little kids Archives - Happy Healthy Kids

Handwashing without Tears

January 17, 2021 by Kelley Leave a Comment

This post was first published on a recent Global Handwashing Day in 2016—back in those simpler times when hand hygiene helped defend against garden-variety sniffles and barfing bugs, not a deadly pandemic.

Sure, kids these days are more attuned to the importance of handwashing, but on our homefront, at least, the simple task remains a chore. Despite my constant nagging that the boys suds up upon arrival home from school or sports, before eating, and after using the bathroom (every time!), compliance remains spotty, and initiative scant. It probably doesn’t help that our liquid soap is at the dregs level in two out of three bathrooms the children use. It’s clear we need to up our game.

Since we first covered hand hygiene on this blog, research has only grown to show that washing with good old soap and water beats just about any other germ-busting regimen out there, including sting-y sanitizers and pricey supplements. The trick is getting kids to wash without being reminded, and to do more than a quick rinse. Here’s a round-up of best expert advice I found; I’ll keep you posted as to which of these clicked for us.

Get the good soap. No, not that beautiful bottle you covet from Restoration Hardware. I mean the yummy-smelling stuff that’s in a bottle that’s easy to depress and won’t make a mess. Some faves: Method Mickey Mouse lemonade soap (Amazon, 2 for $10); these giant, inviting bottles of Every Soap for Every Kid, in scents like Tropical Coconut Twist (Amazon, 32 oz. for $13); Tru Kid Helping Hand Wash (Amazon, 8 oz. for $9); and, for potty trainers, the Sesame Street Bundle in varieties like Cookie Monster Crunch (Amazon, 3 for $15).

Buy stools to make washing up easier. Kids can’t wash well when they can’t reach the
faucet and soap comfortably. You can go colorful—Tundras makes a cute $9 stool in bright green, cobalt, and cranberry red—or fashionable, but make sure there’s one for every sink in the house. We love these Bee Stands from Ballard Designs, because they match our decor but still have a fun design.

Put some posters up around the bathroom. The Massachusetts state government made this eye-catching printout you can laminate for a few bucks at Staples; Etsy’s crafty artisans, as usual, up the ante with some cute printables (like this, for $5, from the Funky Art Shop) that actually serve as decor.

Check out the supplies in your school bathrooms, too. In a recent survey, kids who didn’t wash their hands at school cited lack of cleaning supplies (19%), not liking to use school bathrooms (21%), and bathrooms being “disgusting” (15%). Only 63 percent of kids say their school always has all the soap, water, paper towels and drying equipment needed to wash their hands. Some schools compensate by scattering sanitizers around, but bathrooms should be clean and fully equipped with hand washing materials as well. Poke around the bathrooms next time you visit the school, and talk to kids; if supplies are wanting, consider proposing a fundraiser to allow for better and more plentiful soap and towels for kids’ use.

Practice what you preach. The broken-record message: Model the behavior you want to see in your kids. According to Stanford’s division of public health, only two-thirds of grown-ups wash their hands after they use the restroom. Make a point of washing up together at the kitchen sink or bathroom before family dinner.

Real Snow Slushies and Snowcones

January 27, 2020 by Kelley Leave a Comment

I’ve found a cure for cabin fever: real snow slushies and snowcones.

Typically, when the kids get squirrelly, I bundle them up and send them outside for a good, long while. But in blizzard conditions like the ones we’re experiencing outside of Boston today, you need to find some indoor fun, too. And so we brought the snow inside.

My kids have always been enchanted by that book, Carolyn Buehner’s Snowmen at Christmas: specifically, the page in which the snow mothers make snow treats for their snow children. I must admit, the spread that these domestic-goddess snow moms lay out is pretty mouthwatering:

So we decided to make some fruity snow treats in our house. It takes, literally, about 10 minutes, and you’re almost certain to have everything you need on hand (especially fresh snow).

Here’s what you need:

One small, clean bucket

Clean, freshly fallen snow

One game child (to collect the snow)

Your favorite juicy fruits (like lemon, orange, watermelon, strawberries, grapefruit)

A citrus squeezer (in a pinch, your hands and a fine mesh strainer will do)

One cup sugar

One cup water

How to make:

Combine water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce to medium and cook until the mixture resembles a syrup consistency. Set aside to cool (put in fridge or freezer for a few minutes to speed up the process if desired).

