The time to celebrate our nation’s independence is fast approaching! While your little ones may not fully understand the history behind Fourth of July yet, that doesn’t mean they won’t enjoy the holiday. For many of us, Fourth of July has become synonymous with backyard barbecues and spending time with friends and family. And who is better to help you plan your barbecue than your own little patriot?

A perfect way to end your barbecue is to plop down to watch those fireworks with a delicious patriotic parfait that you and your child made together! You can even turn the grocery shopping into a learning experience for your child. While picking out the fruit for the parfait, ask your child which colors you need to represent the American flag. Then, it can be a scavenger hunt to find the berries that have the appropriate color and taste appeal for your family.

To construct your parfait, you will need:

• 2 small packages of blueberries or blackberries
• 2 small packages of raspberries or strawberries
• Premade angel food cake
• Whipped cream*

Now that you have your ingredients, it’s time to get cooking! Before you start constructing the desserts, you can teach your child the importance of cleanliness when preparing food for others. It’s important not only to wash your hands with soap and warm water before you start, but also to rinse and dry the fruit as well.

First, remove the angel food cake from the container and have your child carefully tear the cake into bite sized chunks. (You can pre-cut the cake into chunks as well, but it is sure to be more fun to let your little one make their own mound of cake bits!)

Next, pull out four clear glass cups and squirt a dollop of whipped cream into the bottom of each.

Now, let your child take charge and fill the cups by layering the red fruit, the cake chunks, the whipped cream, and the blue fruit, until the cup is filled to the top.

And voila! Your child has just created a delicious dessert all by themselves! Not only will they be proud to share their creation with friends and family, but it is a relatively healthy dessert that you can feel good about serving to your children.

*If you are feeling particularly inspired, you can create your own whipped cream. Beat a small carton of heavy whipping cream until it begins to thicken. Then add several tablespoons and sugar and a dash of vanilla to taste. Continue beating until soft peaks form. You can even use food coloring to dye your whipped cream blue or red to complete the parfait!

Here is what you will need:

• 2 cups of strawberries (preferably fresh)
• 1 banana
• 1 cup of low-fat milk
• 2-8oz. containers of non-fat strawberry yogurt

Here’s how to make the strawberry smoothie pops:

1. Wash strawberries and remove the green leaf tops. Place them in the blender.
2. Cut the banana into four quarters and add into the blender. Tip: You can substitute other favorite fruits like blueberries, pineapple, or oranges to the mix to create new flavors!
3. Add yogurt and milk to blender.
4. Secure the blender lid and blend until all the fruit is blended smooth. Tip: If you would like, you can serve the blended smoothie as a drink!
5. Pour the smoothie mix into popsicle molds and add sticks.
6. Place in the freezer for 4-6 hours, and then serve!

This healthy, refreshing snack is a guaranteed hit for anyone on a hot summer day! Just don’t forget to save one for yourself!

Here’s some food for thought.  Have you ever considered maximizing your mind through your mouth?  This week, we’ve got more than a spoonful of advice to build brawny brains in your family.  All you have to do is follow this simple recipe to ensure a healthy, active, and more powerful brain.

Our brains run on blood sugar, using about 20% of the carbohydrates we eat to function.  However, the brain is a picky muscle that prefers to take its blood sugar in a specific way.  Simple carbohydrates like those in processed flour products (white bread) and sugary foods (sodas, candies, and frosting) cause a rush of sugar into the bloodstream.  The ‘Glycemic Index’ (GI) measures how quickly sugar from food enters the brain.  Foods with a high GI take our brain on a rollercoaster ride.  Our brains don’t do well and get a little out of control while on this wild sugar ride leaving us fidgety, irritable, inattentive, and even sleepy.  These effects are definitely not conducive for effective brain building.

Keep your plate clear of these foods that drain the brain:

• Sugary drinks like sodas and juices
• Refined white sugars found in candy, ice cream, and ketchup
• White breads like pancake and pizza dough
• Processed foods like lunch meats
• High-Fructose corn syrup found in canned fruits, juices, and candy
• Hydrogenated fats found in chips and pastries

The best brain foods are foods that have a low GI.  These foods usually contain complex carbohydrates that take the body longer to break down.  This means it takes the sugars longer to reach our brain.  Because of this, our brain gets a steady flow of energy rather than a surging sugar rush.

