Teen fashion is like all other parts of teen culture: constantly evolving. Because of this, teen targeted fashion retailers must always be 2 seasons ahead of the current wave of fads in order to anticipate what young people will want to wear in the future. So what happens to teen fashion when the economy isn’t doing so hot?  Historically, it’s been believed that teen targeted clothing chains would fair better than other retailers but new numbers released from GAP and Abercrombie & Fitch show that that isn’t true this time around.  Brands that have been historically seen as the red badge of coolness in high schools around America are now seeing lower sales and less popular brands like Aeropostale are seeing big jumps in their sales.   

As teens begin to spend more money on food and fuel and less on things like clothes I think we’re going to see a big change in what is in and what’s out in terms of fashion.  I believe that as hipster culture rises and teens become not only more economically but also environmentally conscious, we are going to see more teens going to thrift stores to purchase clothing.  If you ask me this is a great development in teen fashion because not only are young people seeing the value of the dollar more and choosing to be thrifty.  But by buying clothes at the local Goodwill or Salvation Army, teens are breaking away from the tendency of dressing like the mannequins in storefronts and are developing their own sense of style.  This is a great way for teens to explore identity and individualism.  For more about how the economy is affecting teen trends visit this link. 

$275.  That’s how much the average teen would pay to be acne free. The study, reported in the Archives of Dermatology , also asked parents how much they would pay for their teen to be acne free and the answer was similar: $250.  When i was growing up I had a mild case of acne (just like most teens) and more than once I thought my life was over as a result of looking in the mirror and seeing a big red blemish staring back at me.  The truth is, acne is a huge source of stress in the lives of teens. This in part because much of their self-image revolves around their appearance and because the teens they strive to emulate never seem to deal with such problems.  None of the kids in High School Musical have zits and when I was growing up Zack Morris (of Saved By the Bell fame) never had a zit either. To read more about this research click here.

This year’s Horatio Alger State of our Nation’s Youth survey results were released recently and as it turns out America’s young people are collectively not very optimistic, but individually they believe they have a bright future. These results are based on a phone survey of 1,006 students between the ages of 13 and 19.

One point about the survey that stuck out to me is that in the past 5 years, young people’s optimism about the future of America has declined 22 points! Yikes! Another thing that I noticed was that the 2 things that teens said would make their education better were more up to date technology and better job training. The tech part is pretty obvious because all students want to be cruising the Internet and typing up reports on the hottest new computer on the market. But I also think there is something to the need for better job training in schools. As I talk to teens about going back to school, the things I always here are that they need more teachers that make earning fun and that they wish teachers would show them how to use what they learn. Teens are cynical and if they don’t think geometry of U.S. History is going to benefit them in the real world, they will tune you out and doodle on their notebooks. I think this in part due to the fact that many teens see celebrity, fortune and fame as much more attainable now.

Click to read more ...

One of the greatest threats that face the development and success of our current generation of teens is Affluenza.  Many of today’s teens suffer from Affluenza and full blown cases of entitlement.  Of course they didn’t just wake up one day thinking the world owed them something and that their self-worth was tied to the amount of possessions they could amass.  This was taught to them in large part by parents.  It is this behavior that a couple writers at the New York Times have written about in the past week or so.  

The first article, written by Tina Kelley, follows a group of affluent parents and kids as they head off to summer camp.  To me, the way these adults act is pretty absurd.  It’s hard to even know where to start so I suggest you just read the article. In response to this article, Judith Warner wrote an opinion piece in the Times where she dissects the idea of Affluenza and goes ahead and places blame in some justified places.   

She says of affluenza:

“…what mental health professionals are now calling “affluenza,” a social pathology that, they say, is rampant at a time when getting and spending — a lot — have become our nation’s most cherished activities, and when purchasing power has become, to an unprecedented extent, almost the sole source of many people’s status and identity. 

In our society, you don’t have to be wealthy to suffer from affluenza. Its symptoms — “debt, overwork, waste, and harm to the environment, leading to psychological disorders, alienation, and distress,” in adults; “lack of motivation … apathy, laziness, or failure to commit to and achieve goals … overindulgence and attitudes of entitlement” in children,

according to the New York University Child Study Center, are pervasive — and no one is immune.

For affluenza is not just a constellation of symptoms. It is an ethic, a play-the-system, lie-and-cheat-your-way-to-what-you-want, don’t-let-the-peons-stand-in-your-way ethic of amorality. You rock, kid, parents teach. And you — alone — rule.”

I suggest you check out both of these articles and think about what it means for our nation’s future to have the next generation of leaders raised with this mindset.  

