I’m doing something today that I have never done before: Letting Matt, age 14, go to the doctor by himself. Without his mommy by his side.

No, he’s not sick. If he was, I’d be right there, dropping everything and taking him to the doc.

But it’s a beautiful day, the office is about a mile away, and he can ride his bike. He just needs to get blood work done for a routine physical for high school sports. (Gulp — He’ll be a freshman in September.)

I’m on a work deadline today and I have painters here doing some work. Not a good time to leave. So I called the doc’s office and they said I could send a note and Matt could come by himself.

Would you do this? Am I a bad mom? Or is this the right amount of freedom to let an incoming high school freshman have? Matt’s a responsible kid, for 14. But still… He’s 14.

What do you think?

I’m so happy to be able to share a terrific guest post today. Keira, who is 16, is the sibling of one of the 8th graders who was promoted at our local middle school on Tuesday night. This is in response to yesterday’s post on that event. (Let’s just say it prompted an interesting discussion!) I think she has a great perspective — and a heck of a lot of maturity. (I also think if every high school student in our town was as articulate as Keira, our English teachers would we thrilled.) Take it away, Keira…

As a 16-year-old girl who was there at promotion, I must agree with you. It’s disgusting. My year was even worse. I don’t understand how the parents of these girls let them walk out of the house looking like that.

I would never let my own daughter display herself in such an inappropriate fashion, nor would I ever feel okay dressing myself that way. Ever. It doesn’t matter if you’re thin and cute and want to show off, or if you’re not-so-thin and still feel like you need to show it all or fit in or whatever. It’s simply not okay.

The women in my life have shown me how to be modest and that one attracts people with how they dress. Obviously, we should not judge people by how they look. I’m not advocating that at all. I’m just saying that the girls who dress like they want a certain kind of attention will get it.

And for a 14-year-old  girl fresh out of junior high, that’s never good.

Last night we attended our son’s promotion from middle school. It was a wonderful evening, and we loved seeing so many kids that we’ve known for years — some since they were in diapers.

With 380+ kids in the 8th grade class, we saw a little bit of everything when it came to fashion. And let me be very clear, given what I’m about to say: The vast majority of kids followed the dress code that was distributed to parents on three different occasions.

But — and I’m not exaggerating here — about 10 percent of the girls looked like Vegas hookers, complete with stripper heels. We’re talking skin-tight dresses (with spandex to make them even more revealing), some strapless, at a length that barely covered their assets.

What are these parents thinking? Have they abdicated all authority over what their children do? Are they afraid to say no? Are some of the moms so hell-bent on having a daughter who’s part of the in crowd that they allow (or even encourage) her to dress like she’s about to slither around a pole at a sleazy bar?

These girls are FOURTEEN.

I don’t get it.

And another thing: As the mom of a 14-year-old boy, I’m working hard to teach my son to respect girls. It would be a whole lot easier to do that if some of these girls had a bit more respect for themselves.

Talk back: What do you think? Am I out of line here? What are you seeing in your community? And if you’re a parent who thinks this kind of dressing for an 8th grader is fine and dandy, would you please tell us why?

Thanks to Donna Tapellini over on the Consumer Reports Electronics Blog for raising a potential red flag for parents with her post today: More Videos for Microsoft’s Kin Phones Raise Concern.

(Full disclosure: I’m the social-media reporter for Consumer Reports. But I’m also a parenting blogger, and the mom of a teenager, and you’d better believe I’d be talking about this and linking to this post in any case.)

Just weeks ago, Microsoft pulled its promotional Kin video, after Consumer Reports questioned whether the ad was promoting sexting. Now they’re back, and I’m disturbed by what I’m seeing in these ads, which are being shown on Facebook and You Tube.

In the ads, Rosa Salazar, a young woman from Brooklyn (she looks to be no older than 20), makes a cross-country trek to meet, in person, some of the people she’s friended on Facebook and other social networks. Of course, many of these “friends” are total strangers.

And don’t even get me started on the stalker-like behavior encouraged by the second ad, below…

Is Microsoft being irresponsible here? Do you plan to talk with your tween and teens about such ads? Watch the videos here. Check out Donna’s post, which also includes some thoughts on this ad campaign from Jen Singer over at Mommasaid.net. Then let us know what you think.

Editor’s note: MommaSaid.net‘s Melanie Davis, of the “Buzz on the Birds and the Bees,” and I (I write the “Boo-Boos, Germs & Pap Smears” column) are teaming up to tackle the news about this study on how earlier or later puberty can trigger aggression in boys.

Is your son way ahead of his friends when it comes to his voice getting deeper, his pants getting shorter and his face showing a bit of stubble?

Or is he at the other end of the spectrum — feeling left behind and wondering when he’ll hit puberty like many of his friends already have?

Puberty that arrives earlier or later in boys, compared with their buddies, can trigger chemicals related to antisocial behavior, say Penn State researchers. They add that their findings have important implications for parents with aggressive boys.

“Aggressive behavior can begin very early, even in pre-school, and might be related to poor impulse control, difficulties in the family or just overall general problem behavior,” says Elizabeth J. Susman, a professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State. “We wanted to find out if earlier or later timing of puberty in adolescents has any biological factors related to it.”

She and her colleagues looked at how the timing of puberty affects cortisol (a stress hormone) and salivary alpha amylase (an enzyme in saliva used as an indicator of stress). Their findings appear in the May issue of the medical journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. (OK, that’s a mouthful.)

