Kids love going around places, playing, and exploring new things. While all of this is fun, it can expose them to diseases. When they come from school, they are exposed to various germs through air and transmission or direct contact. They also touch surfaces a lot, then their face, then their mouths. This makes it easy for illness to spread. While it is impossible to prevent illness completely, there could be several measures that can reduce the risk and support recovery.

Vaccination

Vaccination is a critical step in preventing severe illnesses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommend following an established vaccine schedule. Vaccines protect against life-threatening infections, including those that disproportionately affect infants and young children.

Good Hygiene

While no vaccine can prevent one from common cold, good hygiene practices can significantly reduce germ transmission. Parents must therefore encourage their children to wash their hands after touching toys, hard surfaces, and other people. What is more important is proper hand hygiene, as handwashing with soap and water is the most effective way to eliminate germs.

ALSO READ: This Spring, Make Hand Hygiene A Priority, Says Expert

The Hygiene Hypothesis: Does Exposure to Germs Strengthen Immunity?

There are several research that suggests that early exposure to germs may help develop a child’s immune system, a concept known as the "hygiene hypothesis." However, many immunologists argue against this theory, noting that children naturally encounter enough germs to build immunity without unnecessary exposure to unsanitary conditions. A balanced approach ensures children develop a strong immune response without increased risk of illness.

Cleaning and Sanitizing Children’s Belongings

Regular cleaning of toys, school supplies, and frequently touched objects is essential. Understanding the difference between cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting can help:

• Cleaning removes visible dirt and debris.
• Sanitizing reduces germs to safer levels.
• Disinfecting kills germs completely, offering the highest level of protection.

It is important to read product labels carefully, use child-safe cleaning products, and rinse toys thoroughly after disinfection, especially those that go into a child’s mouth.

Choosing Effective Sanitizing Products

To minimize germ exposure, parents should clean objects with soap and water first and then use a sanitizer for everyday items. Disinfectants, which are stronger, should be used on objects that a sick person has touched. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides a list of approved sanitizers and disinfectants that effectively kill germs.

Encouraging Good Hygiene Without Causing Anxiety

Teaching children proper hygiene without creating fear is essential. Make handwashing engaging by incorporating songs or counting games. Explaining the benefits of hygiene in a positive way helps children understand that washing hands protects them and others. Parents can reinforce these habits by leading by example.

Boosting Immunity Through Nutrition

A strong immune system helps children fight infections more effectively. Proper nutrition plays a crucial role in immune support. A balanced diet should include:

• Proteins
• Vegetables
• Fruits
• Healthy fats
• Carbohydrates
• Adequate hydration

Multivitamins are generally unnecessary for well-nourished children, but if supplements are used, they should be free of added sugars and taken under supervision to prevent choking hazards.

Teaching Respiratory Etiquette

Proper respiratory hygiene reduces the spread of illness. Parents should model behaviors such as covering their mouths with an elbow when coughing or sneezing. Using tissues and disposing of them immediately is also a good practice. Reinforcing these habits through positive encouragement makes children more likely to adopt them.

In January 2025, the Danish government finally announced an end to the use of the controversial forældrekompetenceundersøgelse (FKU) — a psychometric assessment used to evaluate parental competency. After years of increasing pressure from Indigenous rights organizations, international human rights groups, and the Greenlandic government had finally paid off when the test was officially abandoned amid accusations of systemic discrimination, cultural bias, and child removals based on colonial-era assumptions.

The test, based on Western norms of psychology, became a focal point in the already complicated relationship between Denmark and its former colony, Greenland, triggering important questions regarding cultural bias, child protection, and Indigenous rights.

What Was the Danish Parenting Competency Test?

The FKU, or “parenting competency test,” was a psychometric assessment used by Danish child protection authorities to evaluate whether parents were fit to raise their children. In theory, the test aimed to protect children by identifying families in crisis or parents unable to provide adequate care. In practice, however, it became a tool of controversy—especially when applied to Greenlandic families.

The test assessed parents in a series of areas, such as their responses to imagined scenarios, self-concept, physical and mental well-being, outlook on life, and plans for the future. Most importantly, it was based on Western conception of good parenthood and delivered in Danish, with minimal attention to Greenlandic language, customs, or kinship systems. This incompatibility resulted in regular misinterpretations of the capacity of Greenlandic parents and sometimes led to children being taken from their parents.

Greenlandic children have traditionally been disproportionately represented in Denmark's child welfare system. Approximately 7% of Greenland-born children and 5% of children who have at least one Greenlandic parent are placed out-of-home. That's in sharp contrast to only 1% of the general Danish child population.

