If you keep sneaking into the living room to catch glimpses of the latest TV hyperbole news about the upcoming election, relax. While you might be horrified at the mud-slinging going on (and would hopefully give your kids a time-out if they were acting as sleazy and underhanded as, say, Steve Schmidt) you don’t have to keep politics a secret from your kid.

Paul Nyhan, who blogs over at Working Dad for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer,  explains. And much, much more even-handedly than we would.

–Posted by Stephanie Booth

Does your family have GUTS? Nickelodeon’s hoping the answer is yes. The channel’s new series – a half-hour extreme sports reality show called My Family’s Got GUTS – premiered on Monday. Sorry, we’re a little slow on the uptake. But it should be easy to forgive us because the show’s airing on Nickelodeon at 8:00 ET/PT every weeknight until next Friday, Sept. 26. An hour-long finale will premiere Saturday, Sept. 27 at the same time.

So why are we recommending this show? Families. Working together. And doing some crazy-$#@@ extreme sports challenges that the writers must have had a hilarious time coming up with. “Dude! Let’s make the parents go down an aerial sports board-riding slalom run!” “No, no! Bungee-jumping basketball!”

Personally, what we’re looking forward to is the urban landscape parkour challenge. Nothing brings a mom and her tween closer then cat leaps and kong vaults.

Plan B: just live vicariously and watch this show together.

–Posted by Stephanie Booth

At last, we were alone. My husband had handed over the remote control to our new Tivo before he and the kids headed upstairs to bed for the night. I ran my fingers over the smooth buttons, and contemplated an exciting evening ahead. An evening in which I would watch the shows I want to see. An evening where I’d flip the channel from my favorite show to another favorite show, never once stopping on “Man vs. Nature” or any of those other testosterone-laden shows I usually get stuck watching in this house full of males.

“Mom!” my son yelled down the stairs. “Tape Mythbusters, please!”

Oh, alright. But that’s it. The rest of the night would be mine.

First, I flipped on coverage of the Williams sisters’ U.S. Open quarterfinal match. Between games, I dropped by to see what Tivo had recorded for me, having asked my husband, who usually lords over the remote, to set it up. I chose an episode of “The Colbert Report” and turned up the volume. When my son came downstairs to get something, I hit PAUSE on the Rated TV-14 show and waited for him to leave the room. Then I flipped over to the U.S. Open to check the score before hitting PLAY again.

I felt like a kid who had borrowed Dad’s Corvette while he was on a business trip. It was exciting, fast and fun. It was… wait a minute. Why is “South Park” on here? I wondered. I soon found out that Tivo makes recommendations based on your viewing habits. It must have decided that since I like other Comedy Central shows, I’d like to watch the foul-mouthed cartoon children on “South Park,” too, but it was wrong. So I deleted it and went back to watching shows and flipping channels.

When Colbert ended, I discovered that the Tivo had taped “The Closer” several times. I watched a little more tennis, and then I watched “The Closer,” with multiple interruptions — my own interruptions — to see who was winning the match. Then I asked the Tivo

to tape StandUp2Cancer on Friday night, a stand-up comic act on Saturday and a “season’s pass” for Sunday night’s “Mad Men,” a show I’ve always wanted to watch, except it airs past my bedtime. And the VCR is just too much of a pain to set.

It was a mom’s dream night on the couch. No men or boys around to override my choices with “Future Cars” or “How it’s Made,” a show that’s like a 1970’s science class film strip, only drier and slower. I mean, really, a girl can only take so much “Mythbusters” before she starts to wish they’d just blow up the set while trying to prove that sharks can catch bullets in their teeth — or whatever — and be done with it.

No, a girl needs her shows. A girl, it seems, needs her Tivo. And I can’t wait until we’re alone again.

