Last year, the Florida State legislature attempted to gag pediatricians from discussing gun safety with families. That law, referred to as the docs n’ Glocks Law, was overturned by a Federal Judge this past September after strong rallying by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Judge Marcia Cooke’s ruling was a huge victory for gun safety education and for pediatricians. Her ruling validated what pediatricians in Florida, and every other state in our Nation, have been attempting to explain for a very long time: this issue isn’t about gun ownership but about gun safety.

The recent  tragic death of a Texas 8th grader, Jaime Gonzalez, is a grim and very real reminder of how serious events can become when any type of gun is involved.  According to reports, police could not discern that the gun was a pellet gun and the events unfolded in a way that forced them to act so that the school student body and staff would be safe. That’s their job. Playing Monday morning quarterback isn’t going to change the event. However, we can prevent future events by recognizing that we need to do better in providing gun safety educations in our schools, for parents in their homes and for pediatricians in their offices.

For some reason, gun safety education is one of those topics that everyone agrees is important, including pediatricians, yet no one takes enough time to truly do justice to when they have a family, or group of students, in front of them. With kids still bringing guns to school, we have to stop assuming that someone else is providing that important talk and step up.

Parents need to have the talk with their kids, whether they own a gun or not.

Schools need to have gun safety education in their health and safety courses and in their Open Circle times.

And, pediatricians need to fit it into their busy office visits.

We should be having it at home with our kids.

Communities and schools can think outside the box and post information and links to resource on websites and in newsletters. Drama classes could organize skits. Art classes could make posters. Both of these avenues have been very successful with other hard to discuss topics such as drug and alcohol use and abuse and high tech issues.

As long as you do more today than you did yesterday, the students in your community will more safe tomorrow and the likelihood of another school gun incident will go dramatically down.

This is a New Year’s Resolution we can do something about – and we owe it to the Jaime Gonzalez’s family to do just that.

No doubt we live in worry filled times. From the stock market to our kids, there’s no shortage of issues we can come up with to angst over in any given day.

Interestingly, our collective concerns over our children and their health has been rock solid consistent the last few years, as demonstrated by the National Poll on Children’s Health compiled by the CS Mott Children’s Hospital. The poll’s top 10 parental concerns has been virtually stable for the 5 years the poll has been complied. That is, until this year.  We have one societal development to thank for the changes we see in this year’s list: technology. With change and development does come new issues to address and that’s what this year’s list reflects.

So, what are we worried about? These issues:

2010 (and 2009)

1. Childhood obesity, 38 percent
2. Drug abuse, 30 percent
3. Smoking, 29 percent
4. Internet safety, 25 percent
5. Stress, 24 percent
6. Bullying, 23 percent
7. Teen pregnancy, 23 percent
8. Child abuse and neglect, 21 percent
9. Alcohol abuse, 20 percent
10. Not enough opportunities for physical activity, 20 percent

2011 

1. Childhood obesity, 33%
2. Drug abuse, 33%
3. Smoking and tobacco use, 25%
4. Teen pregnancy, 24%
5. Bullying, 24%
6. Internet safety, 23%
7. Stress, 22%
8. Alcohol abuse, 20%
9. Driving accidents, 20%
10. Sexting, 20%

(http://www.uofmhealth.org/news/top-ten-national-poll-0815)

Note the increased emphasis on digital issues beyond “internet safety” such as sexting adn driving.

So, what now? Now, we have to take a step back and realize that a list isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on or the hard drive space it’s saved on if we just read it and don’t do a thing about it. The fact that these concerns have been so stable for so long is a big wake up call that our kids need help with these issues, and we need help figuring out how to help our kids. But, we can’t do it alone. We need community support if we’re going to help our kids with these issues – they are complicated and multifactorial.

Worry is an interesting emotion. It can help or hurt. It can fuel us into action or freeze us into inaction. How it impacts us is in our control. Whether we look at our child and say “not my kid” or recognize “wow, yes, my kid” is in our control.

So, what are you going to do with your worry about your kids’ health in 2012? Are you going to let it be the starter for that fire inside you to help your kids become more healthy…or let it consume you and keep you in idle?

