Child gets foot stuck in escalator due to the Croc brand shoes she was wearing. Most disturbing is this:

CPSC is aware of 77 entrapment incidents since January 2006, with about half resulting in injury. All but two of the incidents involved popular soft-sided flexible clogs and slides.

What the hell is the Consumer Product and Safety Commission doing if they know about this problem and aren’t doing anything about it? Of course, if the current head of the CPSC is as bad as the one Bush nominated last time, this is hardly a shock. Tags: If You Only Knew, Kids

Today there was a talk about Cyberbullying that revealed some really fascinating information. Elizabeth Englander from MARC (the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center) game a very spirited talk with some good statistics from her group’s studies.

• Grappling is the name for either staging a fight or ambushing someone and recording it to upload to Youtube later. There has been at least one suicide as a result of these attacks where a girl was attacked, stripped, and violated with the entire episode uploaded to Youtube.
• When asked what the motivation was for being a cyberbully, kids (ranging from middleschool to college) listed mostly either “because it was fun” or “because I was angry”. The most interesting thing about this statistic is that it broke down almost perfectly along gender lines. Can you guess which is which? Boys did it for fun and girls because they were angry.
• There’s at least one school district where the teachers have threatened to strike unless they are allowed to collect cellphones at the door. This comes out of situations like the one where the students provoked their teacher on purpose and recorded his angy reaction for upload to Youtube.

Another very interesting thing that Elizabeth said due to a question about the effectiveness of Public Service Announcements about cyberbullying was that, in her state at least, they held a contest for teens to create public service announcements that would get the message out to people of their own age. That’s brilliant! As the commenter in the audience said, the “This is your brain on drugs” and “I learned it by watching you” PSAs from our youth were really more of a joke than anything. Teens are probably best equipped to create something that their peers will pay attention to. You can find out more about MARC at their website. Tags: CFP, Kids

Some very interesting facts from the Crimes Against Children Research Center:

In the vast majority of Internet sex crimes against young people, offenders did not actually deceive youth about the fact that they were adults who had sexual intentions. Acknowledging that they were older, the offenders seduced youth by being understanding, sympathetic, flattering, and by appealing to young people’s interest in romance, sex and adventure. Although cases of abduction, forcible rape and murder have occurred, they are very rare. According to research looking at crimes ending in arrest, violence occurred in only 5% of cases. In most encounters, victims meet offenders voluntarily and expect sexual activity, because they feel love or affection for the person they have been corresponding with. Typically they have sex with the adult on multiple occasions. Most of these crimes are statutory rather than forcible rapes. Virtually all cases of Internet sex crimes involve youth 12 and up. Most victims are ages 13 – 15. Younger children have much less interest than teens in interacting with and going to meet unknown persons they have encountered online. Avoid implying that the typical youngster vulnerable to online offenders is a young child. Research has shown that simply posting or sending some personal information online does not put youth at risk. The reason is that most young people (like most adults) do give out personal information. It is hard to be online without doing so. A warning (“Never give out personal information online”) that is so broad and runs counter to such common practices is not likely to make young people trust the source of such advice.

And a set of consolidated advice:

1 ) Be smart about what you post on the Web and what you say to others. The Web is a lot more public and permanent than it seems. 2 ) Provocative and sexy names and pictures can draw attention from people you don’t want in your life. 3 ) Sexy pictures can get you into trouble with the law. If you are underage, they may be considered child pornography, a serious crime. 4 ) Be careful what you download or look at, even for a laugh. Some of the images on the Internet are extreme, and you can’t “unsee ? something. 5 ) Going to sex chat rooms and other sex sites may connect you with people who can harass you in ways you don’t anticipate. 6 ) Free downloads and file-sharing can put pornography on your computer that you may not want and can be hard to get rid of . Any pornography that shows children or teens under 18 is illegal child pornography and can get you in big trouble. 7 ) Adults who talk to you about sex online are committing a crime. So are adults who meet underage teens for sex. Some teens think it might be fun, harmless or romantic, but it means serious trouble for everyone. It’s best to report it. 8 ) Don’t play along with people on the Web who are acting badly, taking risks and being weird. Even if you think it’s harmless and feel like you can handle it, it only encourages them and may endanger other young people. 9 ) Report it when other people are acting weird and inappropriately or harassing you or others. It’s less trouble just to log off, but these people may be dangerous. Save the communication. Contact the site management, your service provider, the CyberTipline or even the police. 10 ) Don’t let friends influence your better judgment. If you are surfing with other kids, don’t let them pressure you to do things you ordinarily wouldn’t. 11 ) Be careful if you ever go to meet someone you have gotten to know through the Internet. You may think you know them well, but they may fool you. Go with a friend. Tell your parents. Meet in a public place. Make sure your have your cell phone and an exit plan. 12 ) Don’t harass others. People may retaliate in ways you don’t expect. 13 ) You can overestimate your ability to handle things. It may feel like you are careful, savvy, aware of dangers, and able to manage the risks you take, but there are always unknowns. Don’t risk disasters.