– Jen Singer

The worst thing about rain on Labor Day weekend is that it means we can’t watch the U.S. Open on TV. We live about 30 miles from the U.S.T.A. Tennis Center where the two-week long grand slam tournament is played at the end of each summer. So when it rains here, it pretty much rains there. And then we’re stuck watching people pulling large blue tarps over the courts while we nibble on our Labor Day celebration hors d’oevres. And for the first time, it’s bumming out my kids.

It’s taken me a few years, but I’ve managed to pull off my not-so-evil plot to get my tweens interested in watching tennis on television. My parents did it to me, and so I thought I’d pass down the tradition to my children, who, until last year, would much rather have watched Cyber Chase than Venus Williams chasing down tennis balls.

This year, though, all that has changed. When I tuned in to watch this week’s evening sessions at the U.S. Open, the sound of the TV turning on drew my kids to the couch, a Pavlovian response to years of conditioning that the end of August and the beginning of September mean tennis on our TV.

Though most of the men’s matches end way past bedtime, we’ve watched a little Nadal and Roddick on the hard courts in Queens anyhow. And plenty of women’s tennis, too. My nine-year-old now understands how the scoring works, and he asks such advanced questions as, “Is he seeded?” and “Is her serve off?”

It brings me back to years of U.S. Open watching at my parents’ house, a spread of cheese and crackers before us and the cheers from our own little crowd. I remember watching Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova hit their way to the finals, Pete Sampras make history and Jimmy Connors’ defeat 24-year-old Aaron Krikstein in a four-plus hour marathon of a match when he was 39. We all had our favorites, but in the end, it was good tennis that we wanted to see.

There’s light drizzle falling over our house this morning which no doubt is making the courts at the U.S.T.A. Center slick. I’m hoping the foul weather pulls out of the area so we can tune in to tennis again tonight — and every night — until the finals next weekend. That would make us all very happy.
– Posted by Jen Singer

What’s on TV for tweens this fall? Here are a few shows my kids and I might tune into, though the bleeping out makes me pause:

America’s Toughest Jobs:
My kids and I are intrigued by this fall’s new TV reality show, “America’s Toughest Jobs.” If only it weren’t for all that bleeping out. Not that I want NBC to unbleep the four-letter words hurled by the contestants on this program by the creators of “The Deadliest Catch” and “Ice Road Truckers.” But I’d feel better about considering letting the kids watch this series, which puts 13 men and women into some of the most dangerous and demanding jobs in the world, including oil rigging, mountain rescue and monster truck driving, if I knew what was coming. It’s Rated PG, so I’ll be on hand to guide them through it. But only after I first watch the August 25th premiere without them and decide if it’s really tween-friendly fare, no matter what the TV rating. NBC Mondays 9-10 p.m. ET

Opportunity Knocks
I can’t decide if this is “Moment of Truth” for families, or just a nice, wholesome and fun game show I’d let my tweens watch. In this weekly game show, the host shows up at one family’s house with a semi full of prizes. Contestants have to answer trivia questions about their lives, each other and stuff in their house. It’s billed as a show “which challenges family members on how well they know each other,” and it sounds like family game night for really great prizes. The show’s producer, Ashton Kutcher, reportedly tried out the game’s concept at home with wife Demi Moore and his step-kids before launching the show. I’ll check out the premiere, which airs on September 23rd, with the kids. ABC Tuesdays 8-9 p.m. ET

Into the Unknown with Josh Bernstein
I knew I could find something cool for my kids on the Discovery Channel, probably the most tween-friendly channel on TV. I missed the premiere this week, but I will tune in next week to see if this show really does do what it sets out to do: teach history in an entertaining way. Traveler, explorer and educator (and frankly, hottie) Josh Bernstein travels around the world to investigate whether the story of Noah’s Ark could have happened, what really happened to Timbuktu and how King Tut’s father changed the history of Egypt. If only the show aired at a more kid-friendly time, but I will set my Tivo to check out what looks like a fascinating show. Discovery Mondays 10-11 p.m. ET

–Posted by Jen Singer

“Mom?” my eleven-year-old asked me at the breakfast table this morning. “Is it possible to get surgery to make your eyes better than 20-20?”