Have you noticed how just about everything is occurring earlier in the lives of kids than it did when we were kids? Today’s kids are expected to achieve milestones earlier than the past and fine-tune their preferences for the future without having any life experience to base those preferences on.

Nowadays, this trend is including very young developmental tasks such as potty training. I’m hearing from parents concerns and questions about how to potty train some incredibly young kids. We’re not just talking about young toddlers between the age of 1-2. Some parents are starting to ask if an infant a few months old can be potty trained.

Potty training is as much biological as it is emotional and social. When you think about potty training in terms of biological processes that need to occur and then get executed and mastered by very young kids, it’s easy to see why there is not only a great deal of confusion but a mis-match between what we hope will occur for our kids and what they can actually occur. The frank reality is that most kids simply are not ready to potty train until they are ready – and that may be around 2 years of age, or 3, or even 4 for some kids.

Pushing, pleading, begging, bribing didn’t help our kids achieve potty training any quicker than it was meant to be. In the end, success occurred when we followed their lead and didn’t expect them to do something they truly could’t.

Talking to parents about this issue since I became a pediatrician, I can vouch to the variability of when kids achive potty training success as well as one truism: a parent’s desire for a child to be potty trained is meaningless if the child isn’t truly ready. As a parent, this was my experience, too.

Parenting a toddler is challenging enough. Why add more chaos to the mix by pushing something that the child is not ready for? Instead, we collectively need to learn more patients and to truly get to know where our kids are with their ability to tackle a new task, whether potty training, starting school or any new milestone, actually.

A child’s days of diapers and Pull Ups are numbered but how many that child needs before becoming fully potty trained will be unique for that child. So, avoid the pressure to push the process earlier than it’s meant to occur. Your child will be better off by taking this approach – and so will you.

Disclosure:

I have partnered with Pull-Ups® to serve as a Pull-Ups® Potty Training Partner. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program, which includes writing articles for Pull-Ups.com, and offering tips and advice on the Pull-Ups®  Facebook page. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments or endorse the product.

You’re likely heard by now that some parents were ordering lollipops spit on – yes, I did type “spit on” – by children infected by chicken pop to attempt to infect their how children with the virus. Here are the issues, beyond the obvious “ick” factor, of course: this practice is unsanitary, dangerous and…illegal.

Maria Stephanos and I teased through this last night on Fox News 25 in Massachusetts and answered some questions viewers posted on Facebook that raise all the issues you need to know before you hunt for these virus-ladden pops:

Dr. Gwenn O’Keefe talks ordering chicken pox: MyFoxBOSTON.com

In our day and age of reality shows, people seem to forget that life isn’t a made for TV anything. Some lives are captured and shown on TV, and those lives are somewhat produced for those shows. But, the majority of us just live our lives, for better and worse, for sickness and health…and recognize that to get the sweet, you have to ride through the bitter and give it time. I’m talking years of time – not 72 days as Kim recently gave her marriage to basketball player husband Kris Humphries.

There are many wedding vow variations in ceremonies but the traditional one is typically along the lines of:

“I______take________to be my husband/wife/spouse/partner, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, through sickness and in health, to love and to honor, till death do us part.”

Wedding vows always seem to have a clause that includes “better or worse”, “richer or poor”, “sickness and health”, “untill dealth”. In otherwords, we’re in this for the long haul, baby!

What I found interesting peering in what we were allowed to see of the Kim/Kris relationship was that he seemed to get this. He talked about the long haul, the fact that the focus on their lives would shift over time to kids and other priorities and that compromise was the name of the game. She didn’t, however. For Kim, the ride was about her and her needs. Let’s face it, she couldn’t even cope with havingn to move to support his career.

A People Magazine story early this week noted Kim stated the following soon after the wedding:

“We have to find our home base…He lives in Miami and Minnesota. I’m in L.A., so we had to find where that home base is going to be. We’re waiting for the lockout to end to see where he’s going to play.”

Shouldn’t this have been sorted out well before the wedding? And, even in situations when things are up in the air, most couples, that is, couples in the real world, learn that give and take is what makes marriages work and stay strong.

From the same article, check out this exchange between the couple:

 Kim, pre-wedding: “How am I going to have my career and live in Minnesota?”
     Kris: “Baby, by the time you have kids and they’re in school, no one will care about you.”

