‘Parenting’ Category

The Case for Distraction

The Case for Distraction

It is rare that I walk into a patient room in my office when not one or more people are on some sort of device.  This includes parents, grandparents, siblings, and patients as young as 18 months. Some put down their screens as soon as I walk in. Most do not.  When I’m examining a […]

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Plastic Bracelets for a Healthy Soul

Plastic Bracelets for a Healthy Soul

Over the past few years, the vaccine controversy has continued to simmer.  First it was Hollywood , and now it’s in Washington.  Many of us in medicine chuckled at the press that starlets were getting from the potential damages that vaccines can do. Although crowds listened to their stories, there was always the caveat of […]

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One Less Nut in LALA Land

One Less Nut in LALA Land

The day after Jane Brody’s article in the New York Times came out, describing how surprisingly common it is for children to choke on objects, be they toys or food, I’m in the operating room with a toddler’s who’s choked on a cashew.  Wait, he’s not even a toddler.  He’s a BABY. By some arbitrary […]

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The worst parents in the world, or mixed messages?

The worst parents in the world, or mixed messages?

The other day, I asked a tearful mom to kiss her boy goodbye before we wheeled him off to the operating room. And we didn’t have time for a long goodbye. He was three-years-old, her ‘one and only’. Just days before, he had choked while eating popcorn, seemed okay right afterwards, but his nagging cough […]

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Am I a Mean Mom?

Am I a Mean Mom?

That fateful day, when my nine-year-old daughter’s dentist told us that she needed two teeth pulled.  Baby teeth, but they were locked in, so out they must go.  “Just make an appointment, and we’ll give her a little laughing gas.”  Laughing gas?  Anesthesia?  For two baby teeth? Hmm, I thought.  What ever happened to Novocain […]

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