HOT TOPIC: Managing Your Kids Media Diets - Gossip Girl!

As our kids have grown up, so has their taste for trendy television shows. Although we can hardly believe it, our sweet little girls have started high school (gasp!) and want to be in on the latest chat around campus. For our girls, that means the "MIND-BLOWINGLY INAPPROPRIATE" Gossip Girl series, airing Monday night at 8 pm, just when they should be focusing on their homework.

For us, it means a weekly battle: should we let them watch a show that we think is loaded with poor role models, early sexuality, plenty of alcohol, parties and very little parenting. Put another way, should we let our daughters watch a show that is common cultural currency in their school community, recognizing that if we say no, they are likely to watch it anyway at a friend's house? Or, are we as parents better off and getting on the couch with them, so at least, we can act as a media filter and discuss what they're seeing on the screen?

Please tell us what you do in your home: An adamant NO? Or get on the couch with them? A free pass to watch? Want more information before you decide? Take a look at this article in Time Magazine that talks about the impact of titillating media on kids, that claims "The real problems arise when the media unanimously suggest that hotness is the only identity worth trying on.

Kids Off The Couch $100 Gift Card from Gifts.com Contest!

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The Past Roars to Life: The Land Before Time + Walking With Dinosaurs = Kids Off The Couch

Are your kids dino-obsessed? Do you remember when they read Danny the Dinosaur and dreamt of riding a dinosaur's back? Our kids slept with their dinosaur books, memorizing each name -- Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rex -- and have always wondered what it would be like to meet a real life dinosaur. But wonder no more, because...they're back! Walking With Dinosaurs is a live, theatrical show where science and animatronics meet imagination as 15 snarling, growling, life-sized dinosaurs roam the arena. Putting your kids face-to-face with a Stegosaursus, T. Rex and a Utah Raptor is not as scary as it sounds, though we don't recommend the show for kids under six. To get your kids dinosaur-ready, we review Land Before Time for little ones this week. If your bigger kids are stalwart, there's nothing like Jurassic Park or the show upon which this traveling stage show is based, the BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs. (Click here for a subscriber discount to the show, which is only in Los Angeles for THREE DAYS -- September 25 through 28, and for details on the new Dinosaur Encounters show at the Natural History Museum for younger dino-fans)

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