Doctors at several health centers in MA are giving child patients from low income families coupons to farmer’s markets for free veggies and fruits in an effort to encourage healthier eating and fight childhood obesity.

18-year-old raised over $1,00,000 for The Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.

Bone marrow stem cells are used to repair skin of pediatric patients with a rare, life threatening skin disorder.

http://webclipart.about.com

I came across this great Q and A int he NY Times where a parent admits that he discovers his son is cyberbullying. It isn’t often that one can read about it from the point of view of the bully’s family. The advice is quite good.  Click here to read it.

Not every fun event has to be planned around eating! Summer is a great time to get outside and be active. Here are some ways your entire family can enjoy the weather while burning some calories and building muscle.  The best part of getting fit is that you’ll be spending time together:

http://www.bicycle-stuff.com

1. Take a Hike – Whether you take the dog on a brisk walk through your own neighborhood or head out to a trail to hike, walking will always be one of the best ways to get in shape. Make it extra fun by collecting leaves and flowers to press.
2. Take a Class – Sign up for a family exercise class together, like aerobics, swimming, kick boxing -  you name it. Check out what your local YMCA has to offer.
3. Plan an Adventure Trip – Pick a theme like horseback riding, whitewater rafting, mountain climbing, fishing and more, and plan a trip around it. There are plenty of companies out there who organize all inclusive adventure trips for families.
4. Get on Your Bike - There’s nothing like a long bike ride. You can even pack a healthy picnic to make a special day out of it.
5. Clean it Up -  Pick a project to do at home, and find a way to make it fun. Clean the garage, paint a room, go through old boxes in the attic and reorganize.
6. Make a Splash – Have a water balloon or water gun fight, take a swim, get a Slip and Slide, run through the sprinkler!
7. Do Some Sightseeing – Plan a long day in your hometown or nearest large city and see the sights. Walk everywhere you can, and take stairs rather than elevators wherever you go.
8. Blast Your Favorite Music – And then dance to it!
9. Put on Your Gardening Gloves – Gardening can give you a great workout! All that digging, moving dirt, plants and large pots will get you fit in no time. Then you can enjoy the fruits of your labor down the road – eating your healthy, homegrown veggies.
10. Sign up for a Charity Event – Run or Walk for a Charity event. Before you go, you’ll need to get some practice in to get in shape for the big day. You can even set some goals as far as your time to finish and work toward that goal together every day.

1. Run through the sprinkler (like me and my dog in this picture). So much fun!
2. Get out your water guns.
3. Water balloon fight!
4. Jump in the ocean or the pool.
5. Wash your car (and yourself with the hose).
6. Go to an  indoor ice skating rink.
7. Hang out and play a game in your basement (if you have one) where it is the coolest in your house.
8. Drink a tall glass of lemonade, iced tea, or just plain ice water, while sitting under a fan.
9. Eat a Popsicle, or 2.
10. Run after the ice cream truck with your kids, and reward yourself with the biggest coldest ice cream bar available.

My readers know I grow organic tomatoes and eat as many organic foods as possible. An article today in The Atlantic Monthly suggests that steering clear of toxins in our food is crucial in preventing cancer.

Organic food is indeed more costly than conventional, but I find that it lasts much longer in the fridge, tastes better and is naturally healthier. You can buy an organic broccoli from a farmer’s market, and weeks later it is still fresh. But buy a conventional broccoli from the grocery store, and it will go limp in a few days.

When we buy gallons of milk, we often don’t think about what the cows were fed or what chemicals and antibiotics are added to their diets and the milk itself. Should our daughters be drinking estrogen-induced milk? I think not. I insist on organic dairy products.

If we all stand together and demand more wholesome, hormone and chemical-free foods, we’re likely to get them. We’ll be healthier and our children will be grateful a they live to be older.

Last year I interviewed my friend, Daphne at Dylan’s Smile about her charity and her personal experience with having a son with a birth defect. It remains one of the most read blog posts on the site! Read it here.

http://www.cksinfo.com

Daphne brings comfort to families with children who have cleft palettes, lips and other other birth defects. Her charitable organization is accepting donations that will help pay for beautiful Gund teddy bears for children who are getting ready for surgery. You cannot imagine what a difference a teddy bear can make for a frightened child! Daphne is an amazing person with a great big heart! You simply cannot choose a better organization to support. Please donate today!

