Posts Tagged ‘Health’

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Schools Should Not Be Hiding Important Information From Parents

January 24, 2013

patch

As a teacher, my job is to work with parents for the benefit of the child. That is why I am very uncomfortable with the idea of hiding information from them. The practice of nurses giving out nicotine patches to smoking students without notifying parents constitutes a breach of trust. It is not our place to be giving out nicotine patches or condoms or anything of that sort. That’s chiefly the responsibility of parents. To be doing this without their knowledge and expressed permission goes against the objectives of our role and constitutes a clear breach of trust:

Children as young as 12 are being handed nicotine patches by NHS nurses at school without permission from their parents.

The patches are being distributed by nurses employed by NHS South West Essex who visit schools every fortnight and speak to the children confidentially.

NHS guidelines say children as young as 12 can access nicotine patches from chemists and GPs throughout the country, but it’s up to each primary care trust what services they offer.

Parents at one school in Basildon, Essex voiced concerns that parents weren’t being told about the service.

Danielle Northcott, 39, whose 13-year-old daughter Amaris is a pupil at Basildon with Woodlands School in Takely End, Essex, where patches are distributed, said: “Woodlands is a good school and even though I didn’t know the nicotine patches were available I would rather her have that than a cigarette in her mouth.

“As parents I do think we should have been consulted on it and the school should have been clear about it.

“Some parents will not agree with the meetings between the child and the nurse being confidential and it will divide opinion. The only thing that worries me is that the patches will become a status symbol and children could want them just to look cool in front of their friends.”

Click on the link to read The ‘Meanest Mother’ Isn’t Mean at All (Photo)

Click on the link to read The Most Popular Lies that Parents Tell their Children

Click on the link to read The Innocence of Youth

Click on the link to read Kid’s Cute Note to the Tooth Fairy

Click on the link to read A Joke at the Expense of Your Own Child

 

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Posted in Parenting | Leave a Comment »

Self-Esteem Crisis Even More Serious than the Obesity Crisis

December 9, 2012

esteem

 

The focus on our obesity issues are becoming less interested in helping develop a healthier and fitter society and instead seem slanted towards shaming and belittling people who are struggling because of their weight issues.

This issue will not be properly addressed through stigmas and assumptions.

This shocking story is a case in point:

After a nice meal out, you might expect the check to hurt your wallet.

But you don’t expect it to hurt your feelings.

However, that’s exactly what happened to three California women on Thursday night, when their receipt came with the words ‘Fat Girls’ written across the top.

Christine Duran, Christina Huerta and Isabel Robles were having a good time at the Cameo Club Casino restaurant in Stockton but when they asked for the check they couldn’t believe their eyes.

‘I got the bill, and I was like, why does the receipt say, “fat girls?”‘ Duran told News 10.

She said her pals thought she was joking at first.

‘I was laughing at her, and she was like, “I’m serious.” I’m like, “No, it does not say fat girls, let me see it,”‘ Huerta said.

Duran showed the receipt to her friends who finally believed her.

‘I’m looking at it. I was like, “Oh, heck no,”‘ Robles said.

The ladies quizzed their waiter when he returned to their table but he denied any involvement.

He said that Jeff, whose name was on the receipt, must have typed the offensive slur into the computer as he was taking their order. But he said Jeff had gone for the night.

The three women, upset and outraged, demanded to see a manager.

‘He had a smirk on his face, like it was funny, but he was trying not to laugh,’ Huerta said, describing the manager.

The manager told the women he was sorry for what happened and offered to discount their bill by 25 per cent. But the ladies were unimpressed by the offer.

‘He was like, “Well, I can do 50 per cent,” and we were just like, “Are you serious?”‘ Huerta said.

bill

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Never Mistake Compassion with the Threat of a Lawsuit

October 19, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FgVoudNiT8

 

This decision has nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with protecting the school. Schools should embrace students with challenges, conditions and allergies not isolate or neglect them:

Colman Chadam, an 11-year-old California boy, has been ordered to transfer from his current school to another one miles away because of his genetic makeup. Now, his parents are taking the issue to court.