Right now, teens across America are packing up the contents of their bedrooms and preparing to move into dorms as college freshman. But as they box up their clothes and other possessions there is one thing that most young people don’t think about bringing with them: debt.

According to school loan provider Nellie Mae the average college freshman brings $1,585 of credit card debt to college. As they progress through their college years many teens live beyond their means and rack up even more debt. As a result of mounting financial difficulties it’s estimated that between 7% and 10% of college students drop out in order to go to work and pay off their bills. Many students who remain in college graduate with student loans and crippling debt that leave their credit score in disarray and their ability to get into grad school, get the job of their choice, or find housing in jeopardy.

In light of this reality it is important for parents to determine how teens get into financial trouble and work to prevent it.

Click to read more ...

  Lately there have been a lot of articles circulating the Internet about how teens and young adults are reacting to the current economic state of the country. In the spring we found that teens were going to be hard pressed to find summer jobs as the economy slowed down.  Then in the early summer we discovered that the housing crisis was seriously stressing out teens who were unsure if their family would lose their home or not (other teens decided that all the foreclosures meant that their neighborhoods were now full of prime party spots.) And now as we look to fall and Back to School we can see that teens are spending less and finding ways to stretch their money. Whether that means shopping at thrift stores, buying off the clearance rack or just waiting until coveted items go on sale, teens are learning to be thrifty and to be sensible in the recession.  To read an article about it click here.  

In related news, some teens aren’t being financially smart and are doing what teens often do: procrastinate.  But they aren’t putting off cleaning their room or working on a book report this time.  Research is showing that young people are now putting off paying for gas.  More and more teens are feeling the pinch of high gas prices and instead of changing their habits they are charging their tanks of gas on credit cards.  This sounds pretty scary to me. Charging $50 a week on a credit card just so you can cruise around town with your friends sounds like a big waste of time and money.  On the other hand, I did my fair share of cruising as a teen and at the time it seemed like the best possible way to spend my summer nights.  Of course in a year or so they’ll be spending their summer nights working a minimum wage job trying to pay off their credit card bills.  

LA Times: Kids and teens: The slow slide to a sedentary life

Grades aren’t the only things parents of children and teens should be keeping an eye on. Their physical activity should be scrutinized as well, considering that from ages 9 to 15, some kids could fall into a steady downward spiral of lethargy. It shouldn’t be surprising that an uptick in video game playing, television watching and computer surfing is probably to blame for the fact that as kids grow older, their time spent moving may greatly decrease, according to a recent study. Read the full story….

 

Kansas City Star: Teens herald the death of e-mail 

A pair of 2007 studies conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project showed that teens are steadily drifting away from the old-fashioned medium. While 92 percent of surveyed adults said they regularly used e-mail, only 16 percent of teens made it a part of daily life while text messaging (36 percent), instant messaging (29 percent) and social network site messaging (23 percent) gained in popularity. Read the full story…

Genes May Play Role in Turning Teens into Criminals 

Researchers at the University of North Carolina reported Monday that genes may play a role in young men who grow up in tough neighborhoods or with disadvantaged families and later become violent criminals. The scientists have identified three genes they believe play a role. One, called MAOA, played a particularly strong role, and had been shown in previous research to affect antisocial behavior. The researchers called the gene “disturbingly common”. Sociology professor Guang Guo, who led the study, said those with a particular variation of the MAOA gene known as 2R were extremely prone to criminal and delinquent behavior. Read the full story…

Star Tribune: Investing in youth has a measurable economic payoff 

Paul Anton, a good student and shooting guard out of Minneapolis Washburn High in 1966, turned his sharp eye to the study of mathematics and economics at the University of Minnesota. He spent 30 years at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank and U.S. Bancorp and as a consulting economist for a firm that did a lot of work for financial institutions. In his latest gig, Anton is applying the cost-benefit and return-on-investment analysis of the business analyst to examining social programs — and the money taxpayers can save when kids are ready for kindergarten, when youth intervention programs keep teens out of crime, and when drug courts get offenders clean and into work-release programs for less than $40,000-a-year stays in prison. Read the full story…

Forbes: Teen Retailers’ Back-to-School Blues  

If Steve & Barry’s financial woes are any indication, the back-to-school season will be a difficult one for teen-focused retailers. The Port Washington, N.Y.-based company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, citing $693.5 million in assets and $638 million in debt. Best known for celebrity fashion lines, including Bitten by Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker and Starbury by New York Knicks star Stephon Marbury, Steve & Barry’s sells super-cheap clothing for teens and college students. Prices rarely exceed $20. In an economic downturn in which the Wal-Marts of the world are succeeding (see “Consumers Save Money, Discounters Live Better”), one would presume that a teen retailer like Steve and Barry’s, which is also a discounter, would be somewhat immune to hardship. Read the full story…