Fill up on foods that fuel the mind:

• Fruitful Fruits: Bananas, grapefruit, apples, cherries, oranges, and grapes have a low glycemic index and are high in antioxidants that will help improve memory.
• Cereals and grains: Oatmeal and bran contain B vitamins and are rich in fiber.  This will improve memory function and provide a steady stream of energy to the brain.  Spaghetti and rice also have a relatively low GI and can help brain development and function.
• Vegetables and legumes: Legumes, including soybeans, kidney beans, chick peas, and lentils are great brain foods.  Also veggies like peas, lettuce, and broccoli are marvelous mind enhancers.  Although these foods have the lowest glycemic index of any food, they probably have the lowest intrigue among kids’ taste buds as well.  Get creative to get your kids interested.  Make a ‘dip and dunk’ snack by pairing hummus or bean dip with fresh-cut vegetables.
• Dairy products: Most milk products also have low glycemic indexes.  Yogurt, cottage cheese, and string cheese are super snacks for stronger brains and bones.
• Omega-3 fatty acids:  Salmon, tuna, avocado, nuts, and flaxseed contain healthy fats that will help boost the brain’s thinking power in no time.
• Power up with proteins:  Found in eggs, turkey, peanut butter, and lean beef, proteins affect brain performance because they provide amino acids.  These essential acids create neurotransmitters that carry signals from one brain cell to another. The better you feed these messengers, the more efficiently they’ll deliver the goods to the brain.

Now that you’ve filled up on some ideas for a brain boosting diet, chow down and start multiplying your mind!  Before you know it, you and your kids will be lean, mean, thinking machines!

But all is not lost! Fortunately, summertime means fruit is in the air… er… the grocery stores, and that makes for endless possibilities. Here are a couple ideas for some quick and delicious, fresh-fruit snacks you and your kids will love!

Warning: Many of the snacks below involve some level of mess factor, so be sure to use bibs and paper towels… and you might want to put bibs on your kids, as well J

• Peanut Butter, Banana, and Honey on Toast: Toast a slice of whole-wheat bread, spread on a thin layer of peanut butter, slice up half a banana on top, and then drizzle on a little bit of honey. You can give it to your kids open-faced or as a sandwich. Either way, it’s delicious!
• Apples and Honey: I’m often surprised by how few people have tried this. Slice up an apple into four to six pieces, then pour a little honey on a plate. Dip and enjoy!
• Banana, Peanut Butter, and Ovaltine: Put a dollop of peanut butter (a tablespoon should be plenty) on a plate, and one or two spoonfuls of Ovaltine powder next to it. You’re kids can then dip a banana in the peanut butter and Ovaltine for a delicious, protein-rich snack. Note: Ovaltine is surprisingly low in calories, and makes for great chocolate milk, too!
• Strawberries, Yogurt, and Brown Sugar: This is a slightly healthier twist on strawberries, sour cream, and brown sugar. Just replace the sour cream with a little low-fat vanilla yogurt. If you are, by chance, not familiar with this delightful snack, here’s how you do it: Wash some strawberries (and cut them up if your kids are very young), put a dollop of low fat yogurt on a plate, and a little pile of brown sugar next to it. You’re kids will love dipping and munching the strawberries, and will particularly love taking a spoon to the mix of yogurt and brown sugar left on the plate when the strawberries are gone.
• Easy and Yummy Fruit Salad: Chop up any kinds of fruit you have in the house: bananas, apples, melons, grapes, etc. Mix them up with a good amount of low-fat vanilla yogurt, and sprinkle in a little brown sugar until it tastes just right. You can also play with adding a couple drops of vanilla extract or cinnamon.
• Banana Split: This is a fun dessert for your family to enjoy. Either slice a banana, or use a whole one. Mix a couple tablespoons of Ovaltine with a tiny tiny tiny bit of milk or water to make a rich chocolate sauce. Drizzle this over the banana. Then add a little whip cream, sprinkle some powdered Ovaltine over the top, and voila! You’ve got an instant, classy, and best of all (don’t worry, we won’t tell your kids) healthy dessert.