The above is documented in this PDF. Tags: Kids, Sexual Predators

Here’s some information suggesting that fear of sexual predators online might be out of hand. According to them, it’s not that random or unavoidable. Tags: For Families, Kids, MySpace, Sexual Predators

A while back we were hearing stories of teens setting ringtones to frequencies that most adults couldn't hear. Now the tables are turning and there are some people who are using the same technique to chase young people away! While very funny and an ironic twist on the ultrasonic ringtone idea, it has some legitimate drawbacks that are leading some to call for the devices to be banned.

The £500 Mosquito device has been installed at some 3,500 locations across the country since it first went on sale in January 2006. It emits an irritating, high-pitched sound that can only be heard by children and young people up into their early twenties, forcing them to move on.

(H/T to slashdot for the link) Tags: Kids

I’ve built several bears with my kids, but I always balk at the part where they’re supposed to put in their information. They just don’t need that much personal data about my kid. Instead, I put in MY personal e-mail address so that if it did get “lost” and recovered, they would be able to e-mail me at the least, though we’d probably just replace it anyway… Tags: For Families, Kids

Well this is different. I knew that posting online can have severe negative effects on the poster, but I hadn’t considered the effect on the parents.

“Whether we’re talking about dad’s work secrets or problems between mom and dad with their relationship,” Sgt. MacDonald said.

We asked him to show us just how easy it is to find incriminating posts. It didn’t take long.

“Not only do I have to live with my nagging mom, my dad does drugs. This person, Tara, says her parents are lazy alcoholics,” reads Sgt. MacDonald.

He says it’s not hard for police, or employers, to uncover the identity of teens from the details in their profiles.

While drugs and underage drinking are likely problems that should be dealt with, some other things should remain private:

even innocent-sounding news can do damage. “They may be talking about how their father is losing a job, and perhaps a neighbor who’s the mortgage broker for the father isn’t aware that the father’s job is in jeopardy,”

Tags: Blogging, For Parents, Kids, Police, SNS

Nothing like treating people like animals to be tagged and tracked. Of course, it's much easier to start by tracking kids because they don't have much choice in the matter and when they grow up, they'll be less resistant to the practice. Enter surveillance society… But let's not get ahead of ourselves. They portray the tests as successful, but as Bruce Schneier points out, "So now it's easy to cut class; just ask someone to carry your shirt around the building while you're elsewhere." Or how about, "it's easy to get someone you hate in trouble by wearing their uniform for a few minutes while vandalizing the teacher's lounge." Or "We had no idea that constantly bombarding students with radio frequencies in closed spaces during their formative years would lead to these kinds of mutations! Mrs. Johnson, you can't honestly expect us to pay to have Timmy's third arm removed can you?" I love how companies start implementing RFID without any thought to the consequences. Tags: Kids, RFID

Well this is different. I knew that posting online can have severe negative effects on the poster, but I hadn't considered the effect on the parents.

"Whether we're talking about dad's work secrets or problems between mom and dad with their relationship," Sgt. MacDonald said. We asked him to show us just how easy it is to find incriminating posts. It didn't take long. "Not only do I have to live with my nagging mom, my dad does drugs. This person, Tara, says her parents are lazy alcoholics," reads Sgt. MacDonald. He says it's not hard for police, or employers, to uncover the identity of teens from the details in their profiles

While those people might deserve to get fired (if the teen poster is telling the truth and not just venting), the article lists another example of a mortgage broker finding out that one of his customers lost his job. Privacy is starting to become harder and harder to protect, but also more important at the same time. (H/T to digg for the link) Tags: Blogging, For Families, If You Only Knew, Kids, Parents

In case you haven’t been paying attention, kids are just as likely to be ID theft victims as adults, even more so. Because they don’t have any regular financial activity and no one would ever think to get a credit report for their kids (since they shouldn’t have one), the theft can go on for much longer without detection. Tags: If You Only Knew, Kids