Kids' Health | PulseonParenting

Gratitude: a Stone’s Throw From Disappointment

May 07 2020

John Oliver gets it. On March 16th he invited us to join him in a primal scream of sorts. In front of a white screen, during the first taping of his show Last Week Tonight while in isolation, he gives us permission to vent (it happens at about minute 18:00): Get it out. Really get. it. out. We all have had to give up something, and been disappointed or frustrated, by the new reality thrust upon us by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s totally ok to feel this way. But we can’t let these feelings consume us. Or our fear. It’s…

Apr 23 2020

“My friend’s son has the chickenpox. So I’m taking my kids over to her house for a playdate.” Horrifying as that may sound, there was a time when parents made the effort to expose their offspring to this childhood disease. Some of us parents may remember Pox Parties, and may have even been a part of one. Parental urgency for children to contract the disease rose from the risk of complications that increased with age, and the desire to “get it over with,” among other concerns. Thus the rubbing of elbows with families with a literal pox on their houses….

Apr 03 2020

This morning I woke up, wondering what to write about today. Should I ignore the elephant lurking in every corner of every room? That gray, wrinkled stalker that even follows us outside and causes us to jump to the other side of the road? Do we need to escape this pachydermal pest, even for a few minutes? But then again, it’s an elephant. In. da. house. It’s pretty darn hard to ignore. Especially when it casts its long shadow over every aspect of our lives, even over the mundane task of food procurement. And the elephant’s gotta eat, too. So…

Mar 20 2020

When I was a kid, there was a certain intersection at the edge of town that everyone agreed was dangerous. No traffic light, not even a stop sign. It was only a matter of time, people thought, until tragedy would strike. And they were right. A mother driving her children was killed by another motorist, a teenager who attended the same school as hers. Then, only then, were the stop signs placed. Hardly a new occurrence then, and definitely not a new modus operandi now. It is human nature to be reactive instead of proactive, reassuring ourselves, keeping positive, that…

Mar 12 2020

I know. Yet another terrible joke linking terrible beer with a terrible pandemic. But, like so many families on the brink of spring break, you are probably trying to decide exactly where to drink your ale, on a beach or on your couch. In my last post I mentioned the irony of human nature: how humans ignore what we know and then go off the deep end and wipe the shelves clean of toilet paper (but not canned food?) in fear of what we don’t. Not that we shouldn’t be worried about the coronavirus (COVID-19). We should. But we need…

Mar 05 2020

It’s a stretch. But there is an upside to the growing outbreak of the new strain of coronavirus, Covid-19, that has us on edge, changing spring break plans (or tenatively going ahead with them), making jokes about beer, and the limiting by grocery stores of the purchase of cold-and-flu products. We fear what we do not know, it’s human nature. And we should be concerned about this novel strain of the coronavirus. As of this writing,* COVID-19 has a two to 3.4 percent fatality rate (2 to 3.4 in 100 people afflicted). The virus can incubate for up to 2…

Can Vitamin D Prevent Influenza?

Nov 07 2018

After posting The Influenza Vaccine: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up a friend and fellow mom reached out to me. She told me how happy she was to see some real info cross her virtual desk because her news feed is usually filled with the myths and dangers of the influenza vaccine. She had even read that Vitamin D could save the population from influenza infection and jokingly blamed “Dr. Google” for her discovery of this one. And with her, I rolled my eyes as you just can’t make this stuff up. I do my best to keep up-to-the-moment on the influenza front,…

WTHeck…Is the W Sit That Bad for Our Kids?

Oct 30 2018

Virasana. Hero Pose. This is my “yummy” yoga position. And even yummier is Supta Virasana (reclined Hero Pose). At the end of hot yoga, this pose feels like the right amount of stretch. One morning, however, the yumminess was foiled when I realized the similarity between virasana and the W-sit familiar to all parents. I totally lost my zen focus trying to reconcile one of my favorite yoga poses with the W-word. The W-sit is synonymous with bad habit. And I was ready to fill your computer screen with only the evidence to support just that: the W-sit should be…

Oct 03 2018

I’d like to interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post for an important public service announcement. I’ve written over time about the importance of the influenza vaccine and the myths surrounding it. Today, I’d like to share more of the latter. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard new rationale against getting the “flu shot” and it’s been a good reminder that one will never hear it all: I’m not getting the flu shot because I heard a woman got pregnant after she got it. You can’t say I didn’t warn you. And it gets even better: a boy in my son’s…

Sep 18 2018

He’s moody. He’s all arms and legs. His voice cracks uncontrollably. He eats like there’s no tomorrow. And then tomorrow, he eats the same way. He doesn’t understand why he is sad. He alternately hates you and and needs to snuggle with you. Sound familiar? A pubertal boy drowns in a cesspool of changing emotions, feels self-conscious about his raging acne, and takes naps like he did when he was an infant. (Not to mention he is nervous and confused about the changes in his body.) And that’s the tip of the iceberg. The process is hard…

Category - Kids’ Health

Gratitude: a Stone’s Throw From Disappointment

How to Give Your Immunity a Boost

Change is in the Air: Breathe it Deeply

Combating Coronavirus with Kindness

Spring Break on Corona(virus): Party or Stay Home?

Coronavirus (Covid-19): the Silver Lining

Can Vitamin D Prevent Influenza?

WTHeck…Is the W Sit That Bad for Our Kids?

The Influenza Vaccine: You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

We Will All Be OK: a Teenage Boy Going Through Puberty