Creating an environment where your kids can make healthy nutritional choices is one of the most important steps you can take to ensure the health of your child.

By fostering a supportive environment, you and your family can develop a positive relationship with healthy food. You can lead them by your example.

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How to Make Healthy Eating Easy

You already know the benefits of healthy eating, and you try to eat well. So what’s keeping your family from eating high-quality foods — a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean sources of protein? And how can you help them eat better?    Here, experts suggest how you can make healthy eating a habit. Plus, they offer tips on how to make it fun for preschoolers, grade-school kids, and teens.

Read the How to Make Healthy Eating Easy article > >

Here are 10 tips for getting children to eat healthy food and form wise nutritional habits, offered by Melinda Sothern, PhD, co-author of Trim Kids and director of the childhood obesity prevention laboratory at Louisiana State University:

Avoid placing restrictions on food. Restricting food increases the risk your child may develop eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia later in life. It can also have a negative effect on growth and development. Instead of banning foods, talk about all the healthy, nutritional options there are — encouraging your family to chose fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, and low-fat dairy, while avoiding heavily processed, low-quality junk foods.Keep healthy food at hand. Children will eat what’s available. Keep fruit in a bowl on the counter, not buried in the crisper section of your fridge. Remember, your child can only choose foods that you stock in the house. And have an apple for your own snack. “Your actions scream louder than anything you will ever tell them,” says Sothern.Don’t label foods as “good” or “bad.” Instead, tie foods to the things your child cares about, such as sports or doing well in school. Let your child know that lean protein such as turkey and calcium in dairy products give them strength for sports. The antioxidants in fruits and vegetables add luster to skin and hair. And eating a healthy breakfast can help them keep focus in class.Praise healthy choices. Give your children a proud smile and praise when they choose healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, or low-fat dairy.Don’t nag about unhealthy choices. When children choose fatty, fried, unhealthy foods, redirect them by suggesting a healthier option.   Instead of regular potato chips and dip, offer baked tortilla chips and salsa.  If your child wants candy, try dipping fresh strawberries in a little chocolate sauce. Too busy? Keep naturally sweet dried fruit at home for quick snacks.  Instead of buying French fries, try roasting cut up potatoes in the oven (tossed in just a bit of oil).Never use food as a reward. This could create weight problems in later life. Instead, reward your children with something physical and fun — perhaps a trip to the park or a quick game of catch.Sit down to family dinners at night. If this isn’t a tradition in your home, make it one. Research shows that children who eat dinners at the table with their parents have better nutrition and are less likely to get in serious trouble as teenagers. Start with 1 night a week, and then work up to 3 or 4, to gradually build the habit.Prepare plates in the kitchen. You can put the right portion of each item on everyone’s dinner plate, instead of offering up a food buffet or serve-yourself style. This way your children will learn to recognize healthy portion sizes. If adjusting to healthier portion sizes means smaller portions for your family, help make the switch seem less shocking by using smaller plates.Give the kids some control. Ask your children to take 3 bites of all the foods on their plate and give each one a grade, such as A, B, C, D, or F. When healthy foods — especially certain vegetables — get high marks, serve them more often. Offer the items your children don’t like less frequently. This lets your children participate in decision making. After all, dining is a family affair.Consult your pediatrician. Always talk with your child’s doctor before putting your child on a weight loss diet, trying to help your child gain weight, or making any significant changes in the type of foods your child eats. Never diagnose your child as too heavy or too thin by yourself.

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If Tom Hedrick could change one thing about teen drug use, he would reduce the time it takes between a parent’s first hunch that something is wrong and the child getting treatment. The fact that teens lie about drugs, and parents believe them, delays treatment, says Hedrick, a founding member of The Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Brian and Julie Unwin have heard a lot of lies, both from their son and through other parents in their support group. A few examples:

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Special Report: The New Boys’ Health Scare

 By Brian Alexander   You wouldn’t know it to speak to her, because she’s cheerfully chatty, with a pronounced Chicago-land accent, but Brandie Langer is worried. She’s also a little worried about being worried. “Do you think I might be paranoid?” she asks. She has three children. The youngest, a son, is 5 years old, and Brandie has read a lot online about endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which some scientists say can scramble male hormones. EDCs are commonly found in plastics, bug-…

Read the Special Report: The New Boys’ Health Scare article > >

“Other people were smoking marijuana. I must have inhaled some by accident.”“I was the only one at the party who wasn’t drinking, but they arrested all of us.”“I ate a poppy seed muffin. That must be why the drug test came back positive.”