Set out a row of small glasses or containers, and squeeze the fruits into them with a citrus squeezer or through a fine mesh strainer (keep the pulp out if your kids like smooth consistencies, like mine). In individual glasses I squeezed: one whole lemon; one whole orange; handful of strawberries; and some maraschino cherries (with a touch of the juice from the jar), because that’s what I had on hand. Fruit juice would be fine too, but in that case, reduce the amount of sugar you use for the simple syrup by one-third.

When syrup is cooled, top fruit juices with syrup.

Scoop snow into small cups, glasses or, if you really want to get fancy, paper cones. Though you can buy snow cone wrappers like these on Amazon (200 for $14 should get you through parenthood), that would take some advance preparation, and given that I didn’t even have D-sized flashlight batteries this morning in anticipation of a record-breaking blizzard, lord knows I didn’t have wrappers for snow treats. But they are easy to make: layer a sheet of tin foil on top of a piece of construction paper, roll into a cone shape, tape the ends together, and snip off the open top to make an even opening.

Top cones or slushie glasses with a scoop or two of fresh snow and fruit syrup (less for cones, more for slushies). It’s a great, refreshing treat after an indoor dance party or some rigorous outdoor snow playing or fort-building. Even my husband and I had a slushie. Save extra syrup in small containers in the ‘fridge—it will last for weeks (certainly until the next snowfall).

Ultimate Sick-Day Survival Kit

December 2, 2018 by Kelley 1 Comment

I’ll admit it: Even with a dozen years, three children, and countless sick days under my parenting belt, I still become a little unhinged when my kids are sick. At the first sign of glazed-over eyes, raspy cough, or the dreaded, telltale, 2 a.m. gag, my heart starts pounding, because I know my child and I are in for a few days of sleepless nights, home-from-school days, and round-the-clock cleaning. And that’s if it’s an illness is limited to one family member, which we all know is about as likely as a four-leaf clover in January.

I was a little cocky a few weeks ago, when it occurred to me that we’d gone three whole months without anything more than a sniffle. Of course, within, oh, minutes of that thought passing through my brain, my youngest refused his afternoon snack, just wanted to cuddle, and preceded to barf buckets on himself, his carseat and half of the minivan on the way to pick up my older sons at school. One week later, his older brother’s norovirus also presented itself in the car, this time on the way to a ski trip. After fishing around for plastic bags and coming up empty, the portable potty seat became a sick basin. Double ick. Granted, we were traveling, but it made me resolve to be better equipped for sudden sicknesses—which they all are, really—at home and on the go. For me, at least, having all the proper tools for keeping kids comfortable and the house disinfected at the ready goes a long way toward mitigating my anxiety over dealing with a tough bug.

After talking to some docs and veteran moms and thinking about what’s saved the day for us time and again in the past, I’ve come up with a list of must-have products for sick-day “success” (as it were). While good hand hygiene and a flu shot (find a nearby vaccination center here) may help keep illness at bay, these soothing products are worth stashing away in a closet or bathroom drawer for when sickness does strike. Note on chart, below: If viewing on a mobile devices, links in chart below might not direct you to correct products. Use links in descriptions below chart, instead.

1. Kid-Friendly Tissues. Puffs and other companies now have boxes with fun designs that appeal to kids, which just might make tykes more likely to reach for a tissue rather than their sibling’s shirt sleeve. Also, take this genius cue from Mommy Shorts (via Wide Awake) and use a rubber band to harness together a full square tissue box and an empty square tissue box. Voila—tissues and trash can in one.

2. Graco Battery Operated Nasal Aspirator. One of my babysitters is a nurse at Boston Children’s Hospital, and she says that this is what she and her colleagues use all the time on stuffed-up babies and toddlers who come through the E.R. It’s quick, simple, and painless.

3. Honey. Studies show it and doc-moms swear by it: A teaspoon or two of honey can help soothe a sore throat and quiet a cough, as good if not better than cough medicine.

4. Aquaphor. Smear a gob of this salve below runny noses to prevent drying and chafing, or on sore bottoms after a stomach bug.

