Rhode Islanders remove nearly two tons of prescription drugs from their medicine cabinets on Prescription Drug Take Back Day.
Rhode Islanders made the state safer from curious children, experimenting teens, and desperate adults on Prescription Drug Take Back Day, October 28.
The state’s collection points recorded a remarkable 3,825 pounds of expired, unused, and unneeded prescription drugs. That’s a 50% increase from the last collection!
The next Day will be April 28.
Read the entire article in US News & World Report.
Don’t interrupt special time with your child with a cellphone. He or she can learn more slowly, fall back in athletics, and react in anger.
What exactly do you think your very young child is doing while you’re on your cellphone? Not just hanging out, it seems.
Imagine this. You’re doing word play with your toddler, when you let a phone call interrupt it. According to one study, the child’s ability to learn new words is derailed.
Or maybe it’s “just” “problem” behaviors. In another study, 170 couples reported their children’s issues, from sulking to temper tantrums. No surprise, the more that parents reported phone-related interruptions, the more they reported negative behaviors.
Maryam Abdullah of Greater Good Magazine strongly suggests three tips for drawing a sharp divide between telephone time and quality time with your children.
Read Maryam Abdullah’s entire article.
Want your guests to leave your holiday table healthy? Cook the meat right!
We’re repeating the information we had for Thanksgiving because it includes proper meat temperatures and how to store leftovers. The USDA has put together articles on everything from brining, stuffing, and deep frying a turkey, to properly storing leftovers and preparing a bacteria-free holiday. You just have to download the Thanksgiving Toolkit. Again, the information will apply to the December/January holidays as well.
And while you might have the day off, USDA experts are usually at the toll-free hotline – 1-888-674-6854 – from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday.
About those endless leftovers. Check out the USDA’s convenient FoodKeeper app on Android and Apple. The app provides storage timelines for your refrigerator, freezer, and pantry for more than 500 products, including baby food, dairy products and eggs, meat, poultry, produce, and seafood.
Happy holidays!
Every month Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds & Director Susan Orban likes to connect you with current articles, events, and resources to help you keep your family healthy and informed!
Ten things you should know about flu vaccinations for your child
Chances are you’ve had the flu during you’re lifetime, so you know how horrible it can be. The flu can be worse than a week in bed. According to the American Association of Pediatrics, at least 200,000 people – including kids – were hospitalized last year, and serious complications can occur.
healthychildren.org offers ten reasons why everyone (with some important exceptions) over the age of 6 months should be vaccinated now.
Among the 10:
1. Anyone at risk should be vaccinated, especially those with asthma, heart disease, diabetes, and weakened immune systems, for example. Out-of-home caregivers, too.
2. Get vaccinated right now! The flu season usually begins in the Fall.
6. You can still catch the flu (but not from the shot!), but the symptoms are likely to be a lot less severe.
8. The flu vaccine does not cause autism. The research is robust.
10 reasons why everyone over the age of 6 months should be vaccinated.
Take a free Mental Health First Aid training on December 8 & 15 or a Youth Mental Health First Aid training on December 2 & 9
Truth is, you’re more likely to face a friend, colleague, or loved one in a mental health crisis than you are one who needs CPR.
And if you work with kids – as a counselor, educator, coach, juvenile officer, or the like – then you may be the first to note something different in their behavior.
Truth is, you’re more likely to face a friend, colleague, or loved one in a mental health crisis than you are one who needs CPR.
Consider, then, Mental Health First Aid training and its companion Youth Mental Health First Aid as your opportunity to help.
In two four-hour classes, you’ll learn how to identify when someone you know is struggling, the right questions to ask them (and yourself), how to stabilize the situation – if necessary – and when and how to refer them to professional services.
There are two trainings in December.
We’re offering a Youth Mental Health First Aid training at Westerly Hospital on two Saturdays, December 2 and 9, from 8 am-12:30 pm.
Our next Mental Health First Aid training is over two Fridays, December 8 and 15, 12:30-5 pm at South County Hospital.
South County Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds offers regular trainings for people who work with kids (Youth Mental Health First Aid), for all of us (Mental Health First Aid), and specialized suicide prevention (QPR). All are designed for non-mental health professionals.
Register for the December 2 & 9 Youth Mental Health First Aid training at Westerly Hospital. Contact Dr. Rob Harrison by email or at (401) 316-4134.
Register for the December 8 & 15 training at South County Hospital. Contact Donna Greene by email or at (401) 788-2371.
Every month Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds & Director Susan Orban likes to connect you with current articles, events, and resources to help you keep your family healthy and informed!
What if the hokey-pokey IS what it’s all about? And other indoor activities for a rainy day.
It’s fall and it’s been raining for both days of the weekend. Your kids are even tired of playing on the computer!
Yes, indeed, there’s a lot of fun activities you can do, with the emphasis on “active”. Basketball, for instance, with a stuffed animal and a laundry basket. Musical chairs. And the hokey pokey, a crowd pleaser at any age.
Lots of ideas and activities from the Shasta County, CA WIC office on our website.
Do you really want your kids drinking 60 pounds of it every year?
Okay, the statistics really are hard to believe: how can soda be THAT bad for you? After all, we’ve been drinking it FOREVER and we still have (most of) our teeth and we’re not (too) overweight.
But that’s you. Consider your children and their future health risks, from obesity to diabetes. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta reports that drinking just one 20-ounce bottle of soda a day for a year is the equivalent of eating 6,570 cookies or 61 pounds of sugar!
