UNPLUG Your Kids!

As summer goes on, kids get sucked deeper and deeper into their electronic abyss. Before you know it, they are sleeping past lunch, staying awake all night and receiving all their light rays from a computer screen or their phone. Today's blog is my public service announcement to parents to UNPLUG your kids!! Remember that all the medical academies recommend we limit screen time to LESS than TWO HOURS per day. Yeah, I know- your kid had that much screen time before she ever got out of bed this morning...

I love camps that prohibit all electronics and allow kids to go back to being kids- jumping in lakes, riding horses, crafting or just hanging out and actually talking out loud instead of texting. Kids (yes, teens, especially) seem to come back home recharged and more socially engaged. However, YOU can create (force, whatever!) your OWN electronic fast  for your kid right at home. Create at least a day (or start with a half-day) of UNPLUGGED time. What can they do? Read a book. Talk. Play cards, or maybe a board game. Better yet- make THEM come up with a list of 10 things they could do.

Of course, adults, we could all use this advice, too. So, stop reading this blog & UNPLUG yourself for a few hours!

BOTTOM LINE: Don't let your kids (or yourself) stay "plugged in" to electronics- limit that screen time!

TVs and TIRED KIDS (and Parents)

Televisions have become so commonplace that we often barely notice their presence. Many families leave the tv on for most of the day, more like background noise than anything else. A article recently published in PEDIATRICS addresses the use of television in preschool aged kids, 3-5 years old. The roughly 600 children in the study showed an increase in sleep problems associated with evening media use (television and computers), especially when that tv was located in the child's bedroom. Additionally, the study found that watching violent programs increased sleep problems, regardless of the time of day that the program was viewed.

Interestingly, the average reported screen daily screen time was a little over an hour, with roughly 14 minutes occurring in the evening. Remember that these were 3-5 year old preschoolers, and the information was obtained from parents filling out media diaries and sleep questionnaires. If this information was accurate, then please note that even kids watching LESS than the recommended maximum of two hours per day were still affected. Nearly one in five parents reported sleep disturbance in their child. (As an aside, please note, parents, that the medical community strongly recommends NO TELEVISIONS in kids' bedrooms!)

We are learning more and more about the impact of computer screens on our brains, and consistently finding that screen evening screen use impairs the quality of sleep. For children, adolescents and adults alike, we need to go back to "the good old days" of READING or relaxing in a warm bath before bed...but remember to read from a BOOK, not an electronic reader!

BOTTOM LINE: Media screen viewing, especially in the evenings before bed, impair your quality of sleep. If you have daytime fatigue, focus on LIMITING your screen time!

Trick or Treat? Kid Stuff!

Before I move off of our Halloween treats topic, I want to make a few suggestions for KIDS. Yesterday, I mentioned healthy fall food snacks (apples and pumpkin muffins) and today I'd like to make a pitch for a NON-candy treat to hand out on October 31st. Absolutely, part of the fun of trick-or-treating for kids is going door to door and collecting CANDY. You know you've scored when you go to that one house that hands out the FULL SIZE chocolate bars, right? Agreed. But there are plenty of inexpensive and still COOL treats you can hand out...

1. My kids' favorite: glow in the dark ANYTHINGs- bracelets & necklaces; some wear them as head bands! I love these, because they increase the kids' visibility, especially if they are a dark costume like the ever-popular vampire! These often come in a tube of a dozen, but it's fine to hand them out as a "single".
2. Stretchy stuff- skeletons, black cats & ghosts.
3. For girls: nail polish! (and yes, you can find glow in the dark nail polish, if you want to combine ideas...)
4. Halloween pencils & erasers or stickers- always a hit with the elementary school crowd!
5. Silly putty/slime/playdoh- all these come in cute Halloween "flavors"- including, you guessed it- glow in the DARK!

These all can be purchased on line or at your local craft stores or possibly grocery stores, but THINK NOW, especially if you are ordering on line!

BOTTOM LINE: Be creative this year, and hand out the coolest non-edible TREAT on the block!!

Grow Your Own!

Don't worry, I'm talking about TOMATO plants, here! Why bother growing your own? Wow, I can list a million reasons- starting with it TASTES better, and ending with it costs less AND there are no pesticides, but let me tell you my favorite reason. I love growing tomatoes because our daughters will EAT them. Period. Yep, that's the biggie!