Click here for more info about the teddy bear program.

http://www.cksinfo.com

If you are looking for a pediatrician for your newborn or just want to change your child’s doctor, here’s how to go about it. Talk to other parents with kids older than yours and find out what doctors parents like best. You can also call the local hospital for referrals. Ask other parents as well as the pediatrician’s office manager the following questions:

• How would you rate the office when it comes to getting an appointment when your child is sick?
• Is the staff friendly?
• How long do you usually wait?
• Is the office clean?
• Are there separate “well waiting rooms” and a sick waiting rooms” or is everyone thrown together?
• Is there a special waiting room for newborns?
• Do you always see your own doctor, or do you just see whoever is available there?
• How’s the bedside manner?
• Do you do blood work at the office or do you send it out?
• Do you take my insurance?
• Do you take credit cards for co-payments?

There’s nothing wrong with visiting the office just to see what it is like inside, before signing up. In addition, do an online search with the doctor’s name to see if he or she has any malpractice claims against him/her. It’s amazing what you can find out about a person just searching. (I Googled this weirdo MD I once had, and found out that he was arrested in 2001 for illegal drug possession.)

Over the years I’ve figured out how to work the pediatrician’s office system. For example, if my child is sick at night, I start calling the office a minute or so before it opens so I can be one of the first to get an appointment. You cannot expect to call at 3pm and get in to see a doctor. Another tip is that I do not use doctors who are the heads of different children’s departments at the hospital. They make you wait so long, because they get stuck at the hospitals with emergencies in the morning.

Before you take your child in, whether he is sick or just getting a check-up, be prepared with questions. There’s nothing more frustrating than leaving and then realizing you forgot to ask the doctor something important. Good luck getting him on the phone later. But also, mind the doctor’s time. I don’t like it when other parents chit-chat for a long time and make me wait. So I want to be courteous to the doctor and other parents as well.

The most important part of any doctor’s visit is washing your hands and your child’s hands upon leaving. I actually wash my hands in the examining room while waiting for the doctor to come in. I wash them again when leaving. And again when getting home – and I do this thoroughly! When my daughter was small, I supervised while she washed and encouraged her to play in the suds a bit. With all those kids coughing, sneezing, pooping, peeing and vomiting in the office, you’ve gotta do your best not to bring those germs home.

My apologies – there’s simply no other way I could have said that.

Lilly Badilly spent an evening with an extra special group of children with cancer at Gilda’s Club last night in Fort Lauderdale. The children’s program is called “Noogieland,” in honor of Staurday Night Live’s comedian, Gilda Radner, who died from ovarian cancer in 1989. The kids learned all about writing, reading and Costa Rica. Then we did a craft project – a decorated paper bird to hang. Thanks to one of our Corporate Partners (who wishes to remain anonymous) we were able to donate a book to each of the children who participated. Thank you, thank you, thank you TB!

I cannot say enough about what a wonderful place Gilda’s Club is to be and how dedicated the volunteers and staff members are there. If you are not familiar with this organization, Gilda’s Club is a completely free cancer support center – not only for those who are ill – but for all member of their families. Networking groups, lectures, workshops, specialized children’s and teen programs, and social events are all part of their programs. The South Florida location is housed in a gorgeous old mansion in the historic section of Fort Lauderdale along the Tarpon River. They rely upon donations to keep their indispensable services going. I cannot think of a better cause to support! I am sure that Gilda herself would be so proud of what the organization using her name has accomplished and how many lives it has touched. If you or anyone you know needs cancer support, check out the website to find locations near you.

I hope to be invited back soon to do more craft projects. Special thanks to Elisa Jones, Noogieland Manager, for inviting me.

Gilda’s Club of S Florida is housed in a most inviting historic house

I was greeted by a gorgeous peacock upon my arrival at Gilda’s Club

Sharing my character voices with the children

The children loved making paper birds

An adorable 5th grade girl shows me her blue bird.

Clip art copyrighted by Bobbie Peachey,
http://webclipart.about.com

I thought it would be interesting to research many different statistics about American children. Here are some of the countless fascinating facts I discovered:

Health

Obesity

In a NHANES II survey of the Prevalence of Obesity in Children ages 2-19 years

• Ages 2 through 5  -  In 1976-1980 study, 5% were obese. In 2003-2006 study, 12.4% were obese.
• Ages 6 through 11  -  In 1976-1980 study, 6.5% were obese. In 2003-2006 study,17.0%were obese.
• Ages 12 through 19 – In 1976-1980 study, 5% were obese. In 2003-2006 study, 17.6% were obese.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov

Autism

Experts estimate that two to six children out of every 1,000 will have autism. Males are four times more likely to have autism than females.

We can estimate that up to 500,000 individuals younger than 21 have autism.

Source: http://autism.emedtv.com

Education

Gifted

The National Association for Gifted Children estimates there are around 3 million academically gifted children in grades K-12 in the U.S. That’s about 6% of the student population.

Source: http://www.nagc.org

Students who study music test better. Those who took courses in music performance and music appreciation scored higher in the SAT than those who did not participate in the arts. Music performance students scored 53 points higher on the verbal and 39 points higher on the math.

