Want Happy Kids? Try Out These Research Based Strategies!

Being a parent isn't an easy job, and there will no doubt be times that you worry that you are doing it "wrong." It doesn't help that there is a plethora of information out there about child-rearing, and much of it is contradictory. The following tips, however, are different; they are based on scientific research, and when followed, they can help you provide your children will everything they need to become happy, healthy adults.

Have a sense of humor

You don't have to take everything in life so seriously. Laugh with your toddler. Joke around. Play games that encourage them to use their imagination. Doing so will help prepare them for the social situations they will encounter later in life, and it makes them more likely to be deemed "acceptable" by others. When you behave in this way, you are teaching your children how to handle stressful situations, how to be social and how to be creative - all important life skills.

What A Parent Should Know To Manage Juvenile Diabetes

When your child has been diagnosed with diabetes, it can cause you to be upset and worry. It can overwhelm you. However, you have to be strong for your child. The best thing you can do is learn all you can about this condition in children and how you can help your child cope with it.

Juvenile diabetes is also known as Type 1 diabetes in children. This happens when the pancreas can no longer produce insulin. You will need to replace the insulin in your child. This means you will need to learn how give your child insulin injections. If your child is old enough, you will need to teach your child how to give shots to himself. Insulin can also be delivered by an insulin pump. The pump is about as big as a cell phone. Your child wears this on the outside of his body. A reservoir of insulin is connect to a catheter by a tube. The catheter is inserted under the abdomen's skin.

Blue Skies and No Tantrums: Flying With Kids

When your family vacation takes you farther than just up the street or across the state, airline travel is often your best bet. While flying to your destination is the speediest way to go, it presents certain challenges for you and your children. Before you book your flight, here are some things to consider as you plan your trip.

For many children, the window seat is the Holy Grail of travel perks. If your family includes young siblings, prepare to play referee. Work out an arrangement in which preferential seating, whether it is the window or aisle seat, is enjoyed equally by each child. This allows you to bypass potentially noisy spats and accusations of unfairness.

Daily Activities that will Help Your Toddler's Growth and Development

As your child moves into the toddler stage, life becomes a little more exciting. He or she starts to walk, begins to learn some words and starts to be a little more interactive. However, it can still be hard to figure out fun activities that will help your child learn and grow. The following tips will help you prepare a daily schedule that you and your little one can both enjoy.

Read, read and read some more

Reading books to your toddler is important for a number of reasons. First, it makes your child feel special; they have your undivided attention as the two of you cuddle together and become lost in a world of make-believe. Also, reading helps with communication skills, listening skills, memory and vocabulary. It also introduces children to new concepts and helps them learn more about what the world is like.

Acupuncture Safe for Kids

Putting children under the needle for acupuncture appears safe when performed by trained practitioners, researchers concluded in a systematic review.

Only mild adverse effects dominated among those reported with pediatric acupuncture, accounting for 253 of 279 events recorded in the literature over the past 60 years, Sunita Vohra, MD, MSc, of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and colleagues found.

Of the 25 serious events reported among 1,422 patients treated in the included studies, many appeared to have been caused by "substandard practice," they noted in the December issue ofPediatrics.

Risks of acupuncture are important because evidence of efficacy is "still being developed" in pediatrics, as the group pointed out.

Vohra and colleagues reviewed 37 studies, among which nine randomized controlled trials accounted for roughly half of the adverse events reported. Most of the rest were case reports or case series.

Mild adverse events included pain, bruising, bleeding, and worsening of symptoms and had an overall incidence of 11.8% (168 events in 1,422 patients).

The majority of the 25 serious events reported in children treated with needle acupuncture were thumb deformity, usually after at least a year of acupuncture. All 12 cases of fibrotic changes in the thumb or fibrosis of the thumb adduction muscle were treated with corrective surgery.

Five serious infections reported consisted of one case of HIV, one septic sacroiliitis, one septic arthritis of a lumbar facet joint, a pyogenic spondylitis, and a case of subperiosteal abscess and osteomyelitis of the frontal bone.

These adverse events might have reflected "inadequate sterilization, either of the site or needles," the researchers pointed out.

One case of cardiac rupture was reported in a boy found on autopsy to have needle holes in the diaphragm, pericardium, and right ventricular wall, for whom the cause of death was deemed puncture of the heart.

One case of pneumothorax, with signs of lung scarring at the needling location, occurred in a girl getting acupuncture for an acute asthma attack.

These two cases likely resulted from improper technique or poor knowledge of anatomy, Vohra's group suggested.

"The case of cardiac rupture is particularly disturbing because of the numerous errors that were made, by modern standards, including the insertion of needles through clothing," they wrote in the paper.

"Current acupuncture regulations precisely detail protocols intended to maximize the safety of acupuncture practice, including procedures for sterilization and needling in the area of organs," the researchers added, "but it is unknown what regulations were in place at the times and places of these adverse events."

Another serious adverse event was a case of nerve impairment in a boy found to have more than 70 needles embedded throughout his body, including in the cervical spinal canal.

This case "might have been a result of a practice that was common in Japanese acupuncture and included deliberately breaking needles and permanently embedding them in the body," Vohra's group noted.

Other serious adverse events reported included:

• One case of subarachnoid hemorrhage after acupuncture that included insertion of a needle to a depth of about 2 inches near the thyroid cartilage, which was suspected to have damaged meningeal or cephalic blood vessels
• One case of intestinal obstruction with an egg-sized hematoma after acupuncture administered for diarrhea
• One case of coughing up blood that resolved after a needle was found embedded in the boy's lower right thorax
• One case of reversible coma in a boy with posterior cerebral hypoperfusion, with the coma thought to have been from lying on his right side during the acupressure rather than the treatment itself

The researchers cautioned that their review was limited to conventional, English-language reports, therefore perhaps missing other reports in other languages from Japan, China, and elsewhere.

The small number of participants included in the reviewed studies limited ability to draw conclusions about the overall safety of pediatric acupuncture, they acknowledged.

Vohra and colleagues concluded that large prospective studies are needed to produce the kind of convincing risk estimates determined for adult acupuncture.more information...

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Source: http://www.medpagetoday.com