There’s a few simple, proven habits that can make a real difference in how healthy your family stays all season long.

Why Kids Get Hit Hardest

Kids’ immune systems are still developing, which means kids get sick more often than adults. Their bodies are learning to fight something it’s never seen before with every cold, flu, or stomach bug that goes around.

Flu, in particular, is no joke. During the 2024-2025 flu season, classified by the CDC as a high-severity season, there were an estimated 51 million flu-related illnesses and 710,000 hospitalizations across the U.S. Children under 5, and especially those under 2, face the highest risk of serious complications.

An Important Conversation To Have

Cold and flu season is the perfect time to sit down with your child’s pediatrician and talk through what protection makes sense for your family. One of the most important topics to raise is the flu vaccine.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends annual flu vaccination for everyone 6 months and older — and your doctor can walk you through the options, answer your questions, and help you decide what’s right for your kids and your household.

A few things to ask your doctor:

• Which vaccine is right for my child? There are several age-appropriate formulations available, and your pediatrician can help you find the best fit.
• When should we be thinking about this? Fall is typically the ideal window — but your doctor can help you figure out the right timing for your family’s schedule.
• What about the rest of the family? It’s worth asking whether vaccination makes sense for parents and caregivers too, since adults can bring illness home without always knowing they’re sick.

Your pediatrician is your best resource here. They know your child’s health history and can give you personalized guidance that no blog post can.

Don’t Underestimate Handwashing

It sounds almost too simple, but proper handwashing is one of the most powerful germ-fighting tools available. Research consistently shows that hand hygiene interventions in schools significantly reduce illness-related absences. The key word: proper. That means scrubbing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, roughly the time it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice.

Teach your kids to wash hands:

• Before eating
• After using the bathroom
• After coughing, sneezing, or blowing their nose
• After being at school or in any group setting

When soap and water aren’t available, alcohol-based hand sanitizer (at least 60% alcohol) is a solid backup.

The Basics Still Matter — A Lot

Beyond vaccines and handwashing, the fundamentals of good health go a long way in trying to help fight off those pesky germs:

• Sleep. Kids who get enough sleep have stronger immune responses. School-age children need 9-12 hours a night; teens need 8-10.
• Good nutrition. A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains supports a healthy immune system.
• Stay home when sick. If your child has a fever, keep them home. Sending sick kids to school just means more sick kids — and more sick parents.
• Avoid touching the face. Germs enter through eyes, nose, and mouth. Easier said than done with little kids, but worth reinforcing.

A Note on Antibiotics

This comes up every season: antibiotics don’t work on colds or the flu. Both are caused by viruses, not bacteria. Giving kids antibiotics when they don’t need them contributes to antibiotic resistance which is a growing public health concern. When in doubt, call your pediatrician. They can help you decide whether your child needs treatment or just rest and fluids.

Germ season doesn’t have to mean a fall and winter of sick days and missed school. Talk to your doctor about vaccines. Make handwashing a habit. Keep the basics in check. And when, not if, your kids do get sick try not to panic. It’s their immune system doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.

The post Germ Season Is Coming. Here’s How to Help Your Kids Fight Back. appeared first on Healthy Kids.

Schools build academics, structure, socialization. All of it matters immensely, but there’s a category of things (critical thinking, self-knowledge, the confidence to question, the values your family holds) that school simply cannot teach. Those come from you.

In a world noisier and faster than any previous generation of parents has navigated, that’s not a small responsibility. It’s the whole ballgame.

Lesson One: Teach Them to Question What They See

The most valuable cognitive skill a child can develop right now is the ability to encounter a piece of information and ask: Is this true? Who is saying it, and why? What would the other side say?

Building these critical thinking skills provides kids with the ability to evaluate a claim, trace it to its source, and hold it up against competing evidence. It’s a skill that has to be modeled and practiced at home.

Start young and keep it simple. When your child repeats something they heard at school, from a friend, or on a screen, try: “That’s interesting — where did you hear that? Do we know if it’s true?” Not as an interrogation, but as a genuine habit of curiosity. You’re teaching them to trust thoughtfully.

As they get older, this extends to what they consume online. We’ve written about this before: the apps and platforms your child uses are engineered to hold attention, not to inform. The loudest voice in a feed is rarely the most accurate one. A child who understands that and knows to ask “who made this, and what do they want me to feel?” is meaningfully better equipped to move through the world than one who takes the feed at face value.

You can share this wisdom with your kids because algorithms definitely will not.

Lesson Two: Teach Them to Understand — and Advocate for — Their Own Health

There has never been a moment in recent memory when the landscape of children’s health advice was more contested, more confusing, or more in flux. Federal vaccine recommendations changed this year. Pediatric organizations are issuing new guidance on everything from recess to screen time to the risks of ultra-processed food.

What does that mean for parents? It means it’s that much more important to have meaningful conversations with your doctors. Show your kids that your doctor, your family, your call is more than a slogan but how it’s supposed to work. The shared decision-making process encourages parents to come to the table ready to engage, ask questions, and weigh information specific to their child’s circumstances.

