Parenting

Plant It, and Kids Will Eat!

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girl with plantIn Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy wrote “Spring is the time of plans and projects.” Plans and projects are those things that keep children out of trouble, or at least involve them in safer, more manageable trouble.

What could be better than digging in the dirt and playing in a spray of water on a hot summer day? What more creative than an adventure in the wilds of your back yard? Add in sunshine, fresh air and exercise, and planting a garden becomes the springtime activity of choice.

One of the best ways to coax kids into eating what is good for them is to involve them in its preparation. They are far more likely to eat the lunch they prepared with their own two hands than one you slaved over. If they help you peel and cut up carrots for dinner they will try them, and brag about their contribution while chewing.

Extend this a bit and you reap the miracle of children eating their vegetables because they grew them in their very own garden. They planted the seeds, watched over them, watered them, and cared for them. They will proudly eat the fruits of their labor and proclaim their tastiness.

Children need a variety of vitamins and minerals in order to function and grow, and the best place to get those nutrients, along with carbs for energy and fiber for bowel function, is in fruits and vegetables. Some, like beans and peas, are even excellent sources of protein. Many of them can be grown in small plots or in containers on a porch.

Carrots can be grown easily from seeds bought in your local garden store, and are very high in Vitamin A. Vitamin A helps with eyesight, especially night vision, which is why your mom always told you to eat lots. Watermelon, peas, peppers, beans, and tomatoes also have bunches of Vitamin A.

Tomatoes, peppers, and beans are high in B complex vitamins. B vitamins like riboflavin, niacin, thiamine and folic acid are tiny machines that allow your body to function. They help with everything from making blood cells, to generating energy from carbohydrates, to scavenging free radicles and protecting you from cancer.

Strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries are high in Vitamin C, which is necessary for collagen synthesis and wound healing and is an effective antioxidant. Without Vitamin C, people get scurvy.

Minerals are also easily come by on the plant side of your plate.

Calcium to build strong bones can be found in beans. Potatoes, beans, corn, and mushrooms are high in iron, which helps carry oxygen around your body. Potassium, necessary for muscle contraction and to maintain your heart rhythm, is present in potatoes, berries, peas, beans, and peppers. Essential minerals like magnesium, phosphorus, copper, and zinc are all available in fruits and vegatables.

I’ve never seen a child turn down a pea fresh from the pod, or a strawberry plucked from the plant. Find a plant catalogue, pour through it with your child, pay attention to what will grow in your area and how much room the plants need to grow, and choose. Consider what you have room for: will these be container plants on the porch, or can you spare a patch of yard? Do you have space for a tree, or are we looking at a mushroom kit in the closet?

Some of my favorite kid friendly plants are peas, beans, peppers, tomatoes, and the ever popular carrot. Melons, pumpkins, and cucumbers are great if you have a little more room. Berries come in all sizes, from tiny strawberry plants fit for containers with pockets down the side, to raspberry vines best grown on trellises, to fat thorny blackberry bushes. Tires can be stacked up and filled with dirt in a tower as potato plants grow, then harvested by taking off one tire at a time.

Growing a few plants allows you to spend time with your children, get some exercise, and build some vitamin D of your own from all that sunshine. Have a conversation about science and nutrition while you are digging in the dirt. Money can be earned and financial lessons taught by naming the watering and weeding of those plants “chores.” Other lessons can be taught without any conversation: responsibility for life, the fruitfulness of hard work, and pride of accomplishment. Don’t miss this opportunity for spring plans and projects!

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What Happens When It’s Homework Time?

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CinemaUsher-01There are more than 2000 school days in your child’s life, most of which will end with homework. Over time that means you need to inspire your children to do about 4000 hours of schoolwork at home, when video games are calling their names. Yipes.

How can you get that mountain of homework done with less argument and frustration? There are tricks.

The first trick is to establish the habit of homework long before they actually have any. When they are little, assign time in the evening when the TV is turned off, activities are done, and you as a family can sit and read, build things, or play games that involve a little brain work. Do this during the two hours before bed and the kids will also sleep better. A win-win!

Why do we need homework?

