Sue Scheff: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out

Conventional wisdom about young people's use of digital technology often equates generational identity with technology identity: today's teens seem constantly plugged in to video games, social networks sites, and text messaging. Yet there is little actual research that investigates the intricate dynamics of youth's social and recreational use of digital media.

Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out fills this gap, reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings—at home, in after school programs, and in online spaces. By focusing on media practices in the everyday contexts of family and peer interaction, the book views the relationship of youth and new media not simply in terms of technology trends but situated within the broader structural conditions of childhood and the negotiations with adults that frame the experience of youth in the United States.

Integrating twenty-three different case studies—which include Harry Potter podcasting, video-game playing, music-sharing, and online romantic breakups—in a unique collaborative authorship style, Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out is distinctive for its combination of in-depth description of specific group dynamics with conceptual analysis.

Sue Scheff: The Cool Spot - Helping With Peer Pressure Against Substance Abuse

Info for Parents and Teachers

The Cool Spot was created for kids 11-13 years old by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The NIAAA is the lead U.S. agency supporting research into the causes, prevention, and treatment of alcohol problems. It is a component of the National Institutes of Health, within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The content of The Cool Spot is based on a curriculum for grades 6-8 developed by the University of Michigan. The curriculum was created for the Alcohol Misuse Prevention Study (AMPS), a large-scale project supported by NIAAA.

One goal of AMPS was to give young teens a clearer picture about alcohol use among their peers. Teens tend to overestimate how much kids their age really drink. When they learn more accurate information, some of the pressure to drink can subside. Other goals of AMPS were to help kids learn skills to resist pressure to drink and to give them reasons not to drink. The Cool Spot incorporates AMPS goals in these and other features:

• Reality Check quizzes kids about how much drinking is really going on in the U.S. The answers, which often surprise kids and adults alike, are based on results of the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
• Deep Digging is a simple but powerful page that depicts why using alcohol as a solution to problems, or a way of trying to cope, is trouble.
• Peer Pressure Bag of Tricks presents animated scenes that invite kids to identify some common peer pressure “tricks.” It also lets kids know that spotting these tricks is the first step to resisting them.
• Know your No’s is an activity that introduces kids to a variety of ways to say no, and helps them learn which one is the most effective.

For more information visit http://www.thecoolspot.gov/ .

Sue Scheff: Mind in the Making - The Seven Essential Like Skills Every Child Needs

Mind in the Making by Ellen Galinsky

Ellen Galinsky (Six Stages of Parenthood; Ask the Children) has spent her career observing and analyzing how children learn. Collaborating with top researchers in the science of childhood brain development for the past decade, she identifies seven life skills that help children reach their full potential and unleash their passion to learn.

The skills are presented in a readable and accessible volume enlivened by parents' narratives about what works and what doesn't, hints and tips, and over a hundred suggestions (games and family activities) for involving kids in the pursuit of learning. Each of seven chapters focuses on one skill, most of them involved with the executive (or management) function of the brain, such as focus and self-control, communicating, and critical thinking.

Galinsky urges parents to instill in their children a grasp of different kinds of knowledge to best tap inborn sense and foster self-motivation. The big message is simple: teaching children to think may be the most important thing a parent can do. It doesn't take a village and it doesn't require fancy courses or equipment—Galinsky's everyday, playful, parent-child learning interactions offer a place to start. Some of the advice may seem self-evident, but it is a valuable, worthwhile resource.

Order today on Amazon.

Sue Scheff: Food Revolution - Sign the petition and start eating healthy and feeling better!

Message from Jamie Oliver:

If you care about the health of your children and the food they eat please sign this petition now.

It will only take 30 seconds.

Click here.

Sue Scheff: Above the Influence - Teen Drinking and Drug Use

Above the Influence

Learn more about why people use drugs.

There are many reasons why some people start taking drugs. Many of these are social. But with the very first use, chemical changes occur in the brain that may lead to addiction. Drug addiction is a disease. And with every additional use, the user increases his or her chance of becoming addicted.


To help people better understand the science and facts about drug addiction, leading scientists in substance abuse at the National Institute on Drug Abuse recently published "Drugs and the Brain."

Click here for more.

Sue Scheff: Beat Childhood Obesity - Let's Move Campaign

Let's Move Campaign

Obesity threatens the healthy future of one third of all American children. Obesity rates have tripled in the past 30 years.

We spend $150 billion every year to treat obesity-related conditions, and that number is growing. For the first time in American history, our children’s life expectancy may be shorter than their parents’.

We need to get moving.

Let’s Move! has an ambitious but important goal: to solve the epidemic of childhood obesity within a generation.
Let’s Move will give parents the support they need, provide healthier food in schools, help our kids to be more physically active, and make healthy, affordable food available in every part of our country.

Join First Lady Michelle Obama, community leaders, teachers, doctors, nurses, moms and dads in a nationwide campaign to tackle the challenge of childhood obesity. Learn more and join us.