“Uhhhh,” I stuttered. “The Bionic Man could see through walls, I think,” I offered feebly. Disappointed, he sighed. Rubbing my temples, I offered, “I would think that even if your eyes could see that well, your brain couldn’t process it.”

This is the kind of kitchen table conversation that baffles me. I can guess answers to my son’s difficult questions, but mostly, I have to Google them. And there’s no computer in the kitchen. Suddenly, my nine-year-old rescued me.

“Phelps won another gold!” he announced.

“Lemme see,” his big brother said. And then the two of them read the sports section of The New York Times together while I took in the moment. As a long-time news junkie, this was for me one of those pivotal parenting events — the minute you realize your kids might be interested in one of your favorite hobbies: taking in the news. Also, that breakfast is going to be a lot easier on me for the next 10 days.

“Must be all those eggs and pizza,” my younger son said, a reference to the news story we had watched on TV earlier this week about Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps’ 12,000 calorie-a-day training diet.

It’s been like this all week. Thanks to the Olympics, we have something more to talk about than my son’s (stump Mom) medical hypothesis. Besides, it’s August, the getting-on-each-other’s nerves stage of summer when I spend a lot of time breaking up fights between the boys.

But the Olympics and the news surrounding it have taken the edge off the dog days of summer. As a result, there’s less “He knocked over my bike!” and more “Did you hear that the Chinese used another girl’s voice to sing in the opening cermonies? Cheaters!”

En route to drama camp yesterday, my sons shushed the other kids in the carpool when the Olympics news came on the radio.

“Did you hear that? James Blake beat Federer!” my nine-year-old announced incredulously. His big brother added, “Maybe USA will get a medal in tennis,” while the other kids stared blankly. I explained that my sons were talking about how an American tennis player had defeated the number one ranked men’s single’s player in the world. They nodded politely, and changed the subject.

Wait’ll my boys hear the news that Blake lost today to a Chilean in a marathon of a third set that wen to 11-9 in 81 minutes. Or that the women’s soccer team advanced to the semifinals. They’re going to want to record Monday’s game so we can watch it when we eat breakfast.

But if we’re too busy to watch it then, there’s always the news.

– Posted by Jen Singer

If it weren’t for the Olympics, I’d be watching a grown man eat bugs and build fires tonight. Normally, my tweens, my husband and I watch whichever wilderness survivor show is on the Discovery Channel on Friday nights. Sometimes, it’s the calm Canadian Les Stroud, who seems to struggle against sinking into a deep depression out in the wild on “Survivorman.” Other Fridays, it’s the ex-Special Forces survivalist Bear Grylls, who jumps from “helis” and corners porcupines for dinner on “Man vs. Nature.” All that’s in it for me is the chance that Bear might strip down to his skivvies.

But the Olympics will change all that. For the next 17 nights, I’ve got something to watch with my tweens that we all enjoy. My 9-year-old wants to watch the swimming. My 11-year-old is looking forward to the “field part of track and field.” My husband, the marathon runner, just wants to see the very best athletes in the world run. And I want to see soccer, tennis, swimming and gymnastics.

No doubt we’ll watch each other’s favorites, though my husband will be alone in the marathon viewing. I’d rather watch Bear Grylls eat bugs than follow a marathon. At least there’s some excitement there. Yet, thanks to the Olympics, there’s something for all of us, bringing our family together. I can’t say that about most TV shows aimed at tweens.

My boys have no interest in the Disney channel shows created for their age group, and my husband won’t watch “American Idol” with us. Rather, he mumbles something about preferring to watch people chase porcupines and leaves the room. We used to watch baseball together until one kid became a Yankees fan and the other a Mets fan. We don’t tune in anymore if for no other reason than to prevent a Subway Series brawl in our living room. And my younger tween is more likely to sit down and watch a Grand Slam tennis match with me, while everyone else feigns interest.