Teaching your child, at an age-appropriate level, that their body belongs to them and that they have the right to understand what is being done to it is one of the most durable gifts you can give them. It starts with bringing them into the conversation at the pediatrician’s office. Letting them ask a question. Explaining, on the drive home, what the doctor said and why your family made the choice you did. Those conversations compound over time into a kid who understands their own health, trusts their own instincts, and knows how to find reliable information when they need it.

That’s not something that appears on any report card but it’s something you, as the parent, can model.

Lesson Three: Teach Them That Boredom Is Not the Enemy

The school year is about to get very scheduled. Sports, homework, activities, social obligations — the calendar fills fast. And somewhere in that packed schedule, the unstructured time that children’s brains actually need to develop quietly disappears.

We’ve made the case for boredom before, and the science behind it is compelling: when a child is truly unstimulated, the brain’s default mode network activates — the system associated with imagination, self-reflection, empathy, and creative problem-solving. The American Academy of Pediatrics has been clear for years that unstructured, child-directed play is essential for building the executive function skills critical for long-term success.

But protecting unstructured time can feel like a deliberate act of resistance in 2026. The default is that every gap gets filled whether it be with a screen, an activity, or a structured program. Leaving space requires a decision, and then defending that decision when your child insists they’re bored and everyone else has more stuff to do.

We’ve said it before and we will say it again: Say no to the seventh activity. Protect the Saturday morning with no plan. Let your kids be bored in the backseat without handing over the phone. Not because you’re withholding something from them, but because you understand something about their development that the culture around you has largely forgotten. As Lizzie Assa put it in our Advocates for Healthy Kids Summer Book Club pick But I’m Bored: “Boredom is important for your child. A child who never gets bored misses a powerful opportunity to develop creativity.”

The kid who learns to sit with boredom and find their way out of it builds a kind of internal resourcefulness that no enrichment program can replicate. That’s yours to protect.

Lesson Four: Teach Them That Movement Is Not a Reward

Somewhere along the way, physical activity got reframed as a treat like something kids earn after they finish their work. Recess gets shortened, PE gets deprioritized and sports become optional add-ons rather than non-negotiables.

This is exactly backwards. The research connecting physical movement to cognitive performance, emotional regulation, attention, and mental health is among the most consistent in all of developmental science. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued new recess guidance this year for the first time in 13 years, specifically because years of shrinking recesses have coincided with worsening children’s health.

Movement should not be optional at home. A kid who gets outside and runs around after school doesn’t just burn energy but gets better sleep and focus. Building daily physical activity into the rhythm of your household is one of the most effective things you can do for your child’s school-year performance and wellbeing. And as we’ve written about before, your kid doesn’t have to be an athlete to be active.

Physical activity also teaches them something harder to quantify: that their body is a tool worth maintaining, and that the relationship between physical effort and mental clarity is something they can feel and rely on. That’s a lesson that serves them for life, long after whatever they learned in third period has faded.

Lesson Five: Teach Them Your Values

This is the one that feels obvious but is the hardest to actually do.

Most parents assume their values are being transmitted simply by how they live. And to a point, that’s true. Kids absorb more from watching how you handle hard moments than from anything you formally teach them. The lessons that stick aren’t the ones you plan.

Values also need words. They need to be named, explained, and revisited as children grow. What does your family believe about health and who gets to make decisions about it? About the importance of questioning, of faith, of community, of physical work, of taking care of yourself and others? About what makes a good life?

These aren’t questions schools are equipped to answer for your family.This is fundamentally, completely a parent’s job — and one that becomes more urgent as children get older and the world they move through gets louder and more insistent about shaping them.

As the fall gets underway, think about what you want your child to take away from this year — not academically, but as a person? What conversations do you want to make time for? What values do you want them to be able to articulate when someone challenges them?

Those conversations don’t require a curriculum. They happen at dinner, in the car, on a walk, in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday. They just require you to show up for them.

The Through Line

Schools teach subjects. Parents teach people.

It’s a division of labor that works best when parents understand and own their side of it. The critical thinking, the health literacy, the tolerance for boredom, the daily movement, the values that hold when the world pushes back — none of that shows up on a standardized test but all of it shapes the adult your child becomes.

The post What No One Says at Back-to-School Night appeared first on Healthy Kids.

President Trump has nominated Chris Klomp to fill that role. For families tracking what’s happening inside the federal health system right now, that name is worth knowing.

Who Is Chris Klomp?

Klomp is a tech entrepreneur who built his career at the intersection of healthcare data and value-based care. He founded and led Collective Medical, a real-time care collaboration platform that became the largest of its kind in the United States by connecting health systems, insurers, providers, and state governments to share patient data and improve outcomes.

He holds a B.A. in Economics and English from BYU and an MBA from Stanford, and he worked at Bain Capital and Bain & Company before building Collective Medical. He has also served on the boards of Nomi Health, Maven Clinic, and InnovaCare Health, and co-founded Endurance Companies, a San Francisco-based multi-family investment office focused on healthcare innovation.

Klomp has been serving as chief counselor to Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr since February.

What Has He Actually Done?

Klomp’s fingerprints are on some of the most consequential health decisions of the past year.

He led negotiations with 17 pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices through what the administration calls “most-favored-nation” agreements, voluntary deals in which drugmakers offer medicines at reduced rates through the TrumpRx program. Trump has publicly credited Klomp by name, calling him “a real star” during a White House event announcing a deal with drugmaker Regeneron.