Health Alert: Teen teeth whitening

The desire for whiter, brighter teeth is trickling down to teens and even younger. Kids across the country are bleaching their pearly whites, often without their parents knowledge. But there are some things you can do to help them avoid tooth trouble. Girls and boys alike, from elementary to high school, are white hot about bleaching their teeth.
Dr. David Carroll, a dentist, said, “Kids are under a lot of pressure, as adults are, to look and to feel to look good, to have white teeth.” Read the full story…

NBC10.com: Experts Say Teen Drivers Want Parents’ Help

New research was made public on Tuesday about teenage drivers and what parents could do to keep their kids safe.
The information comes just a day after a 16-year-old driver, who had his junior license for just six days, lost control of his SUV, killing himself and a 16-year-old passenger. Dr. Dennis Durbin from Children’s Hospital, has analyzed how and why new drivers wind up injured or in fatal accidents. “Literally overnight, teens go from their lowest to their highest lifetime risk of getting in a fatal crash the day they get their license,” he said. “They get that license and I think a lot of people think that’s a license that shows that they can drive. But it’s really not — it just showed that they passed a test that allows them to get on the road.”  Read the full story…

Metroactive: Generation Debt. 

He was your typical college kid who was persuaded to sign up for his first credit card, right there on the San Jose State campus. It didn’t take long for Rance Bobo to max out that card when he bought a bike. After that, he signed up for a few more cards, using them to buy clothes and stuff for school. The debt started catching up to him, so he decided to take out student loans to pay it off and help make ends meet. By the time Bobo left college, he was $20,000 in the hole. That didn’t stop him from taking out another 20 grand for a car loan. More than a decade later, Bobo, now 30, is still chipping away at his $30,000 tab. Even if he is saddled with debt, with no end in sight, Bobo’s not losing any sleep over it. He finds it hard to save money, often tempted to spend it on nice clothes and the latest technology. He describes his penchant for living beyond his means as a mark of his generation, one made up of folks who will drop $4 on a coffee drink without a second thought, and pride themselves on having the latest gadget in hand. Read the full story…

Through a Teacher’s Eyes: Schools, culture sending the wrong message on teen pregnancy. 

“Carol get hooked up” was the subject of an email I received this morning from “urbangiftcardonus@….” Associating it with Urban Outfitters in Cambridge, I opened it. I should have known better. It was a “gift” card offer from FabFlyGear.com, selling clothing by Sean “Diddy” Combs, 50 Cent, Jay-Z, and Eminem. Frankly, if my mind were not on writing this column in response to the Gloucester High School pregnancy debacle, I would have simply put it in the trash. However, since I have visited Urban Outfitters from time to time, mostly out of curiosity, I decided there might be something on sale there that could help me shape an argument to explain what needs to be done if we are to save nearly an entire generation of youngsters from dissolution. Read the full column…

Business Week: What Do Teens Want? 

Nearly 59,000 captive teens might seem like every parent’s worst nightmare. But for Helsinki (Finland)-based Sulake, such a group provided a pain-free way to gain valuable insight into what “kids these days” really care about. Pain-free because Sulake runs Habbo, the nine-year-old virtual world that as of early June had some 100 million avatars, 9.5 million of them active on the site each month. And because Sulake could use the world as a platform to question the teens—virtually. Habbo’s second Global Youth Survey features the results of a two-month-long poll conducted at the end of last year, which surveyed 58,486 teens in 31 countries. The findings were recently published in a 255-page report targeted at companies looking to market to the lucrative demographic. Read the full story…

Teens and cell cams: Striking a pose? 

Many families preserve history through photos. Often, a trip to grandma’s would seem incomplete without a trip down memory lane via the big book of pictures.  These days, electronic media dominates everything from the way we listen to music, communicate and save images. Almost every cell phone has a built-in camera, which has some parents concerned – for good reason.  According to a recent report by the Associated Press, more and more teens are taking inappropriate photos of themselves, often wearing little or no clothing, and sending them to prospective boyfriends or girlfriends. More worrisome, these photos, once on the Internet, are accessible to practically anyone.  Read the full story…

