It shouldn't hurt to be a child...

Apologies for the delay... The past two weeks have been exceptionally busy.  Last night I gave a lecture on Child Abuse at the Kuwait Medical Association by the invitation of Kuwait Child Rights Society.  I will not present the full powerpoint here, but I will share the summarized list of preventative tips I found from the American Academy of Pediatrics:

*** Please note that even though the wording presented here by the American Academy of Pediatrics seems to suggest that abuse only happens to girls (using she/her), boys are just as likely to be abused. (I doubt that the AAP had meant to be gender specific)

• Teach your child about the privacy of body parts, and that no one has the right to touch her if she tells the individual not to do so. She should understand that some touching is "good" but some is "bad”.
• In early childhood, parents can teach their children the name of the genitals, just as they teach their child the names of other body parts. This teaches that the genitals, while "private" are not so private that you can't talk about them.
• Sit down with your child and explain various situations that might indicate that a possible child molester is making advances.
• Tell a child that a molester or abductor may offer her alcohol or drugs to reduce her inhibitions.
• Tell your child that threats from a molester or anyone else are against the law—"If you tell your mother what we did, I'm going to hurt/kill her"—and to tell you immediately about them.
• If your youngster is in a position to do door-to-door solicitation—perhaps selling Girl Scout cookies or collecting money for a newspaper route—have an adult go with her. Warn your child that she should never enter someone else's home unless an adult accompanies her. (More appropriately for us would be “Girgai’an time)
• Investigate whether your youngster's school has an abuse-prevention program.
• Monitor the activities at your child's child-care facility or summer camp. Participate in these activities whenever possible.
• Spend enough time with your child that she does not feel the need to seek the attention of other adults.

Let us all work on implementing child protection laws and building a supportive infrastructure in Kuwait

Separation-Anxiety... Overcoming the Disorder

As aforementioned in my previous post, separation anxiety as a normal life stage first develops at about 7 months of age; once a baby understands that his or her caregivers do not disappear when out of sight (object permanence). That leads to the baby developing a true attachment to those adults. Normal separation anxiety is at its strongest at 10 to 18 months and gradually subsides, usually by the age of 3 years. Normal separation anxiety may result in parents having trouble with their babies at bedtime or other times of separation, in that the child becomes anxious, cries, or clings to the caretaker.

Separation anxiety disorder is a mental health disorder that begins in childhood and is characterized by worrying that is out of proportion to the situation of temporarily leaving home or otherwise separating from loved ones. Four percent to 5% of children and adolescents suffer from separation anxiety disorder. The symptoms/signs of separation anxiety include:

• Repeated excessive anxiety about something bad happening to loved ones or losing them.
• Heightened concern about either getting lost or being kidnapped.
• Repeated hesitancy or refusal to go to daycare or school or to be alone or without loved ones or other adults that are important to the anxious child.
• Persistent reluctance or refusal to go to sleep at nighttime without being physically close to adult loved ones.
• Repeated nightmares about being separated from the people who are important to the sufferer.
• Recurrent physical complaints, such as headaches or stomach aches, when separation either occurs or is expected.

Tips on how to help your child overcome separation anxiety:

• Try not to punish your child for continuing to suffer from the symptoms, but rather reward your child for small victories.

• Allow your child, in the beginning, to try to achieve those small victories in your presence. Attend some classes with your child, the child may initially want to be on your lap, then is able to sit next to you, and later you may wait outside the classroom, until the final goal of complete separation is achieved.

• Allow your child to have a symbolic reminder of you and the home.  Pictures or a favorite toy may be utilized as a transitional object and can have a calming effect on your child.

• Try to prepare your child for upcoming separations whenever possible, as sudden separations may be very difficult in the beginning.

• Try separations for a brief period of time.  Gradually increase time and distance.

• When you tell your child that you are going…Go! Do not stall, or repeat goodbyes.  Your child may then become clingy and irritable.

• Honor time commitments to your child (especially older children).

• Plan fun activities in advance so you allow the child to anticipate positive outcomes once you are reunited.

• Simple relaxation techniques can help your child overcome his/her anxiety.  Try teaching the child simple exercises like taking a deep breath or counting to 10. 