5. Rectangular Wash Basin. Kids aren’t so skilled at aiming their puke in the right places. Stash a medium-sized—I find 8-quart to be perfect—plastic bin in a bathroom drawer, cabinet or shelf so it’s easy to grab when your child starts feeling queasy.

6. CareBags. What a terrific product: These bags, which fold-flat for easy storage in the car, have an absorbent bottom that eliminates odors, and an easy-tie top. Great to have on hand for car sickness of any type.

7. Gatorade. Research shows Gatorade is effective as Pedialyte at rehydrating kids after a stomach illness—and my guess is that 10 out of 10 kids would say it tastes better.

8. Pedialyte Pops. You can freeze these pops, which forces kids (little ones, especially) to rehydrate slowly after an illness.

9. Braun Ear Thermometer. While stick thermometers are considered the most accurate, it can be hard to get a good reading with a squirmy child. Braun’s ear thermometers are highly rated, easy to use, and, from my experience, can work without waking a sleeping child.

10. Acetaminophen suppositories. For the helpless-feeling times when a child has a fever but feels too ill to swallow (and keep down) medicine, these rectal suppositories are a lifesaver. Make sure you get a product formulated for your child’s age and weight.

11. Clorox Hydrogen Peroxide Wipes. This hospital-grade cleaner is now available for household use, and is one of the few products that can kill norovirus (the super-bad stomach illness) as well as most other germs. A little pricey, but totally worth it.

12. Large white hand towels. Get a stack of these soft towels and keep them in the laundry room for sick nights. They have multiple uses: a pillow-topper for kids with tummy bugs, a cool forehead compress for bringing down a fever, and a clean-up rag. Because they are white, you can easily bleach out germs and stains after use.

13. Disposable straw cups. Color-coded cups help you keep track of which drink is your sick child’s, and the straw makes it easier to sip while reclining on a bed or couch. Toss after your kid makes a full recovery.

14. Soft fleece blanket. Feverish kids have rapid temperature changes, and you probably don’t want them using your cashmere throw from the living room when they get the chills. Buy one of these fuzzy, inexpensive blankets in your child’s favorite color, and keep it on his shelf for sick days on the couch.

15. Nature DVD or streamed video. Sometimes, all your kid can handle is starting at a screen, but too much SpongeBob can make a headache worse. Many nature videos, with their soothing voices and sounds, set just the right mood. We like Disney’s Oceans and Earth series.

16. Maze books. For when your child starts to feel a little better and may be up for an activity, keep some maze books on hand. They re-engage the brain without taxing it, and some—like Kumon’s Around the World series—are really fun for kids and grown-ups to do together.

When Parents Show Grit, Kids Follow Suit

September 28, 2017 by Kelley Leave a Comment

You know those days when everything is going wrong—and you just want to throw in the towel? As in, toss the printer that keeps jamming, beg off the work assignment that’s not coming together, and trade the running shoes for bath slippers? (Just spitballing, here; this certainly didn’t happen in our house this morning.)

Apparently, our kids are watching how we respond to difficulty more than we think.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently performed a study with 260 toddlers and their guardians. They split the child-parent pairs into three groups. The first watched their grown-ups pretend to struggle to remove a key chain from a carabiner—all the while verbalizing their frustration (“gosh this is hard!”)—and then succeed with the task. The second group of children watched their caregivers finish the task easily, and a third, the control group, didn’t watch adults perform a task at all. Afterwards, all the children got a music box with a big button that didn’t function, and a hidden button that did.

The MIT scientists were surprised by their findings: The children who watched their parents overcome difficulty moments before tried harder, and longer, to make the inert button work than the other toddlers. There was no difference in the amount of persistence the kids showed in the group who saw the caregivers succeed easily and those who didn’t watch the adults work on a task at all. Researchers’ takeaway: Parents shouldn’t be afraid of letting their kids see them struggle through a task, and in fact should embrace opportunities to try to overcome something tricky in front of them.

I like the idea that our kids might get something out of watching us flail a bit, whether it’s attempting a sport that’s out of our comfort zone or not giving up on the spaghetti jar lid. It’s liberating, really, to think that the Superwoman act might not be all that it’s cracked up to be. At least that’s what I plan to keep in mind as I stare down the busy month ahead.