Consider the goal of homework: what do we want our child to gain from doing it? Of course, we want them to learn the material. More importantly, we want them to learn how to learn, and to love doing it. We want to furnish them with skills that will prove useful in real life. If homework can teach your children to examine facts, explore knowledge, organize and take personal responsibility for their work, and manage their time efficiently – what might he or she accomplish in life? These are the very skills that form a foundation for success.

Where?

Choose a place. There is no “right” place. If your child does better in a quiet environment, a desk in his room would work well. If he or she needs a little supervision, the kitchen table might work better. Wherever you choose, turn off the TV, videogame, and cell phone (quiet music is usually fine, and sometimes can even help children concentrate). Make sure they are comfortable and the lighting is good. Have the supplies they need – pencils, paper, calendar, dictionary? – nearby. Get rid of any distractions.

When?

Pick a time. Again, there is no “right” time. Some kids will do better right after school; some will need to blow off steam and may do better after dinner. Choose the time that works best for your individual children, involving them in the decision. Then make this schedule a routine, because children’s brains accommodate habits well. People don’t argue over something they have done every day for years; they argue endlessly over change and unpredictability.

Give your children a warning a few minutes before their free time is ending, so they can finish whatever they are doing before your drag them away.

Keep your expectations appropriate for your child’s age. As a general rule of thumb a child should have about 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Children in elementary school will need help organizing their work and staying on task; teenagers should be able to do their work without supervision. Somewhere in middle school they learn to take responsibility. Hopefully.

Start the hardest subjects first; position assignments which require memorization (spelling, math?) early and repeat after breaks.

Since you as parents won’t always be around to supervise, let your teenager fail in high school when they make poor choices. Summer school is cheaper and immensely less life altering than flunking out of college; repeating algebra is torture, but less traumatic than loosing a job. To paraphrase: give a child an organized notebook, and he will pass one test; teach him how to organize and he will have a skill for all of his life (sorry, couldn’t help myself).

Expect problems; they give you a subject of conversation to share with your child! Approach problems with diplomacy and respect for the person who is your child. Label the problem: “You get distracted by your cell phone.” Don’t label your child: never “You’re lazy.” Be wiling to compromise with your child to solve the problem. “If you will turn off the cell phone while you do your work, you can have 5 minute breaks between subjects to catch up, call and text.” Agree to the compromise; it is a contract with your progeny. If you need to, write it down and both of you sign it.

Rewrite this contract when the first one flops, until you find an arrangement that enables your child to learn and you to not run screaming from the room.

Allow the child’s input as much as possible. Let him decorate his workspace up to the point where he puts in distractions. Let her decide subject order, as long as it works. Let them choose their break activity, up to a time limit.

Reward success.

We as humans are hard wired to respond better to rewards than to punishment. How long would you go to work if you did not get a paycheck?

Sadly, it is not realistic to expect a better grade to be your child’s only reward. That grade is too far into the distant misty future, over a mountain of hard labor.

Rewards work best if they are small, and given for small increments of good behavior. A hug, a smile and pride in their accomplishment is all they need when they are small. When they are a little bigger, take time to read a book together or play a game. Keep rewards simple, small, and frequent.

Older children also need small, frequent rewards, though probably not as simple. They always have items that they want, but don’t need; these items make great rewards. Study time, completed homework and test grades can all earn them points toward a goal. There is no need for an argument when he or she doesn’t do their work before picking up the phone; they just won’t get that essential point.

They win, because even if they don’t get that A in History, they retain the points toward that skateboard or new game. And Science is coming!

Homework is training for life. Choose the place and time, working with your child to fit it to your family routines, your child’s personality, and his or her age. Endeavor to teach self-discipline, time management and responsibility equally with reading, writing, and arithmetic. Reward success. Keep in mind that the goal is not to learn how to spell that list of words, but rather to inspire a love of learning which will propel your child to succeed, now and into the future.

Trendy Poisons for your Kids

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tidepod-01Kids always seem to find new and interesting ways to hurt themselves, intentionally or accidentally. Poisoning is the #1 or #2 cause of injury death annually, fighting for that honor with car accidents. The annual numbers on poisonings are out (thank you, Annals of Emergency Medicine). The new winners are opioids, laundry detergent packets, bath salts, synthetic cannabinoids, and energy drinks.

