I give my kids nutritious food when I can; that doesn’t mean they never have chips or ice cream. But a few foods, like gummy bears, are strictly prohibited (for now at least, and for as long as I can get away with it) in this household. I’ve heard that gummy foods like that can do a real number on little teeth because they stick so well.

I may have to rethink my anti-gummy stance in the future. Investigators are checking into whether sugarless gummy bears containing xylitol can actually help prevent cavities in children.

Xylitol is a natural sweetener found in various berries, corn, birch and other plant sources. Research has shown that the sugar substitute reduces levels of mutans streptococci (MS) bacteria, which are known to cause cavities.

Is there hope, then, that candy might actually become a cavity-fighting ally? All I know is that if they make a good-for-your-teeth Milk Dud, I’m there.

Posted by Sunshine.

A study authored by Jean Decety, a psychology/psychiatry professor at the University of Chicago, implies that this may be the case.

Using functional MRI scans on normal kids aged 7 to 12, researchers found the parts of the children’s brains that were activated when shown pictures of people in pain, according to findings published in the current issue of Neuropsychologia.

This seems to suggest that children’s capacity for empathy is hard-wired into their brains, rather than being instilled in them purely through nurturing.

When the children viewed the images of people in pain, their brains showed an increase in activity in the same part of the brain that registers pain inflicted on their own bodies.

I could have told you that my three-year-old has pretty much always shown empathy toward other people when they seem sick or sad or hurting. It doesn’t seem to stop her, however, from inflicting pain on her baby brother. I guess empathy only goes so far!

Posted by Sunshine.

You already know that your parenting style is either more permissive or more authoritarian than some of your friends’ styles. But did you know that your general approach to parenting could greatly influence your child’s diet and eating habits?

I’m not sure I ever really thought of it that way, but it makes sense. Extremely authoritarian parents probably don’t let their kids slide with eating half a chicken nugget and then moving along to dessert. Very permissive parents are less likely to stress a ton about what their kids eat, as long as they’re eating something. (Yes, I’m sure there are exceptions.)

Experts are now suggesting that neither extreme is particularly productive when it comes to instilling healthy eating habits in our children. Better is the authoritative parent — the one in the middle. She is more likely, they say, to have children who eat more balanced meals because she uses positive reinforcement and sets a good example with her own diet, which therefore lowers her children’s risk of childhood obesity.

Well, I have to admit that my diet isn’t the greatest in the world, and I probably err on the side of permissive parenting at times. Maybe if I crack down on my own eating habits, my children will eventually adopt those new, healthier standards as they get older?

In sum, the researchers conclude that that efforts to control childhood obesity need to consider family dynamics.

Posted by Sunshine.

At least one woman says it does. Hara Estroff Marano, editor-at-large of Psychology Today, claims that our heavily invasive parenting methods make life too easy for our children, who then don’t learn normal coping strategies. Then, she argues, when they do face problems down the road, they break down because they never learned to deal with the conflicts that arise in adult life.

From her book: Behold the wholly sanitized childhood, without skinned knees or the occasional C in history! Kids need to learn that you need to feel bad sometimes. We learn through experience, and we learn especially through bad experiences. Through disappointment and failure we learn how to cope.

She also states that parents rush to have their kids labeled so they can receive interventions instead of learning to work around issues, and that play is undervalued as a normal tool for social development (like learning self-control).

On that last point, we agree. The rest, I’m not so certain I buy. Yes, there are advantages to not giving your kid everything he wants; he learns patience and moderation. Disappointments are a normal part of life, and I don’t think kids should be shielded from every single one of them.

But I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t admit that I don’t want to see my kids hurting, even if I know it’s a normal part of life. It’s hard not to jump in and immediately fix everything. And where do you draw the line?

Thoughts? Are we really screwing up our kids by being too involved?

Posted by Sunshine.

When I think about high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and other heart health issues, I envision a middle-aged or older guy with a beer gut and thinning hair, chomping on a huge greasy burger for lunch every day. Not my three-year-old daughter. The idea of her having problems like those seems ridiculous.

I just read an article that made me think twice about the absurdity of the possibility there.

Some children as young as two should be screened for high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other heart disease risks, according to new guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Say what? That’s right — the AAP is recommending that kids who are obese, whose medical history is unknown, or who have a familial background including high blood pressure and the like should be screened for early signs of problems that can lead to heart disease. If necessary, children of at least eight years of age would even receive medication to help lower their cholesterol.

The AAP recommends that the screenings, which include the fasting lipid profile, take place between the ages of 2 and 10 years.

Posted by Sunshine.

A new study says that it does.

The study, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, looked at the potential health effects of a trait known as “locus of control” — the extent to which individuals think they can influence events through their own actions. Those who believe they are largely in charge of their lives have an “internal” locus of control, while those who feel they are not have an “external” locus.

The researchers tracked over seven thousand individuals from birth and found that those who had an internal locus of control at age ten were less likely to be overweight twenty years later, and were possibly more inclined to develop healthy habits and more likely to have a healthy self-esteem.

Locus of control is often viewed as a natural component of a person’s personality. However, [lead researcher Dr. Catharine R.] Gale said, there is also evidence that it is shaped by childhood experiences — including children’s interactions with their parents.