He’s thinking family and sacrifice, she’s thinking “me”. No wonder they hit an impasse so early in the marriage after the high of the wedding wore off. The thing is, this is normal newly wed stuff. Kim needs to wake up and realize that money and fame don’t give her a free pass to not enduring the same life pains as the rest of us in marriage and family life.

It’s no wonder the divorce rate is so high. Too many people like Kim seem to think real relationships are like the ones on TV. There’s a reason TV is called “entertainment”.

By the way, this story is just loaded with teachable moments for our impressionable tweens and teens so sit down and talk to them about it. See what they know and understand. Help them correct any misguided notions. The earlier they learn that a wedding is just a day and that being a diva is not becoming on anyone, the quicker that persona will start to become less acceptable in our society from anyone, rich or poor.

Image Source

As a digital photography nut, I’m constantly on the hunt for inspirational photo taking prompts. One of the photo groups I belong to sends out a weekly theme to help focus our shots. This week’s theme is “shelves”. So, it was a natural leap for me to use my camera to convey what came to my mind when I learned about the Million Moms Challenge.

This photo is a teeny glimpse of the Momspiration I’ve received over the years that has fueled me to become who I am today, as a mom, as an author, as a wife, as a person. It’s interesting, and rather fortuitous as a blogger and photographer, that the most profound Momspirational moments have also come with stuff!

Some of this stuff may not look cool, but, trust me, it is.

1. A gift of a statue – and a glimpse at freedom: 

The Statue of Liberty figure always makes me smile because it was given to me while living in Illinois and working in Wisconsin from a family from Russia. The mom of a very sick boy gave it to me on the day he was discharged after a prolonged hospitalization.  As she handed me the tissue wrapped figure, she said “Lady Liberty was our sign of freedom when we first came to this country. When you look at this, remember us, and remember that being true to who you are will be your path to freedom.”

I was actually on a career path I was not thrilled with and somehow this mom sensed it. Her random act of kindness gave me a jolt of bravery to take a detour onto a new career path. When I have writer’s block or I’m wondering if I made the right choice to become a health journalist, one look at that statue is all I need to regroup, especially if combined with a piping hot latte.

2. Validation and Confirmation

The three cards on the shelf span my entire career as a working mom, all given to me by moms whose kids I was treating for acute illnesses.

The arrival of each card was unexpected, which made them all the sweeter.

• “Thank you for your personal sharing of an approach to juggling “2” – your girls are very lucky. Hopefully we’ll do just fine.”
• “Thank you so much for not just doing the easy thing for yourself that night. (That treatment) would have been horrible for all of us. You really went “above and beyond the call of duty” and our whole family really appreciated it.”
• “Thank you for being our pediatrician and friend. We are going to miss you but will always remember the special care and concern you gave to our children…and for always responding to my calls, questions, and concerns. You are a special person and have a definate talent with kids and adults too!”

Working long days in a health care system that can be thankless, receiving notes like this is the best medicine any doc can receive!

3. Young Heros

The cute bear was sent to me by the Coins4Kids founders, Jon and Greg. I had featured their group in an article covering the amazing ways kids help kids. These amazing teens came up with the kids to have people collect spare coins to help kids with cancer. The bear, Dawson, is named after their cousin who was battling childhood cancer at the time. Their mom, Deb, told me that teaching kids to give was one of the best lessons we could teach our kids. Given the success of Coins4Kids, I’d say her sons mastered that class!

Learning about Coins4Kids and other groups started by kids inspired me and my husband to make sure our kids learned to give starting very young. We have the penny bank Jon and Greg gave us in our family room and keep collecting, hoping to fill it soon to send them a donation. And, each year we give to causes in our area important to local kids with our kids’ input.

So, the Dawson bear represents giving in so many ways. But, it also helps remind me how lucky I am to have healthy kids.

4. Time for family

One of my biggest hurdles over the years was finding the right balance between work and family. Looking at art work my kids have made helps ground me and keep the scale always slanted towards my family. Whenever I’ve been at a crossroads, making a choice that benefits my family has never turned out wrong. The little clay people and candle holder were made by my girls are just a few of the many reminders I have around me each day to remind me that they only have one childhood – and they need their parents involved in it.