I think I was in college, trying to impress a boyfriend, the first time that I actually choked down a tomato in a salad. Ironically, our kids are growing up hearing me ask at every restaurant "with EXTRA tomatoes on the salad, please". I truly love tomatoes now. How did we end up with home-grown?

Well, it's kind of funny. Our girl scout troop made tiny terrariums to start growing different types of spices and tomatoes. We made them outside on our deck. Our daughter decided to plant only tomatoes- "for Mom". They grew like weeds, and in a couple months, they were over three feet tall, starting to bear fruit, and needed to move outside. We moved them outside, where they promptly died within a week (very sad.) BUT-here's the kicker-apparently, seeds from the scout planting session must have blown off the deck and into our landscaping in our back yard, unbeknownst to us. Lo and behold, mixed in with our planted lantana, was several huge tomato plants, covered with tiny tomatoes! Well, we dug out the lantana, left the tomatoes, and as I type, we have nearly thirty tomatoes on the vine! These hearty plants grew with complete benign neglect, as we had absolutely no idea they were out there! Gotta love Austin weather.

At any rate, since "we" grew these plants, our girls were proud of them and decided to taste them. I'm happy to report that they now enjoy running out back at dinner time to gather up some fresh tomatoes for everyone's salad- not just Mom's!

BOTTOM LINE: Get kids to expand their palates by letting them grow some food or spice plants- even in pots on the windowsill!

PS. Happy August 1st! As with every first of the month, I want to remind you to CHANGE YOUR AIR FILTERS!

Pull the Plug!

On the tv set, mind you! A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that despite the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics to limit children's television viewing to one or two quality shows per day and to remove tv's from kid's bedrooms, almost one in five TODDLERS have tv's in their bedrooms! There is no question that the kids with tv's in their bedrooms watch more than two hours per day. Of course they do- it's available all the time!
We know that excessive television exposure is linked with impaired childhood development and childhood obesity. Parents complain that their kids need to be entertained. Well, if they grow up BEING constantly "entertained" by the moving screen, is this a surprise?

Parents, I promise you that if you remove the tv and leave books and A FEW non-electronic toys in your child's room (legos, dolls, blocks) - your child's imagination will be STIMULATED and they WILL be happy and play! TRY IT!

BOTTOM LINE: REMOVE the tv's from kid's rooms and let their imaginations EXERCISE!

Myth #15- TALKING about STDs encourages SEX

Okay, my last myth for April's STD Awareness Month is one that I'm truly passionate about airing. Let me assure you, when I teach youth about sexually transmitted infections, no one leaves the room ready to jump in the sack! There is NOTHING SEXY about genital warts, infertility, and painful, recurring ulcers in your genitals. NOTHING!

When we teach kids that they shouldn't smoke, we do way more than say "don't smoke". We appropriately teach them that not only does nicotine cause yellow teeth and bad breath, but also leads to lung cancer (and bladder cancer and mouth/throat cancers!) Do pictures of black lungs and stained teeth encourage youth to go out and try smoking??

So, why not teach our kids about the real medical risks of physical intimacy? It's NOT ENOUGH to say "don't have sex". Believe me, that is why I wrote the book Seductive Delusions: how everyday people catch STDs! I wrote the book for every smart, educated, and yes, religious young person who ended up with a sexually transmitted disease because they did NOT understand all the facts.

BOTTOM LINE: Teaching kids about STDs does NOT encourage them to have sex- it helps them have all the information they need to make smart, safe choices.

Myth #12- Tricks are for Kids!

Okay, I'm spelling it differently to avoid brand recognition and association with STDs, but if you're over forty, you get it! The key is, if you are a legitimate grownup (over 35, or maybe 40, in my book) then the whole point is you DO NOT want to "get it", if IT is a sexually transmitted disease. We have fallen into the habit of worrying about our kids making poor choices so much that we are ignoring OUR generation's bad decisions. Whether it's the habit of having a couple glasses of wine out at meals before we drive our family home, or assuming the new partner we are dating wouldn't be the kind of guy/gal to have an STD, we need to realize that more life experience does not equal entitlement to ignore safety precautions.
BOTTOM LINE: Grown ups get STDs, too!