Another Taylor Takes on Cyberbullying: Say It 2 My Face

We love this: a University of Southern California teen is taking on cyberbullying. A former victim herself, Taylor Audette had enough. She's put together this very cool online movement to address the anonymous bullying that happens over social networks like Facebook and FormSpring called (appropriately) Say It 2 My Face.

In her own words: "Our campaign encourages everyone to think about what they type, what they post, and what they spread online. The 'Say It 2 My Face' slogan helps people understand that what they say in the cyber realm is very rarely what they'd ever say to someone's face."

We think she's onto something. Encourage your tween to read about the movement and sign the pledge.

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Happy Birthday Taylor Swift!

Happy 21st Birthday to Taylor Swift! We wish this positive tween role model the best and look forward to seeing her at the Verizon Center on her next concert tour August 2-3, 2011.

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Glee Star Jane Lynch To Speak in DC About Tweens and Texting

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is holding a public forum on the mobile culture, tweens, cyberbullying, sexting, and more this Tuesday at McKinley Technology High School. The forum is called "Generation Mobile" and will feature Glee star Jane Lynch, tween parenting expert Rosalind Wiseman, and one of our favorite media site, Commonsense Media.

According to their site, the FCC is hosting the forum to bring "together teens, parents, educators and experts" to talk together about commonsense and responsible uses of technology. The forum will be split into two parts: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will hosting the first panel “Generation Mobile Speaks” featuring teens, parents and educators. The second panel, “Ask the Experts About Generation Mobile” will feature experts from SafetyWeb, Facebook, Sprint and other major mobile and technology players.

Youth and media has been in the news a great deal this year, and Washington has seen its share of such events (including Geena Davis speaking earlier this year at the "Healthy Media for Youth Summit"). This event is open to the public - for details, see the FCC website here and also streaming live at www.fcc.gov/live. You can also follow the event via Twitter using the #genmobile hashtag.

Photo credit: LG Text Ed via www.fcc.gov

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Tween New Year's Eve Countdown: Glow in the Dark (Organic!) Nail Polish

We're known for our tween-focused New Year's Eve celebrations, and this year, we thought we'd share our list of all things fabulous for tweens on New Year's Eve a bit earlier than usual.

Our first fun find: eco-friendly glow-in-the-dark nail polish! Made by Piggy Paint, their Radioactive nail polish is part of their new line for tweens called Project Earth. We think this would be perfect for mani-pedis during a fun girls-night-in or New Year's spa party.

$9 from PiggyPaint.com

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Really Cool Hannukah Video For Tweens; Riff on Taio Cruz's Dynamite

Your tween, whether your family is Jewish or not, will love this music video take on Taio Cruz's "Dynamite" - this one is for Hannukah and is done by a Jewish/American/Israeli a cappella group, The Maccabeats. Check out the video below or on our YouTube channel.



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Crafty Holiday Presents for Tweens

Crayola has entered the tween market with their Pop Art Pixies line. It's actually a pretty cool website with tween characters who love art. You can download project instructions online and purchase art kits that will appeal to tweens - our fave is the Bento Box Stationery Kit (pictured above). Tweens can also upload images of their projects to the site to share, create their own avatar, and post messages to other avatars online (their privacy policy nicely spells out the ways they protect tween's identities online).

These would also make great holiday gifts!

Bento Box Stationery Kit $9.98 from Crayola  (plus a $2 coupon here)

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New Tween Creative Writing Site: Figment

We stumbled upon a new site that showcases creative writing by tweens: Figment. Developed by former Conde Nast editor Jacob Lewis and a NewYorker writer, Dana Goodyear, they say it's "a sort of literary Facebook for the teenage set."

It's a free site, and its goal is to encourage young people to read and write fiction. The New York Times did a great piece on it here.

If your tween is into writing (did she apply to join Tavi in the new Sassy mag?), this site could become a regular hangout for her.

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Perfect Tween Stocking Stuffer or Hanukkah Night Gift!

How CUTE are these marshmallow candies from Harajuku Girls?!? As hip as only Gwen Stefani can be, this set of five treats is packaged with a Harajuku Girls chopsticks set.

$8 from Dylan's Candy Bar

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New Study on Tween Bullying

Time magazine has just released a new study about bullying amongst 10-13 year olds. The study finds that bullying is largely overlooked when popular kids bully less powerful kids.

"In particular, they looked at how the usually negative relationship between relational aggression and peer liking held up among kids who were socially dominant (the popular kids) and those who were not (those who had ever been victimized by peers). The researchers found that, when a popular student bullies other kids, he or she doesn't get stigmatized. Victims who turn aggressive and bully other kids turn out to be the least liked kids in middle school. Worse, the findings suggest that no one cares when these kids are bullied."

Definitely worth a read.

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Holiday Gifts for (Younger) Tweens: Barbie Video Girl

We admittedly have mixed feelings about Barbie, but lately she's been making progress. This includes the latest Barbie item: Barbie Video Girl. It's a Barbie doll with an actual video camera built-into the doll's necklace. Tweens can make their own videos and edit them using free and simple software. We were intrigued and liked that this toy concept bridged the virtual and physical worlds. We cannot vouch for the video quality as yet as we have not purchased this product (as a reminder, there is no pay-to-play here; Ms.Twixt is strictly editorial) - but let us know if you did and what you think - we'd especially love to post a tween's review (we remove all personally identifiable information from tween's posts and do not share our subscriber lists).

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