Help Your Little Allergy Sufferer Breathe Easier This Season

For many kids, this time of year can be frustrating. They want to run outside and play, but the pollen count leaves them sniffling, sneezing and wheezing. What can you do to help? By minimizing their exposure to triggers, providing them with relief and offering some creative distractions, you can still make allergy season fun for the whole family.

Protect Them

There are a few simple things that can be implemented daily to reduce or prevent exposure to environmental allergens.

• Check your filters. Pollen and spores can get trapped in air conditioning filters, so set a specific day each month — like the day you pay bills — to change them.
• Schedule indoor activities. On days that the pollen count is significant (check the count here), keep kids inside during the early morning and dusk, when the air has the most allergens. Have fun games and projects in place.
• Do an outfit change. When kids come in from outside or come home from school, have them change their clothes immediately and wash off any residual pollen from their faces and hands.

Provide Relief

Allergy flare-ups are inevitable, so it is helpful to keep a few tricks in your parenting toolbox.

• Try saline solution. It can safely rid eyes and nasal cavities of allergens. (Just remember to keep a box of tissues on hand for the post-application drip.)
• Draw a warm bath. It can provide soothing relief to itchy skin, and the steam may relieve congestion.
• See your pediatrician. Check to see if a prescription or OTC medication can provide relief during the worst of the season.

Include Them

Kids live in the here and now, so trying to explain a concept like allergies can be difficult. In order for them to understand and take ownership of their allergies, involve them in the solution-making process.

• Ask for suggestions. After identifying specific issues — for instance, the pollen on shoes or higher count on windy days — ask your child to think of ways to combat the problems. He might suggest leaving a shoe bin at the door or closing windows in gusty weather.
• Assign a responsibility. After realizing weather plays a large role in the impact of allergens, your child can become the family’s meterologist. Every evening, have him report the next day’s weather, so you can prep together.
• Encourage him to share. Telling their friends why they can’t play outside at certain times can help empower your kids — and makes the situation feel less frustrating.

Distract Them

• Dress up their tissues. With so much sneezing and sniffling, a box of tissues will become a staple for your children. Have your child personalize the box with paint, glitter or stickers so it seems more fun.
• Build a fort. If your kids are stuck inside, make them a special place: Build an elaborate fort with sheets, blankets and furniture. This can be their haven for storytelling, homework and imaginative play.
• Schedule outings. Suffering from spring fever? Have your child choose a special place, like the mall, museum or gym, once a week. This will give him something to look forward to during allergy season.

Kids and Enteroviruses (Gastrointestinal Tract Illnesses)

Enteroviruses: Now you see the word that describes those viral infections that affect the gastrointestinal tract to one degree or another. These become more prevalent during the warmer months of the year, and therefore may affect a lot of children of early school age during the beginning and end of the school or nursery year.

Your child or toddler may experience vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and fever in one combination or another, but these illnesses, as a rule, tend to be short and mild. In general the diarrhea usually does not contain blood or mucous as these are found in the diseases that are usually caused by bacterial agents. The stools are usually clear to yellow/brown and may be watery or just very soft. Vomiting, fever, and diarrhea usually occur simultaneously but the vomiting is first, followed in rapid order by diarrhea and possibly fever. There are literally hundreds of named viral illness that can cause these symptoms including an enterovirus that you are familiar with; poliovirus is an enterovirus that is usually mild but until the advent of polio vaccine, this virus was capable of infecting the brain and causing any number of disturbing and sometimes permanent symptoms. It should be said at this point that even though these are usually mild illnesses they are all capable of very rare brain invasion.

I have spoken of the symptoms of these illnesses and it is now important to help parents decide what are the symptoms that should be evaluated by a doctor. The younger the child or infant, the shorter period of time with these symptoms are needed to cause dehydration.

Signs of dehydration in an infant or child are (but not limited to): fussiness, decreased volume of urine or frequency of urination, dryness of the tongue surface- not necessarily the lips, a lack of interest in his/her surroundings and listlessness.

In other words parents always know when their child is acting really sick. A short talk with your Pediatrician will determine whether your child should be seen in the doctor’s office or things may be managed at home.

