I have made fire

It's nice to get a break from fixing humans to hang out with my boys. Well, Jack doesn't do much "hanging" yet, but James does. This past weekend we made a 8 foot by 8 foot sandbox that required a cubic yard of sand to fill.

48-6 inch nails, 12 landscaping timbers, 50 feet of weed blocker, and some shoveling. Best part about it was the 100 degree temperature and near triple digit humidity. I lost a lot of sweat and lot of pride.

But, for the first time ever, I managed to not injure myself during the construction process. Anyone in my family will tell you that I go to the ER, a lot. Stabs, punctures, lacerations, crushing injuries, breaks. I've done 'em all.

But not this time!

This time my son and I had a great weekend, made 5 trips to Home Depot, each of which required a stop at the candy store, and started/completed a project.

In your face Holmes!

on your shoulders.

Habit #8 --Teach your child how important they are to you.

One of the best habits you can develop in your child is to teach them that they matter. That what they say matters, what they do matters, and that they matter very much to you. You may think, “Of course they know they matter. I’m their parent, I do everything for them. The deal is, they don’t see that. They have no concept of what life was like before they came along, so they don’t know how they have impacted your life. Consequently, we may act under the assumption that they realize that we spend all our time and money on them, rather than on us. Focus on taking the time to listen especially. When you take the time to listen to your child, instead of brushing her off, you are building connections. When you respond in a manner that validates her feelings instead of invalidating them, you are teaching her to be caring. When you help her to choose appropriate actions, you are helping her to be more competent. Trust me, they hear you. From their point of view, it can be difficult to think about themselves as having power, or worth. That is something we as parents, are uniquely situated to present. Don’t waste the opportunity to make someone’s day or lifetime.

Study after study demonstrates the importance of social interaction in determining a child's future. Geniuses who are socially inept will rarely do more in life or go farther than someone who gets along with people. Those "people skills" come from a childhood of interactions that have empowered the child. Nature vs. nurture is moot and passe. You play the biggest role in determining your child's success in life.

No pressure.

ouch.

Tired of talking. Enjoy pics of our Athletic Extravaganza.

Invitation

belted.

More healthy habits from a presentation I wrote.

Habit # 7 -- Teach your kids to wear safety belts.

Child safety seats and belts are referred to as the "wonder drugs" when it comes to saving the lives of children. "If seat belts were medicine, they'd be wonder drugs," says Chuck Hurley, spokesperson for the National Safety Council. "Instead they're like aspirin--so common that people forget how beneficial they are in preventing death and serious injuries."
Nevertheless, too many parents give in to the complaining and resistance from their children and drive without having them buckled into their seats. Six out of every 10 children killed in crashes are unrestrained by either seat belts or child safety seats. In 1997 an 1,244 of the 2,087 children under age 16 killed in crashes were completely unrestrained. In this day and age, there are still parents out there who neglect to put their kids in safety belts. I cannot fathom why anyone driving a car would do this. Additionally, developing the habit of safety will run as a theme in everything you do together. When safety is a habit, that’s a good thing.

There should be some wildly disproportionate penalty for parents who don't seat belt their kids. Public shaming, hot-foot, something. It's just unreal that some parents don't do this.

validate this

I just realized, I come here and post all the time. I cite references, make timely observations, talk all doctor-y. Why?

Because I am incapable of not justifying everything I do with a peer reviewed study or massive sample size. I'm so used to being the witch doctor that I try twice as hard as the next guy to convince people of what I can do as a doctor. I guess that carries over, even to my blog posts. I'm not sure if that is the mark of a clinical mind, or just someone wanting validation.

I adjusted a small boy this week, he was clinically deaf in one ear, had asthma, and told his mom that he had a headache ever since he could speak.

I treated him three times, with the last treatment coming 2 hours ago.

As of today at 10:30, a.m. he can hear you speak from a distance even with his good ear covered up. He slept through the night last night. He smiled at me for the first time since I met him.

Placebo? Witchcraft? Luck?

That kid can hear, that kid can sleep. I did nothing but take away the interference to his nervous system. There are no side effects, no dangerous drugs, no pill cycle. I did a scientific analysis of the joint between his skull and atlas, and checked the local muscle tension and corresponding cranial nerves.

I'm done being the torchbearer for chiropractic apologists.

