it and I’m fine,” while ignoring the fact that many other children in those decades did it and are not fine.My girls are young and there are no subways in a three-state radius of me, so I’ll likely not have to grapple with the decision that Skenazy made for quite some time. But they do tell me in a million smaller ways when I’m being overprotective. We have an ongoing battle over playing in the front yard — I won’t let them unless I’m out there too (they have a perfectly lovely, fenced backyard they can play in anytime) — and they want to cross busy streets without me clutching their hands. I don’t know if I have it in me to be a “free range parent,” but I’m also working hard to put away my hover-mama tendencies. What about you — where do you fall on the protective parent continuum?Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

The Lolita Effect: marketing sex to tweens
Filed under: Moms, Dads, 10-12 years, Pre-teen, Teenager, 13-14 years, Marketing to kidsThirteen years ago, University of Iowa professor Gigi Durham began research for a book about the sexualization of young girls. Immersing herself in the same world our girls live in, she sought to reveal the motive behind the marketing of sex to 8 to 12-year-olds. Surely it didn’t take 13 years of research to understand that it is all about money. Her new book, The Lolita Effect, explores why and how the adage “sex sells” doesn’t just apply to adults anymore. She believes that this sexualization of tween girls is part of marketer’s larger efforts to create cradle-to-grave consumers. “A lot of very sexual products are being marketed to very young kids,” she said. “I’m criticizing the unhealthy and damaging representations of girls’ sexuality, and how the media present girls’ sexuality in a way that’s tied to their profit motives. The body ideals presented in the media are virtually impossible to attain, but girls don’t always realize that, and they’ll buy an awful lot of products to try to achieve those bodies. There’s endless consumerism built around that.”Durham doesn’t just point the finger at the big, bad marketers and suggest we wait for them to change. She shares five media-created myths of sexuality and gives practical advice on how to battle them. Her first suggestion is to start the conversation early. “There’s this hesitance to talk about these issues, especially before kids reach adolescence,” Durham said. “But often, when parents finally do bring it up, it’s too late. kids have already had their sexual understanding shaped by media. We need to be having a lot of open discussions about the sexualization of childhood and what constitutes healthy sexuality. I don’t think we should neglect our responsibility as adults and leave them to navigate this terrain on their own.”As the parent of a seven-year-old girl, I can attest to the fact that Durham knows of what she speaks. I am regularly appalled at the images and ideas Ellie is exposed to and welcome some good, solid advice on combating it. The Lolita Effect will be released May 1 and I intend to read it.Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Leah Remini’s daughter hits the bottle all night long
Filed under: Preschooler, Celebrity parentsIn her role on The King of Queens, actress Leah Remini sees right through manipulative schemes and has a low tolerance for B.S. However, when it comes to dealing with her four-year-old daughter in real life, Remini is about as tough as a fresh marshmallow. “I’m very consistent; I give in,” Remini shared on the Rachel Ray show, “My daughter runs the house.” Daughter Sofia drinks six to eight bottles during the night which means many runs to the refrigerator and diaper changes for Leah and her husband Angelo. This is obviously going to be a huge struggle and not just because Sofia’s bottle habit has been sustained for years. During the show Remini said if pediatricians don’t tell her what she wants to hear, she just finds a new one. And apparently telling her that her daughter is being manipulative is not what she wants to hear. “Manipulating me to what? To love her? To hang out? What is she manipulating me to do?” Remini said. It’s not unusual for first time parents to be lenient and overly accommodating, but refusing to accept that a four-year-old is playing you when you are fetching six or more bottles every night AND changing the resultant wet diapers is more of an issue with the adult than it is with the child. This is a job for the Super Nanny, not Rachel Ray!Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Bad idea file: Toilet monster
Filed under: Potty training, EmotionsWhat do puppies, drum sets, permanent markers, Hungry, Hungry Hippo, and that super loud Fisher-Price popcorn-popper-on-a-stick toy have in common? If you answered that they are all kid gifts from hell, you’re right! I stumbled across a toy/prank/bizarre idea and was struck by what a colossally bad idea it would be around little kids. Not only is the Toilet Monster a pointless germfest, it also has the power to unpotty train kids and make them terrified of all toilets, perhaps for the rest of their lives. (However, it would have been loads of fun in college!)Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

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