Cara Natterson's Blog, page 15
February 21, 2019
Medicines That Don’t, cough, Work
Save your $ and a late-night run to the drug store. Cough medicines don't work for most people, most of the time. We have known this for years and years.
On a South American trip last month with two of my grandsons, the younger — 14-year-old Tennyson — developed a cough. He had no fever, congestion or fatigue, said he felt fine, ate and slept normally and stayed well-hydrated. But eight days later, after watching a live raptor show for 90 minutes in freezing winds, his cough was noticeably worse. As the responsible adult, I decided to get him an over-the-counter cough medicine ... READ MORE
February 12, 2019
Concussion Confusion
Concussions seem to happen all the time. I mean, they are absurdly frequent. I remember one, maybe two kids having concussions when I was growing up. These days they are a dime a dozen.
Some of this is a function of the fact that we have redefined the word concussion. Any head bonk, it seems, can qualify. Back in the 70s and 80s, concussion...READ MORE
February 11, 2019
The Stress Mess
Funny story: When Lisa Damour published Untangled in 2017, I heard her speak and then met her for coffee. I wanted her to be less impressive in person, but no luck. I was sure that her winning combo of deep insight and wit wouldn’t pan out over a cup of coffee one rainy late afternoon — wrong again. And then I just wanted to hate her for being so awesome, but she’s completely unhateable. She’s the real deal, which is why everything she writes in that authentic voice, rich with life experience, resonates so loudly. Okay, so here’s the funny story: that day over coffee, as if we had known each other for more than the 45 minutes we had, I tried to convince Lisa to write a boy book. Untangled for guys. Parents would eat it up. Lisa laughed at me and said: I have a new book that I am working on… Read More...
February 10, 2019
How to Get More Sleep
Your kids need anywhere from 9 - 12 hours of sleep each night, depending on how old they are; you need 8 -9. If sleep is one of the most important health strategies in life, how can we get enough for our kids? And how about for ourselves?! (Spoiler alert: these tips apply to kids and parents alike.)
February 9, 2019
Social Media in the Flesh
Last year, the venerable Dolly Klock and I had the good fortune of getting to know Gail Dines. Dolly and I took turns speaking alongside Gail — actually, it was more like in advance of Gail, since we viewed our task as one of introducing Gail’s massive subject matter, porn, by framing it in child development. During one advance phone call, Gail wanted to pick our brains on the intersection of her field and ours. Almost simultaneously, Dolly and I both went haywire about porn on social media. It was a tirade, and Gail heard us loud and clear. She proceeded to wrap the information into her talk and, over the past several months, Gail has taken a deep dive into this issue. Now she’s got a diatribe of her own... and answers for parents about how to handle the new porn-meets-social-media frontier.
Pornography today is not your father’s Playboy. Instead of reaching under the mattress to score a magazine of naked women with coy smiles, teenagers are just a few phone swipes away from hard-core videos in which women are sexually abused and humiliated. Porn is now more affordable, accessible, and violent than ever before, and many boys are watching it as early as age 11 or 12. As one teen told researchers writing a report on kids and porn for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner in England, “Basically, porn is everywhere.”… READ MORE
February 7, 2019
Consent as a Life Skill
Teach consent as a life skill, not a sex skill. What fabulous advice! Because when we stop and think about it, consent has everything to do with sex and also nothing at all. Consent can impact every interaction you have throughout the day — it’s about respecting someone else’s space not to mention their wishes; it impacts power dynamics and autonomy. Consent, in its purest form, plays out everywhere from the blacktop at recess to the office workplace to, yes, the bedroom. I had never thought about consent in this broader way before reading this piece... and now I will never revert to my very narrow, physical definition. Ed Week, this is, indeed, a BIG IDEA worth sharing.
In education, we try to play the long game. We lay the foundations for college math in middle school and job skills in kindergarten. But when it comes to teaching kids about consent, we do way too little, way too late. And evidence suggests that what we are doing doesn't give students the skills they need to navigate adulthood.The last few years have been a wake-up call about the need to start laying that foundation for consent early. I have two…READ MORE
Understanding Consent
Teach consent as a life skill, not a sex skill. What fabulous advice!