He oversaw the search for the CDC’s new director and Klomp pushed for Dr. Erica Schwartz, a vaccination proponent with deep public health credentials, to get the job. He also recruited Sean Slovenski, former president of Walmart Health, as CDC deputy director and Dr. Jennifer Shuford, Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, as CDC chief medical officer.

He’s been a consistent presence at major health conferences, often representing HHS in place of Kennedy, and was described by the Milken Institute as a driver of healthcare reform at the state and federal level, with a particular focus on value-based care and health data interoperability.

Why This Matters for Families

HHS decisions shape the vaccines recommended for your children, the drugs your family can afford, and the agencies trusted to respond when a health crisis hits.

Klomp’s background is different from most who have held power at HHS previously. He built a company from scratch focused on the problem that frustrates families most about American healthcare — the system doesn’t share information well, and patients fall through the cracks as a result. That’s the lens Klomp brought into government.

During a February 2026 podcast, Klomp laid out an agenda focused on cutting drug prices, cracking down on healthcare fraud, rethinking how AI fits into reimbursement, and tackling chronic disease. He called CMS “the most powerful change agent in healthcare.” He’s also spoken about bringing insurers, health systems, and providers to the table to reshape policy faster than regulation alone can move.

Too often, health policy gets made by people who understand Washington but have never had to build something that actually works for patients. Klomp built exactly that kind of organization.

His nomination still requires Senate confirmation before the Senate Finance Committee but that is expected soon. If confirmed, he will be one of the most consequential health officials in Washington and families deserve to know who is making these decisions.

The post Meet Chris Klomp: The New Deputy Nominated to Run HHS Day-to-Day appeared first on Healthy Kids.

But trust doesn’t mean stepping back entirely. The parents whose kids thrive are the ones who stay in the conversation all year. They who know their child’s teacher by name, have a sense of what’s being taught and when, and feel confident enough in that relationship to raise a concern if something doesn’t sit right.

There is a difference between helicopter parenting and being an engaged and intentional mom.

Start Early

The easiest time to build a relationship with your child’s teacher is before a problem exists. Most schools host open houses or back-to-school nights in early fall. Make sure you go, introduce yourself and ask one genuine question to get the conversation started. “What’s something you’re really excited to teach this year?” goes a long way.

If your school doesn’t offer a formal intro event, send a brief, friendly email the first week of school. Keep it short. You’re just putting a face (or at least a name) to the parent on the other end of the line. Teachers remember the parents who make early, positive contact and that goodwill matters if you need to have a harder conversation later.

Know Your Right to See What’s Being Taught

Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), parents have the right to review their child’s educational records. Beyond that, most states give parents the right to review curriculum materials, textbooks, and instructional content used in their child’s classroom. Policies vary by district, but the right to ask is nearly universal.

That doesn’t mean you need to submit a formal records request every semester. In practice, most of what you want to know is available just by asking.

A few questions you might ask your child’s teacher:

• “Can you walk me through what the class will cover this semester, and what materials you’ll be using?”
• “Is there a syllabus or reading list I can look at?”
• “Are there any topics coming up this year where you’d recommend parents have a conversation at home too?”

That last question is particularly useful. It signals that you’re a partner, not an adversary plus it gives teachers an opening to flag things proactively rather than waiting for a problem.

Ask the Right Questions at Home, Too

Your best real-time source of information about what’s happening in the classroom is your kid. The trick is asking questions that actually get you somewhere. “How was school?” gets you “fine.” Better questions get you more.

A few better questions to ask your kid after school:

• “What’s something you learned today that you’d never heard before?”
• “Did anything confuse you, or did anything feel off?”
• “Was there anything in class today you wanted to ask me about?”

That last question not only keeps you informed, but it also signals to your child that your home is the place where they can bring questions about what they’re encountering in the world. That’s a habit worth building early, especially as the topics get more complex in middle and high school.

When Something Feels Off, Say So — Calmly and Directly

At some point, most parents hit a moment where something comes home from school that doesn’t sit right. A reading assignment or worksheet. Maybe it’s a comment a teacher made that your child repeated at the dinner table. The instinct is either to ignore it or to fire off an email you’ll regret.

But neither is probably the best move. A better approach is a direct, low-temperature conversation with the teacher first. Lead with curiosity, not accusation: “My daughter mentioned this about class, can you help me understand the context?” Most of the time, there’s an explanation. Sometimes you’ll disagree with what is said in response but giving the teacher a chance to explain before escalating keeps the relationship intact and usually gets you better information.

If a conversation with the teacher doesn’t resolve the issue, most schools have a clear escalation path: department head, principal, school board. Document your concerns in writing as you go. The parents who get traction on curriculum concerns are almost always the ones who follow the process, stay factual, and keep the focus on their child.

Build the Relationship All Year, Not Just When There’s a Problem

This is the piece most parents skip. If the only time a teacher hears from you is when something is wrong, you’ve inadvertently set up an adversarial dynamic.

