Typical Development

Here is a question from a reader:

"I have a kind of odd question. My daughter is 15 months old and she always has to have something in each of her hands, usually it is more than one thing like a watch, comb, shoe, pen. Is this normal behavior? This is the first time I have been around a young child so I wasn't sure."

"It's hard to comment on a specific, isolated behavior with no direct history. Does this child "really" need to have something in her hands? What happens if she doesn't have something in her hands? Are there any other concerns about her development or behavior? That behavior is certainly a bit "unusual" on it's own, but not necessarily an indication of a significant problem. I would suggest that they bring these concerns up with their primary care physician, and then determine if a medical or developmental evaluatoin is indicated."

~Dr. Andrew Morgan, Developmental Pediatrician

Through the state of Illinois's Early Intervention Program, you can get your child screened at no cost. Either ask you pediatrician to set up the appointment or call Easter Seals at (309) 686-1177. Personally, I had both of my boys screened-just in case there was something I was missing. The screening only takes about an hour.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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Picky Eater Question Answered

NewsAnchorMom Reader Susie asked this question during our discussion on picky eaters. I got a great response! I will definitely be using these tips at my house!

"We pay for strawberries year-round too since that and apples are the only fruits all 3 will eat. What I struggle with is finding meals for dinner that everyone likes. The doc always says not to make special foods for each child...but if I don't then someone doesn't eat and spends all night whining that she's hungry!!Should I really just let them starve if they won't eat what's on their plate?"~ Susie

Karen Hutton, a Registered Dietitian at Methodist Medical Center has some tips for us!

1. Make family mealtimes a priority: Plan healthy meals in advance to ensure that you are offering a wide range of healthy items and that each member can offer their suggestions. Research shows that children who eat with their family tend to have a healthier diet. With busy schedules it can be hard to sit down for a family meal, but even one or two nights a week can have a positive effect. Breakfast or lunch can be eaten together if a family dinner is not an option.

2. Be flexible about food: Being overly restrictive about food can lead to an unhealthy preoccupation with food. Never offer food as a reward or a punishment. You can’t expect perfection but you can make sure that the majority of choices are healthy. Also, if it seems that a picky eater isn’t open to new choices, be persistent. Most kids need several exposures to a new food before becoming comfortable with a new item. At each meal, then increase the size.

3. Encourage input: It is important to seek your child’s involvement in the family’s menu. Bring kids into the kitchen by allowing them to help with the menu and do age-appropriate tasks like setting the table or tearing lettuce for the salad. Planning a menu and posting it on the refrigerator allows each family member to know and look forward to their suggestion. You can plan 2 -3 weeks and then repeat them.

4. Get active: A proper diet is just one ingredient for a healthy lifestyle. Planning regular physical activities as a family is a great way to encourage your kids to get active.

5. Be a good role model: Children learn from their parents. Parents can be a great influence on your children simply by having a healthy relationship with food and engaging in physical activity.Parents often complain that their children are picky eaters. Have you considered how much your picky eater is eating before he sits down to the meal? If your child consistently turns up his nose at the dinner table, take a good look at what he’s been eating and drinking prior to getting there. Some kids fill up on milk or juice between meals, some just graze all day.Children need to be allowed to get hungry, which may mean cutting back on snacking or drinking (besides water) between meals. Your picky eater may start coming to the table with a great appetite.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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Children Home Alone

Reader question:

"What is the legal age for kids to stay home alone in Illinois whether it be all day or a part of the day? I have seen several different answers on the web for this question and even asked a daycare and they didn't know a definite answer. "

The Department of Children and Family Services says there is no state law mandating a specific age. If they are dealing with a neglect accusation and the child stays home alone, they look at a number factors including the maturity of the child, whether the child can get a hold of the parent easily and whether an adult neighbor is home.

I think this is an interesting topic. The parents I know with older kids let them stay home by themselves and sometimes with a younger sibling starting around 10-11 years old. I haven't really thought about it much. I will probably see how mature my oldest is at the time. Right now, 10-11 years old feels young to me.