In education, we try to play the long game. We lay the foundations for college math in middle school and job skills in kindergarten. But when it comes to teaching kids about consent, we do way too little, way too late. And evidence suggests that what we are doing doesn't give students the skills they need to navigate adulthood.The last few years have been a wake-up call about the need to start laying that foundation for consent early. I have two…READ MORE
January 13, 2019
Cautionary Tale
This is one child’s story, a cautionary tale. I usually post studies or articles about studies, but sometimes the trajectory of one person speaks louder than statistics about hundreds or even thousands. Or at the very least it speaks in a different tone. And so I am sharing with you, and I think this is one to pass along to your teen and tween kids, too...
Luka Kinard knew his vaping habit was out of control when it started costing him $150 a week.“I was selling my clothes,” Kinard, a 15-year-old high school sophomore, said. “I would get shoes, sell them, go out get cheap shoes, sell them. I was doing anything and everything to get money.”His parents noticed when his grades started plummeting. READ MORE
January 12, 2019
ACNE!
Almost every tween or teen is going to deal with it sometime, somewhere (face, chest, back, AKA bacne). Really, it’s the rare kid who goes completely unscathed. This piece has some good basic info but it totally buries the lead, IMO. Because every kid I know - and that includes my own - is highly motivated to do something about it. They want the basic info shared here, but they also want strategies. So here’s what we do in my house:
1. Face washing and tooth brushing happen together, twice a day - it’s just a habit, so get used to it. We change up the cleanser from time to time. I haven’t found a perfect one quite yet, but I am a big believer in clean products with no colors, perfumes, parabens, you know the list...
2. Sunscreen in the am, and a mild exfoliant in the pm. One of my kids has trickier skin than the other, so we have had to change up the routine with different post-cleansing ingredients. Talk to your pediatrician or dermatologist. The general approach is to try something for a couple of weeks, see if it works, and if not try something else. Annoyingly, this is the gold standard.
3. Steam! Best part of the ritual is a post-cleansing steam every few days that my son - yes, my son, even more than my daughter - loves. No dermatologist has ever recommended it to me but it seems to work wonders. Just pour a little boiling water on a washcloth, covering an area about the size of your hand, and let it cool for a moment. Then wave the steamy (it shouldn’t be so cool that it doesn’t steam) towel over the face, close but not touching the skin. You don’t want to burn the face, and a super hot towel or even high-intensity steam can do that. Once the damp towel cools down significantly, drape it over the face for a few seconds and the gently wipe away the water that has settled on the skin.
4. And finally, water in the body, not just on the skin!! This one gets 2 exclamation points because, again, no one ever mentions it. A clean diet low in sugar is important for good skin, but drinking water is just as critical, maybe more so. When my kids are well-hydrated, I see it on their faces in so many ways. And let me tell you, when the acne crops disappear they are motivated to drink even more.
Got your own tips? Please share!
Acne appeared sporadically at first when Sophia Steinberg was in the eighth grade, but within two years she said her face, chest and back were covered with embarrassing lesions of cystic acne.“I was very self-conscious, deeply insecure and anxious,” Sophia, a Brooklyn high school student, told me. “I would wake up ashamed for my face. I felt so unattractive all the time. I had to use so much makeup and wear concealing clothing. I avoided doing presentations in front of the class... READ MORE
January 11, 2019
From the TED Stage
I was thrilled to share my thoughts – and preview my new book – at TEDx Crossroads
[image error]
We live in a world where we are sometimes overly sensitive to the needs of our young girls as they reach puberty. As a result, we neglect the needs of our young boys. New York Times best-selling author and pediatrician Cara Natterson explains why this must change. Cara Natterson is a pediatrician, the founder of Worry Proof Consulting, and the New York Times best-selling author of the… WATCH THE VIDEO