I fix little kids. They know it, I know it. Everything else is moot.

Five, Six, Pick up Sticks

More from my "7 Habits for Healthy Kids Presentation." This next one is one of the toughest, but one of the best for your kids. In order to successfully get your kids to go to bed, you may have to lead by example. Good Luck!

Habit # 6 -- Teach your kids that sleep is a necessity, not a luxury.

Imagine you are in charge of a big factory making tires. You make tires all day, every day, and you have more orders than you know what to do with. From the time you open, to the time you close, you focus on getting as many tires made as you possibly can in order to keep up.
That much tire-makin’ will naturally wear out some machines and some people. Both of which will have to be replaced. You will also need to get all the by-product and trash out of your factory and get it cleaned (the factory) in order to maintain productivity. If you are up to your neck in tires during the day, when are you going to clean the place, change the trash, and put in new machines/fix the old ones? That’s right, at night. It is the only time available. What do you think is going to happen to your factory if you never close, or if you aren’t closed down long enough to get these essential tasks done?

Your body is no different. When you sleep you grow muscle, process emotions and learning, and lose weight. Those things do not happen when you are awake, just like in the factory, you are too busy during your waking hours. If you don’t get enough sleep, over time you suffer and your health will suffer. You must teach your kids (and yourself) that short changing your downtime doesn’t make you tough, it makes you unhealthy. It is even worse for kids. They aren’t maintaining what they already have, in terms of size and strength; they are in the process of addition. Here are several ideas for getting and enforcing a bed time:

• Maintain a daily sleep schedule and consistent bedtime routine.
• Make the bedroom environment the same every night and throughout the night (lights, temp, shades, etc.)
• Set limits that are consistent, communicated and enforced.
• No television or gaming right before bed.

There are many, many tips and tricks for helping kids to get to sleep and stay asleep. E-mail me if you are looking for more, or if you have one I haven't mentioned.
Next week: more stuff!

bigger things

I went to a memorial service for the infant daughter of a good friend of mine this weekend. She was born premature, the mom and dad had less than a day with her. Long enough for an outfit change, some pictures, and a lifetime of unspeakable pain.

I wasn't going to post about it. But I can't get it out of my head. I've been in pain before, and a pretty good dose of it too. Broken bones, 100s of stitches, concussions. Emotionally, I've been there as well. I was thinking about that too, this weekend. The parents of the daughter and I have had our share of nights out on the town when we were in college. They used to joke about how attached I would get to someone, only to have it eternally blowing up in my face.

But nothing I ever went through, no laceration, "its-not-you-its-me", or dream deferred ever hurt like Friday night. I never met the baby, never saw her except for the pictures in the memorial service, but I could not stop crying. I couldn't sleep until Sunday night, haven't been hungry. I don't think you are supposed to get more emo as you get older.

I think it's that, even the worst possible thing that can happen to you as a parent, is better than anything that happens to you when you aren't.

I hope I got that right.





The child they had, but didn't have, that they will have forever.

5, Alive

Back on the attack, this weeks post concerns a bit about Chiropractic Care for kids.

Habit # 5 -- Teach your kids to take care of their spines.

I get that when we were all growing up, no one had any idea how important it was to take care of their spine. “Sit up straight” and “don’t slouch” were more intended to correct posture than they were to protect your back.

Times have changed. PET scans, MRI, fMRI, NCV, and more mind-numbing acronym testing confirms that bad back = bad health. Not only is an unhealthy back painful, it’s detrimental to the spinal cord and the nerves running therein. Since your back helps protect the spinal cord, if it’s in trouble, then the nerves that run your body are in trouble. This is especially true for kids, who don’t have the coping mechanisms we do as adults. Unhealthy positioning of the bones in your back can contribute to everything from sleeplessness to high blood pressure. There is a reason why we see so many c-section, forceps, or traumatic birth infants in the office. The pressure on the newly developing spine and central nervous system can be overwhelming. Get your spine checked regularly for maximum health.

Alternatively, you can stick your head in the sand and rely on drugs and emergency care for your children.

close to the bone

Have you ever skimmed through the blogs on this site?

At the top of the page there is a "next blog" key. You press it, it jumps you to the next blog. Some are in a foreign language, some are advertising gimmicks, most are about families. Sometimes, you will run across gut wrenching play-by-play of cancer or infertility. I've read a lot in my life, but never anything so compelling or as raw as these types of posts.

