Getting your kids to brush their teeth every night is never an easy feat. Fortunately with these 4 tips getting your kids to brush their teeth doesn’t have to end in a civil war.
1. Get Them a New Toothbrush
Kids love their favorite cartoons and you love your kids brushing their teeth. Bring the two together! Buy your child a toothbrush with their favorite character on it, and they will be much more willing to scrub their pearly whites! Get them an electric toothbrush with their favorite character on it and you’ll be the coolest mom on the block!
It's just so easy to pick up take-out on the way home from work when you know there's no way you have the time or energy to cook dinner. That little voice may be nagging you about healthier eating, but when the entire family arrives home late in the afternoon, it takes some effort to coordinate tasty and good-for-you meals. However, with just a little preparation, preparing healthy meals can be a snap.
With the ever-growing rates of childhood obesity dieting may seem like a good idea for children who are more than pleasantly plump. However, as a Children's Hospital in Boston study found, dieting is not always an effective means of weight loss for children. Researchers at this hospital determined that children who dieted seemed to regain weight more rapidly and suffer from an assortment of other ill effects as a result of their calorie restriction efforts. Before encouraging your overweight kid to try a diet, consider some of the negative side effects that child dieters may experience.
Counting calories is no fun, especially when you're doing it on behalf of your child. Before you decide that your child needs to lose weight, though, talk to his doctor. In most cases, say the experts at Baylor College of Medicine, the goal for an overweight child should be keeping his weight the same as he grows taller and more muscular. Whether your child needs to reduce his weight or keep it steady as his body matures, though, the best way to help him is to serve healthy meals in appropriate portions to the entire family.
Talking about weight with your teen is a touchy subject. On one hand, you want your teen to be happy and healthy. On the other, you don't want to damage his self-esteem or hurt his feelings during an awkward and difficult developmental period. While it's important to approach the issue and make changes at home, you may want to turn to outside resources to get help with the subject to best meet your teen's needs.
A good family therapist can mean the difference between a peaceful household and a chaotic one. These professionals help families come together and learn tools to deal with conflicts, traumatic events and problems they may have difficulty getting through on their own. Seeking help for family issues isn't shameful and doesn't mean you fail as a caregiver or family. It means you're dedicated to solving family problems in a healthy way. Because you share such personal information with your therapist, you need to find one you trust and who is competent and experienced enough to deal with your particular situation.
While the thought of your teen engaging in behavior that could result in the acquisition of an STD is likely enough to keep you up at night, it's important to realize teens can and do get them. If you believe your teen has engaged in risky behavior, an STD test may be a wise choice. A test for sexually transmitted diseases will prompt immediate treatment and ensure she doesn't suffer from the ill-effects of the condition in the future.
For many children, heading off to school means toting a bag filled to the brim with books. While your little learner trudging along under an impossibly huge book bag may make for an adorable sight, allowing your youngster to tote an excessively large bag could have a long-lasting effect on his spine. To ensure that your child's backpack weight doesn't leave him with a host of back problems to deal with later in life, take precautions when it comes to your child's backpack size.
Head lice are parasitic insects that, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are not known to carry diseases. They live on the human scalp and hairs and feed from blood. They cannot hop or fly, though they can travel by crawling and are spread through direct contact with the hair of someone who has been infested. The head-lice lifecycle takes three stages: the egg; the nymph, which is an immature louse; and the adult. Eggs are also called nits. According to Medline Plus, head lice can survive up to 30 days on a human, and eggs can live for more than two weeks.
Hypertension or high blood pressure used to be an adult disease; however, it has steadily increased in prevalence among children. The more common childhood obesity becomes, the more children will develop high blood pressure. Hypertension is a significant risk factor in coronary artery disease. Understanding the ramifications of having high blood pressure as a child and what can be done to prevent it will help the child grow into a healthier adult.