Top photo courtesy of Mike Frizzell via Flickr

How Flipping “Strength Switch” Makes Kids Happier, More Successful

September 13, 2017 by Kelley Leave a Comment

Spelling. Their left kicking foot. Forgetting their assignments at school. If I had a nickel for every time I talk to my kids about something they have to “work on,” I’d probably have enough money to fund a private tutor for just about every school subject and extracurricular endeavor I fret they’re struggling with. But a compelling new read by an internationally renowned child psychologist has convinced me that such an investment would be a huge mistake. Professor Lea Waters, Ph.D, who leads positive psychology programs at the University of Melbourne and University of Michigan, says that by resisting to impulse to help our kids with their weaknesses and instead give them opportunities to do more of what they’re naturally good at, kids—and us!—will be better able to thrive.

Discussing her new book The Strength Switch with The Guardian newspaper, Dr. Waters explains the evolutionary reason why we parents, and often our children themselves, seem to focus our time and energy on patching up shortcomings. “We have evolved with a ‘negativity bias,’ zeroing in on what’s wrong as a way to protect ourselves and our tribe,” she says. “Add to this the constant social pressure to raise perfectly behaved, accomplished kids, and many parents feel as if they have to be in “fix-it” mode all the time.”

But being a slow runner, say, no longer portends eminent demise; even being a sloppy speller won’t sink you. In our modern, diverse society, there are fewer personal skills that are absolutely “essential,” and a wider range of traits that can be considered assets. Moreover, Waters’ research in the International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology and other peer reviewed publications has shown that parents who were trained to regularly recognize and point out their kids’ strengths allowed them to identify programs—from after school activities to at-home chores—that made the children happier and more successful all-around. Waters calls it “flipping the strength switch”: shifting from talking mostly about what kids need to improve on to what they have the best chance, with continued hard work, to excel in.

So, what are some practical ways to make this shift? It can be hard, especially when there are some things kids have to do that they might struggle with, from certain required school subjects to universally acknowledged life skills, like swimming or keeping their belongings organized. When it comes to tricky schoolwork, Dr. Waters counsels parents to suggest that kids think about how their strengths can help them with the things they struggle with. Let’s say they have trouble grasping, say, long division; you can explore how another strong trait—say, neat handwriting—can help make the process easier. If they struggle with public speaking, you might point out how they might call on their funny sense of humor to ease them through a scary moment.

“Picture a light switch inside your head,” she explained to The Guardian. “When the light is on you look for the strengths in your child. When it is off, your negativity bias is operating. The brain is a pattern detecting organ, so the more you flick the switch, the more you train your brain to look for positive patterns and so over-ride the negativity bias.”

This can work with discipline, too. Dr. Waters uses an example of how her son kept forgetting to put his new bike away, and it was driving everyone crazy. She started commented regularly on how Nick had used his good organizational skills to put his other belongings away after school. Feeling pride about this skill, her son began to see how his carelessness with his bike didn’t jibe with that strong sense of identity, and the bike wound up where it belonged from then on.

What do you think—have you noticed that your kids step up when they’re boosted up? Are you brave enough to not worry about something they’re just plain lousy at? It’s definitely something I need to, ahem, work on.

Photo credit: Aikawake via Flickr

Summer Craft Project that Gives Back: Kindness Rocks

July 13, 2017 by Kelley Leave a Comment

My son, Thomas, loves to collect interesting things he finds on the pathways that we hike on around our neighborhood. We’ve even made him a box where he stashes his treasures, which currently include three acorns, a few shiny pebbles, a styrofoam bird, and a little stuffed skunk.

But now, what we’re really on the lookout for are kindness rocks. Have you heard about this new craze, sweeping towns from Cape Cod, MA to Cape May, NJ this summer? Basically, kids and parents are gathering up smooth rocks, painting them with colorful or inspiration designs, and placing them throughout nature for people to discover.

Yesterday, my youngest son and I got in on the fun, painting some rocks after he was finished with camp for the day. I loved the idea that we could do a craft that had a life and purpose beyond mouldering alongside the art projects that I still haven’t organized from the last day of school.

I leaned toward rainbows, he tended toward spiders and Pollock-esque polka dots, but we both had a really nice time painting, and talking about where we were going to plant our creations and who—neighbor Chloe? mailperson Barb?—might come upon them.

