It was once a rite of passage for American teenagers: Spend the summer slinging burgers, watching over the frolicking kids at the local pools, hawking apparel at the mall, or babysitting for the neighbor in order to earn a few bucks. But it turns out that fewer teens are taking part in the tradition of obtaining a summer job, despite an apparent plethora of opportunities to do so. [More]
teens
A Handy Guide To This Year’s Biggest Post-Christmas Mall Brawls
By 12.27.16
All across the country, mall shoppers took Boxing Day way too literally this year, with high-profile skirmishes, arrests, and evacuations occurring at shopping centers in nearly a dozen states. [More]
California Teen Allegedly Sets Christmas-Themed Stuffed Animals On Fire At Walmart
By 11.5.14
In the past we’ve reported on some very disturbing behavior when it comes to consumers, stuffed animals, and Walmart (remember the humping incident?). The weirdness continued early this morning at a California store when a teen allegedly started a fire with the toys. [More]
Teenagers Turning Restaurants Into The Cool New Hangout Spots As Malls Die Off
By 4.11.14
A word to any Hollywood screenwriters working on a scene where old cops go back to high school disguised as implausibly believable students — put those characters at a mall and real teenagers will know you don’t know what’s cool these days. Namely, malls are out, and restaurants are in as the new spot to hangout. [More]
“The Real Cost” Of Smoking Is Only Skin Deep In New Anti-Smoking Campaign Aimed At Teens
By 2.4.14
A case of marketing brilliance or unfair stereotyping? That’s the question we have after the Food and Drug Administration announced the first anti-smoking campaign aimed at teens. The ads don’t highlight the serious health risks of smoking, such as emphysema or lung cancer, instead they depict yellow teeth and wrinkles. [More]
Did Rue 21 Kick This Teen Out Of Store For Being Too Fat?
By 9.3.13
There are gracious ways to tell someone that your store doesn’t sell clothes that fit them. Throwing a teenage customer out of the store by saying, “You’re too big to be in this store. I need you to leave” is not one of them. That’s what an Oregon teen claims happened to her at a Rue 21 store at her local mall. [More]
13-Year-Old Aspiring Hot Dog Vendor Shut Down By City, Sells Cart At A Profit
By 7.31.12
A Michigan teen’s hot dog cart is a more complex operation than your garden-variety lemonade stand. Wanting to earn some money to help out his disabled parents, the 13-year-old saved up to purchase a hot dog cart, then set up business in downtown Holland. The city promptly shut him down. Thanks to zoning laws designed to protect downtown eateries, food carts can’t set up in the city unless they’re part of an existing restaurant operation. The young entrepreneur is too young for a street vendor’s license, which could have kept the business running. So what did he do next? After attracting national media attention, he sold the cart to a local business, but retains the right to borrow it back for special events that might require hot dogs. [More]
13-Year-Old Left In Parked Car Goes On Destructive Rampage, Parks On Top Of Another Car
By 7.19.12
Just about everyone has done it: leave kids in the car, even for just a minute or two, with the keys still in the ignition so the air conditioning, heat, or radio can keep running. For people without kids, surely your own parents left you in the car with the keys at some point. Or maybe they never did, fearing that something would go terribly wrong. Like when a Michigan teen with the keys to her grandmother’s car launched a one-girl demolition derby in the parking lot of a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. She hit a utility pole and a few parked cars before eventually nestling the vehicle sideways between two other parked cars. [More]
Mall Now Requires Teens Shop With Parents After 6:00 P.M.
By 5.10.12
For teens at the NorthPark Center mall in Dallas, there’s no more whiling away the hours loitering at the food court with their school chums. If kids under the age of 18 want to hang at the mall after 6:00 p.m., they now have to do it with parents in tow. [More]
Don't Yap Or Tap On Your Phone While Teaching Your Kid To Drive
By 10.20.11
Teaching your teenage child to drive is an emotionally fraught yet important time. You can instill good driving habits that will see them through the couple of decades we have left before robotic flying cars dominate the market, then eventually enslave us. Or you can set a bad example by whipping out your phone while teaching the finer points of highway merging. Guess which one most American parents choose? [More]
Please Stop Sending My 16-Year-Old Daughter Credit Card Solicitations
By 3.22.11
Theoretically, a 16-year-old shouldn’t be on the mailing list for unsolicited credit card offers. Neither should a 13-year-old. Yet companies just can’t stop sending solicitations to J’s teenage daughter–even after J. specifically opted her out of the offers. Permanently. Or so the family thought. Now they’ve started up again, and J. isn’t sure how to make them stop. [More]
Abercrombie & Fitch To Resurrect Soft Core Catalog
By 6.26.10
With sales down and consumer interest flagging, Abercrombie & Fitch has decided it’s time to bring back its provocative catalog. The return of A&F Quarterly, which will go on sale July 17 for $10, is a blatant grab for the attention of America’s recession-wracked teen spenders. Will it succeed? [More]
The 13 Best Cars For Teen Drivers
By 4.29.10
It’s almost graduation time, which means that lots of parents and recent graduates will be in the market for a dependable car for heading off to college or full-time work. Our cousins with the cool test track at Consumer Reports have come up with their annual list of Best Cars for Teens. [More]
Parental Control Software Co. Sells What Kids Say On The Internet
By 10.3.09
If you’re a company like Echometrix that sells parental control software, you’re sitting on a whole bunch of data about what teens and children say and do on the Internet. What to do with that information? Use it to make your software better? Well, of course. But why not sell aggregate data to marketers, too?
Tight-Fisted Moms Set Rules On Teen Clothing Purchases
By 9.24.09
The tight economy has meant fewer jobs for teens, leaving more of them with empty wallets and at the mercy of that heartless arbiter of teen fashion: mom. The Wall Street Journal reports that even stores that specialize in clothes for younger consumers are following the money to its source. Aeropostale’s employee handbook states: “Because parents make the final decision, they want to feel valued, and they want to feel good about what they purchase.”
16-Year-Old Unwittingly Stars In Homemade Abercrombie & Fitch Dressing Room Video
By 9.10.09
A teenager is suing Abercrombie & Fitch and one of its former employees after she caught someone filming her in one of the store’s dressing rooms.
Study Finds Booze Sellers Are Using Cable To Ply Teens
By 8.24.09
Alcohol ads pop up on cable programming that’s popular with teeagers at a suspicious rate, a study by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth and UCLA found.
Watch Out For The Five Worst Teen Jobs Of 2009
By 6.30.09
Because we took a lot of seasonal jobs/were easily bored, we had quite a few jobs as a teenager. But although our workplaces exposed us to hazards like deli slicers and Christmas Eve mall shoppers, we’re relieved to learn we never had one of the National Consumer League’s Five Worst Teen Jobs.
