Or… Whether ’tis nobler to be an invasive parent or trust your teenager?

That is the question.

The fastest growing segment of people on Facebook (FB) are those over thirty-five years old. A lot of them are parents.

It won’t be long before some very clever hacker will produce Facebook G2: ‘Where your mom can’t find you.’ Why? Because even in the Internet-cell phone- GPS age, a developing young adult wants his or her privacy. Is that so bad?

This question came to my attention when I first joined Facebook about a year ago. Being a newbie, I did everything Facebook instructed me to do, including invite everyone in my email address book to be my ‘friend’. That included my teenage son, M.

One day M. passed by me in the kitchen and we did a stop and chat. “Hey, you never accepted my invitation to be my friend on Facebook.” It isn’t often I see a deer caught in the headlights look in my son’s eyes. “Mom, no.” “What? Don’t you want to be my friend on Facebook?” The look in his eyes grew desperate, less deer and more torture victim, “Mom. Please. No.”

M. was on Facebook a year before I was. My son is a healthy typical American teenager, which is to say, his peers mean everything to him. I don’t expect to know, or approve, of every little thing he’s up to, but I do expect him to be responsible and, in the most important sense, he is. He didn’t exactly ask my permission to have a FB account but he didn’t hide it either.

via To Be or Not to Be My Kid’s Friend On Facebook | World of Psychology.

Hint: Don’t tell your kids that they are. More than three decades of research shows that a focus on effort—not on intelligence or ability—is key to success in school and in life…

read the rest here The Secret to Raising Smart Kids: Scientific American.

via Psychology Today: Parent, Not Patsy.

Flanders’ daughter had no symptoms. But in November, an ultrasound revealed two kidney stones, which are unusual in children. Now the Los Angeles-area nurse wonders if melamine is to blame.

Mobile News Network

Too many times I’ve done this exercise with couples in my office when they find out it actually costs them more money each month to put their kids in daycare than it would to simply stay at home.  Just a thought.

It’s a question that faces most parents, but there’s no clear answer:

How do we know whom we can trust with our children?

A recent report by the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies found that 63 percent of the nation’s children under 5 are in some type of child care arrangement every week. That includes day care centers, home-based centers, care by relatives and various combinations.

Illinois licenses child care workers, but how can parents compare such intangibles as caring, sincerity and warmth? What’s the next best thing to parents?

Mobile News Network

By the way, my official stance on safe sex is, and this works every time with no fear of pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, DON’T HAVE SEX UNLESS YOU’RE MARRIED.

“Hey baby, you OK?” Mike asks his girlfriend as she sits down next to him.

“Yeah, I’m OK,” Toni says, and she puts her head on his shoulder. Mike thinks it’s safe to move in for a kiss.

“Slow down,” she says, pushing him back. “Just because I’ve decided to take you back, it doesn’t erase the fact that you cheated on me.” He looks away sheepishly.

“Look, we’re going to be using condoms from now on,” Toni says. “And tomorrow, we’re getting tested. And that’s that.”

She kisses him, and Mike manages a little smile.

Mobile News Network (Cell phone soap operas deliver safe-sex message)

Facebook began as a site just for college kids, but now it is an online home for 140 million people from all over the world. Among the new faces of Facebook are women like Kelli Roman, 23, who last year posted a photo of herself nursing one of her two children.

Mobile News Network

7 Factors That Foster Teen Virginity, Pledge or No Pledge – Heart to Heart (usnews.com)

New Year Nibbles – Hors d’oeuvres for New Year’s Eve! – Entertaining Articles – Recipes Today

But this movie did not stink, and here is why:

1. One of the coolest quotes in the movie is when John’s best friend is sorting of hinting that he should divorce his wife, and John responds “mend it, don’t end it.”  What a great message and this theme is throughout the movie.  Their marriage is hard at times, but neither ever gives up on each other, the kids, or that crazy dog.
2. I wept out of control because they develop the love for each other, the kids, and the dog to the very end.
3. John and Jennifer serve each other throughout the movie in strong and creative ways.
4. Did I mention that the movie totally promotes committed and dedicated marriages?

The following is an article on the movie from EW.com:

Hollywood got just what it wanted this holiday weekend: A puppy. Marley & Me, the tale of a couple’s life with each other and their provocative pooch, easily won a robust holiday weekend at the box office, adding an estimated $37 million this weekend to the record $14.7 it fetched on Christmas day ($51.7 million for the four days). It’s a big win for man’s best friend — not to mention Friend, with Jennifer Aniston front and center in the movie’s promotional effort. A healthy $10,632 per-screen average bodes well for an extended run, particularly with no significant new competition at the multiplex until the first set of ‘09 new releases arrives on Jan. 9.

‘Marley & Me’ top dog at weekend box office | Showbiz News and Scoop | Studio and Network Dish | EW.com

Kids can learn how to ackowledge feelings over facts and the benefit of this is priceless. By the time your kid gets married, it will be second nature to validate. What a great gift for your child.

Remember, the point of parenting is to raise and release healthy adults. There is no healthier adult than one who knows how to validate.

(posted from my iPhone)

And the seasons, they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time –

We can’t return, we can only look behind from where we came

And go round and round round in the circle game …

It took Joni less than five minutes to make that observation.

It takes “Benjamin Button” close to three hours, demonstrating (yet again) that more isn’t always better.

Sometimes it’s just too much.

“Benjamin Button” is nothing if not ambitious — especially in its consideration of the Big Picture. (Otherwise known as Life and What It All Means.)

ReviewJournal.com – Neon – MOVIE REVIEW: ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’

CHECK OUT WHAT KIDS-IN-MIND.COM has to say about the movie:

The network’s ratings among viewers 12 to 34, its core demographic, are down 23 percent during the fourth quarter, while in the past six months, its “numbers for females 12-24 cratering 33% and males 12-24 dropping 24%,” Variety reports. Even The Hills has lost 26 percent of its viewers ages 12 to 34.

MTV Networks president Brian Graden told the paper that the “new shows will feature themes of affirmation and accomplishment. Our shows are going to focus less on loud and silly hooks and more on young people proving themselves. These are themes that are consistent with the Obama generation.”

He said that the network “needed a new visual language.”

MTV’s Ratings Down 23% Among 12- to 34-Year-Olds

I was stunned — and also a little embarrassed that I had been effusively rambling about Christmases long ago. But I listened as he shared his angst at the season. It was due to his childhood that included a broken home, fights over where they would be for the holidays, and a not-so-caring stepparent who spent every holiday (and most other days) in a bottle.

How to Have a Holly Jolly Christmas (Families Northwest)

Ratings as provide by www.kids-in-mind.com

Go to full review at  http://www.kids-in-mind.com/y/yesman.htm.

My son Cole, being a boy, suggested that she simply let the wind and air dry her hair out.  Luckily my wife was still in the bathroom and we were on the other side of the house, so Amy could not hear our conversation.  I quickly helped my son realize the error of his statement, and told him that women do not just let the wind and air dry their hair out.

In response, Cole said, and I’m quoting here, “Well if it is good enough for the dogs, what’s the big deal to women?”  Thankfully Cole is only 12 years-old, so I still have some time to help him learn how to eventually relate better to the ladies.

The above headlines sound suspiciously similar to our good old women’s magazines – complete with the usual conversation on our bodies (unbelievably thin models? Check. Thin “regular” girls? Check), looks and men.

Minding the Media: Teen Magazines – World of Psychology.