Colman carries the genetic mutations for cystic fibrosis, a noncontagious but incurable and life-threatening disease. Despite the gene’s presence, the Jordan Middle School student in Palo Alto doesn’t actually have the disease and doesn’t exhibit the typical symptoms of thick mucus that can clog and infect the lungs.

Cystic fibrosis is inherited from both parents and while not contagious, can pose a threat if two people with the disease are in close contact. In an effort to protect other students at the school who do have the disease, officials declared that Colman would have to transfer out to prevent cross contamination.

“I was sad but at the same time I was mad because I understood that I hadn’t done anything wrong,” Colman told TODAY. “It feels like I’m being bullied in a way that is not right.“

Colman’s parents argue that their son’s doctor has confirmed that the boy doesn’t have the disease, and therefore isn’t a risk to other students. They disclosed his condition on a medical form for the school at the beginning of the year as a precautionary measure, but never expected their son to be barred from the school, as his genetic makeup had not been an issue in the past at other schools with students who have cystic fibrosis.

“They made this decision without seeing one medical record on my son,” mother Jennifer Chadam told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Honestly if I felt Colman was a risk to others, I would move him. I don’t want anyone to get sick.”

Palo Alto Associate Superintendent Charles Young told NBC News that officials made the request to move Colman based on consultations with medical experts who said a transfer would be the “zero risk option.”

While the district’s attorney Lenore Silverman told the Chronicle that school officials are “not willing to risk a potentially life-threatening illness among kids,” Dr. Dennis Nielson says a child is “at absolutely no risk to the children that have classic cystic fibrosis” if he or she has a normal sweat test — which is the case for Colman. Nielson is the University of California, San Francisco’s chief of pediatric pulmonary medicine and head of its Cystic Fibrosis Clinic.

 

Click on the link to read Mum Taken to Court for Letting Son Miss School to Attend Her Wedding

Click on the link to read Truant Teachers

Click on the link to read How Do They Come Up With These Ideas?

Click on the link to read Potty Training at a Restaurant Table!

Click on the link to read Mother Shaves Numbers Into Quadruplets Heads So People Can Tell Them Apart

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Posted in School Rules | Leave a Comment »

Getting Kids to Eat Healthy Food

September 18, 2012

Amber Dusick uses cartoon illustrations to provide us with a strategy that uses reverse psychology to get kids to eat healthy foods.

Click on the link to read my post on A Long School Day With No Time to Eat

Click on the link to read my post on 6 Strategies for Promoting Healthy Food to Kids.

Click on the link to read 5 Ways to Get Kids Active

Click on the link to read Food Giants Marketing Unhealthy Kids Foods as Healthy

Click on the link to read Good Heavens! It’s the Lunch Box Police!

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Kids Deserve Some Credit for their Dietry Choices

September 5, 2012

 

There is a misnomer that children today eat worse today than than ever before. This is not my experience.

For starters, in my day it was unheard of for children to be drinking water of their own volition. It was always juice or soft drink. Water was for post sport hydration only. Children today happily drink water. My students are forever filling up their drink bottles. In my day drink bottles were for fitting on your bicycles for long rides in the summer time.

I only seldomly ate vegetables on their own. My vegies needed to be cooked, flavoured and magically reinvented before I would eat them. The thought of opening my lunch box and finding a container full of celery sticks was not something I wished to contemplate. Children today are only too happy to snack on carrot sticks and apple pieces. If you put a fruit and vegetable tray in front of 10-years-olds, you’d better have another tray in reserve. They would finish the contents in no time.

The key difference between then and know is exercise. I played on the street with my neighbours after school. My parents didn’t need to supervise. In those days kids were allowed to play outside without it being seen as dangerous or an example of poor parenting.

School cafeteria regulations and lunch policies can be extremely inflexible on our children. Sometimes I look at the example of our generation and wonder if we are not a bunch of hypocrites. Whilst teachers and office workers leave the premises to get a fast food option for lunch, children are left to eat food our generation would of refused to eat.

Whilst our kids are making the progress, many of us continue to indulge. Take this silly article for example:

Could you consume a giant burger comprising three beef patties, six bacon rashers, six slices of cheese and pulled pork in just 10 minutes?

