Rx For Parenting Today

How Many More Children will die in the U.S. from Guns, Trump's Cages, Car Heat, and Abuse?

I almost hate to listen to the  news these days or read the New York Time. Children are so precious and yet we are seeing more and more deaths. Last night, it was a six-year-old in Gilroy killed by a shooter, today it was one-year-old twins the father forgot were in the back seat of the car. They died from excessive heat. How could any parent not remember a child was in the car? Nine children have died in Trump's border cages without medical care. Today, I read that 51 children died last year from being left in overheated cars. Two thousand died last year from severe domestic abuse. What is going on? Is there so  much anger in the U.S. today that defenceless children are the victims?

There is such a disparity today between those who have extremely large amounts of money (the top 1%) and the rest of the population that I understand  much of the anger. But why should children be the object of the anger? It would be better to use our anger to change what is going on in Washington D. C. Yet,Trump is threatening to take away food stamps, Medicaid, the Affordable Health Care Act and other sources of support for those who don't  have adequate incomes or good educations to obtain more. 

As a pediatrician, I think each of us, as caring parents,  have to get involved and do what we can to change what is going on in the U.S. If we don't get involved, I believe the changes  that have happened will change this country and our children's lives forever.

How Can Children Learn the Difference Between Right and Wrong?

We are living in such divisive times that I wonder how children today can learn the difference between right and wrong. I am seeing a lot of what is called situational ethics. This means that people do what is appropriate for them at the time, not what is moral or right. Our  leaders seem to be doing a lot of that right no just to ensure  their own positions and to keep their power, health care, and pensions. When children see this, how do they know what is right? I was very fortunate growing up that my college professor father made it clear that there was  a definite red line between right and wrong. He had no problem letting us know if he felt we were headed in  the wrong direction.I greatly appreciate that   and I think children want and need that. Otherwise they are left flying in the wind and don't  truly know how to lead their lives. I think drugs, alcohol and other teenage problems are a result of a lot of that. 

Sitting around the dining room table and talking about what is going on and teaching children your values is important. As parents rush around trying to perfect parents, talking to their children doesn't  occur often enough . Driving a child to a lesson, a medical appointment or something else is a good time to  talk. Having a child engrossed in his or her cell phone often prevents conversation. At the dining room,table,cell phones need to be left somewhere else. Conversation with parents is an important part of parenting.

Stress in Children and Teens

Stress in children and teens is increasing almost daily. This can be partly documented by the number of children being put on medications to modify their behavior or to increase their ability to focus, but also by the increasing number of teenage suicides. As parents, particularly affluent ones, enroll their children in more and more activities, the kids have almost no time to themselves to do what they want. Maybe they would like to lie in the sun or read a novel. Instead, they are signed up for karate or dance lessons, have tutoring or are involved in some other time consuming activity. The choice is often not theirs.

Schools are also to blame because the nonsense of giving even small children homework assignments started quite a few years ago. If a child has ADHD or is learning disabled, this can put a great deal of stress on them. Physicians may also be the ones to blame because it is  easier to write out a prescription for a medication than to do a complete physical examination, order lab tests. or make a referral to a psychologist for testing. The ten minutes often allotted for an office visit is ridiculous. I would never tolerated that. If money is the primary concern  for a physician, he or she certainly picked the wrong field if  they have chosen pediatrics or family practice. 

As a parent, if your child's physician does not take time to do a complete physical examination once a year and order a basic blood count and urinalysis, I hope you will look for another  doctor. There are still some who practice old-fashioned caring medicine. 

Guns, Guns, and More Guns

How many more students and others have to be killed before members of Congress have the courage to defy the NRA? How can parents send their children to  public schools in the United States and be sure they will ever see them alive again? I am horrified that the Governor of Florida just signed a bill allowing teachers and others in Florida schools to have guns?  Even with the 133 hours of training the bill suggests, a gun in a classroom is a very dangerous thing. I certainly would never send a child to a school where guns were allowed. It is a known fact that a gun in a house means it is more likely that a death or injury will occur to a member of the household rather than to an intruder. 

Rather than spend the money on guns and training, schools need more counselors, social workers, and nurses to identify at risk kids  and find help for them. Every school shooter has been an at-risk kid. Instead of getting help for them, they are generally expelled with no follow-up. I have a long list of these. Since 1970, 1.45 million Americans  have  died from guns. These include suicides, murders, and accidents. (New York Times 5/9/19). There are more guns in the U.S. than there are individuals. That is shocking!