What are your thoughts? At what age is it okay for a child to stay home alone? At what age can a child stay home alone with a younger sibling?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Afraid to wear shorts? Do you have unwanted hair? Embarrassed by unsightly varicose or spider veins? NOW is the time to get your legs ready for summer! You don’t have to be afraid to wear shorts because of unwanted hair or unsightly varicose or spider veins. Call 674-SKIN to schedule your FREE leg vein or hair laser consultation at Soderstrom Skin Institute, and you’ll be ready to show off your beautiful legs this summer!

Soderstrom Skin Institute is positioned to be a comprehensive, full service, skin care facility. Visit www.soderstromskininstitute.com to learn what Soderstrom Skin Institute can do for you.

Big TV Danger

This story makes me sick to my stomach. A little girl was seriously injured after a Flat screen TV fell on top of her. I just had a vivid dream last night that one of my kids got hurt. I woke up crying. Then, I read this! We do not have a fancy, nice flat TV-YET! I am sure it is on my husband's short list. We have one of the older versions of the big screen-you know the one that takes up half the living room and can never be moved because it's so heavy! Today I feel like the fact that it can't fall over is a huge advantage! What kind of TV do you have? Do you think it's a danger to your kids?

FROM MSNBC: Samara Brinkley dozed off just for a moment as she was watching cartoons on TV with her 4-year-old daughter. Then “I heard the boom, and I woke up and I [saw] my child laying on the floor, and I [saw] a pool of blood coming out in the back of her head,” said Brinkley, 26, of Jacksonville, Fla.

Dymounique Wilson, one of Brinkley’s two daughters, died last Wednesday when the family’s 27-inch television fell over on her. Nearly 17,000 children were rushed to emergency rooms in 2007, the last year for which complete figures were available, after heavy or unstable furniture fell over on them, a new study reported this month. The study, published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics by researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, found that the such injuries had risen 41 percent since 1990.

The increase correlated with the popularity of ever-bigger flat-panel televisions that Americans have brought into their homes in that time, along with the entertainment centers and narrow, less-stable stands to hold them. Injuries from televisions alone accounted for nearly half of all injuries related to falling furniture during the study period — 47 percent. Three-quarters of the victims of falling furniture are younger than 6 years old, and children that age “simply don’t recognize the danger of climbing on furniture,” said Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

That makes it imperative that parents take steps to secure flat-panel TVs, which have narrow centers of gravity, and other top-heavy pieces, said Yvonne Holguin-Duran, a child safety specialist with University Health System in San Antonio, Texas.
“If we just take one glance around our house, [parents can] see what safety dangers on their level these children can get into,” Holguin-Duran said.

Tougher voluntary rules have little impact like many other childhood bumps and bruises, most of the injuries related to falling furniture were minor. But 3 percent of the 264,200 children whose cases were reviewed from 1990 to 2007 were injured seriously enough to require hospital admission — most of them for head and neck injuries — and about 300 of them died.
The report “demonstrates the inadequacy of current prevention strategies and underscores the need for increased prevention efforts,” Smith said.

The number of accidents has risen even as regulators have paid more attention to the problem since 2004, after ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials) published revised voluntary manufacturing standards to reduce the likelihood that big furniture pieces could tip over.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Afraid to wear shorts? Do you have unwanted hair? Embarrassed by unsightly varicose or spider veins? NOW is the time to get your legs ready for summer! You don’t have to be afraid to wear shorts because of unwanted hair or unsightly varicose or spider veins. Call 674-SKIN to schedule your FREE leg vein or hair laser consultation at Soderstrom Skin Institute, and you’ll be ready to show off your beautiful legs this summer!

Soderstrom Skin Institute is positioned to be a comprehensive, full service, skin care facility. Visit www.soderstromskininstitute.com to learn what Soderstrom Skin Institute can do for you.

Persuading Picky Eaters

I am still struggling to get my kids to eat vegetables. They no longer will eat peas. So, we are down to corn on the cob and green bean casserole. I think my kids live off strawberries and watermelon. We are going to go broke over the winters paying for all the off season fruit! But at least their favorite foods right now are healthy!

FROM MEDSTAR: The way your child eats today could determine whether or not they’ll have serious problems with food in the future. Helping them develop healthy habits starts with making food and meal preparation a fun learning experience.

