Do You Think “Greek” Is ABC Family Fare?

Parenting today is a bit like watching this video of sweet puppies... Suddenly Sam "the ugliest dog in the world" pops up in your face and shocks the shorts off of ya! Just when you’re comfy and complacent, whammo, a zinger comes your way from a brand that startles and surprises. Example? My tween is locked into a full tilt music fixation with the Plain White … [Read more...]

Dumb Like A Fox: Danica McKellar Sells Smarts

Update June 2, 2015 What a difference a half-dozen years makes.Once upon a time I hailed Danica as our first honoree/role model, and profiled her math mission as exponentially positive, selling smarts to those more interested in beauty duty as subversive marketing brilliance to outreach to new audiences.While I STILL feel that was mathlete McKellar’s original intent with “Math … [Read more...]

Bratz Movie Seeps Brattitude Into Kid Culture

Two of Shaping Youth's stellar Advisory Board team, Dr. Sharon Lamb & Dr. Lyn Mikel Brown at Packaging Girlhood wrote this fabulous Op Ed about the Bratz Film and its purportedly 'cleaned up' message. They plopped it on their blog, and gave me permission to do the same for our readers as "guest editorial" on the next page. I've written about the toxicity of the Bratz … [Read more...]

“Women Leaders For the World” Selects Shaping Youth!

I’ve been trying to stay low key about being selected as one of the U.S. representatives for the Women Leaders for the World program, but after spending the last few days with my fellow GWLN delegates, (bios here) this is an intense global experience that will no doubt impact every iota of my very being. From Rashmi explaining the agribusiness loss of indigenous foods … [Read more...]

Harry Potter Alliance Tackles the Darkness of Darfur

Let me get this straight. Media watchdogs deem the new Harry Potter film inappropriate for children, yet it’s being marketed to them heavily. Mainstream media mavens and reviewers debate the brooding adolescent depictions of an angry, angst-ridden Harry, deciding it’s gritty teen fare, on the cusp of its PG-13 rating. Gotcha. Meanwhile dark acts in the REAL world … [Read more...]