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To help parents ensure their teen’s prom night is a safe one, youth drug-prevention organization DFYIT (Drug Free Youth in Town) has shared with us their list of prom tips for parents. Here are just a few:

· Tell your kids you’re concerned for their safety. Let them know you realize that prom night is often a big drinking night but that you expect them to do the right thing. Teens who know what their parents expect from them are much less likely to use substances, including alcohol.

· If your teen is going to the prom with a group of friends, know who they are and get their home contact information in case you need to speak with their parents.

· Make sure your kids let you know where they are going before and after the prom. Make sure their cell phone is charged and switched on for the duration of the evening. Tell them to check in if there are any changes in plans.

· Remind them that they can call you anytime, from anywhere, for a ride if anyone has been drinking or if they feel unsafe for any reason.

· Remind them to always wear their seatbelt and make sure everyone in the car does, too.

Interesting post on the Orlando Sentinel blog today about TVs in kids’ bedrooms. Writer Lisa Cianci’s son just turned 13, and he got a flat-screen TV for his bedroom. She says he’s thrilled because he and his friends can now play Xbox in his room, and Dad is happy because the kid and his friends aren’t hanging out in the den.

Cianci pointed out that her son doesn’t have cable on that TV, so he won’t be watching porn. But honestly, there’s a lot of sexy, violent crap on non-cable TV these days. Gossip Girl, anyone?

Impressionable young teens don’t need to be in their bedrooms, watching junk, where no parent is around to at least know what they’re watching and to occasionally say “What do you think about that situation in that show?” “What would you do if you were at that party… if a girl said that to you… if you were asked to do that…?”

My son is 14. He knows he’s not going to have a TV in his bedroom as long as he’s living at home. Does he wish sometimes that he could have parents who look at this stuff a bit differently? No doubt.

We parents come in all different styles. We each have to do what we think is best for our kid. In this house, that means I’ll be happy to send Matt off to college with a TV. For now, I think I’ll keep Blair and Serena out of his bedroom.

I was flipping through the newspaper at breakfast recently and I about choked on my toast when I saw this: About 1 in every 4 or 5 young people in Los Angeles County, California (where a recent study was conducted) contracted a sexually transmitted disease in 2005. Epidemiologists at the Public Health Institute in Oakland, California (who conducted the study) were even taken by surprise at the numbers, saying “this was a shock.”

Especially scary was the large number of new cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea, which are associated with HIV and are considered to be among the most serious STDs, the researchers say. The reason for those numbers? Too many teens and young adults today are having unprotected sex.

One bit of good news is that human papillomavirus — which can lead to cervical cancer — is now largely preventable with a vaccine. The bad news is that we’re apparently doing a lousy job of convincing teens to use condoms if they choose to have sex.

Yep, it’s a tricky topic for parents. If you talk about safe sex and condom use with your child, are you encouraging too-early experimentation? If you skip the condom talk and go straight to “just say no,” will your child be dangerously uninformed and ill-prepared and end up with an STD, pregnant or emotionally messed up (or all three)? It’s enough to tempt any parent to avoid bringing up the subject at all. But we can’t duck this one. Too much is at stake.

So what’s the answer?

I don’t know if there is one absolutely right answer. As those in the abstinence movement remind us, condoms sometimes fail, and just
saying no to sex is the only surefire way to avoid pregnancy, STDs and heartache. But while some parents (and teens) swear by the current
“purity” movement, I’m afraid that just preaching abstinence results in too many teens having unprotected sex because “it just happened.” To
have used a condom, many have said after the fact, would have been to admit that they were actually planning to have intercourse.

Speaking of abstinence (or lack thereof), one look at You Tube or Facebook makes it pretty clear that alcohol is having a huge affect on
teen sexual behavior, too. It always has, of course, but now our kids can upload photos of themselves partying and posing suggestively, making that whole scene — including “hooking up” — even more alluring. And there’s nothing like downing a few Jello shooters at a party to lower a kid’s inhibitions and to make “just saying no” seem like a rather quaint notion.

As the parents of a child who will enter high school in September, my husband and I are looking at the teen years ahead and we’re trying to teach
our son to respect himself, to respect girls and to make good choices that will lead to a wonderful future. We want him to understand that
sex is natural, normal and wonderful — but that it can lead to devastating consequences if he jumps in too soon.

Does that preclude talking about safe sex? Not in my book.

My son’s middle school sent this info to parents, and I thought it was worth sharing.

The drug situation in our schools is different than it was when we were teenagers. Prescriptions drugs play a larger role in kid’s lives today, and we need to be vigilant about keeping an eye on our kids (do you stay up and greet your child when he comes home from a night out?) and on our medicine cabinets.

With thanks to our school, which I won’t name, here’s the info parents of teens need to know:

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We try to teach our kids to make good choices (even when we’re not around). We teach them the “family rules” — whatever those may be for our particular family.

Are we getting through? Some days, we wonder. And we know that our kids know that they won’t always be found out if they don’t follow the rules. (Got any doubts on that one? Remember when YOU were a teenager?)

That’s what makes this story even more heartwarming. Joy Bat’s daughter is now grown, but this Lake Forest, California mom still beamed when she shared this with me:

“Shawny was not yet 13 when the movie ‘Titanic’ came out,” says Bat. “Her dad and I had asked that she not see the movie, since it was full of sexual content and was rated PG-13.” There was a girl’s sleepover with her church youth group, and Bat was assured there would be no PG-13 movies shown.

“But Shawny called me from the home of the sleepover and said they were about to watch ‘Titanic,’ and she wanted me to talk to the mom,” says Bat. “Shawny had spoken up and requested that she be allowed to do another activity in a separate room while the movie played! She really wanted to see the movie, but she had taken the high road and been assertive. The girls ended up choosing another movie, and I was so proud of my daughter.”