A few simple habits can change that:

• Respond promptly to teacher emails and communications, even just with a brief acknowledgment
• Send a note or email when your child mentions something positive about class
• Attend parent-teacher conferences even when there’s nothing to discuss — show up, ask good questions, listen
• At the end of the year, a simple thank-you goes further than you’d think

Teachers who feel respected by a parent are more likely to give that parent the benefit of the doubt, to loop them in proactively, and to treat their concerns with seriousness. Most of the time, teachers really want their students to thrive and be successful and welcome that two-way communication with parents to make it happen.

Schools are doing important work and most teachers are doing their best. None of that changes the fact that you are your child’s primary educator — not in the sense that you’re running a homeschool, but in the sense that the values, perspectives, and framework your child uses to process everything they encounter in a classroom ultimately comes from your home.

Staying engaged in what they’re learning at school isn’t about control but about being present in your child’s intellectual life at an age when that presence actually shapes who they become. Your child will be better for it.

The post Your Family’s Values Belong in the Classroom Conversation appeared first on Healthy Kids.

The settlement includes some concrete changes to how kids experience Instagram and Facebook. That’s huge. But even with all of these new guardrails in place, your role as a parent hasn’t changed one bit. If anything, this moment is a reminder of exactly why it never will.

So what’s actually changing?

Under the terms of the settlement, Meta is required to implement the following for all users under 18 in the United States, with most protections locked in for the next 10 years:

• A default two-hour daily time limit. Once a teen hits two hours on Instagram or Facebook, they’re cut off and they can only turn it off with a parent’s permission.
• A midnight-to-6 a.m. blackout. The apps will be blocked entirely during nighttime hours by default.
• School Mode. Notifications are muted during school hours.
• Hidden “like” counts. Teens won’t see how many likes their posts get as that’s a feature researchers have long linked to anxiety and self-esteem issues.
• Stronger age verification. Meta is required to use AI tools and third-party audits to actually keep kids under 13 off the platforms. If a child is caught lying about their age and removed, Meta also has to check the ages of their friends.

These are meaningful steps. A hard stop at midnight and a two-hour cap are things parents have been asking for but there are some things the settlement doesn’t do.

It doesn’t change what your child actually sees when they’re online. The recommendation algorithms like the ones that decide which videos autoplay, which posts fill the feed, and which rabbit holes open up still remain on by default. You can turn them off, but only if you know how.

Critics of the settlement, including former Meta engineers who testified at trial, have made clear that the design of the platform itself is still the deeper problem. Two hours of content curated to keep your kid scrolling is still two hours of that. The time limit helps but it doesn’t fix everything.

As you read about these changes, especially on social media, it’s always worth making sure the information you’re following comes from credible, independent sources. Not every voice weighing in on kids’ online safety has the same level of expertise or objectivity, and that’s especially true on the platforms where these conversations are happening most.

And remember: these protections only apply to Instagram and Facebook, only in the United States, and only for accounts correctly identified as belonging to a minor. If your teenager set up their account with a fake birthdate, none of these new rules apply to them at all.

This is exactly what Congress has been trying to address.

The Meta settlement didn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s the latest and biggest signal that Washington is waking up to what parents have known for years: the default settings on these platforms were never built with kids in mind.

We’ve written before on the blog about the Parents Over Platforms Act (POPA). It’s a bipartisan bill in Congress that gets at the root of this problem in a way a court settlement can’t. Where the Meta settlement responds to what’s already happened, POPA is designed to prevent it going forward, by shifting the default from “open to everything until a parent catches it” to “protected until a parent decides otherwise.”

As researcher Jonathan Haidt, whose work on the teenage mental health crisis helped build the case for exactly this kind of legislation, put it: there’s a real difference between a policy that empowers parents and one that just adds more checkboxes while leaving the underlying problem untouched. POPA is trying to do the former. The Meta settlement, for all its significance, is more of the latter.

What you can do right now.

It’s true the apps are getting safer but YOU are still the most important safety feature in your child’s life. Here’s a starting point:

• Have the conversation. Ask your kids what they’re actually seeing on their feeds. Make it a conversation, not an interrogation. Curiosity goes further than lectures.
• Check their age settings. If your child set up their account with a fake birthdate, none of Meta’s new protections apply to them. Log in together and verify.
• Use the parental controls that already exist. Meta’s Family Center lets parents link to their teen’s account and set additional limits. The settlement will expand these tools but you don’t have to wait.
• Talk about the “like” problem. Even without visible like counts, kids know their peers are watching. Talk openly about what online validation does and doesn’t mean.
• Set your own house rules. Two hours may be the legal default, but you know your kid. For some families, an hour is plenty. For others, the issue isn’t time but what they’re watching. You get to make that call.

This settlement is a true milestone. A bipartisan coalition of attorneys general forced a tech giant to make structural changes to protect kids. This is something Congress has repeatedly failed to do on its own.

But it also makes the case for why federal legislation like the Parents Over Platforms Act still needs to happen. Court settlements reach one company at a time whereas good law can reach everyone, all at once. TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat — none of them are covered by what happened in California in August but they could and should be.

No app timer, no algorithm tweak, and no courtroom agreement replaces a parent who’s paying attention. And it’s important to remember that while these tools give parents back up, they don’t replace you.

