Teaching kids friendship skills begins with parent example

Making friends (and keeping them) is one of the most important skills kids learn. But it's not learned with textbooks or lesson plans. Building healthy relationships is a hands-on activity. When kids struggle to make friends, it's easy for to blames schools. But schools can only do so much to foster friendship skills. The best lessons begin and end at home. Here are ways parents can teach kids to make friends. Teaching kids friendship skills begins with parent example 

Facebook is Right to Nix Teen Photo Competitions

Concerned parents have succeeded in getting a "Most Beautiful Teen in the World" Facebook page pulled. Kids were uploading photos of themselves, sometimes scantily clad in sexualized poses, for the approval or disapproval of the Internet masses, ABC News reports.

Now there's a recipe for disaster: Nubile youths throwing their images into cyberspace to be critiqued by who knows who. I'm bothered by kids splashing images of themselves about to start with. Mix in some shirtless or bikini-clad photos and that just escalates my concerns. Those photos of bare-chested boys with thin arms and concave chests are pitiful. It gets worse; there are "most ugly teen" contests too. Read more at Facebook is Right to Nix Teen Photo Competitions 

Parents Use Facebook to Monitor Kids: Spying or Safeguarding?

Parents Use Facebook to Monitor Kids: Spying or Safeguarding? A recent Laptop magazine poll showed 55 percent of parents admitted to monitoring their children on social network sites like Facebook. The term 'spying' was used; are parents overprotective and nosy or are they safeguarding their kids? Poll results said 41 percent of parents check their children's status updates, 39 percent check their children's wall posts and 15 percent have sent friend requests (4 percent were rejected). Another 13 percent say that they have used friends' accounts to check up on their children. Read more...