Certainly severe dehydration is very rare and has very significant symptoms that probably will not be missed by a parent.

As with all viral illnesses, the best way to prevent spread in the home starts and ends with good vigorous hand washing. Children will probably be contagious about one day prior to symptoms (you can’t know) and a day after any fever decreases to normal. If your child is in diapers, you will want to keep him/her at home until the diarrhea at least slows, and your child is acting normal with normal temperature.

How to Talk to Your Kids About…Rejection

Rejection is part of life. And although it is not fun, it is something that we all have to deal with.

As parents, it is key for us to help our children understand rejection, long before it hits them, so that the situations don’t set them back, discourage them, or keep them from trying again.

When your child is faced with rejection, don’t overreact. We need to sympathize with them, listen to them, and let them know they are understood. Then we can work to develop a plan to handle the situation.

After rejection, children are already feeling sad, hurt and vulnerable. They need us to be supportive and loving. It is not the time to lecture, say “I told you so”, or try to prove a point. This will only make our children feel rejected again.

Conversations about rejection need to focus on a few key points…

• Help children understand what rejection is. Explain that it is a part of life.
• Talk to them about the fact that not everyone will want to be their friend, or include them. That is okay and is not a reflection on them.
• Talk to them about not relying on others to define their worth.
• Talk to your child about choosing friends who are kind and accepting.

It is also important for us as parents, to model good behavior when it comes to rejection. Our children watch everything we do.

Lastly, talk about past situations where your child (or when you) have worked through rejection. Talk about the strategies they used and help them apply “what worked” to new situations.

There is no way around it, rejection will happen. Preparing our children ahead of time will give them the courage to work through it and move on.

5 Simple Steps to Relieve Your Child’s Hay Fever Symptoms

Sniffling, sneezing, puffy eyes — kids’ hay fever misery can be the first sign of spring. Up to 40 percent of all children struggle with allergic rhinitis, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). That’s the proper name for the upper respiratory symptoms caused by either year-round allergens (like mold or pet fur) or seasonal allergens (like pollen, which multiplies and becomes airborne in warmer weather).

Medication can help manage your child’s hay fever symptoms, but the best remedy is to nip those allergies in the bud. “Once the bad symptoms start, it takes less and less pollen to exacerbate the whole vicious cycle,” says Neeta Ogden, M.D., an adult and pediatric allergist at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in New Jersey. Here are a few steps you can take to ease your kid’s hay fever symptoms:

Step No. 5 to Ease Hay Fever Symptoms: Fend off fresh air.

Keep windows shut from early morning to late afternoon, when pollen counts are at their peak. Change filters in your air-conditioning units and vents frequently. Keep car windows up and your vehicle’s air-conditioning on the “closed system” setting so air recirculates instead of coming in from outside.

Step No. 4 to Ease Hay Fever Symptoms: Check pollen counts.

Log on to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology website for a daily update. When the numbers are high, take extra precautions, such as asking your child’s school to keep her indoors during recess.

Step No. 3 to Ease Hay Fever Symptoms: Keep the house clean.

Despite your best efforts to keep allergens out, they will still find their way inside — and onto just about every surface. Extra vacuuming and dusting can help, along with regularly washing your child’s bedding. Wipe down pets and keep them out of your child’s bedroom and off of the furniture.

Step No. 2 to Ease Hay Fever Symptoms: Strip ’em down.

As soon as your child enters the house after spending significant time outside (and before she gets anywhere near her bedroom), peel off her pollen-laden clothes and toss them into a plastic bag until they’re ready to go into the wash. Have her shower and shampoo immediately.

Step No. 1 to Ease Hay Fever Symptoms: Get a jump on medication.

If your child takes preventive allergy medications, she should start taking them well in advance of warmer weather. Since kids’ bodies can change dramatically from year to year, visit the allergist to be sure the medication and dosage is appropriate. “Don’t wait until the last minute. Make it routine to see your allergist in late February or early March,” says Ogden.

From medication to spring-cleaning, early precautions can keep hay fever symptoms at bay — or at least to a minimum.