5. Time for mom

I knew I had achieved a balance that was working when I was able to successfully write and publish my first book CyberSafe.  Talking to other mom authors and learning from them the many ways they juggled their lives to achieve their writing goals helped me enormously.

Final Thoughts

I wish I could see all these moms again and thank them. While I know many of them were reaching out to me because of something I did to impact their lives, it would be great to one day have the chance to tell them that what they gave me in return words can’t completely capture. So, to those moms, if you are reading this: thank you!

Take a moment to reflect on whose been Momspirational in your life and share it on the Million Moms Community page. The more we all share, the more funds will be raised for moms around the world who need our help to have the resources to live a healthy life and raise a healthy family.

Over the last decade we’ve had to face far too many of tough world events from terrorism to natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina or the tsunami in Japan. It’s always the same pattern:  in the blink of an eye, we are transported from our relatively happy lives to an uncertain fog as we grapple with whatever event had just occurred.

I recall vividly one such event a few years back after my husband returned from a trip to London. Just by the expression on his face I knew to hit the off switch on the TV but missed the airing of the news of the event by seconds. Our ten year old daughter had already heard that there were explosions in London in the same area that my husband had just been to. “Was it as bad as 9/11? Do you think they’ll catch the bad guys this time?”

Good questions with difficult answers. These events shatter not only our feeling of security in the world but our hopes for our children’s futures. Luckily, children are not small adults and their lack of life experience actually protects them in many ways from all the concerns we focus on when we hear that about a tragic event. Children of all ages really only need reassurance about the integrity of their own worlds, their own safety, and the safety of those they know and love. They still have that wonderful leap that everything will turn out fine – especially if we, their parents, tell them that it will

Dr. Paula Rauch, Director of the Child Psychiatry Consultation Service at Massachusetts General Hospital, emphasizes the need to not only find out what the child has heard and to clarify the details of the event but to emphasize the rarity of these events in the big picture of the world. This is true for tough world event such as terrorism as well as natural events such as earthquakes and tsumamis.

For example, to answer my daughter’s questions about whether the bad guys would get caught, Dr. Rauch suggested an answer such as “It’s a good question. I can’t be sure, but I hope so. I know there will be a lot of smart people looking for them….There will always be a small number of “bad” people in the world and luckily a much bigger number of caring ones. A surprise thing could happen, but it is really, really rare.”

For natural disasters, it’s important to emphasize similar message around safety. Kids need to know that people are looking out for the people directly involved in the incident as well as people elsewhere. In addition, we need to be good listeners ourselves to find out if our kids have any specific questions about the disaster that may be weighing heavily on their minds. If we don’t listen openly, we’ll never know what information to offer.

The age of your children is your best guide for how to comment on any difficult event. Small children, preschoolers and kindergarteners, should be told little about tragic world events. The fantasy world of small children and their lack of understanding about space and time make it difficult for them to grasp what has occurred. For this age group, you may need to let them know that something scary happened far away from home but that everyone they know is safe.

As children get older, what you tell them will of course become more detailed. For all children, including teenagers, discussions need to be simple. Media exposure should be monitored closely at this age. Many experts feel that a parent should be present if a child is going to see a traumatic image in any media forum. This is sound advice for all of us to follow.

Helping a child see what is really in their control can be very reassuring. Notes Dr. Rauch, “a parent could say…my approach as a grown up is to pay attention to the safety things I can do that protect us from things that happen more often. Look both ways crossing the street. Wear a bike helmet. Know your important phone numbers if you need to call parents…The adage “Think Globally. Act Locally” is a good way to think about safety”. In the case of any disaster, hotlines are usually set up where people can contribute funds or good to help those in need. Kids respond well to helping other kids so mobilizing them into a call to action around one of these hotlines can help them feel less powerless. Save The Children is one group that kids of school age and older can relate to for any event involving children.  They already have a donation center set up for the victims of the Japan tsunami. If your kids want to help, check it out.

Clearly the more personal the event is for a family the more difficult it will be for a child. Consult your pediatrician or a child psychiatrist if you have concerns about any world event’s impact on your child. The earlier you address these issues, the easier it will be to help your child.

