Boarding Schools for Girls

Nearly a century and a half after it was established, a program to empower girls and young women continues to employ innovative efforts to help participants overcome obstacles and achieve personal and professional successes.

Michaele Weissman profiled Girls Inc. in the Winter 2009 edition of ForbesWomen magazine:

Girls Inc [is] a national research, education and advocacy organization. The 145-year-old nonprofit was founded during the Industrial Revolution to help young women who migrated from rural areas to work in textile mills and factories.

Today Girls Inc. programs and efforts are focused on the problems that continue to limit the aspirations of girls, especially those who grow up poor.

Three-quarters of the group's members come from families with incomes of $30,000 or less, and nearly 70 percent are minorities. Half of them come from single-parent households. &

Girls Inc. programs teach young women how to resist peer pressure, respect their bodies and their health, prevent teen pregnancy and excel in math, science and technology.

Labels: mentoring, math, technology, science

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

The digital age is upon us, and young people have embraced it whole-heartedly. They chat, text, IM and tweet; and they do it all via their cell phones. Its convenient, but also problematic for parents whose teens never seem to unplug.

In an Oct. 1 Associated Press article, parents indicated that they are experimenting with various means of controlling their children's technology use in a way that encourages positive interactions without giving rise to parent-child confrontations:

We all know teens love their gadgets -- more for texting than talking. But the devices are posing some new challenges for parents. How can they teach their tech-savvy kids some electronic etiquette?

So far, parents are learning on the fly, imposing new rules for their young offenders such as "no texting at dinner." ...

It's not only cell phones that parents are restricting.

Many are establishing control over their children's computer use -- setting themselves up as administrators for Internet accounts, asking kids questions about who they are communicating with online, and at times looking directly over their shoulders at the screen.

Labels: technology, computers, texting, communication

Posted By: Aspen/CRC 0 Comments

Worried that your daughter is watching too much TV? The solution may be closer than you think.

Children will watch less television if they and their parents agree to limit it, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics:

• Dr. Susan Carlson, of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control, surveyed 5685 homes.
• The researchers asked parents and their children and television rules and how much time they spent watching it. n.
• About 27 percent of survey recipients watched more than two hours a day, a limit set by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
• This group tended to be male, African-American, and from low income families. 
• Children in the study tended to watch within limits set by their parents.

Experts have noted that excessive time in front of television sets and computer monitors has been associated with a range of problems among children and teens. The good news is that there are a range of effective ways parents can limit their children's screen time.

Labels: parenting, technology, television

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment

Teens with diabetes may soon be able to keep better track of their medications by using their cell phones.

Dr. Jennifer Dyer, a professor at the Ohio State University School of Medicine, has invented an iphone application that sends reminders to young patients with diabetes.

"If adolescent diabetes patients do not adhere to their treatment and medication plan, it can result in difficulty concentrating in school or functioning throughout the day," Dr. Dyer said in an Aug. 10 ScienceDaily article about her innovation.

Statistics show a significant increase in diabetes among adolescents and teens, with many experts identifying rising rates of childhood obesity as the cause of this troubling development

Labels: technology, overweight, diabetes

Posted By: Jane St. Clair 1 Comment