Children’s Healthcare offers some realistic alternatives for you and your child.
Every month Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds & Director Susan Orban likes to connect you with current articles, events, and resources to help you keep your family healthy and informed!
The right way to get better answers from your back-to-schooler
A lot goes on for your child during the first days of school, and you’d probably like to hear about it. But ask your child how school is and you’ll get the answer: “Okay”.
Good news. You can get better and more useful answers by asking better questions. Just make two changes.
One, ask questions that can’t be answered with one word. Don’t ask, “How was school?” Ask, “How was school different from last year?” Don’t ask, “Do you like your teacher?” Ask, “What’s the most interesting thing she said about what’s coming?”
Two, ask questions that allow your child to express his or her concerns. But don’t ask in a negative way; that’s likely to end the conversation. “Describe your daily schedule for me.” “Was there anything you wished you had at school today that you didn’t?”
Learn more about open-ended questioning here.
Camp iAM introduces them to professions and local people’s stories
Those doors are still closed for lots of kids, so Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds was pleased to partner with the Westerly Public Schools to bring “Camp iAM” to some of them this summer.Other than “astronaut”, “firefighter”, and “doctor”, few of us knew what we wanted to be when we grew up. In fact, few of us were even exposed to the bigger world and its opportunities.
In its first year, Camp iAM introduced several Bradford (Westerly) middle schoolers to hear local people explain their backgrounds and careers.
“It’s great for students to see that at any age, they can take what they love and do it for the rest of their life or for a small part of their life, and then do something else that they love,” Brenda Holmes told The Westerly Sun. Holmes, a teacher at Westerly Middle School, helped lead and organize the camp, whose curriculum was based on one developed by Barrington’s Youth Substance Abuse Task Force.
Brooke Constance White of The Westerly Sun wrote an excellent article about Camp iAM, and included several photographs, like the one shown here.
Your local library can be your child’s best friend. Here are links to yours.
Your child has a lifetime friend in their local public library. They will find a wise guide to resources, access to legitimate content, and a quiet place to think. Just look at our calendar, too: half of the dates are library storytimes, reading challenges, zombie preparation classes (?!), community walks, nature exploration, and more.
Here’s a list of South County’s libraries with links. “Friend” or “bookmark” them today; we have!
Ashaway Free Library (Hopkinton)
Island Free Library (Block Island)
Cross Mills Public Library (Charlestown)
Clark Memorial Library (Carolina)
Langworthy Public Library (Hope Valley)
Maury Loontjens Memorial Library (Narragansett)
South Kingstown Public Libraries (Kingston, Robert Beverly Hale and Peace Dale)
Every month Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds & Director Susan Orban likes to connect you with current articles, events, and resources to help you keep your family healthy and informed!
And some other tips from LetsGo/5210
Ah, water! By the time he or she (or you) is thirsty, your child is already dehydrated. Water’s best, best, best to keep the system running. Sports drinks and sodas are worst, worst, worst.
For a twist, add a bit of squeezed fruit (like the suggestions to the right) to some water or seltzer. Watermelon and blueberries? Your child will be weaned from sugar drinks forever!
South County Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds sponsors Let’s Go/5210 locally.
Visit the LetsGo website for the best ways to hydrate this summer.
Read about South County’s 5210 effort, overseen by the tireless Cindy Buxton.
Everything you need to visit South County’s 12 farmers markets
The growing season may not be as long as we’d like here in Rhode Island, but oh, those fresh tomatoes, corn, carrots, broccoli, peppers, melons and more.
The best place to buy local food is at one of South County’s 12 farmers markets or directly from farms or farm stands. And the best place we know for information about all of Rhode Island’s farmers, farmers markets, and restaurants that use local produce is Farm Fresh RI.
You can also visit our website for South County’s 12 farmers markets, with hours, locations, dates of operation, and benefits.
Farm Fresh RI’s website will tell you everything about farmers markets in Rhode Island (and a bit of Massachusetts and Connecticut, too).
Our website tells you specifically about South County’s 12 farmers markets. We partner with Thundermist Health Center to encourage local farmers to accept WIC and SNAP benefits, and residents to shop there.
Every month Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds & Director Susan Orban likes to connect you with current articles, events, and resources to help you keep your family healthy and informed!
And a link to your town’s parks & rec department
Did you have a beloved playground when you were a kid? One with a jungle gym, slide, seesaw, and enough activities that you never got bored? Where you made new friends every time you went?
You probably didn’t know that you were getting lots of exercise and that you were learning how to socialize.
Where are your child’s favorite playgrounds in South County? Take a photo and post it on our Facebook page. We’ll list it on our website, too.
Visit bodiesminds.org to find what your town’s parks department has scheduled for your family this summer.
Post a photo of your favorite playground on the Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds Facebook page. Or one you think needs some loving care.
Put them “up & away”, lock the caps, alert guests, educate your kids
Approximately 60,000 young children are brought to the emergency room each year because they got into medicines that were left within reach.
That’s the daunting statistic from the Up & Away initiative, which offers six easy-to-implement (and commonsense) activities you, as young parents, should begin today.
The easiest and most obvious? Make sure you re-lock the safety cap after each use and put those pills WAY out of reach of innocent but probing hands.
To prepare for an emergency, Up & Away counsels that you add the Poison Help number (800-222-1222) on all your phones, right now.
Read all six ways to protect your young children from accidental medication poisoning; visit the Up & Away website.
Add the Poison Help number – (800) 222-1222 – to all your phones right now and visit the Poison Help website for other useful information.
