What's your most embarrassing "caught in the act" story? Whatever it is, one Florida mom can probably top it.

A 15-year-old girl called 911 to report she could hear her mom having sex, according to a police report obtained by The Smoking Gun. The website reports:

The girl, 15, told an officer that she wanted to go to a local shelter “because she heard her mother having sex” and “felt disrespected” by her 35-year-old parent’s actions. The teen acknowledged that “there was no form of abuse or neglect in the house.”

The mother explained to police that she had invited her boyfriend over and “sometime during the visit, her daughter heard them having sex and became upset.” The woman added that “their bedrooms are next to each other and she didn’t intend to wake her daughter up.”

Though it may have been a crime of passion, no one was arrested. The daughter eventually decided that she'd rather live at home, despite the cringe-worthy noise, than go to a local teen shelter. One can only imagine the awkward silence around the breakfast table the next morning. 

Parents, have your kids ever walked in on you having sex, or overheard? How did you deal with it?

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Worried about your teens? Maybe you should encourage them to blog.

Despite all the dire news accounts of kids getting into trouble online, new research spotlights the internet’s lighter, more redeeming side.

Researchers have found that blogging can help troubled teens deal with social anxiety while improving their self-esteem, according to a study published in Psychological Services.

Other studies have shown that simply keeping a diary can help improve psychological well-being. The internet just adds a supportive audience.

“Social support is known to be a major factor in helping people cope with emotional difficulties,” said study co-author Azy Barak, a professor of psychology at the University of Haifa in Israel. “The blogging participants received lots of encouraging messages, ideas, and advice – and very important messages showing that there are people who care for them. These types of messages have very positive support to people in distress, in addition to the very expressive writing experience they went through.”

Barak and his co-author looked at 161 troubled adolescents at Israeli high schools. The teens were selected for their high levels of social anxiety and distress and for their lack of prior experience in blogging.

The researchers divided the teens into groups; some were asked to write blogs. Some were asked to keep a personal diary and some did nothing.

Researchers assessed the teens' self-esteem, levels of psychological distress and everyday social activities at the beginning of the study and the end.

Self-esteem, social confidence and emotional states all improved for bloggers compared to teens who did nothing or wrote in private diaries. Bloggers who wrote specifically about their personal lives improved the most.

But what about all those cyber thugs out there?  Shouldn’t parents fear the meanies who write disparaging things on their kids’ Facebook wall or hurl insulting tweets?

Barak understands parents’ worries but says this aspect of online communication has been overblown by the media.

While there are cyber-bullies out there, internet communities are for the most part supportive and nurturing, Barak suggests.

“We did see aggressive and insulting responses occasionally, but these were in the minority,” he said. “Against what is broadly believed – and unfortunately emphasized – most responses were highly positive in nature. In my experience of many years in studying cyber psychology I can say we weren’t just lucky, but this actually reflects the actual online environment.”

What do you think – would you encourage your teen to blog?

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Mom calls cops on her bickering teens

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Fed up with her bickering kids, a Salem, Mass., mom called upon the cops to arrest the oldest two, who are teens. “I want them both out of here,” she told police on Monday evening.

Granted, it’s an extreme move, but who among us has never, ever fantasized about doing it?

I’m not saying I’d ever actually act upon that fantasy, but I do feel for the woman. Maybe Monday was the final day of her children’s winter break, and she — and they — just couldn’t stand all that togetherness a minute longer.

According to the local paper, she’s a single mom with five kids. The two oldest are a girl, 16, and a boy, 15. The story gets a little murky: Were the kids fighting before she left the home to do errands, or did they start fighting while she was out?

The woman apparently did get part of her wish — her son will be summoned to court for punching his 8-year-old sister. However, the police also notified the state Department of Children and Families about what’s going on in that home.

Do you think this woman was out-of-line when she asked the cops to help her control her kids?

