The Boy Scouts of America, a paramilitary children’s organization inspired in part by the exploits of the young Mafeking Cadet Corps during the Second Boer War, has forbidden its present-day members to shoot squirt guns at one another. A blog post for adult Scout leaders on the Scouting Magazine website reports that under the rules in the 2015 Boy Scouts of America National Shooting Sports Manual, “Water guns and rubber band guns must only be used to shoot at targets, and eye protection must be worn.”

A 10-year-old boy in Brockton, Massachusetts recently had oh, I don't know, THE BEST NIGHT EVER when he called the cops on his mom so he wouldn't have to go to bed and then got to meet a police officer.

Fuck you in the facehole, Berenstain Bears.

Meet Traven, a 6-year-old pageant prince from Pulaski, Illinois, whose mother encourages him to be as womanizing as possible, but also got him into pageants "because he was so cute and he looked like a little girl." So yeah, there's more psychology going on in this episode of Toddlers & Tiaras than usual. This definitely feels like an a-star-is-born moment, but still I don't know what to think of Traven. He's cute, has charisma and uses nonsense words like "delican," but he's also a monster. He disrespects adults regularly — he "fires" his barber and tells his grandmother that she should go work at the Pony, their local strip club — and he's regularly applauded for doing so ("Man, I am something else," he says at one point, to the delight and agreement of every adult in the room). This is funny to watch but I imagine a lot less charming in person and regardless, Traven is a ticking time bomb of irreverence. He's not going to get away with this shit for much longer. Good thing he has reality TV to preserve this moment in amber.

17-year-old Hawaii high school senior Ciara Cetraro is three weeks away from setting an insane record: she hasn't missed one day of school since kindergarten.

There's a doozy of an essay by the 27-or-so-years-old Alexandra Molotkow in this weekend's New York Times Magazine. "Why the Old-School Music Snob Is the Least Cool Kid on Twitter" argues, in a meandering, ultimately unpersuasive manner, that listening to obscure music was once cool, but snobbery has been replaced by populism. While there is a fair argument to make about the Internet democratizing not just access to independent music, but mass media to those who might otherwise have ignored it were they not confronted by page after tweet after Spotify Facebook update of it, Molotkow does not go there.

Just when you thought the kids had discovered every possible way to ingest alcohol, they went ahead and started soaking tampons in vodka and shoving them up their rectums.

WASHINGTON, D.C.— There was a line winding out the door of the Marriott Ballroom at CPAC for the bulk of the afternoon today, and it consisted mostly of bright-faced college kids. They were wearing dinner jackets and pencil skirts and toting bags full of free pens and pamphlets and souvenir T-shirts. Sarah Palin will speak at 4:30 today, and they wanted to make sure to get a seat.

There are really no excuses for not cashing out on the tech bubble. A guy with grilled cheese sandwich did it. An app nobody uses did it. And now a 15-year-old hacker wunderkind has followed suit.

Is this Bieber kissing Selena Gomez? Tween blog BieberHeiress says yes, and they once leaked photos of Bieber snuggling his ex, so they would know. For Bieber micro-gossip is a young blogger's game, that my brittle old mind barely comprehends.

Facebook is a remarkably handy way to stay in touch with people, and even to buy them Christmas gifts. But three separate news items today make it easy to conclude the social network is wearing away at the culture.

A poll on TVGuide.com is asking the public to vote on the best teen role model on TV. Bristol Palin only has 4% of the vote just behind that hussy Miley Cyrus. iCarly's Miranda Cosgrove leads by a wide margin.

The New York Times ran a profile today on two 27-year-olds who are working as the live-in caretakers for the Ralph Waldo Emerson House in Concord, MA. So, cool, neat job. Though one series of paragraphs chills to the bone.

They are snorting it or eating a lot of it (3 or 4 tbsps) to get the "marijuana-like high" that the common spice can provide. Is this the little extra "Hmm" factor that Rachael Ray is always talking about?

No, they're not playing basketball like they used to in the '80s. Today's teen wolves, with names like Wolfy Blackheart, are hanging out in front of shopping malls and wearing weird contact lenses. One intrepid news team got the footage.

What is this country coming to when a child can't direct air traffic at JFK without causing a big todo?

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference begins this week in Washington. The movement's leaders will speak and the GOP will plan its strategy. But this year, they're totally getting x-treme. Ladies and gentlemen, presenting "Epic Nights" at the XPAC Lounge.

An Ohio mother called the cops on her 6-year-old daughter, who shoplifted a $3.11 packet of stickers, then toyed with claiming the $30 reward. Presented without comment: the mother is called Diane and the girl Shiane. [AP]

Breaking Horace Mann news: "Former Student Body Presidents' performances in last Tuesday's assembly caused heated discussions regarding sexism, men's bigotry, and the boundaries of comedic relief among students and faculty in classrooms, advisories, and club meetings this past week."

That 16-year-old TechCrunch writer with 120,000 Twitter followers, who we wrote about yesterday, is part of a burgeoning child punditocracy. Children are operating in virtually every facet media — and doing so successfully. Fear for your job.