Entries from February 2010 ↓

A new study has come out pointing to the idea that a television drama is a better way to move teens to action or alter teens’ behavior than giving them a news story focused on facts. The study gave students a fact-based news story about teen pregnancy and showed an episode of The OC. The news story had no effect on behavior, The OC episode did.

While we may not have needed a study to know that people change their behavior only when they emotionally relate to a story, it’s still good to keep that in mind when talking to our kids about sex, love, drugs, food, school and all the other really important things we want to help our kids understand.

Afte rall, how many of you were texting on your cell phones in the school pick-up line without a bit of guilt even though you’d heard the statistics about accidents?

That is until Oprah told us the heart-wrenching story about the little girl who was killed by a texting driving while riding her bike only a few pedals from her mom.

Oh, the anguish of the family of the child, the child and the driver. It’s the empathy that makes us change our behavior. It’s the desire to avoid that horrible feeling.

For more information about the study check out Science Daily.

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According to an article, Puberty gap: Obesity splits boys, girls on MSNBC.com, new studies have indicated that the current obesity epidemic among children is causing boys to hit puberty later than previous generations.

Girls appear to be hitting puberty one to two years earlier than previous generations.

Theories on what might cause late puberty in overweight boys center on hormones produced in fat cells. Obese males have higher levels of estradiol, a relative of estrogen that may interfere with the male hormone androgen, states the article.

One doctor also provides parents with the solution to early or late puberty in their children:

At a time when so many children are overweight, parents should be more concerned about obesity than puberty, said Dr. Laura K. Bachrach, a professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

“They should be worried about the food they’re putting on the table.”

Fit Girl Series: Whose Body Is It Anyway

Fit Girl Series: We Did It

Fit Girl Series: Accept Your Body

Fit Girl Series: Friends, Strangers With Candy

Fit Girl Series: Comparing Children

Fit Girl Series: Exercise Poll

Fit Girl Series: Eat This, Not That!

Fit Girl Series: BIG FAT LIARS!

Fit Girl Series: Obese Teens on Oprah

Fit Girl Series: Weight = Moral Failure

Fit Family = Fit Girl

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This guy in my Sunday school class, Thomas Ratliff, is running for Texas State School Board. He’s the moderate Republican opposing a right-wing conservative Christian Republican, Don McLeroy. McLeroy is a dentist who leads a majority voting bloc on the Texas State School Board, which is literally rewriting American history in textbooks from a Christian, more specifically, a self-discribed, “fundamentalist” right-wing conservative Christian, perspective.

My husband forwarded me this article he read in The New York Times, How Christian Were The Founding Fathers? It has 10 pages of really scary, “it might be time to consider home schooling the kids,” quotes in it from the controlling members of the Texas School Board.

Lucky for us, we’ll be in Colorado, I said.

Yeah, except for Texas basically writes the textbooks for the rest of the states. They order the most textbooks, and textbook companies don’t want to lose their business, so they write them according to what the Texas School Board votes should be put in them.

From The Times article, Tom Barber, who worked as the head of social studies at the three biggest textbook publishers before running his own editorial company, says, “Texas was and still is the most important and most influential state in the country.” And James Kracht, a professor at Texas A&M’s college of education and a longtime player in the state’s textbook process, told me flatly, “Texas governs 46 or 47 states.”

Damn it!

You’ll probably want to send Thomas Ratliff some money (and vote for him if you’re a Texas Republican) unless you’re cool with the actual rewriting of history to include one very, very specific religious light on history.

Which, as a Christian, I’m totally cool with, as long as that Christian worldview is my Feminist-Mormon-Housewife-Methodist-Liberal-Democrat-Christian-Spiritual-Conciousness-Yogi perspective, of course.

…..The Founding Fathers did too share my perspective! I’ve read all kinds of historical documents to prove it.
……Yes, they did.
……Shut up. Yes, they did too. No Anti-Christian Fascist agenda is going to convince me otherwise.

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The other day a group of junior high boys were laughing about having pantsed a girl.

One of them had pulled her pants down and it was extra-hilarious that she was wearing a thong.

I told them that was actually the criminal offense of sexual assault. I told them if I were the principal, I would have them prosecuted in criminal court for doing that.

But, she liked it! They told me.

No she didn’t, I told them. Girls don’t like it when boys rip their clothes off without their consent.

Yes, she liked it! They insisted.

I told them if I were principal I’d have them sent to detention for saying something so stupid.

Gee, I wonder where boys might get the idea that girls might like it?

Could it be the same places, stories, where girls get the idea that it’s hot for boys to harm them, that it’s a natural turn-on for boys to want to destroy them, silence them, isolate them, give up their futures?

Places like Twilight, Beauty and the Beast, Ariel?

It’s necessary to say: It’s not sane to love someone who treats you poorly, hurts you or threatens to hurt you or humiliates you in public. It’s not hot to mix sex and violence. Violence against yourself or against a girl you like is not a turn on. It is not sane to love your abuser. It is not sane to abuse someone you love.

It’s fundamental.

But, I think it’s come to this, parents need to repeat these messages to both boys and girls.

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Self Magazine is taking nominations for Women Doing Good.

SELF is looking for extraordinary women—who make a difference and work tirelessly so others may live better lives. That woman could be you or someone you know—a woman driven by compassion, who truly strives to improve her community, the environment or the world around her.

The Winner will receive:

• $10,000 donation to her charity of choice
• Feature in the September issue of SELF Magazine
• Trip to New York City to attend the Women Doing Good Awards Ceremony

Click HERE to nominate a woman you know.

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