The application of FKU tests, the campaigners maintain, was a contributory factor in this lopsided number. Families were regularly tested with instruments that were not culturally sensitive, and sometimes in the absence of legal or psychological support. The test to protect was then perceived by many as a means of control — tearing children away from their cultural heritage and severing family bonds.

For some families, such as 38-year-old Keira Alexandra Kronvold's, the shift is too late. Required to undergo the FKU test twice — once when giving birth to her second child and again when pregnant with her third — she was finally found "unfit" by Danish officials. Her infant was removed from her care just hours after delivery, sparking public outrage and initiating mass protests in Copenhagen and Nuuk.

In 2022, the Danish Institute for Human Rights warned of the test's application among Indigenous families. In 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples issued an official condemnation of the FKU as deeply flawed and culturally insensitive. The Danish government, even with these warning signs, only "urged municipalities" to reconsider its application.

It wasn't until January 2025 that the government, at last, declared an outright suspension of the FKU test among Greenlandic families, citing "doubts" as to its cultural sensitivity — a half-hearted recognition of what activists had been decrying as a systemic failure.

Why Was the Test So Controversial?

Cultural Bias and Misjudgment

Greenlandic families and their supporters complained that the FKU did not consider the special cultural, linguistic, and social norms of Greenlandic Inuit society. The fact that the test is based on Danish language and Western notions of parenting resulted in Greenlandic traditional values—like communal childcare, nonverbal communication, and varying methods of discipline—frequently being misinterpreted or downgraded. Parents were even incorrectly evaluated as having cognitive impairments due to mere cultural differences in communication or problem-solving in certain instances.

Unfair Disproportionate Impact on Greenlandic Families

The effect of the FKU was drastic: 5–7% of Greenlandic-origin children in Denmark were removed from their families, as opposed to only 1% of Danish-origin children. High-profile cases, like that of Keira Alexandra Kronvold—whose infant was removed from her shortly after birth based in part on FKU findings—sparked countrywide protests in both Denmark and Greenland. For many, the incidents resonated with traumatic historical moments of forced assimilation and family disruption.

Human Rights and Legal Criticism

The FKU has been condemned by human rights groups, such as the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, for its "serious cultural biases" and its call for the abolition of the FKU. Denmark is bound under international conventions like ILO Convention No. 169 to respect and protect the cultural identity of Indigenous peoples like the Greenlanders. The critics claimed that the FKU breached these commitments by refusing to modify its standards and approach in accordance with Greenlandic conditions.

The Danish Ministry of Social Affairs currently commits to making any subsequent parental reports culturally sensitive, using Greenlandic language and culture. The government asserts it will attempt to restore confidence and provide reparative structures, including placement in Greenlandic families whenever feasible.

Greenland's Children's Minister, Dr. Aqqaluaq B. Egede, described the decision as a "necessary but tardy measure" toward justice. "We cannot restore that which is lost, but we can ensure no additional harm is caused," he told a joint press conference in Nuuk.

How Does Removal From Families Impact Children?

The psychological effect of separating children from their parents is deep and lasting, as numerous studies over several decades have shown. When children are taken from their families—whether because of such highly criticized policies as Denmark's now-abandoned parenting test or other child protection measures—the effects tend to reach far beyond the initial disruption.

Attachment, the strong emotional connection that develops between a child and his or her main caregiver, is more than a whimsical notion but a vital building block for wholesome growth throughout life. Research that appeared in Current Directions in Psychological Science explains that attachment influences a child's sense of emotional security, social competence, and even stress- and adversity-coping ability in the years to come.

This attachment starts to develop even before a child is born. Myron Hofer, past director of the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychology at Columbia University, cites that fetuses begin to develop preferred reactions to their mother's odors and sounds during pregnancy—preferences that carry on after birth. During the newborn phase, infants learn rapidly to recognize their mother's face and voice, providing the foundation of a secure attachment.

When attachment is suddenly severed, through early maternal separation, children go through a series of emotional and physiological responses. First, they go through a stage of anxious searching—calling out and searching for their attachment figure—and then they go through a stage of withdrawal and worsening responsiveness if reunification is not achieved.

Hofer's experiments with infant rats emphasized the biological basis of this trauma. He discovered that deprivation of maternal warmth, body contact, and sustenance induced distress in the young. Although artificial surrogates—warmth, tactile stimulation, and plentiful nutrition—were able to normalize a few features of their physiology, these could not substitute for the complex, higher-level behaviors in an actual mother–child relationship. Aspects of reciprocity, imitation, attunement, and play form a vital role in emotional and social development and cannot be imitated by institutional care or foster planning, regardless of good intentions.

