Children Health Tips

01

Your Behavior Impacts Your Children's Mental Health

Various therapists and child psychologists offered advice on how to help your child cope. We've compiled some tips for you.

Children model behavior much more than you think.

Electronics are often cited as contributing to children becoming withdrawn. Are you telling your kids to turn off the TV while you're sitting at the kitchen table on your computer?  This sends mixed messages.

When you take time for yourself, do you close yourself in your bedroom and watch TV? 

If you want your child to manage their stress, therapists suggest keeping your stress in check as well. 

Talk to your child about why you are stressed, explain to them why you had a bad day, and what you are going to do to manage that stress.

If you take your bad day out on them or your spouse, your child will often do the same when they are overwhelmed.

Talk about ways to relax and share them with your child, experience them together. Quiet walks, turning off electronics, and reading together are all good tips.

No one is saying children don't need discipline and structure, but make sure you and your spouse are working together on tasks your child is given.

If one parent orders the child to clean their room, and minutes later the other parent orders the child to pick up toys left in the kitchen, the child can become overwhelmed trying to please both parents. 

Does your child talk to you while you have your smart phone in your hand or your computer in your lap? Is your children calling your name repeatedly and you're not responding because you're online?

Do you yell through the house to your child rather than come and talk to your child face to face?

All of these things can impact your child's behavior.

Parents aren't perfect, we make mistakes, it's important to acknowledge them.  Don't just say you're sorry, but ask you child how your behavior made them feel? What they thought when you lost your cool.

Listen to their feelings and address them, this much more powerful than simply saying I'm sorry or taking them for a treat.

02

Three Tips for a Healthy School Year

144 million school days are lost to illness each year

AKRON, Ohio, Aug. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Children unknowingly spread germs in a number of ways, whether through sharing utensils with classmates, putting their hands in their mouth, or not covering their sneezes and coughs. Unfortunately, the spread of illness-causing germs can lead to missed school days. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, illness causes 144 million lost school days each year, which has a tremendous impact on student's ability to learn and grow.1

Practicing good hand hygiene is essential to illness prevention. Always wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds, making sure to rub your whole hand, including both sides of your hands, in between your fingers and especially your fingertips.

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Here are three health tips that parents can share with their children for this upcoming school year.

1) Wash and sanitize hands

Keeping hands clean is one of the most important steps we can take to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others.2  In a study reported in Pediatrics, researchers examined the effectiveness of educational and hand hygiene programs that include alcohol-based hand sanitizer in children zero to three years old, enrolled in child care centers at least 15 hours per week.3 The researchers found that those using hand sanitizer achieved the following significant results:

approximately a 30 percent reduction in antibiotic prescriptions

approximately a 23 percent reduction in respiratory infections

lower number of days absent due to respiratory infections

Parents can begin handwashing and hand sanitizing lessons at home at a young age, and teachers can reinforce it in the classroom.

HandwashingThe entire process should take at least 20 seconds.

Wet hands with water

Apply enough soap to create a lather

Cover all hand surfaces with the lather by rubbing hands palm to palm and carefully scrubbing the fingers, back and front of hands and each thumb

Rinse hands with water

Gently dry hands with a clean paper towel

Hand SanitizingThe entire process should take approximately 15 seconds. The CDC recommends using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol.4 

Apply a dime-sized amount of an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, like PURELL® Hand Sanitizer in the palm of your hand, enough to cover all surfaces of your hands

Rub the sanitizer into the palms of your hands, fingers, back and front of hands and thumbs

Continue rubbing hands together until they are dry

2) Learn the key moments for hand hygiene

Key moments at school for children to wash with soap and water, or sanitize their hands with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer are:

after using the bathroom

before and after eating

after recess

after sneezing or coughing

3) Know the germ hotspots

It helps to share with children where the germ hotspots are in a school. By doing this, it encourages them to wash or sanitize their hands after coming into contact with the places that are touched by many hands in a day.

The germ hotspots include:

cafeteria tables

computer keyboards and mice

desks

handrails

gym equipment

faucets

door knobs

About GOJOGOJO, the inventor of PURELL® Hand Sanitizer, is the leading global producer and marketer of skin health and hygiene solutions for away-from-home settings. The broad GOJO product portfolio includes hand cleaning, handwashing, hand sanitizing, skin care formulas and surface sprays under the GOJO®, PURELL® and PROVON® brand names. GOJO formulations use the latest advances in the science of skin care and sustainability. GOJO is known for state-of-the-art dispensing technology, engineered with attention to design, sustainability, and functionality. GOJO programs promote healthy behaviors for hygiene, skin care and compliance in critical environments. GOJO is a family enterprise headquartered in Akron, Ohio, with operations in the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Japan, Mexico, and Canada. Learn more about GOJO.

Guinan, M., M. McGuckin, and Y. Ali. 2002. The effect of a comprehensive hand washing program on absenteeism in elementary schools. American Journal of Infection Control 31: 1-8.

Retrieved August 5, 2019 https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/why-handwashing.html  

Retrieved on August 5, 2019 http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2018/10/04/peds.2018-1245 

Retrieved August 5, 2019 https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/why-handwashing.html

According to the CDC, keeping hands clean is one of the most important steps we can take to avoid getting sick and spreading germs to others. As a new school year begins, make sure your child knows where the germ hotspots are in school, and the key moments they should be cleaning their hands.

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03

Doctors offer tips to help your child transition to a new school

Dr. Kasey Scannell with Novant Health Pediatrics says those taking on the next level - whether it be kindergarten, 6th grade or 9th grade - may need more attention and care as they work on adapting to larger schools, more students, and increased responsibility.