Remember when your baby began eating table foods? What joy it was to watch his reaction to each new food. He enjoyed some tastes, and he scrunched up his face at others. But put a food in front of him, and into his mouth it went.

Fast-forward to toddlerhood. Your daring little taster now refuses anything but grilled cheese, chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese (usually the processed boxed kind). And, oh yeah, that grilled cheese had better be cut into triangles!

It may be comforting to know that you are not alone. Parents around the world are tearing their hair out as their little darlings refuse anything remotely nutritious. What can we do as parents without resorting to trying to force food down our kids?

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Kids can get easily annoyed by routines; for most of a child’s life, they are told exactly what they should do, and it is easy for them to become numb to orders. However, routines are also very important for a child. Routines help a child develop and teach responsibility. To that end, it can be difficult to get your child to engage in good dental habits. They may not be eager to do something that takes a set amount of their time every day, so it is important to help them to establish good dental habits as soon as you can. Here are some tips that may prove to be useful in your household for when you are trying to get your children to maintain their dental hygiene.

Children should begin to learn brushing their own teeth when they are about three or four years of age. Before this point, you should help your child to get through brushing their teeth so that they can get used to the process. If all goes well in teaching your child good dental habits, you can expect for them to be able to maintain their hygiene without you nagging them by around age eight.

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You never know when the unexpected might happen, and with kids it usually does! Cuts, scrapes and bruises are a normal part of growing up. Whether it’s the recent rash of violent storms which have plagued our country, or unavoidable accidents in the home; having a first aid kit is essential to treat anyone in your family at a moment’s notice. Does your family have a first aid kit? If not, you can either buy a home kit or take a little time to put one together. Here are some items you will need:

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Childhood obesity rates here in the U.S. are skyrocketing. Many of the children that become overweight at a young age will develop health issue throughout their lives. How can we help overcome this and try make sure your child grows up healthy? As parents, there are a lot of things we can under consideration with respects to the habits that your child develops. It is important we help to influence those habits. Why? Because the habits our children develop when they are young tend to stick with them throughout their lives, so it’s important to start establishing good guidelines for living as soon as possible. These days, nutrition is one of the most neglected aspects of our style of living. Lets take a look at ways to establish some basic guidelines that can help our children stay healthy with regards to nutrition.

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Autism is not usually diagnosed until a child is about three to four years old, but some mothers and fathers start to suspect something is not right long before that. Most parents start worrying about their child's development by the time they're a year and a half old, and they may consult with their family doctor or pediatrician by the age of two.

Since children develop at different levels and speeds, most doctors hesitate to make a diagnosis of autism when the child is still quite young, because they fear it could only delay normal development further. The parents may inadvertently hinder normal developmental progress in a child, because they have lower expectations of what the child is able to do and when, or they try to shelter the child more than normal instead.

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By Michelle Donaghey 

Summer. The season of fun-filled days spent outdoors at the beach, pool, backyard and parks. While the weather is warm and the kids want to spend every waking moment out of the house, make sure that as a parent you are ready to take care of any summertime “emergency” that can happen without a moment’s notice.

STINGS! Yikes!!

If it hasn’t happened at your house, it will most likely at sometime during the time your children are still at home. Often, stings from bees and or wasps can easily be prevented with a little awareness and care.

In order to prevent a sting from happening, the first thing you should do is to make sure your kids always have footwear on! Most stings happen when a person steps on a bee with their bare feet, often walking near or through a garden. Be sure to avoid areas where bees and wasps are noticeable.

Don’t have your kids wear bright clothes or clothing with flowery prints! While they may look nicer, they attract bees that are attracted to dark colors and prints. If possible, cover up with clothing. Lightweight cotton is a good choice for summertime.

While you or your child might smell good, don’t use any kind of soaps, perfumes, scented powders or hairsprays or gels. They attract winged creatures! Do not think that insect repellents will protect you from stings! They are not made to do so.

If you or your child is being chased by a bee or a wasp, DON’T yell or make a big commotion! This only annoys and scares the bees and wasps. Be calm!

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Dr. Caron wrote this wonderful article on childhood asthma. As a child growing up with asthma I could relate to everythign she said. I had some pretty bad episodes, some that landed me in the hospital emergency ward and a couple where I was admitted. An attack can be a very stressful and scary time for your child, it is very important that the adult remains calm so as not to make the situation even worse. ~ Kevin ~

Stressing Out Over Asthma by Dr. Caron B. Goode

Asthma attacks are stressful. They start innocently enough with a slight wheeze or a little cough. Then it is all downhill from there. First, the asthmatic feels his chest tighten and is unable to breathe. This justifiably produces feelings of panic, anxiety, and helplessness. These emotions escalate with the episode, which in turn perpetuates and lengthens the attack cycle.

As if an attack is not bad enough, this scenario can be easily repeated at the drop of a hat. The cells in our bodies have many functions, one of which is to store memory. During asthmatic episodes, they record the emotional trauma and intensity of the attack. This is so the body can be prepared should it face the situation again. Even though this sounds like a solid plan, it actually ensures that just thinking about an episode can trigger one.

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by Michelle Donaghey

“Would you please look at me? Did you hear what I just told you?”
It seemed every time that I talked to my son, Patrick, he just did not listen. And not the typical child tune-out behavior, but a kind of spaced-out looking and listening type I just did not understand until his teacher told me she thought he had an attention deficit disorder.
Instead of immediately running to a specialist, I waited for a change. He was in first grade when I first learned of ADD. At that time, I immediately thought of the ADD drug, Ritalin, and thought there would be “no way” I would put him on medication. Instead, I tried a natural approach I read about called the”Feingold Diet.” The additive free diet did not allow ANY sort of dyes or preservatives or wheat and is totally natural- try it for a week and you will find it nearly impossible- it didn’t work for Patrick either. In fact according to CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) dozens of studies published in journals over the past 15 years have not found support of this diet. So, I put ADD out of my mind and ignored any sort of problems occurring at school and home. Patrick is now in the third grade and I am finally going to have him evaluated by a professional after dragging my heels thinking he would outgrow this somehow.

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The FDA has put out an alert for trainted raw milk solf by Lebanon County Dairy. Anyone who has purchased raw milk from Green Acres Jersey Farm in Lebanon County any time after May 8 should discard it immediately due to the risk of Listeria contamination, Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff said. 

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Its a fact that we can't watch our children 24/7 and that we want our children to be safe and healthy. So what can we do? One way to keep our children healthy is to make sure they eat right, but if we don’t prepare all their meals ourselves, that’s hard to do. Schools are taking steps towards making school lunches healthier, but you still may need to step in to make sure your child is being given healthy options.

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