Teen shoppers say "Bill my parents."
In case your teen hasn’t already brought it to your attention, a new website called BillMyParents.com has just launched and is aimed at capturing some of the $40 billion that American teens and tweens annually spend on purchases that they research online but purchase offline because they don’t have credit cards to complete the online transaction.
BillMyParents.com, the mere name of this site makes some parents uneasy, allows your teen to browse Amazon.com (and soon several other sites) and when he encounters an item he can’t live without, he can click the “BillMyParents” icon and enter a begging message that will likely include the words and phrases, “Please, please, please”, “I really need this because…” and “if you buy this for me I will…”
From there an e-mail will be sent directly to you allowing you review the item(s) that your teen desires, leaving you to choose to either deny the request or complete the transaction by entering your credit card information.
Like any new technological innovation, especially one that concerns young people and money, this new site has received both high praise and sharp criticism. Supporters of this site point out that it is a great tool for parents as it allows them final say on what their teen spends money on and it also provides more security than letting teens borrow a parent’s credit card for purchases. Additionally, because the site utilizes Amazon.com, teens can be encouraged toward thriftiness by shopping around for the lowest price on an item and in many cases teens may even opt to buy a lower priced used item rather than a new one.
Mat AndersonKeep your teen active this summer.
According to a new poll released this week by Junior Achievement, nearly three quarters of teens will be looking for summer work this year despite the fact that only 22 percent found jobs last summer. With our nation facing the toughest job market since the Great Depression this means that there are going to be a lot of teens this summer without jobs to keep them busy.
While this may contribute to more teens spending this summer sleeping till noon and sitting on the couch instead of getting out of the house to earn extra money, numerous studies have shown that in recent years today’s teens have become increasingly lethargic. In one study, the movements of 1,000 children were tracked, starting at age 9 in 2000 and ending in 2006 when the participants turned 15. The research found that at age 9, participants engaged in physical activities for about 3 hours per day. But as they grew older, they began to exercise much less and by age 15, the participants were only engaging in an average of 42 minutes of physical activity per day.
Part of the reason for this decline in physical activity among today’s youth is due to an increase in media and technological consumption among young people. Rather than playing outside for hours as they did as children, many of today’s teens would rather play video games, watch TV, and spend time on Myspace or Facebook.
Teen Party Season.
Prom and graduation season are upon us and with these important events also comes the high school party season. Teens excited about these milestones will be celebrating together and many will also be partaking in what some view as another adolescent rite of passage: alcohol consumption.
Alcohol is the number one drug of choice among teens and as the school year comes to a close and the freedom of summer approaches more and more teens will be consuming alcohol at parties with friends and some even with parents.
Government research shows that nationwide 600,000 teens get alcohol from their parents and a Harris Research study found that 1 in 4 adults think teens should be able to drink at home with parents. What many of these parents believe is that since most teens will be drinking anyway, it’s better for them to do so while under adult supervision and in the safety of their own home than in a situation where they may drive drunk and endanger themselves and others.
Unfortunately, while this approach may help to prevent some of the immediate and tragic consequences of teen drinking, there is much evidence to show that even teens that drink while supervised are in danger of long lasting consequences of alcohol abuse.
Through adolescence teens’ brains go through dynamic changes and are extremely vulnerable as they forge billions of connections and new nerve pathways. These pathways will continue to develop into the early 20’s and will provide the blue print for adult behaviors including those related to substance abuse and dependency. Because of this teens that have their first drink before age 15 are 5 times more likely to become alcoholics than those who first drink at age 21.
Teen Money Management.
The end of another school year is upon us and that means that soon many students will be graduating high school and moving on to college. While their high school GPA and test scores helped ensure acceptance to their school of choice, there is another number that may be even more important to a teen’s academic future: their credit score.
A recent study by Teen Research Unlimited found that 11 percent of teens own at least one credit card and student loan provider Nellie Mae has reported that the average college freshman brings $1,585 of credit card debt to college. During their college experience many teens add to that debt and as many as 10% of college students drop out of school in order to work and pay off their bills. Unfortunately, sometimes even that doesn’t solve the problem. According to The American Bankruptcy Institute 19 percent of people that file for bankruptcy are college students.
This sad reality is due in large part to the fact that teens often have easy access to credit cards and very little financial education. In fact, teen debt rose 104 percent between 1992 and 2001 due to credit card companies aggressively marketing to uninformed and unprepared young people. Fortunately there are things parents can do to protect and prepare their children and prevent their family from becoming part of worsening teen debt statistics.
The high cost of teen choices.
One of the most dreaded days of the year has finally come and gone. Tax Day was last Wednesday and apart from marking the deadline for filing federal income tax returns, this April 15th also represented many Americans’ concerns about how our tax money is spent. I think we all understand the necessity for tax dollars to maintain roads, provide good schools, and ensure national defense but where many start to feel less than generous with their hard earned dollars is when their money is used for trillion dollar bailouts and bridges to nowhere.
While this type of wasteful government spending is what we often see in the press, there are other unnecessary uses of tax dollars that most of us never consider. What I’m talking about is the high cost of teenagers and the decisions they make. I’m not saying we should stop paying for these things, but I am suggesting that by changing the lives of teens we might be able to lower these costs. The truth is that the consequences of things like teen alcohol and drug abuse, pregnancy and STD’s are extremely expensive to our economy and to our society.
Teens and cell phone misuse.
If you’ve been paying any attention to the news in the past few months it’s likely that you’ve added the word “sexting” to your vocabulary (the practice of teens sending nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves to one another via cell phone). But it’s not just sexting that’s receiving a lot of media attention. It seems that anything that has to do with teens and cell phones is all over the news. One example is a story run by the Denver Post last week about a Wyoming teen that was surprised to receive a nearly $5,000 cell phone bill for sending and receiving 10,000 text messages without a texting plan. Even more surprised was the teen’s father who reportedly smashed the phone with a hammer and grounded the young girl until the end of school. Apart from the obvious financial cost of this teen’s texting obsession were academic costs. The story reported that as a result of being distracted by texting in school, the girl quickly went from being an A and B student to getting F’s.
While an expensive phone bill and academic failure is scary for most parents, that’s not even the worst of it. A quick scan of Google News headlines shows that teen cell phone misuse has also recently enabled teen bullies to taunt victims to the point of suicide, caused young people to be injured and killed while driving, and has resulted in child porn investigations in a number of U.S. cities.
In light of these stories it might be tempted to take a cue from the Wyoming father and smash teen’s phone, but before you do it’s important to consider the benefits of teen cell phone use.
Eating Disorders and today's teens.
Last week I wrote that as teens struggle to find their identity they are constantly in danger of being negatively affected by the unrealistic standards of beauty that are set by our society and are reflected by the media in our lives. This pressure to be perfect and look like the people seen in magazines and on TV can be a factor in teens developing low self esteem, depression, and in many cases eating disorders.
According to experts 1 in 20 teen girls suffer from an eating disorder and it has recently been reported that eating disorders are increasingly being seen in children as young as 10. While this is a sad reality, it isn’t that shocking when we consider the messages being sent to young people.
Consider for instance the magazine racks at the grocery store. Waif thin models glamorously appear on covers of Cosmopolitan next to the latest issue of a gossip magazine that displays an unflattering beach photo ridiculing the latest star to gain a few pounds. Next to that is another magazine featuring a headline that reads something like “Lose 20 pounds in 10 days with this new diet!” And this obsession with weight and appearance doesn’t stop with magazines. In fact, several of the books on the New York Times bestseller list right now are diet books and the airwaves are filled with commercials and infomercials pushing diet pills and other weight loss aids.