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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Monday, February 19, 2007 - 2:01 pm
Those who know me know I don't usually do this, BUT... I wanted to tell you about this series that starts next Monday (2/26). I think it's one of those "little gems" on TV, and wanted to share. I have been lucky enough to meet some of the children, and they are amazing. (Full disclosure -- I am affiliated in a very small way with this show). Here's an AP article: The Associated Press February 17, 2007 Saturday 2:45 AM GMT From the mouths of babes: Kids tell their stories in TLC docu-series `My Life as a Child' BYLINE: By JANICE RHOSHALLE LITTLEJOHN Joshua Bynum is 8 years old and already keenly aware of how the world perceives him. "I have two strikes on me, and three strikes you're out," he explains. "First I'm black, and then I'm a boy-slash-man, and I think that it's hard to be black." Sound like big talk for a little kid? Then obviously you haven't been around an elementary school lately. This is just some of the heady, honest reflections of 7- to 11-year-olds across the country who filmed their lives for the docu-series "My Life as a Child" premiering Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. EST on The Learning Channel (TLC). Selected from a nationwide search for the six-episode series produced by TLC with BBC Productions, and based on a British series 20 kids were given hand-held video cameras to spotlight their world for four months last year, from their vantage. It is an eye-opening look at their views unrehearsed and unscripted on parents and peers; growing up amid war and terrorism, new technology, racism, poverty, global change and bullies. "I think kids are a lot more aware of what's going on in the world than we give them credit for and they're question-ing things more," says series producer Amy Kohn. "Kids are thinking about their parents' relationships, they're thinking about relationships in the world and how people interact and they're thinking about their role in society." The most revealing aspect of the series, says Kohn, 33, "is these children's ability to talk about their lives in an ar-ticulate way that other people can understand. They seem to have an understanding of life and storytelling that's a lot more mature than children of my own generation." For his story, Bynum turned the camera on inner-city Baltimore, Md., where he was living with his mother, younger sister and grandmother. In lighter moments, the young showman acts out little skits for the camera. But beneath the smiles, Bynum discusses the shame he feels not having had his father around in over two years. In another story, a Muslim girl, just recently arrived from Turkey, considers whether to wear a head scarf to her junior high school. Another focuses on a girl on an all-boys football team who ponders what it means to be a woman. "All these issue that you think kids may not be considering until they get into their adolescence, they're getting into these issues a lot earlier," Kohn says. Kohn joined Bynum and participants Drew Nelson, 11, of Plainsboro, N.J.; Lisetanne Scherschel, 11, of New York City, and Cole Massie, 9, of Los Angeles at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel & Spa last month, where they discussed the series with members of the Television Critics Association. Prior to the press conference, Nelson happily talks about being a "boy ballet dancer," his six-hour roundtrip com-mute from his home to the American Ballet Theatre's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School where he hones his craft, and his dreams of becoming a principal dancer at a professional ballet company. "Boys should do ballet and the arts, it's such a great thing," he says, "because you can really express yourself in a certain way. In dance you don't talk, so you dance how you feel." He concedes there are challenges. "Sometimes kids pick on you," Nelson says. "They say, `Oh you do ballet, you must be a girl,' because most kids don't do ballet when they're a boy, so that's sort of weird, I guess. That is different." Difference is what most of these kids have in common. Massie was born with cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair. Yet he has earned a yellow belt in karate and likes to perform on stage. He hopes to walk one day. "I just wanted to show people that children of all abilities, even if you're in a wheelchair, you can do things just in a different way but it's still everyday, ordinary things ... not that karate is ordinary." "Being different is a part of being human," interjects Scherschel, an aspiring actress who has already appeared on NBC's "Law & Order." Scherschel, who is black, was adopted by an unmarried Caucasian woman. She speaks frankly about her mixed-race family and acknowledges being comfortable filming herself, not only because she wants to be a professional "drama queen." "We all were having a lot of fun expressing our ideas," Scherschel says. "You're talking to a camera so there's no-body there to judge you ... or to say that what you're saying is wrong, that your life isn't right." The key to the project, says Kohn, was allowing the kids be the directors of their own films. In editing, "it was very important that all the words that we used were their own words, that it was very true to what was going on in their lives, and never losing sight of the fact that they are kids," she says. This kind of "user-generated" documentary filmmaking, she adds, "is a wonderful way to find out what is going on in this country. I think people are going to be really amazed when they see what these kids have to say." As for Bynum, he says he wants to be president of the United States someday. "I have two strikes against me, that's a fact," he asserts. "But I'm not going to let those two strikes hold me down and I'm just going to keep going for what I believe in and gonna do whatever it takes to fulfill my dreams." Spoken like a real man. On the Net: http://www.TLC.com LOAD-DATE: February 17, 2007
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Monday, February 19, 2007 - 2:13 pm
Thanks Yankee, this sounds really interesting, especially for me with kids the same ages as some of these boys and girls!
