Summer time for kids is about staying up late, sleeping in and daily (almost daily) dips in the pool. The kid with a backyard pool is the bound to be the popular kid on the block. Kids and water can be a precarious combination as highlighted in what does water and candy have in common? The simple answer is that kids love them both!

Here are some poolside pointers to keep kids safe this summer.

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What does water and candy have in common? Kids love them both. January is Bath Safety month which makes it an ideal time to remind parents and caregivers of young children about the danger surrounding an event that kids find delightful. Read the rest of this entry »

“If music be the food of love, play on” said William Shakespeare.  The sensory experience of music is cardinal in early child development.  Exposing a child to music is particularly important before they become verbal. It is always a delight watching my toddler who only speaks “baby language” light up to music. Depending on the tempo of the music, he would either sway from side to side or even break into a dance.  You can’t teach kids these things, you just exposure them to music and let them be themselves.

Here are 6 good reasons to consciously exposure your child to music. Read the rest of this entry »

I was chatting with my child care provider the other day about the picky eating habits of my kids. My frustrations with my preschooler food choices brought about What Do You Do with a Picky Eater?

My kids have a disdain for beef. They will only grudgingly accept chicken and fish so I joked that I was raising vegetarians. She disagreed and stated that I was in fact raising “fruitarians” instead.  Vegetables are actually also on the will-not-eat list; fruits on the other hand are consumed with fervor. Read the rest of this entry »

One might not consider children with juvenile diabetes as special needs but they truly are.  We all see special needs kids as kids with physical or mental disability but if your life entails trying to convince a pre-teen not to eat pizza when out with friends or waking up every hour through the night to check your child’s glucose level for fear of it bottoming out you better believe you have a special needs child.

Parents of kids with juvenile diabetes contend with not being able to control the food choices of their diabetic child. We all know that kids don’t make the best decisions particularly if that decision means not conforming to what other kids around them are doing.

So how is a child with juvenile diabetes different? Read the rest of this entry »

I get to look in kids’ mouth as a part of my work day and I would say I see them all!

So what exactly does a child’s dentition tell me? For that and some popular kids books about teeth, read on. Read the rest of this entry »

It could be heart breaking to watch your child being shoved by other kids on the playground or being teased mercilessly over what they perceive as a flaw. Kids are known to be innocently honest. This honesty however can lead to damaging consequences when kids get fixated with pointing out deviations in other kids.

My kid is on the smaller side Read the rest of this entry »

A study published in the Journal of pediatrics this month is making the news waves right now.The report stated that one in ten parents delay having their kids vaccinated. As a health care professional in the front line of this discussion on a daily basis, the report piqued my interest.  The focus was not on parents who refused vaccinations in their children, these were parents who believed in vaccinations but delayed some vaccinations in their kids.

When the study was broken down it showed that chicken pox immunization and influenza immunizations where the most often skipped vaccinations while Read the rest of this entry »

School is in session but just as you are getting used to the new routine, stuff happens – your child takes ill and you have to decide whether he or she is well enough to go to school. Get it wrong and you just aggravate your child’s teacher, you get those disruptive phone calls asking you to come pick your child and worst of it all, you could endanger other kids.

When should you keep your child home from school due to illness? Read the rest of this entry »

I was a teenager once. Oh what glory days! I was literally counting days till I turned eighteen when I would be free. So I thought.

I spoke a different language from my parents, it was English alright but they just did not get it! It was not like I wanted to get piercings, tattoos or sleep around, by most account I was a good kid but they wanted me on a short leech nonetheless. My refuge for the tumultuous time was my relationship with my grandma. She got it, or at least accepted my weird teenager’s world view and showered me with love. She was the person I unburdened to when I could not talk to my parents. 

Grandparents are so vital to the all round development of a child. Read the rest of this entry »