While parents worry about potential dangers to their children lurking in our web-surfing, IM-ing, text-messaging culture, their efforts to help can be hampered by their own lack of knowledge. The Teenangels program—which trains young people to protect their peers online—is one way around that problem. Tamekia Reece takes a look.

The "G" in family movie ratings clearly doesn't stand for "girl-power." Researchers at the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California studied 101 kids' flicks and found that male roles predominate: three of four characters are male, and fewer than one in three of speaking roles overall belongs to a female. There's evidence that exposure to television is a "significant and positive" predictor of sex role acceptance and attitudes among children and adults. The study was study sponsored by the nonprofit Dads and Daughters and its See Jane program.

Here’s some good news about technology’s impact on kids. While traditional video games are among the culprits behind an increasingly inactive lifestyle for children, a new type of video game is actually helping kids become more physically active. These "exergames" require kids to move around to win. Get Up and Move, an organization of scientists, medical professionals, and artists, has the low-down on games that help kids get down – and dance, run, skip, or maneuver their way into more active lifestyles.

Third Way , a progressive strategy center, has issued a report detailing the extent to which the Internet pornography industry influences children's lives, and the steps parents, policymakers, the porn industry, and others can take to prevent harm to children. Among the facts the group cites: the largest group of consumers of Internet pornography are youth 12-17 years of age.

About 70 percent of all network television shows contain some sexual content, showing an average of five sexual scenes per hour, and the number of scenes containing such content has increased 96 percent since 1998. The rate of references to safer sex issues is down slightly from 2002, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation report.

Increased competition from kid-oriented cable networks like Nickelodeon and uncertainty about continued levels of public funding make these difficult times for the producers of children's programming at PBS. Rob Capriccioso spoke with some media experts about the challenge PBS faces, and how it can continue to provide top-notch educational programming.

Common Sense Media is the leading nonpartisan, non-profit organization dedicated to improving kids' media lives. Our mission is to give parents, educators, and kids a choiceand a voice about the media they consume. We believe in sanity, not censorship. We provide trustworthy information, practicaltools, and a respected public voice that help create a healthier media environment for children and youth.

While leading a series of journalism workshops in Beijing, for kids aged 7 to 18, Cliff Hahn was reminded of some global truths about kids.

We all know that today's teens are in crisis, and are worse off in nearly every way than generations past. Or are they? In his newest book, Framing Youth, author Mike A. Males turns a critical eye on the American media's assertion that today's teens are more violent, drugged-out and reckless than ever.