babble » blogs » Strollerderby
Strollerderby
I’m not much of a worrier, really I’m not. Like my fellow Strollerderby blogger KJ, I think we’ve gone a bit overboard when it comes to protective gear for kids. Kids are kids, after all. They’re bound to get hurt.
But I also don’t see any reason to court disaster. So just to be safe, I apply sunscreen to my kids before going outside and I make sure they wear helmets when we go bike riding.
According to The Dallas Morning News, which polled experts, most parents — myself included — have certain dangerous misconceptions about summertime safety: Continue reading »
An Iowa toddler visiting the park with her babysitter was rushed to the ER after getting second degree burns on her hands, stomach and legs from the hot playground slide. The slide was said to be a blistering 170 degrees when 18-month-old Madyson slid down it.
According to her babysitter, the tot was attempting to go down the slide on her stomach, feet first. She started screaming and holding herself off the slide — which is why they believe her hands were so badly injured — but then lost her balance and slid down the entire slide. She has golf ball-sized blisters on her hands and burns on her knees and stomach, too.
Yesterday my kindergartner looked at me very pragmatically and said, “Mommy, you are going to be in danger this summer.”
“Why?”
“Because I am not going to be in school.”
OK, then. I assured her that I love having her at home. She’s got this summer vacation thing nailed though: kids get out of school and everything changes. Here’s what moms are really worried about.
My kids are young enough that they’re actually excited about going back to school What they aren’t excited about is their bedtime, which has been scaled back from “whenever” to 8 p.m. “It’s still light out!” they complain.
According to a piece at MSNBC, I should explain to them that they don’t “have” to go to bed, they “get” to go to bed. I’ll let you know how that works out for me.
But, really, the advice is on the right track. Helping kids reset their body clocks now might not make them bounce out of bed the first time you nudge them awake at 6:30 a.m. But there might be less crying and gnashing of teeth — on their part and yours.
Here are some more tips from MSNBC for getting your kids ready for summer’s end and their new school routine:
Kim Brooks 
recently wrote an essay — published right here on Babble.com — arguing that Europeans know how to take family vacations, while Americans still don’t have a clue. Her piece focused on the fact that in most European countries, employers automatically give their employees four — sometimes as much as five — weeks of vacation, which explains why so many people in the U.K., France, Hungary and other non-U.S. countries take off the entire month of August to revel in the pleasures of ambling summer days spent with family.
I think Kim is absolutely right. The fact that many companies here in the U.S. view vacation time as a luxury — often parceling out a mere week’s worth of days off until an employee has years of seniority under his or her belt — is wrong. But I think that’s only one part of what makes it so hard for many people in this country to enjoy family vacation time. It’s not just that we don’t get the time. It’s that we don’t know how to spend it.
Today on Babble:
“ The Babble List: Summer in the City”
By Lindsay Armstrong, Emily Frost and Andrea Zimmerman
25 tips for beating heat (and toddler!) exhaustion.
Read it here.
What would summer be without a couple of kids with a lemonade stand? And a cranky neighbor getting them in trouble?
A couple of kids in the Philadelphia are were doing what enterprising kids do in the summer – serving up cold drinks for a little cash when a neighbor called the cops. But instead of telling the neighbor to get over it, the cop cited the children for sales without a permit. Continue reading »
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
The Walt Disney Company supports Babble as a platform dedicated to honest, engaged, informed, intelligent and open conversation about parenting. However, the opinions expressed on this site are those of individual parents/writers and do not reflect the views of Disney. In addition, content provided on this site is for entertainment or informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or safety advice.
0