Back-to-School Shopping Tips for Parents of Tweens

Kristen Taylor, owner of Juvieshop.com, offers tips for back-to-school shopping for parents of "tweens," or older kids ages 6-12. "Older kids are very, very particular," Taylor said. "They want to express their own style, but they are also aware of what their peers are wearing and they want to fit in."

In order to minimize battles, Taylor suggests giving your child a list that has the numbers of each type of garment you will purchase, then shopping together to find selections that you both approve. "Shopping online with your child is a great way to get what you both want while minimizing the drama," she said.

1. Get the hardest part over with first: Go through last year's clothes and sort them into three piles: Give away, throw away, and keep.
2. Now that you're armed with a better sense of your child's current wardrobe, you can make a list of items that will be needed for each child. How many bottoms? How many tops? Denim is usually first on the list. Most kids will make it through a week with three pairs of jeans. Skinny jeans are the top of the list for boys and girls this year.
3. Think about layers as a way to extend summer clothes into the fall. Tank tops work on top of or under t-shirts. Leggings are a great way to extend wearing shorts and skirts into winter.
4. Hoodies are still what everyone is wearing for an extra outer layer in class and on the playground. Two - three per child should be enough to rotate through the week.
5. Girls are wearing dresses more and more for every day. The ease of one-piece dressing can't be beat on those early mornings.
6. Older kids aren't growing nearly as fast as when they were younger, and sizing is more generous (e.g., 7/8, 10, 12), so your selections will probably last for the entire school year. Look for high quality garments that will stand up to frequent washing and wear.
7. Boys love graphics that express their interests, whether it's surfing, skating, basketball, or music. Look for t-shirts, twofers, and sweatshirts with fun styling.
8. When it comes to getting dressed in the morning, boys are all about comfort and ease. Look for athletic-style pants with elastic waists and pullover tops.
9. When shopping for backpacks, ask your child whether they want one that rolls or not. Kids who switch classrooms frequently or who have lockers usually don't want a rolling backpack. If your kid has to bring home the entire contents of her desk every day, wheels are the way to go.
10. Don't feel pressured to get absolutely everything before the first day of school. Your child may have a better idea of what they want after they've been back in school for a few weeks.

CPSIA: A Bad Law with Good Intentions

Hey, parents. You want safe products for your kids, right? Nobody likes to worry that their kid's lunchbox contains lead, or that the water bottle that you pack in that lunchbox has phthalates that will leach into that water. And what about your baby's pacifier? Or that necklace your daughter is wearing? We all know that lead can be deadly if ingested, and that phthalates are toxic. Keep them away from my kids, I say.

After a rash of children's products were recalled in 2007 and 2008, Congress decided to do something to increase the safety of all children's products. It passed the Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).

The CPSIA stipulates a roll-out of more stringent standards for lead and phthalate content of all products intended for use by children up to the age of twelve. Yes, that's ALL PRODUCTS, even the hand-knit booties you bought at your local craft fair. And the Paul Frank 100% cotton t-shirt you got for your ten-year-old. And that Captain Underpants paperback.

The first date of enactment was in November of 2008. Starting then, all new children's products had to be certified as meeting current safety standards, with manufacturers required to produce a General Certificate of Compliance (GCC) for every single item that they produce if requested by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

Starting on February 10, 2009, new, lower limits for lead and phthalates will go into effect, and all manufacturers will have to show proof of testing and provide a GCC for every item. In August, the limits will be lowered again, and manufacturers will no longer be able to test their products themselves, but will have to submit them to a third party for testing and certification.

On the face of it, not such a bad law, right? We all want safe products for our children, and the sooner the better.

However...

There are serious flaws with this law that will impact almost every business that deals in children's products, and every person who buys any children's product.

First, the law is retroactive for lead content. This means that all products currently on store shelves, even those manufactured prior to the law's passage, are required to be certified as meeting today's standard for lead content. This places an enormous burden on someone (we haven't figured out just who, yet), as testing every product, even those that obviously do not contain lead, is beyond the budgets of most businesses. Simply throwing away inventory that was ordered and paid for months before is also not in any business' budget.

Second, this law has been written in an overly broad manner, so that those obviously-don't-contain-lead products are not exempt. T-shirts, socks, leggings...heck, anything without a fastener of some sort, still must be tested. Books, bedding, organic cotton baby kimonos and plush toys? Those too. Even handmade items, like quilts and hairbows will have to be tested before they can be sold legally. And every single component on every single item, for every new batch that's manufactured, has to be tested.

I've seen cost estimates for third-party testing of a single multi-component item that were as high as $3,000 per item. For small companies that do limited runs, or mompreneurs selling their goods at craft fairs or on Etsy, this law is essentially a death knell for their businesses.

Larger companies might be able to manage the financing of the testing, but guess what? They certainly aren't going to absorb the cost into their bottom line. Some people are saying that prices of children's items will rise as much as 30%. Yes, that's consumer prices. Yikes.

