NEW YORK – Looking for ways to keep your tween or young teen busy over the summer? Here are six ideas to pull them away from the computer, the television and the cell phone:

• Look into teen classes, said Carol Weston, advice columnist for Girls’ Life magazine. Summer school might not excite, but look for classes in areas kids may have an interest in, like writing, drama, art or lifeguarding. If transportation is a problem, coordinate with other parents.

• Help kids find work, such as baby-sitting, car washing, dog walking or lawn mowing, said Weston. Perhaps you know someone who could use some extra help in his office. Kids want to make extra money.

• Check churches, soup kitchens, senior centers, animal shelters and the like to see if they need volunteers.

• Investigate local summer programming. Try the YMCA, library, colleges, museums or even health clubs. For example, Lifestyle Family Fitness has free summer memberships for teens 12 to 17 in all 55 of its locations.

• Consider a kid swap, suggests Weston. One parent can take the kids on an outing one day, another can take them somewhere another day.

• Explore summer camp options. Many have counselor-in-training or other programs for teens. For pricier specialty or residential camps, ask about financial aid or a group rate if several kids enroll together. Find camps at acacamps.org.

WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration, reversing field, will allow 17-year-olds get the ‘morning-after’ birth control pill without a doctor’s prescription, a government health official said Wednesday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agency will comply with a federal judge’s order overturning a Bush administration policy that restricted access. The official was not authorized to speak publicly before the FDA announcement, expected later Wednesday.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman ruled in a New York lawsuit that Bush administration appointees let politics, not science, drive their decision to allow over-the-counter access to the pills only for women 18 and older. Korman ordered the agency to let 17-year-olds get the medication, and separately to evaluate whether all age restrictions should be lifted.

The FDA’s latest action does not mean that the pill will be immediately available to 17-year-olds. The manufacturer must first submit a request, but the agency is indicating that it will approve the change.

Plan B is emergency contraception that contains a high dose of birth control drugs and will not interfere with an established pregnancy. Religious conservatives say it’s the equivalent of an abortion pill because it can prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus.

The battle over access to Plan B has dragged on for the better part of a decade, through the tenure of three FDA commissioners. Among many in the medical community, it came to symbolize the decline of science at the agency. Top FDA managers refused to go along with the recommendations of scientific staff and outside advisers that the drug be made available over-the-counter with no age restrictions.

“The FDA got caught up in a saga, it got caught up in a drama,” said Susan Wood, who served as the agency’s top women’s health official and resigned in 2005 over delays in issuing a decision. “This issue served as a clear example of the agency being taken off track, and it highlighted the problems FDA was facing in many other areas.”

Conservatives said the FDA should have appealed the judge’s ruling.

“This decision is driven by politics, not what is good for patients or minors,” said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, a public policy group representing religious conservatives. “Parents should be furious at the FDA’s complete disregard of parental rights and the safety of minors.”

If taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, Plan B can reduce a woman’s chances of pregnancy by as much as 89 percent.

It contains a high dose of birth control drugs and works by preventing ovulation or fertilization. It also may prevent a fertilized egg from implanting into the uterus, but recent research suggests that’s not likely. In medical terms, pregnancy begins when a fertilized egg attaches itself to the wall of the uterus.

The treatment consists of two pills and sells for about $35 to $60. Women must ask for Plan B at the pharmacy counter, and show identification with their date of birth. The drug is made by a subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, an Israeli company. It does not prevent sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV/AIDS.

Supporters of broader access argued that Plan B was safe and effective in preventing unwanted pregnancy, and could also help reduce the number of abortions.

Opponents, including prominent conservatives, countered that it would encourage promiscuity, and might even become a tool for criminals running prostitution rings, as well as for sexual predators.

Early in the Bush administration, more than 60 organizations petitioned the FDA to allow sales without a prescription. But according to court documents, the issue quickly became politicized.

In 2003, a panel of outside advisers voted 23 to 4 to recommend over-the-counter sales without age restrictions. But top FDA officials told their subordinates that no approval could be issued at the time, and the decision would be made at a higher level. That’s considered highly unusual, since the FDA usually has the last word on drug decisions.

In his ruling, Judge Korman said that FDA staffers were told the White House had been involved in the decision on Plan B. The government said in court papers that politics played no role.

In 2005, the Center for Reproductive Rights and other organizations sued in federal court to force an FDA decision.

The following year, the FDA allowed Plan B to be sold without a prescription to adults. But the controversy raged on over access for teens.

WASHINGTON — Calling on Americans to volunteer, President Barack Obama signed a $5.7 billion national service bill Tuesday that triples the size of the AmeriCorps service program over the next eight years and expands ways for students to earn money for college.

“What this legislation does, then, is to help harness this patriotism and connect deeds to needs,” said Obama, a former community organizer in Chicago.

“It creates opportunities to serve for students, seniors and everyone in between,” he said. “And it is just the beginning of a sustained, collaborative and focused effort to involve our greatest resource — our citizens — in the work of remaking this nation.”

Joining Obama was Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who has been battling brain cancer. Kennedy championed the legislation with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the bill was named in honor of the Massachusetts Democrat.