Preserving the rhythm of our children’s lives is ultimately what will reassure them that the world as they know it is still ok. A friend of mine said it best at a concert band rehearsal a couple years ago:

“The world may be unraveling as we speak but at least we have something civilized to look forward to and do each week”.

So, embrace what is important to you and keep on doing it.

(First published 2009; updated 2011)

There is one rite of passage that all families have to endure before school can begin…back to school shopping.

It’s an experience met with many mixed emotions. There is undeniably some trepidation about what the new school year will be like and how we’ll all get through it. At the same time, a new school year creates a buzz of positive excitement, too, with hopes for new dreams and new possibilities.

This year, the stores were packed as we made our way through my girls’ lists. I typically push the cart while my girls, now in grades 9 and 11, consult each other and gather their supplies. Every once in a while I’ll be presented with a question or a couple items to help them decide between. But, for the most part, I’m the cart pusher. This is their school year so I leave it to them to pick what they want for the hard work they’ll be doing.  I was clearly in the minority this year with this approach.

While a few other parents were hanging with me in the center waiting for our kids, many more looked like these parents:

1. A mom with her 3 teenage girls was frantically zipping about the store snapping at her girls to keep up a she picked up all sorts of supplies and tossed them in the cart. The few times her girls tried to chime in with ideas, mom’s reply was “will you stop distracting me – I only have a few more items.”

2. Down the next aisle was a family of 4: a mom, dad and two school age kids, a boy and a girl. The mom and dad were in deep conference, actually hovering above the class supply list, with the dad measuring supplies to make sure they fit in the backpack correctly.

3. At the front of the store was a mom lost in thought holding the supply list. As she grabbed a set of pens, her frustrated tweenage boy yelled: “I hate those! At what point do I get to choose what I will be using in my own class??!!” Mom stood there looking stunned.

These parents are as well meaning as the rest of us but with one big difference: they don’t seem to get that the school year is about their kids, not themselves. For these parents, school supplies are an extension of the “I know best” philosophy that permeates so many families today. The thing is, school is about our kids and it’s all too easy to forget that.

So, if you found yourself shopping for your kids and not with them this year, take a step back and give up the reins on the little stuff to your kids. Jump in when the stakes are higher, like when a teacher is being unfair with a grade or a bully is lurking.  That stuff they need you for. Pens and binders…trust that they can do that themselves, with you there as guides if needed.

It seems the fashion industry doesn’t realize we still have a good half the summer to go! Everywhere I go there are reminders that another school year is around the corner. Although we’d all rather block this from our brains, it’s actually not such a bad idea to at least get into a quasi-back to school state of mind. Doing so will help you and your kids considerably once that first day of school does arrive.

Since the last school year ended, we’ve been on a diametrically opposite schedule from what we live when school is in the mix in just about every way:

• Sleep: Sleep tends to be more free in the summer with later bed times, wake up times and no set schedule.
• Nutrition: Fruits and veggies may be more abundant but people also indulge on more ice cream and treats at barbeques they don’t often eat at other times of year.
• Exercise: Many kids are either not in camp, in “indoor” camps or in sports camps that focus on just one sport and not overall fitness, so kids are actually less active in the summer than in the past.
• Activities and Hobbies: Most kids put on hold the activities they pursue rigorously over the school year – music, art, even some sports.
• Reading: Many schools have reading expectations for the summer so most kids do read each summer.
• Technology: For most kids, especially tweens and teens, they’ve had much more use of technology over the summer than in the school year and likely without the oversight that you’d normally have over the school year.

Making small tweaks now in all these areas will help ground our kids and give them the energy they need to stay on top of school and the increased demands they’ll feel.  To nudge your kids back to tip, top school shape, try these ideas out:

• Sleep: You can change your kids’ biological clocks from summer to school  by moving them to an earlier bedtime and having them wake up with an alarm for at least 3-5 days before the first day of school. The more time their bodies have to adjust to the new time, the better they will feel when they have to do it every day – and the easier it will be.
• Nutrition: In addition to needing three meals a day, kids eat healthier when they help make meals. Try that out this month and then continue it in the school year.
• Exercise: Growing kids need daily exercise, even if they play team sports. And, kids who play sports need a break once in a while or they risk overuse injuries. The goal is 30 minutes of moving a day. If you can get that in for your kids, they’ll feel great and their bodies will benefit.
• Activities and Hobbies: The best rule of thumb is to slide into the school year and see what the work load is like before adding too many new activities, especially if activities are already in place from last year. And, to remind your child it isn’t the end of the world to try something new and drop it if they don’t like the activity or it’s too much for their schedule.
• Technology: Whatever your usual technology plan is for the school year, now is the time to regroup on that and revisit expectations that make sense once homework kicks in. I’ll have more on this soon so stay tuned!