“Parents who encourage independence and help children learn the connection between their actions and consequences tend to have children with a more internal locus of control,” she explained.

Posted by Sunshine.

I love my children. I really, really do. And most of the time, I think they’re not only adorable, but angelic. I know I’m lucky!

But some of those other times…you know the times I mean, the ones when you wonder “Who are you, spawn of Satan, and what have you done with my sweet kid?”…argh!

I thought it might be fun to air our pet peeves about our kids (with ages noted). I wonder if we have a lot of the same gripes for the same age groups.

My son, who just had his first birthday at the end of May, drives me nuts when he refuses to eat something that was his absolute favorite food yesterday, and instead flings it all over the floor while I’m busy trying to convince his sister to eat that same something.

My daughter, who will turn three on Saturday, irks me when she asks for something, then promptly informs me that it’s yucky and she doesn’t want that.

Can you tell mealtimes are a ton of fun around here right now?

Your turn!

Posted by Sunshine.

I don’t know about your town, but where I live, it’s already consistently pretty hot outside. So I thought I’d break out a few summer fun ideas centered around water (because I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be outside much once it hits 90+ unless there’s water involved!).

Try these silly games with kids aged three to five, courtesy of Kaboose.com:

Bucket blast:
For this game, you need two or more children. Each child or team will need a bucket of water, an empty bucket and a paper cup. The first child fills the cup with water from the full bucket and runs with it to the empty bucket to pour their water into it. Both children (or teams) continue until they empty the original bucket of water and fill the second bucket. The child or team with the most water in the bucket wins. For even more fun, cut a quarter-sized hole in each cup and get the kids to plug it using their fingers or by placing it on their heads while they run to fill the bucket.

Butterfinger ball:
This one is played in the shallow end of a pool. Butter each child’s hand with suntan lotion and then wet a large beach ball, says Penny Warner, author of Splish Splash: Water Fun for Kids (Chicago Review Press). The kids throw a ball back and forth to each other and have a fun giggly time trying to hold on to it.

The site includes suggestions for water games to play with older kids, too. Also, there are always the old stand-bys of sprinklers, kiddie pools, and Slip ‘n Slides (Boy, have they ever expanded their water fun since I was a kid with the basic yellow skid-to-the-end-and-pray model!).

Posted by Sunshine.

I’ve been watching my sodium intake (and thus, my family’s since three of the four of us eat the same foods) because my blood pressure was on the rise. One of the foods we’ve learned to be very careful on is soup. We use soups in various recipes; I’m a soup person in general anyway. But have you SEEN the sodium levels in your soup lately?

If you use 1/2 a cup of Campbell’s condensed beef broth, that’s 860mg of sodium. The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for sodium is 2400mg! There goes more than a third of all the salt you should have in a day!

I don’t feel bad for singling Campbell’s out because I’m about to praise them. Campbell’s does offer low sodium soups and other smarter choices (look for the “Healthy Request” line). And they just announced that they are lowering the sodium levels of soups marketed to kids. It’s the second salt reduction for these soups in just three years, and will allow Campbell’s to legally label them healthy foods.

Cutting salt may also help to keep children slim, because a new study shows that kids who don’t snack on salty foods don’t drink as much soda, which is a huge source of empty calories (and caffeine kids really don’t need).

My daughter is on a raspberry and strawberry kick right now; you’d better believe I’m all over that! Hopefully she won’t notice that a lot of her old favorite snacks, like the chips we both love, are no longer present in our house. Even if she does, I can deal with the whining, knowing that I’m keeping her healthier whether she likes it or not.

Posted by Sunshine.

As my son will turn a year old this weekend, I’ve found myself reflecting back over this past year (what a year it was!). I think I learned at least as much from having two children as I did when I went through my first year with my daughter! So I thought that other moms of two might get a smile from some of the lessons I’ve learned so far, and hopefully they won’t scare any moms expecting their second child soon!

1. The tips and tricks you learned with your first child might not work at all with the second one. With my daughter, all I ever had to do to get her to stop doing something was to look sternly at her. My son has to be bodily removed from the situation. Things like that can be not-so-fun surprises, but it’s ok — you just invent new strategies, and then you have twice as many options for dealing with each kid!

2. Multitasking is your best friend. Don’t refill the sippy cup for one kid and then pop lunch for the second in the microwave. Get the microwave going, then fill the sippy in that 20-30 second window. It sounds stupid, but little timesavers like that can add up (and leave you not feeling quite so stressed by all of the little things that crop up when all you want to do is sit down and eat too).

3. The timing of milestones is just going to be different. There are a lot of factors at work. Boys and girls tend to mature differently and reach certain milestones at different times, for one thing. I also had to keep in mind, as my son did most things noticeably earlier than my daughter, that there was a month’s difference in their gestational ages at birth. He was born stronger.

4. You might have a favorite kid at any given moment — but it changes. I’m sorry to say it, but there are moments when I vastly prefer the company of one of my children over the other. Usually it’s whoever isn’t screaming or whining in my ear! It’s normal and it passes.

5. Yes, you can love each child as much as you loved your first when you only had one kid. And watching them interact (when they’re not trying to kill each other) is more than worth the rough moments.

Posted by Sunshine.