Kennedy told the audience that included former President Bill Clinton, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former first lady Rosalyn Carter that Obama’s efforts echoed those of his late brother, President John F. Kennedy.

“Today, another young president has challenged another generation to give back to their nation,” Kennedy said, citing his brother’s advocacy for the Peace Corps.

The service law expands ways for students and seniors to earn money for college through their volunteer work. It aims to foster and fulfill people’s desire to make a difference, such as by mentoring children, cleaning up parks or buildings and weatherizing homes for the poor.

“I’m asking you to help change history’s course, put your shoulder up against the wheel,” Obama said. “And if you do, I promise you your life will be richer, our country will be stronger, and someday, years from now, you may remember it as the moment when your own story and the American story converged, when they came together, and we met the challenges of our new century.”

Bolstering voluntary public service programs has been a priority of Obama, who credits his work as a community organizer in his early 20s for giving him direction in life. The president cited his work in Chicago as an example of how one person can make a difference.

“All that’s required on your part is a willingness to make a difference,” Obama said. “And that is, after all, the beauty of service: Anybody can do it.”

Obama visited the SEED School of Washington, a public boarding school that serves inner-city students facing problems in both the classroom and at home, for the signing ceremony.

Afterward, Obama and first lady Michelle Obama joined Clinton to plant trees at a national park site along the Anacostia River in northeast Washington. At the Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, Obama rolled up his sleeves with volunteers from the Student Conservation Association and local public high schools.

“Somebody forgot my boots,” Obama joked to the students.

Obama on Tuesday also nominated Nike Inc. vice president Maria Eitel to lead the federal agency that oversees the country’s national service programs.

Eitel, who’s also president of the Nike Foundation, would have to be confirmed by the Senate to become CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Congress passed the bill last month with largely bipartisan support and Obama is seeking $1.1 billion to fund it next year. Some Republicans complain it is too costly and is an unnecessary intrusion by government into something Americans already do eagerly and in great numbers — helping their neighbors and communities.

The legislation provides for gradually increasing the size of the Clinton-era AmeriCorps to 250,000 enrollees from its current 75,000. It outlines five broad categories where people can direct their service: helping the poor, improving education, encouraging energy efficiency, strengthening access to health care and assisting veterans.

AmeriCorps offers a range of volunteer opportunities including housing construction, youth outreach, disaster response and caring for the elderly. Most receive an annual stipend of slightly less than $12,000 for working 10 months to a year.

AmeriCorps has seen a recent surge in applications, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees the program.

In March, the organization received 17,038 online AmeriCorps applications, nearly double those received in the previous month and nearly triple the 6,770 received last March.

Alan Solomont, who chairs AmeriCorps’ board, said former President John F. Kennedy’s call to service inspired more people to help others than just those who joined the Peace Corps. He said this national service legislation could produce the same effect.

“It is not unlike the moment in 1960 when President Kennedy asked Americans, you know, to serve, but it is certainly going to engage millions more today,” Solomont said in a conference call arranged by the White House.

The bill also ties volunteer work to money for college.

People 55 and older could earn $1,000 education awards by getting involved in public service. Those awards can be transferred to a child, grandchild or even someone they mentored.

Students from sixth grade through senior year of high school could earn a $500 education award for helping in their neighborhoods during a new summer program.

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On the Web

AmeriCorps: www.americorps.gov

Corporation for National and Community Service: www.nationalservice.gov

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – A cell phone used by a Wyoming 13-year-old to run up a nearly $5,000 phone bill will text no more thanks to her angry father and his hammer.

Dena Christoffersen of Cheyenne sent or received about 20,000 text messages over about a month, and her parents’ phone plan didn’t cover texting.

Gregg Christoffersen told KUSA-TV of Denver this week that he thought texting had been disabled on her daughter’s phone, which he smashed hours after getting a phone bill for more than $4,750.

The family says Verizon has been willing to knock the bill down to a reasonable level.

Dena has been grounded until the end of school. She says she feels bad and has learned her lesson.

CHICAGO – An influential government-appointed medical panel is urging doctors to routinely screen all American teens for depression – a bold step that acknowledges that nearly 2 million teens are affected by this debilitating condition.

Most are undiagnosed and untreated, said the panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which sets guidelines for doctors on health issues.

The task force recommendations appear in April’s issue of the journal Pediatrics. And they go further than the American Academy of Pediatrics’ own guidance for teen depression screening.

An estimated 6 percent of American teenagers are clinically depressed. Evidence shows that detailed but simple questionnaires can accurately diagnose depression in primary-care settings such as a pediatrician’s office.

The task force said that when followed by treatment, including psychotherapy, screening can help improve symptoms and help kids cope. Because depression can lead to persistent sadness, social isolation, school problems and even suicide, screening to treat it early is crucial, the panel said.

The task force is an independent panel of experts convened by the federal government to establish guidelines for treatment in primary-care.

Because depression is so common, “you will miss a lot if you only screen high-risk groups,” said Dr. Ned Calonge, task force chairman and chief medical officer for Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment.

