Parents often lose track of digital viewing habits
Most parents of children younger than 8 don’t give much thought to the amount of time young children can spend watching TV and playing on tablets and smartphones, researchers from Northwestern University found in a recent study.
Just 31 percent of the 2,300 parents surveyed expressed concern about their children’s media and technology use, while more than 55 percent of parents said they are not worrying about the amount of time their children spend staring at screens much at all. And while 38 percent of parents said they feared children could get addicted to hand-held devices, 55 percent said they aren’t sweating it.
The study, titled Parenting in the Age of Digital Media, held other surprises. For example, although 71 percent of parents had a smartphone in the home, nearly the same percentage said they did not think that having a smartphone or tablet device made parenting easier.
The study also revealed that most parents do not rely heavily on digital devices to distract their children. When Mom or Dad needs a moment to cook dinner or clean up the house, parents said, they are more likely to set their kid up with a toy or an activity (88 percent), a book (79 percent) or TV (78 percent) rather than a smartphone or tablet (37 percent).
— Deborah Netburn
Los Angeles Times
Hints from Heloise:
Soap, water, toothbrush can remove stain on cap
Esther M. in Texas writes: Please, please reprint the instructions on how to wash my caps to remove the sweat stains.
Dear Esther: You can try a couple of things. Be sure the caps are not old or valuable and are washable.
You can wash them by hand with gentle soap and water, scrubbing the inside stains with a toothbrush. Rinse well under running water, then hang to dry or place on an upside-down metal bowl.
You also can use the top rack of the dishwasher. Take a clothespin to secure each cap to the top rack. Use the normal amount of dishwasher detergent, stop the dishwasher after the rinse cycle, remove the caps and hang to dry.
— King Features
People with fibromyalgia say weather has impact
No one knows what causes the debilitating fatigue and muscle pain of fibromyalgia. But some people who have the disorder say changes in the weather make it worse.
Cold, damp days and drops in barometric pressure are widely associated with flare-ups of the condition, which affects mostly women. In one study by the National Fibromyalgia Association, people with the condition ranked weather changes as one of the leading aggravating influences on pain and stiffness.
Unlike the reported connection between arthritis and changes in temperature and pressure — which has mostly been debunked — the belief that fibromyalgia symptoms fluctuate with the weather has not been the subject of thorough research.
In the latest report, published this month in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, Dutch researchers followed 333 middle-aged women who had fibromyalgia. In some cases, they found weather variables had “significant but small” effects on pain and fatigue. But for the most part, they concluded, there was “more evidence against than in support of a uniform influence of weather on daily pain and fatigue.”
— Anahad O’Connor
New York Times