Shaping Youth BETA BLOG

August 31, 2010 “Be you!” Riiiiight.

In a media environment that cynically exploits how to act, what to wear, why to buy and who to be, girls are repeatedly told to “be themselves.”

GirlsHealth has a perky “Be healthy. Be happy. Be You. Be Beautiful” site.

Girls Inc is “inspiring girls to be strong, smart and bold.”

Jess Weiner is “Creating A Nation of Confident Women and Girls.” Courtney Macavinta’s holding RespectRx rallies. Rosalind Wiseman is “creating cultures of dignity,” pairing mother/daughters in a Dove Go Fresh sponsored “Girl World Tour” tackling girls’ relational aggression…

…AND in two weeks,  Curse of the Good Girl author Rachel Simmons is coming to the Bay Area with “Be You! The Real Girl Tour.” (here’s my prior interview with Rachel when Curse of the Good Girl launched. Sounds like a heckuvalotta girlpower eh?

It’s actually just a teeny weeny course correction in a rip-roaring, ever-changing sea, as these leaders help girls navigate away from pop culture icebergs running them aground in today’s media messaging and marketing environment. In fact, my first reaction to hearing the phrase “Be You” was “fergawdsakes they’re TRYING, but it’s easier said than done!” (more…)

August 12, 2010 In part one and part two of my posts about ABC Family’s Huge premiere, I hoped to see the show evolve from the hope and promise of some stellar scriptwriter ‘attachments’ to actually being ‘attached.’

I’d like to say they ‘had me at hello’ but frankly they did NOT.

I’m not an ABC Family ‘teen soap’ fan of the shallow sniper-fire of frenemies and sexcapade shenanigans of the usual tripe, and to complicate matters, I’m a wellness advocate for kids’ physical, emotional, and social health. (more on why that juxtaposition isn’t a disconnect in part two)

As the summer winds down, it’s interesting to see how I’ve warmed up and ‘attached’ to this show like beach sand clings to a sunscreened bod.

Hearty applause to Huge for looking at the shallow signals of using weight as social currency in our collective psyches. (Our own Shaping Youth adviser, Dr. Robyn Silverman has a book coming out in October along these lines called “Good Girls Don’t Get Fat: How Weight Obsession is Messing Up Our Girls and How We Can Help Them Thrive Despite It”)

The media maverick in me LOVES dialog snippets like this week’s pushback from lead character Will at the ‘weigh in’ scales, “I just don’t want to be infected by this crap!” (good luck with that in our media culture, baby) But as a writer, my HUGE hurray is for getting inside the skin of characters and creating a solid, relatable piece of work. (more…)

Aug 5, 2010 Meet Sabore Ole Oyie. My teen’s about to, as is her BFF and BF.

Yep, this afternoon I’m bringing a few teens for a “reality show” not to be missed at the Global Leaders for Justice Innovation dialogues. (video of Sabore’s water access project after the jump)

Sounds heady, oui? I see it as an open, public opportunity to expose kids to what’s going on in the rest of the world without the media filter of American myopia or vapid celebrity gossip.

As I wrote yesterday, when 21 representatives from 13 different countries don their colorful native garb and speak their visions as change agents and cycle-breakers, the global interconnected influence has the capacity to give a much needed jolt and a bracer of exposure to the harsh realities taking place on the rest of the planet, with teens THEIR age.

When stories unfold from young girls staving off lion’s roars to reach water after grueling miles of dangerous terrain, teens sit up and listen. Fifteen year olds empowered to break free of the sex slave chains of human trafficking in India to survive and THRIVE anew? Jaw-dropping work akin to GEMS-Girls right here in the US…How can we best use media to make it matter?!  (more…)

August 4, 2010 My teen dialog yesterday: “Did you have fun waterskiing with your dad?”

“Yah, we did, how was your Global Leaders for Justice thingie? What’d you DO all day, mom?”

“Um…well…let’s see…I got to work with Sabore Ole Oyie, a Masai Chief trying to build a local well so girls wouldn’t walk all day for water vying for turf with wildlife that could gobble them up en route…(GWLN video of Sabore and his Olsonyo-Rasha Water Project here partnering with BluePlanetNetwork) I met Smarita Sengupta a young woman empowering teens in Calcutta to escape the sex trafficking slave trade…”

“I got jazzed about using cell phones for health with Blanche Angeline Pitt from Tanzania who wants to deliver medical info to midwives in rural villages to prevent childbirth deaths and debunk taboos…And I made a local friend with Yolande Poirier, an Oracle pro who’s big on raising women’s visibility in tech, STEM, and media imprints.”