Source: http://www.childrensmusicworkshop.com

Literacy

One child in four in the US grows up not knowing how to read.

85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate.

Source: http://www.begintoread.com

Attendance

The number of elementary school-age children (ages 5 through 13) declined by 381,000 while the number of their high school-age counterparts (ages 14 through 17) increased by 329,000 between 2003 and 2004.

Graduation

The last census shows that high school graduation rates for women (ages 25 years and older) continued to exceed those of men, 85.4 percent and 84.9 percent, respectively. But 28.9 percent of men had a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to 26.5 percent of women.

Utah, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire and Alaska continued to have the highest proportions of people 25 years and older with a high school diploma or higher (around 92 percent).

Source: http://www.census.gov

Smoking, Alcohol and Substance Abuse

Cigarettes

About 40% of adolescents ages 12–17 years have tried smoking cigarettes, including a few puffs, in their lifetime.

Overall, Mexican American adolescents (41%) and non-Hispanic white adolescents (41%) had a higher prevalence of ever having tried smoking cigarettes, compared with non-Hispanic black adolescents (34%)

Alcohol

Sixteen percent of adolescents aged 12–17 years had their first alcoholic drink before age 13. Among those adolescents who had an alcoholic drink, 37% did so before age 13

Eighteen percent of males and 14% of females aged 12–17 years reported drinking before age 13.

Overall, 21% percent of adolescents aged 12–17 years had at least one drink of alcohol during the 30 days before the survey (Table 18).

Females (23%) reported a higher percentage of alcohol use in the past 30 days than males (19%).

Ten percent of adolescents aged 12–17 years had five or more drinks of alcohol in a row within a couple of hours on at least one day during the past month (Table 21).

Females (10%) were as likely as males (11%) to have had five or more drinks of alcohol in a row within a couple of hours on at least one day during the past month.

Non-Hispanic black adolescents (30%) were least likely to have had at least one drink of alcohol, compared with Mexican American adolescents (42%) and non-Hispanic white adolescents (41%).

Marijuana

Approximately 21% of adolescents aged 12–17 years had ever tried marijuana.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov

Teen Sex

Nearly half (46%) of all 15–19-year-olds in the United States have had sex at least once.

Teens are waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. Some 13% of never-married females and 15% of never-married males aged 15–19 in 2002 had had sex before age 15, compared with 19% and 21%, respectively, in 1995

http://www.guttmacher.org

In 2007, the adolescent birth rate was 22.2 per 1,000 adolescents ages 15–17.

http://www.childstats.gov/pubs/

the total number of missing children reported to the police and entered into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) in 2000 remained at approximately 750,000, or 2,100 children per day, down from 2,200 per day in 1998.

http://www.missingkids.com

Households

There were 12.9 million one-parent families in 2006 — 10.4 million single-mother families and 2.5 million single-father families.

About 5.7 million children, or 8 percent of the total, lived in a household that included a grandparent in 2006. The majority of these children (3.7 million) lived in the grandparent’s home, and of these, about 60 percent had a parent present.

Hispanic and Asian children under 12 were more likely to eat dinner with a parent every day in a typical week than children who were non-Hispanic white or black children.

Source: http://www.census.gov

On September 30, 2006, there were an estimated 510,000 children in foster care.

Source: http://www.childwelfare.gov

Our journalist friend, Dallas Woodburn is the founder of “Write On! For Literacy“, a nonprofit organization that encourages kids to discover confidence, joy, self-expression and connection with others through reading and writing endeavors. In the past eight years, they have donated 11,117 new books to disadvantaged kids. They also teach writing workshops in schools, hold poetry, fiction, and essay contests, and award scholarships for young writers in middle school and high school to attend summer writing camps.

Write On! is one of seven national finalists for a $5,000 grant through the Glamour Magazine/Sally Hansen “Best of You” contest. They need your vote!!

Dallas with  stack of new books for her awesome Write On! For Literacy Program

Dallas Woodburn/Write On is the final contestant listed. All it takes is thirty seconds of your time to vote. The website asks for your name and contact information to ensure that every e-mail address only votes once, but they will not use your information or give it away to anyone.

Click here to vote.

For every vote they receive, $1 will be donated to DKMS, the World’s Largest Bone Marrow Donation Center. Just by voting, you make a difference!!

If everyone could vote and then pass along the link to two or three friends, this could really take off.

Dallas said, “Thank you in advance for your support. This grant really would mean the world to us. It would help bring Write On! to a national level, creating more chapters of Holiday Book Drives, awarding more scholarship money for young writers, AND helping increase the confidence of young people by giving them an outlet for creative expression by publishing their work.”