Opioids are the traditional first place winner for deadly poisonings, and they are in that spot again this year. 90% of poisoning deaths involve drugs, and opioids are involved almost half the time. Opioids include all of the narcotic painkillers. They are intentionally abused because of the euphoria they induce; they are also accidentally ingested because people keep them laying around the house on countertops and in purses. When taken in high enough doses, the kids who took them forget to breathe; when taken chronically they are addictive.

The new second place finisher is laundry detergent packets. They are a problem because they are more concentrated than traditional laundry detergent, and can cause nausea, vomiting and sedation when taken by mouth, and irritation when put in contact with skin and eyes.

“Bath salts” have been popular since 2010. They are substituted cathinones (stimulants) which cause disorientation, extreme paranoia, and violent behavior. In 2012 there were 994 reported exposures and 16 deaths. They are called bath salts because they resemble Epsom salts, but are also known as plant food, ivory wave, vanilla sky, and bliss.

Synthetic cannabinoids (man made marijuanas) are common now and have an added level of danger above Mother Nature’s version. Kids have anxiety attacks, psychosis (loss of contact with reality), rapid heart rates, and seizures. In 2012 there were 5225 reported exposures and 6 deaths. The kids call this stuff spice, genie, Yucatán fire, or aroma. Drug screens do not pick it up.

Energy drinks are on the upswing, causing about half of the 2.3 million calls to poison control centers in 2012. They cause seizures and heart rhythm abnormalities.

The new kids on the block are the liquid nicotine refills for  e-cigarettes, which come in vials without child resistant closures. One teaspoon is enough to kill a child. Liquid nicotine is unregulated, which means that in 10 states and DC a child can buy it; it can be advertised to children in all but 4 states. In 2014 poison control received 3353 calls for exposure to nicotine products, up from 1543 the prior year. Children can be exposed by inhaling the vapor, by swallowing the liquid, or by absorbing it through their skin. Children experience a racing heartbeat, vomiting, and grunting breaths, before they loose control of the muscles in their upper body and die.

So take a few minutes to clean out your medicine cabinet. Throw out meds you don’t take anymore. Lock up the ones you do take, vapor refills, and laundry detergent packets. Don’t buy energy drinks. Talk to your kids about the risks of  drug use, and learn the language they are using. While you’re at it, lock up the rest of your cleaning products and pesticides as well.

Poison control’s phone number is 1-800-222-1222 in the US; keep it posted on or in every phone. They are excellent in an emergency, and they have more in depth analysis of which age groups are taking what and why on their site, if you are interested.

Be safe. Safe is always better than sorry.

Stuffy and Sneezing? Welcome to Allergy Season!

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wheat-01Allergies happen when your immune defenses overreact to something in the environment. They decide that that molecule of pollen is a dangerous invader and it needs to be killed. Queue the mucus, swelling and itching.

If your child has the tendency to wheeze, queue the airway spasm as well.

If he or she has sensitive skin, also expect an outbreak of dry itchy patches.

If they keep the mucus, swelling and wheezing for a while, they can develop secondary infections like earaches, sinus and pneumonia.

What triggers allergies?

Kids can be allergic to a multitude of things. They can react seasonally to flowers in the spring, to grasses in the summer and fall, or to wood fires and Christmas trees in the winter. Year round allergens include molds, mildews and dust mites (tiny bugs that live in dust and upholstery and feed on flakes of skin). Many children are allergic to pets, especially to cats and birds. They can react to the pet’s feathers, fur, saliva or skin scale. The poisons in cigarettes are common triggers, as are fumes like perfume and pollution. Some kids react to contact with latex or metals like nickel.

How do we prevent an attack?

We can’t cure allergies – all we can do is try to keep them under control. If possible, avoid the allergen. If your child is allergic to cats, don’t buy him or her a kitten. Never smoke in your house or car.

Keep your home, especially your child’s room, free of dust. Unfortunately, this is even harder than it sounds. It means keeping your air conditioner on and buying filters that catch allergens. Cover your child’s mattress and pillow with zip up covers designed to contain dust mites. Don’t use curtains in his or her room, or wash them weekly. Limit stuffed animals to those you can wash in hot water with their bed linens once a week. Vacuum daily (sorry). Dust with a damp cloth.

If your child is allergic to molds, fix any damp areas in your home. Use that bathroom vent – timers work great, and are easy to install. Clear out vegetation close to the house, and discard any dead plant bits.

