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It seems American scientists lost their mojo ever since European physicists announced July 4th that they had discovered the Higgs boson. The low morale was even evident Sunday when NASA’s Curiosity rover executed a perfect landing on the surface of the Mars with the assistance of a giant parachute, a jet pack, and Tom Cruise in a black cat-suit (that last part was top-secret).
Allen Chen, the deputy head of the rover’s descent and landing team at the Jet Propulsion Lab, was heard to say, “I can’t believe this. This is unbelievable!” Really? Because his team, you know, designed the landing sequence. So if you run into any scientists this week, give them a hug. Remind them how we lucked out with the Mars rover and that, while we missed the Higgs, there will always be other bosons. Unless there’s only the one. Come to think of it, stick with the hug.
How Touching
A hug is an example of what psychologists call “positive touch.” Other examples of positive touch include patting a person on the head, fist-bumping, and handing someone a $50 bill. “Negative touch,” on the other hand, includes spanking, jerking a person by the arm, or giving someone knuckles somewhere other than his hand. Psychologist Kathy Stansbury noticed that parents never exhibit negative touch with their kids when they come to her laboratory at Michigan State University, so in order to study the phenomenon she and her team staked out playgrounds and restaurants, presumably after being ejected from Toys "R" Us.
After not having witnessed a single episode of negative touch in years of lab research, Stansbury was “very surprised” to see it used by nearly a quarter of caregivers when trying to get their 3- to 5-year-old children to comply, suggesting that perhaps this was her first visit to a playground. Not all the touch her team observed was negative, however. In cases where caregivers used positive touch, children were generally faster to comply, and they skipped pouting altogether. From this study I learned that next time I take my kids out to eat and they misbehave I need to scan the restaurant for 20-year-olds with Michigan State tee shirts and clipboards.
Plan Bee
The Michigan State study may be an example of the aphorism, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” but what if you don’t even like flies? What if instead you have a child with a cough that’s keeping her awake all night? In a study co-funded by the Honey Board of Israel researchers at Tel Aviv University demonstrated that children with cough slept better when given a bedtime dose of honey as opposed to concentrated extract of dates. Given the potential side effects of pediatric cough and cold medicines, I already advise parents of children over age 1 to choose honey as a cough suppressant, but how many times have I heard, “I’ve always used concentrated date extract, and it works so well!”? I’m sold, at least until I can get my grant from the State of North Carolina to study the antitussive properties of barbecue sauce.
A Big Problem
Speaking of sugar-coating, there's a new review of 24 articles on how physicians communicate with parents about their children’s weight problems. The authors concluded that when telling parents their children are overweight or obese it’s very important we not tell them their children are “overweight” or “obese.” Parents found such terms offensive and judgmental, and parents who felt criticized were less likely to establish strong partnerships with providers.
Preferred terms included “large,” “heavy,” and “gaining too much weight.” Doctors in the study often failed to discuss weight-related issues with parents for fear of offending them, apparently with good reason. The article, which includes a number of suggestions to help providers build effective partnerships with families, can be found in the journal Pediatric Obesity, which I will heretofore call Pediatric Largeness. Weight-related issues will pose a therapeutic challenge for years to come, but if we can land a rover on Mars, I think we tackle it, as long as we can count on help from Tom Cruise.
David L. Hill, M.D, FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill's first book, Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro will be available starting in April 2012 from AAP Publishing.
It seems American scientists lost their mojo ever since European physicists announced July 4th that they had discovered the Higgs boson. The low morale was even evident Sunday when NASA’s Curiosity rover executed a perfect landing on the surface of the Mars with the assistance of a giant parachute, a jet pack, and Tom Cruise in a black cat-suit (that last part was top-secret).
Allen Chen, the deputy head of the rover’s descent and landing team at the Jet Propulsion Lab, was heard to say, “I can’t believe this. This is unbelievable!” Really? Because his team, you know, designed the landing sequence. So if you run into any scientists this week, give them a hug. Remind them how we lucked out with the Mars rover and that, while we missed the Higgs, there will always be other bosons. Unless there’s only the one. Come to think of it, stick with the hug.
How Touching
A hug is an example of what psychologists call “positive touch.” Other examples of positive touch include patting a person on the head, fist-bumping, and handing someone a $50 bill. “Negative touch,” on the other hand, includes spanking, jerking a person by the arm, or giving someone knuckles somewhere other than his hand. Psychologist Kathy Stansbury noticed that parents never exhibit negative touch with their kids when they come to her laboratory at Michigan State University, so in order to study the phenomenon she and her team staked out playgrounds and restaurants, presumably after being ejected from Toys "R" Us.
After not having witnessed a single episode of negative touch in years of lab research, Stansbury was “very surprised” to see it used by nearly a quarter of caregivers when trying to get their 3- to 5-year-old children to comply, suggesting that perhaps this was her first visit to a playground. Not all the touch her team observed was negative, however. In cases where caregivers used positive touch, children were generally faster to comply, and they skipped pouting altogether. From this study I learned that next time I take my kids out to eat and they misbehave I need to scan the restaurant for 20-year-olds with Michigan State tee shirts and clipboards.