According to Joann, kids tend to catch colds more often in the winter not because of the chilly temperatures, but because winter usually means more time spent indoors with other people. Spring and sunny weather are on the way, but to survive these last few weeks cold-free, Joann says that hand washing is the most important thing your child can do! Make sure your child understands the proper way to wash his hands – a quarter size dollop of soap, warm water, and lots of suds – and ask him to wash his hands even when you aren’t around to police.

Sometimes, even the best hand-washers can’t escape those pesky colds going around the classroom. If your child does catch a cold, here are a few things Joann recommends to speed up recovery and keep everyone else healthy:

• If your child is suffering from an upset stomach, try the BRAT diet (no offense to your sweet little angel). BRAT stands for bananas, rice, applesauce and toast – foods that will go down easy and build up strength.
• Tight, painful cough? The best way to loosen that cough and give your throat a rest is to find a humid location. Try running a hot shower and having your child sit in the steamy bathroom for a few minutes at a time.
• Encourage your child to drink clear liquids, especially water, to keep well hydrated and more comfortable.
• If your child has a cold, ask him to use paper towels instead of sharing hand towels with the rest of the family. Also, make sure he knows not to cough or sneeze directly on others – give him a small pack of tissues to keep handy.

And if your child needs some entertainment while he fights off a cold, we recommend you check out CJ’s Indoor Adventures for some fun inside activities.

My 4 year old daughter loves to play computer games (educational). She sometimes spends more than 2 hours playing every day after school. What is the appropriate time spent on the computer as far as the eyes are concerned? We have a laptop but should we buy a special screen to protect her eyes? Thanks a lot – Ilana

Answer:

If you are concerned about eye strain, experts recommend the following:

• Since computer workspaces are often arranged for adults, make sure your workspace fits your child’s smaller body.
• Recommended distance between the monitor and the eye for children is 18 – 28 inches.
• Use proper lighting around your computer.
• Try to minimize glare.
• The screen should be tilted slightly downward at a 15-degree angle.
• Limit computer and game use to 20 minutes at a time.
• Make sure your daughter gets annual eye exams.

I am not an ophthalmologist or optometrist, so if you have a concern about your daughter’s eyes, discuss the situation with a professional.

Hope this helps!

Top Dangers for Kids Online

Cyberbullying
Take the playground bully, add digital technology, and suddenly, kids can be humiliated in front of thousands of Internet users, not just the rest of the playground. Cyberbullying occurs in a wide variety of forums – from email to chat rooms to websites – but by definition always has a child on both sides of the encounter. Parents need to be aware of cyberbullying not only to keep their kids safe, but also to make sure they don’t engage in it. Unfortunately, thanks to the wonders of digital media, it is all too easy for even a passing comment or joke about another child to go viral and escalate into a case of cyberbullying.

Predators
Unless you’ve actually met him in person, it’s impossible to be sure that the “soccer-loving 9-year-old boy” in the chat room actually is a boy, much less that he’s really 9. The anonymity of the Internet makes it all too easy for a person to take on a fake persona. Predators are lurking in chat rooms and social sites, waiting for kids to reveal a little snippet of personal information so they can form a connection and eventually gain the kid’s trust.

Inappropriate Content
The Internet has information about pretty much every topic imaginable – and lots of it. Unfortunately for parents, this includes a large amount of content that is not appropriate for kids. Even worse, this content can crop up on seemingly appropriate pages in the form of banner ads and pop-ups.

Top Tips for Internet Safety

Between school, friends, and necessity, it’s impossible to shut the Internet out of our kids’ lives forever. But don’t panic, we are not doomed to hand our kids over to the bullies and predators of the Internet. Instead, we must teach kids to be smart, vigilant, and in control while online. Here’s how:

• Keep the computer in a central family area instead of in a child’s room. This will allow you to keep an eye on your child’s activity and intervene quickly if he or she strays into dangerous territory.
• Activate built-in parental controls or consider purchasing a separate control to weed out inappropriate sites. Many browsers, service providers, and operating systems are equipped with free controls for parents. These controls allow you to block or allow websites, view reports of your child’s online activities, and set limits for computer use. For a more robust system you can consider purchasing a program like Safe Eyes 5.0 or Cyber Patrol 7. Or you can download a free parental control toolbar from organizations such as WRACC, a non-profit committed to empowering parents with greater control of online content.
• Establish ground rules for Internet use including daily time limits and acceptable types of sites. What types of sites are your children allowed to frequent? Can they be online to play games? Get extra practice or research a school subject? Chat with friends? Make sure your kids know what you expect them to be doing while on the computer.
• Make sure your child is aware of the importance of keeping all personal information private – this means not telling anyone his or her name, address, phone number, or school ever.
• Open a dialogue about your kid’s online activities and be interested! Make sure you know who and what your child is interacting with online.
• Create a safe zone for talking about online activities. Never use loss of Internet privileges as a punishment for something your child tells you happened online. This will only encourage your kids to hide any uncomfortable encounters.
• Research the websites your child is visiting or joining. Visit these sites yourself to check content, what capabilities they have (chat, gaming, profiles) and what other sites they link to.

