The following post comes from Fern K. Ingber, MEd, President and CEO of the National Children’s Oral Health Foundation.

Where has the summer gone?  Back-to-school is upon us again.  Keeping children healthy is a top priority for both parents and educators.  Help your child start the school year off right by establishing positive oral health habits that will contribute to a lifetime of good health.

Pediatric dental disease, more commonly known as tooth decay, is the #1 chronic childhood disease.  It may seem absurd to you that tooth decay has reached epidemic proportions, but a 2007 study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control determined that one in every five three-year-olds suffers from tooth decay.  You will be even more surprised to learn that more than 40 percent of children have tooth decay by the time they start kindergarten!

Many fail to realize that oral health is integral to overall systemic health.

The mouth is the gateway to the body and serves as a portal for nutritional intake as well as a potential site for microbial infections that can adversely affect general health status. According to the Academy of Pediatrics, lack of proper oral health care can lead to the development of rampant tooth decay, which can cause pain, infection, difficulty speaking and concentrating, malnutrition and sleep deprivation.  Not surprisingly, these factors can negatively impact a child’s growth and ability to learn.

In fact, over 51 million hours of school are missed annually due to dental disease, contributing to increased educational disparities.  In addition, untreated dental disease can contribute to low self-esteem, a key factor in a child’s quality of life and ability to succeed.  However, tooth decay is preventable as is the destruction it leaves in its wake.

Instilling good oral health habits in children is a crucial step in fighting tooth decay. A common misconception is that the primary teeth, what we often refer to as baby teeth, are not important.  Primary teeth play an important role speech development, a child’s appearance and facial structure, nutrition and ensuring that permanent teeth erupt in their normal positions. Although baby teeth are eventually replaced with permanent teeth, it is essential to keep them healthy.  Decay and infection in baby teeth can cause damage to developing permanent teeth.

Here are a few tips to help you maintain your child’s oral health and give them the building blocks they need for happy, healthy futures.

• Invest in a new toothbrush at least every three months and after every illness to avoid lingering bacteria and germs.
• Encourage your child to eat healthy snacks such as fruit, vegetables, cheese and yogurt.  Avoid starchy and sticky snacks that can cling to teeth and cause decay.
• Brush and floss at least twice a day.  (Parents should supervise these activities until children are 8 or 9 years of age as most younger children do not possess the manual dexterity necessary to brush every tooth surface.)
• Children should visit their dentist once every six months.

To learn more about how you can save children from preventable pain and eliminate the devastating effects of tooth decay, visit www.AmericasToothfairy.org.

About Fern K. Ingber, MEd – Fern Ingber is founding President and CEO of the National Children’s Oral Health Foundation: America’s Toothfairy^® (NCOHF), established in 2006 by a group of concerned dental professionals to address the nation’s most common chronic childhood illness – pediatric dental disease.  Under Ms. Ingber’s leadership, NCOHF has delivered over $9 million in financial and product support to affiliate nonprofit oral health programs, reaching more than 1 million children with comprehensive care.

The Internet is full of suggestions for making the transition from the easy going days of summer to the school schedule a bit smoother. Here are a few you might find helpful:

School Clothes:

• Hand down, donate or toss clothes that  your child will no longer wear and save yourself a lot of early morning grief on school days. Let your child be part of the donation process, helping them to understand that other children may still get wear out of clothes they no longer want to wear.
• Before shopping for school clothes develop a budget with your child so he or she starts learning fiscal responsibility and understands that spending will be limited to the budgeted amount.
• Allow your child to pick out a few outfits you don’t like, but are still school and age appropriate and avoid the hassle of clothes he or she is too uncomfortable to wear that will wind up just hanging in the closet.

School Supplies:

• Before you spend money on new supplies, inventory for what you have and what you need and donate what is still useable to schools or shelters.

