When your child doesn’t always get their way the whining and complaining begins. This usually lasts until parents can’t take it anymore or until they start whining themselves.
Here are some great tips to putting a stop to whining.
It is becoming more common for parents to refuse vaccinations for their children, to prevent rare but serious side effects. However, this refusal of inoculations has meant the rate of cases of whooping cough then becomes much higher – to the point where children who do not receive that particular vaccine are 23 times more likely to become ill with whopping cough.
One argument parents give in favor of skipping shots is that if all of a child’s peers get inoculated, then they won’t be able to transmit the virus to their child. This phenomenon is known as herd immunity. This argument does not hold true for whooping cough, and so vaccine refusal is putting these children at a real and serious risk. Read more…
After the disappearance last week of an eight-year-old Woodstock, Ontario girl last week, many parents are debating whether it is safe to let their children walk to school unaccompanied.
Experts suggest using an event such as this disappearance as a moment to teach your children about safety. However, incidents such as this are very limited, and so experts also say parents should not overreact. Most missing children are runaways, while others were taken by a parent. Read more…
Those fast food restaurant playgrounds may seem like a great idea - keep your kids busy while you have a relaxing lunch. However, they may be more dangerous than they seem. A Burger King in Southern California has reached a $20 million out-of-court settlement with a family whose child was severely injured on its playground.
Due to apparent “previous incidents” in this restaurant’s playground, they ultimately lost the court case. The injured child had climed up a pole and fallen to the ground, cracking his head on the floor. There was no safety netting, and insifficient padding on the floor. The child suffered brain damage, and now is partially paralyzed with sever emotional and cognitive problems. Read more…
LeapFrog has launched a new product: A BlackBerry for children to help them get acquainted with technology. The to cannot connected to the internet, but it is full of games to help children with spelling, as well as learning the calendar. Children can communicate with this “BlackBerry’s” guide, a dog named Scout, via “text message.” Read more…
So you could go one of two ways, in respect to your kids and junk food: 1) You could never have it in the house, and tell them they are strictly forbidden from eating it, or 2) You could teach them moderation and self-control and have some in the house sometimes. Check out this discussion, where readers sound off on either side of the argument.
If your child is sick or at least uncomfortable for some reason, you may not have to rush to the doctor. Check out these home remedies that could help soothe:
Sore throat: Honey and lemon - Lemon dries up congestion and honey provides a soothing coating.
Colic: Chamomile tea - Relaxes intestinal muscles and is calming.
Bug bites: Baking soda - The alkaline baking soda helps counteract the acidic swelling.
Nosebleed: Cayenne pepper - This spice helps blood clot.
Warts: Duct tape - The gray fabric tape seems to irritate warts and inhibit their growth.
Anxiety: Bubble wand - Breathing slowly and deeply will help your child relax when she’s feeling stressed.
Headaches: Bandanna - Wrapping several ice cubes in a dish towel will help soothe your child’s head pain.
Tummy or neck pain: Sock - Instead of buying a heat wrap, make one by filling a sock with uncooked rice and tying it closed with a string.
Swimmer’s Ear: Blow dryer - This painful inflammation of the outer ear traps liquid and possibly bacteria. You can try evaporating the trapped water by with a blow dryer on the warm setting.
Congestion: Contact lens solution - May help kids get over colds faster — and make them less likely to get sick again.
Car sickness: Fresh ginger tea - Ginger stops the stomach contractions that tell your child’s brain he feels nauseous.
Mild swelling: Cucumber - Helps soothe hot, swollen skin.
Bee sting: Credit card - Use the flat edge of a credit card to gently scrape across the area until the stinger comes out.
Indigestion: Stick of gum - The extra saliva she’ll produce will neutralize the problematic excess stomach acid.
Approximately 691,000 children went hungry in 2007 in the United States. This was more than 50 per cent above the previous year, and the worst record in the ten past years. AND this was before the sharp economic downturn of 2008. Read more…
ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire/ — Beginning today, PBS is opening the beta test for a new Internet-based educational service designed to provide children ages 3 to 6 with a comprehensive early childhood curriculum. PBS KIDS PLAY!(SM), which will be offered as a subscription service later this calendar quarter, uses interactive games and activities to provide a personalized learning experience at home. The PBS KIDS PLAY! Beta is currently available as a download from www.pbskidsplay.org and requires a high-speed Internet connection to use.
All of the games and activities in PBS KIDS PLAY! were designed from the ground up specifically to meet nationally recognized educational standards and benchmarks. The PBS KIDS PLAY! curriculum includes essential skill areas in Math, Science, Language, Literacy, Creativity, Healthy Development, and Social Studies. With a single click, parents can read about the learning objectives and instructions for each activity. PBS KIDS PLAY! also provides an easy-to- use progress chart that helps parents see the “big picture.” The chart shows how each child is advancing through the curriculum, including an indicator of how far the child has progressed in each skill area. This information is tailored specifically for each child and includes recommendations for activities to try, based on the child’s skill level.