The Unwins’ teenage son lied and manipulated them for four years until he got sober. And they, like many parents, had a hard time accepting that reality. “When you raise a child, when you hold him in your arms as an infant, you want to believe him. No family wants to go through this,” says Brian.

This article explores the lies teens tell about drugs and what parents can do to get over their hurt and anger to keep their child safe.

Kids Lie, and Parents Believe Them

A group of researchers wanted to know how common it is for teens to lie about drugs. They asked 400 teenagers if they used cocaine, then took hair samples to test for traces of the drug. Even though they knew their answers were private, and that the drug test would prove them right or wrong, most teens who had cocaine in their systems denied using it. The hair samples revealed drug use 52 times more often than the teens admitted.

The fact that teens lie even when they know they’ll get caught doesn’t surprise Mason Turner, MD, chief of psychiatry at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco. “Most teens don’t think about what comes next,” he tells WebMD. “Concerns about the future don’t enter into their decision making.”

6 Tips for Parents of Teens

If your child is lying about using drugs or alcohol, looking the other way is a dangerous mistake. Study after study shows that parents’ involvement plays an important role in preventing adolescent drug use. And the earlier problem is addressed, the better your chances of containing potential damage. Here are six things you can do.

1. Trust your instincts.
Turner sees many parents discount their concerns about their child’s behavior. They say things like, “I’m probably just being an obsessive parent.” Or “Maybe I’m being hypersensitive.” But parents know their children. “If a parent’s gut is telling them something is off, there has got to be a reason,” Turner tells WebMD.

webmd.com

If Tom Hedrick could change one thing about teen drug use, he would reduce the time it takes between a parent’s first hunch that something is wrong and the child getting treatment. The fact that teens lie about drugs, and parents believe them, delays treatment, says Hedrick, a founding member of The Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Brian and Julie Unwin have heard a lot of lies, both from their son and through other parents in their support group. A few examples:

Recommended Related to Parenting

Special Report: The New Boys’ Health Scare

 By Brian Alexander   You wouldn’t know it to speak to her, because she’s cheerfully chatty, with a pronounced Chicago-land accent, but Brandie Langer is worried. She’s also a little worried about being worried. “Do you think I might be paranoid?” she asks. She has three children. The youngest, a son, is 5 years old, and Brandie has read a lot online about endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which some scientists say can scramble male hormones. EDCs are commonly found in plastics, bug-…

Read the Special Report: The New Boys’ Health Scare article > >

“Other people were smoking marijuana. I must have inhaled some by accident.”“I was the only one at the party who wasn’t drinking, but they arrested all of us.”“I ate a poppy seed muffin. That must be why the drug test came back positive.”

The Unwins’ teenage son lied and manipulated them for four years until he got sober. And they, like many parents, had a hard time accepting that reality. “When you raise a child, when you hold him in your arms as an infant, you want to believe him. No family wants to go through this,” says Brian.

This article explores the lies teens tell about drugs and what parents can do to get over their hurt and anger to keep their child safe.

Kids Lie, and Parents Believe Them

A group of researchers wanted to know how common it is for teens to lie about drugs. They asked 400 teenagers if they used cocaine, then took hair samples to test for traces of the drug. Even though they knew their answers were private, and that the drug test would prove them right or wrong, most teens who had cocaine in their systems denied using it. The hair samples revealed drug use 52 times more often than the teens admitted.