This morning, just after a rainstorm, we decided to plant a rainbow rock at the edge of the pond at the end of our street. My son was a little sad to part with it, but ultimately decided that it’s sometimes even more fun to give than receive. A lesson as valuable in the heat of summer as at holiday time.

Some tips about creating and distributing your kindness rocks:

-If you can’t find relatively smooth rocks in your immediate area, hardware and garden supply stores sell smooth gray rocks (often called Mexican Beach pebble, $11 at Amazon for 30 lbs.), which are perfect for the project, at a very low price.

-Acrylic paint like this colorful sampler ($8, Amazon), with small brushes like these ($6, Amazon), work great. Invest in a spray can of clar UV/moisture protecting spray (like Krylon’s Crystal Clear Acrylic Coating aerosol spray, $10 at Amazon), which will protect your designs from the elements.

-Refrain from putting your rocks in national parks, or any other public spaces that have a “leave no trace” policy. Think about well-trod pathways around ponds and woodlands, or even grassy parks or playgrounds, near you.

Keep Kids Safe from Ticks

June 3, 2017 by Kelley 1 Comment

You may not have appreciated the harsh winter, but there’s one species that did: ticks. According to scientists, the snow that covered much of the country acted like a cozy blanket for the critters, allowing them to survive and propagate in unusually high numbers. And they’re not just hanging out in the deep woods. “We’re finding plenty of infected ticks in built environments, places like city parks, playgrounds, work campuses, college campuses,” a Binghamton University researcher told CBS Boston last month.

What’s especially worrisome is that ticks’ favorite meal appears to be kids. Children between ages 5 to 14 are the most common carriers of Lyme disease, which can cause a wide range of serious medical problems, from joint pain and fatigue (in the early stages) as well as neurological, behavioral, and emotional disturbances (in more advanced cases). An early CDC study of 64 New Jersey grade schoolers with Lyme found that median duration of their illness was 363 days, and the mean number of school days missed because the child was too ill to attend was 103 days. 78% of the parents stated that their children experienced a fall in grade point average during the time of illness.

According to experts, it’s time that parents start thinking of tick prevention the way we do sun protection or hand washing. For those of us who grew up thinking that the little bugs were nothing more than an icky nuisance, taking daily measures against ticks is a hard new habit to start. But Nevena Zubcevik, D.O., an attending physician at Harvard Medical School and the Co-Director of The Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, has generously shared these easy-to-follow guidelines for keeping kids safe from ticks this summer and beyond.

STARTING IN THE SPRING…make your home and yard an unhappy place for ticks.
Pruning excess bushes and making sure you keep the grass short in your yard is a good practice. So is spraying the yard for ticks—there are lawn-care companies who offer organic options to insecticides. If you have a dog, consider applying anti-tick medication monthly, even in winter months. Dogs and other pets frequently bring ticks into the house.

EVERY MORNING…Spray your kids with a research-proven tick repellent.
“Tick prevention, given the wide area of presence, should be a daily practice,” says Dr. Zubcevik. You don’t have to venture out to the woods to get a tick bite. Recent studies show that urban parks, yards and play areas have ticks that carry these diseases. The reason for the widespread presence of ticks is that they live on small rodents like mice, squirrels and rabbits. They are also found on migratory birds, so ticks carrying illnesses generally found in other parts of the country can now be detected most anywhere.
Long pants and socks are especially helpful for defending kids against ticks, which tend to attach to their hosts’ ankles and legs first. But it can be unreasonable to ask kids to wear long clothes on a hot summer’s day. A recent Consumer Report showed that sprays such as Repel with lemon eucalyptus or Sawyer with 20% picaridin have the capability of keeping mosquitoes and ticks away for up to 8 hours – and outperformed compounds with DEET in their testing. “Those compounds are also safer than DEET for repetitive use in children,” says Dr. Zubcevik.

IN THE EVENING…Check your kids’ bodies for ticks, and wash bodies and clothes.
Ticks mostly live on wood or bushes and tall grass. They’ll attach to your leg and can crawl up and enter the waist or hairline area. Since kids are short, they also often brush by a bush and end up with a tick in or around their earlobe, hair or armpit. A prompt shower with a full body tick check after being outdoors on daily basis can help find ticks that just attached and catch them before they have transmitted disease. Making sure you check between toes, in belly button and earlobes as well as the buttocks, groin and hair is key. Hair-drying in the summer can help kill small ticks that would otherwise be missed with a tick check – though time consuming, such practice can help long term prevention.

