As a parent, it’s not too farfetched to say that you’ve lost sleep when your child is sick. No parent likes to see their little angel in any shape or condition other than healthy.
Because of a parent’s want and need for their kids to be happy and healthy, some parents go a little overboard and try to keep their kids as safe from infections, illness, and sicknesses as possible. While there’s no harm in trying to keep your kids healthy, sometimes parents are doing more harm than anything.
In a recent post from Family Share, some preventive parenting tactics were discussed that are actually causing sickness as opposed to fighting it.
Are you getting your kids sick by trying to prevent them from sicknesses? Find out here:
1. Taking away their mouthing objects
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The Association for Science in Autism Treatment (ASAT) released a study that suggests that babies attempt to put things in their mouths to learn more about their environments and from them. It’s sort of like an investigative learning experience for babies.
While you shouldn’t condone or allow your baby to put harmful or poisonous things in their mouths anytime soon, you should be mindful that sometimes you’re actually robbing your baby of a chance to build a tolerance to germs and sickness around them.
Bio-chemist Dr. William J. Hennen, PhD claims, “babies are natural scientists; they taste test everything! Early oral exposure to its environment allows a baby to adapt and develop immune tolerance to innocuous things. Without tolerance, the person’s immune system attacks dust as dangerous, and foods as foreign, triggering allergic reactions.”
2. Oversanitising your home
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In theory, having a house that’s spick and span and virtually germ-free sounds lovely and safe. However, it’s common knowledge that many cleaning products contain toxic chemicals that can be harmful or even fatal to your baby! This, of course, isn’t a way of suggesting that you should never clean your home. Just to be mindful of over sanitizing it.
“Over sanitation separates the child from its environment. Later, when these same things (dust, food) are encountered they are seen by the immune system as something new and foreign, triggering allergic reactions,” claims Dr. Hennen.
In fact, allowing your baby to be exposed to germs is no different than a vaccination. In one case study, parents allowed their kids to crawl around the floors of the NYC subway system in order to expose them to harmful germs. The hope was that they would build a tolerance to germs and various sicknesses.
3. Isolating your child
If you’re keeping your child “quarantined” of sorts in an effort to prevent any sickness ever then just know that you’re causing social and physical problems. By doing this, you’re preventing your kids from building an immunity to various germs, sicknesses, and outside factors. Plus, you’re putting your baby at risk because they may become too dependent on one environment, and will have trouble maintaining healthiness in other environments.
4. Overmedicating your child
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In an article published on WebMD, the most common medication mistakes made by parents were discussed. There a quite a few, but one important one mentioned was overmedication. This can come from going above recommended amounts, obviously, but also by using measuring devices like a common household spoon! By using common silverware as a measuring device, you may be overmedicating your child which will make it difficult for them to maintain healthiness. It can also cause dependency on a particular medicine, as well as creating allergies that may be harmful down the road.
If you have any insights, questions or comments regarding the topic, please share them with us!