Your child’s yearly check-ups are extremely important. First and foremost parents must strive to send a healthy child to school and make sure that the home environment is healthy as well.
Medical check-ups?
This is money well worth spending. These yearly appointments should include teeth, eyes, ears and general wellness and should be a matter of course. I suggest that parents do this in the summertime while children are on holidays, so that they do not miss valuable school time from lessons because of absenteeism.
In terms of ear checks and hearing tests, it is advisable to use a reputable audiologist with a sound-proof room who will also test for extraneous sounds as this can be crucial considering all of the school and classroom noise during the day. Parents need to get good advice about how to deal with ear wax in children, as some doctors do not advise parents to clean their child’s ears. A build-up and hardening of ear wax can affect the child’s hearing dramatically and thus affect learning to read when proper sounds cannot be heard.
Parents should be prepared to inform the teacher, in writing, of any medical situations that affect the child. The teacher should know if your child is on medicine or if there is a special treatment for a medical issue; eg ADHD, Diabetes, Asthma, Epilepsy, Allergies, Fears or Phobias.
Parents can routinely check their own child for common problems like lice, and pinworms or threadworms as they are sometimes called (the old flashlight trick in the night while they are sleeping is well explained for detecting worms in my book, Tips and Tidbits For Parents and Teachers).
Is your child getting enough sleep?
You, as parents, must know how many hours of sleep your child requires at each age level and this too is all laid out in my book. Sleep deprivation in Hong Kong is a major and chronic problem and is often written about in newspapers. A lack of sufficient sleep can really make a child ill and unable to learn at his or her best.
Are you monitoring your child’s intake of junk food, the sugar intake, the fat intake and the carbohydrate intake? Obesity is a pressing problem now so this is important. Parents have real responsibilities in terms of this monitoring and no one else can do it for them. The child needs that guidance and care. Children who do not like to eat, or eat very little or only when forced must be brought to the attention of the family doctor for advice and consultation. Parents can also ask advice about giving their child vitamins – what kind and how much.
Teachers, for years, have been saying that the day after Halloween brings uncontrollable kids to school with major highs from all that sugar in the candy, but to my surprise, I read an article recently that said, NOT TRUE! It’s just the excitement and lack of sleep that causes it. I don’t believe a word of it, but that is just my opinion.
Is your child exposed to dangerous things like cigarette smoke in the car or the home? We all know the dangers of second-hand smoke. Are there moth balls in your house? I think this is one of the most informative chapters in my book – THE DANGERS OF MOTHBALLS! When is the last time you saw moths eating away at your clothes? Even if that were so, there are so many natural ways to combat this like lemons with cloves stuck into them, without using these very dangerous little white balls.
by MindMake via MindMake Blog
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