If you enjoy today while being realistic about tomorrow, tomorrow can be enjoyed much more, even if it is the first day of school!

Are you going to see Harry Potter this weekend? How are your kids dealing with the “end” of this much beloved decade long saga?

If your kids are like mine, they’ve been counting down the days until the opening of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II”. This is not a new phenomenon for my family…as we’ve experienced the same lead up excitement with all the prior movies. The difference today, though, is that we are preparing for the end – the end of the story and the end of the movies.

The Harry Potter phenomenon is amazing to consider and, in many ways, has been unlike any other book to movie franchise.  It’s not only one of the best author rags to riches stories of our day but is, itself, a phenomenon that has impacted an entire generation of kids, fostering their imaginations, impacting their dreams and ideals, and giving them a framework to witness their own real world experiences of growing up in a safe and understandable way.

When I view the Harry Potter movies from a media perspective, I have to give the entire group of movies a thumbs up. There are few movies that have been able to keep up the quality from movie to movie as these movies have. There are also few movives that have captivated kids and their parents like this creating a multitude of venues families can enjoy together. In the case of my family, this journey started before my oldest daughter could read, with the first few books being read to her by my husband. Once the movies came out, it quickly became a family event. We’ve seen all the museum exhibitions that have toured and even tailored our recent London trip so our kids could see some of the real world sights that influenced the fantastical sets of the movies.

The other element of these movies that I have loved is the casting. Few movies today have casted kids in kid roles and allowed them to grow up as the movies evolved. The rarity of the cast is how wonderful they are to their fans and how humble they have been throughout the last decade. That is truly rare in today’s Hollywood culture.

Our kids have actually grown up with these characters which is one of the unique and most powerful features of this entire enterprise. Seeing movie characters they can relate to going “through kid stuff” and “coming of age stuff” helps our kids deal with their own “stuff”  – stuff like just growing up, becoming a teen and young adult, dealing with first romantic crushes and feelings, understanding the value of friendship.

So, this just isn’t the end to a run of movies. By the conclusion of “HP 7″ our kids will be saying “farewell” to characters that have been staples throughout their childhoods. The impact will be akin to saying “goodbye” to a friend about to move so we should prepare for that, and allow our kids the emotions and reactions they will have. Just like saying “farewell” to a friend about to move, this weekend’s movie will rock our kids and we need to be prepared for that.  Art often imitates life and that has truly been the case with the core events the HP characters have experienced.  Seeing real world events depicted in movies helps our kids deal with similar real world issues. It provides a context removed from the real world to talk about some tough stuff and real life issues that may be hard to discuss otherwise.

As I walk in these shoes with you, about to see the movie tonight at midnight and likely to be part of carpools as my teens plan to see the movie again with friends, here are my thoughts on why the Harry Potter story line has been one of the best for kids and families in my kids’ lifetimes:

1. The story gets kids reading.
2. The movie and related events encourage family time.
3. The story and characters have sparked imagination and fueled our kids to be kids.
4. The story itself grapples with Good Vs. Evil with normal life issue undertones of kids growing up.
5. The movies, and books, have showed how teens deal with hormones without inappropriate images.
6. No gratuitous sex, drugs, violence that isn’t out of the real of what kids can handle.
7. The story evolves tween and teen issues in a way kids can relate to.
8. The story emphasizes the importance of education, friends and family.
9. Friendship is shown in a real world light and emphasizes that it’s ok for friends to disagree – and still be friends.
10. Love, friendship and good triumph in the end, as it should…after all, this is still a movie!

(Image: Harry Potter Warner Brothers website)