Medicines

If avoidance is not enough, your munchkin can take an antihistamine as needed. Try to stick with the newer, non-sedating antihistamines: claritin, zyrtec or allegra and their generics. If an exposure is inevitable (“We have to go to Grandma’s and you know she has that cat!”) you can give them an antihistamine about an hour before. If they are going to be exposed to their allergy trigger every day (springtime pollens?), they can take the antihistamine every day, if you buy the non-sedating type. If their allergies are chronic, a daily nose spray can also help prevent the symptoms.

Allergy testing can help to pinpoint what the allergen is, so you know what to avoid or clean up. Knowledge is power. It does no good to find a new home for the cat if the child is only allergic to mold. Poor kitty.

Last, if avoidance and medicine are not enough, your physician will bring up the subject of allergy shots…

Work/Life Balance

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CinemaUsher-01Since Patrick Pichette announced his retirement from Google to spend time with his family, work/life balance seems to be a popular topic of discussion.

So what is the proper work/life balance? Mr. Pichette decided on 30 years of working like a maniac followed by unknown years of maniacal relaxation. Sounds a little familiar to me.

Is there a correct percentage? 50/50? 60/40? Does it change over time, perhaps allowing for more hours of work when one is young and unencumbered, fewer when one has young children at home?

Money matters, because bills have to be paid, so time must be allotted to obtain it. Variables change if you have a partner to share the load.

Do you devote more time to work if you consider your work to be important, or if you like your work? Is some time apportioned to work necessary to teach responsibility to your children?

How do you solve this puzzle? Is it possible to assign a value to each part of your life, start with the things that have the highest value, and throw in as many as will fit until you run out of day? Are your eyes crossing yet?

The currency that you spend for the things that you do is your life. You pay for time with pieces of your life, and the lives of those important to you. Four hours rearranging papers equals four hours of life gone. The same four hours hiking with the kids? Definitely a better cost/benefit ratio.

Unfortunately, if we spend all of our time on our family and friends, somehow arranging the bits and pieces by degree of importance, we risk failing in our responsibilities. Eating by candle light is less romantic when you can’t turn on the lights.

These choices have to include what those you love value as well. You may not want to make mud pies, but if your 3 year old does, and you value her, those mud pies have value for you too.

When you sign up to have a partner and children, you have by unwritten contract agreed to value them. Being a member of a family, a group of friends, and society also demands it’s share of your time. We live in this world and depend upon each other. We need to contribute.

There are not enough hours in each day.

Solving the puzzle

The solution to this puzzle is impossible because we are asking the wrong question. The question is not “What is the optimal work/life balance?” The question is “What can we do so that we do not consider time spent at work the equivalent of death?”

If we are alive at work, we don’t need to squish all the meaningful time in our lives into a few short hours in the evening. If we find work that we love and take pride in, we will be more productive and we can feel fulfilled. Productive, fulfilled people are happier, have more energy, and are better able to deal with expectations at home. They have more to give back. They also usually have more money, because people who love their work will do it better, and money will follow. The balance improves.

There is no omnicient statue holding a scale above our heads to judge how well we spend our time. I am a small town, solo practice pediatrician: I have been on call for 17 years, every day and night. My daughter is a homemaker, currently chasing a two year old while making my granddaughter. That hypercritical statue would put us on opposite ends of a scale, but both lives have equal value. My children and hers both know that they are gems beyond price, and that we would give our lives for theirs. Adding up and checking off the hours spent at home and work is just silly.

Work

We need to find work that is worth spending our lives on. We need to know ourselves, explore what is valuable to us, and relinquish our lives to that. Happiness is possible when our reality aligns with our dreams. If your dream is dedicating your life to service to the exclusion of family, then live that life. If your vision means devoting yourself to your children, then that has equivalent value, because it has the equal cost of one life, true to itself.

Whether we produce food, teach children, work on cars, or get thrown up on for a living (my choice), we need to live at work, because we spend our lives doing it. The question,”What is the right work/life balance?” is meaningless. We live every minute of our lives and need to give consideration to how we do it, not let circumstance blow us in random directions.

What is valuable is different for each life, and for each day in that life. Know why you do the things you do; take that first step toward where you dream of being. Achieve not so much a work/life balance, as a balanced life.