It is amazing what humans can go through.

if I fall in the woods, will it make a sound?

I don't remember ever being this busy. It seems like the dispersing of information is my new job. That sucks, because I would rather be knee deep in spines. No one else is giving out the good stuff though, I'm really not sure why. I don't think I know everything (ish), there must be some other doctors out there who have something to offer. Where are they?

Whatever.

Make sure you check out our kick-ass newsletter for May, pretty fun stuff. Add us to your friends list on face book, we update all the time. Fink Chiropractic Center.

Habit #4 -- Teach your kids to wash their hands.

I come from a large family, 5 boys and a girl. My parents worked hard to keep us in line and presentable. You can’t keep 5 boys out of the dirt for long. I fondly remember my dad carting in 100 pound bags of sand for our sandbox. Most of that sand went into the yard, into hair, eyes, mouths, and other areas. You can imagine how easy it would have been for the nefarious bugs and viruses we exposed ourselves to; to make a run at our immune systems. Oddly, I don’t remember ever being sick as a kid. Part of the reason I now realize, the near religious zeal with which my mother embraced hand washing. Teaching your children to wash their hands regularly is the simplest way to avoid infection and reduce colds and flu. This really works. Make it a non-issue by taking the time to wash your own hands. When to wash, you ask?

- Before preparing food, setting the table, or serving food.
-Before eating meals or snacks.
- After visiting a bathroom.
- After blowing their nose.
- After handling money.
- After playing with a pet.

Just like with developing the reading habit, when you teach your kids to wash regularly you are imparting a skill. Imparting skills is a good thing. Skills give power and ability. Power and ability breed confidence, and confidence is everything for young people.

I can haz reedin?

Continuing my 'Healthy Habits' rant, let's cover number 3.

Habit #3 -- Teach your kids to read. If they aren’t old enough to read, read to them.

Study after study demonstrates how kids who learn to read at a younger age place higher in standardized testing. Also, consider that there are almost 50 million Americans with poor literacy skills in this country. It isn’t because they aren’t intelligent. It is because literacy skills develop alongside cognition and visual skills. Simply put, reading to your kids, and encouraging your kids to read puts them ahead and gives them a great habit that will benefit them their entire lives. Giving them a head start on a skill as important as reading is a powerful gift. The sooner they read, the sooner they can start interacting with the world on their terms. It’s a big deal.

One side note, don't read 'There's is an Alligator Under My Bed' to a 2 year-old.

It's just not going to work out the way you want.

some dudes

This is what my patient list looks like at 5 today. Adjusting them is easy, catching them is not.

Eat it up.

Last post, I covered the first habit that I know kids need to have to be healthy. This post, I want to cover the second most important thing we can teach our children.

Healthy Habit # 2 - Teach your kids how to eat healthy.

Nutrition, the discussion of it, and the business of it, are a big (pun intended) topic in this country. Multiples of a billion dollars are spent on diets, supplements, and the like. Given that we spend so much more on these types of foods and ingredients, we should be one of the thinnest nations around right? As it turns out we are one of the fattest and sickest in the world.
How can it be that so much money is spent and so many people remain overweight? The answer is simple. People do not know what to eat, and they do not know what to feed their kids.
I’m going to tell you exactly what to do in order to make sure your kids develop some healthy eating habits. Ready?

1) Eat real food.
2) Do not eat food that isn’t real.
3) Eat more often
4) Eat less

Real food. Food that isn’t made in a factory. It comes from the ground, grows on trees, etc. Food made in factories = not real food. Stay away from it. I don’t care what the wrapper says. Teach your kids to enjoy real food and you give them an incredible edge against obesity and general health.

By eating every few hours, rather than engorging ourselves on 2-3 meals per day, we spread out our caloric loading. This allows our metabolism to burn throughout the day, rather than loading it down. Also, when we eat more often, we eat less per meal. This helps to prevent binging, increases metabolic rate, and lessens the impact a nutritionally weak (pound cake) meal will have on our bodies.

Is this convenient? No. Can it be done? Yes. Health isn’t convenient, and it’s rarely fun. You know what else isn’t fun? Kids trudging along a lifetime of sugar and processed food induced heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and depression. That isn’t fun either. I’m not being apocalyptic, the numbers don’t lie.

