Appletree Day Care, Inc

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Extreme Heat

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Heat and Infants and Children

Infants and young children rely on others to keep them cool and hydrated when it’s hot outside. In this article, we provide tips for protecting your children and other family members from extreme heat.

 

Keep kids cool and hydrated

  • Never leave infants or children in a parked car, even if the windows are open.
  • Dress infants and children in loose, lightweight, light-colored clothing.
  • Make sure they’re drinking plenty of fluids. Stay away from really cold drinks or drinks with too much sugar.
  • Follow additional tips on how to prevent heat-related illness.

Never leave kids in a parked car

  • Even when it feels cool outside, cars can heat up to dangerous temperatures very quickly.
  • Leaving a window open is not enough- temperatures inside the car can rise almost 20 degrees Fahrenheit within the first 10 minutes, even with a window cracked open.
  • Children who are left unattended in parked cars are at greatest risk for heat stroke, and possibly death.

Tips for traveling with children

    • Never leave infants or children in a parked car, even if the windows are cracked open.
    • To remind yourself that a child is in the car, keep a stuffed animal in the car seat. When the child is buckled in, place the stuffed animal in the front with the driver.
    • When leaving your car, check to be sure everyone is out of the car. Do not overlook any children who have fallen asleep in the car.

Learn how to spot heat-related illness

Seek medical care immediately if your child has symptoms of heat-related illness.

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Does Birth Order Matter?

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There is a great deal of real but not particularly scientific evidence that birth order has a great influence on who we turn out to be as adults. If you understand how birth order affects a child, you will be better able to understand and effectively parent your children. You might even understand yourself a bit better.

Now, it’s important to note that people don’t just neatly fit into categories of any kind, and they don’t all fit neatly into birth order categories. The following observations are generalities and not specifics, but still, they might be helpful.

First Children:

Typical first children in a family assume responsibility. They are rule-keepers/enforcers, and they are organized, as well as driven, bossy, approval-seeking, self-critical high-achievers. There’s a mixture of good and bad if I ever saw one!

Way back in 1874, Francis Galton studied and published a report about the lives of 180 eminent scientists of the day. He discovered that 48% of them were first children. During the 20th century, more first-born children were Nobel Prize winners, composers, presidents of countries, astronauts, and prominent personalities. First-born children usually score higher on standardized IQ tests than middle children or youngest children in the birth order.

Middle Children:

My mother said that middle children had “middle child-itis.”  She was a middle child, and she always said her mother said, “You two older kids do this and you two younger kids do that,” and she was caught both ways. Middle kids are usually adaptable. They make great friends and spouses.

Youngest Children:

The “baby-of-the-family” is inventive and often more aggressive. Children who are the last born in a family are very often irresponsible and rebellious. They more often feel “picked on” and inadequate. However, last-borns are also more creative. They are risk-takers. They usually have a great sense of humor and have outgoing personalities.

A Key Piece of the Puzzle: Vaccinations

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As a parent, you work hard to keep your baby healthy, by giving lots of
love… providing healthy foods.

Keeping little hands, feet, and faces clean. Getting plenty of physical activity, and
vaccination. Nothing protects babies better from 14 serious diseases by age two.

That’s why doctors recommend and parents choose the safe, proven protection of
vaccination. Vaccination, a key piece of the puzzle.

For more reasons to vaccinate, talk to your child’s doctor, or go to www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents.

Actively Listening to your Child

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Communicating with our children can be a difficult task at times.  We feel like they’re not listening to us; they feel like we’re not listening to them.  Good listening and communications skills are essential to successful parenting.  Your child’s feelings, views, and opinions have worth, and you should make sure you take the time to sit down and listen openly and discuss them honestly.

It seems to be a natural tendency to react rather than to respond.  We pass judgment based on our own feelings and experiences.  However, responding means being receptive to our child’s feelings and emotions and allowing them to express themselves openly and honestly without fear of repercussion from us.  By reacting, we send our child the message that their feelings and opinions are invalid.  However, by responding and asking questions about why the child feels that way, it opens a dialog that allows them to discuss their feelings further and allows you a better understanding of where they’re coming from.  Responding also gives you an opportunity to work out a solution or a plan of action with your child that perhaps they would not have come up with on their own.  Your child will also appreciate the fact that maybe you do indeed understand how they feel. 

It’s crucial in these situations to give your child your full and undivided attention.  Put down your phone, stop doing dishes, or turn off the television so you can hear the full situation and make eye contact with your child.   Keep calm, be inquisitive, and afterward offer potential solutions to the problem. 

Don’t discourage your child from feeling upset, angry, or frustrated.  Our initial instinct may be to say or do something to steer our child away from it, but this can be a detrimental tactic.  Again, listen to your child, ask questions to find out why they are feeling that way, and then offer potential solutions to alleviate the bad feeling.

Just as we do, our children have feelings and experience difficult situations.  By actively listening and participating with our child as they talk about it, it demonstrates to them that we do care, we want to help, and we have similar experiences of our own that they can learn from and provide as a reference.  Remember, respond – don’t react. 

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