School Papers:

• Designate a container, with a label, as the place where all school papers that need a parent’s attention are to be placed and nowhere else. Make sure your child understand it is his or her responsibility to put important school papers in this container and that you will check this spot daily and tend to whatever is in there.

Family Calendar:

• Post a large calendar in a central location.
• Tell everyone old enough to post their own meetings, games, etc.
• Post little one’s appointment as they are made or come in from school.
• Give everyone a different colored marker, making each entry easily identified.

School Homework Area:

• Homework is best done in a well-lit permanent space with a door to shut out distractions and provide quiet space. The space needs shelf space for books, writing space with draws for paper and other supplies.
• If a permanent space is not possible, use a portable organizer or a rolling cart that can be taken from place to place to hold supplies.

Early childhood teachers all seem to agree that getting young children acclimated to a full day of school with new and additional learning demands can be a challenge. The sooner a routine is established, the sooner your child will settle into school.

Some young children are perfectly content to sleep in their cribs or junior beds whether they are alone in a room or with siblings.

Others may go to bed in their crib or bed but wake screaming and cannot be comforted, except by getting into mommy and daddy bed and spending the rest of the night there. Still others will not even start out the night in their own bed and the only way anyone in the house is going to get a night’s sleep is if little one gets to go to sleep in mommy and daddy’s bed.

In an article written by Dr. Sears, a practicing pediatrician for over 30 years and father of eight children, he speaks to the concerns that many parents have about allowing their preschool child to sleep with them by answering a question from a reader who wrote,”Our three-year-old wakes up in the middle of the night and either demands to sleep in our bed or insists that Mommy comes sleep in her room. How can we break this habit?”

Dr. Sears answers by advising the parent that she needs to determine if  her child’s desire to sleep with her is a habit or a need. He reminds parents that nighttime can be scary for little people.

If it isn’t fear that is the cause of wanting parent contact during the night time hours, than what could be the reason? Dr. Sears suggests that the need for nighttime contact may be particularly strong if a child had little or no contact with the parent(s) during the day.

The key is to find a solution that meets both a parent’s need for privacy and sleep and a child’s need for attachment and security.

Here are some suggestions Dr. Sears made for addressing the sleep situation:

• Lie down with your child in her room and parent her to sleep with a story, a back rub, and some cuddle time.
• Put a futon or mattress at the foot of your bed and explain that if she wakes up she can come and sleep in her “special bed.” Your three-year-old needs to understand the importance of not disturbing your sleep. If she needs comfort during the night, tell her to tiptoe quietly and slip into her special bed without waking mommy or daddy.
• Above all, don’t feel you are spoiling your child or that she is psychologically disturbed because she can’t sleep on her own. Many emotionally healthy children simply enjoy the nighttime security of sleeping close to their parents.
• Remember that the time your youngster spends in your room (or in your bed) is relatively short, but it encourages a positive life-long attitude about bedtime, conveying that sleep is a pleasant – rather than fearful – state to enter.

To read more of Dr. Sears advice on children’s sleep problems go to www.askdrsears.com.

With radio and TV news reports, this week, announcing the recall of thousands of pounds of ground turkey because of  potential contamination with Salmonella, it’s a good time to hear what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has to say about preventing foodborne illnesses.

“Each year, roughly 1 in 6 people in the US gets sick from eating contaminated food. The 1,000 or more reported outbreaks that happen each year reveal familiar culprits—Salmonella and other common germs.

We know that reducing contamination works.

During the past 15 years, a dangerous type of E. coli infection, responsible for the recall of millions of pounds of ground beef, has been cut almost in half.

Yet during that same time, Salmonella infection, which causes more hospitalizations and deaths than any other type of germ found in food and $365 million in direct medical costs annually, has not declined.

Yearly, 1 million people get sick from eating food contaminated with Salmonella. Applying lessons learned from reducing E. coli O157 infections could help reduce illness caused by Salmonella.”

According to the  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), food related illnesses cause about 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,200 deaths nationwide each year. That is a lot of sickness and death, that in many cases could have been prevented.