This is exactly what one restaurant in London is challenging its diners to do.

At eight inches high, this gigantic burger is a real contender for the title of the UK’s tallest burger.

Weighing in with a gut-busting 3,000 calories – more than an entire daily intake of calories for a man – the burger is being sold as part of an eating challenge at the at the Red Dog Saloon in Hoxton.

To take part in the challenge, contestants in the Devastator Burge Challenge must eat the entire burger, with accompanying fries and milkshake in under ten minutes.

Those who manage to defeat the burger earn their photo on the wall of fame behind the restaurant’s bar area.

Not surprisingly, the challenge has taken down many of those who dare to take it on – just 5 per cent of people who attempted it have succeeded. Incredibly, one challenger managed to complete the entire meal in just six minutes.

There is no doubt that our children could improve their diet choices and become a lot more active. But considering the role-models we have out there, our kids are doing far better than the media has us believe.

Click on the link to read my post on A Long School Day With No Time to Eat

Click on the link to read my post on 6 Strategies for Promoting Healthy Food to Kids.

Click on the link to read 5 Ways to Get Kids Active

Click on the link to read Food Giants Marketing Unhealthy Kids Foods as Healthy

Click on the link to read Good Heavens! It’s the Lunch Box Police!

 

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Is There Any Student Left Without a Disorder?

August 19, 2012

There used to be a stigma attached to those students diagnosed with a disorder. Soon the stigma will be reserved only for those yet to be labeled with one.

It is quite disappointing that it has come down to this. Instead of treating naughty behaviour as naughty behaviour, disrespect as disrespect and anger as …. you guessed it – anger, every socially unacceptable emotion must be aligned with a disorder.

NAUGHTY kids are turning up to school with notes from doctors who have given their unruly behaviour a medical name – oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).

And children who lash out at teachers or students have also been diagnosed with a condition termed intermittent explosive disorder (IED).

Psychologists are diagnosing ODD – characterised by persistent anti-authoritarian behaviour – at a greater rate than autism.

Child psychologist Lisa Good said the condition was real and created a lot of stress for parents, who couldn’t understand why their child was mucking up.

Ms Good, from the Psych Professionals in Brisbane, said she had diagnosed more children with ODD and conduct disorders over the past two years than autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or anxiety.

“It is a lot more common. I would say it was the majority of my appointments this year,” Ms Good said.

Teachers don’t know how to handle the aggressive students and governments do not recognise ODD for special classroom funding.

Queensland Teachers Union president Kevin Bates said schools were having a hard time dealing with the rise in behaviour disorders.

“It has become an extremely significant problem, that’s having severe effects on our schools now,” Mr Bates said.

“The sorts of things people think are just naughty kids now have a medical diagnosis.

“As (doctors) identify more and more disorders, (parents) expect the system will have a special response.”

Mr Bates said unlike with autism, the Government offered no extra help to deal with ODD students, and often they ended up being suspended or excluded.

So let’s take stock: There’s ODD, ADD, ADHD, IED and ASD.

What they really need to establish is OWMEAD – the Obsession with Making Everything a Disorder!

Click here to read my post, Who Needs Quality Teaching or Parenting When You Have Medications?

Click here to read my post, Get Your Kids on Ritalin Before Their Grades Suffer

Click here to read my post, It is Doctors Not Teachers Who Are Helping Children Get Good Grades

Click here to read my post, Doctors Create a New Normal by Over-Prescribing Drugs

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Posted in ADHD | 7 Comments »

Popcorn Linked With Alheimer’s

August 9, 2012

Looks like the calories in movie popcorn isn’t the only reason to consider passing on the traditional cinema treat:

Movie popcorn has often been criticized for its high calorie count, but now the tasty treat may harm more than just your waistline.

A recent study has found that diacetyl, an ingredient in popcorn responsible for its buttery flavor and smell, may be linked to Alzheimer’s disease, UPI.com reported.

The scientists said they focused on the substance, because it has already been associated with respiratory and other health issues in workers at microwave popcorn and food-flavoring factories.  According to UPI.com, diacetyl is used in other products such as margarines, snacks and candies, baked goods and in some beers and chardonnay wine.

