I’m doing something today that I have never done before: Letting Matt, age 14, go to the doctor by himself. Without his mommy by his side.

No, he’s not sick. If he was, I’d be right there, dropping everything and taking him to the doc.

But it’s a beautiful day, the office is about a mile away, and he can ride his bike. He just needs to get blood work done for a routine physical for high school sports. (Gulp — He’ll be a freshman in September.)

I’m on a work deadline today and I have painters here doing some work. Not a good time to leave. So I called the doc’s office and they said I could send a note and Matt could come by himself.

Would you do this? Am I a bad mom? Or is this the right amount of freedom to let an incoming high school freshman have? Matt’s a responsible kid, for 14. But still… He’s 14.

What do you think?

For women, the first experience with heartburn is often during pregnancy.

In fact, studies suggest that more than 50 percent of pregnant women will experience gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) symptoms during pregnancy. This is due to pregnancy-related hormones and pressure from the growing fetus. Symptoms of heartburn resolve in most of these women after delivery of the baby.

Think you might be one of the 60 million Americans with GERD? Check out my article in this month’s MetroKids magazine.

I’ve done it.

Most of us have done it, I’m betting: Gone down a playground slide with our child on our lap. What’s the harm, right?

But according to a new study published in the Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics, 13.8 percent of tibia (shin) fractures in U.S. kids were the result of the child going down a slide on an adult’s lap.

The injury occurs when the child’s leg gets stuck in one place while the adult and child continue to move down the slide.

Ouch.

Editor’s note: MommaSaid.net‘s Melanie Davis, of the “Buzz on the Birds and the Bees,” and I (I write the “Boo-Boos, Germs & Pap Smears” column) are teaming up to tackle the news about this study on how earlier or later puberty can trigger aggression in boys.

Is your son way ahead of his friends when it comes to his voice getting deeper, his pants getting shorter and his face showing a bit of stubble?

Or is he at the other end of the spectrum — feeling left behind and wondering when he’ll hit puberty like many of his friends already have?

Puberty that arrives earlier or later in boys, compared with their buddies, can trigger chemicals related to antisocial behavior, say Penn State researchers. They add that their findings have important implications for parents with aggressive boys.

“Aggressive behavior can begin very early, even in pre-school, and might be related to poor impulse control, difficulties in the family or just overall general problem behavior,” says Elizabeth J. Susman, a professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State. “We wanted to find out if earlier or later timing of puberty in adolescents has any biological factors related to it.”

She and her colleagues looked at how the timing of puberty affects cortisol (a stress hormone) and salivary alpha amylase (an enzyme in saliva used as an indicator of stress). Their findings appear in the May issue of the medical journal Psychoneuroendocrinology. (OK, that’s a mouthful.)

(more…)

The Tooth Fairy might need to get a day job to pay for all those teeth, because payouts for baby teeth are on the rise, according to a new report by Desiree Ferenczi  of Consumer Reports. (Full disclosure: I work part-time as the social-media reporter for Consumer Reports. You can find me on Twitter as @CReporter.)

What a sweet picture: New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees lifting his one-year-old son, Baylen, in the air following the Saints’ win in the Super Bowl yesterday.

And it warmed my heart even more to see that Mom and Dad had decided Baylen would be wearing noise-reducing headphones for the occasion.

Consumer Reports’ Tobie Stanger has a great post about this, with lots of links to info on how to protect your hearing and your kids’ hearing.  (Full disclosure: I’m the social-media reporter for Consumer Reports.)

Check out the post, then talk with your own kids about the importance of protecting their hearing. And be sure to tell them that Drew Brees is one cool dad.

Ever wonder what your kid’s pediatrician would say if he or she had a chance to vent? I found out.

Little did I know, when I asked to interview several doctors, that they all had a mental laundry list of the things they’d like parents to know. (But they’ll never tell you to your face.)

Check out my article in Little Rock Family magazine for pediatricians’ pet peeves.

Note to any parent who is thinking that taking their kids to a “swine flu party” is a dandy idea: I wish you could have seen my then-13-year-old son in early November. (Matt gave me his OK to talk about his bout with H1N1 because he thinks purposely exposing a child to this virus is the craziest thing he’s ever heard of.)

My healthy, baseball-playing, junior-lifeguard son was fine one day and had a fever of 102.5 the next. (Full disclosure: Matt did get the H1N1 vaccination, but it takes about two weeks to be fully effective, according to his doctor, and he got sick before it became fully effective.)

He got so sick he developed a form of vertigo that was so severe he couldn’t roll over in bed without the room spinning. He ended up in the ER with pneumonia. He missed almost two weeks of school. Taking your listless child to the ER is as scary thing. Seeing him hooked up to IVs with fluids and antibiotics isn’t fun, either. (more…)

Your kids need more sleep. You know it. They won’t admit it. And teachers everywhere wish parents would put bedtime higher on the priority list in 2010.

Kick off the new year right with healthy bedtime routines and great tips on kids and sleep from my latest article in CarolinaParent.com.

Who knows… You may even find a bit of “grown-up” time in your evenings, after the kids are in bed. Bonus!