Just a quick note that Wednesday, October 8, 2008 is International Walk to School Day. Even if it’s not a part of your routine, can you give it a try?
Some schools really get into this. I see quite a difference in my area every year. My daughter’s elementary school is giving out fresh fruit and stickers to the kids who walk to school.
My daughter has started a new problem with the lunches I pack for each day. She barely touches them. Apparently she’s afraid people will laugh at what she brings.
Here’s the thing, though. No one has.
She has decided on her own that the foods I pack will be laughed at. You see, she’s the only kid, or so she says, who gets fresh vegetables in her lunch.
Old favorites are going ignored. She wouldn’t touch her pasta salad, even though I threw black olives in to attract her attention. All she wants to bring is the canned soups and such I give her if I’m out of time to make something healthy.
And I’ve long been resigned to the fact that this girl who loves my homemade bread will never, ever eat a sandwich. Not even at home, so at least that’s consistent.
The one relief for this year is that she appears to be inventing the peer pressure. She admits to being worried about what the other kids will think of what she’s eating, but also admits that no one has ever said a word to her about it.
I ask her about what the other kids are eating, and she rarely knows. Except for the day a classmate shared fruit snacks with my daughter because my daughter spilled her snack.
This is a tricky situation, but I am determined to use it as a lesson in ignoring peer pressure. Better now when the problem is a matter of her perception, rather than actual teasing, I hope.
I’m determined to find healthy foods that she will eat at school. Sure it’s easy to give in and feed her the canned stuff, but ugh! I don’t like to. I want to keep her eating habits healthy, not lazy.
I’m going to have to experiment on her at home and figure out what she will eat. If it’s a big enough favorite I know she will eat it despite what her friends say. She did the day her friend told her that her pesto chicken looked gross, after all. She loves pesto chicken well enough to not care what others think.
At this age, I figure not giving up is the key. She just won’t take to rational arguments such as “you love it at home” or “if no one has said anything, it’s not a problem.” Six year olds aren’t always the most rational of creatures, after all.
But you can wear down their resistance and show them ways to cope with their problems. Hopefully I can get it to take before the next problem comes up.
Do your kids face peer pressure in bringing lunch to school? How do you cope?
I’m just loving how my planning for the kids’ Halloween costumes is going this year. Looks like it’s almost all going to be reused!
In the case of my son, I’m really delighted, because I spent many hours working on that dragon costume, and hardly anyone saw him in it. He’s started to play in it a little now for dress up, and says he wants it to be his Halloween costume.
The sleeves and pants legs are too short, but he’s 3 and doesn’t care. At least this year the waistband is tight enough that the tail shouldn’t make the pants fall down every few minutes.
My daughter wants to be a butterfly again. That was her costume about 3 years ago. We still have the homemade wings, though. I’ve promised to add a little glow in the dark paint to the wings like her brother’s dragon costume has. Considering how dark the costume is otherwise, it’s a very welcome request.
Both need their wings strengthened so they can lie flat on their backs a bit longer. The wings have been used for dress up by both of them all this time, and so they’re rather floppy. That’s fine for dress up, but not so cute for trick or treating.
And of course my daughter needs appropriate clothes for the body of the butterfly, and maybe some antenna. We just dressed her in black the last time. I don’t think she has any black pants, much less a plain black shirt, so that will have to be a thrift store run.
I don’t think she has a headband that would support antenna, so that will probably mean buying something new. Still, not a bad deal for Halloween costumes.
Now that school is starting through pretty much the entire United States, I just have to ask – are your kids walking to school? Riding a bike? Why or why not?
For my family, walking is an easy option. School is just a few blocks away. I’ve walked there in about a minute less than it takes my next door neighbor to drive there. That’s car loading and unloading time!
But there’s a huge backup of people driving their kids to school in my area, and around most schools I’ve ever been by at times when parents are dropping kids off or picking them up.
