CafeMom Melchen posted a cool video to the The CafeMom Newcomers Club.

Sponsored by GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network), the spot casts Hillary Duff as a shopper who overhears a teen making reference to a shirt her friend is trying on by saying, "That's so gay." Hillary checks her, and throws an underhanded dis. "What if every time someone saw something that was bad they said, 'That's so girl wearing a skirt as a top?'" (which, of course, perfectly describes the girl in question). Ouch.

Alarming news. After two Wisconsin 8th graders were busted for trying to sell prescription drugs in their middle school, police there issued a warning to parents everywhere about the dangers of children having access to certain prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

Friday night. "Hey mom, me and the girls are going to hang at the mall for a couple of hours." Sound familiar?

If it does, you wouldn't be the only mother of a tween or teen whose child spends an inordinate amount of time with friends at a shopping center. But teen mall congregation isn't exactly adored by retailers, like you might think. That's because bands of teens don't necessarily mean big shoppers, but instead sometimes violence and disorderly conduct.

According to an Associated Press/MTV study, school is the number one source of stress for teens. Why? Oh let's see: bullying, intense academic demands, peer pressure, emotional issues, over-scheduled lives. Unfortunately for today's 13 -18 year olds, the reality is that a whopping 85% percent of them report being simply stressed out.

YanniSmoMMy  wants to know why some moms feel it is important to be friends with their teens.

I think she's right to question the fine balance between parenting and befriending our children. It's an every day challenge at the teen stage of parenting, and there are no easy answers to this one. On one hand, you want you teenager to trust and confide in you, but on the other hand, you certainly don't want to confuse him/her about your boundaries and expectations.

In a recent bettyconfidential.com blog, writer Cate Thompson explores the phenomenon of teens wanting--and getting--plastic surgery. The pressure to be "perfect" is so intense for teenagers, especially girls, it seems it takes self-awareness of steel to resist. But for the teens who feel they can't live with their imperfections--should the option for plastic surgery even be on the table?

World's AIDS Day

I'll never forget an interview I had a couple of years ago with a compelling young woman, then 22. She told me she was diagnosed with HIV when she was 19. She got it from her boyfriend, she said--the first person she ever had sex with. She told me that when she first got the news, she was simply in disbelief.

For all the moms who are going nuts about the insane amount of time their teens spend on the Internet on social networking sites like Myspace, you can exhale now. Why? A new MacAuthur Foundation study, "Living and Learning With New Media" found that these teens are actually getting ahead of the new media curve.

Since the school shooting massacres at Columbine, Virgina Tech and other places, mothers across the country have become keenly aware that school can become a place of extreme violence. In order to stay sane, however, we tuck our fears away, and send our kids off to school each morning with the hope that the children they are surrounded by are not a bunch of gun-toting crazies.

Sophy Cohen, a student at Santa Monica High School, wrote an article (picked up by an LA Times blogger) that exposed something potentially quite controversial about her school. A girl has run for Homecoming King. Actually, that odd fact wasn't even what was most curious about Sophy's story, what was certainly more interesting to me is what Sophy suggests "change" really looks like through the eyes of young people.