Entries for February 2008

Children up to age 18 should get flu shots, a federal advisory panel said Wednesday, adding older children and teenagers to a list that until now included children only up to age 5. But the reason for that may be more to keep parents from calling in sick than to protect kids.

Older children get the flu more often than do toddlers and preschoolers, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but they are less likely to fall dangerously ill. Research has shown that it's cost-effective to vaccinate children, because then parents don't have to stay home from work to tend sick kids. If all parents followed this advice, 30 million more kids would get flu shots. But have the researchers considered that millions of parents will have to leave work to take the kids to the pediatrician for those shots? Or that for many parents these days, "sick days" now are still work days, type-madly-at-home days while the sick kid watches SpongeBob?

Sometimes parents want to understand why kids do what they do. Sometimes we just want someone to say: When the kids whine, say this. When they throw food, say that.

That handy parent cheat sheet is now in print. Betsy Brown Braun's new book, Just Tell Me What to Say: Sensible Tips and Scripts for Perplexed Parents, lays out instructions on how to deal with everyday crises from temper tantrums to questions like "What's a terrorist?" Braun, a parent educator in the Los Angeles area and mother of three grown triplets, gave me the scoop on the book.

I still cringe at the memory of the pediatrician diagnosing "fluid in the ears" when my daughter was a toddler, a phrase that seemed to lead inevitably to antibiotics, diarrhea, and diaper rash, even though the kid hadn't seemed one bit sick. In years past, doctors have been aggressive in using antibiotics to prevent asymptomatic effusion, as it's called, because of fears that the fluid accumulation interfered with young children's hearing and language development.

But in most cases, antibiotics don't reduce the risk of children developing fluid in the ears, according to a new analysis in the February Archives of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery. That's particularly true for the children who are most likely to have effusion, those who are under 2 years old and who have recurrent ear infections. "If parents are worried about effusion, they shouldn't give antibiotics," says Maroeska Rovers, a clinical epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University Medical Center Utrecht, in the Netherlands. Rovers and her colleagues examined five studies with 1,328 cases to see if giving antibiotics helped prevent effusion. The risk of side effects, including bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics, outweighed any small benefit of treatment, they found.

Six months ago, it seemed like hardly a day went by without a recall of dangerous toys made in China. Problem solved? Hardly. The recalls keep on coming, and so do the life-threatening injuries to children caused by dangerous toys. At present, toy manufacturers and importers don't have to test toys for safety before they're marketed. Instead, our children are the guinea pigs. Consider:

• On January 23, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of Battat Magnabild toys, because the small magnets can cause potentially fatal intestinal blockages if swallowed.

• On February 6, eeBoo children's sketchbooks were recalled because the spiral binding is coated with toxic lead paint.

• On February 7, pewter pendants and candle charms were recalled because they contain high levels of lead.

Tate Leisy knows all too well what dangers children face from hazardous toys, even, in some cases, after they've been recalled.

Wonder what your teenager is listening to on those little white earbuds? How about 84 references to explicit substance abuse a day? Most of which, by the way, are associated with partying and sex.

About one third of the most popular songs of 2005 refer to substance abuse, according to a new analysis led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. They took on the task of counting because they were well aware of data showing that cigarette-smoking characters in movies tend to increase smoking among teenagers. This new study, published in the February Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, didn't look for cause and effect. But it does give a sobering portrayal of just what's pouring into kids' ears.

Alan Kazdin knows where I've gone wrong. He knows that I nag, and threaten, and then try to reason with my child, explaining why what she's doing is a bad idea. And he knows that none of those time-honored parenting techniques work worth a darn. "It's almost as if when you leave the maternity ward, they told you five or six things that you shouldn't do with your child, but we do them anyway," says Kazdin.

Fortunately, Kazdin also knows what parenting skills work, and as director of the Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic, he's got the scientific cred to back it up. His fascinating new book, The Kazdin Method for Parenting the Defiant Child, explains how parents can use the techniques honed in the center's clinic to put an end to whining, tantrums, defiance, and whatever other incredibly annoying behavior is tying your family in knots.