The fact that teens lie even when they know they’ll get caught doesn’t surprise Mason Turner, MD, chief of psychiatry at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco. “Most teens don’t think about what comes next,” he tells WebMD. “Concerns about the future don’t enter into their decision making.”

6 Tips for Parents of Teens

If your child is lying about using drugs or alcohol, looking the other way is a dangerous mistake. Study after study shows that parents’ involvement plays an important role in preventing adolescent drug use. And the earlier problem is addressed, the better your chances of containing potential damage. Here are six things you can do.

1. Trust your instincts.
Turner sees many parents discount their concerns about their child’s behavior. They say things like, “I’m probably just being an obsessive parent.” Or “Maybe I’m being hypersensitive.” But parents know their children. “If a parent’s gut is telling them something is off, there has got to be a reason,” Turner tells WebMD.

webmd.com

Breaking up is hard to do. Divorce and its complications are the themes of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s hit Emmy award-winning sitcom, The New Adventures of Old Christine, in which she plays a newly single mom facing the challenges of dating again, a host of custody and parenting issues, and an ex-husband who is still very much in her life.

Although her own marriage — with two kids — to writer-producer Brad Hall is still going strong at 21 years, the actress is mining emotions she is familiar with. Her parents divorced when she was a child, and she was shuffled back and forth between their homes in Washington, D.C., and New York City. While her parents kept it civil and Louis-Dreyfus remains close to her mother, father, and their respective “new” spouses, many kids of divorce have it much tougher. Some are asked to broker peace between warring exes, even as they are grieving the loss of a parent who has abruptly moved out. Others must deal with parents who suddenly can’t cope with everyday tasks, like making dinner or helping with homework.

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Nancy Grace and Her Miracle Babies

By Kate CoyneTough-talking newswoman Nancy Grace lets down her guard about the man she finally married, her struggle to become a mom, and why these babies are her miracles. Television journalist Nancy Grace is holding her infant twins, and it’s getting hard to stop the crying. As she sits in a rocking chair in her Manhattan apartment, she cradles little John David in her right arm and Lucy Elizabeth in her left. Luckily, both babies seem oblivious to the waterworks; they’re still soundly sleeping…

Read the Nancy Grace and Her Miracle Babies article > >

Many children take the battle scars of divorce well into adulthood — wounds that never needed to be inflicted in the first place. But broken-up spouses can help stop the damage done by managing their own behavior before the ink dries on the divorce papers. WebMD spoke with family and divorce expert M. Gary Neuman, LMHC, who gives exes pointers on how to split up without emotionally destroying their kids long term.

1. Don’t make your child the messenger …

“Too many parents attempt to communicate through their children, which causes undue emotional stress on them and forces them to negotiate a situation their own parents could not handle,” says Neuman. “Email is an excellent tool nowadays to communicate with your ex-spouse. It allows you to specifically discuss the practicalities of raising your child without detouring into negative areas and opening old wounds. It also provides a recorded message, admissible into court, so parents tend to be more careful when using it.

If you want or need to speak with your ex over the phone or in person, be focused and stay on task, and most important, don’t swallow the bait if he or she descends into anger. Simply say, ‘I appreciate your feelings, but I am here to discuss our child’s school assignment.’ Take the high road. Your child’s emotional health depends on it.”

2. … or your therapist.

“Teenagers like to feel in control, and divorce turns their worlds upside down,” Neuman says. “Don’t fall into the trap of sharing divorce details or your angry feelings about your ex with your older kids. Their own anxiety and need for control causes them to be ‘understanding’ of what you’re going through, but you need to be the parent. Get outside help for yourself, get therapy if necessary, and maintain those boundaries. Making your child your cohort is wrong and does them damage.”

webmd.com

Breaking up is hard to do. Divorce and its complications are the themes of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s hit Emmy award-winning sitcom, The New Adventures of Old Christine, in which she plays a newly single mom facing the challenges of dating again, a host of custody and parenting issues, and an ex-husband who is still very much in her life.