Hollywood Urged To To Rid Child Movies Of Smoking 

It’s been one year since the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) pledged to make the movies that children see smokefree. But nothing has been done to put that pledge into practice. “One year later, we are still waiting for Hollywood to do the right thing,” state Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines, M.D., said today. “The MPAA must act now to protect children from the harmful influence of movie stars smoking gratuitously on film. We cannot sacrifice the health of another generation through indifference and inaction.” Read the full story…

Study: Teens dropping rags, radio for web, games, and TV 

A new study reminds us of a trend we’d rather not think too much about: teens and “tweens” are reading less, instead spending more time surfing the web, playing games, and watching TV. More teens than ever sharing—and restricting—content online. The Tween & Teen Lifestyle Report is conducted twice a year (spring and fall), with the most recent study carried out in March 2008 (the results were just published). This time around, 1,182 teens (ages 13 to 17) and tweens (ages 8 to 12) were interviewed in-person, and the results confirm a continuing three-year trend of kids putting down the magazines and books, and picking up the mouse, controller, and remote. Read the full story…

Reuters UK: Cellfire aiming coupons at teens 

Mobile coupon provider Cellfire is looking to expand its advertising customer base to include teen retailers and consumer product makers, its chief executive said on Wednesday. Cellfire users receive coupons and discounts on their cell phones from such companies as Hardee’s, Domino’s Pizza Inc, McDonald’s Corp, 1-800-Flowers.com Inc and Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. Speaking at the Reuters Consumer and Retail Summit, CEO Brent Dusing said retailers and others who market to teenagers are looking for new ways to reach customers. “If you want to reach them (teenagers) with a promotion, it’s very difficult to reach them in the paper world, of course, because your customer demographics are not reading the newspaper. They’re not checking the mail at home, and they’re probably not going to online coupon sites,” he said. “But they are on the phone, all the time.” Read the full story…

USA Today: Lack of vitamin D rampant in infants, teens 

Giving your children all they need to grow big and strong may not be as simple as a gummy vitamin and three square meals. They still may be susceptible to an epidemic that’s starting to gain the notice of pediatricians and bone doctors across the country: vitamin D deficiency. Mike Stone joined a growing legion of children diagnosed with the condition when an X-ray of his 14-year-old bones revealed a skeleton so thin it appeared clear on film. Read the full story…

Information Week: Today’s Teens: Breakin’ The Law, Breakin’ The Law

Kids these days, I tell ya. Turns out most teenagers could care less about the law when it comes to driving and cell phone use. In fact, a recent study shows that in North Carolina, teen use of cell phones while driving has increased since laws preventing it were enacted. How is it they are failing to get the message? Read the full story…

 
CBS News: Self-Cutting Linked To Risky Teen Sex 

Teens who are frequent self-cutters are also more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors and have a greater HIV risk than teens receiving psychiatric treatment who have cut just a few times, new research suggests. The findings identify habitual cutting behavior as an important risk factor for sexual risk, even in already high-risk teens, researcher Larry K. Brown, M.D., tells WebMD. In 2005, Brown and colleagues from the Bradley Hasbro Children’s Research Center in Providence, R.I., first reported the link between self-cutting and sexual risk taking in a study involving close to 300 teens undergoing intensive psychiatric treatment. Read the full story…

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Dads create clean Christian version of MySpace

About a year ago, Randall Brown started looking for a safe place for kids to hang out. Online, that is. He found out the hard way that MySpace isn’t just for finding friends, networking or listening to cool bands. Companies have hacked into MySpace and spam-slammed it with porn ads and other advertisements. He also looked at Facebook. Although that site has had better luck filtering out porn and ads, there are still teens being teens, posting comments, graphics and applications that might be offensive.  Read the full story…

Canadian study says Facebook violates privacy.

The university’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) is asking the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to investigate what it considers to be Facebook’s violations of Canadian privacy law.

Facebook’s policies – from sign-up requirements and advertising policies to third party applications and mobile access – represent 22 privacy violations, according to CIPPIC.

 Read the full news story…

Wall Street Journal: A film with underage fans faces marketing chalenges.

As I research teen culture I often come across headlines that say things like:  “1 in 4 Teen Girls has an STD,” or “Over 2 million American Teens are Depressed.”

To be honest, when I read those types of things I can’t help but feel like this generation of young people (which I am technically a part of) is hopeless. I mean, as compared to previous generations, today’s teens seem to be the laziest, most sexually promiscuous, drug addicted, morally bankrupt group America has ever seen.  

But, just as I begin to really worry about the future of today’s youth and, in turn, the future of our society, I am reminded that this generation also has an amazing amount of potential to change the world. It is this potential that I’d like to focus on in coming weeks.  

Click to read more ...