NEW YORK – The Food and Drug Administration let politics cloud its judgment when it denied teenage girls over-the-counter access to the Plan B morning-after pill, a federal judge said Monday as he ordered the FDA to let 17-year-olds obtain the medication.

U.S. District Judge Edward Korman blasted the FDA’s handling of the issue during the Bush administration, saying it had “repeatedly and unreasonably” delayed issuing a decision on the medication, marketed by Montvale, N.J.-based Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. as Plan B.

Korman’s ruling said the FDA in several instances had delayed issuing a ruling for suspect reasons and on two occasions took action only to facilitate the confirmation of acting FDA commissioners whose confirmations had been held up by the repeated delays.

“These political considerations, delays, and implausible justifications for decision-making are not the only evidence of a lack of good faith and reasoned decision-making,” Korman said. “Indeed, the record is clear that the FDA’s course of conduct regarding Plan B departed in significant ways from the agency’s normal procedures regarding similar applications to switch a drug product from prescription to non-prescription use.”

He said the FDA’s denial of nonprescription access without age restriction went against the recommendation of a committee of experts it had created to advise it on Plan B.

“And the commissioner — at the behest of political actors — decided to deny non-prescription access to women 16 and younger before FDA scientific review staff had completed their reviews,” Korman wrote.

Korman ordered the FDA to permit Barr Pharmaceuticals, which was bought by Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. late last year, to make Plan B available to 17-year-olds without a prescription under the same conditions as Plan B is now available to women over the age of 18. He said his order must be complied with within 30 days.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by individuals and organizations advocating for wider distribution and access to emergency contraceptives, as well as parents and their minor children seeking access.

The lawsuit was filed in 2005 by the Center for Reproductive Rights and others after the FDA denied a petition asking it to make Plan B available without a prescription to women of all ages.

“Today’s ruling is a tremendous victory for all Americans who expect the government to safeguard public health,” said Nancy Northup, president of the center.

Assistant U.S. Attorney F. Franklin Amanat, who argued the case for the government, said: “We’re studying the decision and evaluating options.”

“We need to discuss it with the agency and figure out what our next steps will be,” he said.

The government in court papers has said politics played no role in the agency’s decisions.

Plan B reduces the chance of pregnancy if taken within three days after sex. It works by preventing ovulation or fertilization and interfering with implantation of a fertilized egg, which some people consider the equivalent of abortion.

In 2006, the FDA allowed Plan B to be sold without a prescription to adults, but only by pharmacies that checked photo ID before selling the pills. Girls 17 and younger were required to obtain a prescription.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses.

The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench.

In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.

“I’ve never encountered, and I don’t think that we will in our lifetimes, a case where literally thousands of kids’ lives were just tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money,” said Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which is representing hundreds of youths sentenced in Wilkes-Barre.

Prosecutors say Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC. The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward.

No company officials have been charged, but the investigation is still going on.

The high court, meanwhile, is looking into whether hundreds or even thousands of sentences should be overturned and the juveniles’ records expunged.

Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before. Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it.

Many appeared without lawyers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel.

The judges are scheduled to plead guilty to fraud Thursday in federal court. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years behind bars.

Ciavarella, 58, who presided over Luzerne County’s juvenile court for 12 years, acknowledged last week in a letter to his former colleagues, “I have disgraced my judgeship. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame.” Ciavarella, though, has denied he got kickbacks for sending youths to prison.

Conahan, 56, has remained silent about the case.

Many Pennsylvania counties contract with privately run juvenile detention centers, paying them either a fixed overall fee or a certain amount per youth, per day.

In Luzerne County, prosecutors say, Conahan shut down the county-run juvenile prison in 2002 and helped the two companies secure rich contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, at least some of that dependent on how many juveniles were locked up.

One of the contracts — a 20-year agreement with PA Child Care worth an estimated $58 million — was later canceled by the county as exorbitant.

The judges are accused of taking payoffs between 2003 and 2006.

Robert J. Powell co-owned PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care until June. His attorney, Mark Sheppard, said his client was the victim of an extortion scheme.

“Bob Powell never solicited a nickel from these judges and really was a victim of their demands,” he said. “These judges made it very plain to Mr. Powell that he was going to be required to pay certain monies.”

For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella was ridiculously harsh and ran roughshod over youngsters’ constitutional rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.

The criminal charges confirmed the advocacy groups’ worst suspicions and have called into question all the sentences he pronounced.

Hillary Transue did not have an attorney, nor was she told of her right to one, when she appeared in Ciavarella’s courtroom in 2007 for building a MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal.

Her mother, Laurene Transue, worked for 16 years in the child services department of another county and said she was certain Hillary would get a slap on the wrist. Instead, Ciavarella sentenced her to three months; she got out after a month, with help from a lawyer.

“I felt so disgraced for a while, like, what do people think of me now?” said Hillary, now 17 and a high school senior who plans to become an English teacher.

Laurene Transue said Ciavarella “was playing God. And not only was he doing that, he was getting money for it. He was betraying the trust put in him to do what is best for children.”

Kurt Kruger, now 22, had never been in trouble with the law until the day police accused him of acting as a lookout while his friend shoplifted less than $200 worth of DVDs from Wal-Mart. He said he didn’t know his friend was going to steal anything.