Ask a kid what they don’t like to eat and you’ll probably hear something like..

Haley Harp“I don’t really like cauliflower.”

Kendall Schroeder“Sardines and brussel sprouts or whatever.”

Clive Berkman“I think we struggle with hearing about our kids. They won’t eat broccoli, or cauliflower or Brussels sprouts because it’s more of a mind thing than a palate thing.”

Clive Berkman is a chef, cookbook author and pastor who’s preaching healthy eating ideas to kids.

Clive Berkman“In a certain way they’re willing to experiment. If you will lead them down that path.” Leading them down that path that starts with menu planning. Clive Berkman“Sweet potatoes. What else would you suggest? Edamame.”

Armed with their own grocery list, kids “buy in” to better, even economical food choices.

Clive Berkman“Number one is through education. Talking about what happens to this vegetable. How is it unique?”

Clive to kids“Something about a carrot, what are they good for?” Clive and kids“Eyes. Eyes.” Clive to kids“You see your eye? You’ve got your pupil.”

Clive Berkman“You need to bring it to the cookie shelf level.” Clive Berkman“You can’t be too complicated. You have to be basic.” You may even get your kids to eat their brussel sprouts.

Clive Berkman“Look inside. It looks like a little cabbage.”

Kendall Schroeder“When I learn how it’s made and how it’s healthier than other foods we made, it’s just good to know that you’re eating something that’s good for your body.”

Clive and kids“Let’s go home and cook.” Teach your kids that food and cooking is an experience to be enjoyed, instead of the chore it may appear. This is vince sherry reporting. Clive berkman is the author of a cookbook called “empty bottle moments.”

For more information, go to www.cookingwithclive.com the webpage has recipes and a blog with more tips for cooking with kids.

FAST FACTS: Picky eating often starts in the toddler years.At least 20 percent of children have serious problems with picky eating.Making mealtime fun and educational may encourage many picky eaters to choose foods they otherwise won’t eat.

What works with your kids? How do you get them to eat healthy?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

The National Cancer Institute has discovered a disturbing trend linking women and melanoma: between 1973 and 2004, melanoma incidence among women aged 15 to 39 more than doubled, from 5.5 to 13.9 cases per 100,000. The Skin Cancer Foundation, in an international study has linked melanoma to tanning bed usage.

On average more than 1 million people tan in tanning salons every day in the United States. It is estimated, there will be 116,500 new cases of melanoma diagnosed in the United States this year in people of all ages; 8,420 of these cases will be fatal. Soderstrom Skin Institute will be hosting a Free Skin Cancer Screening from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, May 16, at 4909 N Glen Park Place Peoria. No appointment is necessary. If you can spot it…you can stop it!

Waiting to have a baby?

FROM NBC: Many women are putting their plans to have a Baby on hold -- at least until the economy gets better. In a survey of more than a thousand women in their childbearing years --
14-percent said the ailing economy has had an effect on their plans to increase
The size of their families.

12-percent knew of someone who'd postponed a pregnancy for financial reasons. 14-percent had also cited the bad economy for postponing a trip to the Gynecologist for an annual check-up.

The survey was conducted for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

This makes sense to me! We are still trying to figure out how we are going to afford boy #3! They can at least hand down some sporting equipment and hopefully some of the shoes that only got worn a few times! The clothes are basically a disaster. So I don't think they'll be worn again!

Are you waiting to have a baby until the economy gets better?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

The National Cancer Institute has discovered a disturbing trend linking women and melanoma: between 1973 and 2004, melanoma incidence among women aged 15 to 39 more than doubled, from 5.5 to 13.9 cases per 100,000. The Skin Cancer Foundation, in an international study has linked melanoma to tanning bed usage.

On average more than 1 million people tan in tanning salons every day in the United States. It is estimated, there will be 116,500 new cases of melanoma diagnosed in the United States this year in people of all ages; 8,420 of these cases will be fatal. Soderstrom Skin Institute will be hosting a Free Skin Cancer Screening from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, May 16, at 4909 N Glen Park Place Peoria. No appointment is necessary. If you can spot it…you can stop it!