Parents make the best role models for bringing up baby
Education now leads to prevention later
Lately, newspaper headlines have screamed warnings about the risky health behavior of American children that could lead to heart problems, diabetes, osteoporosis, and cancer in later years. Children don’t exercise enough, choosing to play computer games or watch TV instead. They don’t eat right, either. Fast food and high-fat snacks are the norm.
To reduce the statistics of those most common diseases, health care facilities need to begin prevention education at a much earlier age. The experts advise building a partnership with parents for the best results. Education should start from the moment the child is born, says Mary Margaret Gottesman, RN, PhD, CPNP, assistant professor of clinical nursing at The Ohio State University College of Nursing in Columbus.
"There are lots of health habits that really rest in parents’ hands to set the course for better choices early on," she says. For example, if parents eat vegetables, children eventually will eat vegetables. If parents smoke, it is more likely that their adolescent son or daughter will smoke. Parents need to understand that they are major role models for their children, says Gottesman.
Health care facilities should be a resource for parents, teachers, coaches, youth leaders, and other role models to help them promote healthy behavior in young children. For example, parents who don’t have private insurance may need information on how to get an appointment with the dentist, explains Gottesman.
The earlier you start teaching kids good health habits, the better the results later in life, says Patrick Pasquariello Jr., MD, director of the diagnostic center at Children’s Hospital of Philadel-phia. "Once children develop habits, they are very difficult to break; so the earlier you start, the more successful you will be," he says.
With young children, ages 1 to 6, repetition and role modeling work well. If parents have the child help apply sunblock every time he or she goes outdoors on a sunny day, and mom and dad use the lotion as well, the child will learn the habit, says Beth White, CCLS, child life coordinator at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
Health messages must be delivered in an age-appropriate way, says White. Younger children need concrete information, which includes touch, taste, sight, smell, and hearing. For example, hospital staff who participate in community outreach can teach children about the effects of smoking with a model so children can see how lungs fill up with smoke. Then they have children breathe through a straw so they can feel how much harder it is to get air if their lungs are full of cigarette smoke.
Concrete messages do make an impact, agrees Pasquariello. If he sees a child who is 20 pounds overweight, he tries to help him or her visualize the stress it puts on the body by explaining that it is similar to filling a backpack with 20 pounds of stones and carrying it around on his or back.
Older children, different tactics
Older children, beginning around age 9, are more receptive to peer learning. With this method, an adult would facilitate discussion between the children. They might ask a question such as, "What would you do if another child approached you and asked you to smoke a cigarette?" The children could give their response and explain why they would make the decision. For example, a child might say, "I wouldn’t smoke because it might keep me from playing football."
"If you get interactive learning going, it will motivate them, and they are more likely to remember the information because they are saying it and hearing it from their friends as well," says White.
Having a peer deliver the message to teens also works well. For example, to teach the health risks of drinking and driving, have a teen who was injured in a drunk-driving accident talk to the group. Peer-to-peer education works better than parental advice during teen years because it is very typical of teens to be critical of their parents and challenge their beliefs and values, says White.
Delivering the message in the appropriate manner for each age group will be successful only if the message is consistent, says Gottesman. Often, there is an absence in consistency between what children learn at home, what they learn at school, peer influence, and what is modeled. For example, the health teacher at school might talk about good nutrition, but the vending machine is full of junk food and the cafeteria menu has too many high-fat choices.
It’s important for everyone involved in health education not to give mixed messages or the wrong message, agrees Pasquariello. This often happens in the home when parents tell children to eat their vegetables but don’t set a good example.
Give everyone the same message
One of the best ways to make sure the message is not mixed is to give everyone the same message, says White. That’s why classes for both children and adults are good. The teaching can be separate with the children being taught at an age-appropriate level and the adults given more detail. In this way, the adults can reinforce the teaching. If the education took place at a school or at a youth organization, the teacher or leader could send a letter home with children explaining what was taught.
It’s important to keep delivering the message in many settings and different ways because no one can be sure when a teachable moment might come along. What a child didn’t understand before may suddenly become clear, says Gottesman.
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