Kruger pleaded guilty before Ciavarella and spent three days in a company-run juvenile detention center, plus four months at a youth wilderness camp run by a different operator.

“Never in a million years did I think that I would actually get sent away. I was completely destroyed,” said Kruger, who later dropped out of school. He said he wants to get his record expunged, earn his high school equivalency diploma and go to college.

“I got a raw deal, and yeah, it’s not fair,” he said, “but now it’s 100 times bigger than me.”

By Michael Rubinkam, Maryclaire Dale

A small but growing percentage of high school students have passed at least one college-level course before they graduate, but participation and pass rates among some minority groups remain disproportionately low, a report says.

Black, Latino and American Indian students, in particular “are not yet always receiving adequate preparation for the rigors of college,” says Trevor Packer, vice president of the Advanced Placement program, administered by the non-profit College Board.

The group, which released the report Wednesday, has been holding up its AP program as a national measure of academic rigor. Course content must be approved by the AP program. Students who score a 3 or higher (on a 1-5 scale) on a standardized test administered nationally can receive college credit.

The report singled out 16 schools as leaders in helping black and/or Latino students succeed in particular AP subjects. They’re located in eight states: California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Tennessee and Texas.

Packer said a state-by-state assessment suggests that performance improves when state policymakers provide incentives that encourage schools to make AP part of their curriculum:

• Maryland achieved the highest percentage (23.4 percent) of students scoring at least a 3.

• Maine had the largest single-year increase in high school graduates who scored a 3 or higher.

• Vermont, Maine, Maryland, Arkansas, Washington and Oregon had the highest five-year gains.

• Maryland, New York, Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts and California saw more than 20 percent of students graduate from high school earning at least one score of 3 or higher.

• Alabama has seen the largest five-year increase in black students scoring a 3 or higher.

• In no state did black students pass exams at a rate proportionate to their representation in their graduating class. Latinos achieved a proportionate rate in 18 states; American Indians, in 16.

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ON THE WEB

More report details: http://www.collegeboard.com/

The prepubescent children of days gone by have given way to a cooler kid — the tween — who aspires to teenhood but is not quite there yet.

Tweens are in-between — generally the 8-to-12 set. The U.S. Census estimates that in 2009, tweens are approximately 20 million strong and projected to hit almost 23 million by 2020.

Among them now are Malia Obama, at 10 already a tween, and sister Sasha, who turns 8 this year. With the Obama daughters in the White House, the nation’s attention will focus even more on this emerging group — and the new First Tweens will likely be high-profile representatives of their generation.

“My daughter is really excited that there’s a girl in the White House the same age she is,” says Courtney Pineau, 31, of Bellingham, Wash., mom of fifth-grader Sophia, age 10.

Retailers know tweens are a hot market for clothes, music and entertainment. But now psychologists and behavioral researchers are beginning to study tweens, too. They say tweens are a complicated lot, still forming their personalities, and are torn between family and BFFs (best friends forever), between fitting in and learning how to be an individual.

Tweens have “their own sense of fashion in a way we didn’t have before and their own parts of the popular culture targeted toward them,” says child and adolescent psychologist Dave Verhaagen of Charlotte. How will this shape their personalities? “Time will tell, we don’t know.”

Research has shown that middle school is where some troubles, particularly academic, first appear. Also, a 2007 review of surveys in the journal Prevention Science found that the percentage of children who use alcohol doubles between grades four and six, with the largest jump between fifth and sixth grades.

“They’re kids for a shorter period of time,” adds psychologist Frank Gaskill, who also works with tweens in Charlotte. “More is expected of them academically, responsibility-wise.”

Many parents, including Beth Harpaz, 48, of Brooklyn, are well aware of this short-lived time. Her older son is 16 and a high school junior; her younger son is 11 and in fifth grade.

“I’m trying really hard to save his childhood. I want him to enjoy little-boy things and don’t want him to feel that he has to put on that big hoodie and wear the $100 sneakers and have that iPod in his ear listening to what somebody has told him is cool music,” says Harpaz, author of “13 is the New 18.”

Gender differences

Boys haven’t been the main target of marketers hawking all things tween, from clothes and makeup to TV shows and music. But Disney wants to change that with its Feb. 13 launch of Disney XD, a “boy-focused” cable brand that includes TV and a Web site with themes of adventure, accomplishment, gaming, music and sports.

Until now, Disney has been “a tween girl machine,” Verhaagen says. “It may be that teen idols and celebrities are more inherently appealing to girls because it’s all about personality and music and relational things that girls are more interested in. Boys at that age are more interested in sports and adventure and are not as easily marketed to by personalities and pop stars.”

Both the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon are favorites, according to an online survey conducted this summer for the 2008-09 GfK Roper Youth Report. The data, released to USA TODAY, found that of 500 tweens ages 8-12 asked about activities within the past week, 82 percent had watched Nickelodeon and 69 percent had watched Disney; 92 percent said they had played outside.

Verhaagen, father of two daughters, 11 and 13, says tweens are “immersed in consumer culture” and seek out connections and identity through social networking and shared entertainment experiences, but are still “aligned with their parents.”