Separation-Anxiety... A fact

I think most parents have done this at one point or another...  Do not worry! It is not completely traumatizing and damaging to sneak off, but from a developmental and parental stand-point, it is MORE effective to address the issue and teach your child how to handle separation (rather than delaying the inevitable).  It is true, however, that sneaking off may increase anxiety, or prolong the period of separation anxiety for your child. 

Separation-Anxiety...A definition

Separation anxiety is a normal developmental stage experienced by a child when separated from the primary caregiver. It typically manifests itself as crying and distress when a child is away from a parent or from home.

As time goes by and a child learns to feel safe in a new environment and secure that a parent or caregiver will return after an absence, anxiety over separation should fade.

The typical sequence of child development and parent/child attachment is as follows:

• First few months: Babies don’t differentiate much among caregivers and usually can be calmed by any loving person, regardless of relationship. This is why new parents often get more emotional the first time they leave an infant with a babysitter or at day care than the baby does!
• 7-14 months: By about 7 months, babies realize that there’s only one Mom and/or Dad, but they don’t have a sense of time, so even if parents step into the next room for a minute, all the baby knows is that they’re gone, and they’re going to cry or cling or do whatever it takes to keep that from happening. This phase is often called “stranger anxiety,” because even the happiest child becomes shy or fearful around everyone but the primary caregiver, and generally peaks before 18 months.
• Toddler/preschool years: Children can be anxious and become emotional when a parent or primary caregiver leaves but can be distracted by activities with the caregiver or other children.
• By age 5: Most children are secure enough to be left with a babysitter, family member or dropped off at school without distress.

Young children exhibit many different behaviors when they are anxious, including:

• Crying or whining
• Clinginess (holding hand or leg, wanting to be held, hiding behind parent)
• Shyness
• They may become more silent or reclusive
• They may be unwillingness to interact with others, even if they are familiar (other parent, grandparent, friend)

Situations such as moving to a new home, a change in caregiver, or the birth of a new sibling can trigger or exacerbate separation anxiety.

Normally, separation anxiety is the temporarily distressing result of something all parents want to maintain: bonding with their children. Babies bond to primary caregivers, and then realize their own selfhood, but this happens before they develop a sense of time or learn to trust that an absent caregiver will return. This is why they become anxious when the parent or guardian is not around. As children develop a sense of safety and security in their homes and with their parents, they begin to realize that people can leave and return, and gain confidence that caregiver who promise to come back will in fact come back.  With that realization, separation anxiety fades.

Keep an eye out for an upcoming post that will tackle Separation-Anxiety Disorder and how to overcome it...

No snooze... They lose...

A super cute entry in Motherload, a New York Time's parenting blog, caught my attention and I wanted to share it with you... I am not supporting this mother's solution, but I do understand it.

Lying to Get My Children More Sleep

By KJ DELLANTONIA

This weekend I set all the clocks back. About 7 on Sunday night (which was feeling a whole lot like 8 to me and four cranky children), I set them forward again. But not all the way. About half an hour. Just enough to give the children a little edge on what’s always a sleepy week without my having to declare an early bedtime — and then listen to a chorus of complaint. I admit it: I lied, or at least, I created an atmosphere in which a lie was implied. But it was all for an excellent cause.

For every sleepless parent out there, there’s a sleep-deprived child, and there’s no “mother’s little helper” drug for the child who isn’t getting enough rest. Instead, there are a whole host of troubles associated with shortened sleep hours for children from preschool through adolescence.

A 1998 study of high school students found that students who received poor grades went to bed later and slept less on average than students who got A’s and B’s. I’ve seen other research suggesting that 6- and 7-year-olds who slept only eight hours a night did not perform as well on tests of their academic performance as those who slept nine hours or more. And although that study considered only a relatively small number of children in Spain, I can testify firsthand that the 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds in my home who sleep less than nine hours do not perform as well on tests of cooperation and familial cohesion. Children who have slept well are easier to be around. They bounce back more easily from crushing blows, like an empty box of Cheerios. I don’t have any doubt that they’re doing better in their classrooms and on the playground.

