We’ve already seen how the opioid epidemic has spread like wildfire in the U.S. since the late ’90s, but a new study shows how children of every age group are increasingly being exposed (and exposing themselves) to dangerous levels of these painkillers. [More]
kids today
Teen Arrested For Passing Himself Off As A Doctor, Opening Clinic
By 2.17.16
In a combination of Doogie Howser, MD and Catch Me If You Can, a Florida teenager has been arrested for not merely posing as a medical doctor, but for going so far as to open up his own clinic, complete with a website. [More]
Eavesdropping Barbie, Books About Famous Brands, Bratz Selfie Sticks Lead List Of Year’s Crassest Toys
By 11.23.15
Not all toys are equal; just ask those ungrateful children who will throw a tantrum on Christmas morning for getting a GoBot instead of a Transformer (wait — that was me). But some kid-targeted products cross the line from being blah to being truly terrifying. [More]
Bargain-Hunting Youngsters Extend The Back-To-School Season Well Into September
By 8.24.15
Back in July, early research showed that families planned to spend slightly more on back-to-school shopping than last year. A different survey by the National Retail Federation shows that families plan to spend less on back-to-school shopping this year. In addition to starting the back-to-school season earlier, it seems that retailers are extending it for longer, realizing that youngsters have learned to bargain-hunt as well as their parents. [More]
YouTube Kids Accused Of Running Beer Ads, Crotch-Grabbing Lessons, Wine-Tasting Tips
By 5.19.15
Since Google launched the YouTube Kids app in February, the service has come under fire from consumer advocates for its advertising practices. Now, instead of focusing on the commercials shown through the service, several of those same groups are raising concerns with federal regulators over what they call disturbing and potentially harmful content for young children to view. [More]
Stay Away Kids; This McDonald’s Is For Adults Only
By 4.28.15
The default setting for teenagers is “obnoxious,” and anyone who’s ever worked in fast food knows just how insufferable some adolescents can be when released into the wild without adult supervision. But are pre-adults so unmanageable that they have to be banned from entering a McDonald’s? [More]
YouTube Kids App Accused Of Deceptive, Excessive Advertising
By 4.7.15
It’s only been a few weeks since Google launched its YouTube Kids app targeted at the youngest Internet users, and it’s already taking heat from consumer advocates who are asking federal regulators to investigate whether the service’s advertising practices run afoul of the law. [More]
Texas Roadhouse Serves Up Sangria To 2-Year-Old Girl
By 3.23.15
When you order a cranberry juice for your 2-year-old daughter and the server brings her a glass containing a dark red beverage, you probably wouldn’t think to sample the drink to make sure she hadn’t been given a glass full of boozy sangria. [More]
Parents Using Uber To Chauffeur Kids To School, Even Though It’s Not Allowed
By 3.11.15
Rather than packing their kids onto a crowded bus in the morning or having to take time out of their morning schedule to get those students to school (or just making them walk, which is what legs were invented for), some parents are looking to ridesharing service Uber to ferry their youngsters around — even though it’s against the company’s own rules. [More]
Watch Young Kid Go On 3-Minute Dollar Store-Destroying Rampage
By 12.30.14
Have you ever been so fed up by life that you just wanted to run amok in a retail store, ripping items off shelves and pulling down displays? No? Well, you’re apparently not the youngster in this video. [More]
Nearly 2 Of 3 Millennials Don’t Have Credit Cards
By 9.8.14
Millennials — those Americans currently between 18 and 29 years of age — never really lived in a world without debit cards, when the only way to make a non-cash purchase was to use a credit card or hope the store accepted personal checks. So it may come as little surprise to some that nearly two-thirds of the consumers in this age group don’t have a single credit card to their names. [More]
Teen Counterfeiter Blames Crime On “Too Much Freedom” From Mom
By 9.5.14
Reason #6,721 I have no interest in ever being a parent: My child would someday try to pin the blame for his or her misdeeds on my parenting, just like the teenage counterfeiter in Pennsylvania who says the reason he created bogus $100 bills was because his mom was too easy on him. [More]
Google’s Plan To Let Kids Have Accounts: Bad Idea Or Acknowledgement Of Reality?
By 8.19.14
A few years back, Facebook’s sweatshirt-in-chief Mark Zuckerberg caught a lot of heat when he said he’d be willing to fight for the right to peddle his social network to kids under the age of 13. He eventually backed off on this idea, but now Google appears to be taking up the cause. [More]
Verizon’s “All Kids Do It” Excuse For Throttling Isn’t Good Enough For FCC Chair
By 8.8.14
First, Verizon announced it would start throttling LTE users who devour the most data, but only those with grandfathered-in unlimited plans. Then FCC Chair Tom Wheeler said he was “deeply troubled” that Verizon may be trying to force users into more expensive plans under the guise of “network optimization.” Verizon tried to get Wheeler to back off with its “everyone’s doing it” defense, but that didn’t seem to work. [More]
Doughnut Shop Bans “Rude” 4-Year-Old Boy For Asking Woman If She Was Pregnant
By 7.24.14
Little kids ask questions. Unfortunately, they don’t always realize that their questions may be insensitive or inappropriate. Lots of adults let kids slide for their occasionally tactless queries, but the mother of one 4-year-old says a local doughnut shop is taking a hard line regarding her son’s behavior. [More]
Teens Hack ATM, Then Show Bank How Easily They Did It
By 6.10.14
Like something out of an ’80s movie starring a precocious teen with a computer his absentee parents bought him for his birthday, a pair of teenagers in Winnipeg used an ATM operator’s manual and some good old-fashioned guesswork to gain unauthorized access to a Bank of Montreal ATM — and then told the bank about what they’d figured out. [More]
Man Takes Kids To Chuck E. Cheese’s For Wholesome Purse-Snatching Fun
By 5.2.14
For decades, Chuck E. Cheese’s has been a place where parents could bring their kids for wholesome activities like chowing down on overpriced pizza, running around uncontrollably, and playing around in pits of plastic balls that you convince yourself aren’t covered in germs. But one man in Washington state recently added another game to the mix, called “Go steal some purses and give them to me.” [More]
McDonald’s Trying To Stop Differentiating Between “Girls” And “Boys” Toys In Happy Meals
By 4.21.14
McDonald’s has long offered two types of choices in its Happy Meal toys — one targeted to boys and one aimed at girls. But not every boy wants a robot fighter and not every girl craves a pink winged pony; an idea that a number of McDonald’s employees didn’t seem to understand. So in response to concerns that the fast food mega-chain was ignoring some young customers’ requests, McDonald’s is now teaching workers to leave gender out of the Happy Meal discussion. [More]