New data from in-person interviews in December by Youth Trends, a marketing services company based in Ramsey, N.J., found 85 percent of the 1,223 respondents ages 8-12 agreed that “my family is the most important part of my life” and 70 percent said “I consider my Mom and/or Dad to be one of my best friends.”

Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer, a parenting expert in London and author of “Talking to Tweens,” says the tween years are when young people begin to realize the wider world, and to see themselves as separate from their families. That’s why the peer group is so crucial, she says.

Jade Jacobs, 12, of North Potomac, Md., is active in soccer, basketball, gymnastics and two cheerleading teams. “The main reason I do most of my sports is to hang out with my friends and to get exercise,” she says.

She also loves to shop with friends. “It’s not always about buy, buy, buy,” she says. But, “if we have a little money, we’ll find a cute accessory.”

Her mother, Christina Jacobs, 43, says the idea of “mean girls” is part of the tween years, which is one reason girls worry about clothes. “Girls are looking at each other and seeing who is wearing what. They’re harder on each other,” she says. “Girls are looking at each other at 9 and 10 and boys are in La-La land.”

Music is cool

Eleven-year-old Campbell Shelhoss, a fifth grader in Towson, Md., says he’s not in a hurry to be a teenager, even though he says he has outgrown some childhood pastimes.

“I feel like Pokemon is a little young,” he says, and he puts cartoon toys and handheld video games in the same category.

He plays baseball and golf. He wanted a cell phone “for a few weeks” and then decided it wasn’t that important to him.

Almost two-thirds (63 percent) of those ages 8-12 do not have a cell phone, finds the Youth Trends study. It also finds that tweens spend 12.1 hours a week watching TV and 7.3 hours online.

The Roper report also asked tweens to rate 17 items as “cool or not cool.” Music was at the top of the cool list, followed by going to the movies. “Being smart” ranked third — tied with video games — followed by electronics, sports, fashion and protecting the environment.

First Tweens

“Right now, their friends and their status is everything to them,” says Marissa Aranki, 41, of Fullerton, Calif. She is a fifth-grade teacher and has two daughters, 18 and 12.

“It’s universal for the age, but they show it in different ways. For boys, the whole friendship thing is through technology and through sports,” she says. “Girls like to talk, either about other girls or about boys. A lot of the girls are really boy-crazy. And some of the boys are not really girl-crazy yet. They’re really out of the loop in that case. They’ve got their little guy friends and they’re trying to be athletic and that’s what they care about.”

Tweens are part of the larger generational group sometimes called millennials or Generation Y. Those in their late teens through mid-20s are “first-wave” millennials because they’re the ones who set the trends that this later wave (born between the early 1990s and about 2003 or 2004) continues to follow, suggests historian and demographer Neil Howe, co-author of several books on the generations.

Verhaagen, author of “Parenting the Millennial Generation,” says older and younger millennials share certain traits, such as comfort with technology and diversity, and being family-oriented.

He believes these economic hard times will also leave an imprint on both groups of millennials, with the younger ones possibly becoming less materialistic and consumer-driven.”

“Howe says tweens are even more interested in being protected and sheltered than their older millennial siblings; he says this stems from the fact that the parents of older millennials tend to be Baby Boomers while parents of the younger group are often part of Generation X, in their 30s to mid-40s.

“These Xers are concerned about such things as safety and protection,” he says. “They’re not as worried as Boomers were about making their children paragons of perfection. Xers care less about that and try to do less. They’re more pragmatic.”

Howe counts Barack and Michelle Obama as Gen Xers, born 1961-1981. But many view the president and first lady as post-Boomers who are part of Generation Jones, a term coined by cultural historian Jonathan Pontell for those born between 1954 and 1965.

Either way, it may be tough for the Obama girls to stay out of the spotlight, suggests Denise Restauri, founder of a research and consulting firm called AK Tweens and the tween social networking site AllyKatzz.com.

“They’re in nirvana,” she says. “Right now, (Malia and Sasha) are the most popular girls in school. It doesn’t get much better than that when you’re a tween.”

In this 2008 file photo, parents listen to a seminar conducted by Connecticut State Police Sgt. Jim Smith of the state police cybercrimes unit in Windsor Locks, Conn. Teenagers' increasingly common habit of distributing nude self-portraits electronically _ often called "sexting" if it's done by cell phone _ has parents and school administrators worried. And some prosecutors have begun charging teens who send and receive such images with child pornography and other serious felonies.

CHICAGO — Though youth is fleeting, images sent on a cell phone or posted online may not be, especially if they’re naughty.

Teenagers’ habit of distributing nude self-portraits electronically — often called “sexting” if it’s done by cell phone — has parents and school administrators worried. Some prosecutors have begun charging teens who send and receive such images with child pornography and other serious felonies. But is that the best way to handle it?

“Hopefully we’ll get the message out to these kids,” says Michael McAlexander, a prosecutor in Allen County, Ind., which includes Fort Wayne. A teenage boy there is facing felony obscenity charges for allegedly sending a photo of his private parts to several female classmates. Another boy was recently charged with child pornography in a similar case.

