Welcome back! Join the conversation by commenting on any of our posts.

With the 2010 FIFA World Cup coming to a very dramatic and exciting finale, there’s even more excitment about the game of soccer. According to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, of the 18 million Americans who play soccer, 78% are under the age of eighteen. In the 1990s, soccer was recognized as the fastest-growing college and high school sport in the United States. The experts say soccer has become popular with children because almost anyone can play.

So if your tween is inspired by watching the World Cup and wants to start or keep kicking around a soccer ball, here are some tips from OHealthy to make sure he or she will have a fun and safe time!

Soccer Safety Tips

• Players must wear shin guards that cover the entire shin, have a strap for children to fasten under their feet and have a plastic outside cover.
• Goalies should wear gloves, elbow pads and kneepads.
• All players should wear form-fitted mouth guards and shatterproof glasses.
• Players’ shoes should have molded cleats or a ribbed sole. Never use metal cleats, as they can cut another player’s skin.
• The right ball can prevent head injuries. Leather balls can become heavy when wet. Use synthetic, nonabsorbent balls on wet fields.
• Soccer goals should be anchored to the ground, using anchors flush with the ground and clearly visible.

Visit OHealthy to read the full article.

Have you been watching the World Cup? Are your kids inspired by it? Please share below.

As we embark upon the Independence Day holiday, we begin in earnest a summer of fun. The key is to keep it safe. As kids are more active outdoors there are a few key things to keep in mind to make sure the toys kids do no harm. Here are some tips from OHealthy’s article, “How to Buy Safe and Fun Toys.”

One of the neatest things about being a parent is that you get to pick out all sorts of fun toys for your children. But although that revives the child within us, it also should remind us that without our adult discretion, those joyful toys can pose a very real hazard to our children.

Toy-related injuries send tens of thousands of adults and children to the emergency room each year. Most injuries occur when parents give their children toys meant for an older age group.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says a good toy should be safe for that child’s age, well-constructed and durable, appealing and interesting to the child, suited to the child’s physical capabilities and suited to the child’s mental and social development. Although there are age ranges given on the packaging of many toys, children within these age ranges vary in abilities and maturity. Take this into account when selecting gifts.

The nonprofit group Safe Kids Worldwide advises you to always supervise your children and use caution with these toys:

• Toys with long strings
• Toys with small, removable parts, sharp points or edges
• Toys that make loud noises, like toy guns and electronic musical devices (mp3 players)
• Propelled toys, including darts and projectiles

So what’s left to give a kid? Try some of these age-appropriate toys:

• Infants to 1 year olds – activity quilts, stuffed animals without button noses and eyes, bath toys and squeaky toys.
• 1 to 2 years old – books, blocks, fit-together toys, balls, push-and-pull toys, pounding toys and shape toys.
• 2 to 5 years old – non-toxic art supplies, books, videos, musical instruments and outdoor toys like a baseball tee stand.
• 5 to 9 years old – bicycles, crafts, jump ropes, roller skates, sports equipment and appropriate safety equipment to use with bikes, skates and sports equipment.
• 10 to 14 years old – computers, microscopes, board games and sports equipment.

Click here to read the full article.

This month, we’re focusing on the importance of sleep.

Yes, we know. School is ending soon, right? So why is this so important now? Because this is a great time to get your kids on a regular sleep schedule that will pay off big rewards when your kids start school in August.

Did you know a National Sleep Foundation (NSF) survey found 60 percent of children under age 18 complained of being tired during the day in the past year? Fifteen percent admitted falling asleep in school.

Why sleep is vital

“We know that mood is affected when children don’t get enough sleep,” says Judith A. Owens, M.D., a pediatric sleep specialist in Providence, R.I. “Children become irritable, cranky, and easily frustrated, and they may show signs of depression and anxiety.” What’s more, she says, “Kids can become hyperactive, aggressive, and impulsive and may experience academic problems.”

Children of different ages have different sleep needs. The average 5- to 12-year-old needs 10 hours sleep, the NSF says. Teens should get 8-1/2 to 9-1/4 hours.

In the teen years, a child’s internal clock resets itself. That creates a biological desire to stay up later and sleep later.

Even among otherwise careful parents, Dr. Owens says, “getting enough sleep is often overlooked.”

