Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 8.15, it's FLX Morning Monday. It's our monthly visit with Finger Lakes Community Health. Localcommunityhealth.com is the website. FNP, Family Nurse Practitioner, Rebecca Martin's with us. Good morning.
Rebecca Martin: Good morning, how are you?
Paul Szmal: I'm doing well, we're happy to have you with us and we're going to talk about some healthy back-to-school habits, but before we do that, you're part of a really cool program which is the school-based health center based in the Penn Yan Elementary School. Tell us about this program and how long it's been working.
Rebecca Martin: So we opened last year, we've been open for about a year and we are located in the elementary school in the Penn Yan School District and we are set up to see school-based children, so anybody that's enrolled in the elementary school, middle school, or high school can come to the clinic during our office hours which represent or reflect the school day and parents enroll them in the program and if they need to be seen, we schedule them, they're seen, we contact the parents, get the care that they need, and mom and dad don't have to miss work.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so I mean if a child displays some symptoms, they go to the nurse and the nurse instead of calling home and saying, quick, come get your kid, take him to the doctor, they get treated right in school.
Rebecca Martin: Yeah.
Paul Szmal: What a fantastic idea. So we're going to talk about some tips to have a healthy school year. Let's start with just a good night's sleep. And I've seen more and more studies showing that kids, well probably all of us, but especially kids need more sleep, I think, than we've thought.
Rebecca Martin: Yeah, no, you're totally right. Especially kids that are in school age, that are school age, they learn so many new things every day and those new experiences that they learn how to do, they solidify during their sleep. So they need that good sleep so that they can retain those things that they learned during that day. So kids ages 6 to 13 should get 9 to 11 hours and for 14 to 17, 8 to 10 hours, which is probably a lot more than most of them do right now.
Paul Szmal: Oh absolutely, in a world of video games and cell phones. And also some of these things too, I mean it's too late to talk to do it now, but for future reference, it's a good idea to start getting them into that kind of routine early. Don't, you know, first day of school, if they're going to bed at, you know, 11 o'clock at night, you can't just say, okay it's got to be 8 o'clock first day of school.
Rebecca Martin: Yeah, we usually, in our house, we try to get them to go to bed about a week ahead of school earlier. So number two is limiting screen time. So tell us why that's important and what's a good amount and how do you enforce it and regulate it?
Paul Szmal: So this one's a tough one. In a world where kids are on devices constantly, even in school, they spend hours on laptops and Chromebooks. So monitoring that time at home and limiting it to one to two hours is really important so that they increase their physical activity, they increase their involvement in the family, and it just takes back so that their brain is not fried. For lack of a better term, you know, we see it in our own children. The longer they spend in front of that device, the shorter their temper becomes, they're moodier.
Rebecca Martin: I saw a story, I think it was on social media the other day, it was a teacher, because as you said, you know, kids on phones in schools, a number of schools are starting to fight back and banning phones during the school day. And this one teacher said, in a school where they don't allow phones anymore, she said for the first time in years she had to tell her class to stop talking. I can imagine that.
Paul Szmal: I also saw a similar topic on TikTok where she took a, they did a tally, anytime the phone went off and they categorized it by what alert it was. Was it social media? Was it Facebook? Was it Instagram? Was it Snapchat? Was it text? Was it calls? And it filled up one of those large poster board pieces of notebook paper. I saw that. That's just amazing.
Rebecca Martin: And so number three kind of goes with this, which is keep them active and outdoors. And it's just, like you say, the social interaction is part of it, physical health. There's a lot of reasons why it's good to do old-fashioned kid kind of things.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely. And starting that foundation as kids reflects into adulthood. So if we start being couch potatoes when we're children, chances are it's going to be harder to break that routine as we get older. But if we set kids up in a healthy lifestyle when they're younger, that's just all they know. And that process will continue as they age. And this is not just on kids. Some of it is on us as parents.
