We Want You! Custom Viral for Youth Pranksters & Politicos

Youth will no doubt give this one a nudge up the internet viral video charts, right up there with the ol’ Elf Yourself campaign we wrote about last season. Witty, seamless, and oh-so-relevant for the U.S. 2008 fall election year blitz, this campaign’s for you (literally) whether you’re ‘red, blue, or green’ in partisan politics... Insert YOUR … [Read more...]

Amy Jussel On Kids’ Media Management and Childhood Matters

Why ‘Amy Jussel’ instead of ‘Shaping Youth’ in the headline today? Because this time it’s personal…That’s mama code for ‘don’t do as I do, do as I say’ on the media management front from my own tween experience regarding familial cellphone contracts, texting and mobile media. I was on the radio with talk show host Nurse Rona Renner (podcast to be archived here) who runs … [Read more...]

America the Beautiful Documentary: See it. Support It.

Shaping Youth’s K-5 playground documentary in development, “Body Blitz: Media, Shaping Youth” should get a big boost of media ‘umpf’ and fiscal validation with the release of the new doc, America the Beautiful opening today in L.A. (theater listings/city slate here) and next Friday in S.F., S.D., and Las Vegas! I’ll be interviewing America … [Read more...]

Get ‘Em Outside! Shaping Youth Heads for The Hills

May 17, 2016 Between this post about children's sensory atrophy and the positive practices of Vitamin N...nature, I feel compelled to send another shoutout on Twitter to "Get 'Em Outside!" (video embedded below) Kids faces beam with energy and fun making informal learning a 'vitamin E' for environment+ education...all in show-n-tell hands-on form. The excitement is … [Read more...]

State of Our Nation’s Youth Report Released: Teens Up/Down

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society.  The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute."  ~Gil Stern It’s not often that I heave-ho a bunch of stats and data in your face sans comment, but the 10th State of Our Nation’s Youth report was issued this week by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans and … [Read more...]