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Monday, February 19, 2007 - 2:15 pm
The first episode -- at 7 next Monday -- is one of my favorites, only because I have a soft spot for Joshua and Cole, who are both in it.
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Whoami
Member
08-03-2001
| Monday, February 19, 2007 - 6:07 pm
Got my DVR programmed and ready to go! 
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, February 19, 2007 - 7:56 pm
I saw the commercial for this the other night and plan on watching it. I love anything to do with a child's point of view. Doing daycare, I've come across some of the wisest people that I've ever met.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Monday, February 19, 2007 - 10:28 pm
I agree Mamie. Kids pick up on things we don't really think they can understand and then they show us they have a unique perspective on it.
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Monday, February 19, 2007 - 10:36 pm
And for the most part they haven't yet been ashamed into hiding their true feelings -- and that's when that refreshing honesty comes out.
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Thursday, February 22, 2007 - 12:04 pm
Here's an article in today's KidsPost (the section of the Washington Post written FOR kids) about Joshua, who is from Baltimore. There are other articles out there today, including a big Baltimore Sun feature and a story about Cole and Marc (from the first episode) in the LA Daily News: Washington Post KidsPost A Boy's Life Third-Grader's Video Gives Reel Picture of His Dreams and Fears Thursday, February 22, 2007; C14 In many ways, Joshua Bynum is like any other third-grader. He likes science and studying about space. He enjoys running around outside and having fun. Like a lot of kids, he also had big dreams: He wanted to live with his mom all the time and go to school in his own neighborhood. But he couldn't because outside his window in Baltimore, Maryland, there were scary people (bigger kids who might hurt you if you didn't do what they said) and scary things (gunshots in the night). Joshua cried every Sunday when he had to leave his mom and go back to his grandmother's house, where he lived during the week so that he could attend a better school. When the Learning Channel gave Joshua a video camera and told him to use it to tell what his childhood was like, the result was a powerful story of one 7-year-old's world and his dreams for a better life. Joshua's story is part of a new TV series called "My Life as a Child" that begins Monday night at 7 and will air for six weeks. The Learning Channel gave Joshua and 19 other kids ages 7 through 12 video cameras for four months each. On the first show, Joshua and two other boys tell their stories: Marc, who at 7 is already a concert pianist practicing six to eight hours a day; and 8-year-old Cole, who studies karate but can't walk because of a brain injury. The kids are very honest when telling their stories. Even Joshua's mom, Nicole Bynum, learned a lot about her son from his video. "He felt the same way as I did about where we were living," she said. "He felt the same way as I did in not liking it, but I didn't know the extent to which it affected him." By watching the video, she also got a deeper understanding of how much Joshua loves her. Joshua is 8 now. This month he and his mom moved to a safer neighborhood in Baltimore. Now they can stay together during the week. That makes him very happy. "My new home is nice," he told KidsPost. "I have my own room, which is great. It's safe. I don't have to be afraid to go outside. And I'm with my mommy." That is the most important thing to him. He hasn't seen his dad in two years, which makes him very sad. Joshua said that telling his story wasn't hard: "I just talked about my life." "I usually do express my feelings with my mother," he said, "but I expressed them a little more with the camera." He had never used a video camera before, but a producer for the series "showed me what the buttons were for and had me practice," he said. When he wanted to talk directly to the camera, he used a tripod or had his mom or grandmother hold the camera. He likes how his video turned out. And he loved that the Learning Channel flew him and his mom to Los Angeles, California, to tell his story to some reporters who write about television. "I got to live in a really nice hotel for three days," he said. "I really enjoyed myself. I got to meet the people who did 'My Life as a Child.' We became really good friends." Joshua likes to write and act. He's writing a play about some kids who get locked in a school as it's closing for vacation. He has no complaints about his new school but wishes the principal knew his name. After his story appears on TV, she probably will. -- Ellen Edwards
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Thursday, February 22, 2007 - 12:08 pm
