Even before your teen gets their learner’s permit or driver’s license, you can begin to prepare them to drive. One way is to talk to them about the risks you encounter and how you manage them as you are driving.
Achievement & Praise
After your kids have worked hard to achieve what they want, have them take the time to enjoy it. Give them lots of praise when accomplishing a goal.
Keep Your Child Home From School When Sick
If your child unfortunately does get sick, you must keep them home from school if s/he has:
A fever over 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the past 24 hours (or has taken a fever reducing medication within the past 24 hours).
A cold in the active stages: coughing, running nose, sneezing.
A sore throat and/or swollen neck glands.
An undiagnosed rash or skin eruption.
Vomiting or diarrhea during the past 24 hours.
Head lice that have not been treated.
If you are uncertain if your child might make the other children sick, you should contact the school nurse or your doctor before sending to school. It would be wrong to infect the rest of the students and teachers with your child’s illness.
Preventing Colds and Flu
As you have probably heard, there are a lot of colds and flu around this year. Both respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses have been especially circulating within the schools. This is due to the fact that children tend to spread germs easily and lack of fresh outdoor air. Remember all of these stay healthy tips:
1. Hand washing is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of illness. Wash your hands often — when they are dirty, before eating, after using the restroom, and after sneezing into a tissue.
2. Cough Etiquette. Avoid coughing or sneezing into your hands – use a tissue or your elbow. After sneezing, try and wash your hands as soon as possible. This will ensure that any bacteria or germs from your sneeze don’t remain on your hands all day, preventing you from spreading any germs.
3. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth. Germs spread this way. If you do have to touch these areas, try and clean your hands before and after to ensure no germs are being spread around your body.
4. MOST IMPORTANTLY stay away from people who are sick and stay home when you are sick to avoid spreading the flu around.
How To Include Special Needs Children At Birthday Parties
If your child has certain special needs issues and invited to a birthday party, try to include them as much as possible. If the birthday party is a drop off party, you may ask to stick around by volunteering to help all the kids in order to be there for extra support and safety. Socialization is important and it is your duty to do everything possible to make sure it happens.
Time Management
Do not say that you do not have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours that were given to Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Helen Keller and Thomas Jefferson. There is always enough time to be great.
Helping Children Cope After a Tramatic News Event
In response to a traumatic news event (such as a school shooting tragedy), many children may have questions and concerns. Y3K Tutor In Your Home offers the following suggestions to help guide parents and caring adults to best support children who may be grieving, concerned, or troubled by a terrible event:
Be Supportive
Children will benefit greatly from support and caring expressed by the adults in their lives. Create an environment in your home that encourages respect for each other’s feelings and fears, and allows for a supportive, healing environment.
Be Available
Let children know that you are available to talk with them.
Let children ask questions.
It is ok if you do not have answers to all the questions. It is ok to let your child know that you do not have the answer but that you will try and find out.
Be Caring
Let children know about the support being provided to students, friends, and families of the victims.
Be aware of children who may have experienced a previous trauma and may be more vulnerable to experiencing prolonged or intense reactions and will need extra support.
Be Reassuring
Acknowledge the frightening parts of the event.
Explain what happened in words that children understand. Explanations should be appropriate to the child’s age, developmental stage, and language skills.
Reassure children that they are loved and will be taken care of.
Children who have concerns about siblings who are living on a college campus or have concerns about safety at their own school should be reassured and their concerns validated.
Be Thoughtful
Be aware of how you talk about the event and cope with the tragedy.
Children learn about how to react to traumatic situations by watching and listening to parents, peers, and the media.
Reduce or eliminate your child’s exposure to television images and news coverage of the shooting. The frightening images and repetition of the scenes can be disturbing for children. If they do see coverage, be sure to talk with them about what they saw and what they understood about the coverage. Make sure to correct any misunderstanding or misinterpretations.
Maintain your child’s routines as best as possible.
Be Creative
For children who are too young to talk or do not feel comfortable talking about their feelings, expressive techniques such as play, art and music can provide additional ways for children to express their feelings and let you know what may be troubling them.
It might be difficult for them to grasp exactly what the situation is all about, but you should try your best to enable them to understand these things in their own way.
Many behaviors and symptoms of stress are normal for children who have just experienced a trauma. However, if you find that your child is preoccupied with the event, has ongoing sleep or eating disturbances, is experiencing intrusive thoughts or worries, is focused on fears about death, or is having difficulty going to school and leaving parents, your child should be evaluated by a mental health professional. Contact your pediatrician or school counselor if you feel that the symptoms are persisting and are interfering with your child’s daily routines.
Vaccinations Still Necessary?
Vaccination Myth: “Serious diseases like polio have already been eradicated, so there is no need to vaccinate against them.”
While many diseases have been wiped out for the most part in the United States of America, they have not been eradicated around the world. That means you could still be at risk if you go abroad or come into contact with an infected person from overseas. In fact the increase in non-vaccinated immigrants that enter America and the increase in formerly eradicated diseases is not a coincidence. If your kids are not vaccinated, there is a good chance that they could become exposed to some major diseases and suffer like so many people did years ago.
How To Treat The House For Head Lice
If someone has lice, everything will need to be treated to prevent re-infection. Heat is lethal to lice and their eggs, so most personal articles can be disinfected by machine washing in HOT water and/or machine drying, using the hot cycle of the dryer. Non-washable items may be disinfected in the dryer, provided that heat will not harm them. If only using the clothes dryer for disinfection, dry articles for at least 20 minutes at the high heat setting.
Generally you will need to machine wash all clothing and bed linens that have been in contact with the infested person. Non-washable items can be vacuumed, dry-cleaned or placed in a plastic bag and sealed for 14 days. Combs, brushes, similar items can be disinfected by soaking them in one of the shampoos specially designed for head lice for one hour or by soaking them in a pan of water heated on the stove to about 150 degrees for 5 – 10 minutes.
How to Treat Lice
There are 2 steps for treating lice. Chemical treatment with the use of a medicated shampoo is the first step. When using this special chemical laden shampoo, do not apply it in bathtub or shower. Apply over sink to minimize the exposure of the chemical to the rest of the body.
The second step for treating lice is manual removal. For this you will need a fine tooth metal comb specially designed for lice removal. Comb out hair removing all tangles and debris. Work on one section of the hair at a time and comb each section away from scalp. Clean off the comb after each stroke to remove any caught lice or eggs. Repeat this technique throughout the head carefully inspecting the hair. Remove nits with fingernails or safety scissors if nits remain after several attempts with the comb.