IF YOU FIND A TICK…Remove it, freeze it, and talk to a doctor.
If you find a tick you can use thin tweezers to catch the tick at the insert site, closest to the skin and gently jiggle the tick until it detaches. If the tick is embedded deep, then a visit to the doctor would be warranted, says Dr. Zubcevik. (Never burn or squeeze a tick. The tick carries most of the bacteria in the stomach and by squeezing it you run a risk of injecting the contents into the person. You should then keep the tick, and freeze it in a ziplock bag and then send it for testing.) The testing is done at UMass, and in five business days they will let you know whether the tick has any serious illnesses.
If the result is positive for a tick-borne illness, talk to your child’s pediatrician about options. There are some opposing views about prophylactic treatment. Some physicians say that because the diseases the ticks carry can be debilitating and in some cases life-threatening, it’s important to treat if there was evidence of a bite; while others disagree and prefer to wait for symptoms of illness. “The problem is that the longer you wait, the higher the chances the bacteria has had time to spread throughout the body, in which case it might be more difficult to treat,” Dr. Zubcevik says. Current studies at John’s Hopkins University show that up to 35% of people develop chronic symptoms despite treatment for Lyme. “We do not know what the exact reasons of these chronic symptoms are,” notes Dr. Zubcevik. “Scientists have postulated that it could be an autoimmune reaction that is triggered by the infection, chronic inflammation, or continued infection by the bacteria.”

ALWAYS BE ON THE LOOKOUT…for signs and symptoms of Lyme.
Red flags are flu like symptoms, joint pains or swollen joints, sudden change in behavior, sudden development of repetitive movements, lethargy, fatigue, and headaches. A classic “bulls-eye” shaped rash around the bite site may be present, but not always, and therefore should not be required for diagnosis of this illness.
One big reason kids are at high risk is that they generally do not communicate symptoms very well. Parents should know that in case their kids develop any symptoms that are new and concerning, they should be vigilant to find out whether or not their child needs treatment. “Currently we have very poor testing for Lyme disease,” says Dr. Zubcevik. “The current test misses 89% of Lyme disease cases in the first 8 weeks of infection.”
Since testing is so inadequate, Dr. Zubcevik warns, results should not be depended on exclusively for diagnosis. Symptoms and risk factors should also be strongly considered. “The treatment is actually quite benign,” she says. “We use antibiotics such as amoxicillin for children under the age of 8 and doxycycline for older kids. Both of these antibiotics have good safety records and are generally well tolerated. With these facts in mind, both parents and physicians should feel comfortable starting a patient on antibiotics if they clinically present as Lyme.”

Bottom line…As long as Lyme remains so tricky to diagnose and treat, taking precautions is key. “Parents should be vigilant with prevention,” says Dr. Zubcevik. “It’s what we have most control over.”

The Tick Toolkit
	Repel with lemon eucalyptus or Sawyer with 20% picaridin have been tested to keep mosquitoes and ticks at bay for up to 8 hours.
	Fine tip tweezers like these by TAMSCO will allow you to remove ticks more easily.
	When sprayed on a child's socks or clothes before heading out in grassy, wooded or overgrown areas, Permethrin helps repel ticks.
	Get kids jazzed for a nightly bath or shower with a fun soap, like Method's Mickey Mouse lemonade body and hair wash.

Cooperative Board Games: A Cure for Summer Squabbles?

May 25, 2017 by Kelley Leave a Comment

Summer is fantastic and all, but there are two problems that always seem to heat up with the weather around our house: boredom and sibling squabbles. School vacation ensures more downtime, together, which is awesome until my three boys decide there’s nothing to do but bother one another. It’s times like these when I often suggest that they play a game—we have tons, from classics like Stratego to sports-themed ones like Foosball. But these competitions don’t always end well.

Recently, a friend introduced me to the world of cooperative games when her son gave my 5-year-old a board game called “Race to the Treasure” for his birthday. In it, players work together to create a path to a treasure before mean ogres do. The excitement was not in the competition, but the thrill of choosing cards and working together toward a common goal, and it was, surprisingly, an instant hit in our house. I’ve since done a little reading about cooperative games, and found out that it’s a growing trend, and not for nothing: Academics have studied these activities and discovered there are some very real benefits, including decreasing kids’ aggressive behaviors both during, and after, play.

