Sunscreen Safety

I'll admit to being a sunscreen skeptic. The reasons for this are that I turn tan relatively easily, some studies show the benefits of Vitamin D outweigh the risks of sun exposure, and there have been no studies showing the effects of putting all these chemicals on the body's largest organ (especially for small children who have a larger surface are to mass ratio than adults).

I have changed my mind after talking to someone who lost a 39 year old friend due to melanoma. The doctor told her it was due to sun exposure before she was 10. And now there is a report that has looked at sun screen safety. See: Healthiest sunscreens

There isn't one Coppertone product on EWG's list of recommended sunscreens and only two of the 50 Banana Boat and Neutrogena products tested met its criteria. One downside is that all of the products on EWG's list are pricier than your average sunscreen, some slightly more so and others are significantly more expensive.

Here are the most affordable sunscreens on EWG's recommended products list (calculated based on price per ounce):

Badger Balm, SPF 30
Caribbean Solutions Sol Kid Care, 25 SPF
Mexitan Sunscreen Lotion, SPF 50 or SPF 30
Tropical Sands, SPF 50 or SPF 30
Solbar Shield Sunscreen, SPF 40
Vanicream Sunscreen Sensitive Skin, SPF 60 or SPF 35 version
Goddess Garden Kids Natural Sunscreen, SPF 30
Solbar Zinc, SPF 38
Jason Natural Cosmetics, Mineral Based Sunblock, SPF 30

The New York Times On Bullying

At Last, Facing Down Bullies (and Their Enablers)

Kids Need Domestic Stability

I've read a couple of articles recently that are related by dismissing the notion that married parents are always the best option for raising kids. If parents are fighting and always angry at each other, then this is going to be hurtful to the kids.

See:

PhysOrg: Staying together 'for kids' sake' isn't always best

...when their parents frequently argue, young adults are significantly more likely to binge drink than other teenagers. They also tend to smoke, and their poor school grades are similar to those of their peers who don't have both biological parents at home.

TheAtlantic: Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

So, herewith, some modest proposals. Clearly, research shows that what’s best for children is domestic stability and not having to bond with, and to be left by, ever new stepparent figures. Less important is whether or not their overworked parents are logging “date night” (or feeling the magic). So why don’t we accept marriage as a splitting-the-mortgage arrangement? As Fisher suggests, rekindling the romance is, for many of us, biologically unnatural, particularly after the kids come. (Says another friend of mine, about his wife of 23 years: “My heart doesn’t lift when she walks in the room. It sinks, slightly.”) If high-revving women are sexually frustrated, let them have some sort of French arrangement where they have two men, the postfeminist model dad building shelves, cooking bouillabaise, and ignoring them in the home, and the occasional fun-loving boyfriend the kids never see. Alternately, if both spouses find life already rather exhausting, never mind chasing around for sex. Long-married husbands and wives should pleasantly agree to be friends, to set the bedroom aglow at night by the mute opening of separate laptops and just be done with it. More than anything, aside from providing insulation from the world at large, that kind of arrangement could be the perfect way to be left alone.

As far as the children are concerned, how about the tribal approach (a natural, according to both primate and human evolution)? Let children between the ages of 1 and 5 be raised in a household of mothers and their female kin. Let the men/husbands/boyfriends come in once or twice a week to build shelves, prepare that bouillabaisse, or provide sex.

Or best of all, after the breast-feeding and toddler years are through, let those nurturing superdads be the custodial parents! Let the Type A moms obsessively work, write checks, and forget to feed the dog. Let the dads then, if they wish, kick out those sloppy working mothers and run effective households, hiring the appropriate staff, if need be. To a certain extent, men today may have more clarity about what it takes to raise children in the modern age. They don’t, for instance, have today’s working mother’s ambivalence and emotional stickiness.

An In Vitro Chemical Gender Test?

I didn't know this was possible.

Via PhysOrg: Test at home for baby's gender at 10 weeks of pregnancy

Warped Puberty

Is bisphenol A to blame for the early onset of puberty in young women?

See: The Pre-teen Girl Mystery

Cheer For Your Kids. Cheer For The Other Kids.

The letter is about swimming parents, but can apply to all parents who have kids active in sports.

See SciBlogs: An Open Letter For the Parents of Swimmers

Redshirting First Grade

Yesterday morning NPR had a story about teenage football kickers. The boy they interviewed was 15. But he was in the 8th grade!

I was 17 when I graduated from high school. I was always one of the youngest kids in my class. I never found it to be an academic deterrent. It was an athletic challenge - a challenge until I was 16 and in my junior year that is. At that time my body caught up to the lessons and skills I had developed from always competing against more physically mature opponents. In the end I saw it as an advantage.

But it seems there is a trend of more parents delaying their child's entry into school in order to provide an advantage that an extra year of development provides.

See Federal Reserve Bank Of Boston Working Paper: The Lengthening of Childhood

there is little evidence that being older than your classmates has any long-term, positive effect on adult outcomes such as IQ, earnings, or educational attainment. By contrast, there is substantial evidence that entering school later reduces educational attainment (by increasing high school dropout rates) and depresses lifetime earnings (by delaying entry into the labor market)

I also read a recent book review of 'The Nurture Assumption' (See sp!ked: It’s time to move beyond the nature/nurture divide). This book makes the argument that parents have very little to do with how their child turns out. And in fact, genes and peer groups are the most important determiners.

‘The experts are wrong: parental nurturing is not what determines how a child turns out'

This relates to this idea of redshirting because many parents believe that they can improves their child's self-esteem if they give them an advantage to succeed. However, as the book argues:

Contrary to the current orthodoxy, Harris argues that self-esteem is based on what we do, not on how we are encouraged to feel.