Don't take my word on this...I'm not a lawyer, and while I have studied up somewhat on the regulations, I'm not the source. You can read more about this at www.cpsc.gov/ABOUT/Cpsia/cpsia.HTML.

And if you'd like to see some changes made to this law, please get in touch with your local Congressperson and Senator. You can also weigh in at Change.gov, where the issue is in the running to come up for consideration by the Obama administration.

Gift show news

It was suddenly Christmas last Friday.

I spent the day at the Los Angeles Gift Show, scouting and ordering all the great stuff that kids might find under the tree on December 25.

First up was books. While everyone's positively apoplectic about the final book in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, I promise that there will be reading life beyond teen vampires. Danielle, my fun and smart sales representative, always does a great job of previewing titles for 7-12 year olds. Our running joke is that almost every title's summary starts with some dire, horrendous premise.

"When Bobby's mother died and he went to live with his alcoholic uncle in a trailer, he knew that life would never be the same..."

"Life for a gay high-schooler can be difficult. But when Jenny's father commits suicide, she decides that what the other kids think just doesn't matter..."

Oy.

Not going for the gloom and doom so much? Me either. Not to worry; we have lots of fun reads coming in over the next four months, so stay tuned. You can browse our current selection of books here.

I'll be posting more market reports this week. I'm super excited about a new line of Project Runway fashion and illustration sets.

Oh yeah...Breaking Dawn goes on sale at Juvie on August 8!

Who's Wearing IKKS from Juvie?

At yesterday's premiere of the John C. Reilly & Will Farrell film Step Brothers, Lurie Posten, a handsome young actor who's in the film, was wearing an IKKS button-down from Juvie. Didn't he look great?

You can shop for IKKS for your young superstar right here.

Shanghai Lulu Exclusively at Juvie!

"Classic," and "timeless," aren't adjectives one normally applies to kid's accessories, but Shanghai Lulu designer Lucy Young has created a line of headbands and belts for girls that are just that.

Fabric Belt with Coconut Shell Rings

Using fine materials and artisan production techniques, Shanghai Lulu's goodies give the girls plenty of wow-factor for today, and lasting good design for tomorrow.

Scarf Tie Headband

Next up in the line are bead necklaces made of jewel-toned fabric, which will be in any day.

These items are only produced in small batches at the moment, so we expect a quick sell-out. You can get your here while they last.

UPDATE: The bead necklaces are here and they're only $12.00. The girls are gonna flip!

Super Summer Kids Clothing Sale at Juvie

It's time for Juvie's semi-annual sale, and the markdowns are huge. If you have big kids, tweens, or anyone 7-14 in your house (yup, those are all the same thing), now is the time to fill out their wardrobes with tees, shorts, pants, dresses and more.


Find big savings on girl's clothes and boy's clothes from your favorite designers like Wes and Willy, IKKS, Charlie Rocket, Jean Bourget, Malley Too, Poesia, Harajuku Lovers, Jade and more.

Shop items that are 30% to 50% off now, before the bargains are all gone!

June Mother Tongue Column

California Children’s Rally In Sacramento to Protest State Education Budget Cuts
By Kristen Taylor

We had a little problem at the house the other day. The kitchen caught on fire. It was burning for a while before my husband came home from work. I said, “Honey, the kitchen’s on fire. What do you think we should do?”

“Easy,” he said. “Let’s throw some gasoline on it!”

This didn’t really happen. And that’s not an accurate representation of my husband’s problem-solving abilities, I swear. Jeesh, who do you think I married, Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Our public schools are in crisis. California ranks near the bottom for every National Assessment of Education Progress test given to our students—and because of No Child Left Behind, that’s a lot of tests. The state, however, is facing a budget shortage, and the Governor’s solution is to cut the very line item that’s already flailing from lack of money: K-12 education. His budget calls for $3 billion in cuts to schools, which will drop per-pupil spending in California to roughly 48th in the United States.

The state of California—the seventh largest economy in the world—has the sixth-worst performing students in the U.S., with nearly the lowest per-pupil budget and the governor’s solution is to spend even less? I think I need a 10th grade Political Science refresher, because I’m awfully confused.

So are a lot of other families, and they’re taking action. On June 17th, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Capitol Building in Sacramento, the California Children’s Rally will celebrate our state’s resourceful, brilliant children and their families in a demonstration meant to protest these ludicrous cuts to education before the state legislators vote on the new budget. The rally is organized by writer and public school parent Sandra Tsing Loh and she and her cohorts have built in loads of educational and artistic activities for families. You can even camp at a farm in nearby Cool, CA.

Check it out here: www.californiachildrensrally.com, and make a commitment to tell our state government what every 5th grader with 32 students per teacher, no art class and constant standardized testing already knows: these cuts will make a bad situation much, much worse.