I know it can be hard to fit walking time into a busy schedule, especially if both parents work or there are younger siblings. Believe me, I’ll be feeling more of that pinch when this baby comes. Two younger siblings to bring along just to get my daughter!
Things do get easier, of course, as kids get old enough to walk or ride bikes on their own to school. Many parents these days are overprotective because we hear so much about what can go wrong. The thing about it is that the worst happenings are rare. Only the fact that we get pretty nearly instant national news makes some things seem like a major problem. Hearing about crime on the news has been proven to make people worry more about it, even when the crime rate goes down.
That doesn’t mean you ignore the risks. It means you teach your kids how to minimize them. All the usual things about how to cross streets safely, avoid strangers and so forth that we teach our kids are skills they should be putting into practice once they’re old enough.
I don’t suggest having kindergarten age kids walking home alone. I do recall my sister and I doing that when she was in kindergarten and I was in preschool, but that was because the older kids who were supposed to walk with us ran off ahead.
I think it’s important to remember that the more responsibilities you give children, the more chances they have to learn to be responsible.
And of course, walking and biking are far better for your health and the health of your children than going in the car. With all the crowds of people driving to school, it can be less frustrating as well.
By Alan Greene, M.D.
www.drgreene.com
As a father and pediatrician, I’ve changed many diapers—enough to teach me that diapers are a daily reminder that as humans we deplete resources as we consume, and we make messes with our waste.
Those landfill diapers that are so easily tossed into the trash are clearly a major ecological issue. But what about the energy, water, and often chlorine involved in laundering cloth diapers? Comparing the environmental impact of different types of diapers has been the subject of a number of studies—with differing results often linked to the vested interests of those behind the study.
The largest and most objective study to date was carried out by the Environment Agency, the public body responsible for protecting the environment in England and Wales. The panel compared disposable diapers to home-laundered cloth diapers and commercially laundered cotton diapers in terms of global warming, ozone depletion, smog formation, depletion of nonrenewable resources, water pollution, acidification, human toxicity, and land pollution. The study did not include what I call hybrid diapers—the reusable diapers equipped with flushable, biodegradable liners.
This study found that overall environmental impact is about the same for all three options they did consider; the biggest impact is on global warming, resource depletion, and acidification. For disposable diapers, the most significant impact comes during manufacture; for home-laundered diapers, the primary impact comes from the electricity used in washing and drying; for commercially laundered diapers, the biggest impact comes from use of fuels and electricity.
Thus, according to the Environment Agency, if you choose cloth diapers, the first focus should be on reducing the energy used during washing and drying and reducing fuels and emissions during transportation (see Chapter Seven for more information about laundry). If you choose disposable diapers, focus first on greener manufacturing, such as used by the Eco-Diapers mentioned previously.
Although the Environment Agency report is more thorough than other analyses to date, it is still quite incomplete. For instance, it looked only at the major brands used—not the greener alternatives. It didn’t look at making choices back at the very beginning of the manufacturing process: at the oil rigs where the plastic liners of landfill diapers begin, at the forests where the wood pulp starts as trees, and in the cotton fields long before cotton is a cloth. There is a big difference between cotton grown drenched in toxic chemicals and cotton organically grown, between sustainable forestry and irresponsible logging, between dioxin-producing chlorine gas in pulp mills and bleach-free diapers.
Whatever we choose for diapers, we have an unavoidable impact on the environment. But whatever we choose, we can make those diapers a little greener.
About the author: Dr. Alan Greene, author of Raising Baby Green, is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of California San Francisco. In addition to being the founder of www.DrGreene.com, he is the Chief Medical Officer of A.D.A.M. He is the Chair of The Organic Center and on the Advisory Board of Healthy Child Healthy World. Dr. Greene appears frequently on TV, radio, websites, and in print including appearances on The Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, The Wall Street Journal, Parents Magazine, and US Weekly. Dr. Greene is Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University’s Packard Children’s Hospital.