Ashton Fights for Dad’s Rights

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“… and the times, they are a’changin.” Thanks to Ashton!

I love this generation of dads. Imagine dads, decades ago, fighting for the right to change a diaper! It was something we moms used to laugh about, a UFO. Dads would play with their kids (something a rare dad did in my parent’s generation), but when there was a diaper involved we would see them coming, holding the baby a foot in front of them, under the arms as if they were toxic waste.

Dads nowadays are involved in every aspect of their children’s lives, not just the fun ones. They read to their kids, help them with their homework, tuck them into bed at night… It is wonderful to see. What effect will this have on the next generation? Might daughters like themselves better, with dad’s involvement and approval? Might sons follow their dad’s fabulous example?

Society is evolving, and businesses have to evolve with it. I would run out and buy a changing table for my office if I didn’t already have one. It does have little flowers and hearts all over it, though. That doesn’t seem right. Maybe we could design a more manly one? One with rocket ships or race cars? Would that be more sexist, or less?

Yay Ashton!

My God, not Yours!

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kidsfightingIt’s been a bad week for religion in my house. I spent the last four years writing a book on parenting. It is everything I have learned in 30 years as a pediatrician, everything I care about. It is the crib notes on how to raise a happy, confident, brave child who knows he or she is loved and has the self confidence to take on the world. It is my heart and soul, torn out and put on a page.

A relative of mine just told me that she cannot recommend it to anyone, because she has serious reservations about its content. She said that it was without even the most basic, decent principles. She hates this book so much that she cannot bear to even open it and read a single page.

Yep, you heard that right. She never read a single word, but she knows it is terrible, because I do not belong to her religion. I believe differently than she does, therefor I am wrong and she can learn nothing from me.

Religion is like the lunch table in the high school cafeteria. Everyone has a table at which they feel welcomed and at home. This is the best table in the room. This table, at which the football stars (cheerleaders…drama club…goths…science geeks…) sit is the best place to be. My group knows the way things should be, the correct way to do things. They know what really matters, because they believe the same things I believe. They are right, and everybody else is wrong.

We know how this story goes, because most of us have lived it. A person has to be pretty oblivious to overlook the agony of high school.

In order to be in the “in” group, somebody else has to be out. We cannot be “better than” if we do not define someone else as “less than.”

Let’s agree for a moment that all religions are basically the same: perhaps they all preach respect for life, honorable behavior, caring for our fellow man, living in peace (which, oddly, they do…), why then do we join a specific one, when all are equally uplifting? Why then denigrate the others, when we actually agree with their basic philosophy?

It is the fault of our inner two year old. That raging toddler wants to be special, and particularly loved. He wants to sit at the grown-up table. He does not want to be one of the masses, no better or worse than any other toddler.

In order for him to be special, someone else has to be inferior. By pushing someone else down, he can climb up. He can be in the privileged group, the one that has it right.

To maintain this position and keep the group intact, people outside the group have to be different, and wrong. They have to be wrong even though they are saying basically the same things he is.

Like in high school, where everyone else actually wants the same things you do: to survive, to have friends, to learn how to take charge of their own lives – the others have to be wrong so that you know you found the right path. Into the lockers with that geek! Laugh at that football player when he gets the answer wrong! Trip that homely girl! Feel that little boost in your own self esteem!

I, too, have a dream. I dream that we can all respect each other as equal human beings and let go of that need to be special, and better than; that we can deal with our own insecurities without needing to stomp on someone else; that we can perhaps intervene when we see weak, insecure bullies attacking others simply because they are present in greater numbers and they can only see their own path.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could learn from each other and expand our minds and hearts, rather than letting them shrivel into dried up husks of judgement and bigotry? Imagine if, when we met some one of a different culture, religion, or sexual preference, we could say “Interesting! What’s that like?” instead of “You’re going to burn in hell because you don’t enclose yourself in my style of box!”

When that geek (drama fan…athlete…homely girl…atheist…) walks by your table, kick out a chair and invite him or her to sit down. Be a better person instead of just getting your group to tell you you are.

the Pope, and the Smacking of Children

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So, I haPrintd great hopes for this Pope. He was a man of the people, a decent human being, and truly seemed to care and connect with his community. Then he said that birth control would never be allowed by the Catholic church, and followed a few hours later with: This does not mean you have to breed “like rabbits!” Sigh.

