Utah Valley Pediatrics strives to keep parents up to date on the latest health topics and advisories. Our newsletter covers medicine changes and news, pediatric news, seasonal and age specific topics and what’s new at Utah Valley Pediatrics.
Archives
Winter 2009
Vol. 2 Issue 4
Medicine Changes and News
You Can Protect Your Child from Rotavirus
Tips for Helping Children Handle Shots
Pediatric News
Studies Link Physical Activity with Better Academic Performance
Pressuring Children to Eat: Winning the Battle, Losing the War
Want to Make Your Children Happier, Healthier, Smarter and More Well-Adjusted? Eat Dinner With Them!
Having the TV on Disrupts Toddlers From Normal Play
Seasonal and Age Specific
Tips for Making Sure Your Child’s Toys are Safe
Contacts
Kevin Moffitt
Administrator
801-373-8930
Allison Arnold
Manager
801-373-8930
Quick Links
Medicine Changes and News
Rotavirus Vaccine Dramatically Reduces
Hospitalization and ER Visits
Have you heard of rotavirus? It's a fairly common disease that causes diarrhea and vomiting. Most people who get rotavirus report symptoms during the months of January through May. Adults with strong immune systems who get rotavirus may not even notice that they have the disease. But in young children, rotavirus can be deadly. Every day about 1,600 children around the world die from rotavirus and even more children are made severely ill.
Tips for Helping Children Handle Shots
As a parent, it's hard to know how to prepare your child for a shot. You know vaccinations and flu shots are good for your child, but you hate to watch your child suffer. Here are some tips and tricks to help this vaccination season go a little easier for your child and you.
Unhappy? Blame the TV
There are so many reasons to turn off the TV and get off the couch. You already know most of them: a healthy lifestyle requires exercise, you can't shop the economy back to health from your couch, and your friends miss you. But researchers have now discovered one more reason. Apparently, unhappy people watch more TV than happy people do.
A new study published in December's Social Indicators Research, a scholarly journal that publishes studies relating to quality of life, shows that happy people watch about 5.6 hours less of television than unhappy people do. Happy people use that time to do other activities like socializing, reading, and playing sports, to name a few. Unhappy people use that time to, uh, watch more television.
Pediatric News
Studies Link Physical Activity with Better Academic Performance
Will running around outside help your child do better on her upcoming test? A growing field of research is saying that it will. Studies are showing that students who engage in physical activity do better in school.
"It's not only Johnny's getting fat, and heart disease down the road — all that's true. But it's also that he might not do as well in school," says James Pivarnik, president-elect of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and a professor of kinesiology at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of more than 5,000 students in kindergarten through fifth grade showed that girls who participated in 70 to 300 minutes of PE a week scored higher than girls who spent fewer than 35 minutes. Another study presented at the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) found that middle-school students who performed better on fitness tests also performed better academically.
Pressuring Children to Eat: Winning the Battle, Losing the War
Infants and toddlers are picky eaters, and parents are often concerned that their little one isn't getting enough to eat. But according to a study published in Pediatrics, pressuring children to eat might actually make them eat less.
The studied involved 62 mothers and their children from birth to two years. The study found that one year olds who were pressured to eat ended up weighing less at age two than children who weren't cajoled into eating.
Want to Make Your Children Happier, Healthier, Smarter and More Well-Adjusted? Eat Dinner With Them!
It is hard enough to get the whole family together in one room at the same time, let alone eat dinner together, but researchers at the University of Minnesota are saying that this time together is very important to our children in a variety of ways.
Having the TV on Disrupts Toddlers From Normal Play
We all know that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV for children under two. But what about letting the TV play in the background, especially when your child seems to be paying little attention to it? Nope, your best bet is to keep it off.
A study by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has shown that playing the TV in the background reduced young children's ability to focus on playing and the amount of time they spent playing with a toy. It also reduced how many of the available toys they played with. Even though children were only watching the TV for a few seconds at time, the TV still had an impact on their behavior.
The Importance of Playing
Children's lives used to be filled with climbing trees, fighting off pretend dragons, and making lovely mud pies. Now they are packed with scheduled lessons, supervised sports, and other structured activities.
Parents who want their child to excel might be tempted to over-schedule and push aside free play, but experts are worried that this might have the opposite effect. The concern is that play fosters innovation, creative thinking, and social skills, all of which are important factors in emotional and economic success. By limiting the time children have to play together we risk producing a generation of socially inept people, which contributes to youth obesity, anxiety, attention-deficit disorder, and depression.
Seasonal and Age Specific
Tips for Making Sure Your Child's Toys are Safe
Toys are a lot of fun and an important part of your child's development, but not all toys are harmless. Toys with small parts can be a choking hazard, and some toys may be made with dangerous material or can turn dangerous if broken. The best way to protect your children from toy-related injuries is to supervise their play. However, there are also some important guidelines you can follow to make sure that dangerous toys don't even make it into the hands of your child.
Creative Toys for Christmas
Yes, it's Christmas time again, and that means the mad dash to the store to wait in line with everyone else for the latest new plastic technology for our tiny loved ones. We used to buy dolls that laughed, cried, and opened their eyes. Lately, we buy dolls that laugh only when "tickled", say the same one-liners, or come with their own line of clothing and fashion accessories (imagination not required). We used to buy toy hammers and nails that kids could use to construct their universe. Now we buy universes pre-packaged in video games.
But there may be a better way. Think back to last Christmas. You might have seen a tendency in your child to play with the packaging more than with the toys inside. We adults usually laugh at this behavior and throw the packaging away so we can focus our children on the important part of the present — the toy. But maybe our children know something we don't.
Finding Just the Right Toy
Your children already have a closet full of toys that they ignore. How can you find the toys that they will actually play with? A good general rule is to take into account their temperament and their current favorites. These will give you good guidelines to go by when shopping. Some toys are also better for children at certain stages in their development.
Infant to Age 1: At this stage children are learning about their surroundings. It is a good idea to give them toys with lots of different textures and things to explore. Babies love things like mirrors, rattles, and activity gyms. Anything with flashing lights is usually a big hit. Newborns respond best to black and white patterns, whereas older babies prefer primary colors.
It can be hard to know exactly what a baby will like, so it is not a bad idea to test-drive a few toys at a friend's house. Watch for which toys your child gravitates to. Taking infants and young toddlers shopping with you also works well. You can see which toys catch and maintain their attention and throw it in the shopping cart. They are unlikely to remember you even buying the toy come Christmas Day.
Ages 2 to 4: Children at this age like to "Do it myself!" Look for simple puzzles, sorting challenges, and toys that have zippers and latches to build dexterity. Chunky crayons are also a great way to spark their own sense of creativity. Toys that encourage sharing and make believe, like a pretend workbench or kitchen, are also a good fit.
Ages 5 to 7: Look for things like board games or other games with rules and structure. Children are also natural born collectors, so find out what they are into and help add to their collection. It is also good to give children plenty of incentive to have fun outdoors, so a toy like a butterfly net, a kid-friendly camera, a tent or a stargazing guide may be a great idea.
Ages 8 to 12: Children at this age are developing a sense of self and their own unique talents, so look for gifts that help them develop these talents. Avid athletes would appreciate things like baseball gloves and soccer balls, and the more creative types might like complex models or jewelry-making kits.
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