The post What the Meta Settlement Means for Your Kids — and Why You Still Can’t Outsource This to an App appeared first on Healthy Kids.

Here’s what you actually need to know before the first bell rings this school year:

Vaccine Schedules Have Always Been Recommendations

This is the piece most parents don’t realize, and it’s worth saying clearly. The federal childhood immunization schedule published by the CDC has never been a mandate. It is guidance based on the federal government’s assessment of what vaccines children should receive and when. States decide what’s actually required for school entry, and your pediatrician gives recommendations for your individual child.

That dynamic hasn’t changed. What’s changed is that more people are paying attention to it.

What Happened in January

On January 5, the CDC announced a revised schedule that reduced the number of vaccines recommended for all children from 17 down to 11. Six vaccines previously on the universal list, including flu, hepatitis B, hepatitis A, rotavirus, meningococcal, and COVID-19, were moved into a category called “shared clinical decision-making.” That means they’re available, still covered by insurance, and your doctor can still recommend them, but they’re no longer blanket recommendations for every child.

What’s still on the routine list for all kids: protection against diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough (DTaP), Hib, pneumococcal disease, polio, measles/mumps/rubella (MMR), chickenpox, and HPV.

Then a Judge Weighed In

In March, a federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked key parts of the January changes, ruling that the government likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act, basically, that it skipped the required legal process for changing public health policy. The Trump administration appealed in late April, and as of late July 2026, the First Circuit Court of Appeals hasn’t issued a final ruling. The district court also recently granted a brief pause to wait for that ruling.

What this means practically: the legal status of the January changes is unsettled.

Here’s what matters for your family right now: your state’s school-entry requirements are what govern school enrollment, and most states set those independently from the federal schedule.

What Your State Actually Requires

This is the part that trips families up. Across virtually all states, the core shots required for school entry remain:

• DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough)
• Polio
• MMR (measles, mumps, rubella)
• Chickenpox (varicella)
• Hib (for younger kids)

Where it gets variable: hepatitis B, hepatitis A, and meningococcal vaccines. According to a KFF analysis, 27 states and D.C. announced they will not follow the CDC’s revised schedule for at least some vaccines, largely aligning instead with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines. That means in many states, your school may still require shots the federal government moved to “shared decision-making.”

Go directly to your state health department to confirm the 2026-27 requirements. The CDC’s state-by-state requirements page is a useful starting point, but your state health department is the authoritative source.

What “Shared Decision-Making” Actually Means

The phrase sounds clinical, but it just means a conversation between you and your child’s doctor where you weigh your child’s individual risk factors, your family’s circumstances, and what the doctor knows about your child’s health history.

It’s not a green light to skip vaccines or a requirement to get them. It’s a prompt to have the conversation you should have been having all along.

Your pediatrician may still strongly recommend a flu shot for your two-year-old who’s in daycare around other kids all winter. That recommendation doesn’t disappear because the federal list changed. A good doctor looks at your specific child, not just a schedule on a government website. And, they welcome any and all questions parents might have about the vaccines.

What About Exemptions?

All states provide medical exemptions. Many also offer religious or philosophical exemptions, though those vary significantly by state and are an active area of legal and legislative activity right now. If your family is pursuing an exemption for school entry, start with your state health department’s specific documentation process, and start early. Waiting until the week before school is a scramble you don’t need.

How to Walk Into Your Pediatrician’s Office Ready

Given how much is in flux, your child’s back-to-school well visit is a good place to sort through all of this. A few questions worth bringing:

1. Which vaccines are required for my child’s grade level in our state for the 2026-27 school year and what exemptions does our state allow?
2. For the vaccines in “shared decision-making,” what’s your recommendation for my child specifically, based on their health and our area?
3. If we defer any of those vaccines, when would you revisit it, and what would change your guidance?
4. Can we see the Vaccine Information Statement (VIS) for any shot we’re considering? (BTW: This is your legal right before any vaccination.)

One More Thing: Cost Is Not a Factor

Insurance coverage has not changed. As of the January 2026 announcement, HHS stated that all vaccines on the CDC schedule as of December 31, 2025, remain covered under ACA plans, Medicaid, CHIP, and the Vaccines for Children program. Families should confirm current coverage with their insurer but whether a vaccine is on the routine list or in the “shared decision-making” category, your family shouldn’t face out-of-pocket costs for any of them.

Vaccine guidelines have always been exactly that: guidelines. The power to make the right call for your family has always been yours, in partnership with your doctor. This year, that’s just a little more visible.

Check your state’s requirements, bring your questions to your child’s doctor, and make the plan that fits your family. Never forget, you know your child best.

The post Back to School Shots: What the Schedule Really Means for Your Family This Year appeared first on Healthy Kids.

The first few weeks, you held the line. Then a long car trip happened, then a rainy week, then a stretch where everyone was tired and the phone was just…easier. By July, the devices were out longer, bedtimes were later, and the rules you started with were more of a general suggestion than a policy.

Those dog days of summer got us all.

The problem is that summer habits don’t know school is starting. The brain that spent eight weeks rewiring itself around extra screen time doesn’t automatically recalibrate because the calendar says September. It’s going to take some re-adjusting just like getting back into the groove of school.