These are the children featured in the series: February 26: * Joshua (Baltimore, MD): A 7 year old living in inner-city Baltimore. He and his mother hope to move to a better neighborhood, but every apartment they like is too expensive. * Cole (Los Angeles, CA): An 8 year old boy with cerebral palsy who uses a wheelchair, but hopes some day to walk. Currently he is taking Karate, hoping to get his yellow belt. * Marc (Los Angeles, CA): A 7 year old piano prodigy whose talent is great, but who currently is not paid for his performances. He and his mother struggle financially and must rely on sponsors to help support his career training. _______________________ March 5: This episode explores the meaning of family in the United States today. Three children from non traditional families examine how they feel about parents, siblings, childhood and other issues relating to their particular family structures: * Quentin (New York, NY): A 10 year old boy with divorced parents. Because his father lives in France, he only gets to see him a few weeks out of the year. * Madison (Grand Rapids, MI): An 8 year old girl who lives with her sister and her two gay moms. * Lisetanne (New York, NY): A 10 year old African American girl adopted by a single, Caucasian mother. _______________________ March 12: * Jacob (Tokyo, Japan): A 9 year old military child whose father has done two tours of duty in Iraq. The family is about to relocate to Japan. * Tina (New Orleans, LA): A 9 year old Katrina survivor who lives in a FEMA trailer with her mom. She struggles with the fallout from the hurricane and her parents pending divorce. * Elif (Mount Lebanon, PA): An eleven year old practicing Muslim whose family recently moved to America from Turkey. ------------------------- March 19: In this hour, we hear the stories of four children distinctly different from their peers who struggle with their identities as well as the teasing of other children: * Miashanti (Duquesne, PA): An 11 year old African American girl who is a self proclaimed tomboy. She wants to play football despite the objections of her mother and the boys on her team. * Forrest (Minneapolis, MN): A 9 year old boy who is often teased because his unique sense of style sometimes makes other kids mistake him for a girl. * Skye (Southampton, NY): An 11 year old Native American girl living on the Shinnecock Indian reservation located in the incredibly wealthy town of Southampton, New York. She and her family prepare for their annual powwow celebration. Max (Cherry Hill, NJ): A 10 year old boy whose 15 year old brother suffers from severe autism. Max loves his brother, but sometimes finds living with him difficult. _______________________ March 26: * Adora (Seattle, WA): An 8 year old girl who is already a published author and plans to do a European book tour to promote her book and literacy. * Drew (Plainsboro, NJ): A 10 year old boy who is professionally pursuing ballet in New York City. * Ashley (Oklahoma City, OK): A burgeoning opera singer who hopes to take her talents professional despite the reservations of her professionally oriented parents. _______________________ April 2: * Estefania (Los Angeles, CA): A 10 year old girl whose family immigrated to the United States from Mexico just two years ago. Now Estefania’s mother is pregnant and will give birth to an American citizen, allowing Estefania to explore her identity as a Mexican-American. * Mia (San Francisco): An 11 year old girl who is classified as an amputee because she was born without one of her hands. Mia struggles to find her place among her peers as she attends the summer Youth Amputee Camp. * Rebecca (Pittsburgh, PA): An 11 year old girl whose birth father left when she was very young. Her step father wants to adopt her, but Rebecca is still not sure if she is ready. * Rio (Sandpoint, ID): A 10 year old girl from a free-spirited family of entrepreneurs. Rio’s family home schools to give the family more time for travel and fun, but this year Rio plans to go back to regular school.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Thursday, February 22, 2007 - 12:28 pm
I really can't wait to see this, I think it's going to be so interesting. These kids sound amazing too.
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 11:09 am
REMINDER that this is on tonight at 7PM ET. New York Times, LA Times, USA Today, Associated Press and more have all weighed in and love the show...
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Karuuna
Board Administrator
08-31-2000
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 11:13 am
Thanks for the reminder, Yankee! I'm looking forward to it!
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 11:26 am
Don't get me wrong, it's not groundbreaking TV, but as I said, I really think it's one of those little gems that could easily get lost amid the celebrity shuffle...
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 12:05 pm
I'll be watching.
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Brenda1966
Member
07-03-2002
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 2:23 pm
I wish this was on at a better time. It's on 5pm where I'm at and of course I forgot to set the VCR before leaving home. It doesn't air again in the evening until midnight. So for my time zone it isn't even on during primetime.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 2:31 pm
Record it at midnight Brenda. I do a couple shows like that on the Sci Fi channel and Digging for the Truth on History channel if the tivo is busy with something else during the first time it's on. We're looking forward to watching this with the kids later on.