If you have ever watched a child die from a gun shot wound, as I did as a Stanford medical student, you would fight for gun control as hard as you can. 

Manners, Morals and Ethics

It must be hard these days to know how to raise a child who has good manners, moral, and ethical values.  Children usually mimic what their parents do. If they see their parents being rude to a sales clerk or someone else, they suppose that is O.K.  If parents are unkind to someone, that too is noticed by their children. I was in a store one early morning when one of the workers told me how she  had been treated by a father the day before. This particular woman was a temporary employee because she was waiting to move to  another city where her husband had been sent. I had been impressed by the  woman when she told me she had a master's degree and written two novels. Apparently, this father was taking his child to school, but had stopped at the store to get something. He said to his daughter, "See that woman behind the counter, that  is why you have to get good grades so you don't have to do what she is doing." I was appalled and wished I had been there to tell the father what I thought. How rude can someone be? 

I have had several parents of children with disabilities tell me about some of the things said to them. One lovely mother and her daughter were leaving church when a woman came up to her and said " You have offended God because you have a disabled child."  Unbelievable when the woman had also  just come from the church. One of my favorite teenagers told me that he would love to have a girl friend but he had heard  one girl tell another  one that " He is probably funny in the head since he has to walk with crutches."  

Kids also copy the way  parents obey the law. If you never stop at stop signs, cheat in other ways and assume the law does not apply to you, how do your children learn what is right and what is wrong? My father was not a warm,  hugging man but he certainly taught us what was right and what was wrong.  As a college professor, I am sure his students quickly learned that cheating was unacceptable. He would  have been appalled at the college admissions scandal we are seeing today. What were these  parents thinking?

 

 

 

Measles and Other Immunizations

It must be hard to be a parent these days and have concerns about all the immunizations  your children need to have. This is particularly true if you have friends who are refusing to  have their children immunized. Some states and cities are  not allowing children to attend school unless they are up to date with their immunizations. With several quite large measles epidemics recently in the U.S., I would certainly prefer to live in a state where children cannot go to school if the parents don't allow immunizations.

I took two weeks off from work when my daughter had measles. This was before there was an immunization for measles, as well as other bad communicable diseases. Measles can be very serious with bad complications, as can chicken pox, mumps, German measles etc.  Instead of worrying about all the shots a child has to be given, I wish parents could have  seen some of the children I had to care for when I had my pediatric training and in my early days of practice. Watching a child suffer, when he or she could  have been given a shot to prevent a disease, is very painful. I cared for one boy who had muscular dystrophy and then mumps that left him deaf. Not only did he have one serious disorder, but being deaf in addition was a terrible burden. I wonder how you could be the doctor for a child whose parents refuse immunizations. I hope these doctors will take time to explain some of the terrible problems that can occur with polio, measles, whooping cough etc. If you are a young doctor and being trained in a medical program that relies much on computer training, I'm not sure he or she will realize how important immunizations are for kdis. 

Raising Children in this Money/Celebrity Culture

It must be very difficult to raise children in these days when money and celebrities seem to rule. Now that we  have a TV celebrity president and billionaires running the country, how do  parents who care about raising caring, moral children make it from day to day? I was amazed and appalled at the accounts of parents who paid thousands of dollars to ensure their children were admitted to so-called elite colleges.

There is a wonderful non-profit in San Diego, A Bridge for Kids, that helps low income children with tutoring, computers, and even college tours to get into college. These are students that would never have a chance of going to college without this help. Just think of how many low-income students could have been helped with the thousands of dollars spent by parents on bribes to get their children into these rich, celebrity colleges. The daughter of one celebrity, whose parents paid an  enormous amount of money in  bribes for her to get into USC, said partying at college was her focus. Unbelievable! 

When I applied to Stanford it didn't occur to me that money would play such an important part for  so many of the students. I had worked as a waitress after school and weekends all through high school. I didn't  think about how I was going to pay the tuition at Stanford, but fortunately my college professor father had a colleague at Scripps College who started a scholarship for me and other women students who wanted to go to medical school. The Mary B Eyre scholarship is still active at Stanford. When I started Stanford I found I could wait on tables in the dining room of my dorm and I also worked in a small dorm store. In addition, I worked in the summers. I felt a strong disconnect between those of us who were "hashers" and the affluent women students we served. Most were there to find a rich husband, I heard.  I had never been exposed to wealth, being raised in a small college town where  most of my  friends were professors' children. 

