- March 28, 2024
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Tame the sweet-toothed monster with a healthier Halloween
Helping your kids get and stay healthy isn’t always easy, especially since Halloween can bring out the sweet-toothed monster in all of us! Consider these tips to keep your ghosts and goblins a little healthier along the way…
Feed ‘em first: Make sure your kids are fueled up before they go trick-or-treating with a healthy snack or meal. A full belly will curb their desire to overload on candy.
Pillow cases are for pillows: Give your kids smaller treat bags like recycled grocery bags so they won’t bring home too many sweets - keep the pillow cases and trash bags at home!
Surprise ‘em with health, not horror: Be the healthy house on the block by offering treats like pre-packaged snack-sized dried fruit, pretzels or baby carrots.
Give ‘em treasures for treats: Hand out boxes of crayons, stickers, colored pencils, erasers, Halloween tattoos (the removable kind of course) or rubber spiders.
Patrol those treats: After inspecting all treats to make sure they’re safe, remind your kids to eat their treats in moderation, so they last longer (wink, wink). Store the bag in a high but public place so you won’t be tempted to snack on the candy either.
You can satisfy your sweet tooth all year long with moderation. Cut your favorite candy bar into bite-size pieces, then wrap each piece in plastic wrap and store the pieces in the freezer. When a sugar craving hits, unwrap and enjoy one piece. By the time the candy thaws in your mouth, your craving may be satisfied. For more tips, visit heart.org.
— Nancy DeVault
American Heart Association
Hearing problems and your child
While you may be aware that the planet is becoming noisier and noisier, are you aware of the increasing rates of hearing loss in children today? These aren’t just the children born with hearing loss, but those facing reduced capabilities because of factors in their environment. Approximately 26 million Americans over the age of 20 have noise induced hearing loss or NIHL, an epidemic that is 100 percent preventable if parents teach their children to take the necessary precautions. While another 1 to 3 out of 1,000 babies is born with hearing loss that can lead to development issues if left untreated.
NIHL is brought on by being around loud noises for long periods of time without protecting your ears. The volume of noise and proximity to the source are in a direct relationship to the amount of time it will take to affect your hearing. It’s not just listening to loud music at concerts that can hurt your child’s hearing; sirens, yard tools, parades and even earphones are every day sources affecting hearing loss.
Here are some warnings that you should share with your child about NIHL:
-Do they ask others to talk louder so they can hear them?
-Does noise hurt their ears?
-Have they developed a buzzing/ringing sound in their ears?
-Do they have difficulty hearing as well as they usually do for several hours after an event?
Educate your child about preventative measures they can take to protect their hearing. It should become as commonplace as if they were putting a helmet on to ride their bike.
-Block the noise by wearing earplugs
-Avoid the noise by walking away from the source
-Turn down the sound, especially on earphones
You can also point out good examples of people protecting their ears in the community such as racecar drivers, construction workers or firemen protecting their ears when working.
Hearing loss is preventable and treatable depending on your child’s situation, but it can also lead to the misdiagnosis of ADHD because children aren’t able to hear and process sound normally.
There is one condition in particular that leads to ADHD misdiagnosis, a condition known as Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). It is common in 5 percent of school-age children. Children with APD do not necessarily have a problem hearing, but they do not process information they hear the same way as others because their ears and brain do not fully coordinate. They often do not recognize subtle differences between sounds in words and end up having trouble understanding speech clearly. This can lead to speech and language delays and academic problems if not diagnosed and treated properly.
Here are some symptoms to look for if you think APD might affect your child:
-Do noisy environments upset your child?
-Does your child behave better in quiet environments?
-Does your child have difficulty following directions, whether simple or complicated?
-Are conversations hard for your child to follow?
-Is abstract information difficult for your child to comprehend?
If you think your child suffers from any form of hearing loss you should consult your primary care doctor about testing and treatment options. For more information on hearing loss and other health issues that affect your children, visit Nemours’ KidsHealth.org
—Teresa Tracy, Au.D., a
board-certified audiologist at Nemours Children’s Clinic