Tonight, though, we’ll tune in together to watch the Olympics’ opening ceremonies. On Saturday night, we’ll sample some beach volleyball before we watch swimming and running. As the Olympic games continue, my sons will keep a running tally of the medals the United States wins, and I’ll keep my eye out for soccer and tennis on TV. And then, when it’s all over, we’ll go back to watching grown men eat bugs and wish there was more on TV for my tweens and me to enjoy together.
– Posted by Jen Singer

If your kids are the kind who can tell from six feet away if their sib has more mac and cheese than they do, they’re gonna dig Phineas and Ferb this Friday. The Disney Channel will present modified segments of the Emmy-nominated animated comedy from 8:00-10:00 pm, ET/PT, inviting viewers to find the differences in each. Once your offspring find at least eight changes, they can then go to DisneyChannel.com. The correct answers will unlock a brand new Phineas and Ferb ep (hilariously entitled “Put that Putter Away?” and “Does This Duckbill Make Me Look Fat?”) in streaming broadband video…a whole two days before its TV premiere. For a seven-year-old, you know, that’s like an eternity.

Check out www.disneychannel.com/spotthedif for game instructions and hints. Oh! And check out our Q&A below with Phineas and Ferb’s creators-co-exec-producers-all-around nice guys, Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh. Yes, they really are that funny in real life.

The moment that the thousands of tween girls in the arena started screaming like it was 1964 and the Beatles had just arrived, I knew I was witnessing a generation’s history-in- the-making. Or at least a nice anecdote for Generation Y’s “Remember When” moments a few decades from now.

Teen singing sensation David Archuleta had just taken the stage at the American Idol concert at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. My brother and I had brought our kids – his daughter Erin, 12, and my sons Nicholas, 11, and Christopher, 9, — to check out the 10 finalists from American Idol’s Season 7, live and in concert.

Though my brother and I would much rather have been ten miles away at Giants Stadium at the Bruce Springsteen concert, we knew that we were fortunate to have the chance to treat our kids to a concert created just for them. We didn’t have to worry about shielding their eyes or ears from too-grown-up-for-them sights and sounds. Nobody was smoking illegal substances, and there was no perilous mosh pit in front of the stage. Best of all, the kids had a good time. (Also, we escaped without spending money on any American Idol T-shirts or flashlights.)

So, when American Idol Season 8 starts, we’ll be tuning in to see who will make it to next year’s American Idol concert tour. It’s exactly the kind of generational moment that I’m glad to be able to take part in…even if my generation would rather be with Bruce.

–Posted by Jen Singer

That was a commercial, right? I asked myself as I passed my tweens and their grandfather watching what appeared to be “Antiques Roadshow” on TV.

“Have you ever seen ‘Antiques Roadshow’?” my father-in-law asked me after I stopped in my tracks to determine whether my sons, Nicholas, 11, and Christopher, 9, were really watching a television program dedicated to assessing the value of such items as vintage purses and antique clocks.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied reluctantly, staring at the TV in our vacation rental house. My tweens shushed me. After all, the Civil War belt buckle was up next.

Thanks to their grandparents, my boys watch TV shows that aren’t exactly the usual Disney-esque fare for tweens. How many children do you think are watching “Jeopardy” or “Wheel of Fortune”? Judging by the commercials for Polident, not many. And that’s exactly why I love it.

My in-laws have created the return of the TV Family Hour by introducing my kids to thoughtful programming that appeals to grown-ups and kids alike. Maybe that’s why these shows have been on the air since I was a tween. They’re fun for the whole family. I mean, really: Who doesn’t want to find out that the toy robot from the 1960’s is worth nearly two grand?

In a few weeks, my children are going to visit their grandparents for a few days. I hope they get a chance to catch up on their favorite loved-by-septuagenarians shows. If nothing else, they keep me from getting old worrying about what my kids are watching on TV.

– Posted by Jen Singer