Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Teens on Facebook GOL (grumble out loud) as Mothers Become Friends

Mothers have found a even better way to humiliate their children than showing baby pictures: becoming a friend on Facebook.

Like the cyber version of being picked up in an uncool car, teens are now mortified by nagging chats and clueless comments left by their mothers on their online profiles.

Mothers tend to use Facebook "as a way to reattach the umbilical cord...But then they nag and get offended if they feel neglected." said Erika Brooks Adickman, 28, who with friend Jeanne Leitenberg, 27, launched a site last year called "Oh Crap! My Parents Joined Facebook."

Nearly a third of Facebook teens are ready to unfriend their parents on the social networking site and are twice as likely to want to avoid Mom as Dad, according to an AOL study released Tuesday.

Youngsters are blanketing the Web with protests. Scores of complaints about mothers posting annoying messages and embarrassing photos have been posted on Twitter.

More than three-fourths of parents on Facebook are connected to their children's profiles, according to the report from AOL.

Source: Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-facebook-teens-20100825,0,5741860.story

Students, Welcome to College; Parents, Go Home

In order to separate doting parents from their freshman sons, Morehouse College in Atlanta has instituted a formal “Parting Ceremony.”

It began on a recent evening, with speeches in the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel. Then the incoming freshmen marched through the gates of the campus — which swung shut, literally leaving the parents outside.

As the latest wave of superinvolved parents delivers its children to college, institutions are building into the day, normally one of high emotion, activities meant to punctuate and speed the separation. It is part of an increasingly complex process, in the age of Skype and twice-daily texts home, in which colleges are urging “Velcro parents” to back off so students can develop independence.

Parents helping their students move in usually takes a few hours. Moving on? Most deans can tell stories of parents who lingered around campus for days.

Formal “hit the road” departure ceremonies are unusual but growing in popularity, said Joyce Holl, head of the National Orientation Directors Association. A more common approach is for colleges to introduce blunt language into drop-off schedules specifying the hour for last hugs.

Some undergraduate officials see in parents’ separation anxieties evidence of the excesses of modern child-rearing. “A good deal of it has to do with the evolution of overinvolvement in our students’ lives,” said Mr. Dougharty of Grinnell. “These are the baby-on-board parents, highly invested in their students’ success. They do a lot of living vicariously, and this is one manifestation of that.”

He and other student-life officials encourage parents to detach — not just at drop-off but throughout the freshman year, including limiting phone calls and text messages.

Parents, of course, know that in their head. But they still struggle to let go.

Source: New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/education/23college.html

Many Parents Fret Over Time Kids Spend on Phones, Computers

Many American parents are worried that the large amount of time teens spend immersed in electronic media makes it difficult to discuss the dangers of risky behavior such as drug and alcohol use, a new study indicates.

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America surveyed more than 1,200 parents and found that more than one-third are concerned about how TV (38 percent), computers (37 percent) and video games (33 percent) hinder parent-child communications.

More than one-quarter of parents are also worried about new forms of media such as cell phone texting (27 percent), and social networking sites such as Facebook (25 percent) and Twitter (19 percent).

"These new findings present a unique opportunity for parents to play a more active role in what their kids are watching, monitor how they are spending their time online and remain aware of the impact all of this media consumption is having on their impressionable teens," Steve Pasierb, president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, said in an organization news release.

"We know that kids today are bombarded with pro-drug and drinking messages via everything from song lyrics, movies and video games, to social networking sites. Videos of kids abusing cough medicine and common household products to get high are all too accessible online and that's why it's more important than ever for parents to break through the media noise and make their voices heard," he added.

One way for parents to do that is to use electronic devices to connect with their teens to begin and maintain a dialogue about avoiding risky behaviors. While not as good as an in-person conversation, parents can use e-mail, cell phones and texting to begin a dialogue with a reluctant teen, and to reinforce safety messages at times when teen drug use and drinking is more likely, such as after school, on weekends and during unsupervised periods.

Source: Businessweek
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/641960.html

Do As I Say, Not As I Text

Providing new insight into the complexities of contemporary parenting, the "LG Text Ed Survey," conducted by TRU Research and sponsored by LG Mobile Phones, found that parents engage in poor texting behaviors, consistently underestimate the misuse of texting by their teens, but believe that texting produces increased communication and better relationships between family members.

The LG Text Ed Survey is a national snapshot of texting behaviors among 13 to 17 year olds and parents of 13 to 17 year olds.