“Did you get to see GWLN alum? Anyone I know from ‘07?” (Yours truly, Amy Jussel, was honored to be a USA delegate for Women Leaders for the World, and my teen grew close to several of the attendees) “Well…no one YOU knew was there this time, but you CAN meet some of the 2010 leaders if you wanna come with me Thursday to the Global Innovation Dialogues when they all state their visions for change…“Cool. So there are GUYS in the program this year too?”

“Well, no, GLJ is different than WLW but it’s all GWLN.org —the event is free, open to the public (Aug 5) if you wanna bring a friend or two, but I CANNOT have you squirming or edgy or rushing me before I’m ready to go, you got it?” (rolls eyes/stomps off with a hrumpf) “Gawd mom…I’m 15, not 5, REALLY.” (more…)

Aug 2, 2010 As I opened my Facebook to check messages from GWLN’s Global Leaders for Justice organizers who I’ll be working with tomorrow and Thursday at SCU mentoring inspiring projects from all over the world, I scanned the ‘birthdays’ sidebar.

Keeping with the global theme, I was alerted to change agent Dylan Mahalingam’s 15th birthday today…I KNEW I had to give a huge shout out to the universe to pay heed to this extraordinary New Hampshire native, CEO of Lil’ MDG’s and TEDxTeen.

Dylan, your voice has dropped an octave or two and you no longer look like the doe-eyed nine year old founder of ‘Lil’ MDGs energizing humanity to meet the Millenium Development Goals of 2015 for proof positive that Kids Are Heroes…

As a handsome young gent of 15, he’s already accomplished more in the name of justice, diversity, human rights, gender equality, championing access to education and medical care ad a role model for the ‘very best in youth’ and it  makes my heart sing to know that he’s just gettin’ this party started. Yep, Dylan, you represent a generation of ‘Lil’ MDGs eager to rock the planet to uplift rather than tear down, and use media messaging in the ultimate positive way. (more…)

June 20, 2010 In honor of Father’s Day, we’re interested in deconstructing roles portrayed through mainstream media in the hopes that sensationalized headlines will ‘catch up’ to the reality of new media/new reinventions of manhood to see how they compare and contrast to life’s own “reality shows” in today’s homes.

Examples? Dismissive missives like the Atlantic’s ‘Are Fathers Necessary’ answered by Roland Warren’s response as head of the National Fatherhood Initiative, who countered in print on CNN, “Are Dads Necessary? Ask Kids!” We want to hear YOUR take on media’s representation of YOUR world of fatherhood— knowing full well the values will be as varied and vast as the digital support groups depicting what it means to be a father today…

From fatherhood forums with tips for live-away dads, stepfamilies, military dads, gay dads, blended families, to raising kids with special needs and developmental disabilities, and empowering disabled dads it’s mind-boggling to see that we’ve expanded the global conversation of masculinity yet there’s a media myopia of portrayal of dads.

New media men like Chris Singer of Stay At Home Dad in Lansing (aka Tessa’s Dad, pictured above) are taking the helm to help turn this tanker around and represent the POSITIVE portrayal of men in media that keeps getting buried in the mainstream press or flashed as an ‘awww’ moment soundbite and summarily dismissed. (more…)

June 17, 2010 Digital footprints have taken on a new meaning…

Yesterday I wrote about new baby Noah Silverman and the future of early learning in his media world, today, I’m literally writing about digital fingerprints created via new media art forms, blending traditional art with electronics to scale and expand familial bonds globally. (Springwise shared Tokyo designers Otete & Anyo (shown above, the words “otete” and “anyo” signify a baby’s hand and foot in Japanese)

For all those who roll their eyes at Father’s Day commercialism, just know that the sentimental offerings are getting sweeter (and more pragmatic) in the digital age where custom creations are becoming easier, cooler, and (ahem) less breakable.

From FREE Animoto video trailers and slideshows with text kids can customize in a jiff to look like a photo pro, to Jibjab Father’s Day freebies,  Storybird collaboratives and other personal favorites, there’s no doubt kids can be involved hands-on in keepsake creation. We’ve come a looooong way baby, in preserving memories and milestones whether it’s beautiful Blurb.com custom baby books or new digital one-offs like elementary school’s TreeRing yearbooks to capture the passage of time affordably on a per child basis…It’s easy to see how media and marketing are shifting the way we archive our own permanent collections. (more…)