Although her own marriage — with two kids — to writer-producer Brad Hall is still going strong at 21 years, the actress is mining emotions she is familiar with. Her parents divorced when she was a child, and she was shuffled back and forth between their homes in Washington, D.C., and New York City. While her parents kept it civil and Louis-Dreyfus remains close to her mother, father, and their respective “new” spouses, many kids of divorce have it much tougher. Some are asked to broker peace between warring exes, even as they are grieving the loss of a parent who has abruptly moved out. Others must deal with parents who suddenly can’t cope with everyday tasks, like making dinner or helping with homework.

Recommended Related to Parenting

Nancy Grace and Her Miracle Babies

By Kate CoyneTough-talking newswoman Nancy Grace lets down her guard about the man she finally married, her struggle to become a mom, and why these babies are her miracles. Television journalist Nancy Grace is holding her infant twins, and it’s getting hard to stop the crying. As she sits in a rocking chair in her Manhattan apartment, she cradles little John David in her right arm and Lucy Elizabeth in her left. Luckily, both babies seem oblivious to the waterworks; they’re still soundly sleeping…

Read the Nancy Grace and Her Miracle Babies article > >

Many children take the battle scars of divorce well into adulthood — wounds that never needed to be inflicted in the first place. But broken-up spouses can help stop the damage done by managing their own behavior before the ink dries on the divorce papers. WebMD spoke with family and divorce expert M. Gary Neuman, LMHC, who gives exes pointers on how to split up without emotionally destroying their kids long term.

1. Don’t make your child the messenger …

“Too many parents attempt to communicate through their children, which causes undue emotional stress on them and forces them to negotiate a situation their own parents could not handle,” says Neuman. “Email is an excellent tool nowadays to communicate with your ex-spouse. It allows you to specifically discuss the practicalities of raising your child without detouring into negative areas and opening old wounds. It also provides a recorded message, admissible into court, so parents tend to be more careful when using it.

If you want or need to speak with your ex over the phone or in person, be focused and stay on task, and most important, don’t swallow the bait if he or she descends into anger. Simply say, ‘I appreciate your feelings, but I am here to discuss our child’s school assignment.’ Take the high road. Your child’s emotional health depends on it.”

2. … or your therapist.

“Teenagers like to feel in control, and divorce turns their worlds upside down,” Neuman says. “Don’t fall into the trap of sharing divorce details or your angry feelings about your ex with your older kids. Their own anxiety and need for control causes them to be ‘understanding’ of what you’re going through, but you need to be the parent. Get outside help for yourself, get therapy if necessary, and maintain those boundaries. Making your child your cohort is wrong and does them damage.”

webmd.com

Things aren’t the way they used to be. Your 12-year-old no longer comes to you first when she feels hurt or disappointed. When your son misses curfew — again — the time-out corner that used to work wonders is now simply, lame. As your child grows into adolescence, you need to adapt your tried-and-true parenting skills to a rapidly changing world.

As tempting as it might seem, don’t throw away everything you know about your child — or yourself as a parent. Your teenager may seem like a stranger in your home, but behind the slammed doors and mood swings, she is still your child. You will face many unknowns in the years ahead. What you can expect is that your limits will be tested and your patience will, at times, wear thin. Here are the top mistakes parents make with their teens and tweens, and how to avoid them.

Recommended Related to Parenting

10 Secrets of Great Moms

By Lindsey PalmerREDBOOK knows that moms know. So the life-tested parenting advice here comes straight from the mouths of the experts — you!

Read the 10 Secrets of Great Moms article > >

Teen Parenting Mistake # 1: Expect the Worst

Teenagers get a bad rap, says Richard Lerner, PhD, director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. Many parents approach raising teenagers as an ordeal, believing they can only watch helplessly as their lovable children transform into  unpredictable monsters. Expecting the worst sets parents and teens up for several unhappy, unsatisfying years together.

“The message we give teenagers is that they’re only ‘good’ if they’re not doing ‘bad’ things, such as doing drugs, hanging around with the wrong crowd, or having sex,” Lerner tells WebMD. Raising teenagers with negative expectations can actually promote the behavior you fear most. According to a recent study conducted at Wake Forest University, teens whose parents expected them to get involved in risky behaviors reported higher levels of these behaviors one year later.

