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Leave room in schedule for kids' flu shots

October 8, 2006 12:50 am

IKNOW IT'S A LITTLE EARLY to think about trick-or-treating, but since I won't have another column before then, I wanted to include a link to the American Academy of Pediatrics' health recommendations for Halloween: aap.org/advo cacy/releases/octhalloween .htm.

Most of it is common sense, like not letting kids wear a mask they can't see out of, teaching them not to go into a stranger's home, sorting through candy before they eat it. (I tell my kids this is for safety reasons, but it's really so I can get all the stuff I like best out before they see it. I like to think of it as my way of fighting the childhood obesity epidemic.) Despite many an urban legend, candy tampering is rare. But be cautious about the neighbors who give out bags of spinach salad.

Now is not too early to think about the flu shot. In fact, you should be scheduling it as soon as possible for your whole family if you have a child who falls into a high-risk group. The high-risk group keeps expanding, so that now you are practically a hermit living on a desert island if you don't fall into the high-risk--or exposed-to-high-risk--group.

The highest-risk groups--the people who should receive the vaccine first--are kids ages 6 months to 24 months, anyone with a chronic illness (especially respiratory illnesses like asthma), people in nursing homes or long-term-care facilities, and people 65 and over.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommend vaccinating all healthy kids up to age 5. This is new this year, and probably will not be completely phased in until more of the vaccine is available.

People ages 50 to 64 are also a priority, but they are not as high-risk as the first group.

Close contacts of all the high-risk people are supposed to be vaccinated as well. These include all health care workers, day care providers, staffs of nursing homes and long-term-care facilities, and all family members who live with any high-risk person. This especially applies to family members of babies under 6 months of age, since babies can't receive the vaccine yet and are at very high risk of complications.

In this "contact of a high-risk person" group, certain people can receive the nasal vaccine, Flumist. These are people who are healthy themselves, not exposed to extremely immunosuppressed people (like bone-marrow transplant recipients), not pregnant, and 5 to 49 years old. Some studies show the nasal vaccine to be even more effective than the shot.

Contact your health care provider with any questions about flu vaccines. Depending on supply, many of us will be prioritizing to vaccinate the highest-risk patients first.

If you don't have a doctor, many local pharmacies offer flu shots and Flumist annually, as do most urgent-care facilities.

Also in the news this month is a new study being published in the October issue of the journal Pediatrics, which links poor school performance among middle school students with television viewing time and content.

The authors surveyed 4,500 middle school students (grades 5 through 8) about hours of TV viewing, cable channel availability, R-movie and television content restrictions, and school performance. Poor school performance was strongly associated with increased weekday TV viewing (especially R-rated material). Weekend screen time and video-game use were not linked with poor school performance.

The findings support AAP guidelines pertaining to limited media time and content restrictions. Multiple other studies have shown increased TV watching (particularly when content is not restricted) and video-game time to be linked with ADHD, poor school performance in younger children, violent behavior and childhood obesity. So turn off the tube!

But another new report suggests that you should not replace that lost TV time with a whole bunch of other activities.

The full report, "The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds," will be released next week. It is written in defense of play and unstructured time, which many of our kids are lacking with today's emphasis on the SOL (meaning less recess and PE time).

Changes in family structure and the increasingly competitive college admissions process also contribute to many kids' being over-scheduled and hurried.

"The report reaffirms that the most valuable and useful character traits that will prepare children for success come not from extracurricular or academic commitments, but from a firm grounding in parental love, role modeling and guidance."

The authors recommend that parents give their children toys that use their imagination (like dolls and blocks), and that each child participate in "an appropriately challenging academic schedule with a balance of extracurricular activities. This should be based on each child's unique needs and not on competitive community standards or need to gain college admissions."

I no longer feel guilty for limiting my kids to dance and soccer when they also wanted to do tae kwon do, piano lessons, Drama Kids and Girl Scouts. I feel that we are already in a hurry 24/7, and hardly ever get to hang out and relax.

Another bad side effect of over-scheduling not mentioned here is increased fast-food consumption (and hence, obesity). See how it all relates?

Two new books from the AAP address these issues for different ages:

"A Parent's Guide to Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Your Child Roots and Wings," by Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg with Martha Jablow.

"Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond," co-authored by Ginsburg and Marilee Jones, dean of admissions at MIT.

DR. ROXANNE ALLEGRETTI welcomes reader comments and questions. Write her at Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va., 22401 or e-mail at
Email: newsroom@freelancestar.com.