Check out some really excellent examples of the genre, below. While many cooperative games exist online, too, I’m sticking to board games here, because I see this as a great opportunity to break from electronics—and as it happens, many of these games have super-rich graphics that are almost as eye-popping as what you’d see on a screen. Consider stocking up in time for summer “break”…at press time, Amazon was running a promotion in which several cooperative games were deeply discounted.

Race to the Treasure
Best for ages 4 and up
By drawing cards with various-shaped pathways and using their spatial relation skills, children must find their way to the treasure before a mean ogre does. Additional cards representing keys and “snacks” for the ogre add some strategy challenges to the game.

Dinosaur Escape
Best for ages 4 and up
The dinos need to get back to Dinosaur Island; can kids work together using their memory and collaborative skills to return them safely?

Outfoxed
Best for ages 5 and up
A pot pie is missing, and children need to gather clues to crack the case. The cool “special evidence” scanner might be kids’ favorite part of the game.

Jenga
Best for ages 6 and up
There’s a debate out there about whether this is a competitive or cooperative game, and the answer is that it can be either. Instead of tagging the person who topples the tower as the loser, spin the game as a challenge to see how high the group can build the tower.

Forbidden Island
Best for ages 8 and up
A Mensa award winner, this pioneer among cooperative games challenges players to work together to capture sacred treasures before the island under them sinks into oblivion. My 8-year-old got this as a birthday gift last year, and the boys love not just playing the game, but also simply checking out the cool illustrations and game pieces.

Mysterium
Best for ages 10 and up
Slightly spooky and definitely exciting, this game has a strong storyline about a crime that’s been committed at an old castle. Players are divided between a ghost and psychic mediums who need to interpret signs to solve the mystery.
Best for ages 10 and up

Freedom: The Underground Railroad
Best for ages 13 and up
Combining history, social consciousness, strategy, and collaboration, this game pretty much has it all. Players assume the role as abolitionists who must evade slave catchers to raise money and shepherd people to safety. The game has variable difficulty settings, but it’s pretty complex nature does make it best for older kids.

Top photo: Forbidden Island game shot by Derek Buff via Flickr.

Why (and How) to Plan a National Park Trip Now

April 18, 2017 by Kelley 1 Comment

My husband and I recently became convinced that when it comes to family tourism, nothing beats a visit to one of America’s great national parks. A park trip combines all the things we’d ideally want children to soak up when sight-seeing: nature, adventure, history, and, perhaps best of all with young kids, space to explore without fear of someone getting left behind on the subway platform. And, oh: Compared to a big, bustling city, or, for godsakes, a theme park, the cost tends to be right, too.

Thunder Hole, Acadia National Park

For our first big park trip, we stayed close to home, and went to the first East Coast national park ever created: Acadia National Park in Maine. None of us had been there before, which was ideal: Part of the magic of a great family trip is experiencing something amazing together for the first time—like Thunder Hole, where the Atlantic surf crashes into a cave-like break in the craggy Maine rocks to create a huge wake and roaring sound.

Our appreciation of the awesomeness of our national park system has only grown since finding out that several times a year, park admittance is free. This weekend (April 20-22, 2017), for instance, admission is free at all 412 national park sites. That includes the biggies—the 59 “main” parks (think Acadia, Grand Canyon, and Redwood National Forest) as well as national military and historic parks (like Gettysburg).There’s no doubt a park near you that you’ve been meaning to explore—or didn’t even know about. For help in finding your next destination, go to this easy “Find Your Park” tool on the NPS site.

For bigger trips, consider planning now for a summer 2017 or spring 2018 visit. The best hotels and campsites around popular parks fill up fast. See charts of most popular destinations as well as most underrated (and, score, under-trafficked) spots, below. Get kids involved and excited about planning with a book: Younger ones will like the new Our Great Big Backyard, the surprisingly entertaining read created to commemorate the NPS anniversary by Laura Bush and daughter Jenna. Older elementary- and middle-schoolers can bookmark their bucket-list faves in National Geographic’s National Parks Guide USA.

