January 24, 2020. Unless you have been in China in the past few weeks or are presently in contact with someone who recently visited China, the risk of your family becoming infected with coronavirus illness are presently extremely remote, says the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). However, stay tuned. This current outbreak is a […]
Help! Will somebody hush that crying baby on this plane?!
January 5, 2020 by
(This is an update of an article I wrote some years ago. It also appeared in the New York Times.) When traveling by air, a lasting nightmare is sitting near a cuddly little baby that suddenly morphs into a nonstop noise machine, emitting high decibel, ear-piercing, headache-producing, sleep-preventing discomfort. An even worse nightmare: it’s your […]
Why Travel With Your Children?
October 31, 2019 by
Traveling and vacationing with your children are prudent investments into their developing self-assurance. To write this article, I went to Google (where else?) and typed in “Benefits of family travel.” Within .57 seconds I had a whopping 680,000,000 results. (Full disclosure: not surprisingly, I did not read all the results!) I did scan well over […]
Why Do Parents Forget Their Infants in Cars?
July 30, 2019 by
New York. July 31, 2019. It happened again. A father, a social worker, was charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for leaving his one-year old twins strapped into the backseat of his car on a hot July day while he worked his eight-hour shift at a VA hospital. He forgot to drop them off […]
Car Seats / Safety / Kids
April 30, 2019 by
Installing children’s safety seats into cars is not child’s play. More than ninety percent of first-time parents make at least a minor error in installing seats, in positioning infants in seats, or in transitioning children to advanced seats as the children grow. An appropriate seat – optimally installed and correctly used – reduces the risk […]
Home Alone
June 28, 2018 by
Is it reasonable for parents of young children to go on a seven-day vacation if they leave their child(ren) with a competent caretaker? Lots has been written on the subject. Google has 5,520,000 entries! No, I did not read them all. However, I did look at several dozen and read those who had thoughtful opinions. […]
Protecting infants and young children from the sun
June 14, 2018 by
Parents! Take this quiz: In which month is sun protection for infants and young children especially important? a) June b) July c) August d) September 1. The (maybe surprising) answer: a) June. Many adults erroneously associate sun problems with hot weather and believe that serious sun protection is not necessary until the hot summer months […]
“Flying” through the airport with young children: An update
May 22, 2018 by
If a car seat containing an infant is placed “just for a moment” on a non-moving conveyor belt at an airport security machine, the infant may pass through the machine. It has happened. How? Parent places car seat on the belt. Parent turns around to take off his/her shoes or to tend to another child. […]
How long is too long to allow infants to sleep in car seats?
March 31, 2018 by
Infant car seats present dilemmas for parents. 1. A car seat is practically part of your family. Chances are you had a car seat delivered to you before you delivered your baby; hospitals won’t discharge you without one. The seats are mandatory to take your baby for a car ride. Once home, with a car […]
Will family vacations ever be all fun and games?
March 16, 2018 by
Poor parental planning spoils more family vacations than lousy food, miserable weather, no-star accommodations – or cranky children. While a family vacation will rarely be all fun and games, savvy planning can keep the inevitable misadventures down to a manageable few. 1. Successful family vacations are primarily kids’ vacations. This means getting away from daily routines and regimentation, declaring a moratorium […]
