Girl dies from peanut: can your child’s school handle emergencies?
The sad story of a seven year-old girl who was unwittingly given a peanut by a classmate in Virginia and later died from an allergic reaction has brought attention to the issues surrounding food allergies and medical treatment at schools. The school legally couldn’t give any medication that wasn’t supplied by the parent.
What are the regulations at your child’s school around food allergies? Do they have an EpiPen on hand, and can they use it without written permission?
How does your child’s school handle birthdays? Bake sales?
My children know the strict “no sharing food” policy at school. I drill it into them. But is there any real way to know that every child is following that rule? How do you deal with this??
UPDATE: Feb. Sensory Friendly Film is Journey 2: Mysterious Island
Once a month, AMC Entertainment (AMC) and the Autism Society have teamed up to bring families affected by autism and other disabilities ”Sensory Friendly Movie Screenings“ – a special opportunity to enjoy their favorite “family-friendly” films in a safe and accepting environment.
The movie auditoriums will have their lights turned up and the sound turned down. Families will be able to bring in snacks to match their child’s dietary needs (i.e. gluten-free, casein-free, etc.), there are no advertisements or previews before the movie and it’s totally acceptable to get up and dance, walk, shout, talk to each other…and even sing – in other words, AMC’s “Silence is Golden®” policy will not be enforced during movie screenings unless the safety of the audience is questioned.
Does it make a difference? Absolutely! “It can be challenging enough to bring a child to a movie theater” says Special Needs Parenting Expert Rosie Reeves “they are dark, the sound is very loud, there are tempting stairs and rails and they are expected to sit still and stay quiet”. For a parent with a special needs child attempting an outing like this may seem overwhelming. And yet getting out, being with the community and sharing in an experience with an audience can be invaluable for just such children”.
On January 7th at 10am local time, Journey 2: the Mysterious Island will be screened as part of the Autism Society “Sensory Friendly Movie Screenings” program. Tickets are $4 to $6 depending on the location. To find a theatre near you, here is a list of AMC theatres nationwide participating in this fabulous program.
Coming March 10: Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax
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Editor’s note: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America. As always, please check the IMDB Parent’s Guide for a more detailed description of this film to determine if it is right for you and your child.
Parents Too Plugged In? That’s What Our Kids Say
“She’s always on her blackberry. It’s soooo annoying!”
“I hate it when he’s talking on his cell. It makes me feel sad.”
“I put a timer on the computer. When it goes off, it’s time to play with me.”
Sound familiar? After all, we do seem be complaining a lot these days about our kids’ online behavior. Except these complaints were issued by children! Yep, the kids.
Those were actual statements uttered by a group of four to seven year olds all fed up that their parents were always chatting, texting, or clicking away. And the kids sure had their reasons:
Each chat, text, or click, they said, meant less time for “Mom and me.”
Each chat, text, or click also made the kids feel like they didn’t matter to their parents. “She likes her Blackberry more than me.”
Ouch!
NBC correspondent, Kate Snow interviewed the children as part of a Dateline special entitled, “The Perils of Parenting.” I was the parenting expert in another room with the parents who watched and listened to their kids’ comments. Hidden cameras and a crew captured everything on tape. (That special aired Monday, Sept. 13, 2011).
If you’re surprised by how the kids responded, imagine their parents’ reactions. “Shocked,” “Sad,” “Guilty,” were their most frequently voiced terms.
“I had no idea it bothered my child so much,” parents told me again and again.
Though parents may be amazed by their kids’ responses, most child experts are not.
For five years Sherry Turkle, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Initiative on Technology and Self, has been analyzing how parental technology use affects kids. Her research found widespread feelings of kid hurt, jealousy, and competition – almost the exact comments the children shared on Dateline.
But the real hidden danger is that each minute we connect electronically means less face-to-face time with our kids.
Though there is no guarantee, fifty years of solid research shows that the best way to reduce risky behaviors and raise emotionally healthy kids is the strength of the parent-child relationship.
So what do you think your kids would say about your behavior? Don’t be so sure they wouldn’t express similar concerns.
Tips to Help Us Unplug and Engage More with Our Kids
Here are things you can do to make sure a plugged-in lifestyle doesn’t disengage you from your family.
Check Your Online Records to Get a Reality Check
While you may have important business obligations, make sure you’re not plugged in too much to risk crucial family interactions.
There is no rewind or retrieval button when it comes to parenting.
Do an honest assessment of your typical daily online habits.
