| “I like to read about celebrities and music and the movies and everything,” says 12-year-old Sloane. Her mom, Barbara, read teen magazines when she was that age … but these are a little different.
“Oooh Sloane, I didn’t see this stuff. Yeah, see this is trashy,” says Barbara as they flip through one of the magazines together.
Sloane concedes, “Sometimes yes, they talk about inappropriate things.”
“Things that I don’t want her to get from a magazine. I want her to get from me,” says Barbara.
LCSW Judy Schulman Greenberg agrees that parents should be concerned about what their kids are reading in magazines, especially when the kids are pre-teens. “Parents should moderate the amount of sexual information, drug information, alcohol information that’s available to their younger children,” she says.
That’s why, experts say, it’s important to understand that not all ‘teen’ magazines are created equal. Some are geared toward pre-teens and early teenagers. And others are aimed at 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds.
“If you move to the magazines that are geared more for high school, then there was a big difference in the material they were presenting. They do begin to get into more frank discussions about drugs and alcohol and sexual relationships,” says Greenberg.
So, she says, for parents: do what Sloane’s mom does.
“Before I buy them, she flips through them and reads them and makes sure they’re okay for me,” says Sloane.
And make sure they know that you’re a better source of information than any magazine.
Sloane knows that already. “Things like sex and drugs and smoking. I can come to my parents about that stuff, and I don’t need to read it from a magazine,” she says.
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