Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

iTunes – Top 10 Downloaded Songs 6/19/08

1. I Kissed a Girl – Katy Perry
2. When I Grow Up – The Pussycat Dolls
3. 7 Things – Miley Cyrus
4. Viva La Vida  – Coldplay
5. Play My Music – Jonas Brothers
6. Shake It – Metro Station
7. Pocketful of Sunshine – Natasha Bedingfield
8. Disturbia – Rihanna
9. Forever – Chris Brown
10. Take a Bow – Rihanna

Source: Apple iTunes

Top 10 TV Shows in Prime Time – Week ending 6/15/08

1. NBA Finals (ABC) – Game 5
2. NBA Finals (ABC) – Game 3
3. NBA Finals (ABC) – Game 4
4. NCIS
5. Two And A Half Men
6. CSI
7. 48 Hours Mystery Tuesday
8. Million Dollar Password
9. CSI: NY
10. CSI: Miami

Source: Nielsen Media

Top 5 Movies – Week ending 6/12/08

1. Kung Fu Panda
2. You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
3. Sex and the City
4. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
5. The Strangers

Source: Box Office Mojo
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekly/chart/?yr=2008&wk=04&p=.htm

Parents In The Dark

A recent Symantec study, the Norton Online Living Report, fielded by Harris Interactive, reports how kids and adults are spending their time online, do they talk to strangers, treat online friends different than offline friends, look for a date, pay a bill, play a game, or compare to the rest of the world?

The study found that parents in the U.S. think their kids are online two hours a month, but in reality, kids report spending 20 hours a month online.  And, 41% of U.S. teens ages 13-17 years old agree that their parent have no idea what they are looking at online.

On average, only a third of parents worldwide set parental controls and monitor their children's online activities.

Marian Merritt, Internet Safety Advocate, Symantec, concludes that "Parents are in the dark when it comes to knowing what their kids are doing online… this report clearly demonstrates a global digital divide between parents and their cyber-savvy children…"

Source: Center for Media Research
http://blogs.mediapost.com/research_brief/?p=1726

Parents, are you in the dark when it comes to your kids and the Internet? Do you know how much time your kids are spending online? Do you know what they are doing online? Today's kids have many access points to the Internet outside of the home environment so it's virtually impossible to know everything your kids are viewing online, but establishing clear expectations and being vigilant to provide oversight is key to keeping the Internet experience safe for your kids.

Marijuana Potency Increases to Highest Levels in Decades, Study Finds

An important study just released indicates that marijuana potency has doubled since 1983. My concern is that some parents who experimented with marijuana (or used it regularly) in their adolescence may not have adequate concern for their own kids' experimentation. At HomeWord, we've warned for years that marijuana potency has increased since the 1970s. Knowing that potency levels have doubled since the 80s raises our concern to a new level and hope that the same concern will be shared by parents.

The latest analysis from the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project tracked the average amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in samples seized by law enforcement agencies from 1975 through 2007. It found that the average amount of THC reached 9.6 percent in 2007, compared with 8.75 percent the previous year.

The 9.6 percent level represents more than a doubling of marijuana potency since 1983, when it averaged just under 4 percent.

"Today's report makes it more important than ever that we get past outdated, anachronistic views of marijuana," said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. He cited baby boomer parents who might have misguided notions that the drug contains the weaker potency levels of the 1970s.

"Marijuana potency has grown steeply over the past decade, with serious implications in particular for young people," Walters said. He cited the risk of psychological, cognitive and respiratory problems, and the potential for users to become dependent on drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

Source: Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,365802,00.html

Ten Percent of Adolescent Girls Admit to Either Binge Eating or Purging

According to the June 9, 2008 issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, one in ten teenage girls either binge eats or purges at least once a week. The incidence of purging was highest among younger adolescent girls. Binge eating among boys was 3%, and boys were less likely to engage in purging. Alison E. Field, ScD, associate professor of pediatrics, in the division of adolescent medicine at Children’s Hospital, Boston, in Massachusetts said, “I would believe that 10% [of girls] would at least experiment with these behaviors, but once a week is quite severe.” The authors also found that girls who diet frequently and are concerned about their weight are at greater risk for developing eating disorders. Girls, younger than 14, were three times as likely to binge or purge if their mother had a history of an eating disorder.

