The start of a new school year is always exciting with new challenges and new expectations.   Everything that occurs during the school year from September through June will impact our children’s health – mostly in positive ways but there are always a few speed bumps along the way at unexpected times.  Here’s a snapshot of the most important issues nuts and bolts to consider as you march through a new school year with your kids.

The Annual Well Child Examination
When a Child Is Sick
Common School Year Illnesses
Medication Use In School
Immunizations
Special Vaccines
Unexpected Problems

Continue Reading

Are you an “opt in” teen parent or an “opt out” teen parent? And, does it matter? I think it does!

My daughter recently participated in Relay For Life with some friends in her freshman high school class and I was stunned to discover that the parents were harder to rally than the teens. Read on.

Relay is an amazing event. Organized nationally by the American Cancer Society, this one event teaches teems the true value of teamwork, community service, and volunteerism.

The American Cancer Society always makes it easy to participate in these events between their printed materials, website and meetings.  However, because the teams are teens, lead by teens, there does need to be adult involvement to pull this off and to keep the event safe. In addition to implying that parents be involved behind the scene, there’s a strict chaperone requirement for the entire 12 hour overnight.

Parent involvement started a month before the event by requiring a signed permission slip. That part occurred easily. Multiple phone calls, emails and Facebook posts began around the same time outlining deadlines, needed supplies and the chaperone requirements.  It took my husband getting involved a week before to pull that together. Parents, in general, were resistant to commit.

Our team pulled it off in the end. A few other teams were not so lucky and were prohibited from participating because not a single parent would step up to chaperone. And, on a few teams, teens intending to participate failed to show up with their supplies because their parents wouldn’t let them participate at the 11^th hour without warning.  We heard through the grape vine that social plans were the typical reason.

Weekends are crazy for everyone and I’m not suggesting we all volunteer for every event our kids consider doing. However, not all events are made equal. We should be applauding the mature and altruistic interests of our kids and bending over backwards to help them fulfill their goals. Those are the events we need to be involved with. Those are the events we should be pausing our lives for in order to bear witness to our kids’ lives. Those are the events, in fact, we should put a priority on for our teens because they teach our teens important skills that will help shape their future lives.

So, don’t blindly “opt out” of volunteer events involving your teen until you are sure you won’t be kicked in the face later on by doing so. Social time is something we can always carve out more of but time to support our teen and the causes important to them is time limited with graduation day being the end point.

Wouldn’t you rather be part of the action and witness first hand your teen doing the amazing things your teen is trying to do than end up sitting in the parents’ section on graduation day wishing you had?

Does your family dream of amusement park rides every summer? This time of year the amusement park ads are in full bloom getting everyone itching to get to their local parks.

There is no doubt that amusement parks can be a great family outing and offer something for everyone – even non-ride people. At the same time, while it’s easy to assume that a clean-looking, well-run park is “safe”, statistics suggest otherwise. Safekids.org recently reported 6500 emergency room visits in 2001 for amusement park injuries in the United States – and the majority of those actually avoidable and due to families and attendants bending the posted rules. Equipment problems do occur but result in a small amount of injuries overall. Continue Reading

Q)
Dear Dr. Gwenn:

My daughter is 3 ½ years old. I just spent the last year raising her alone while my husband was in Korea. Since we are a military family, our lives change every so often when it has to. Lately our daughter takes up to 3 hours to go to sleep, we have left her by herself and we have to take her back into her room at least 6 times. We’ve tried reading stories in her bed and staying in her room until she falls asleep. On occasion, she has lain in our bed for hours before falling asleep.

During the evening struggles, she often throws fits and kicks and screams. I need help!!! This is affecting my marriage and now I have become one of those mothers that I didn’t want to become with a spoiled child. Please help!!!

Thank you,
Rebecca

Continue Reading

Safety proofing. One of those necessary evils of parenting we love and hate all at once. We love the fact that we are protecting out infants and very young children, yet if only it were easier to accomplish at times…and if our tots had a bit less Houdini in them. Still, safety proofing measures do minimize injury and provide us with peace of mind during a very chaotic time in our kids’ lives.

Continue Reading