Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have graced the school lunch menu whether kids bought or packed their lunch for as long as I can remember. I had no intention of deviating from this tradition until my youngest son started day-care in a peanut free classroom. Not only is his classroom peanut free, it is tree nut free, fish free and shell fish free. With a ratio of 1 adult to 5 children, it is amazing that there are this many allergies in one room. Between the teacher and all of the children though, there is intolerance not only to peanuts and shellfish but gluten, milk, soy, eggs, fruit and…

The transition from the lazy days of summer to the structure of the academic year can be difficult for children of any age. Kids need more than pencils, paper, books and a closet full of clothes to prepare for the first day. Here are some helpful tips from American Academy of Pediatrics to help parents get their kids to on the bus, choose a safe backpack and develop good study habits, ensuring a good start to the new school year. Before you even get to the bus stop, you should talk to your child about the first day. New classmates, new teachers and a new set of expectations can cause fear or …

Having a child is one of the most stressful times in a woman’s life but, it is often a time when working mothers are met with the most resistance and adversity in the workplace. The dispute ignited between Fox News Host Megyn Kelly and her colleague Mike Gallagher over her maternity leave has brought this topic into the public spotlight.  When speaking with Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace in a May radio interview about the possibility of Kelly taking three months of maternity leave, Gallagher, made the biting response, “What a racket that is.” He continued, “That's unbelievable. Do you …

Big news for pregnant and nursing mothers: The government is making it easier for women to receive maternity benefits, lactation support and the rental of hospital grade breastpumps through the expansion of Affordable Care Act effective at the beginning of this month. The new guidelines adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services, require new health insurance plans to cover women’s preventative services. Well visits and lactation support are among the items on a list of preventative services under these guidelines.  “The Affordable Care Act helps stop health problems before they …

Last Saturday, as I was in the Lehigh Valley Mall pushing the stroller I put my 22-month-old son in, so that he doesn’t run amuck, I saw a tethered child pulling their parent along.  After chuckling a bit at the scenario of a parent being led around by their child, I thought it might be bordering on some sort of legal form of a abuse from which the child might need excessive amounts of therapy for in the future. Is this just a rash judgment born out of my social conditioning and hypersensitivity to abusive situations or is this really OK? One can buy a leash, euphemistically referred to as …

As the House, Senate and the White House engage in debt ceiling negotiations, pediatricians and Pennsylvania health care agencies are speaking out against cuts to major entitlement programs, especially Medicaid. While President Obama’s proposed cuts and tax increases are meant as a compromise and appeasement to the Republican caucus, just right of center, they will have negative consequences on the health care system and those insured by federal and/or state medical coverage. These budget cuts could potentially affect 7 million children in the United States who are dependent on Medicaid and …

With Facebook receiving a great deal of criticism among parents for instigating anti-social and suicidal behaviors among teenagers, there is some redemption to the social networking tool that helped a mother find an obscure diagnosis for her son’s condition that was previously overlooked by pediatricians. While others parents use Facebook to catch up with the minutia of their 300 + friends, Deborah Copaken Kogan posted pictures of her 4-year-old-son, Leo, when her instincts told her his condition was not the strep throat for which the doctors were treating him. She first published her story …

In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down a 2005 California law banning the sale, rent and play of violent video games like Call of Duty, Full Spectrum Warrior and Postal 2 to children under the age of 18. This is a real win for video game manufacturers and First Amendment advocates but a real loss for consumer protection. The California law had proposed that video games with excessive violence display a label, 18, and that retailers would face a $1,000 fine for the rental or sale to those under 18.   Excessive violence is defined by California as games where players …

Sleep deprived parents the world over have found a book to which they can relate.  It is not written by Dr. Sears and it won’t tell you how to become a better parent, but it just might make you laugh hysterically. Every parent has been there, the baby is up at 2:00 a.m. and there is no sign of sandman gracing the nursery.  You feed the baby, you rock the baby, you sing to the baby, you read to the baby, but the baby just won’t go to sleep.  After a couple of days, or, as was the case with our son, a year, that amount of sleep deprivation can cause one to think some crazy thoughts.  Now, while…

Fireworks are synonymous with the Fourth of July. When I was a kid, we went to only a handful of public fireworks displays. The Fourth of July was always a day for a family picnic that ended with a bang — a fireworks display that might not have been quite the elaborate spectacle lighting up the sky over the Lehigh River. There was something about the anticipation leading up to the burst of light in the otherwise dark night. Just a hint of danger in lighting your own fireworks added another layer of excitement. Light the fuse, run away and, then wait to see what will happen. Sometimes, there …