Start by identifying specific daily times you designate for family interactions (such as your dinner hour or when your child is open to chat).
Next, check your cell phone, text, and tweet logs during those times, and add up the minutes.
How are you doing? The key, of course, is to find the balance that works for your family, and then stick to it.
Ask the Kids
Have a courageous conversation as a family. Ask flat out: “Am I too plugged in?” (And be prepared for their honest answer). Also ask questions such as: “How will you let me know you want my attention? How can we start unplugging and connecting more?” And then engage and empower the kiddos: “What suggestions do you have so we’re more unplugged?” (After all, this is the Net Generation. We might as well use their expertise. Research says the typical eight to seventeen year old is plugged in 7 and a half hours a day!)
Use Voice Mail and Alarm Features
While there are clear advantages to social networking, don’t let the ease of an online connection steal precious minutes from your family interactions. Identify those key “family moment times.” Then turn on your cell’s voice mail features. Set the alarm on your computer that alerts you as to your online length. Set features to “plug you out” at designated times.
Create “Sacred Unplugged Times”
Kids say that family meals, school activities, sporting events, and after school (pick up and welcoming connectors) are when they’re most bothered by their parents’ networking behaviors. Identify your own family’s “sacred times,” announce them to your family, post them, and then preserve them. Unplug!
Tune into Silent Signals
Kids usually don’t give flat-out requests asking us to put down our Blackberries or close those laptops, but their behavior can indicate silent wishes. Each child has a unique way of letting you know they wish you’d plug into them more, so identify your child’s signals, tune in and then plug in.
Attention getters: Acting out, ansty, clowning
Proximity: Moves in closer to you; grabs or pulls on you
Sulking: Pouting or turning inward
Annoying: Grabs your blackberry, throws something, unplugs you.
Hint: When we asked kids how do you know your parent is listening to you? The answer was always: “She looks at me eye to eye.” “He puts down what he’s doing?” “He tunes into me and not his dumb iPhone.”
Don’t Text and Drive!
If you caught the Dateline special you would have seen one very frightening segment: teens who were texting, driving and crashing – again and again. The real kicker was when teens were asked the million-dollar question: “Where did you get the idea it was okay to text and drive?” Their answer: “My parents do it all the time!” Research also verifies what teens say. We are texting and driving more than our kids, and it is sending them a potentially deadly message that it’s okay to do so. So do not text and drive. Show your teens how you turn off your cell and put it in your glove compartment the minute you get into your car – just as you expect them to do. If you absolutely must answer your cell, pull over to the side of the road and then – and only then – answer. Your kids say they are watching – and they don’t like what they see! Do you blame them?
Don’t get me wrong. There are clear advantages to Blackberries, computers, Facebook, twitter, and social networking including the biggest one: being able to spend more time with our families.
Let’s just make sure that we plug into our kids more than our Blackberries. Push the pause button every once in a while and check your online behavior. Remember, there is no rewind button when it comes to regaining family life.
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Dr Borba’s book The Big Book of Parenting Solutions: 101 Answers to Your Everyday Challenges and Wildest Worries, is one of the most comprehensive parenting book for kids 3 to 13. This down-to-earth guide offers advice for dealing with children’s difficult behavior and hot button issues including biting, tantrums, cheating, bad friends, inappropriate clothing, sex, drugs, peer pressure and much more. Each of the 101 challenging parenting issues includes specific step-by-step solutions and practical advice that is age appropriate based on the latest research . The Big Book of Parenting Solutions has been released and is now available at amazon.com.
What Parenting Style Works Best For You…and Your Child?
For decades, pop psych has embraced the premise that there are three basic 
parenting styles: authoritarian (“Follow my rules because I say so!”), permissive (“OK, you can stay up to 11 p.m., but you’re going to be really tired tomorrow!”), and last but not least, authoritative (“I know other kids are doing it, but we think it’s too dangerous, so no, you can’t.”). It’s that approach — a combination of no-nonsense limit-setting with understanding and concern — which experts say is ideal. (A fourth parenting style, uninvolved, is for parents who check out entirely.)
“Authoritative parents certainly make demands, but they also take time to listen to their kids, empathize with how they might feel and explain why they think their decisions are best for them in the long run,” says Michele Borba, Ed.D., author of The Big Book of Parenting Solutions. This kind of parenting style produces the most emotionally healthy children, she adds.