Now, he has commented that it’s OK to smack your kids, as long as you don’t humiliate them. Yes, I will admit he was talking about spanking, which seems to be a blind spot, but the only place he outlawed for said smacking was the face, and hitting is hitting.

I am not happy, and when I am not happy I make lists. Below is an even dozen tips on how to discipline kids that, while not ordained by God, is based on common sense and a lot of experience with children:

  1. Don’t hit your children. It is not possible for a big person who is four times the size of a small person to immobilize them and hit them, without frightening and humiliating them. It can’t be done.
  2. Before you discipline, make rules that make sense, and inform your children. You shouldn’t punish them for breaking a rule they didn’t know about.
  3. Decide on the manner of discipline before they break the rule. Never decide on the punishment when you are angry; you will do things you later regret. Involve the children in the decision. “What do you think would be an appropriate punishment if you break this rule?” Kids can come up with some very creative punishments. Don’t listen if they want to be burned at the stake, or shot into outer space.
  4. Be consistent in your discipline. They knew the rule, they broke it, they get the punishment each and every time. Don’t even think of issuing a warning for a rule they already knew. Kids are smart; they will figure out that they can break any rule, once.
  5. Make the discipline appropriate for the crime. If they broke a toy, they loose the toy. Mean to another child? Being made to appoligize is harder than any spanking, and the memory will make them consider before they do it again. Look at porn on the internet? “I guess you get to do your computer homework in the kitchen where we can see you. Dude.”
  6. Make the discipline immediate and short term. None of that “Wait ’til your father gets home!” stuff. If you wait too long, your child will disassociate the punishment from the crime. The same thing is true with punishments that last more than a day or two. Three months of grounding for that, umm, incident, will loose its effectiveness after a while.
  7. Hold out hope for the future. Your child needs to know that you still love him and he may someday get his tablet back. The stick doesn’t work without the carrot in place. “Pick up that mess you made and we can sit and read that book you love!”
  8. Don’t tower over your child when you enforce discipline. Start with the respect any human deserves, get down to their level, look them in the eye, and explain the problem.
  9. Alternatively, don’t allow the discussion to devolve into excuses. Your child needs to take responsibility for his actions, not try to talk his way out of trouble.
  10. Make sure you squeeze in more rewards than punishments. Forever. How long would you go to work if you didn’t get a paycheck? Hug that child when he shares his toys. Play ball with her when she finishes her homework. Be astonished and happy when they clean their rooms. Rewards will always work better than punishments.
  11. Teenagers are, as always, a special case. Their brains are not fully developed yet, and they will not be able to see the consequences of their actions far into the future. They are also not always rational: a teen once asked me if it was true that a girl could not get pregnant if she put a yellow skittle in her vagina when she had sex. They need freedom to make mistakes, but they also need to be protected from mistakes that will kill their futures. Watch them, without blinders. Know where they are and what they are doing. Contracts work: if they know you will come and pick them up anywhere, anytime, and not freak out in front of their friends, your child will call you. You can discuss the consequences with them in the morning.
  12. Again: Never hit your child. Not only is it disrespectful and humiliating, it also simply doesn’t work.

Realize that the goal of discipline is a well adjusted, self confident adult who has a good relationship with his or her spouse and children, and a good reputation at work; the goal is not a well behaved thirteen year old. Have patience and keep the long view. Your child is worth it.

I do have hopes for this Pope, but if you are going to tell people that they need to control their birth rate, it is unkind to outlaw the most reliable ways to do that. It is poor parenting to tell your child to do his homework and then remove all the books, paper and pencils from the house. And perhaps an unmarried man with no children, who has never been faced with the possibility of that 2 AM phone call from the emergency room, is not the man to discuss the intricacies of child discipline.

Kids, Tech and the Social Media

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So, I’ve been thinking. (Never a good thing)

Would you consider signing your children up for an experiment? I would like to change the way they interact with every aspect of their lives, from how they see time, to how they converse with family and friends, to how they learn and envision the world. I would do this by attaching a devise to their bodies that they would have to consult thousands of times a month in order to function in society. Then we would set them loose and see how they turn out in 10 or 15 years. No safety net allowed!