In unrelated news :

Fink Chiropractic Center: We give away trophies.

Big Jack ain't happy.

play date

I like talking.

More importantly, I like talking about health and healthy kids. The problem is that the two are incompatible. You cannot have a discussion about healthy kids with kids in the room. Well, you can, but it isn't very productive.

I haz a solution! Find a big playground and set the kids loose, then spend some time talking about how to raise healthy kids!

Fink Chiropractic Center Playdate.

27 families, 13 pizzas, 50 bottles of water, zero fatalities! Enjoy the pictures!

do what I say

Going to step away from complaining about the problems I see with the pseudo science of some aspects of modern medicine. I could point out the article in this month's issue of the AMA discussing how the two most common back surgical procedures are a joke and unproven. I could point out how the black label, or off label prescribing of drugs has malpracted a generation of women.

But no, its the high road today for me.

Today and my next few posts I want to talk about kids. I wrote a presentation detailing what I feel are the 7 most important habits we can help them develop. I have a bit of experience observing and being involved in pediatric care. To date, we have over 45,000 pediatric adjustments at the office.

45000.

We have had a chance to partake in a lot of life changing therapies and strategies. I'm going to include some of those discussions here.

Sadly, today's children are among the most under exercised and overweight youths in the nation's history. One in five American youths ages 12 to 17 is overweight, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. NHANES is the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, which is a part of our friends, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Furthermore, two thirds of our children can't pass a basic physical fitness test. Forty percent of boys and 70 percent of girls ages 6 to 17 can't do more than one pull-up. Half the girls and 30 percent of boys can't run a mile in under 10 minutes. In addition, 40 percent show early signs of heart and circulation problems, according to a recent report by the President’s Council on Fitness and Sports.

Habit #1

Move. Just move. Teach your kids to jump, run, play, throw, anything to get them out and moving. This habit alone dominates the rest of the list. Sedentary lifestyle is murdering our kids, slowly but surely.

The human body is made to move. It is through motion, and only through motion, that the brain gains information it needs to make critical decisions about staying healthy. I’m not going to go into details because you don’t care about them. What you need to know is this, if you don’t teach your children to play hard, often, then you aren’t giving them the tools they need to succeed. If they see motion as an option, and not as a basic health sustaining activity, then you didn’t do your job. In every review I did, obesity and sedentary lifestyle played a factor in the lives of sick kids.

How do you teach your kids to move? You move. Get out there and do something. Don’t like sports? Hike. Don’t like to hike? Cycle. Don’t like to cycle? Plant a garden or pick up trash. Hate trees, cycling, biking, sports, and hiking? Get a rope, get a flashlight and go mediate in a cave on what you can do. Bottom line is this, suck it up and take your kids out to do something. Repeat this several times per week.

Habit 2 soon.

2 doctors walk into a bar

I was reading a fascinating article, published over at medscape. Before you ask, yes, I stay current on the medical journals. Despite the frequent urges to yell at the screen or send off nasty e-mails I find that occasionally, someone over there will get it right.

Not today though.

In a article written by a vascular surgeon and a cardiologist they discuss why the health care costs of America are skyrocketing and what can be done about it. "Dollar wasting" they call it.

One of the citations they make is of how salaried surgeons at a New York hospital were ordered to increase their admissions and operations by 20% or face a pay cut. They (the authors) think its crazy for every hospital to want to be in the black.

What a crock.

There are so many things wrong with that line of thinking, from the hospital viewpoint and the surgeon viewpoint that figuring out who is right becomes moot. In the end, the patient suffers.

Medical mistakes are out of control in this country. In the land of freedom and opportunity 7 jumbo jets worth of people die every year from medical mistakes. Hospitals are run by executives, bottom-liners responsible to a board, not to the son or daughter of the patients they malign in order to cut corners.

They don't get it now, nor will they, because their system of 'health care' propagates itself on the sick. More people sick, more money for them.

Until we begin demanding and paying for people to keep us healthy, not just symptom-free but actually healthy, we (and our kids) are in big trouble.

in your face

Ya, turns out you can just moderate the comments section. I didn't have to go all joseph georbels. Such a shame, these dudes cold posting in my comments. Not even comments about me, mind you. I can deal with 'you suck' or 'what you talkin' bout foo' (although Mr.T rarely posts in here). I mean, if I cared about acceptance I would have gone to medical school, amirite?

