Family Health Zone

How Both Children and Parents Can Benefit From Playing Together

In our busy, often hectic lives, it can be so difficult to work in quality play time with our children. The problem is, that to properly grow and learn, children need to engage actively in play. And in order to assure that our children are developing their necessary physical and emotional skills, we need to make some time to share in their activities.

Let's look at some of the benefits of playing together, for our children:

Physical Activity. While you want to let your child take the lead in choose what they do during play  time, you can help encourage them to choose healthy physical activities. If they want to play a game, suggest hide and seek, tag, or anything else that will get them up and moving. Physical play helps to support physical development. If a child sits in front of a T.V. all day, they’ll never develop the best balance, or other physical attributes as well as they should.

Parental Bonding. There is nothing more important in building a child’s self esteem and feeling of safety, than bonding with a parent. If a child learns to develop a trusting attitude with their parents, they’ll grow up to feel safer and more secure in the world around them. To you it might seem obvious, but for them, this time is about feeling loved, secure, and protected.

Self Expression. If allowed to direct their own play, a child will often reenact situations that he or she finds important in their lives. They may also use play time to vent emotional frustrations that may not be capable of verbalizing at this point in their development. By paying attention to your child’s behavior during play, you can determine what their concerns and frustrations are. And, once you know the problem, it’s a lot easier to deal with and maybe find some alternative solutions that your child needs.

While playing with your child is obviously beneficial to them, it can also help you out as well. Here are just a few of the benefits of playing with your son or daughter.

Getting Better Acquainted With Your Children. Many parents of teenagers say that they know little or nothing about their child. A good way to know them later on in life, is to begin the process of learning who they are while they’re still young, and then work to continually understand who they are as they grow older. Playing regularly with your children now, may actually help you worry less about them when they’re older.

Helps You to Relax. When children play, they create imaginary worlds and situations. If you are actively involved in your child’s imaginary worlds, it can help you forget the stress of the real world.

Promotes Your Own Physical Activity. We all know how hard it is to stay active when there are deadlines to meet, bills to pay, and everything else to do. If we strive to keep our children active through play, we will end up being active with them.

Playing with your child is as simple as setting aside a block of time everyday. It may be difficult to rearrange your schedule, but it will be well worth it for both you and your child, in the end.

Acne – Myths and Common Misconceptions

Acne afflicts many people all over the world. There are also many rumors floating around about the  causes, treatments, and anything else related to acne.

Here are some myths and truths that can help clear up some of the rumors about acne:

• The more you clean your skin, the better your acne will get. Acne is caused by oil in your skin, not by the dirt on your face. While it’s important to cleanse your skin twice a day, cleaning more than that can overly dry your skin. Many people believe cleansing all the time will actually worsen the condition.
• Eating fatty foods will make your acne worse. Specific food groups, such as fast food and chocolate, should not trigger breakouts; however, some people have breakouts due to reactions from certain foods. If you notice that you break out after eating a certain food, avoid it in the future. Your overall diet also contributes to skin health.
• Stress causes breakouts. Research has shown that breakouts are not triggered by stressful situations. If you experience acne problems before a big or stressful event, watch what you do with your hands. Leaning on your hands on your face can cause a breakout, something you may do in times of stress.
• Acne will clear up on its own. Most people are under the false impression that acne only afflicts teenagers; however everyone from babies to women in their 40’s can experience acne. Instead of waiting for it to go away, you should get it treated.
• Covering pimples with make-up will make them worse. As long as you use the right make-up, it should not cause breakouts. Buy make-up specifically designed for people with acne. If it still triggers breakouts, try a different brand. Just like food, different ingredients in make up can cause a reaction and result in a breakout.
• Pimples go away when you pop them. Never ever pop a zit. Contrary to popular belief, popping zits can make them worse rather than better. Popping a zit can cause infection, increase the likelihood of scarring, and slow healing. If you must try to speed up healing, spread the base of the zit apart instead of squeezing it. This opens up the pore allowing it to heal.
• If one medicine doesn’t work, you have to live with acne. There’s a reason that there’s not one acne medication on the market. It’s because not one product works for everyone. If one doesn’t work, keep trying. Also, it sometimes takes a while for medications to work. Don’t worry if a treatment doesn’t work after a week.
• A tan helps clear up acne. While a tan may make acne less visible, it will do nothing to clear up a breakout. Regular tanning can make your skin look old much faster and promotes skin cancers. The permanent damage you cause is not worth slightly decreasing the appearance of pimples. 

Once you know the facts about acne, you can learn to prevent breakouts and find the right medicine to help you get beautifully clear skin.

