Recession Probably Will Leave Kids Worse Off
Casey Study Looks at Health, Well-Being – Even before the recession, the health and well-being of a significant number of American children were growing worse, according to an authoritative report issued Tuesday. – Washington Post

UCLA Course Teaches High School Students Language of Their Parents, Grandparents
Second- and third-generation immigrants tend to lose the language and culture of their ancestors. The University of California Los Angeles hosts summer classes for high school students intended to break that pattern.

Goverment seeks cybersecurity whiz kids
A new consortium of U.S. government and private organizations has set out to find tech-minded youngsters, divert them from video games and set them on a course to become cybersecurity “top guns.”

Parenting advice: wit and wisdom from writers
Great writers can offer more comfort and better advice to mothers and fathers than therapists or self-help books. -Timesonline

A Cartoon Buffett, Teaching Children About Money
The renowned investor Warren E. Buffett often speaks animatedly on television about financial responsibility. Soon he will actually be animated for a children’s series on the same subject. -NYTimes

Easy Tips for Raising Greener Kids
Get the whole family involved in going green. Also check out 30 ways to get your kids to play outside. -The Daily Green

Shortwave radio is finding a receptive young audience
Calabasas teenagers accustomed to cellphones, texts and Tweets have become ham hobbyists.  Seventy-five teenagers in Calabasas have become licensed amateur radio operators and hope to lead a new wave of shortwave enthusiasts. For them, the image of the gray-haired ham radio hobbyist tinkering with capacitors, carrier frequencies and coaxial antenna cables is as old-fashioned as the dots and dashes of Morse code.  – L.A. Times

Beyond Censorware: Teaching Web Literacy
One writer thinks censorware doesn’t work. “It catches vast amounts of legitimate material, interfering with teachers’ lesson planning and students’ research alike…Censorware also allows enormous amounts of bad stuff through…Worst of all, censorware teaches kids that the normal course of online life involves being spied upon for every click, tweet, email, and IM.” -Internet Evolution

Parental Stress Increases Kids’ Risk of Asthma
In a study of nearly 2,500 non-asthmatic children ages 5 to 9 who lived in the Universtity of Southern California area, researchers found that the level of stress reported by the children’s parents had a significant impact on the kids’ susceptibility to other common contributors to asthma — namely exposure to pollution from traffic and secondhand smoke. Scientists found that children whose parents described themselves as stressed and anxious were 50% more likely to develop asthma than kids with non-stressed parents — at least when these youngsters were also exposed to pollution in a high-traffic, urban setting. –Time Magazine

FCC Considering More Kid-Friendly Shows
Federal media regulators are looking into whether new rules should be established to require broadcast and cable channels to air more kid-friendly educational shows. – Wall Street Journal

Active Kids Fall Asleep Faster
Study Shows Children Who Play Hard in the Daytime Find It Easier to Fall Asleep at Night. – WebMD.com

Cellphone Etiquette for Kids
Rules for children and parents when it comes to living in a world where cellphones are ubiquitous.  -NY Times blog

Online Youth Need Critical Thinking Skills
The death of Walter Cronkite spurs one writer to ponder: “without an almost universally respected news anchor to tell us “the way it is,” we have to figure it out for ourselves. It’s not that we don’t have resources–we have more than ever and that’s a good thing. But it does put more pressure on us to think critically about what we see, hear, read, and say.”

Authors fly kids (and parents) to the moon for Apollo tribute
The 40th anniversary on July 20 of Apollo 11’s landing on the moon has launched a shelf’s worth of illustrated books for kids, including two by men who walked on the moon. USA TODAY looks at the lunar lineup

AND…Celebrate the 40th anniversary of our lunar accomplishment right here in Los Angeles Thursday-Sunday, July 16-19, 2009 at the Griffith Observatory’s A Fortieth Anniversary Celebration of Our First Step on Another World: NASA’s Apollo 11 Mission to the Moon

TODAY ONLY: 50% OFF Regular Admission to Pompeii Show at Los Angeles County Museum of Art! That’s only $12 admission for adults (normally $25) and don’t forget, FREE for kids and NexGen members!

Get your kids off the sofa this summer
Tips to help your children use the season to work, volunteer and learn. -MSNBC