No, what bothers me is the people using my comments section to validate their silly fake shoe ads. Acting like they want advice, about shoes mind you, but really just trying to get mah audience.

Well, enough of that.

I moderated the heck out of the comments.

In other events:

We are a good-looking group.

My dudes.

The website is done but not yet cool. Finkchiropracticcenter.com to check it out.

just do this

I post timely, important information on here as well as my own thoughts on life in general. A lot of people tell me they think it's pretty funny stuff. On occasion people comment that something I said (wrote) changed how they thought about their own health, and in the new context they were able to make better decisions. Other people think this blog is just another way for me to talk about myself.

Who is right, and what am I trying to accomplish?

I'm not telling.

What I am telling is that the idiots who come on to this blog and post their b.s. shoe ads in my comments section can go test drive a prius.

I'm locking the comments section.

the worst

Growing up, we all have that second-parent type person who helps us along, gives us advice, pulls our head out, etc.

That person is good for telling things you cannot tell to your friends, and you sure as heck can't tell your parents. I guess you could call them a bridge-friend, or something, I don't know.

When that person dies. It sucks.

I feel old now, in a way I never did before. The people who gave me advice growing up and in my first couple years in practice are dying, and not in freak accidents.

pass the salt

What's up with these made-for-TV medical doctors wearing scrubs on daily shows? Did they just come from an OR? Were they in the middle of rounds and realize they have a 50 minute show with a live audience waiting?

Am I jealous?

You bet I am.

I want thousands of screaming fans. Thousands.

Anyway. I wanted to post about a topic I am going to be covering at the Fink Chiropractic Center play-date, which I just thought up.

The play-date, I just thought up the play-date, not the topic. I don't randomly post on topics, we'd be here forever.

The greatest thing about the interwebz is the unfettered access to mountains of data about all sorts of topics. It allows you (me) to explore ideas about increasing family health with some modicum of authority. The authority of data!

Bored yet?

Fine.

Sit down with your kids and eat as a family.

Some peeps at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University posted some incredible statistics on families that eat meals together versus those that do not.

The families 'boning down' together are less likely to experience members with eating disorders, drug use, smoking, and alcohol abuse. The kids specifically are less likely to consume junk, overeat, and are less likely to be overweight.

All from sitting down to eat as a family. When you think that the 3 most chronic conditions affecting kids are from lifestyle decisions, this is pretty powerful stuff.

I can hear your thoughts you know.

Kids are too busy with practice? Have too much homework? Husband getting home late? You have a show coming on soon?

Who.
Friggin'.
Cares.

You are the parent. You are in charge of the health of your own health and that of your flock. This is a huge, huge, huge milestone for keeping your peeps healthy and giving them a shot at a long, healthy life.

Make it happen, your kids deserve it.

this sucks

This is downright depressing. Check out the latest and greatest in a series of scary trends for America's youts (My cousin Vinny).

I get so tired of being right, especially about this particular topic.

I'll say it again:

Until we take the time and money to teach our kids about eating right and exercising, not just blowing smoke, we aren't accomplishing jack.

It's that simple.

Half a century of better living through better drugs did nothing but produce 2 generations of fat, sick, depressed, and addicted humans. The proof is indisputable.

Want healthy kids? Put someone in charge of making sure they have all the tools to be healthy, and then check in with them regularly. That is the only way. End of story.

dudes.

And we're back.

So I have two children now, two boys!

Jackson Avery was born September 20th, it has been a heck of a ride. I had assumed that it would be twice as crazy since we were doubling the number of kids we had.

I was wrong.

I was off the mark by an order of magnitude. It's easily 4x as nuts around the house. I love it. Big James is as rowdy as ever, and at the height of a 4 year old, he is a beast. All we do is wrestle, like the cartoons, where the fighting is a cloud of fists and legs, that's us. Thank God for such a patient wife.

When I was single, child-less, (and well-rested) people told me how much more fulfilling my life would be once I had kids. I humored them, after all, I was the one driving the H2 and flying out of town every weekend while they went home to their kids and early bedtimes. I figured, how could they possibly compare the two.

I don't know if I have been as wrong about anything as I was about that.

I figure, I have about 9 years that James will still think I'm cool and want to be around me, gotta milk it!