The good news is all you need is a plan to help get you back on track. Remember, this isn’t about banning all screens. As we’ve written before, not all screen time is the same — and treating it like it is leads to all-or-nothing rules that don’t stick. This is about a reset: intentional, gradual, and built around what works for you and your family now that summer is over.

First, Understand What You’re Actually Up Against

Here’s what the research says is happening in a child’s brain after an unstructured summer of heavy screen use: sleep is disrupted because screens (especially at night) suppress melatonin and push bedtimes later. Attention span is compressed because short-form video and social feeds are engineered to deliver a hit every few seconds, which makes sustained focus feel genuinely uncomfortable by comparison. And the dopamine loop that makes scrolling hard to stop is real because it’s designed that way.

None of this is permanent but the earlier you start the reset, the smoother the transition.

Separate Screen Types Before You Set Limits

Before you set any new rules, do a quick inventory of how your child is actually using screens.

There’s a meaningful difference between:

• Passive consumption: social feeds, short-form video, YouTube rabbit holes, gaming with no clear end point
• Active, intentional use: FaceTime with friends or family, creative projects, educational apps, reading, structured gaming with a natural stopping point

As we’ve written about previously, the research consistently shows that passive, unstructured scrolling is what drives the negative outcomes, whereas active, purposeful screen use is a different category entirely and doesn’t need to be treated like the enemy.

This distinction matters because it shapes the rules you actually set. You’re not going to war with all screens. You’re specifically targeting the passive scroll, especially in the two to three hours before bed.

Build the School-Year Structure

Start introducing the new screen time rules now, while the stakes are low and there’s time to work out the friction. Figure out what works best for YOUR family, but here is what a basic school-year screen structure might look like:

• Morning: No phones until after breakfast and getting dressed. Screen time in the morning compresses the window for everything else and starts the day reactive instead of intentional.
• After school: A defined homework-first window before any entertainment screen time. Exactly how long depends on your kid’s age and workload, but the principle is the same: the phone waits.
• Evening: Entertainment screens off at a set time. That time should be early enough to protect an hour of wind-down before bed.
• Overnight: Devices charge outside the bedroom. Every night. This is the one that makes the most difference and also gets the most resistance — but it’s worth holding.

If this structure feels like a big jump from where you are right now, that’s fine. Start with one piece of it this week and add the next piece next week. A gradual roll-out is easier to maintain than a dramatic overnight overhaul.

Have the Conversation — Once, Clearly

Kids do better with limits they understand than with limits that feel arbitrary. You don’t have to give a lecture. A short, honest conversation goes a long way. Something like “Now that school is back, your brain needs more sleep and less scrolling than it was getting this summer. We’re going to make some changes — here’s what they are and why.”

That’s it. You don’t need their agreement, just their understanding.

Model It

This is the one parents least want to hear and most need to: your kids are watching you. If your phone is on the dinner table, theirs will be too, eventually. If you’re scrolling on the couch after dinner, you’ve made the argument for them.

You don’t have to be perfect but the school-year reset is a good moment to be honest with yourself about your own habits, too. Family screen time norms tend to reflect whatever the adults in the house are doing — which means the most powerful lever you have isn’t a parental control app. It’s your own behavior.

A Note on Pushback

There will be pushback. Expect it, especially from older kids and teens whose social lives run through their phones. That’s real, and it deserves acknowledgment. The goal isn’t to cut them off from their friends but to protect the sleep and focus the school year actually requires.

A reasonable middle ground for older kids: the limits apply to entertainment screens, not to communication with friends. Text until a reasonable hour, then the phone charges outside the room. That distinction might help reduce the social stakes and make the rule feel less punitive.

Back-to-school screen time is a recalibration. The habits you set in the next few weeks will carry your kid through the first semester. That’s worth a few uncomfortable evenings.

The post Summer Habits Die Hard: A Plan for Screen Time Now That School is Back appeared first on Healthy Kids.

As we head into fall and start filling up the calendar again with sports and activities and lessons and clubs and homework and should we continue…? There are so many things and that’s why we should sit with that message for a minute. Research backs up how important it is for our kids to have unstructured time to play.

The Study That Changed How We Think About “Free Time”

In 2014, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder published a landmark study in the journal Frontiers in Psychology that asked a simple but important question: does the amount of structured versus unstructured time in a child’s day actually affect how their brain develops?

They tracked the daily schedules of 70 six-year-olds for a week, carefully categorizing activities as either structured (think soccer practice, piano lessons, homework) or unstructured (free outdoor play, reading, creative time, visits to the zoo). Then they measured each child’s “self-directed executive function” or the ability to set a goal and take independent action to reach it without an adult prompting them.

The results were striking: the more time children spent in less structured activities, the better their self-directed executive function. The reverse was also true: the more structured their days, the poorer their ability to independently set and pursue their own goals.

“Executive function is extremely important for children,” said Professor Yuko Munakata, the study’s senior author. “It helps them in all kinds of ways throughout their daily lives, from flexibly switching between different activities rather than getting stuck on one thing, to stopping themselves from yelling when angry, to delaying gratification. Executive function during childhood also predicts important outcomes, like academic performance, health, wealth and criminality, years and even decades later.”