Rebecca Martin: So number four tip is keep the conversation going. And sometimes, I mean, adults can be on devices as much as anybody else. I remember, you know, not that long ago going into a restaurant. There was a family of four and they were all on phones. They weren't even talking to each other. So tell us about just keeping the conversation going and having some quality, meaningful one-on-one time with our kids.
Paul Szmal: Yes, this is something, as parents, my husband and I try to do regularly every day. We try to have dinner every night. Now, that's not possible in a world where you have kids going each way. But we try to make that time where we don't have devices at the table and we go around. And it's a simple conversation. It doesn't have to be more than, you know, one or two minutes. But hey, how was your day? What was a good part about your day? What was a bad part about your day? You know, and when they hang up on that difficult part of the day, putting it into perspective, your whole day wasn't bad. It was just that one moment.
Rebecca Martin: Right. And I think that's also, you know, we're going to talk in a moment about bullying. But I think having those conversations, you know, lets you tune in to what's happening with your kids. And maybe you can, you know, if they're especially quiet and don't want to talk about it, then you dig deeper and find out what's going on.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely. I think those two go hand in hand. And knowing what your child's baseline personality is day to day, you're more apt to see that change. You know, when something isn't right and they start to withdraw, that's when you as a parent need to step in and investigate and see what is going on.
Rebecca Martin: Number five is to watch for signs of bullying. And you just mentioned that, you know, the class that did all these different things. There's so many different venues on which this can take place. So how do we make sure our kids aren't being victimized online?
Paul Szmal: So that's exactly right. And as a parent, we keep an eye on what apps we allow our daughter to use. Our son, we don't. He's eight, so he doesn't have a cell phone. We don't worry about that so much. But, you know, it is, it's tough because there's lots of different modes of areas where you can be bullied. There's Instagram, there's Facebook, there's Snapchat. And with Snapchat, it goes away, unless you screenshot it. You know, it's there and it's gone. So paying close attention is a big one.
Rebecca Martin: And I think it's probably more difficult for kids. The older we get, the more experience we have, and we can recognize something is not a big deal and we can get over it. But kids don't necessarily have that ability to just say, you know, it's just some idiot being an idiot. Ignore them. I mean, that's what they always told us when we were young, is ignore them. But it's harder to do that.
Paul Szmal: It is harder to do that because it's everywhere. And it's pervasive often. So when your world is so small and you can't look outside that box, it does feel like it's your entire world. And then number six is stay up to date on immunization. Is there someplace you can go to get the list, or is that something to just talk about with your practitioner?
Rebecca Martin: The CDC has a great chart that you can reference. It breaks it down by age and what vaccines are typically due in that age period. But your doctor's office is where you're going to get those from. So when you schedule that annual physical check and say, hey, what vaccines are my child due for, so we can get them and take care of them. So it's not September 29th and school says, your kid can't come anymore after September 30th if we don't have their vaccines.
Paul Szmal: Right. That's one of the things that I heard recently is that there used to be a little bit more leeway given and a couple of days were okay. Now it's strictly September 30th. If you don't have the required vaccines, you are not welcome to go to school on the 30th.
Rebecca Martin: Yes. And it's something that, you know, communication goes out well in advance that this is what we need. And thankfully we're here. So if the child is signed up in the program, we have that ability to get their physical done and their vaccines up to date. And it makes it very easy. Mom and dad don't have to take off work. They don't have to schedule that doctor's appointment. And then we send it off to their primary care provider so that they have that documentation.
Paul Szmal: So is the school-based health center, is this something that Finger Lakes Community Health might think of expanding to other schools if you have the resources to do so?
Rebecca Martin: I don't know what the plan is in regards to that right now. I think we're just still in the process of getting things working and flowing here, and then we'll look.
Paul Szmal: It's a fantastic program. Again, if you go to localcommunityhealth.com slash school center, you'll see this program where you can sign your kids up and they can see a provider right in school. Convenient and less stressful for them, convenient for the parents, and a great idea all around. And that's where Rebecca Martin works as a family nurse practitioner. Thanks for sharing these tips with us and it's always great to talk with you.
Rebecca Martin: No problem, thank you.