Source: MedHeadlines
http://medheadlines.com/2008/06/13/ten-percent-of-adolescent-girls-admit-to-either-binge-eating-or-purging/

For more information about eating disorders and how to deal with them, click on the following article titles:

Information on Eating Disorders

Dealing with Eating Disorders and Diet Pills

Teens Who Repeatedly Cut Themselves Have Greater HIV Risk

Teens who repeatedly cut themselves are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, increasing their chances of possibly contracting HIV, according to a study in the June issue of the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

Researchers from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center in Providence, R.I. report that frequent self-cutters -- teens who have cut themselves more than three times -- used condoms less consistently, were more likely to share cutting instruments, and had less self-restraint. The study is the first to examine whether these teens engage in the same level of risk behaviors as those who've only experimented with cutting once or twice.

Source: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080612070410.htm

For more information about cutting, click on the following article title:

When Pain is All You Have - Why Teenagers Cut Themselves

Zapping Teenage Torment

ADOLESCENCE is an awkward time to grow a mustache. Especially if you’re a girl.

And now removing hair, like getting braces, is making the transition from vanity to necessity for increasingly more parents and their girls and boys. “I have a teenage client who is on the swim team and is getting hair removed from his back,” said Rena Abdinova, a registered nurse and an owner of the City Skin and Laser Clinic in San Francisco. “He has a 24-year-old brother who was also on the swim team in high school and had hair on his back, but then it wasn’t an issue. People are becoming much more self-conscious about hair.”

Teenagers often require more laser treatments than adults because their hormonal fluctuations can change the rate and pattern of hair growth. Still, hair removal by laser is the most popular nonsurgical cosmetic procedure among minors, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, an organization of board-certified plastic surgeons.

Source: New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/fashion/05SKIN.html?

Living Together: No Big Deal?

An analysis of cohabitation, marriage and divorce data from 13 countries, including the USA, shows that living together has become so mainstream that growing numbers of Americans view it as an alternative to marriage.

"We're still the most marrying of all these countries, but the data are clearly headed in the one common direction. It's headed in the direction of cohabitation as an alternative," says David Popenoe, the report's author and co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, which studies marriage and child well-being.

Using databases of Census-like information in the countries studied, the new analysis found that the marriage rate is down in all countries except Norway and Sweden, which have had traditionally low marriage rates. In the USA from 1995 to 2005, the marriage rate declined almost 20%.

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20080609/d_worldcohab09.art.htm

Parent or a Pal? Parents Are Conflicted

According to data from the 2007 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS), released by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, some parents feel conflicted in parenting their teens because they value having a strong friendship with their child. Parents’ wish to be their child’s friend and their reluctance to set rules and limits for their kids increases dramatically during the middle school years.

PATS found 36 percent of parents with kids in grades 6th-8th agree “it is very important to me that my child consider me a friend” compared to 20 percent of parents with children in 4th-5th grades.

Parents of middle school kids (6th -8th grades) are more likely than parents of elementary school children (4th-5th grades) to agree that:

I have a hard time saying “no” to my child when he/she wants to do something or go somewhere I have doubts about (37 percent vs. 18 percent).

It’s hard to tell my child not to do something if all of his/her friends’ parents allow them to do it or if other parents approve (40 percent vs. 19 percent).

Source: Businesswire
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080611005251&newsLang=en

This is a difficult area for some parents. The desire to have a close relationship (friendship) with children as they grow older can become a more important priority than equipping them to become responsible adults. Yet, the latter is the larger priority. A parent's job is not to be their child's best friend. Adolescence is a season of life where kids need their parents to provide guidance, and consistent discipline to help them mature into responsible adulthood. This of course, can create tension between parents and kids. It's not uncommon for parents to feel "unliked' by their kids when they employ loving, steady-handed discipline with their teens. As much as this may make a parent feel uncomfortable, it's okay. As kids reach adulthood, they'll typically come around and the friendship relationship can grow.