Kids Wellness: Back to School Edition
August is well underway and some of you may have even started your child’s back-to-school shopping. Back-to-school readiness often involved getting a new haircut, new clothes, and stocking up on the fancy binders, pens, pencils, and notebooks for school. Do you have wellness care on your back-to-school list?
Spending the last couple of weeks of the Summer optimizing their health and wellness and getting their health back on track before school starts may help them have a healthier school year, be more focused in their school work and get better grades, maybe even reduce absenteeism from school.
Optimizing your child’s health and wellness now:
Can help establish a healthier daily routine before the schedules get busy which can make it easier for maintaining the routine
Help prevent the cold and flu when everyone starts getting sick at the beginning of the year
Improve their sleep, alleviate the first day jitters, and find tools to help them deal with any anxiety or stress
Provide them with tools and tips to alleviate back pain from carrying heavy bags, any pain related to sports and other physical activity
Natural Immune Support for Your Kids
Having a strong immune system helps children fight viruses and bacteria more readily, reduces the duration of colds and flu’s and may even reduce the number of times they fall sick this school year.
Building a strong immune system may mean more than just probiotics and vitamin D. Digestive health is an important area to address since most of your immune system lies in the gut. If your child is experiencing constipation, loose stools, increased gassiness or bloating, a gut check may be needed. Eczema, allergies, and/or asthma (known as the “atopic triad”) could also have root causes associated with gut health even though they are related to immune imbalances.
Having your child see a naturopathic doctor can help identify the cause of your child’s digestive upset as well as provide you with recommendations to help optimize your child’s immune system and overall, improve your kids’ health. There are also kid-friendly options to help deal with colds and flus if you don’t want to give your child antibiotics (antibiotics really only are meant for bacterial infections anyways not viruses).
Backpacks and other Musculoskeletal Pain Support
Sometimes, particularly in older kids and teenagers, the start of school results in back pain complaints. The most common cause of back pain in schoolchildren is carrying backpacks on their back improperly or carrying a heavy load. A heavy load on the back will cause the person to hunch forward leading to poor posture and an abnormal spinal curvature. Book an appointment with your child’s chiropractor for tips on adjusting their backpack to it fits well on their back.
Basic backpack wearing tips are:
Should be worn on the back with straps over both shoulders and straps should be tightened so the bag sits on the upper back and doesn’t hang down. When the bag is worn with loose straps, it hangs down and pulls the shoulders down, arching the spine.
Carrying a backpack on one shoulder will compress the spine, shift the spine in a lateral curvature and increase the risk of your child developing scoliosis.
Maintaining good posture and healthy spinal alignment can improve kids’ health by enhancing nervous system function which may help in improving learning, concentration, and memory, and enhance physical activity.
Seeing a naturopathic doctor for tips to help alleviate back pain such as acupuncture or acupressure or even how much and the type of certain supplements to take like magnesium can be helpful. Support can also be offered for helping alleviate any other pain due to sports injuries and prolonged muscle soreness after sports activities.
Anxiety Support
Back to school may bring on a lot of anxiety for many children from starting a new school, a new class, having to make new friends, or maybe they have been a victim of bullying in the past and are scared of being bullied again. Childhood anxiety can lead to withdrawal from social situations and other activities, isolation, and depression and addressing any anxiety-provoking moments with your children and teens early on, can lessen the anxiety for the new school year and help them have an enjoyable year.
Some tips on helping your child cope with any anxiety include providing them with a supportive environment at home where they can talk about anything that bothers them. Talk to them about what they are most excited about for the new school year and what they are least looking forward to and then help them find something positive in whatever makes them least excited to go back to school. If you are noticing that your child has recently started having problems sleeping through the night, it could be anxiety or anticipation anxiety from going back to school keeping them awake. Turning to melatonin supplementation may help with their sleep but may not resolve the cause.
Please remember that sometimes, children and teenagers find it easier to talk to a trusted healthcare professional rather than their parents to resolve their anxiety so if your child or teen isn’t opening up to you, don’t be frustrated – there is another avenue!
If you do not want your child to begin taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications, there are lots of natural treatments that naturopathic doctors have for helping kids and teenagers cope with anxiety from foods and nutritional supplementation to acupuncture or acupressure or even just providing an avenue for a non-family member to listen to their concerns.