But sometimes, in the midst of busy schedules and family activities, I forget to do a sleep check. Like most of us, I sleep less than I’d like, and I’m more accustomed than I ought to be to “powering through” after a late night. Without even realizing it, I impose the same choices on my children (minus the coffee). It takes something like Jennifer Moses’s article “Waking Up to Young Kids’ Sleep Troubles” in the weekend’s Wall Street Journal to remind me that while my children may cheer my decision to stay an extra half-hour at the Sunday night family party or indulge the desire to put off homework until after dinner, those things have consequences that they can’t fully appreciate. They’re as desperate for good sleep as the mothers reaching for Xanax that I wrote about earlier on Monday. They just don’t know it.

So Sunday night I sprung forward, a few months early, in the name of not just an earlier bedtime but a peaceful version of the same. No one noticed, in spite of the fact that I didn’t change the clocks by their beds. Or if they did, while crawling, clean and warm and tired, under their covers, they didn’t say anything. Tonight it’s back to normal, which will require me to remember (and enforce) the fact that if they need to go to sleep at 8:30 p.m., they need to go brush their teeth at 8 p.m., not 8:29 p.m. Tricking them into bed (like tricking them into eating vegetables) may get them more sleep, but it skimps on the message that sleep is important. Honesty is surely a better policy. But my little subterfuge was awfully effective. Four cheerful children were up on time and even a little early for school. And I felt better, too: with the children filed away, I was in bed earlier, with no loss to my treasured wind-down time. “Bedtime Savings Time” struck me as a win-win. I’m filing it away for future use.

Another Shot

Sharing another interesting article from SHOTS entitled : 

Now Children Need Cholesterol Tests, Too

By Nancy Shute

Children today are growing up fast — so fast that they're now being told to have their cholesterol tested before they hit puberty.

The new recommendation to test all children for cholesterol at ages 9 to 11 comes from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The goal is to reduce the risk of heart disease in adulthood. But the new recommendation runs counter to the advice of another federally-funded independent panel, which says routine screening isn't needed before age 20.

"The more we learn the more we realize that the atherosclerosis process really begins early in life," says Steven Daniels, chair of the panel that wrote the new guidelines, and a pediatric cardiologist who chairs the department of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The earlier in life cholesterol risk can be identified, the premise goes, the easier to keep it under control.

Pediatricians were already supposed to be doing cholesterol tests in children who are obese, have diabetes or have a family history of heart disease. But after studies found that those screening tools weren't catching some grade-schoolers with high cholesterol, the notion of universal screening gained traction.

Kids won't like it, because it requires a blood draw, and that means a needle. But the test won't require a special visit; it will be part of regular well child visits. The new guidelines are endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics is publishing them Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

But the new recommendation isn't universally endorsed. Some doctors think the call for universal screening is overkill, since only about half of children with high cholesterol will go on to have that problem as adults. And researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that in many children, high levels of LDL cholesterol corrected themselves by the next office visit.

A 2007 recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a federally-funded group that sets practice guidelines, says there's not enough evidence to recommend universal screening under age 20.

Daniels says that universal screening is intended to find children with very high LDL cholsterol, the "bad" kind, is 190 milligrams of the stuff in each decliter oof blood. Overall, less than 1 percent of children would be candidates for treatment with statin drugs, he says. "I don't think it's likely that there will be overtreatment."

More likely is that Mom and Dad will need to get serious about exercise eating healthy. Daniel says: "It gives them a stronger rationale for working hard on making the home the healthiest environment that it could be."

Even though statins have an enviable safety record in adults, no studies have been done on the implications of putting children on statins for the rest of their lives. That's why today's recommendation gives some physicians pause.

Longing for yesterday...

Any of my local readers studied in government schools? any of you remember the Home-Economics classes they used to offer?

Cooking in schools is making a come-back! Well not really a come-back, but some schools in the U.S. have adopted programs such as Cooking With Kids, citing the many benefits of such programs.  Even though that specific program only cites benefits related to healthy food choices and awareness (including understanding nutritional value of food, choosing healthy food, etc), other benefits can be found including:

• Increasing a child's ability to work in a group
• Using hands-on experience to understand mathematical concepts
• Increasing problem solving skills
• Patience
• Independence skills
• Decision-making

It may not be possible to have a cooking class as part of the weekly schedule, but I do believe that having a monthly "activities" class can be very beneficial to our kids, especially for KG and Elementary kids.  Hands-on and experiential learning is highly effective and unfortunately underused. 

...Perhaps a place like Young Chefs Academy in Kuwait could approach schools with a proposal to do in-school classes?