Not sure where you fit in? Check out these scenarios:
Scenario No. 1
You find out your child, who’s not allowed on Facebook and is under the age-13 limit anyway, has been checking it out at her friend’s house.
- Authoritarian “You not only broke my rules, you broke Facebook’s rule. I am taking away your computer privileges for two weeks, and you won’t be allowed at Sara’s house until I speak with her mother.”
- Permissive “I’m really disappointed you went behind my back. But I guess you must be very curious about this stuff so why don’t we open an account together?”
- Authoritative “I’m not happy that you broke the rules. Were you tempted because it seems like everyone else is Facebooking? Let me explain again why I don’t think it’s appropriate or safe for you right now. And if you do break the rules again, you will lose your computer privileges.”
Scenario No. 2
Your 8-year-old wants you to move his bedtime from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.
- Authoritarian “Sorry, but you need eight hours of shut-eye. Period. Now let’s go read a story before bed.”
- Permissive “Just because your friend Joey is allowed to go to bed at 9 doesn’t mean you should. I tell you what, though: Let’s compromise and make it 8:30. Does that work for you?”
- Authoritative “I know it must drive you nuts that Joey gets to go to bed at 9, but you need your sleep to have enough energy and focus for school. What is it that you want to do with the extra time you’re awake?
Scenario No. 3
You ask your 11-year-old to empty the dishwasher. An hour later, he’s still playing his guitar … and the dishwasher is still full.
- Authoritarian “This is the third time this week you’ve ignored my requests! You can forget allowance for this week, and we’ll have to see what happens next week.”
- Permissive “Hey, didn’t you hear me? I asked you three times to empty the dishwasher. I took care of it, but can you please take the garbage out after dinner?”
- Authoritative “I know how much you love guitar. And I’m thrilled to see you’re practicing. But I’m going nuts downstairs getting dinner on the table so we can all eat before midnight. To do that, I need your help. That means if I ask you to empty the dishwasher, you need to do it.”
Authoritarian parents aren’t meanies, and permissive parents aren’t pushovers. But the middle ground, experts agree, works best for kids.
“Children raised by authoritative parents grow up feeling that they are heard, that they are worthy of having rules explained to them,” says Dr. Laura Markham, a clinical psychologist and editor of the Web site Aha Parenting. “They understand and ultimately appreciate their parents’ limits and demands because they believe their parents are on their side.”
Preparing Our Kids for Global Digital Citizenship Success
We’ve all heard how our world is getting smaller – how our digital connectivity is conquering distance and outpacing time. But how does this closeness shape the way we interact with each other? More importantly, how does it affect our youth?
This is the reality: The way young people socialize online deeply affects the relationships they have with themselves and the people around them. We have to acknowledge that our kids meet and connect emotionally through their digital devices. They cultivate relationships through a number of virtual world connections – by joining social networks and receiving status updates; building lists of friends and groups; and receiving IMs, texts and video messages.
After hearing countless news stories about identity theft, sexting and cyberbullying, we’ve made the frightening discovery that sometimes wires and signals can separate actions from consequences. And we’ve seen our children’s misguided belief in anonymity slink in easy as pie and place their security, reputations and lives at risk.
But things are changing. Media literacy and global digital citizenship are quickly becoming the key issues in education and law enforcement. Dialogue surrounding the consumption and production of information across connected technologies is growing at a heartwarming rate.
And leaders are working alongside students, using their experience with the Internet, cell phones, MP3 players and gaming devices to create a framework around kids and teens worldwide successfully learning how to be good to each other while engaging in new media activities.
Twenty years ago, good citizenship took place in the microcosm of the classroom and was simply rewarded with a certificate. Today, with its millennial twist, global digital citizenship reaches far beyond the playground fence. Its stewards are enriched with a much deeper understanding of how their actions affect their own lives as well as those of their peers, at home and around the world.
That’s why students must take an active role in identifying and establishing ethical digital use. They need to be involved in the critical thinking and policy creation that affects ultimate change. It’s called buy-in, and these days our savvy students require it if they’ll be expected to have a healthy relationship with technology.
Defining successful global digital citizenship matters to all of us because it profoundly touches our youngest technocrats. Although they are swift enough to sync their social media profiles on their cells, they may not be equipped to handle the overwhelming cyber situations that erupt from uniformed decisions.
We all want to keep our kids safe, but that won’t happen if we create barriers and block device usage. It is only when we empower them to explore their connected world that they will be keyed into the pitfalls and advantages of social navigation across all platforms.
