Are You Smarter Than a 13-Year-Old?

Aside from being able to set up an entire social networking system and play four rounds of Vampire Wars within the first 5 minutes of your bringing a new computer home, the average 13-year-old knows a few things that you don't (and it has nothing to do with finding what you have bookmarked on Firefox).

An important one is CPR, as in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Kids may learn it in school, but adults are often more likely to need it -- after all, grownups are the ones hanging out with people in their 40s and 50s who are at risk for heart attacks. The people most likely to be around when someone is having a heart attack are generally those who are less likely to take a CPR course. So one innovative school in Denmark taught kids CPR, then sent them home to teach the technique to friends and relatives. The average pass-along rate of knowledge was 2.5 people per school kid. We love this model of "learn and teach" and are believers in kids as teachers (as anyone who is familiar with our HealthCorps program knows). And the teacher seems to learn better, too.

If you're not going to learn CPR from your kids (or someone else's), it's worth learning on your own: Most heart attacks happen at home. And, surprisingly, when heart attacks happen and other people are around, CPR is done less than 45% of the time. If you don't want to spend the money for a CPR course, you can buy an at-home instruction kit (called "CPR Anytime") for about $35.