In some cases, the photos are sent to harass other teens or to get attention. Other times, they’re viewed as a high-tech way to flirt. Either way, law enforcement officials want it to stop, even if it means threatening to add “sex offender” to a juvenile’s confidential record.

“We don’t want to throw these kids in jail,” McAlexander says. “But we want them to think.”

This month in Greensburg, Pa., three high school girls who sent seminude photos and four male students who received them were all hit with child pornography charges. And in Newark, Ohio, a 15-year-old high school girl faced similar charges for sending her own racy cell phone photos to classmates. She eventually agreed to a curfew, no cell phone and no unsupervised Internet usage over the next few months. If she complies, the charges will be dropped.

In Pennsylvania, all but one of the students accepted a lesser misdemeanor charge, partly to avoid a trial and further embarrassment, a public defender in the case said. The mother of one boy is considering fighting all charges.

Whatever the outcome, the mere fact that child pornography charges were filed at all is stirring debate among students and adults.

At Greensburg-Salem High School in Pennsylvania, junior Jamie Bennish says she’s not sure the boys in her school’s case should’ve been charged.

“They did not necessarily choose to receive the pictures, although I find it questionable that they did not delete the photos from their cell phones after some period of time,” she says. “As for the girls, there is no excuse for exposing yourself in that way, and any charges they receive they have brought upon themselves.”

Dante Bertani, chief public defender in Westmoreland County, Pa., where the students went to court, called the felony charges “horrendous.” He says such treatment should be reserved for sex offenders, not teenagers who might’ve used poor judgment, but meant nothing malicious.

“It should be an issue between the school, the parents and the kids — and primarily the parents and the kids,” Bertani says. “It’s not something that should be going through the criminal system.”

These cases do pose a dilemma, concedes Wes Weaver, the principal at Licking Valley High School, where the Ohio girl attends school.

He agrees that pornography charges or other felonies are not appropriate, noting that “the laws have not caught up to technology.”

But he says there has to be some way to educate students and their parents about the harm these photos can do — and the fact that, once they’re out there, they often get widely circulated. Days before his staff discovered the girl’s nude photos, the county prosecutor had been at the school to warn students against sexting.

“I don’t think we’re anywhere near having a handle on this,” Weaver says. “It’s beyond our scope as a school.”

Parents are also often at a loss.

Some companies, such as WebSafety Inc., have developed software that parents can use to monitor certain activity on cell phones and computers. They can, for instance, block X-rated texting terms or be alerted when their child is using them, says Mike Adler, the company’s CEO.

Photos are trickier, though, and often require a parent to manually check a child’s phone.

And that’s OK to do, says Dr. Terri Randall, an adolescent psychiatrist in Philadelphia.

“It could be part of the contract of having a cell phone, that you really don’t get 100 percent privacy. It’s just one more way of keeping track, like knowing what your kid is doing and where they are,” says Randall, who’s also an instructor at Jefferson Medical College.

Randall says she’s seeing more issues related to sexting, especially as cell phones with cameras have become standard. One mother brought her daughter in to be psychologically evaluated after finding provocative cell phone photos of the girl.

Other patients tell Randall how sexting and texting explicit messages has caused relationship problems, especially after a breakup, when photos might be distributed out of spite, for instance.

So she reminds her young patients: “Even though it seems like fun and so exciting right now, that person may not always feel the same way about you. And you may not feel the same way about that person either.”

But is it porn? That’s questionable, she and others say.

Certainly, technology makes it easier to do and say things we might not do in person, says Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher with the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

“But ultimately,” she says, “I think this is merely another case of technology extending an activity or action that young people have engaged in for years, if not beyond that.”

RALEIGH, N.C. – MySpace says about 90,000 sex offenders have been identified and removed from its huge social networking Web site.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said Tuesday the new figure is nearly double what MySpace officials originally announced last year.

Cooper and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal have led efforts to make social networking Web sites safer. MySpace executives sent the updated numbers to Blumenthal’s office Tuesday.

Last year, the attorneys general got MySpace and rival Facebook to implement dozens of safeguards. That included limits on older users’ ability to search the profiles of members under 18.

Obese teenagers who have gastric bypass surgery not only lose weight but see their Type 2 diabetes disappear, a new study finds.

Also called bariatric surgery, the procedure limits the size of the stomach and thereby reduces the amount of food one can eat. In this study, researchers used the Roux-en-Y method, which involves placing an adjustable band to block off most of the stomach. The band limits how much food the body absorbs.

“Previous studies have shown frequent remission of Type 2 diabetes in adults following bariatric surgery, but until now, no research had been done to provide information about outcomes of adolescent diabetics who are considering surgical weight loss,” said lead researcher Dr. Thomas H. Inge, an associate professor of surgery and pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

“Our study found that, in most cases, teens can lose one-third of their weight and come off diabetes medications with remission of their diabetes one year after bypass surgery,” he said. “This is certainly not the case for similar diabetic teenage patients who did not undergo surgery.”

The report is published in the January issue of Pediatrics. For the study, Inge’s group looked at 78 teens with Type 2 diabetes. Eleven patients underwent gastric bypass surgery, while the other 67 patients received usual care for their diabetes.