“A critical mass of families now has broadband Internet access and that creates an opportunity to take online learning to a whole new level for a new generation — and that’s exactly what PBS KIDS PLAY! is designed to do,” said Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President, PBS KIDS. “PBS KIDS PLAY! is a natural extension of the PBS mission to advance children’s learning with new, innovative media approaches.”
“We’ve taken a comprehensive approach to children’s learning in order to address the whole child,” said Ben Grimley, Senior Director of Interactive Businesses at PBS.
PBS KIDS characters from programs including CURIOUS GEORGE, SUPER WHY!, MISTER ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD, FRANNY’S FEET, MAMA MIRABELLE’S HOME MOVIES, and THE BERENSTAIN BEARS will guide children through the activities.
“By delivering PBS KIDS PLAY! over the Internet, we’re able to continually expand the service, offering a steady stream of new activities to keep children engaged in learning,” said Grimley.
Following are highlights of PBS KIDS PLAY!:
— PBS KIDS PLAY! is an adaptive learning environment — the learning
activities adapt to each child based on his or her individual progress,
opening up exciting new learning opportunities as the child advances.
— A built-in recommendations engine automatically suggests increasingly
challenging and varied activities, tailored to each child, to keep the
child engaged in learning.
— Text-free navigation enables pre-readers to navigate PBS KIDS PLAY!
— Children can customize their own room in PBS KIDS PLAY!, creating an
environment that they look forward to visiting.
— Children can save and edit creative projects, such as drawings and
musical compositions.
— PBS KIDS PLAY! streams selected PBS KIDS TV episodes on demand inside
of a child-friendly Flash player.
— A personal “favorites” list, showing thumbnail images of each activity,
makes it easy to bookmark activities and find them later. Parents can
also view recently played activities.
— Parents can pre-set the PBS KIDS PLAY! “Take a Break” feature to
enforce breaks and limit their child’s time on the computer as they see
fit.
— PBS KIDS PLAY! is a safe desktop environment that runs full-screen and
does not allow sharing of personal information or any communications
among users.
— Technical support is available 24/7 via toll-free phone and email
beginning January 16.
During the beta test, PBS KIDS PLAY! is available for families to try at no cost. A limited number of activities are available, and more will be added throughout the beta period. To test the service, parents can visit www.pbskidsplay.org. The initial setup takes approximately two minutes. The service requires a computer with Windows XP or Vista operating system, mid- range processing power (Pentium 4 or Dual-Core), and broadband Internet access. PBS is planning to support the Mac OS in a future phase of development.
For families without broadband Internet service at home, PBS is launching a pilot program to offer PBS KIDS PLAY! free through participating PBS stations and selected local libraries with which they partner.
When it officially launches later this quarter, PBS KIDS PLAY! will be offered for a monthly subscription fee of $9.95, or $79.95 annually.
MILWAUKEE, Oct. 18 /PRNewswire/ — Halloween is right around the corner and millions of children are preparing to sport their ghost and vampire costumes for school parties and a night of trick-or-treating. However, for children who suffer from severe food allergies, Halloween is a time where extra precaution must be taken.
The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) asks children and parents to watch out for hidden foods that could trigger a life threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Food-related anaphylaxis leads to 150-200 deaths each year, so every exposure should be taken seriously.
Peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, milk and soy are the most common causes of food allergies in children. Eating even a small amount of these foods could trigger anaphylaxis.
Symptoms of anaphylaxis include severe headache, nausea and vomiting, sneezing and coughing, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue and throat, and itching all over the body. The most dangerous symptoms include difficulty breathing, a drop in blood pressure, and shock — all of which can be fatal.
If any of these symptoms occur, give the child self-injectable epinephrine, call 911 immediately, and schedule a follow-up appointment with your allergist/immunologist.
Here are some helpful Halloween tips to avoid hidden food dangers:
— When classroom parties are planned, parents can help by packing treats
from home that their food-allergic child can eat.
— Create a “candy swap” with siblings or friends so that
allergen-containing candies can be traded for other treats such as
stickers or toys.
— Take the focus off of trick-or-treating by hosting a costume party that
emphasizes fun instead of candy. Halloween stickers, pencils, spider
rings and stamps are great alternatives for goody bags.
— Provide neighbors with allergy-safe candies for your child or ask
neighbors to hand out only candy with individualized labels — so kids
with allergies can determine whether the treat is safe to eat or not.
— Teach children to politely refuse offers of cookies and other homemade
treats.
— Remember that candy ingredients can vary for different sizes of the
same product such as full-size candy bars and their miniature versions,
which are not always individually labeled.
Consult with an allergist/immunologist
If your child has ever had an allergic reaction to a food, or has a history of food allergies, seek the care of an allergist/immunologist for a follow-up evaluation and to discuss treatment and environmental control options. For more information, visit the AAAAI’s Web site, http://www.aaaai.org.
PLAY
