How can I help prevent my child from getting and spreading diarrhoea?

Answer:  Encourage everyone to wash their hands with soap after going to the toilet and before eating and preparing food.

Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2008 Jan 23;(1):CD004265.

Hand washing for preventing diarrhoea.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Diarrhoea is a common cause of morbidity and a leading cause of death among children aged less than five years, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. It is transmitted by ingesting contaminated food or drink, by direct person-to-person contact, or from contaminated hands. Hand washing is one of a range of hygiene promotion interventions that can interrupt the transmission of diarrhoea-causing pathogens.

OBJECTIVES:

To evaluate the effects of interventions to promote hand washing on diarrhoeal episodes in children and adults.

SEARCH STRATEGY:

In May 2007, we searched the Cochrane Infectious Diseases Group Specialized Register, CENTRAL (The Cochrane Library 2007, Issue 2), MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, PsycINFO, Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index, ERIC (1966 to May 2007), SPECTR, Bibliomap, RoRe, The Grey Literature, and reference lists of articles. We also contacted researchers and organizations in the field.

SELECTION CRITERIA:

Randomized controlled trials, where the unit of randomization is an institution (eg day-care centre), household, or community, that compared interventions to promote hand washing or a hygiene promotion that included hand washing with no intervention to promote hand washing.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS:

Two authors independently assessed trial eligibility and methodological quality. Where appropriate, incidence rate ratios (IRR) were pooled using the generic inverse variance method and random-effects model with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

MAIN RESULTS:

Fourteen randomized controlled trials met the inclusion criteria. Eight trials were institution-based, five were community-based, and one was in a high-risk group (AIDS patients). Interventions promoting hand washing resulted in a 29% reduction in diarrhoea episodes in institutions in high-income countries (IRR 0.71, 95% CI 0.60 to 0.84; 7 trials) and a 31% reduction in such episodes in communities in low- or middle-income countries (IRR 0.69, 95% CI 0.55 to 0.87; 5 trials).

AUTHORS’ CONCLUSIONS:

Hand washing can reduce diarrhoea episodes by about 30%. This significant reduction is comparable to the effect of providing clean water in low-income areas. However, trials with longer follow up and that test different methods of promoting hand washing are needed.

How can I get my children to hang out with good company?

Answer: Encourage them to do volunteer work in areas they enjoy.

Volunteering has two benefits:

1. It attracts nice people for your child to become potential friends with.

2. It lifts their sense of self-worth. They will see themselves as kind, good people who care about others. This boost in self-worth will make them more attractive to other kids who also have a high self-worth.

There is strong evidence for the scientific benefits from volunteering –I’ll find it and write it up later.

How can I get my child to do volunteer work?

Volunteering is a lovely idea in principle, but how to get the kids to agree?

Here is some advice from Timothy Wilson, in his book Redirect: The Surprising New Science of Psychological Change:

Although there are no magical solutions here, there are things parents can do. One is to steer children toward their interests. If they love sports. help them find volunteer opportunities in that area. such as becoming a referee or assistant coach in a league for disadvantaged children. If they love music, they can organize a group to play at  nursing homes or day care centers. Another approach is for parents to do volunteer work with their children. We sometimes forget how much we are role models for our kids; they are keen observers, and often learn more from what we do than from what we say. . .A side benefit [of volunteering] is that they will make friends with peers who are also involved in the community, rather than with people like Johnny, the leader  of the motorcycle gang ( or his modern equivalent). (p 132)

How can I help my child with autism improve his ability to recognize other people’s facial expressions?

Answer: Get your child to watch The Transporters DVD series.

The Transporters is an animated DVD series designed to teach children with autism to read human emotions.

The DVD series cost half a million British pounds to create and has been scientifically shown to improve autistic children’s emotion-reading skills. The results sound amazing:  The creator of the project, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, said that after watching The Transporters for just 15 minutes a day for a month, autistic children improved their emotion-reading ability to the level of non-autistic children.

These 2 videos show you Episode One from the series to show you how the idea works — the first video is the US version and the second, the British version:

The Transporters: US/Canada version: www.thetransporters.com

The Transporters has been created specially for children with autism who find it hard to recognize the causes of emotion and the facial expressions that go with them. Narrated by Kerry Shale. www.thetransporters.com

The Transporters: British English version: www.thetransporters.com

The Transporters has been created specially for children with autism who find it hard to recognize the causes of emotion and the facial expressions that go with them. Narrated by Stephen Fry. www.thetransporters.com

In this video, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen explains how the idea works:

The Transporters – How it Works: www.thetransporters.com

In this interview, Simon Baron-Cohen gives some more detail:

“The Transporters”-Dr. Simon Baron Cohen: Beyond the Headlines

And here’s another snippet from another Transporters episode:

The Transporters – Excerpt: “Barney’s Special Day” (US/Canada version)

More information from the The Transporters website:

The Transporters series has been evaluated by the Autism Research Centre for its effectiveness for children aged 4 to 8 with ASC (autistic spectrum condition).

The results are very exciting.

  • In all tasks on which the children were tested, most caught up their typically developing peers.
  • The results suggest that The Transporters DVD is an effective way to teach emotion recognition to children with ASC and that the learning generalises to new faces and new situations.
  • Children with ASC who did not watch the DVD remained below typically developing levels.

Download the full research paper: Enhancing Emotion Recognition in Children with Autism Spectrum Conditions: An Intervention Using Animated Vehicles
with Real Emotional Faces


How much does the DVD series cost, and where can I buy it?

The price quoted today for the 15-episode DVD series and the accompanying parent guide on The Transporters website is $65 US or £49.92 (inc UK VAT)

Sounds like a bargain to me! What’s the downside, apart from the money outlay? In fact, maybe all children could benefit from watching The Transporters! The better our kids can read other people’s expressions and emotions, the better they will get along with others.

How can I teach my child to think before acting?

Answer:  Select some ideas from this pile of suggestions!

1. Read this article that gives some good ideas:

Teaching Children to Think before Acting

2. Watch this 3-minute parable about the foolish goat that teaches we must always “look before you leap” with your child and discuss afterwards.



What are some good rules for parents?

Answer: Try these on for size!


1.  Never make a promise you don’t keep.

This is a Stephen Covey rule  (author of  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People). Covey explains:

“Keeping a commitment or a promise is a major deposit; breaking one is a major withdrawal. In fact, there’s probably not a more massive withdrawal than to make a promise that’s important to someone and then not to come through. . . People tend to build their hopes around promises. . . I’ve tried to adopt a philosophy as a parent never to make a promise I don’t keep. I therefore try to make them very carefully, very sparingly, and to be aware of as many variables and contingencies as possible so that something doesn’t suddenly come up to keep me from fulfilling it.” (p 193)

2.  Say what you mean, mean what you say, but don’t say it mean!

I read that somewhere, and thought it was an excellent summing up of a lot of good rules for parents.