10 Most Visited National Parks (with links)

Great Smoky Mountains (North Carolina and Tennessee)

Grand Canyon (Arizona)

Rocky Mountains (Colorado)

Yosemite (California)

Yellowstone (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming)

Zion (Utah)

Olympic (Washington)

Grand Teton (Wyoming)

Acadia (Maine)

Glacier (Montana)

Source: National Geographic

10 Most Underrated National Parks (with links)

Biscayne National Park (Florida)

Congaree (South Carolina)

Isle Royale (Michigan)

Black Canyon (Colorado)

Theodore Roosevelt (North Dakota)

Capitol Reef (Utah)

Great Basin (Nevada)

North Cascades (Washington)

Channel Islands (California)

Wrangell-St. Elias (Alaska)

Source: Travel + Leisure

6 Clues to Eye Problems in Kids

March 8, 2017 by Kelley 1 Comment

I’ll admit that in the realm of kids’ wellness, eye health has historically been off my radar. Part of this can be chalked up to genetics: Neither my husband nor I have vision problems, and ocular issues don’t run in our family. But apparently, American parents, generally, are pretty clueless about eye health. A recent survey sponsored by the Vision Council and American Optometric Association reveals that 24 percent of parents would only ask to have their child’s eyes checked if they suspected a problem; meanwhile, just 2 percent of parents would wait for symptoms to take their child to a dentist for the first time.

Some recent news and a conversation with the pediatrician clued me into the fact that I could stand to pay more attention to my kids’ eye health. Five to 10 percent of preschoolers and 25 percent of school-aged kids have vision problems, while most eye conditions, from amblyopia (“lazy eye”) and retinoblastoma, are treated most successfully when caught early. Here are three surprising things I learned in my research; hope you might pick up something new, too.

1. Watch out for “the glow” in photos of your kids. Do you “know the glow?” I didn’t, until the folks from an organization of the same name reached out to me. Apparently, if your child’s eyes emit a white or golden glow in photos, that’s evidence of Leukocoria, or an abnormal red-eye reflex that’s common to many eye conditions, such as amblyopia, cataracts, and some forms of eye cancer, including retinoblastoma. Some 1 in 80 kids will exhibit “the glow” in photos. If yours does, the doctors at Know the Glow suggest you talk to your pediatrician and ask for a red reflex screening of the eyes. Many eye conditions resolve themselves completely in children when caught early. For more information, check out Know the Glow.

2. Eye rubbing can be a sign that a child is logging too much screen time. A recent study of 7- to 12-year-olds found that 7% of children suffer from symptoms of dry eye disease, and those who did were far more likely to be on their smartphones for several hours per day (and less likely to spend time outside) than their peers without the condition. Apparently, we blink less when we look at screens, and that can lead to faster evaporation of the tear film and lead to dry eye, an uncomfortable condition that causes itching, irritation, and in severe cases, vision problems. If your child seems to complaining about his eyes or rubbing them frequently, talk to your pediatrician or a pediatric ophthalmologist; and consider cutting back on screen time. When children in the study did just that, their dry eye symptoms resolved.

3. Some learning challenges are rooted in vision problems. School demands a lot of hard work on the eyes. We might suspect that kids who squint a lot are candidates for a vision screening, but did you know that attention and reading problems might also be linked to eyesight challenges? According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, four underappreciated signs of eye problems in children are:

Having a short attention span: Your child is more apt to lose interest in lessons or games because their eyes are straining too hard to keep up.
Losing one’s place in a book: Blurring or straining can make it hard to follow along.
“Hating” to read: When it’s hard to see a page, reading can be taxing, and not fun.
Turning their head to the side: Does it feel like a child isn’t listening, or playing coy, by constantly turning her head when someone is talking? If they have a refractive eye disorder, like an astigmatism, this might help them see better.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology and American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that children have their eyes checked by a pediatrician at birth and at every well visit starting at age 6 months. By age 5, each eye should be checked separately every year, and if a problem is found, a visit to a pediatric ophthalmologist is in order. If your child’s pediatrician isn’t performing regular checks, speak up, even if you don’t notice anything amiss. Kids’ eyes are put to the test more than ever these days; they need TLC just like the rest of them.

Photos courtesy of Pixabay (top) and Know the Glow.