Saturday November 19, 2011
As the holidays approach, you may find yourself feeling a bit more stressed than usual, and may notice certain behaviors (such as sleep problems, difficulty concentrating, and stomach pains or headaches) in your child.
If your child is feeling stressed and anxious, try these quick stress relief tips for kids. Also try these ideas for reducing your own holiday stress and avoiding holiday stress in kids.
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Monday November 14, 2011
As the holidays approach (I cannot believe how quickly the year is going!), it's a good time to assess how our children are doing with their manners. We parents are often so busy making sure our kids are eating right and doing well in school that we can sometimes forget that etiquette lessons are just as important to include in our daily lives with our children.
So take this opportunity to read about how to teach kids good manners -- including the all-important table manners and greeting people -- and tweak their behavior as needed. You'll be glad you did: After all, when we raise respectful, well-mannered children, we benefit as much as they do when we get to enjoy our kids' pleasant company.
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Tuesday November 8, 2011
Yes, you read that right. A chicken pox lollipop, as in a lollipop with chicken pox on it.
Parents who do not want to allow their kids to get the chicken pox vaccine are apparently using social media sites such as Facebook to coordinate sharing of lollipops licked by kids infected with the virus through the mail.
According to ABC News, doctors and authorities are warning parents that these mail-order "pox parties," which involve children sharing infected items to build up so-called "natural immunity" to chicken pox, could in fact be ineffective, dangerous (these items could also contain any number of other harmful pathogens such as hepatitis), and illegal since it is a federal crime to send viruses, diseases, or other contagions through the mail.
Aside from all of that, it seems foolhardy to trust someone you don't know to send you something that you then put into your child's mouth. (I might add that it's also just plain gross.) If parents have concerns about vaccines, they should discuss it with their child's pediatrician or other medical professionals. But to go online to get infected items to give to their children seems, to me, like a dangerous game of Russian roulette with children as the victims.
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Tuesday November 1, 2011
How was your Halloween? We had a blast, going to parties with some dear friends, trick-or-treating, and even watching some of our town's annual Halloween parade.
I hope your Halloween was as fun as ours, and that your kids didn't have too many sugar-fueled manic meltdowns.
If you have any photos of your kids' Halloween costumes, please share them! Whether store-bought, homemade, or a combination of both, we'd love to see what fabulous costumes your kids wore this Halloween.
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