November 17, 2011

Tips for getting your child to try new foods

As the holiday approaches your children may be introduced to some new foods.  They probably won’t eat them either!  But there are a few things you can do to make it a little easier on you and everyone at the dinner table as you use these tips to teach your child, “Try it, You may like it!”

 

It doesn’t matter if they are a toddler or teen, getting children to try new foods can be difficult. Here are few tips to make “try it — you will like it” a lot more fun than it was in “Green Eggs and Ham”!

Don’t baby them with baby food. Your child will probably show a distinct preference for certain flavors or tastes from a very young age. Instead of “babying” them with the things you know they love, be sure to introduce new flavors and combinations.

Drop the drinks. Cut back on the milks and juices, even if they are the ones that includes vegetables in them, during the day and in between meals. Not only is it bad for their teeth, but it also fills their stomach, often leaving them with no desire to eat the food in front of them.

Continue reading Try it You may like it!

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October 25, 2011

Safety tips about Face Paint

Whether it is face paint for the school play, Halloween or even at a local festival, it is important to know what is safe for our child’s face and skin and what is not.

Read the Label Before You Face Paint

First, know what face paint and make up ingredients are FDA approved. The FDA.gov website can provide you with information oncolor additives that are permitted to be used in face paint and cosmetics, (as well as foods and other products) product safety information, and how to report problems with cosmetics and face paint to the FDA.

Continue reading Safety tips about Face Paint 

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September 21, 2011

Are you going to play today? Family favorites for playing outdoors

Parents are receiving lots of information about childhood obesity and health.  We are learning even more about the foods are children are eating and what they should be eating. But quite possibly one of the most important things parents have been told (or reminded of) is that children need to play, preferably for at least an hour each day.  Many sponsors are helping families make sure they get the recommended 60 minutes of active play including Nickelodeon Television and the Clorox2 Play 2Day Pledge as they offer parents and families ideas and tips for making that hour easily achieved.

Here are a few of the favorite ways; my family loves to play outdoors:

Make life a walk in the park, or in the neighborhood.  With the heat in Houston walks in the park aren’t always a “walk in the park.”  But with cooler weather moving in the whole family including our dog can take a walk and get out and about. My daughters love to take a walk, collect the mail, make sure our dog Jack stays safe and pick up little items of interest along the way like acorns, pine cones and flowers.   Sometimes our adventure includes scooters or bikes, depending on how much time we have to stay and play outside.

Splish splash this isn’t a bath.   One outdoor activity that my children love is a “splash pad.”  Thanks to the warm weather climate where we live some many parks and neighborhoods offer splash pads as a very popular amenity.  Each one may have a different theme from ocean creatures to barns, but one thing that they all have in common is children and families able to beat the heat while playing outside.  Many of them are right next to outdoor play structures, so our children can climb and run, swing and slide then take a few minutes to cool off in the spray of the cool water.

And the winner for outdoor play is . . .  swimming.   Whether it is a backyard in ground or above ground   pool, blow up pool the YMCA, or neighborhood pool our family can be found every week except for a few short winter months swimming with our little mermaids.  Jumping and splashing, beating the heat and sliding down the water slide are just a few things our family enjoys in the pool.  Pool parties with friends, swimming races and outdoor games are all part of having the pool open for the many long months that our warm weather climate offers.  With three girls in the house it is almost like having mermaids as they beg and plead for yet another chance to go swimming whether it is during the sweet summer time, the warm spring or as we fall into Fall.

Wherever we go or whatever we do to enjoy ourselves playing outside, one thing is for sure we need to take our go to bag with us full of sidewalk chalk, sunscreen, sunglasses, beach towels and snacks.  After all it pays to be prepared!

Once we get home, it also pays to be prepared with some excellent pre-treater, laundry detergent and stain removers because a family that spends this much time out and about is bound to come back with a stain or too.

In just a few days we are looking forward to a whole afternoon of outdoor play as we head to the splash pad.  It’s a half day of school next week and we are all looking forward to more than an hour in outdoor play.  It may be hard to do with the winter months coming up, but just to make sure we get our hour a day of play we took the Clorox Play2Day Pledge.   That should help to remind us!

What about you?  Will your family take the Clorox2 Play 2Day Pledge to help you get outside and play?

 

Disclosure

I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Clorox2® blogging program, for a gift card worth $40. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

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September 13, 2011

Kid friendly recipes: easy peach pocket pies

Try this kid friendly recipe in the kitchen with your kids. It looks and tastes like desert but you’ll see that it’s actually a whole grain and fruit smart treat. These easy fruit pocket pies start with soft whole grain bread and are fill with apples or peaches and berries can be added as well.

To create the fruit filling, peel, core and slice peaches or apples and cover with a half cup of water in a quart sauce pan.  Simmer covered for around 20 minutes until tender.  You can also cheat and simmer the apples or peaches in a slow cooker barely covered with water for an hour or more.  Either way, strain liquid and mash with a potato masher.  Now you have your fruit filling for the easy fruit pocket pies.

Four lbs. of fruit will make approximately 4 cups of fruit filling and each using about 6 tablespoons of filling.
Ingredients:

Fruit filling

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons of sugar

12 slices of whole wheat bread

¼ cup vegetable oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spoon fruit filling onto the centers of 6 slices of bread.

Top with second slices of bread and mash the edges with a fork.

Crust can be cut off of the edges.

Lightly brush each side of the pocket with oil.

Place pies on an ungreased baking sheet.