For the teens who had surgery, not only did they have an average 34 percent reduction in their weight, but their diabetes went into remission. Teens that did not have surgery saw an average weight loss of less than 2 pounds and still needed diabetes medication.

Type 2 diabetes takes a huge toll on the body, and the earlier it starts, the more of an impact it can have.

Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, says that while surgery is effective it does not deal with the cause of the obesity epidemic among teens.

“Bariatric surgery is clearly effective in treating severe obesity, preventing and reversing Type 2 diabetes, and even extending survival when applied to adults,” he said.

Despite the success of surgery, these results should be viewed with caution, Katz said.

“A large and growing proportion of all children and adolescents are subject to obesity, and its complications,” he said. “Surgery can mitigate those complications, but can we really condone ushering more and more young people through the OR doors for a major surgical procedure to fix what policies and programs that foster healthful eating and regular activity could have prevented in the first place?”

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ON THE WEB

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more information on gastric bypass surgery: www.win.niddk.nih.gov (search for “gastric bypass surgery.”)

BOSTON – Black teenagers are killing each other in rising numbers but the troubling trend has been masked by a falling crime rate in the United States, according to a study released Monday by Northeastern University.

FBI crime statistics show overall decreases in murder and other violent crimes. But a report by criminal justice professors James Alan Fox and Marc Swatt uncovers other disturbing trends within that data.

Among their findings: an increase of more than 39 percent in the number of black males between the ages of 14 and 17 killed between 2000 and 2007, and an increase of 34 percent in the number of blacks in that age group who committed homicide.

The increases for white male teens age 14-17 during that same period were nearly 17 percent and 3 percent, respectively.

“We can’t ignore the fact that hidden within the overall good news on crime, is very bad news for a segment of the population – young black males – and that needs our attention,” Fox said.

The report also noted guns were overwhelmingly the weapon of choice for young black offenders and are now used in nearly 85 percent of homicides they commit.

The Rev. Jeffrey Brown, executive director of the anti-crime Ten Point Coalition in Boston, said the spike in fatal shootings by and on black youths “bears out what I see on the streets every day.”

“The victim and perpetrators of gun crimes are getting younger and younger,” he added.

Fox called for an infusion of government money to beef up police and restore mentor, sports, after-school and summer programs that withered as federal funds were redirected from cities to homeland security after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

“We need to invest much more in the lives of these kids,” Fox said. “I know there’s lots of people who say times are tough and we don’t have the money, but we either pay for these programs now or pray for the victims later because crime doesn’t wait until the economy improves.”

Brown said that families and the community groups, particularly churches, also need to do more to help solve the problem.

Recent crimes statistics show a drop in overall crime and murder rates between 2006 and 2007, the most recent year that data were available.

The numbers represent a vast improvement over those from the 1990s when the emergence of crack cocaine fueled an explosion in violence, the Northeastern report said. In 1993, about 225 out of every 100,000 blacks age 14-17 committed homicide compared with 81 out of 100,000 in 2007.

But that’s an increase from the year 2000, when the number was 66 out of every 100,000 blacks.

“When you stop paying attention to it, when you stop working at it, the problems can and do rebound,” Fox said.

SAN FRANCISCO – Young gay people whose parents or guardians responded negatively when they revealed their sexual orientation were more likely to attempt suicide, experience severe depression and use drugs than those whose families accepted the news, according to a new study.

The way in which parents or guardians respond to a youth’s sexual orientation profoundly influences the child’s mental health as an adult, say researchers at San Francisco State University. The findings appear in the January issue of Pediatrics and are being released Monday.

“Parents love their children and want the best for them,” said lead researcher Caitlin Ryan, a social worker who directs the university’s Family Acceptance Project. “Now that we have measured all these behaviors, we can see that some of them put youth at extremely high risk and others are wellness-promoting.”

Among other findings, the study showed that teens who experienced negative feedback were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use.

More significantly, Ryan said, ongoing work at San Francisco State suggests that parents who take even baby steps to respond with composure instead of rejection can dramatically improve a gay youth’s mental health outlook.

One of the most startling findings was that being forbidden to associate with gay peers was as damaging as being physically beaten or verbally abused by their parents in terms of negative feedback, Ryan said.

In the two-part study, Ryan and her colleagues first interviewed 53 families with gay teenagers to identify 106 specific behaviors that could be considered “accepting” or “rejecting.” For example, blaming a youth for being bullied at school, shielding him from other relatives or belittling her appearance for not conforming to social expectations fell into the rejecting category.

Next, they surveyed 224 white and Latino gay people between ages 21 and 25 to see which of the behaviors they had experienced growing up. The responses then were matched against the participants’ recent histories of severe depression, suicide attempts, substance abuse and unsafe sexual behavior.

While the results might seem intuitive, Ryan said the study, funded by the California Endowment, was the first to establish a link between health problems in gay youths and their home environments.

She has used the information in workshops with parents and other caregivers who have strained relationships with their gay teenagers, and said many were alarmed enough to make immediate changes in their interactions.

In her paper for Pediatrics, Ryan recommends that medical professionals ask young patients how their families have reacted to their sexual orientations and tell parents that negative reactions may prove harmful even if well-intentioned.