WebMD.com describes Salmonella as, “A nasty bacterium that sometimes turns up in the food supply, including chicken, tomatoes, peanuts, salsa, guacamole, and even pet food. It thrives in the intestinal tracts of animals and humans and can cause food poisoning. Illnesses range from mild to very serious infections that can kill vulnerable people. But there are ways to protect yourself.”

As  a consumer, you play a key role in preventing these illnesses. While shopping for food, you need to:

1. Check for cleanliness – Make sure your market looks, smells and feels clean.

2. Certain foods need to be kept separated – Keep raw meat, poultry and seafood apart from other foods in your cart.  Put  these foods in plastic bags to prevent their juices from dripping on other foods. As the checkout person to separate these foods from other foods in your grocery bags.

3. Inspect cans and jars – Don’t buy food in cans that are bulging or dented. Also, don’t buy food in jars that are cracked or have loose or bulging lids. Since foods sold in cans or jars are processed to be sterile, they can “keep” for a long time if the can or jar is intact. A bulging can or jar lid may mean the food was under-processed and is contaminated. A dent in a can, especially if the dent affects a seam, may cause an opening in the seam which may allow contamination, as would a crack in a jar. A loose lid on a jar means the vacuum has been lost and the product may be contaminated. Don’t buy a food product whose seal seems tampered with or damaged.

4. Inspect frozen food packaging-Don’t buy frozen food if the package is damaged. If the package cover is transparent, look for signs of frost or ice crystals. This could mean that the food in the package has either been stored for a long time or thawed and refrozen.

5. Select frozen foods and perishables last – Make Meat, poultry, fish and eggs the last items placed in your cart.

6. Choose fresh eggs carefully – Before putting eggs in your cart, open the carton and make sure that the eggs are clean and none is cracked. Buy only refrigerated eggs and follow the “Safe Handling Instructions” on the carton.

7. Be mindful of time and temperature

It’s important to refrigerate perishable products as soon as possible after grocery shopping. Food safety experts stress the “2-hour rule”—because harmful bacteria can multiply in the “danger zone” (between 40° and 140° F), perishable foods should not be left at room temperature longer than 2 hours. Modify that rule to 1 hour when temperatures are above 90° F, as they often are in cars that have been parked in the sun.

If it will take more than an hour to get your groceries home, use an ice chest to keep frozen and perishable foods cold. Also, when the weather is warm and you are using your car’s air conditioner, keep your groceries in the passenger compartment, not the trunk.

Hear that…it’s the sound of teachers from long ago crying out in horror at the thought of cursive writing, or penmanship as it was called when I was learning script, being dropped from the curriculum in elementary schools.

We adults spent all those hours, long ago, practicing to perfect our writing skills.  First we wrote with a pencil, then on to a fountain pen and then a ballpoint pen. Is the coveted penmanship award to be another dust catcher on the memorabilia shelf displaying things that mattered in a bygone educational era?

Those in favor of doing away with educating our children in cursive writing claim those classroom hours will be better spent teaching other subjects. They claim that the computer and other digital devices are now the communications devices of choice and will only continue to be so in the future.

Still more support the idea of digital writing over cursive writing because it easier for most children to use and less frustrating for those children with physical disabilities. Yes, learning to use a keyboard can be easier than learning to write in script with no worries about illegible handwriting.  As a former educator of children with disabilities, I know and applaud what a great equalizer digital communication is for children with disabilities.

However, if we eliminate cursive writing instruction in school how do future adults sign their names to a check or a legal document? How do they demonstrate that they are the rightful holders of credit cards? How can they prove that they are who they say they are when victims of credit card or identity theft?

Will we return to those days of yesteryear when we made our mark when we didn’t know how to sign our name?

Maybe I am being sentimental about cursive writing, but I hate to think that future adults will only have printing to fall back on if they don’t have a digital device handy.