I believe parents  do great harm to their children if money and only associating with rich  people is what they are taught.

The Devastating Effects of Measles

The New York Times on 2/12/19 had an excellent editorial on measles. They noted that the U.S. was measles free in 2000. Then Dr. Andrew Wakefield in England came up with the false claim that autism could result from vaccinations. He subsequently had his British license revoked and is now in Texas. He  met with Trump after the election.

Because so many parents have decided to not vaccinate their children, we now have had several new outbreaks of measles. So far 500 children have died from this disease. Many more have had bad problems with it. I do not understand how any parents could allow their children to possibly have measles encephalitis or other serious complications. When my daughter was in kindergarten in Rochester, New York, before we had a measles vaccine, a doctor's wife brought her ill son to Jennifer's classroom.  Of the 22 children in the class, only two escaped being infected by the virus he carried. Jennifer had a very bad time and I stayed with her the many days she was ill. The virus is very infectious and can cause great damage to a child. It  must be hard for a doctor to have parents who will not vaccinate their children. I would not be able to take care of children like this were I still in private  pediatric practice. Not only can measles cause great damage, but so can mumps, whooping cough, and other childhood diseases. One of my muscular dystrophy patients became deaf from mumps. It was before the vaccine was available and I know his parents would have had him vaccinated had the vaccine  been available. Polio still is found in a few countries and it hurts me terribly to know that polio could happen to U.S. children with  the rapid airplane travel from these countries and the decrease of immunizations in the U.S.

Trump's Lack of Concern for Children

Not only are migrant children at the border suffering or dying, as two have done recently, but millions of children in the U.S. are hungry or lack good medical care. Food stamps are one of Trump's targets, as well as the Republicans in Congress.  Many in Congress are very wealthy and of course have excellent health benefits. A recent report showed that about three million American children live in "extreme poverty." This is happening in the richest country in the world. We should all be ashamed this is allowed to happen. Some parents skip meals so their children will have enough to eat. Food pantries help some and some churches and other organizations do what they can. It hurts me deeply to know that any child goes to bed hungry or is without good medical care. The tax bill the Republicans passed helped only the rich. Why do they need more money, more houses, or more cars when they already have more money than most people have ever seen?

At this point, 14,000 migrant children are still in federal shelters.  Medical care is minimal and some children are even housed in tents. What kind of a country is the U.S. turning into? Many of the shelters are privately owned and the owners are making millions of tax payer dollars. If the Affordable Health Care act is eliminated by the Republicans, even more children and families will be hurt. Children with disabilities and adults with pre-existing conditions will suffer terribly. I am glad I live in California where the Governor and legislators are doing what they can to fight against the terrible policies of the Trump administration. As citizens we each need to to what we can to fight their lack of concern for children and ill or disabled people. Let's hope 2019 brings us better news than 2018 has done. 

Johnson and Johnson Baby Power and Asbestos

In a recent  article in the New York Times, Roni Rabin and Tiffany Hsu reported that Johnson and Johnson as far back as 1971 were told by one of their executives that their baby power was possibly contaminated by asbestos. Other J and J executives over the years made the same comment. Yet nothing was done and the baby powder continued to sell. Now there are going to be possibly 12,000 law suits about the problems this has created. Twenty-two women who had ovarian cancer sued the company because of the connection between the powder and asbestos. They were awarded 4.69 billion dollars.

As a pediatrician, I always advised parents  to use just the Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo. I did this because I didn't feel babies needed all kinds of products on their skin and also because of the cost. I suggested cornstarch worked just as well as baby powder and was less expensive. I did not know about the asbestos problem at that time.

I was standing at a check-out line a long time ago and saw a woman buying all kinds of expensive baby products. She paid with food stamps. I wanted to suggest she spend the money on food, not baby products.  

Medical, drug, and health companies frequently make statements that are false. I often shudder when I see an ad saying a product is recommended by all pediatricians, when I know the product is not something pediatricians would recommend. 

Far too many people rely on ads to buy products. When a baby's health or body are in jeopardy some research is needed. WebMD and the Mayo Clinic are good sources for medical information. I'm not sure it is possible  to rely on all doctors because they may go along with what the drug representatives tell them. Also, far too many doctors have connections with different medical companies, which is of great concern.