Having only an SPF of 30, dare 15, warrants the occasional glare or snarl from other the parents who, apparently, have been bamboozled by clever marketing to believe there is a difference in SPF’s of 50, 70 and 100 or that their chosen brand of sunscreen effectively blocked cancer causing UVB and UVA rays while protecting their child from sun burn. This is just a false sense of security, though.  “There is no evidence that SPF values greater than 50 provide any additional benefit,” said FDA dermatologist Jill Lindstrom. On June 17, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published the Final …

Each summer, working parents are faced with the challenge of trying to figure out what to do with their children while they are away at work.  While some decide to enroll their children in structured activities or camps, others will choose to allow their child to stay at home alone. “We get lots of responses on this issue,” said Mike Darrel, Crisis Intervention for Northampton County Children and Youth Services, “Everything is looked at on an individual basis. There is no canned response.”  The laws are vague at best in determining when the threshold towards neglect has been crossed. …

Along with Surgeon General Regina Benjamin and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, First Lady Michelle Obama launched a USDA’s new icon in a press conference Thursday, reshaping the food pyramid into the spherical “My plate,” that gives parents a graphic representation of the mealtime configuration of food.  The plate is divided into four segments with half of the plate designated to fruit and vegetables groups, the other half to a proportionally larger grain than the protein group and a small circular dairy group in the upper right hand corner. “This is a quick, simple reminder for all of …

How can an infant raise a storm? Answer, when the parents won’t disclose the gender of their four month old child to more than six people.This has raised many questions. Will failing to disclose the biological sex of baby Storm have any impact at all on the social or emotional development of the child? How much impact does culture really have on gender identity, after all, isn’t it biologically determined? Should children have the opportunity to choose anything let alone their gender identity? Canadian parents David Stocker and Kathy Witterick say they want Storm to discover him/herself by …

With American math and reading scores falling behind their global competitors, legislators are looking past their budgets to lay blame for academic underachievement somewhere else. First it was the allegedly “overpaid” teachers with their “undeserved” summer vacations and benefits and now the failure of academic underachievement is falling on parents. Indiana State Rep. Linda Lawson introduced a bill requiring three hours of parent involvement per semester. Florida House Rep. Kelli Stargel recently proposed House Bill 255 to hold parents accountable for student performance by grading their …

Not since huffing spray paint and aerosols has a more seemingly innocuous product been used to get a high than the elusive bath salts that is creating a scare across the country and especially with parents. Now, you can’t even buy a can a spray paint at the Home Depot without flashing your driving license. I imagine that bath salts will also follow in this vain if they don’t just get banned altogether in Pennsylvania and across the country. For parents who don’t know, the common ingredients are methylenedioxypyrovalerone, or MDPV, and mephedrone, and, while the label on the package says they …

How many of us have come to know the phrase “spare the rod, spoil the child,” and abandoned it because the idea of physically disciplining a child to make him or her a better person is utterly absurd?If you are among the enlightened who understand that corporal punishment is physically abusive and does little more to correct punishment than to instill fear and shame in the child who will have a real hard time receiving trust and love from that parent (not to mention their future potential partners—that is a whole other story though) then read on.The topic I am concerned about today is the …

Most mothers start their day off early — 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. on most weekdays and probably some weekends. They don’t necessarily ride a bus or get in a car to get to their job, but they always need to be on time.Whenever the baby cries or the kids need their clothes, lunches and signed papers for school, mom is most likely the one expressing the milk, cooking the eggs or cutting the crust off the bread just the way the kids like it.In between changing diapers, car pooling the kids to their activities and entertaining them with crafts, sing-a-longs and story time as well as organizing the whole …

There is a dark side to social media within which adolescents are spending more and more time resulting in what is being called Facebook depression.According to a clinical study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in April, teens who participate in social media and networking for prolonged periods of time are more likely to experience depression and anxiety.“Many online risks are an extension of the child's real-world interactions,” said Dr. Gwenn Schurgin O’Keeffe, lead researcher,  “Parents and pediatricians have begun to report "Facebook depression," in which a teen …

As I try to make my way safely across campus after teaching class to pick up my son at daycare, I can’t help but be annoyed by the audacity of individuals and their driving habits. How can one think it is at all safe driving with a can of Coke and a lit cigarette in one hand while the other hand is holding a cell phone? I wish I could say that I feel safer after leaving the campus parking lot but, it isn’t so. Within the city limits where all the no cell phone signs are posted, I witness countless individuals swerving, weaving and stopping short but, it isn’t always because a cell phone is in…