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Teens able to hold their own in discussions with mom are better at resisting peer pressure to use drugs and alcohol, a new study finds.

If your teen keeps arguing with you, don’t worry – it may do her good in the long run.

Researchers found adolescents who can hold their own in a dispute with mom – rather than quickly caving -- are less likely to be pressured by friends into drinking and doing drugs, according to a new report in the journal Child Development.

While it can be challenging to calmly discuss sensitive subjects, a measured give-and-take can provide teens with the tools they need to bat away peer pressure, said study co-author Joanna Chango, a graduate student at the University of Virginia.

Chango and her colleagues followed 157 13-year-olds and their parents for three years. At the beginning of the study the researchers ran two experiments with the teens and their moms.

In the first, while being videotaped in a room alone together with their moms, the teens were told to try to bring up a topic that the pair had been arguing about. Later on, the researchers graded the way that the teens and their moms interacted.

The pairs got good grades if the conversation was calm and civil and went on for the allotted 8 minutes. If the teen rapidly gave up, the grade was low.

“If the mother and teen are arguing and the teen backs down and gives in easily it’s a sign of a teen not able to assert autonomy,” Chango explained. “The point is for each to feel that they are being heard and they are using arguments and reasoning to have a calm back and forth.”

In the second experiment, the teens were told to bring up a topic that they needed help with. “Those conversations ran the gamut from problems in school to trouble with a friend,” Chango said.

The idea in this second experiment was to see whether the moms were supportive.

When the kids turned 15, the researchers returned and asked the teens to fill out drug and alcohol use questionnaires. A year later, the kids filled out the questionnaires once again.

As it turns out, the teens who were able to hold their own in discussions with their moms were better able to fend off peer pressures to use drugs and alcohol. Those who seemed best protected were the ones who were able to argue well about touchy topics such as grades, household rules, friends and money.

Another big factor was having a supportive mom, the researchers found. The researchers didn’t study dads, but expect to see the same effect.

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Katie Quinn

How do you get teens to volunteer, well, voluntarily? The Do Good Bus appeals to Foster the People fans. Here, volunteers with the Do Good Bus sort and fold clothing donations.

Every parent wants to teach their kids the value of giving back – especially around Thanksgiving. But how? The age group most likely to volunteer are 35- to 44 year-olds and those least likely to volunteer are between the ages of 16 and 24, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So, how can you motivate your teen or young adult to put down the iPad and lend a helping hand?

One strategy: Find opportunities that are relevant to their lives. Erin Parsons and her 17-year-old daughter, Tori, worked together on the Do Good Bus, a mobile charity partnered with the chart-topping band Foster the People, before attending a Foster the People concert in Pomona, Calif.

They both loved the working on a Habitat for Humanity house.  Parsons said that she loves “to see the kids have that light bulb moment,” after volunteering, “when they say, ‘I just had the best time of my life.  I’m going to stick with this.’” 

The Do Good Bus traveled with the band on their 25-city North American tour, stopping in each city to fill the bus with local fans who spent the afternoon volunteering in their community, doing everything from distributing books to kids and sorting clothes donations to planting community gardens.

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“There’s a fire in young people when they get inspired,” said Stephen Snedden, who co-founded the Do Good Bus with Rebecca Pontius. Snedden said that the most incredible reward was when he heard volunteers say, “I’ve gotten way more than I’ll ever give back.”

Katie Quinn

Stephen Snedden co-founded the Do Good Bus, a mobile charity partnered with popular band Foster the People.

Parsons said that Tori’s volunteering started at an early age at home with her sister, who is autistic.  “When you have a sibling with a disability, you have to help because you have the ability.  You need to do more simply because you can.” 

Dr. Neil Bernstein, teen psychologist and author of, “How to Keep Your Teenager Out of Trouble and What to Do if You Can’t,” says it’s a parent’s job to raise empathetic kids – and a desire to volunteer will follow naturally. Too often, he says, teenagers are more concerned with what will look good on their college application than with helping others. “Teach them that genuine empathy makes you feel better.  It’s a real feeling, rather than a means to an end.” 