Watch video and read more.

Sue Scheff: Operation Medicine Cabinet

Rid your medicine cabinet of unused, unnecessary or expired prescription medication immediately. You can do so by participating in one of our prescription drug "take back" programs. Participants can drop off prescription drugs with no questions asked and receive a $5.00 gift card to local stores and pharmacies. For information about when and where BSO will hold its next "take back" program, download our schedule.

Read more here.

Sue Scheff: The War on Moms - On Life in a Family-Unfriendly Nation

The WAR on MOMS
On Life in a Family-Unfriendly Nation

By Sharon Lerner

This book is coming soon and one many parents will dive into.

Why life is harder on American families than it's been in decades—the book that takes the blame away from moms and puts it where it really belongs

Pressed for time and money, unable to find decent affordable daycare, wracked with guilt at falling short of the mythic supermom ideal-working and non-working American mothers alike have it harder today than they have in decades, and they are worse off than many of their peers around the world. Why? Because they're raising their kids in a family-unfriendly nation that virtually sets them up to fail. The War on Moms exposes the stress put on families by an outdated system still built around the idea that women can afford not to work. It tells the truth that overworked, stressed-out American moms need to hear—that they're not alone, and they're not to blame.

• Exposes a lack of reasonable and flexible work opportunities as the real cause of the supposed rift between employed and stay-at-home mothers
• Explodes the myths about supermoms, slacker dads, opt-out moms, bootstrap moms, daycare options, and make-money-from-home scams
• Uncovers the widespread, brutal reality of having no paid maternity leave
• Offers portraits of real women—across social classes and across the country—who are struggling with issues that will strike a familiar chord with most Americans
• Explains why American women have it hard and why it's not going to get any easier until the country dramatically changes course

The War on Moms turns the "mommy wars" debate on its head by arguing that a mother's real "enemy" is not other women, but a nationwide indifference to the cultural and economic realities facing parents and families in the United States today.

Pre-order today on Amazon.  Place title in box on the sidebar.

Sue Scheff: Walk With Me Broward - 2010

Easter Seals has many events to raise money and awareness to those with disabilities. Coming soon is Walk With Me Broward 2010! This is a great experience for the entire family. On April 24th, 2010 at Markum Park in Weston, there will be a 5K Family Fun Walk.
Registration begins at 8:00am and the walk begins at 9:00am.

Money raised through Easter Seals Walk With Me will support a variety of local services in South Florida including: Children's Therapy Services; programs for children with autism spectrum disorder; Child Development Center; Culinary Arts High School program; Adult Day Care for individuals with Alzheimer's disease and memory loss; and in-home respite care.

For more information contact Paula Mejia at 305.547.4713 or pmejia@sfl.easterseals.com .

Sue Scheff: FORTALICE, LLC ® HOW SAFE IS YOUR FORT? Keeping YOU safe in Cyberspace

Theresa Payton, (pictured), is passionate about keeping people, business and children safe online.  Her business, Fortalice, LLC located in Charlotte, NC is part of help you keep your business secure from fraud and other deceptive online practices.

A Consulting and Partnership Business


Keeping companies and our country safe, one person and one company at a time.

While serving as the White House Chief Information Officer from 2006-2008, Theresa realized that more needed to be done to protect people, companies, and the government from cybercreeps.

Proven Framework - We provide Security, Risk and Fraud Consulting services that will help you strengthen your organization's security and risk exposure.

Join her on Facebook and Twitter and keep up-to-date with keeping you and your business secure!

Learn more at http://www.fortalicesolutions.com/Home.

Sue Scheff: April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

About the Campaign

The April 2010 Sexual Assault Awareness Month campaign focuses on preventing sexual violence on higher education campuses. College students experience disproportionately high rates of sexual violence – 1 in 5 college women will be a victim of sexual assault by the time she graduates. In addition to serving the many survivors on campus, there exists an opportunity for prevention and social change that will have a lasting effect on students throughout their lives. This year’s SAAM brings together resources and information across a variety of campus-related topics, with an emphasis on incorporating primary prevention efforts into the work. The campaign is built around the Spectrum of Prevention framework, developed by Larry Cohen of the Prevention Institute, that places public health problems, including sexual violence, within a larger context, beyond individual behaviors, to highlight the community and societal factors that influence the issue.

The document entitled “Sexual Assault Awareness Month and the Spectrum of Prevention” is the centerpiece of the 2010 campaign and includes information on how to use the Spectrum strategically in planning SAAM and prevention efforts on campus. We strongly encourage you to read through this document first. However, below you will also find level-specific information if you prefer to review the information that way. We have arranged all other new resources for 2010 according to level of the Spectrum, below.

If you would like a CD with all of the 2010 resources, or have additional questions, please contact the NSVRC at 1-877-739-3895, or resources@nsvrc.org