Key Survey Findings

Do as I say, not as I text: Data from the LG Text Ed survey exposed parents participating in the following mobile misuse behavior:
• 28 percent of parents admit to engaging in some form of "sexting" and 43 percent of teens admit to doing the same.
• Almost half of all parents and teens surveyed admit to texting and driving.

The parent-teen gap: Additionally, the LG Text Ed survey revealed that many parents are unaware of teen mobile phone misuse. Of those surveyed:
• 45 percent of teens admit to texting and driving. And only 4 percent of parents believe their teens ever text while driving.
• 41 percent of teens admit to sending, receiving, or forwarding a text that said something sexual, while only 11 percent of parents thought their teens had ever sexted.

Texting = closer families: The LG research also revealed an encouraging fact about life in the digital age. Results showed that the simple act of communicating over teens' preferred medium of communication, texting, facilitated a closer relationship between parent and child. The survey found:
• 90 percent of texting parents felt closer to their teen as a result of the medium.
• 42 percent of parents said that texting increased the frequency of communication between parent and teen.
• 68 percent of all texting parents agree that communicating via text makes them more comfortable when their teen is out.

Source: PRNewswire
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/do-as-i-say-not-as-i-text-98497159.html

Texting While Driving More Common Among Adults Than Teens

Adults are guilty of the dangerous activity of texting while driving more often than teenagers, according to the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. The Pew study also revealed that adults are substantially more likely to talk on a cell phone while driving than teenagers.

According to the study half (47 percent) of all adults who text have done it while driving. That compares with 34 percent of teens (aged 16 to 17) who text. The survey revealed that 74 percent of adults that own cell phones have talked while driving, while just over half (52 percent) of teens with phones have talked while behind the wheel.

Source: PCWorld
http://www.pcworld.com/article/199323/texting_while_driving_more_common_among_adults_than_teens.html

Regular Time With Dad Is Key to Kids' Happiness

The key to childhood happiness might be more face time with Dad. Kids who chat regularly with their father are happier than kids who don’t, according to new research.

Children who converse with their father “most days” rated themselves 87 out of 100 on a happiness scale, while those who rarely talk to their dads scored a 79. The study results, released by the Children’s Society in Great Britain, called the findings “highly significant” because research has demonstrated that a person’s well-being later in life has a lot to do with their relationship with both parents during the teen years.

Of the 1,200 children in the study, who were 11 to 15, nearly 50% said they “hardly ever” talk to their dads about important subjects, as compared with just 28% who report rarely discussing important subjects with their moms.

Source: New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/2010/06/18/2010-06-18_regular_time_with_dad_is_key_to_kids_happiness_study.html#ixzz0rbdmEG4D

Cost of Raising a Child Increases

And the cost estimate DOESN"T include college...

A child born in 2009 will cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars, or about $222,360, to raise to maturity, up a little less than 1% from 2008, the Agriculture Department said Wednesday in its annual report on the average cost of raising a child. (The department runs the survey to help courts and state governments set child-support guidelines.) Expenses for child care, education and health care rose the most compared with 2008, while the cost of transportation for a child actually fell, the department said. Annual child-rearing expenses for the average middle-income, two-parent family range from $11,650 to $13,530, depending on the age of the child, the department says.

Child care accounts for 17% of the total spending, and education for 16% of the total. The cost of housing makes up nearly one-third of the total; this is gauged by the average cost of an additional bedroom. But the tally excludes any spending on kids over age 17, so it doesn’t include one of the biggest and fastest-growing single financial outlays many parents make: the cost of sending your child through college. Higher-education costs aren’t included, the department says.

Source: Wall Street Journal
http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2010/06/10/cost-of-raising-a-child-ticks-up/

With Drinking, Parent Rules Do Affect Teens' Choices

As teenagers mature into their senior year of high school, many parents begin to feel more comfortable about letting them drink alcohol. But new research from brain scientists and parenting experts suggests loosening the reins on drinking may not be a good idea in the long run. And, researchers say, parents' approach to addressing teen drinking does influence a teen's behavior.

Brain researchers are finding that alcohol has a particularly toxic effect on the brain cells of adolescents. That's because their brain cells are still growing, says Susan Tapert, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego.

The regions of the brain important for judgment, critical thinking and memory do not fully mature until a person is in his or her mid-20s. Tapert found that alcohol can damage the normal growth and development of a teenager's brain cells in these regions.