Tips for sleep

Here are tips to help your child get a good night’s rest:

• Keep kids away from caffeine, including colas and other caffeinated drinks.
• Maintain the same sleep schedule on weekends as on weekdays.
• Make sure kids spend time outdoors daily.
• Get children to engage in regular exercise.
• Don’t let them watch television right before bedtime.
• Establish a bedtime routine that includes a wind-down period.
• If your child takes medication, consider the effects of that medication on sleep. Some medications should be taken earlier in the day.

Visit OHealthy to read the full article “Kids Need a Good Night’s Sleep.” 

How much sleep does your tween get? Please share in the comments below.

Looking at things in a new way can boost creativity!

When it comes to finding tools to help children succeed in life, there’s nothing like perusing through the resources for educators. With all the emphasis on learning in a classroom, sometimes teachers don’t have the luxury of stressing creativity. So it comes back to parents to help boost this much needed skill.

An article for educators listed five areas that I thought really hit on the target on the best ways to boost creativity. Here is a sample:

1. Seize the opportunity

If you see your tween start cooking or drawing, nudge and nurture that creative spark along. You never know where it could take them.

2. Challenge Assumptions

I always think that teaching someone to think critically is really the key to success. It’s not about memorizing facts. But helping kids see things from lots of different angles. Toys like puzzles, word jumbles, Scrabble and even kaleidoscopes help to rearrange ideas.

3. Take Risks

This is a great one and can often be accomplished outdoors. I love seeing tweens playing on jungle gyms or expanding their reach further than they thought they could. Often they take these accomplishments back indoors.

4.Get a New Perspective

Helping see an idea or situation from another perspective can widen one’s own thought process. Many of our mommy bloggers this month have shared how they buy costumes and encourage their kids to put on plays or shows. Stepping into someone else’s shoes is a great way to get a new perspective

5. Think Ambiguously

I like the idea that everything doesn’t have to be set in stone. This idea doesn’t work for concrete skills like math or science but in history and English. Make sure your tween has a well-rounded educational experience.

To read the article in full, visit here. But thinking about these five areas can begin an interesting voyage of creativity!

How do you incorporate creative play in your tween’s life? Please share below.

As we continue our conversation this month about how to make your tween more creative, one important factor should not be overlooked: color. Whether it’s the hue you paint your son or daughter’s room, the clothes they wear, color has been proven to have a big impact on how individuals realte to their space. OHealthy’s article “Color Can Affect How People Think and Act” explains more. Here’s an excerpt:

“People think blue is always good, regardless of the circumstance, and that’s not always the case,” said Rui (Juliet) Zhu, assistant professor of marketing at the university. “If we were setting the room for a brainstorming session for new product development or coming up with innovative ideas for a gallery or shop, then the blue color will probably help.”

The findings, which appear online Feb. 5 in Science, stem from six separate studies that tested how different hues influence cognitive performance. The researchers looked at whether certain colors made products, such as toothpaste and toys, approachable or evoked avoidance feelings in the participants. They also tested whether color affected memory and information processing, as well as creative versus detail-oriented behavior.

Researchers have long questioned the role that color plays in behavior and performance. A study published last fall in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, for instance, found that red makes men feel more amorous toward women.

“We’ve done a study of these kind of associations, and what we find is that of the terms we looked at, red turns up on top for associations for a number of different things: angry, aggressive, strong, courageous, frustrated and lustful,” said Stephen E. Palmer, a professor of psychology and cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Zhu agreed, to a degree. “Because we constantly see red paired with ambulance, blood, emergency, it gets our vigilant attention because we want to avoid these things,” she said. “Blue skies and oceans are open and peaceful things. Therefore, they encourage a more innovative search of strategy.”

But Zhu cautioned that their study looked only at cognitive tasks and that color might play a different role in other settings.

“If we’re talking about physical tasks like sports, red can have very different associations — enthusiasm, success, power, excitement — so I want to be careful not to generalize to other domains,” she said.

“All of our studies were done in North America, so it raises the question whether the same kind of associations, the same kind of effects can be seen in other cultures, so that’s a study that merits future research,” Zhu said. “If it’s a different culture that pairs red with different things, then we’re likely to see a different pattern of results.”

Visit OHealthy to read the entire article.

What color do you surround your tween with? Have you noticed how your tween responds to certain colors? Please share in the comments box below.