Lerner urges parents to focus on their teenagers’ interests and hobbies, even if you don’t understand them. You could open a new path of communication, reconnect with the child you love, and learn something new.

Teen Parenting Mistake #2: Read Too Many Parenting Books

Rather than trusting their instincts, many parents turn to outside experts for advice on how to raise teens. “Parents can tie themselves into knots trying to follow the advice they read in books,” says Robert Evans, EdD, executive director of the Human Relations Service, Wellesley, Mass., and author of Family Matters: How Schools Can Cope with the Crisis in Child Rearing.

“Books become a problem when parents use them to replace their own innate skills,” Evans tells WebMD. “If the recommendations and their personal style don’t fit, parents wind up more anxious and less confident with their own children.”

Use books (and articles like this) to get perspective on confusing behavior and then put them down. Spend the extra time talking with your spouse and children, getting clear about what matters most to you and your family.

webmd.com

Less than 2 years old, Kira Wales was completely obsessed with digital clocks. Able to count to 10, she would intently stare at the clock reading, say, 6:53. And then she would turn to her dad, Jimmy Wales, and say conspiratorially, “I think it’s gonna be a four next.”

And then she would stare. And stare, according to Wales, founder of Wikipedia. “Until finally … ‘four!’ she would say, throwing her arms in the air as if she had scored a Super Bowl touchdown.”

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The Secret to Better Grades

By Marcy LovitchThese five strategies — gleaned from spelling bee stars, science fair champions, and others — can help any child excel.   When you see the latest spelling bee champ crowned on TV, or hear about a kid earning a perfect score on the SATs, you probably assume the winner studies all day … or is just a born genius. In fact, there’s usually something else at work. These kids, with their parents’ help, have unlocked the secrets to being supermotivated students. They like to…

Read the The Secret to Better Grades article > >

And then, staring back at the clock, she would look sideways at her dad and whisper, “I think it’s gonna be a five next …”

Inquisitive like her father, Kira, now 8, was merely expressing her toddler temperament, according to pediatrician Harvey Karp, MD, author and creator of the best-selling book and DVD series, The Happiest Toddler on the Block. Kira had discovered the joy of patterns and took great pleasure, for about a week, in being able to predict numbers.

If babies are angels, then toddlers are cavemen, according to Karp. Rambunctious, mobile, and caught in a riptide of emotion, toddlers are the uncivilized, pedal-to-the-metal humans, matched only by the older edition called teenagers, experts (and parents) say.

“They eat light bulbs. They shove Legos in their noses,” says Lara Zibners, MD, an ER pediatrician in New York City. “Toddlers are egocentric, emotionally labile, indecisive, and oblivious to danger.”

Layer in their limited ability to communicate and their individual temperaments, says Zibners, author of If Your Kid Eats This Book, Everything Will Still Be Okay. “It’s no wonder that many parents can’t wait for their child to outgrow this difficult, yet often delightful, phase of childhood.”

Yet parents can master understanding these little creatures. The first step: figure out your toddler’s personality. Karp writes in The Happiest Toddler on the Block: “Temperament explains why some of us can sleep with the TV on while others go nuts with the tiniest noise, why some forgive easily and others just can’t let go. Knowing your child’s temperament helps you know when to pamper and when to push.”

Toddler Personality Types

Generally, toddler personality is divided into three broad categories, experts say:

Easy or happy, but not full-tilt constantlyShy or slow to warm — often thoughtful and quiet.Spirited (a nice term for “Get down off the refrigerator right now!”)