Read that again: the ability to set goals and pursue them independently is predicted not by how many enrichment activities a child does, but by how much unscheduled time they have.

Why This Happens in the Brain

There’s actually a neurological reason why unstructured time produces these outcomes.

When a child is left without a task, a screen, or an adult directing what comes next, the brain’s default mode network activates. This is the system associated with imagination, self-reflection, empathy, future planning, and creative problem-solving — the kind of thinking that doesn’t happen on command, but emerges when the brain is given room to wander. We’ve written about this in depth before on our blog, and the science is consistent: the moments that look like “nothing” are often some of the most productive developing brain experiences.

There’s also a separate body of research connecting free play specifically to creativity. A 2026 meta-analysis published in Thinking Skills and Creativity which pulled together decades of studies, found robust evidence that play is a meaningful driver of creative development in children. A 2025 study in Scientific Reports found that even short playful interactions improved executive function performance in children aged 6 to 10. And a longitudinal study tracking toddlers and preschoolers over several years found that free play predicted better self-regulation not just immediately, but years down the line.

The picture that emerges from all of this research is consistent: unstructured play isn’t a break from development. It is development.

What Gets Lost When the Schedule Gets Too Full

The 2014 CU Boulder study is notable partly because it was one of the first to tackle the question scientifically but the concern it raised has only grown more urgent in the decade since.

Children’s schedules have gotten more packed, not less. The default in many households is that every free block gets filled with another structured program. The cultural message to parents is that a full calendar is an attentive one. That if you’re not optimizing your child’s time, you’re leaving something on the table.

Here’s what gets left on the table when unstructured time disappears:

• Self-direction. A child who is always told what to do next never has to figure it out for themselves. That muscle deteriorates so the kid who spends their whole childhood in structured activities can struggle profoundly when structure disappears.
• Conflict resolution. Unsupervised free play is where kids negotiate, argue and compromise without an adult referee. Those skills are built kid-to-kid on the playground, not in a classroom.
• Intrinsic motivation. When learning is always organized by adults, children can lose touch with what they actually find interesting. Free time is where passions get discovered. The kid who spends a whole afternoon building something elaborate because they decided to is building a relationship with their own curiosity that structured activities rarely produce.
• Tolerance for discomfort. Boredom can get uncomfortable. Learning to sit with that discomfort, and move through it toward something self-generated, is a skill. Children who are never bored never build it and that has lasting consequences.

“But I’m Bored!” Is the Beginning, Not the Problem

The central insight in Lizzie Assa’s book is that being bored is not a crisis to be solved but a signal that something good is about to happen IF parents let it. That’s a good reminder heading back into the school year.

The instinct to fix boredom immediately is understandable. But you have to let that 20-minute window of restlessness before a child finds their footing happen. Short-circuiting it with a screen or a structured activity gives your kids an easy out before they are forced to work out the problem.

One of the most developmentally useful responses a parent can give to “I’m bored” is a calm, un-panicked: “I hear you. What do you think you could do about that?” It redirects ownership back where it belongs (to the child) while also communicating something important: I trust you to figure this out.

That trust, extended consistently over time, is how kids build confidence in their own ability to generate, create, and self-direct.

So What Does This Actually Look Like?

Protecting unstructured time doesn’t mean clearing the entire calendar. It means being intentional about leaving space with no obligations. A few practical anchors:

• Guard at least one unscheduled afternoon per week. No plan, no screentime as the default. Let it be boring at first. Something will emerge.
• Say no to the next activity. If your child is already in three things, think hard before adding a fourth. The marginal benefit of one more structured program is almost always lower than the benefit of free time.
• Let the mess happen. Unstructured play often looks chaotic — couch cushion forts, elaborate games with made-up rules, art projects that take over the kitchen table. That chaos is an engaged brain at work so resist the urge to tidy it too fast.
• Go outside with no agenda. Nature + unstructured time = one of the most powerful combinations for creative, restorative play. It doesn’t have to be a hike. The backyard with a stick and a bucket counts.

As we wrap up the summer and start thinking about September, it’s worth asking not just what your child’s fall schedule looks like, but what it doesn’t look like. Where is the white space? Where does your kid have permission to just be a kid and be bored, to figure it out, to surprise themselves with what they come up with?

It’s the important conclusion Lizzie Assa builds toward throughout But I’m Bored! – boredom, handled right, can be one of the things that makes childhood great.

The post The Case for Doing Nothing: Why Unstructured Play Might Be the Most Important Thing on Your Child’s Schedule appeared first on Healthy Kids.

As published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on August 15, 2026

The calendar flips to August, and parents everywhere know what’s coming. The rush to buy new backpacks, meet new teachers and adapt to new schedules. Almost without fail, the first round of sniffles kicks in, too, with a few hundred kids back in the same building together.

It’s a ritual as familiar as the school supply aisle at your local store. But this year, more parents than I’ve seen in my 25 years of practice are heading into fall with real uncertainty about what to do when their pediatrician brings up vaccines. That uncertainty is understandable. There is a lot of noise out there right now around immunizations, and not all of it is grounded in fact. I want parents to know you deserve clear, honest information, and the conversation about what’s right for your child belongs with your doctor, not cable news or social media.