Sprinkle tops with cinnamon.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes until lightly toasted and cool for 30 minutes.

Work and play together as a family. 

While the easy fruit pocket pies are cooking make sure the kids help wash and clean up the kitchen.  While the pies cool enjoy a game of cards or board game.

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September 9, 2011

Food Allergy Symptoms: Does your child have a food allergy?

I recently went on a weekend getaway with seven other moms. While riding in the van to our fun for mom’s destination, we realized that between us we had a total of 25 children. As moms do we talked about everything from potty training to training bras, vegetables to video games. At one point the conversation turned to food allergies. I was surprised that out of eight moms, only one mom in our group had a child with food allergies. A mom of four had a son with more than one food allergy. Her infant daughter was still nursing so the future of food allergies was unknown. I wondered, just how common are food allergies in kids? Was our group of 25 children statistically lucky, average or on the high side of food allergies?

Just what is a food allergy?

The definition of a food allergy according to FAAN, the Food Allergy and Anaphalaxis Network is “a condition in which the immune system incorrectly identifies a food protein as a threat and attempts to protect the body against it by releasing chemicals into the blood. The release of these chemicals results in the symptoms of an allergic reaction.”

FAAN attributes 90% of food allergies reactions in the United States to these eight foods:
-milk
-eggs
-peanuts
-wheat
-soy
-fish
-shellfish
-tree nuts including walnuts, almonds, cashews, pistachios, pecans

Symptoms of food allergies can range from a tingling sensation, itching, or a metallic taste in the mouth or hives, a sensation of warmth, wheezing, difficulty breathing, coughing, swelling of the mouth and throat area, vomiting, diarrhea, cramping and even a drop in blood pressure and loss of consciousness.

Just how common are food allergies in kids?

According to the FAAN more than 12 million Americans, about 4%, have food allergies. That’s about 1 in every 25 people. The statistics are higher for young children under three years of age. About 3 million young children in the United States, or 1 in 17, have food allergies.

The experts at FAAN report that the good news is that many children will outgrow their food allergies. About 19% of kid’s food allergies will continue into adulthood.

Are food allergies on the rise?

Web Md reported in 2009 that food allergies had risen 18% in a ten-year period, or at the very least parent reports of food allergies and visits to treatments centers for related care were up.

“Reported food allergy is increasing among children of all ages, among boys and girls, and among children of different races/ethnicities,” write researcher Amy M. Branum, MSPH, and colleagues, from the Centers for Disease Control.

“However, it cannot be determined how much of the increases in estimates are truly attributable to increases in clinical disease and how much are attributable to increased awareness by physicians, other health care providers, and parents.”

The results of studies by FAAN conducted in 1997, and repeated in 2002, showed that peanut allergy had doubled in children during that five-year time span.

 

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August 17, 2011

How many hours sleep do kids need?

Figuring out a back to school bedtime can be a great math lesson for the whole family. How much sleep do children really need?

According to WebMD, when you brought your infant home she was sleeping around 16 hours a day. Now that she’s ready for school, she still needs around 12 hours a day.

Sleep recommendations from Wed Md:

3 to 6 years old- 12 hours a day

7 to 12 years old- 10 to 11 hours a day

13 and up- 8 to 9 hours a day

So let’s try a fun math problem. If your eight year old needs to get up at 6:15 to be ready for the bus 7:15, then what time should he go to bed?

That’s right. Bedtime for this second grader should be between 7:15 and 8:15 to get the recommended amount of sleep.   Not only can a lack of sleep have a negative impact on school success, did you know that a Lack of Sleep Correlates to Childhood Obesity?

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June 20, 2011

Tips for getting your child to brush their teeth

Do you have trouble getting your child to brush their teeth? Need ideas to make this chore less of a bore? These tips will help your child get the smile they deserve!
Excerpt . . .” Before they even get their first tooth, parents start worrying about their child’s teeth. We speculate on if they are teething, how to help them with the pain, the first dentist visit, the first lost tooth and for many we worry about that pesky orthodontics investment in their smile. We purchase infant tooth “brushes” teethers and cleaners long before our children can use them, but when the time comes, how will we really teach our children proper dental habits and how to brush their teeth.”
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October 20, 2010

Stay on Top of Product Recalls with These Websites

Before you hit go holiday shopping find out important information at recalls.

We are a nation of shoppers, whether we hit the mall, shop on-line, trade in our old vehicles or update our appliances, even in this sluggish economy, we are buying products. Gifts for baby showers, accessories for dorms, you name it and Americans are buying it. We hear about product recalls that either scare us to death or simply annoy us.

In recent years there have been recalls on blinds after 3 deaths, recalls on women’s robes after 6 deaths, an FDA warning to stop using Hydroxycut immediately and groceries from peanut butter to Nestle Toll House Dough have been pulled off of the shelves. How can consumers stay on top of product recalls? Where you can go to find consumer protection information on products that have been recalled? Continue Reading …

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October 16, 2010

Deadly Game to Get “High;” Teens Choking Game

We have heard of teens huffing to get high, smoking pot, drinking and engaging in all sort of risky behavior, but three out of four parents are not aware of the latest teen “fad.” It’s not Silly Bandz, not even silly, but dangerous, frightening and at times even deadly. What game is it that teens are “playing” that is so dangerous? The choking game or it is sometimes referred to as the choking game.

What is the choking game?

The choking game . . . .Continue reading Deadly Game to Get “High;” Teens Choking Game

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