The Easy Child: About half of kids are easygoing — waking up on the “right side of the bed,” cheerful and ready for a new day, Karp says. They’re active, tolerate change, and basically like new people and situations. They don’t anger easily but aren’t pushovers, experts say. Parents need to just use common sense if this is their toddler’s personality, with a couple of caveats. Easy children sometimes can be lost in the crowd — spending too much time left alone with the television, or not enough time with their parents because other children demand the attention. Make sure that a child who is easy doesn’t become a neglected child.

webmd.com

Things aren’t the way they used to be. Your 12-year-old no longer comes to you first when she feels hurt or disappointed. When your son misses curfew — again — the time-out corner that used to work wonders is now simply, lame. As your child grows into adolescence, you need to adapt your tried-and-true parenting skills to a rapidly changing world.

As tempting as it might seem, don’t throw away everything you know about your child — or yourself as a parent. Your teenager may seem like a stranger in your home, but behind the slammed doors and mood swings, she is still your child. You will face many unknowns in the years ahead. What you can expect is that your limits will be tested and your patience will, at times, wear thin. Here are the top mistakes parents make with their teens and tweens, and how to avoid them.

Recommended Related to Parenting

10 Secrets of Great Moms

By Lindsey PalmerREDBOOK knows that moms know. So the life-tested parenting advice here comes straight from the mouths of the experts — you!

Read the 10 Secrets of Great Moms article > >

Teen Parenting Mistake # 1: Expect the Worst

Teenagers get a bad rap, says Richard Lerner, PhD, director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. Many parents approach raising teenagers as an ordeal, believing they can only watch helplessly as their lovable children transform into  unpredictable monsters. Expecting the worst sets parents and teens up for several unhappy, unsatisfying years together.

“The message we give teenagers is that they’re only ‘good’ if they’re not doing ‘bad’ things, such as doing drugs, hanging around with the wrong crowd, or having sex,” Lerner tells WebMD. Raising teenagers with negative expectations can actually promote the behavior you fear most. According to a recent study conducted at Wake Forest University, teens whose parents expected them to get involved in risky behaviors reported higher levels of these behaviors one year later.

Lerner urges parents to focus on their teenagers’ interests and hobbies, even if you don’t understand them. You could open a new path of communication, reconnect with the child you love, and learn something new.

Teen Parenting Mistake #2: Read Too Many Parenting Books

Rather than trusting their instincts, many parents turn to outside experts for advice on how to raise teens. “Parents can tie themselves into knots trying to follow the advice they read in books,” says Robert Evans, EdD, executive director of the Human Relations Service, Wellesley, Mass., and author of Family Matters: How Schools Can Cope with the Crisis in Child Rearing.

“Books become a problem when parents use them to replace their own innate skills,” Evans tells WebMD. “If the recommendations and their personal style don’t fit, parents wind up more anxious and less confident with their own children.”

Use books (and articles like this) to get perspective on confusing behavior and then put them down. Spend the extra time talking with your spouse and children, getting clear about what matters most to you and your family.

webmd.com

Less than 2 years old, Kira Wales was completely obsessed with digital clocks. Able to count to 10, she would intently stare at the clock reading, say, 6:53. And then she would turn to her dad, Jimmy Wales, and say conspiratorially, “I think it’s gonna be a four next.”

And then she would stare. And stare, according to Wales, founder of Wikipedia. “Until finally … ‘four!’ she would say, throwing her arms in the air as if she had scored a Super Bowl touchdown.”

Recommended Related to Parenting

The Secret to Better Grades

By Marcy LovitchThese five strategies — gleaned from spelling bee stars, science fair champions, and others — can help any child excel.   When you see the latest spelling bee champ crowned on TV, or hear about a kid earning a perfect score on the SATs, you probably assume the winner studies all day … or is just a born genius. In fact, there’s usually something else at work. These kids, with their parents’ help, have unlocked the secrets to being supermotivated students. They like to…

Read the The Secret to Better Grades article > >

And then, staring back at the clock, she would look sideways at her dad and whisper, “I think it’s gonna be a five next …”

Inquisitive like her father, Kira, now 8, was merely expressing her toddler temperament, according to pediatrician Harvey Karp, MD, author and creator of the best-selling book and DVD series, The Happiest Toddler on the Block. Kira had discovered the joy of patterns and took great pleasure, for about a week, in being able to predict numbers.