What makes this experiment interesting is that you’ve already signed them up for it.

Kids these days see a clock as a series of minutes clicking by on a digital device, rather than as two sets of twelve hours, with high noon dividing the day in half – a completely different view of the progression of time from what has been traditional.

Teens text an average of 3400 times each and every month, adding both the immediacy of constant contact, and the distance of a fractional interaction, to every relationship. Are all these “friends” really friends? How easy would it be to substitute these relationships for real ones, which would require work, and personal contact? How will this affect them as their lives progress?

Children learn by searching the Internet, rather than by hitting the library. They won’t see the information in the paper pages surrounding the one they searched for, but they will see all the other stuff that pops up with their search words. It is impossible to know how this will shape their store of knowledge and the way they think, but it is undeniable that it will have an affect.

Video games are everywhere and unavoidable. If your image of a female is a comic with huge breasts and torn clothing, how does that affect how you see yourself, if you are a girl? If blowing things up and chopping at people with a sword are every day activities, surely that will desensitize you to violence.

Who knows what new tech will come out next year, or in ten years, and how it will change our world.

Exposure to the Internet and technology is impossible to avoid. Your children live in this generation, and will have to function within its norm.  The young man without the cell phone will not be invited to the party; the young woman who doesn’t understand the slang used by her peers will get an eye roll and be left standing alone. The intern who looks blank when the boss asks him or her to create a spreadsheet to perform a task or analysis, will not be hired.

If you were to decide it was not worth the risks and tried to limit your children’s access to tech, they would find a way. No one wants to be that kid, and the future demands they have the knowledge and ability.

So what sorts or results might this great social experiment yield?

First, a redefinition of privacy.  What was previously clear – behind the closed curtains, of course! – is now murky. Where does our personal space end, and shared space begin? Embarrassing baby photos in an album can be tucked away on a shelf. This generation will have a childhood full of embarrassing pictures logged on Facebook, for anyone to see.  What should be kept private, and how will we manage it? Perhaps people will become more kind, because they too will have bathtub pictures.

Everyone needs down time. Time spent away from work, away from even friends, is essential for our sanity, yet tech can always find us, and invades every inch of our space. We will need new rules to make us inaccessible in this age of texting, webcams and Skype. Perhaps a privacy button, with an automated butler to take a visitors card for delivery later, when one is “in”?

With knowledge available at the touch of a button, will our children be expected to know more? If information about the new guy’s culture can be had with a keystroke, what reason would there be for ignorance? Laziness, or intentional bigotry? There used to be a limit to our “pocket knowledge.” Now the world fits in our pocket. How do our children live up to that?

The world at one time rotated slowly, and generations could go by before any real change happened. Now every minute brings a new change. Will this make our children frightened and insecure? Or will they be more open to change, more engaged in every moment of the time they are given? Further, could they become change junkies, needing new things constantly to stave off boredom?

Where will this stream of new ideas come from? Creative geniuses are the rock stars of the future.  If creativity is valued above graces like beauty or strength, might our children be unleashed to let free their imaginations? Conversely, will the next generation be judged harshly when they lack technical skills, the way prior generations have been condemned for lack of athletic ability or beauty? Or can we learn to accept the beauty of human diversity, since it will be apparent on a screen in the palm of our hand?

In the same way it is hard with our current technology to maintain privacy, so will it be hard to maintain our distance from the rest of humanity. If we want to believe we are somehow different from and better than other humans, we have to do our best to not see and understand them. This is hard to do when a family suffering on the other side of the world can be on your computer screen instantly, and they can join into the stream of consciousness on your twitter feed.

It is impossible to know how technology will change humanity, but it is inevitable that we will be forced to evolve. So dive in.

Participate in your child’s experience with technology, and inspire them to use it to increase their understanding of the world and express their creativity. Show them the risks, and make sure they understand the responsibilities. Then step back and watch, because the Internet and the array of technological advances available now and into the future gives this generation, no matter their circumstances, the tools to understand each other better than any prior generation, and to do any amazing thing they can imagine. It will be an adventure!