Katie Quinn

Inside the Do Good Bus.

Parents are actually the strongest role models when it comes to combating a culture of selfishness, , Bernstein said.  Children learn empathy from parents, usually at a young age. “Children have to grow up conceptually with empathy,” Bernstein said. “Kids need exposure to it and parents need to integrate it.”

Here are three ways Bernstein suggests parents can integrate empathy into their children’s lives:

1)      After watching a movie, start talking about a specific scene where someone is picked on, less fortunate or suffers.

2) Talk about role models who are doing things to help others.

3) If you see someone with a disability in public, ask, “What do you imagine it would be like to live like that?”

 How do you teach your children to give back?

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Exposing small children to lots of environments isn’t terribly scary because we’re right beside them holding their hands, scanning the surroundings for any danger. But once they become teenagers — so reckless, so dopey, so sleepy — it’s much more challenging.

Last week, the mother of a 13-year-old boy told me that she enjoyed my book, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, but hasn't been able to bring herself to read The Blessing of a B Minus. She said:

Lucas must get A’s. And he’s not much of a student so I help him with his homework for at least two hours every night. I have your book on my night table but I can’t open it. It’s the title. It makes me want to throw-up.

A teen we interviewed for TODAY said her mom’s top three fears are “me learning to drive, choking, and me being abducted. And somehow she ties everything into those three issues.”

Other teens complain that their parents demand that they text them at every turn. When you get to the party…when you leave the party…when you arrive home if I’m already asleep so if I wake up in the night I can check to see that you got home safely.

Some tell me they can’t win in communicating with their parents: If I don’t tell them stuff they seem sad, or betrayed or imagine the worst, but if I do they overreact and want to take over.

I’m starting to think that the most loving, intelligent parents wish their children would just skip adolescence entirely, that our world is just too dangerous and competitive to chance any risky moves. They pray that their child will go from pleasant, diligent third-grader to junior statesman with no experimentation or mistakes or the possibility of blemishes on the high school transcripts in between.  

But there’s more danger in this formula than in a robust, rocky adolescence because if they go off to college — land of beer pong, co-ed dorms and no one taking attendance in class, land where the only person in charge is the 19-year-old resident adviser in the dorm — without learning how to drive, both literally and metaphorically, there’s a greater chance they’ll end up being in a wreck.

College deans have nicknames for overprotected freshman who lack resilience, stick-to-itiveness and spirit. They call them “teacups.” And they call the incoming students who have been grinding away at their studies, extracurriculars and test prep throughout middle school and high school “crispies.” The fragile and the fried. Neither type is likely to flourish on their own.  Neither is properly prepared.

So how can parents ultimately let go? I’ve found inspiration in poetry. Here are a few lines to repeat to yourself when the temptation to rescue, protect, spy, pry, and prod becomes overwhelming.

Hitting the road: For parents with beginning teen drivers.

The best way out is through. (Robert Frost)

The sages teach that every parent has an obligation to teach their child how to swim. This means that where you see danger (think about the places he could go, the company he could keep, the things he could do in that car!) your child sees freedom and opportunity to study for the big history test at Olivia's house. 

The only way for your child to become an experienced driver is for your child to drive — a lot! In all different conditions! — even if you keep gasping and hitting the imaginary brake on the floor of the passenger seat. 

Please check in: For the text-addicted parent.

Teach us to care and not to care, teach us to sit still. (T.S. Eliot) 

If you need constant reassurance from your child, you project your own insecurity and make them nervous, too. You also invite them to lie, since unlike the days when parents actually answered a landline and you could ask to speak to your child, a text actually tells you nothing about your teen's actual coordinates.

So unplug! You'll set a good example and give your teen a chance to learn good navigation skills.

On prying , spying and cross-examining: For the parent who wants to be as close to their teen as they were to their cuddly, talkative, friendly young child.