If babies are angels, then toddlers are cavemen, according to Karp. Rambunctious, mobile, and caught in a riptide of emotion, toddlers are the uncivilized, pedal-to-the-metal humans, matched only by the older edition called teenagers, experts (and parents) say.

“They eat light bulbs. They shove Legos in their noses,” says Lara Zibners, MD, an ER pediatrician in New York City. “Toddlers are egocentric, emotionally labile, indecisive, and oblivious to danger.”

Layer in their limited ability to communicate and their individual temperaments, says Zibners, author of If Your Kid Eats This Book, Everything Will Still Be Okay. “It’s no wonder that many parents can’t wait for their child to outgrow this difficult, yet often delightful, phase of childhood.”

Yet parents can master understanding these little creatures. The first step: figure out your toddler’s personality. Karp writes in The Happiest Toddler on the Block: “Temperament explains why some of us can sleep with the TV on while others go nuts with the tiniest noise, why some forgive easily and others just can’t let go. Knowing your child’s temperament helps you know when to pamper and when to push.”

Toddler Personality Types

Generally, toddler personality is divided into three broad categories, experts say:

Easy or happy, but not full-tilt constantlyShy or slow to warm — often thoughtful and quiet.Spirited (a nice term for “Get down off the refrigerator right now!”)

The Easy Child: About half of kids are easygoing — waking up on the “right side of the bed,” cheerful and ready for a new day, Karp says. They’re active, tolerate change, and basically like new people and situations. They don’t anger easily but aren’t pushovers, experts say. Parents need to just use common sense if this is their toddler’s personality, with a couple of caveats. Easy children sometimes can be lost in the crowd — spending too much time left alone with the television, or not enough time with their parents because other children demand the attention. Make sure that a child who is easy doesn’t become a neglected child.

webmd.com

Oct. 17, 2011 — Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should be diagnosed and treated in children as young as age 4, according to new guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Previous guidelines for pediatricians, issued 10 years ago, had limited the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD to children aged 6 to 12. The new guidelines expand that age range to include preschoolers and teenagers.

The new guidelines were released at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics in Boston. They are also published in the November issue of Pediatrics.

Currently, it’s estimated that about 8% of children have ADHD.

The new recommendations say treatment for preschoolers should start with behavioral therapies geared toward teaching parents how to better control problem behaviors.

If a child doesn’t improve, then the guidelines recommend escalating to medication with methylphenidate (Concerta, Metadate, Methylin, Ritalin).

“We’re not recommending that you just put 4-year-olds on meds right away,” says Karen Pierce, MD, a child psychiatrist who helped develop the guidelines. Pierce is also a clinical associate professor of medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

“The kids that I put on meds, the preschoolers, have been kicked out of three or four preschools. They’ve had broken legs or broken arms. I have a 4-year-old who just choked his 2-year-old brother so severely because he was impulsive. Those are the kinds of kids we’re talking about,” Pierce says.

Slideshow: ADHD in Children

Evidence for Medicating Preschoolers

The committee’s recommendation to use Ritalin to treat young children is in part based on the results of a study of 165 young children who were assigned to take Ritalin or a placebo. In that study, about 21% of kids on the best dose of the medication, and 13% of the kids taking the placebo, achieved remission of their ADHD symptoms.

Researchers said that overall, they found “strong positive effects” in about half the preschoolers who took Ritalin. Those improvements were generally not as large as the benefits seen in older kids who take that drug.

Mark L. Wolraich, MD, chairman of the committee that developed the guidelines, says he doesn’t think the new guidelines will encourage more prescribing of medications. Instead, he says, the update and evidence-based recommendations are important because so many primary care doctors are already treating ADHD without much guidance about what works.

Wolraich is a professor of pediatrics and director of the child study center at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, in Oklahoma City. “It’s clear from the studies that looked at medication use that there are a number of children that are being treated,” Wolraich says. “We wanted to make sure that primary care physicians, if they were going to be evaluating children, were using the best evidence for both evaluation and recommendations for treatment.”

webmd.com