[UM Hospital Report] Sick Kids, Struggling Parents

From the report

• Nearly two-thirds of parents of young children in child care say their children could not attend because of illness in the past year.
• One-third of parents of young children are concerned about losing jobs or losing pay when taking off work to care for their sick children.
• 8% of parents with kids in child care say taking their sick child to the emergency room is more convenient than seeing a primary care doctor.

….

Work Impact

Missing work because a sick child was sent home or not allowed into child care is common; 42% of parents of young children in child care have missed work in the last year. Nearly a quarter of parents (26%) missed work three or more times over a one-year period because of their child.

When a child is sick, parents must either take time off from work, make other child care arrangements, or try to get immediate medical care in order to comply with exclusion policies for the child care setting. One-half of parents with children in child care report that finding alternative or back-up child care for their sick children is difficult (Figure 1).

In addition, about one-third of parents say taking time off of work with a sick child is difficult because they may lose pay or lose their job, and a similar proportion report that they do not receive enough paid time off from work to care for their sick children (Figure 1).

When asked about where to take a sick child for care, 8% of parents with children in child care say taking their sick child to the emergency room is more convenient than seeing a primary care doctor…..

 

Additional UM Reports (over 50) may be found here 
Titles include

• Parents of high school athletes speak out on performance-enhancing drugs
• Knowledge key to support for embryonic stem cell research
• Who do voters prefer for children’s health issues?
• Bullying worries parents of overweight and obese children
• Retail clinics: an emerging source of health care for children
• Obesity tops list of biggest health problems for kids in 2008
• Summer safety for ‘tweens’ home alone
• Children in research: many parents willing if risk of harm is small
• Ask the doctor: is my child’s medicine FDA-approved?
• Child health threats: are consumer alerts enough?

Related articles

• New poll shows importance of paid sick leave to parents of young children (washingtonpolicywatch.org)
• One-third of parents concerned about losing jobs, pay when they stay home with sick kids who can’t attend child care (prnewswire.com)
• Parents fear sick kids will cost them their jobs (sott.net)
• Times are tough for low-wage workers (miamiherald.com)
• Improving child care in the U.S.: A Q&A (nj.com)

 

Research shows 50 years of motherhood manuals set standards too high for new moms

From the press release of the University of Warwick

New research at the University of Warwick into 50 years of motherhood manuals has revealed how despite their differences they have always issued advice as orders and set unattainably high standards for new mums and babies.

Angela Davis, from the Department of History at the University of Warwick, carried out 160 interviews with women of all ages and from all backgrounds to explore their experiences of motherhood for her new book, Modern Motherhood: Women and Family in England, 1945-2000.

She spoke to women about the advice given by six childcare ‘experts’ who had all published popular books on the best way to raise a baby. Ranging from the 1940s to 2000, the authors were Frederick Truby King, John Bowlby, Donald Winnicott, Benjamin Spock, Penelope Leach and Gina Ford.

Dr Davis found although the advice from these experts changed over the decades, the one thing that didn’t change was the way it was delivered. Whatever the message for mothers, it was given as an order with a threat of dire consequences if mother or child failed to behave as expected.

Dr Davis said: “Despite all the differences in advice advocated by these childcare ‘bibles’ over the years, it is interesting that they all have striking similarities in terms of how the experts presented their advice. Whatever the message, the advice was given in the form of an order and the authors highlighted extreme consequences if mothers did not follow the methods of childrearing that they advocated.

“Levels of behaviour these childcare manuals set for mothers and babies are often unattainably high, meaning women could be left feeling like failures when these targets were not achieved. Therefore while women could find supportive messages within childcare literature, some also found the advice more troubling.”

During her research Dr Davis often spoke to women who were different generations of the same family. She found when reflecting back upon the changes that they had seen from when they were babies, to when they had their own children, and then watching their children raise their own families, they were still unsure of what had really been the best approach.

Dr Davis said: “I was struck by the cyclical nature of these childcare bibles, we start out with quite strict rules laid down by Frederick Truby King, whose influence is very much evident in the 1940s and following decades. The principal thread running through his books are that babies need strict routines. We then find the advice becomes less authoritarian and regimented as we go through the decades and the influences of Bowlby, Winnicott, Spock and Leach.

“However, when we reach the 1990s when Gina Ford came to prominence, we come back to the strict regimented approach of Frederick Truby King several decades earlier. More than 50 years on and experts still cannot agree on the best way to approach motherhood, and all this conflicting advice just leaves women feeling confused and disillusioned.”

 

Health Care Visits To Check More Than Just Health?

Health Care Visits To Check More Than Just Health?
Study Shows Health Care Providers Can Help with School Readiness During Primary Care Visits

From the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development Web page

It seems it’s never too early to start thinking about getting your child ready for school. From picture books to educational toys and videos, there’s no shortage of items and programs geared toward helping children to prepare to succeed in school.

But some children, especially those in at-risk families, don’t hear as many words and aren’t read-to on a regular basis; others don’t engage in skill-building play until they start preschool or kindergarten. By that time, researchers say, at-risk children already lag behind peers in school readiness skills. Finding earlier opportunities to intervene and to encourage school readiness and other skills could help to bridge the achievement gap between at-risk children and their peers who are not at risk.

Researchers’ efforts led them to a trusted resource for many families—the health care provider.

Including school readiness interventions in regular well-baby and well-child visits seems a natural fit for a number of reasons, such as:

• The visits occur frequently.
• Nearly all families attend the visits because of the immunizations and screenings required for child care and school settings.
• Parents often have close relationships with their children’s health care provider.
• The infrastructure for the visits and processes related to payment for visits is already in place.
• Conducting the interventions during regularly scheduled visits eliminates additional travel for the families…….

 

Related article

Understanding Fragile Families – More than 10 years of research reveals much about fragile families

 

The International Child & Youth Care Network

The International Child & Youth Care Network (CYC-NET) is a registered non-profit and public benefit organisation in South Africa. It aims to “promote and facilitate reading, learning, information sharing, discussion, networking, support and accountable practice amongst all who work with children, youth and families in difficulty.” However parents and others will undoubtedly find information at this Web site to be useful.

Many items at the home page are updated at least weekly as Daily News, Today, Press Release, and Link.

The home page has two main gateways to information through the tabs

• Learning Zone with free online courses and training/educational podcasts
• Network with site statistics, as recent top queries and the average number of daily visitors. On January 26,2011 the Recent top search queries were  bullied to death, homeless children statistics, bowlby, montesorri, anorexia nervosa, principles of management, punishment for children, bipolar disorder, peer influence, positive reinforcement for children, effects of corporal punishment, heroin stories.