The Daily Item – John Zaktansky
“Sending your child back to a classroom-sized Petri dish of various germs, illnesses and ailments can be much less intimidating if you help your child learn one very important lesson now: How to correctly wash their hands. “The best way possible to protect your child heading back to school is to teach them to properly wash their hands. A good 20 to 30 seconds with soap and water can make a huge difference in reducing the spread of illness in a large group,” said Dr. Swathi Gowtham, a Geisinger Medical Center pediatric infectious disease specialist. “With younger kids, make it fun. Teach them a song to sing, like ‘Happy Birthday’ twice or their ABCs. Teach them it is important to do after they use the bathroom, before they eat a snack or a meal or touch their faces. It really is the No. 1 way to prevent illnesses.” Going beyond the hand washing, another important trick to teach is how to best handle a cough or a sneeze.”(more)