Looking at this from my own standpoint as someone who was young but had a best friend in elementary school who was redshirted (held back in first grade actually), there is no doubt that he had higher self-esteem for a long time and I wondered what was wrong with me. However, over the long term the advantage I gained of besting older kids prepared me better for the real world than the short-term artificial advantage provided to the kids who were held back.

But in the end, the parent is right. If a parent feels that their child is not ready for school then they must trust that instinct. However, they must also keep in mind if their decision is based on what they want or what their child needs.

Maybe Morning Sickness Is A Good Thing?

From NewSci: Morning sickness may be sign of a bright baby

Morning sickness, which affects most pregnant women, is thought to be a reaction to the hormones human chorionic gonadotropin and thyroxine, which are secreted at unusually high levels during pregnancy to maintain a healthy placenta. Now Nulman speculates that these hormones, which are higher in women who experience morning sickness, may protect the fetus's developing brain.

The Home Alone Question

When I was 10 my parents and grandparents thought I was old enough to stay home alone. But then after almost cutting off my thumb on a power saw (I believe I stopped the bleeding by promising God I'd stop being mean to my sister) it was awhile before I was home alone again.

In general though, it is a question of maturity and therefore boys and men should probably never be left alone but girls are probably fine around 8.

See NPR: Home Alone: Is Your Tween Ready?

You Can Relax About The Pacifier

See NYT: Children: No Harm to Breast-Feeding From Pacifiers

Writing in The Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, researchers say they found no good evidence of a link between pacifier use and nursing.

“Pacifiers have traditionally been thought to interfere with optimal breast-feeding,” wrote the researchers, at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. In the 1980s, health officials discouraged their use.

But in recent years, researchers have found evidence that babies who use pacifiers when they sleep may be less susceptible to sudden infant death syndrome. The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that pacifiers be used for that reason.

Speech + Movement Can Improve Kids' Learning

See: Gestures and learning: Using gestures -- not just seeing them -- can help kids learn

I Did Not Know Breast Fed Babies Weighed Less

And it is due to lower protein content. See PhysOrg: Study sheds new light on why breast-fed babies grow more slowly

This slower pattern of growth in the first year of life is possibly one reason why breast-fed babies are less likely to become overweight children later on

Intelligence Is A Muscle

And it is important to get kids started early (like in a Montessori program)

At the NYT: How to Raise Our I.Q.

Professor Nisbett provides suggestions for transforming your own urchins into geniuses — praise effort more than achievement, teach delayed gratification, limit reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity...
Good schooling correlates particularly closely to higher I.Q.’s. One indication of the importance of school is that children’s I.Q.’s drop or stagnate over the summer months when they are on vacation (particularly for kids whose parents don’t inflict books or summer programs on them).

Professor Nisbett strongly advocates intensive early childhood education because of its proven ability to raise I.Q. and improve long-term outcomes.

This story reminded me of what I consider must-reading for all parents at NYMag: How Not to Talk to Your Kids

Swim Lessons Are Beneficial

NYT: Children: Early Swim Lessons May Reduce Drowning

A new study adds weight to the argument that giving swimming lessons to children ages 1 to 4 makes them less likely to drown.

The idea might seem obvious, but some safety experts have raised concerns that teaching young children to swim may put them at higher risk by diminishing their natural fear of water or making their caregivers overconfident.

Confirming What You Already Knew

PhysOrg: Physical activity may strengthen children's ability to pay attention

Autism - Fever - Stress

PhysOrg: Scientists propose new theory of autism

Evidence that autism is a chemical problem rather than a physical one includes:

The new theory stems from decades of anecdotal observations that some autistic children seem to improve when they have a fever, only to regress when the fever ebbs. A 2007 study in the journal Pediatrics took a more rigorous look at fever and autism, observing autistic children during and after fever episodes and comparing their behavior with autistic children who didn't have fevers. This study documented that autistic children experience behavior changes during fever.

...a 2008 study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, that found a higher incidence of autism among children whose mothers had been exposed to hurricanes and tropical storms during pregnancy. Maternal exposure to severe storms at mid-gestation resulted in the highest prevalence of autism.

And the idea of fever as therapy reminded me of how fever was used as a cancer treatment at one time.

Toddlers Are Neither Here Nor There

Via LiveScience: Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told

The pupil measurements showed that 3-year-olds neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present. Instead, they call up the past as they need it...

"If you just repeat something again and again that requires your young child to prepare for something in advance, that is not likely to be effective," Munakata said. "What would be more effective would be to somehow try to trigger this reactive function. So don't do something that requires them to plan ahead in their mind, but rather try to highlight the conflict that they are going to face. Perhaps you could say something like 'I know you don't want to take your coat now, but when you're standing in the yard shivering later, remember that you can get your coat from your bedroom."

Kids Are Programmed To Prefer Sweets

PhysOrg: Liking sweets makes sense for kids

The findings, reported in the journal Physiology & Behavior, suggest that children's heightened liking for sweet taste is related to their high growth rate and that sweet preferences decline as children's physical growth slows and eventually stops.

Allergy News

NPR: Study: Kids Often Misdiagnosed With Food Allergies

BBC: Hope over peanut allergy 'cure'

A team from Cambridge's Addenbrooke's Hospital exposed four children to peanuts over a six-month period, gradually building up their tolerance.

By the end the children were eating the equivalent of five peanuts a day.

It is the first time a food allergy has been desensitised in such a way, although a longer-term follow up is now needed to confirm the findings.

Study On The Nature Of Intelligence

PhysOrg: Study gives more proof that intelligence is largely inherited

Genes appear to influence intelligence by determining how well nerve axons are encased in myelin — the fatty sheath of "insulation" that coats our axons and allows for fast signaling bursts in our brains. The thicker the myelin, the faster the nerve impulses.