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky. (Ranier Maria Rilke)  

Beware suffocating your teen and be grateful that they spare you the details. The closer you get to anything, the more you see the flaws and the potential for peril. So step back and give your child space to grow.

Unless you want your daughter calling you from the salad bar in the college cafeteria  asking, “Do I like Russian dressing?” or e-mailing her papers for you to edit, you can think of the teen years as a launching pad, or an entertaining, three-ring circus, or a midnight sail underneath a starry sky.

Scary? For sure. But exciting, too.

Dr. Wendy Mogel is a clinical psychologist, parenting expert and the author of the New York Times bestselling parenting book, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee. Her new book, The Blessing of a B Minus, is about raising teenagers.

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YouTube via The Smoking Gun

Hi Mom!

A Florida mom who rode to YouTube glory egging on her 16-year-old daughter in a nasty fight with a classmate must attend a one-day parenting class for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Originally charged with child abuse when she was arrested last September, April Newcomb, 39, pleaded no contest to the lesser count, reports The Smoking Gun.

A smart move on Newcomb's part, considering that multiple YouTube videos bear witness to Newcomb among her daughter's entourage as they arrive at the agreed-upon battlefield — a vacant field near Palmetto High School in Manatee County. Mom is later seen serving as her daughter's "cornerman," shouting mid-fight motherly advice such as, "Don’t f---ing stop!" and "Punch her in the f---ing body!"

Newcomb originally told police she arrived after the fight started, showing up to make sure no one got hurt and adding that she was concerned about a skull fracture her daughter suffered two years before. (Neither of the teenagers were hurt in the fight).

"Of course, we’re both wrong and I understand that, and I understand where y’all are coming from," Newcomb told police who arrived and arrested her soon after the fight ended. "I think unfortunately it was going to happen, no matter what."

When asked by the cops, as well as the opponent's horrified mother (who showed up at the end of the action), why she didn't try and stop the fight, Newcomb couldn't say. Why Newcomb thought she could claim quasi-innocence to Internet-savvy cops even though she was surrounded by a battalion of cellphone-filming teenagers, is also unknown.

Now Newcomb will pay the ultimate price — 75 hours of community service and one whole day of parenting classes.

Via the best website on the Interwebs: The Smoking Gun

More on the annoying way we live now:

• Mark Zuckerberg kills what he eats
• Cops kick cellphone blabbermouth off train
• Planking: A Facebook fad to die for?

 Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook.

Last week, TODAY talked about the dangers of prom season, such as drinking and driving.

But what about the other dangers: Like, will mom and daughter survive prom dress shopping without clawing each other's eyes out?

Moms might be thinking "Grace Kelly" -- something long and classy, preferably with a turtleneck (OK, maybe that's more Dad's hope). Their daughters, meanwhile, might be taking their style inspiration from Rihanna or Lady Gaga, and dreaming of thigh-high leather, cutouts and bling. How to compromise?

One good piece of expert advice: Have the prom-dress style conversation before you pull into the mall parking lot, to avoid ugly scenes in the dressing room.

What about you: Moms of teens, has prom-dress shopping been fun or frustrating?

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Slaven Vlasic / Getty Images

Snooki is to the SATs as huh? is to wha??

What do Snooki, The Situation and Kim Kardashian have to do with the SAT college entrance exam? Considering none of these faux-celebs attended an institution of higher learning (and likely never even took the test), you’d think absolutely nothing.  

But this year's test-takers learned differently. The unlikely topic of reality TV appeared on the standardized test’s essay portion, giving students with a little "Jersey Shore" know-how a bit of an edge, and freaking out plenty of others.

As the New York Times recently reported, the web site College Confidential was deluged with comments from frustrated, non-TV-watching test takers.