How to Prevent Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

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Okay, I tried, but there is just no way to make carbon monoxide interesting. Read it anyway, because it’s good for you: you need to know this stuff. Like eating your vegetables. Every one of us encounters carbon monoxide on an almost daily basis, because it is ubiquitous and sneaky. We need to know where it comes from, how to avoid it, the symptoms it causes, and what to do if we or our children are exposed.

Carbon monoxide (CO: one carbon, one oxygen) is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and initially nonirritating gas produced largely by partial oxygenation of carbon based fuels. Complete oxygenation would produce carbon dioxide (CO2), which we exhale every time we breathe. Plants use that to make us more oxygen.

CO can accumulate in poorly ventilated, enclosed areas. When we breathe in large amounts, the CO binds with the hemoglobin in our blood and forms carboxyhemoglobin. Carboxyhemoglobin circulates through our bloodstreams like the regular stuff, but it does not like to release its oxygen to our brains, hearts, muscles, and organs. We suffocate while still breathing the air around us.

Aristotle, who lived around 300 BC, was the first person to note that coal fumes led to “a heavy head and death.” In ancient times, it was one way criminals were killed: they were locked in a small room with smoldering coals.

It is thought that CO is to blame for some haunted houses: its accumulation can cause hallucinations, disorientation, and delirium.

Oddly, a little CO can be a good thing: it is an anti-inflammatory, encourages growth of nerves and blood vessels, communicates between nerves, and may have some function in long term memory. Very little. Don’t go looking for it.

Statistics on CO poisoning vary significantly with who’s reporting them. It is considered to be the leading cause of poisoning injury and death worldwide. Poison help lines in the US report about 15,000 calls a year, with an estimated 70 deaths. Approximately 40,000 people seek medical care for exposures, and CO accounts for around 15,000 ER visits each year. The CDC estimates more than 500 deaths per year overall in the US, with the largest percentage being in the under 5 age group. More poisonings occur in the winter (gas heaters) and after disasters (generators).

CO is created by burning carbon-based fuels (wood, gasoline, diesel, propane, kerosene, lamp oil), by smoking (tobacco is a carbon based fuel), and by exposure to methylene chloride (degreasers, solvents, paint removers). Don’t smoke (so many reasons), and use degreasers, solvents and paint removers only in well-ventilated areas. Appliances that can produce CO need to be maintained, inspected annually, and well ventilated. Some of the most common ones are:

  • Forced air furnaces
  • Wood stoves/fireplaces (open that flume!)
  • Space heaters (non-electric)
  • Gas water heaters
  • Gas stoves
  • Gas dryers
  • Anything with a pilot light
  • Barbecues, Hibachis
  • Automobiles (never run them in an enclosed space!)
  • Generators
  • Fuel powered tools (if you put gas in it, don’t use it indoors)
  • Boats (don’t use those indoors either)

Symptoms of acute (not chronic) CO poisoning include effects on the brain (dizziness, headache, confusion, lethargy, drowsiness, irritability, irrational behavior), lungs (shortness of breath) and heart (palpitations, paleness). If exposure continues, loss of consciousness and death will follow.

Chronic exposure to lower levels of CO can result in headaches, depression, confusion, memory loss, nausea, and permanent neurologic damage.

Pregnant women, fetuses, and children are especially sensitive. As with most poisonings, children’s small bodies are more sensitive, their higher metabolic rate brings it into their bodies more quickly, and they don’t have the ability to escape.

People with lung, blood, or heart disease, like asthma or anemia, are also more susceptible.

Of note is that CO damage from methylene chloride can last twice as long as that from burning carbon based fuels, because it is stored in our tissues.

Overall, it is a good idea to prevent any exposure to CO. Maintain and inspect those appliances, and make sure they are vented. Open the flume when you have a fire in the winter. Never barbecue or use a hibachi indoors. Throw out the cigarettes, because people who smoke have levels of CO in their blood streams several times higher than non-smokers. Perhaps most important, since you can’t smell this stuff, install CO detectors near every area where people sleep. Many newer fire alarms contain CO detectors, making this even more convenient.

If you are exposed, go outside into clean air. If you are having any symptoms (light-headedness, shortness of breath, seeing ghosts…) seek medical attention. They will give you oxygen and monitor your heart and brain.

Yay! You made it through, even the dreaded chemistry. Not as bad as you thought, right? Knowledge rules!