Respiratory season typically peaks between October and March, with flu, RSV and other viruses cycling through classrooms with remarkable efficiency. Seriously, school hallways are among the most efficient germ-sharing environments on Earth. For most kids, that means a miserable week stuck at home on the couch; but for some, it means serious complications and hospitalizations.

Vaccines have saved more children’s lives than almost any other medical intervention in history. That’s a fact supported by decades of rigorous, independent science from researchers all over the world. The system that reviews vaccines is not perfect as no human institution is —but it is serious, independent and built around one question: Is this safe and effective for children?

Childhood vaccines are not one-size-fits-all mandates imposed from above. They are the product of decades of research, clinical trials and reviews by panels of independent physicians and scientists whose entire job is to evaluate safety and efficacy data, weigh them against real-world risks and make evidence-based recommendations. That process exists to protect your child.

As a doctor who has spent decades delivering babies and caring for families, I truly believe parents are more than capable of making good decisions for their children. They do it every single day in each area of their lives. What they need is access to accurate, transparent, unfiltered information from sources they can trust and a doctor who will listen. Resources like Advocates for Healthy Kids exist precisely to give parents straightforward, unbiased information about children’s health without political noise. And for families who want vaccines, that access must be protected. Every parent who chooses to vaccinate their child should be able to do so — without barriers, without bureaucracy and without having that option quietly taken off the table. When families are left without clear, trustworthy information, children are the ones who pay the price.

The decision about whether and when to vaccinate should be made in a doctor’s office between a physician and the patient. Ask every question you have. Get all the data. Understand the evidence. That’s shared medical decision-making at its best.

If your child’s immunization record has gaps, ask about them. If you’ve heard something that made you uncertain, say so. Your providers have seen the evidence. They know your child. They went to medical school, completed residencies and have spent their careers doing exactly this. They do all of that because they genuinely care about your kids, plus many of them are parents themselves, treating your family with the same devotion they bring to their own. That relationship is one of the most valuable tools you have as a parent. Trust it.

This fall, as backpacks get loaded and school buses resume their routes, the single most effective thing a parent can do to protect their child’s health is to stay informed and stay in conversation with their doctor or provider. Use your school physical appointment to get all the answers you need. Parents deserve to make choices based on science, in partnership with their doctors, free from noise, pressure and confusion manufactured by those with political agendas.

Dr. Siobhan Dunnavant is a board-certified OB-GYN with more than 25 years of experience, former Virginia state senator and the spokesperson for Advocates for Healthy Kids. She can be reached at drdunnavant@healthykidsalliance.com.

The post What parents need to know about vaccines this fall appeared first on Healthy Kids.

It’s easy to see the role as a Washington institution but the CDC Director is, in practice, one of the most consequential voices in American public health. The person in this role shapes how the country responds to health threats, what guidance reaches families, and whether that guidance feels like a trusted resource or another top-down directive from people who don’t know your child.

Dr. Erica Schwartz’s confirmation as the 22nd Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is worth your attention.

Who Is Dr. Erica Schwartz?

Dr. Schwartz is a physician, a public health scientist, and a military leader who has spent more than two decades in service to this country.

She holds a medical degree from Brown University, a Master of Public Health from the Uniformed Services University, and a law degree from the University of Maryland. She is board-certified in Preventive Medicine with a specialization in Occupational Medicine — a discipline focused on keeping people healthy before illness strikes.

Her career spans the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. During her time with the Coast Guard, she rose to the rank of Rear Admiral and served as the branch’s Chief Medical Officer, overseeing 41 clinics and 150 sick bays. She later served as Deputy Surgeon General of the United States during President Trump’s first term.

She pledged at her confirmation hearing to never compromise on science: “My sacred responsibility is to provide the American people with public health guidance that is clear, honest and evidence-based.”

Why This Matters Right Now

Dr. Schwartz is stepping into one of the most difficult moments in the agency’s history. The CDC has lost thousands of employees to layoffs, resignations, and leadership turmoil. It has been operating without a confirmed permanent director for nearly a year and is currently managing simultaneous responses to measles outbreaks, a cyclosporiasis surge, and an Ebola outbreak in Central Africa.

At the same time, public trust in the agency has eroded after years of public health communication that left too many families feeling talked at rather than talked with.

For too long, that communication operated on a simple assumption: tell people what to do, and they’ll do it. Mandate it if they don’t.

That approach missed the mark and alienated many. When families feel like their questions are dismissed and that their decisions get made for them, the relationship between the public and the public health system breaks down. Children pay the price for that loss of trust.

What It Could Mean for Families

Dr. Brett Giroir, a former Assistant Health Secretary who was Schwartz’s boss during the first Trump administration, has described Dr. Schwartz as “not a wallflower,” “wicked smart,” and “not afraid to speak truth to power.”

That’s exactly what families deserve right now — a CDC Director who gives them real answers and treats them as partners in their children’s health, not subjects of top-down mandates.

Dr. Schwartz brings decades of experience rooted in prevention, service, and science. Public health only works when families trust the people delivering the message. She has the credentials, the record, and the backbone to start rebuilding that trust — and that’s exactly what this moment calls for.

The post The CDC Has a New Director. Here’s Why Families Should Pay Attention. appeared first on Healthy Kids.