For more tips on online safety, visit these sites:

• Common Sense Media
• PTA
• FBI
• ConnectSafetly

With these simple tips, your child will be safe while enjoying the massive world that lives within your computer.

Let’s begin with the basics – what is a virtual world?

Put simply, a virtual world is a place where people create a character (avatar) and interact with other people or their surroundings. Often based in magical or fantasy realms, virtual worlds do not necessarily follow the rules we humans are stuck with in the real world – gravity, aging, time, distance, or human appearance. Imagine a fairytale where you become a character and choose your own adventures – now put that on the computer, and you’ve got a virtual world.

So there’s our reality – the bills, the in-laws, the diapers – and then there are these totally separate worlds online? Well, not quite. While the line between “real” and virtual may have once been clear-cut, that boundary is not so obvious these days. With many virtual worlds offering the opportunity to meet and mingle with your real-life friends in a simulated environment, relationships are affected by virtual game play. Perhaps even more peculiar, you can now use cold hard cash to buy virtual items– an exotic pet for your avatar, a never-before-seen virtual sofa for your room, an exclusive pair of virtual boots to make you fly – things you will never physically see, touch, or wear.

With the wild success of virtual worlds for both kids and adults in recent years, it seems virtual worlds are here to stay. Businesses and schools have already begun to embrace this new technology, recognizing its ability to bring people across the world together for lectures, meetings, and even hands-on training. Dozens of colleges and universities have even begun building virtual campuses inside some of the most popular virtual worlds for adults. It’s not a stretch to think that by the time our children are in college, students will be able to interact with their classmates, professors and even subject matter entirely in virtual spaces. Imagine being able to learn about digestion by navigating through a virtual body – it sure would beat those dull biology textbooks!

Risks & Benefits

As virtual worlds become commonplace, it is important to weigh the benefits and dangers before logging in. Virtual worlds are susceptible to the general dangers of the internet – intrusions on privacy and predators. Plus, with the huge amount of interaction between kids in many virtual worlds, issues like cyberbullying can become a much larger problem. That being said, most kid-focused virtual worlds have protections in place to cut down on cyberbullying by limiting communication, especially communication of personal details. As with television, radio or any other medium, virtual worlds can be a great experience, but parents and kids alike must be aware and wary of the potential dangers.

Despite these dangers, virtual worlds arguably offer a number of important benefits – especially for kids. Your child will learn responsibility by caring for a virtual pet, acquire social skills by meeting new friends, and build confidence by shaping his or her own identity. Even better, a few kid-friendly virtual worlds involve currency systems based on playing educational games or fulfilling missions to earn moola. Kids are so focused on earning enough to buy the latest pet, fashion or decoration that they don’t even notice they are learning! All this, not to mention the fact that these kids will be better prepared for a tech-savvy classroom or workplace.

Getting Started

Does it sound like a virtual world might be a good match for your family? If so, here’s where to start:

1. Do your homework. Ask around the schoolyard and check out published reviews from other parents. Pay special attention to safety features the program offers – pre-programmed or limited chat, moderators, parental log-in and controls– and determine if the site is offered by a brand you can trust.
2. Once you’ve located the ideal virtual world for your child, set some ground rules. Make sure to have a balance between “screen” play (computer and TV) and “real world” play.
3. Talk to your child about online safety and the importance of keeping personal information private. Establish an action plan should your child ever feel uncomfortable online: turn off the monitor immediately and tell a trusted adult what happened.
4. Finally, as your child embarks on a new adventure in the virtual world, it is important to keep the lines of communication open. Talk with your child about his or her experiences in the virtual space, ask about the decisions and friends he or she is making – you just might find out something that surprises you!