The Science of Character: Hosted by Shaping Youth and Reach and Teach

Mar. 20, 2014 Premiering worldwide! Attention students of life...“There are 7.1 billion people on the planet, and each one of us has a unique character,” opens The Science of Character filmmaker and … [Read more...]

Who Won the Debate? Kids’ Focus on Appearance Mirrors Our Country

Oct. 4, 2012 Ask any kindergartener to assess the debates last night and you’d probably hear simple reactions like: “He smiles more” or “He looks nicer” or “He looks like he didn’t study”…and … [Read more...]

It’s Veteran’s Day: If I Have To Tell You One More Time…

Nov. 11, 2011 As schools let out for the Friday Veteran’s Day holiday, I double-dog dare you to ask each child why they get the day off and submit the answers here for a positive parenting … [Read more...]

ABCs of Life: What’s Your Gift To Graduating Youth?

June 4, 2010 How many graduating class invitations do you have piled up from folks you haven’t heard from in an eternity? I’m curious. I’m at three, and trying not to ‘over-think’ the blinding … [Read more...]

Memorial Day Salute: Reverence, Reflection, Resources

May 27, 2016 Update Poignant new documentary trailer/film fundraiser about the impact of war on military families, called "Weight of Honor" which is a solemn reminder of sacrifices made, lives changed … [Read more...]

Spring Break 2010: Service Learning from Teens Turning Green

April 3, 2010 While media reports often churn out attention-getting stereotypes of spring break scenes of rowdy youth antics under the auspices of ‘what sells,’ to feed the money machine, we all too … [Read more...]

Deconstructing Gaga: Through the Lens of 100 Youth

Mar. 29, 2010 Whether you’re Gaga for Gaga or your emotions run toward dropping the last letter (ahem, cough) there’s no doubt her one billion online video views ascending her from bland to brand have … [Read more...]

USC Media Student Bryn Kressin & Packaging Boyhood Book Winners!

Jan.1, 2010 Happy New Year! This joyous photo of youthful exuberance is Bryn Kressin, at left; one of our Shaping Youth winners of yesterday’s Packaging Boyhood book drawing where we pulled names … [Read more...]

Flash Animation & Viral KidVid? Give Pause

Nov. 3, 2009 Here's a marketing campaign kids LOVE (me too!) No secret I’m a huge Fido fan…Flash animation? Not so much. It often freezes my Firefox and fouls up the works more often than not on … [Read more...]

Obama’s Speech to Kids: Controversy or Common Sense?

Sept. 8, 2009 As a nonpartisan, nonprofit, non-religious based entity, I’m having a hard time seeing the logic of pulling kids out of school to avoid a Presidential speech about kids staying in school … [Read more...]

Playnormous Health-Edu Games Offer FREE Monster iMacs!

Sept. 1, 2009 How do you improve K-12 student’s health knowledge, inspire creative writing, support eco-values of refurbished technology, and use whimsical hand-painted art of animated monsters to … [Read more...]

One Teen’s View on Going Green: Use Eco as an Equalizer

August 27, 2009 One of my Title I school students said, "We recycle in my house...it's called hand-me-downs." Hmn. Since then, I've been attuned to the "green is for those who HAVE green" … [Read more...]

Back to School: Are Teens REALLY Going Green?

August 20, 2009 Leave it to a teen to tap into the core eco-issue behind why there’s tons of talk about green teens but not enough ‘walking the walk’ toward sustainable lifestyle shifting ‘en … [Read more...]

Neda: Iconic, Insta-Media Shifts Us To Visual Story Threads

June 22, 2009 Youth culture is highly visual and iconic, no doubt about it. According to Graham Brown's article, Youth in Iran, about 60% of the population in Iran is under 25, so it's no surprise … [Read more...]

Serious Fun! Making Media to Study for SAT Exams

Mar. 9, 2009 I’ll admit I had my doubts. When Jack at MIT told all of us on the Classroom 2.0 hub that BrainyFlix was asking kids to make viral videos for pass around fun about SAT vocabulary words … [Read more...]

Boogie For the Babes: UCLA Dance Marathon For Pediatric AIDS

Feb. 20, 2009 Derek Lee, one of our UCLA pals, is dedicated to dancing 26 hours straight with thousands of students tomorrow starting at 11am. He’s inching toward his goal with only a tiny bit more … [Read more...]

The Crisis of Credit: Visualized. Kid Vid Teaching Tool by MFA Student

Feb. 19, 2009 For every speechless educator groping for words when hands are raised with the million dollar questions…”how did we get here” and “what can we do about it?” this little 3:44 video clip … [Read more...]

Money Management for Kids: Chores, Allowance & Digital Nagging

Part Two of our interview with PAYjr CEO David Jones includes one of the rarely used aspects of PAYjr's chore and allowance program (only 5% evidently) where parents can set up cell phone reminders … [Read more...]

Top 20 Youth Marketing Bloggers: Shaping Youth Is One of ‘Em!

Just when you thought I’d stay on topic and wrap up our ‘All Things Girl’ week I’m zinging one more post in a different direction (humor me, it’s the holidays, time to … [Read more...]

A Bear Votes.org: Flash Animation Eco-Messages Kids Love!

Yep. Free Range Studios (once again!) produced this cute little animated critter tale. (Pretty soon I'm going to sound like I'm shilling for them!) I've already covered their Uncaged" pig-tale for … [Read more...]