"Adolescents who engage in binge drinking (that is, having five or more drinks on occasion for boys, or four or more drinks on occasion for females) tend to show some brain abnormalities in their brain's white matter. That's the fibers that connect different parts of our brains," she wrote in a recent study.

So if parents want to give a "no alcohol" message to their teens, what can they do? Alcohol researcher Caitlin Abar from Pennsylvania State University found that parents' efforts do play a role in shaping their teens' behavior. She studied how parents deal with their high school teenagers regarding alcohol use while still at home, and she then checked after the teens' first semester of college. Her study of 300 teenagers and their parents was published recently in the journal Addictive Behaviors.

"Parents who disapproved completely of underage alcohol use tended to have students who engaged in less drinking, less binge drinking, once in college," Abar says.

And conversely, a parent's permissiveness about teenage drinking is a significant risk factor for later binge drinking.

"The parents who are more accepting of teen drinking in high school were more likely to have children who engaged in risky drinking behaviors in college, compared to those children who had parents that were less accepting," Abar says. The researchers also asked the teens about their parents' drinking patterns and found that parents' own drinking behavior influenced a teen's later alcohol use.

Source: NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127222042

Why Are Grown Women Smitten with Today’s Teen Idols?

Interesting article today in the Boston Globe entitled "Never Too Late to Swoon," where the author digs into the issue of why some moms today have schoolgirl crushes on today's young male stars and shows and movies targeted at teens and tweens...

Like many mothers and daughters, Mary Irizarry and her 12-year-old argue sometimes. But their disputes aren’t over texting or clothing. They disagree about which male “Twilight’’ star is cuter.

“My daughter says Jacob [played by 18-year-old Taylor Lautner] is stronger and has better muscles,’’ said Irizarry 33, a salesperson and administrative assistant from Springfield, “but I think Edward [played by 24-year-old Robert Pattinson] is better looking and more romantic.’’

She allowed herself a sigh. “I’m all about Edward.’’

Irizarry is one of those moms with schoolgirl crushes — adult women who are happily obsessed with young stars, as well as movies and TV shows aimed at teens and tweens. Unlike earlier generations of women, who either kept secret their crushes on youthful stars like Elvis or the Beatles — or simply didn’t have them, today many moms see nothing wrong in proclaiming their fascination.

Moms are online chatting on sites like “Gossip Girl Moms,’’ born of the young-adult book series and CW TV show, or “Vampire Moms,’’ for fans of the “Vampire Diaries’’ TV show and books. They’re reading Disneyfamily.com, where a story called “Our 20 Favorite Mom Crushes,’’ includes teen idols Zac Efron and Pattinson. They’re mooning over 16-year-old pop star Justin Bieber on “Oprah.’’

A variety of cultural forces are turning women with crow’s feet into lovesick post-post-adolescents. For starters, the societal fixation with youth leads some people to believe they are still, in fact, young. If 40 is the new 20, what’s so wrong about lusting after “High School Musical’’ star Efron, even if Rolling Stone did call him a “poster boy for tweenyboppers’’?

The closer relationship between today’s mothers and daughters, in which both generations wear similar clothes, drink the same lattes, and collegially follow “American Idol’’ and “Glee,’’ is also a factor, experts say.

Source: Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/family/articles/2010/05/13/why_are_so_many_moms_smitten_with_todays_teen_idols/?page=1

What Kills Teens?

A new report out from the National Center for Health Statistics finds that in the period of 1999-2006, of the more than 16,000 teenagers that die annually, most are killed in auto accidents, but other accidents, murder, suicide and disease also take their toll.

Key Findings:

• An average of 16,375 teenagers 12-19 years died in the United States every year from 1999 to 2006. This is less than 1 percent of all deaths that occur every year in the United States.

• The five leading causes of death among teenagers are Accidents (unintentional injuries), homicide, suicide, cancer, and heart disease. Accidents account for nearly one-half of all teenage deaths.

• As a category of accidents, motor vehicle fatality is the leading cause of death to teenagers, representing over one-third of all deaths.

• Among teenagers, non-Hispanic black males have the highest death rate (94.1 deaths per 100,000 population).

• Homicide is the leading cause of death for non-Hispanic black male teenagers. For all other groups, accident is the leading cause.

Sources: Businessweek, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/638802.html
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db37.htm