Said one student:  “This is one of those moments when I wished I actually watched TV. I ended up talking about Jacob Riis and how any form of media cannot capture reality objectively. I kinda want to cry right now.” Another student told the New York Daily News: “A lot of what we did in SAT prep classes was to use historical events or literature in our essays. I guess the kids who watch crap TV did well.”

The exact essay prompt: “Reality-television programs, which feature real people engaged in real activities rather than professional actors performing scripted scenes, are increasingly popular. These shows depict ordinary people competing in everything from singing and dancing to losing weight, or just living their everyday lives. Most people believe that the reality these shows portray is authentic, but they are being misled. How authentic can these shows be when producers design challenges for the participants and then editors alter filmed scenes?

Do people benefit from forms of entertainment that show so-called reality, or are such forms of entertainment harmful?

Reps from the SAT defended the question, saying it was “engaging and thought-provoking” and that it was ultimately about getting students to “take one side of an issue and develop an argument to support that position.” Even Tiger Mom Amy Chua weighed in on the debate and supported SAT test makers. (Of course, we know her kids are too busy practicing violin for hours to watch reality TV.)

Sure, reality TV is a fixture of current pop culture. But does that make it fair fodder for a test that helps determine where you go to college? What do you think?

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Somewhere, Sid Vicious is snickering. Who'd have thought that almost three and a half decades since Britain's preeminent punk rock band, The Sex Pistols, first reared their spiky scalps and coughed up a viscous gob of phlegm at the world, they could still spark any semblance of controversy? Well, for a group of students in the small town of Forks, Wash. (an infamous burg already beset by hordes of obsessed teen vampire devotees for being the epicenter of all things “Twilight”), the very name “Sex Pistols” has proved to still pack the power to offend.

After a student was instructed to remove a Sex Pistols T-shirt by a Forks High School official, former student body president Devon Chastain donned the offending garment herself and refused to take it off. As a result, she was sent home. The incident sparked a punky domino effect of sorts, as nine other students then staged a protest in front of the school in support of their suspended classmate, distributing more T-shirts bearing the Sex Pistols’ fabled ransom-note logo. In turn, these students were also suspended.

In their defense, Forks High School officials cite that the student handbook expressly prohibits wearing clothing bearing sexual connotations. One might have imagined that the prurient interpretation of the band’s moniker would have been somewhat defanged in the past three decades of being emblazoned on T-shirts available at shopping malls around the world (also available in toddler sizes). Trainspotting apologists could also point out that late Sex Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren coined the band’s name to make them sound like “sexy young assassins,” and not necessarily as a lascivious innuendo, but that’s all rather academic.

Parents, how would you feel if your child was sent home from school for wearing a Sex Pistols T-shirt? Are the folks in Forks maybe just a bit too sensitive in the wake of “Twilight” hysteria? Are these suspensions justifiable discipline or much ado about nothing? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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A new story on the fiscal implications of the Keep A Breast Foundation’s unwieldy windfall in the wake of their “i ♥ boobies” cause bracelet campaign raised a few questions here at TODAY Moms about the other ramifications of the story.

It’s relatively no surprise that an item emblazoned with the word “boobies” has taken off like hotcakes among teenage boys (so much so that certain schools have banned the bracelet), but does that really “count” as raising awareness? By appealing – knowingly or otherwise – to the “Beavis & Butthead” contingent (i.e., those easily reduced to fits of prurient snickering at the utterance of certain key words), has the Keep A Breast Foundation achieved their goal by subterfuge? Is the average high school teen sporting one of these bracelets honestly concerned – or even aware – of its intended function?

By the same token, does it even matter if they aren’t?

UPDATE: The "boobies" controversy took a new turn on Monday as two Philadelphia moms took their school district to court after their daughters were suspended from wearing the bracelets. School officials say the bracelets were banned for being distracting, vulgar and demeaning, while the mothers are alleging that the district’s disciplinary actions against their daughters impinge on their First Amendmant rights. Click here to read the full story.

Share your thoughts in the comments section.

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