Benefits of Strength Training for Children

When most people think of strength training, they imagine big buff body builders. Contrary to popular belief, when done properly, strength training can be safe and beneficial to your child.

• Helps with sports performance. Many preteens want to start a strength training program to improve their sports capabilities. When done properly, strength training can help your child become a better athlete. Just remember that it should be used to help with sport performance, not be a sport itself. Pre teens and teens bodies are not ready for extreme muscle building.
• Can prevent injuries. The stronger your child is, the less likely they are to hurt themselves when participating in other physical activities. You may think that they can hurt themselves through strength training, but injuries are usually minor when proper technique is used.
• Improves child’s stamina. This is helpful when it comes to sports, but can be a plus in all aspects of life. Improved stamina can help your child get through long, physically and mentally demanding days with less pain and stress.
• Improves overall physical health. Strength training can strengthen bones, lower cholesterol, improve heart and lung function and help your child maintain a healthy body composition.
• Teaches healthy exercise practices. With the percentage of obese children today, most parents should be concerned about teaching their child healthy exercise practices, and strength training is a way to do it. They’ll learn to be able to stick with a healthy exercise program and not overdo it. For this reason, you should also incorporate regular aerobic activity into your child’s schedule.
• Build’s self esteem. A lot of how your child feels about themselves come from the way they look. If they start looking and feeling better, they’ll feel better about themselves. They will also   build their self esteem by knowing that they can set goals and achieve them in a healthy manner.

While many people promote strength training for children, there are some safety concerns. If you’re going to let your child do strength training, make sure it is done properly.

• Don’t start too young. In order to master strength training, a child must be able to do the movements in proper form. Young children are still learning to control their motor functions and shouldn’t be distracted by building muscle.
• Visit your child’s pediatrician. You doctor can not only tell you if your child is physically capable of starting strength training, they can also help you choose an appropriate exercise program and safety measures.
• Start slow. Make sure your child has mastered the movements before allowing weights or other forms of resistance to be added. Many injuries in strength training are caused by incorrect form. In order to keep your child healthy, be sure they can perform the activity without resistance before letting them use weights.
• Remember to add weights slowly. This is meant to help your child, not get them stronger as fast as possible. A child should be able to do 15 reps of an exercise properly before moving on to more resistance.

If you follow these safety guidelines, you will start to see all the benefits to your child’s life in no time.

How Physical Activity Can Help Battle Adolescent Depression

Are you worried about your adolescent's moods? Has their behavior changed recently and you think they might be depressed? If your child or adolescent appears to be depressed, you may have looked into antidepressants and found yourself even more concerned, and you should be. Drugs designed to fight depression in adults may in some cases, actually increase the incidence of destructive behavior in some children and adolescents.

The good news is that there are other options. While seriously depressed teens should visit the doctor to rule out underlying physical conditions, a therapist that specializes in the treatment of adolescents, or other mental health professionals, some early symptoms may also be alleviated through regular physical activity and exercise. Physical activities can work directly as well as indirectly to help relive many of your teen’s emerging symptoms of depression.

While there are other health benefits, exercise and physical activity itself, can directly improve the overall mood of your adolescent. Activity that is physical, produces chemicals in the brain, that work to improve a person's overall feeling of good health. While the effect is short term, regular exercise can  help to improve your adolescent's affect, even when they’re not actively engaged in physical activity.

It is not a secret that there are many children and adolescents in this country that are overweight and suffering from diabetes. Regular exercise will help alleviate or at least control these conditions and leave your child feeling better about themselves.

Another one of the contributing factors in adolescent depression is low self esteem. By helping your child improve their physical appearance, you can help improve the way they feel about their bodies and themselves. Regular exercise will help your child look and feel better. Even if physical results are minimal, consistent exercise and physical activity can help to provide the child with a sense of accomplishment which boosts their self-esteem.

As already indicated, low self esteem is a big factor in childhood and adolescent depression. But self-esteem is not entirely determined by how one looks or what skills one can accomplish. Many children suffer from a low self-esteem because they lack socialization skills. There are plenty of exercise opportunities for adolescents, such as team sports, that involve socializing. These will allow your child to meet new people and make new friends. Even if they’re not good enough to make their school’s team, there are plenty of other opportunities through the YMCA and other sport clubs. Given the opportunity and provided with your encouragement, they may find an activity that they enjoy participating in.

So talk to your teen, visit the doctor to rule out physical reasons for the depression and don't hesitate to follow up with a mental health professional if needed. Then, instead of allowing your child to spend all their free time sitting on the couch with video games, get them up and moving.