“It’s a national disgrace that so many families dump their elderly parents in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. We need to become a nation of family caregivers. Sons and daughters should invite their aging and aged mothers and dads to live with them,” says trends analyst and forecaster, and family caregiver, Stephen L. Goldstein, Ph.D.

“Yes, you can!” Goldstein reassures families in his memoir/how-to, When My Mother No Longer Knew My Name: a son’s “course” in “rational” caregiving. It could be titled “the joy of caregiving!” It’s the first book families need to read, the caregiver’s “one-minute manager.” Each brief, compelling chapter turns what a son learned on-the-job into immediate help for others. Step-by-step, Goldstein traces how his caregiving role evolved from nominal to 24/7.

“I would never let my mother live in a nursing home,” he says adamantly. “Diplomatically, I had to convince her to move in with me when she was strong and healthy. Eventually, I learned how to deal with her dementia—finding a sandwich in the clothes dryer, changing her diaper (rarely, thank God!), keeping her from choking to death. Finally, I had to discover how to care for myself after she died.

“I wrote the book I never found before and while I was my mother’s caregiver,” Goldstein says. “There’s no theory. Strategically placed throughout the book are 75 practical tips that turn my experience into advice others can use. My narratives make caregiving real. My tips make it manageable—even joyful.” There’s a “Self-Assessment” so current and potential caregivers can benchmark and increase their ability to manage the often lonely, challenging, unpredictable, and overwhelming roles they may assume.

When My Mother No Longer Knew My Name is a one-man support group, written like a friend who’s “been-there-done-that,” talking anecdotally, but authoritatively, to a friend who needs help. It’s raw and gritty, funny and inspiring. It makes people weep, but also gives them hope they can overcome a mountain of seemingly insurmountable challenges, for which they likely feel devastatingly unprepared.

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Safe Kids Pennsylvania announced that they will exhibit at the 2012 Pennsylvania Farm Show to reach thousands of parents and caregivers with information about preventing childhood injuries.

The games for children, engaging activities, curricula for teachers, and resources for parents will offer a multifaceted experience to increase awareness for child passenger safety, poison prevention, sports safety, fire and burn prevention, safe sleeping habits, toy safety, fall prevention, gun safety, and much more during the January 7-14, 2012, event.

“Educating parents and caregivers is vital to preventing accidental childhood injuries, and the Farm Show is a great way to reach thousands of families and deliver important awareness messages in fun and interactive ways,” said Allyson Fulton of Safe Kids Pennsylvania.

A large display of poison look-alikes—medications and household products that resemble common food and beverages—will remind parents to keep potentially poisonous items locked up and out of children’s sight and reach. Children can play a special Safe Kids safety game and receive take-home activity books.

“There’s no substitute for active supervision, but childproofing your home provides extra protection and peace of mind,” says Fulton. “It’s easy to eliminate the most obvious hazards, and it doesn’t have to involve a lot of expensive equipment.”

Certified safety technicians will be available during all shifts throughout the week to answer questions about car seats and what types of child passenger safety seats should be used as children grow and show proper installation.

Visitors can even bring their own helmets for fitting by a safety expert, or purchase a bike helmet at the booth for ten dollars. “Kids should always wear helmets when they snowboard, ski, sled, play hockey, or ride a bike,” says Fulton. “Make sure your child’s helmet meets federal safety standards and have an expert check that the helmet fits correctly, so it won’t come loose at a critical moment.”

Engaging activities and displays, safety experts, and a wide variety of free tip sheets and safety checklists are sure to make the Safe Kids Pennsylvania booth one of the most popular again this year.

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Three-fourths of preschool-age children in the United States attend child care, and many are not getting enough outdoor physical activity, which may be due in part to parental and societal values about injury prevention and kindergarten readiness.

A team led by Kristen Copeland, MD, division of General and Community Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Faculty Scholar, conducted a focus-group study of 53 child care providers from 34 child care centers in Cincinnati to examine their perceptions of potential barriers to children’s physical activity in child care.

Researchers identified three main barriers to children’s physical activity: injury concerns, a focus on academics over outdoor play, and financial constraints. Because many children spend all daylight hours in care, and because some lacked a safe place to play near their home, these barriers to physical activity in child care may limit children’s only opportunity to engage in physical activity, according to Dr. Copeland.

The child care providers who were interviewed for the study said that they felt pressure from parents to make sure that their children did not get injured while playing outside and, at times, were asked to keep children from participating in vigorous activity to keep them from being injured.

Similarly, child care providers noted that recent stricter licensing codes have resulted in playgrounds being less physically challenging and interesting to children. The new play equipment that was safe according to these standards soon became boring to the children as they quickly mastered it. Teachers noted that children would then start to use equipment in unsafe ways for which it was not intended such as walking up the slide.

“Child care providers mentioned that they appreciated having state inspections of their playground equipment and strict licensing codes because it helped them feel confident about the safety of the equipment,” says Copeland. “But several of them expressed how overly strict standards had rendered some of the equipment unchallenging and uninteresting to the children, which hampered the children’s physical activity.”

Another issue discovered during the study was that care providers felt pressured by parents (both upper- income and lower-income) and early-learning state standards to prioritize academic classroom learning over outdoor and active playtime.

“Several of the care providers agreed with this goal in principle, but they also recognized that children learned through active play and that the energy release and creative stimulation of outdoor activities helped place children in a better mindset to learn and concentrate later either indoors or outdoors,” says Copeland.

“We were surprised to find such a strong focus on academics for children as young as 3 years old. At this age, most children do not know how to skip and are still learning how to share and negotiate peer relationships. Yet teachers told us that many parents wanted to know what their child ‘learned’ that day, but were not interested in whether they had gone outside or had mastered fundamental gross motor skills.”

Many of the participants also cited budgetary reasons for why their centers could not offer children optimal physical activity opportunities. Most centers had tight operating margins and could not afford equipment for the children to play on. Yet Copeland does not feel the financial barriers present an insurmountable barrier to children’s physical activity in child care.

“There are plenty of things centers can do to encourage physical activity that cost little to no money—such as putting on a dance CD, taking nature walks, running races on the playground, or learning how to skip.” Copeland and her team say that these findings show that there may be a need to reset the balance of the priorities of injury prevention and kindergarten readiness with physical activity promotion.

She says, “Given that childhood obesity is a national epidemic and a major cause of childhood morbidity and that time in child care may be the child’s only opportunity for outdoor play, licensing standards may need to explicitly promote physical activity in as much detail as is devoted to safety.

“An important message from this study is that well-intentioned policies may have unintended consequences for preschool-aged children’s physical development. Daily physical activity is essential for preschool-aged children’s development and for preventing obesity, yet parents’ and teachers’ concerns about injury and school-readiness may be keeping children from being physically active.

In essence, in ensuring that young children are smart and safe, we may also be keeping them sedentary.”

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