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Brenda1966
Member
07-03-2002
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 4:38 pm
Oh I will Wargod, I just think it hurts a program when it's not on once during primtime. That's how I stumbled upon Little People, Big World -- I was flipping channels during my prime time viewing. Same with all those junky MTV Road Rules challenge type shows.
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 4:43 pm
It was scheduled at 7 for family viewing and because there is so much primetime reality TV competition that they wanted to give it a chance. Most cable systems in N.America pick up TLC on a dual feed (which would mean no matter what time zone you were in it would air at 7PM your time), but it sounds like yours only picks up the east coast feed which is unfortunate. (Mine does as well.)
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 5:04 pm
Ah, I understand that Brenda. I was glad to see it was on early because we really want to watch it with the kids and don't get much chance for that during primetime hours.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 9:28 pm
Yankee I am so glad you posted this the other day! Caleb was busy studying for a test this evening so we set the tivo to catch it later (I think at 2am?) and watched something else while it was on but flipped back and forth during commercials. The parts I saw were wonderful. We got to see Joshua talk about splitting his time between mom and grandmas and then the part about his dad not being around. Mostly we saw Cole talking about how cute his mom was, doing karate, about his dog and his helper and we got to see the end where he earned his yellow belt. We saw only a tiny bit of Marc. I can't wait til we can watch the whole thing, what great boys they all are.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 9:35 pm
When Cole got his yellow belt, I was crying like a baby. I fell in love. Joshua talking about his grandmother, or talking about wanting to live with his mom, had me crying. Marc, I didn't cry with but he was quite an interesting child. More like a man in a child's body.
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 9:40 pm
What a squeal of pure glee when Cole says, "I did it!," huh?! I have seen the ep about 5 times and I cry every time when Joshua's grandma reassures him that any man would be proud to call him his son. I didn't meet Marc, but I did meet the other two and their families and they're wonderful. I have a soft spot in my heart for both of them, but especially for Joshua. He is the most beautiful child, and his mom and grandma are amazing, too. In a press conference, Joshua said the only thing that might be bad about the show was that his friends will see him kissing his grandma 
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, February 26, 2007 - 9:41 pm
How cute is that?!
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Yankee_in_ca
Member
08-01-2000
| Sunday, March 04, 2007 - 11:11 pm
Be interested to hear your thoughts about tomorrow's episode. I won't say why for now. Nothing big, just curious.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Tuesday, March 06, 2007 - 8:42 am
I missed it because I was at the hospital but I did dvr it so I am going to try and watch it sometime this evening.
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Brenda1966
Member
07-03-2002
| Tuesday, March 06, 2007 - 12:51 pm
Aaaahhh!! I missed it because I forgot to tape it at midnight. I hope they re-air them. I did enjoy episode 1 a lot.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Thursday, March 08, 2007 - 8:31 am
Yankee, I started to watch this the other night but was so beat, I only saw about 10 minutes and zonked out. I plan on watching it as soon as I can. Hopefully, before the next one. That little Madison is a cutie.
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Thursday, March 08, 2007 - 10:31 am
I've got it on Tivo but we haven't had time to sit down and watch it yet.
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Babyruth
Member
07-19-2001
| Thursday, March 08, 2007 - 11:40 am
We watched this the other night and enjoyed it very much. Had many thoughts and feelings about the kids and their families. What in particular are you interested in hearing about, Yankee?
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Babyruth
Member
07-19-2001
| Thursday, March 08, 2007 - 11:57 am
Just scrolled back and realized we missed the first episode. I hope it will be re-broadcast!
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Wargod
Moderator
07-16-2001
| Thursday, March 08, 2007 - 12:39 pm
BR, if you want I can check and see if I still have it on tivo (the first episode.) Usually I delete stuff when we're done, but I can't remember if I did with this one or not.
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Mamie316
Member
07-08-2003
| Monday, March 12, 2007 - 9:35 pm
I finally watched all of last week's show. The children were very interesting to me. Quentin seemed to be more of the adult or parent in his situation. He was quite mature for his age. Madison seemed rather nervous to me. Maybe it was just being on tv but she surely loved her family. Lisetanne had a little bit of a show-offy attitude. I wouldn't let an 11 year old ride the subway alone either.
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