Click on the link to read The School Campaign Against Milk

Click on the link to read Teachers Should Stop Blaming Parents and Start Acting

Click on the link to read The Benefits of Reality TV on Kids

Click on the link to read Study Reveals Children Aren’t Selfish After All

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Misplaced Lego is Often Found in the Strangest Places

August 7, 2012

Cleaning up after a Lego session can be an intricate task. Often there will be a piece or two hiding somewhere you least expect. But one place I haven’t looked for Lego is in a child’s nose:

Isaak Lasson can finally breathe easy after three years of sinus problems.

The cause? A single wheel-shaped Lego piece that he got stuck up his nose back when he was 3.

At least that’s what his dad, Craig Lasson, said he thinks. His son started having a hard time breathing back then.

“I felt so bad,” the father told KSL-TV. Isaak “was sleeping with his mouth open, trying to breathe.”

Numerous doctors looked at isaak’s nose and prescribed antibiotics.

But last week, a new doctor noticed that Isaak seemed to have something foreign stuck up his schnozz and asked what it might be.

“I put some spaghetti up there, but that was a long time ago,” Isaak told the doctor, according to KTLA-TV.

But it wasn’t pasta that was up Isaak’s nose, just a ball of fungus encasing a Lego wheel.

“We think he bent it in half — it’s pretty flexible — and that it opened up once it got into his sinuses,” Isaak’s father told reporters.

Although Craig Lasson momentarily worried he was a bad parent for needing three years to figure out the Lego problem plaguing his son’s sinuses, he said he is happy that Isaak is eating and sleeping better than he has in years.

Click on the link to read The School Campaign Against Milk

Click on the link to read Teachers Should Stop Blaming Parents and Start Acting

Click on the link to read The Benefits of Reality TV on Kids

Click on the link to read Study Reveals Children Aren’t Selfish After All

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The School Campaign Against Milk

July 27, 2012

How did milk suddenly become public enemy number 1?

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national vegan and physician group based out of D.C., has filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Agriculture asking for milk to be banned from school lunches, according parenting site BabyCenter.

According to the report, PCRM claims that the beverage is “…high in sugar, high in fat and high in animal protein that is harmful to, rather than protective of, bone health.”

Despite the American Heart Association’s recommendation that children between ages 1 and 8 drink around two cups of reduced-fat milk a day, the PCRM asserts in its petition there are better ways for youngsters to get their calcium.

“Children can get the calcium they need from beans, green leafy vegetables (e.g., broccoli, kale, collard greens), tofu products, breads and cereals. Additionally, a wide variety of non-dairy, calcium-fortified beverages is available today including soy milk, rice milk and fruit juice, all of which provide greater health and nutritional benefits compared with dairy milk.”

Click on the link to read Teachers Should Stop Blaming Parents and Start Acting

Click on the link to read The Benefits of Reality TV on Kids

Click on the link to read Study Reveals Children Aren’t Selfish After All

 

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Posted in Child Development | 2 Comments »

Should This Movie Be R Rated?

July 23, 2012

According to a new recommendation, films that feature smoking should receive an R rating. That would therefore deem the movie above, Lassie (1994), an R rated movie. It features teenagers smoking in a non-glorified way.

Whilst I agree that the film industry should be pressured to resist glorified presentations of smoking in family films, it is important that we don’t go overboard. After all, our children will see smoking frequently, if not at home, then in the street, shops, sporting events and restaurants.

Or will those activities get an R classification as well?

A recent study published in “Pediatrics” entitled “Influence of Motion Picture Rating on Adolescent Response to Movie Smoking,” explained how adolescents are affected by smoking in movies. The findings indicate those teens that watch movies featuring smoking are more likely to try cigarettes. The study goes onto demonstrate what steps can be taken by society to prevent this. But the health conscious study misses the point of raising a child.

The conclusion of the study states: “An R rating for movie smoking could substantially reduce adolescent smoking by eliminating smoking from PG-13 movies.”

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Posted in Child Welfare | Leave a Comment »

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