HELP! I need for a school paper.

Sour Lemon · Dec 9, 2018

Hi Erosa,

You're pretty much asking someone to write an entire essay for the sake of completing your homework assignment. And if your assignment requires the actual name of the person you interviewed, that's also a hard sell on an anonymous message board.

These types of questions get asked often, but are rarely answered. I encourage you to seek out a plan B before you get too close to your deadline. Good luck!!

Persephone Paige, ADN · Dec 9, 2018

Having worked with school aged children for most of my career, I would say:

1. Parenting.

****** parenting permeates every aspect of a child's life. And I'm not just talking physically. Parents who do not engage their children will have children with depression, behavior issues, weight problems, ADHD vs open Amygdalas, truency as a result of recurrent head lice. And this is just the neglect and ignorance aspect of it. Add emotional, sexual and physical abuse to the picture and just amp all that up to steroid levels.

Add poverty and dietary choices and the physical stuff gets compounded. Still, that's a result of parenting. Even the most well meaning, informed parent can't stop working two jobs or afford better food if they are poor. There are 12 year olds with sky high blood pressures and Type II diabetes, disease processes once thought to be associated with aging.

2. See above

3. ADHD

4. When parents are with their children, spend time with them. I could go into all sorts of examples, but I'll put it all into one statement. "Make your child your priority."

5. This information is easily obtained from the CDC website. I would add STI's in there to be completely comprehensive. They are giving the HPV vax at age 11 now, I think.

6. I believe they are less active at home. This is a difficult one. To hear teachers tell it, the kids are all over the place in the classroom. But, at home they just flop out in front of the computers, phones, etc... Back to parenting.

7. I believe it's a result of all contributing environments. Home, Discipline, changing laws, tolerance of children as simply ACTIVE beings. I do think there are true ADHD children, I was one. But, I also believe there could be some sort of medication trials. If the child's behavior and school performance improves with medication, then perhaps that child is ADHD. My grandmother found that if she made the environment quiet and gave me one math problem at a time, I got them all right. If I got all 10 math problems at once, I got them all wrong. A lot of these kids are emotionally hurting and acting out their pain, I also don't need to mention the parents who take the kid's medications.

8. Of course not... A good start would be a program where children got a decent diet at home too. Many kids don't eat well when away from school... :.(... But, it would require systemic education of parents. What kid is going to choose a vegetable over a candy bar, when given a choice? The health department does try to place a school health nurse in the school. If a child has a rash, the nurse will see it and send home a referral. BUT~she cannot make the parent comply. If the parent chooses to ignore the referral, the child is prevented from going to school and gets further and further behind.

9. It would be great if we could get tele-health in the schools. That will never happen though. Schools don't have the right to seek a doctor visit on behalf of a child and there are just as many helicopter parents ready to attack school nurses, as it is. It would also be great if every kid who needs it could have a balanced meal sent home with them for their dinners. I'm getting sad just writing this...

10. Some are, some aren't. It's a mixed bag. Unfortunately, the one's who are have the kids who are so disruptive that they become the focus.

* This is my opinion and experience as a past school health nurse and a nurse who worked in a busy endocrine practice that served children with diabetes and childhood obesity.

Trauma Columnist · Dec 9, 2018

Moved to nursing student assistance

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Dec 11, 2018

Reading the OP, it seems like you are looking for the opinion of nurses who work exclusively with typically developing, healthy kids. Most pediatric nurses don't. For example, my answers to question #3 (What is one health care complaint or problem that is more prevalent in your practice for children ages 5-12 that visit your office for medical care?) would be, based on my past and current jobs, 1) seizures, 2) leukemia, 3) cystic fibrosis, 4) cerebral palsy.

Are healthy kids less active today than they were when I was growing up? My mother the teacher would say yes. Most of my patients are quadriplegic/wheelchair bound so they can't be active.

What could parents do to help their children be healthier? With my patient population, parents could not do drugs while they're pregnant. A large percentage of my patient population were exposed to either narcotics or alcohol in utero.

ADHD, I only have 1 patient out of my caseload of 26 who has ADHD. The rest of them are probably too developmentally delayed to even be considered for such a diagnosis.

Socioeconomics- this varies by state. My state's Medicaid is excellent and, I believe, the best insurance in the state. Kids on Medicaid can have better access to care than kids with private insurance. In fact, the children I work with are either in foster care or have been adopted out of foster care. Once they are adopted, CPS continues to provide them with Medicaid until they turn 18. The lead medical social worker in the state actively discourages adoptive parents from adding their children to their private insurance when they qualify for Medicaid because they have to pay a premium for it and it doesn't cover as much as Medicaid does.

Discipline- as I mentioned, most of my patients are severely developmentally delayed and don't walk or talk so there really isn't much disciplining to be done with them.