Dr. Belisle Prescribes Hand Washing

Hand washing: not a glamorous topic. Most of us hate nagging our kids to do it. Yet hand washing has become even more important now with the recent news about the H1N1 virus (formerly called “Swine Flu”). This virus can live in droplets (like those from sneezing or coughing), for quite a while. Scary, eh?


Encourage family hand washing at home by:
-Having soap and clean towels in all bathrooms
-Having footstools available for smaller kids
-Reminding kids to wash hands after toileting, before preparing or eating food, playing outside and in any other questionable situations
-Taking the time to do an adequate clean-up job--singing a verse of "Happy Birthday" while washing ought to do the trick
-Role modeling hand-washing skills.
-Carrying "wet wipes" and hand sanitizer when traveling in case soap and water become scarce. (Caution: don't allow kids to put their hands in their mouths after using hand sanitizer. )


Another way to make hand washing fun is by reading to them about staying clean and germ free. Raising Readers Recommends Wash Your Hands by Tony Ross. In Wash Your Hands, the Little Princess refuses to wash her hands until the maid explains about “Germs and Nasties.” She quickly becomes convinced.

See more Raising Readers Recommends on the Raising Reader website.

Happy Handwashing!

Lisa M. Belisle, MD, MPH
Medical Advisor, Raising Readers

Prime Time Distraction

The American Academy of Pediatrics has discouraged TV watching before the age of 2 for some time, but a new study really drives home the WHY.

We know that brain development from Birth-Age 5 is HEAVILY dependent on adult to infant/child communication.

Apparently when the TV is on either for the child or the adult, those vital communications are not happening.

Ina study led by Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute and professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine...

Over 300 2-month-olds to 4-year-olds wore recording devices on random days recording everything they heard or said for 12-16 hours. The results were startling...

For every hour of TV being watched or playing in the same room, there was a decrease of 770 words spoken by the child's caregiver and a decrease in the child's vocalizations.

"Some of these reductions are likely due to children being left alone in front of the television screen," the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, "but others likely reflect situations in which adults, though present, are distracted by the screen and not interacting with their infant in a discernible manner."

Lesson here? Even playing in the background, TV can distract us from crucial communication with our children.

Reading aloud to your children allows you to naturally increase bonding and communication and to use a whole new set of words. Those words are essential to those wee brains growing strong and healthy.

READ MORE in LiveScience.com Article.