Such conversations are necessary because young people have been coming out at younger ages. Consistent with other studies, the youths in Ryan’s study were on average younger than 11 when they first experienced a same-sex attraction, were just over 14 when they realized they were gay and came out to their families before they had turned 16.

Sten Vermund, a Vanderbilt University pediatrician who became interested in Ryan’s work this summer when she presented her research at the international AIDS conference in Mexico City, agrees that doctors should be encouraged to talk with parents about responding to a child’s sexual orientation in a supportive way.

“So many families of children who are gay, bisexual or transgender, particularly families of gay male youth, think that if they are tough on the kid and tell him how unsatisfactory his gay lifestyle is to the family, he will have it knocked out of him,” Vermund said.

Vermund said he also was impressed by Ryan’s finding that a little bit of familial acceptance could go a long way in increasing a child’s chances for future happiness.

“The Southern Baptist doesn’t have to become a Unitarian,” he said. “Someone can still be uncomfortable with their child’s sexual orientation, but if they are somewhat more accepting and do the best the can, they will do the youth a lot of good. That to me is an important message.”

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On the Web

The Family Acceptance Project, http://familyproject.sfsu.edu/

NEW YORK – In the past year, 30 percent of U.S. high school students have stolen from a store and 64 percent have cheated on a test, according to a new, large-scale survey suggesting that Americans are too apathetic about ethical standards.

Educators reacting to the findings questioned any suggestion that today’s young people are less honest than previous generations, but several agreed that intensified pressures are prompting many students to cut corners.

“The competition is greater, the pressures on kids have increased dramatically,” said Mel Riddle of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. “They have opportunities their predecessors didn’t have (to cheat). The temptation is greater.”

The Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics institute, surveyed 29,760 students at 100 randomly selected high schools nationwide, both public and private. All students in the selected schools were given the survey in class; their anonymity was assured.

Michael Josephson, the institute’s founder and president, said he was most dismayed by the findings about theft. The survey found that 35 percent of boys and 26 percent of girls – 30 percent overall – acknowledged stealing from a store within the past year. One-fifth said they stole something from a friend; 23 percent said they stole something from a parent or other relative.

“What is the social cost of that – not to mention the implication for the next generation of mortgage brokers?” Josephson remarked in an interview. “In a society drenched with cynicism, young people can look at it and say ‘Why shouldn’t we? Everyone else does it.’ ”

Other findings from the survey:

• Cheating in school is rampant and getting worse. Sixty-four percent of students cheated on a test in the past year and 38 percent did so two or more times, up from 60 percent and 35 percent in a 2006 survey.

• Thirty-six percent said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment, up from 33 percent in 2004.

• Forty-two percent said they sometimes lie to save money – 49 percent of the boys and 36 percent of the girls.

Despite such responses, 93 percent of the students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character, and 77 percent affirmed that “when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.”

Nijmie Dzurinko, executive director of the Philadelphia Student Union, said the findings were not at all reflective of the inner-city students she works with as an advocate for better curriculum and school funding.

“A lot of people like to blame society’s problems on young people, without recognizing that young people aren’t making the decisions about what’s happening in society,” said Dzurinko, 32. “They’re very easy to scapegoat.”

Peter Anderson, principal of Andover High School in Andover, Mass., said he and his colleagues had detected very little cheating on tests or Internet-based plagiarism. He has, however, noticed an uptick in students sharing homework in unauthorized ways.

“This generation is leading incredibly busy lives – involved in athletics, clubs, so many with part-time jobs, and – for seniors – an incredibly demanding and anxiety-producing college search,” he offered as an explanation.

Riddle, who for four decades was a high school teacher and principal in northern Virginia, agreed that more pressure could lead to more cheating, yet spoke in defense of today’s students.

“I would take these students over other generations,” he said. “I found them to be more responsive, more rewarding to work with, more appreciative of support that adults give them.

“We have to create situations where it’s easy for kids to do the right things.

“We need to create classrooms where learning takes on more importance than having the right answer.”

On Long Island, N.Y., an alliance of school superintendents and college presidents recently embarked on a campaign to draw attention to academic integrity problems and to crack down on plagiarism and cheating.

Roberta Gerold, superintendent of the Middle Country School District and a leader of the campaign, said parents and school officials need to be more diligent – for example, emphasizing to students the distinctions between original and borrowed work.

“You can reinforce the character trait of integrity,” she said. “We overload kids these days, and they look for ways to survive. . . It’s a flaw in our system that whatever we are doing as educators allows this to continue.”

Josephson contended that most Americans are too blase about ethical shortcomings among young people and in society at large.

“Adults are not taking this very seriously,” he said. “The schools are not doing even the most moderate thing. . . They don’t want to know. There’s a pervasive apathy.”

Josephson also addressed the argument that today’s youth are no less honest than their predecessors.

“In the end, the question is not whether things are worse, but whether they are bad enough to mobilize concern and concerted action,” he said.

“What we need to learn from these survey results is that our moral infrastructure is unsound and in serious need of repair. This is not a time to lament and whine but to take thoughtful, positive actions.”