🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 🧼 Hygiene Habits — Learning and practicing hygiene routines — handwashing, toothbrushing — establishes automatic habits that protect health throughout life and builds the self-care independence that school and daily life require.
• 😊 Emotional Self-Awareness — Recognizing physical signals of emotion — a tight stomach, a fast heart, tension — builds the mind-body awareness and emotional intelligence that self-regulation, communication, and mental health depend on.
• 😴 Sleep & Rest Awareness — Understanding why sleep matters — for growth, learning, and mood — builds the value children place on rest and supports the bedtime compliance that adequate sleep (critical for brain development) requires.
• 🏃 Active Lifestyle Foundation — Understanding that regular physical activity keeps bodies healthy, strong, and happy establishes the health values that active preschoolers carry into adolescence and adulthood — where physical activity habits are much harder to establish.

Oh no! Your preschooler wakes up with itchy, pink spots on their skin caused by the varicella zoster virus which causes chicken pox. Thanks to modern day medicine, occurrences of chicken pox are infrequent. Luckily, when chicken pox does strike, it is very manageable. Here’s more on understanding this common childhood illness and how to manage it best to ease your preschooler’s discomfort.

Chicken Pox 101

The symptoms of chicken pox can look similar to a cold or flu at first, with a runny nose, cough and sneezing preceding the key sign of the rash. Other symptoms may include fatigue and fever. Usually the bumps and itchiness begin on the face and chest and can, but don't always, spread to the rest of the body. The spread, course, and severity of chicken pox symptoms vary between people. Blisters with fluid within begin to form on the bumps and start to crust over and scab after a day or two of the initial bump formation. This virus is extremely contagious so keeping your preschooler isolated is important. Your preschooler will be most contagious the the first few days of blister formation, but once all blisters have scabbed over, they are no longer contagious.

Remember, cold and flu-like symptoms can precede the itchy bumps by a few days, so sneezing and coughing on others during this pre-rash period can spread the virus without your knowing it's the chicken pox! This is another reason to stress to your preschooler the importance of being cautious with any cough or sneeze by covering the mouth and washing hands frequently.

For the itchy symptoms, scratching is a no-no! Scratching at the bumps and blisters make healing difficult and can open your preschooler up to secondary infections. Doctors recommend calamine lotion, cool washcloths on the skin and oatmeal baths for the itching symptoms. Doctors also often prescribe acetaminophen for symptoms of pain and discomfort. Aspirin, however, is absolutely not to be used because it can lead to a serious disorder called Reye’s syndrome.

Make sure you stress to your preschooler that they should tell you if they are feeling really bad or if things are getting worse during the course of their illness. Sometimes chicken pox can lead to other dangerous problems like skin infections and pneumonia. You should be very observant of their symptoms from day to day of their chicken pox infection. 
 
There are two pieces of good news, however. First, once you get chicken pox, it’s not likely you’ll get it again. And, second, there are chicken pox vaccines that can prevent the illness altogether. The first vaccine is given as an infant and the second dose between the ages of four to six years old. According to the CDC, getting the vaccine is safer than getting chicken pox itself.

By: Pia Chaparro

References:

Centers for Disease Control. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/downloads/vis-varicella.txt  and http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/varicella/dis-faqs-gen.htm on January 22,.

Helpful Tips for Parents - Screen time content matters as much as quantity. Educational, interactive, co-viewed content is far less harmful than passive, commercial, or violent content at the same viewing time. - Lead exposure is still a significant risk in homes built before 1978. If your home was built before 1978, have it tested — lead paint poisoning has severe and permanent cognitive effects. - Teaching children correct anatomical terms for body parts — including genitals — is a safety measure. Children who know the correct words are more able to report and be understood in abuse situations. - Emotional health is physical health. Chronic stress, loneliness, and anxiety in childhood have measurable negative effects on the immune system, growth, and brain development. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### When should I keep my preschooler home from school? Standard exclusion criteria: fever above 100.4°F (38°C), vomiting or diarrhea in the past 24 hours, a rash with fever or unknown cause, pink eye (conjunctivitis) that is weeping and contagious, or a child too ill to participate in activities. A child can return: fever-free for 24 hours without fever-reducing medication, diarrhea/vomiting-free for 24 hours, rash identified as non-contagious, pink eye treated for 24 hours with antibiotic. Runny nose, mild cough without fever, and general tiredness are not sufficient reasons to exclude from school. Related reading: See also our emotional health guide and our physical activity guide for more ideas on this topic.