Plan Bee
The Michigan State study may be an example of the aphorism, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” but what if you don’t even like flies? What if instead you have a child with a cough that’s keeping her awake all night? In a study co-funded by the Honey Board of Israel researchers at Tel Aviv University demonstrated that children with cough slept better when given a bedtime dose of honey as opposed to concentrated extract of dates. Given the potential side effects of pediatric cough and cold medicines, I already advise parents of children over age 1 to choose honey as a cough suppressant, but how many times have I heard, “I’ve always used concentrated date extract, and it works so well!”? I’m sold, at least until I can get my grant from the State of North Carolina to study the antitussive properties of barbecue sauce.
A Big Problem
Speaking of sugar-coating, there's a new review of 24 articles on how physicians communicate with parents about their children’s weight problems. The authors concluded that when telling parents their children are overweight or obese it’s very important we not tell them their children are “overweight” or “obese.” Parents found such terms offensive and judgmental, and parents who felt criticized were less likely to establish strong partnerships with providers.
Preferred terms included “large,” “heavy,” and “gaining too much weight.” Doctors in the study often failed to discuss weight-related issues with parents for fear of offending them, apparently with good reason. The article, which includes a number of suggestions to help providers build effective partnerships with families, can be found in the journal Pediatric Obesity, which I will heretofore call Pediatric Largeness. Weight-related issues will pose a therapeutic challenge for years to come, but if we can land a rover on Mars, I think we tackle it, as long as we can count on help from Tom Cruise.
David L. Hill, M.D, FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill's first book, Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro will be available starting in April 2012 from AAP Publishing.
It seems American scientists lost their mojo ever since European physicists announced July 4th that they had discovered the Higgs boson. The low morale was even evident Sunday when NASA’s Curiosity rover executed a perfect landing on the surface of the Mars with the assistance of a giant parachute, a jet pack, and Tom Cruise in a black cat-suit (that last part was top-secret).
Allen Chen, the deputy head of the rover’s descent and landing team at the Jet Propulsion Lab, was heard to say, “I can’t believe this. This is unbelievable!” Really? Because his team, you know, designed the landing sequence. So if you run into any scientists this week, give them a hug. Remind them how we lucked out with the Mars rover and that, while we missed the Higgs, there will always be other bosons. Unless there’s only the one. Come to think of it, stick with the hug.
How Touching
A hug is an example of what psychologists call “positive touch.” Other examples of positive touch include patting a person on the head, fist-bumping, and handing someone a $50 bill. “Negative touch,” on the other hand, includes spanking, jerking a person by the arm, or giving someone knuckles somewhere other than his hand. Psychologist Kathy Stansbury noticed that parents never exhibit negative touch with their kids when they come to her laboratory at Michigan State University, so in order to study the phenomenon she and her team staked out playgrounds and restaurants, presumably after being ejected from Toys "R" Us.
After not having witnessed a single episode of negative touch in years of lab research, Stansbury was “very surprised” to see it used by nearly a quarter of caregivers when trying to get their 3- to 5-year-old children to comply, suggesting that perhaps this was her first visit to a playground. Not all the touch her team observed was negative, however. In cases where caregivers used positive touch, children were generally faster to comply, and they skipped pouting altogether. From this study I learned that next time I take my kids out to eat and they misbehave I need to scan the restaurant for 20-year-olds with Michigan State tee shirts and clipboards.
Plan Bee
The Michigan State study may be an example of the aphorism, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” but what if you don’t even like flies? What if instead you have a child with a cough that’s keeping her awake all night? In a study co-funded by the Honey Board of Israel researchers at Tel Aviv University demonstrated that children with cough slept better when given a bedtime dose of honey as opposed to concentrated extract of dates. Given the potential side effects of pediatric cough and cold medicines, I already advise parents of children over age 1 to choose honey as a cough suppressant, but how many times have I heard, “I’ve always used concentrated date extract, and it works so well!”? I’m sold, at least until I can get my grant from the State of North Carolina to study the antitussive properties of barbecue sauce.
A Big Problem
Speaking of sugar-coating, there's a new review of 24 articles on how physicians communicate with parents about their children’s weight problems. The authors concluded that when telling parents their children are overweight or obese it’s very important we not tell them their children are “overweight” or “obese.” Parents found such terms offensive and judgmental, and parents who felt criticized were less likely to establish strong partnerships with providers.
Preferred terms included “large,” “heavy,” and “gaining too much weight.” Doctors in the study often failed to discuss weight-related issues with parents for fear of offending them, apparently with good reason. The article, which includes a number of suggestions to help providers build effective partnerships with families, can be found in the journal Pediatric Obesity, which I will heretofore call Pediatric Largeness. Weight-related issues will pose a therapeutic challenge for years to come, but if we can land a rover on Mars, I think we tackle it, as long as we can count on help from Tom Cruise.
David L. Hill, M.D, FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill's first book, Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro will be available starting in April 2012 from AAP Publishing.