For human children, the effects of forced separation can involve increased anxiety, attachment disorders, relationship difficulties, and even persistent mental health issues. The trauma associated with loss of family is sometimes doubled when cultural identity and language are lost as well, as was true for many Greenlandic children sent to Danish families under the FKU regime.

Allergic reactions are a common occurrence and can happen to anyone. Many people ingest things they do not know they are allergic to or accidentally eat something that is cross contaminated with allergens. The reaction one gets to coming in contact with their allergens depends on how severe their allergies are.

Allergic reactions in kids happen more often than we know, and many of these kids end up hospitalized. However, most of these could be avoided according to new research.

About 17% of children are currently staying overnight in the hospital after a serious allergic reaction to food, medicine, or insect bites. However, this study, published in The Lancet, indicates that most of these long stays might not be needed.

Researchers found that a high percentage of children, 95%, who were treated with a common allergy medication, could safely go home within just two hours. This number goes up to 98% if they are watched for four hours.

One of the researchers, a children's emergency specialist, noted that most patients are likely observed for too long. He explained that for families, this could mean the difference between leaving the hospital at 11 p.m. versus 1 a.m. or 3 a.m.

An allergy happens when your body's defense system, called the immune system, mistakenly thinks something is harmful and reacts too strongly to it. The problems you feel because of this reaction are called an allergic reaction. The things that cause these reactions are known as allergens. Allergens can enter your body in several ways, leading to an allergic reaction

How Allergies Are Affecting More And More Kids?

While most kids get better quickly with the first dose of medicine, about 5% might have their symptoms return later, even after the initial treatment.

For this study, researchers looked at information from over 5,600 emergency room visits at many hospitals in the U.S. and Canada where allergic reactions were treated with the common allergy medication. Most of these reactions (about 90%) were caused by foods like peanuts, eggs, milk, and shellfish. Medicines caused about 6% of reactions, and insect stings caused 3%.

The study showed that only about 5% of children needed a second dose of medicine within two hours of their first shot, and this dropped to just 2% after four hours. Importantly, most children who were admitted to the hospital never needed a second dose or intensive care.

Keeping kids in the hospital longer than needed causes problems. As one allergy expert pointed out, families might avoid or delay going to the emergency room because they don't want to spend hours waiting. Such delays can be dangerous. Allowing patients to go home sooner could encourage them to get help when they need it.

Also, holding kids in the hospital unnecessarily uses up important hospital resources. A senior researcher explained that children's emergency departments can get very busy, especially during winter. Making sure patients move through efficiently helps the hospital care for as many people as possible. He added that because this study was so large, its results can give doctors confidence that sending children home in less than two hours, if they show no concerning symptoms, will be safe for most kids. According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, allergies and asthma can be prevented with the correct steps.

How Parents Can Help Prevent Allergies In Children?

According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, allergies and asthma can be prevented with the correct steps.

Preventing Food Allergies

Understanding the Risk

Food allergies range from mild to severe, often triggered by peanuts, milk, and eggs. Babies are at higher risk if family members have allergies or if the baby already has eczema.

Diet During Pregnancy and Breastfeeding

Don't avoid common allergens while pregnant or breastfeeding for allergy prevention; research shows little benefit. Breast milk is ideal, strengthening immunity and reducing allergy risk. If needed, use special hypoallergenic formulas.

Introducing Solid Foods

Start single-ingredient baby foods (fruits, veggies, cereals) at 4-6 months, one at a time. Importantly, introduce common allergens like egg and peanuts during this period. Delaying might increase allergy risk.

When to See a Specialist

Consult an allergist if your baby has allergic reactions, like bad eczema, or if a sibling has a peanut allergy. They'll provide expert guidance and a personalized plan.

Environmental Allergies and Asthma

Dust Mites

Reduce dust mite exposure early, especially for high-risk children, to delay or prevent symptoms. Use allergen-proof covers, wash bedding weekly in hot water, and keep humidity low. Remove carpets if possible.

Pets and Other Animals

The link between early animal exposure and allergies is complex. Newer research suggests early exposure to cats and dogs might actually protect children. Discuss this with your doctor.

Tobacco Smoke

Crucially, shield children from tobacco smoke before and after birth. Smoking during pregnancy increases infant wheezing. Secondhand smoke boosts asthma risk and other breathing problems.

Benefits of Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding for at least 4-6 months strengthens a child's immune system. This helps fight lung infections that trigger asthma, potentially reducing long-term asthma risk.

You can't completely shield your teen from stress, and a little bit can even be good for them. However, too much stress might make them more likely to get sick. For instance, teens feeling overloaded due to midterms, college applications, or other school pressures could become more vulnerable to catching viruses. This is because stress genuinely affects our bodies, making us more prone to illness, especially during winter when colds and flu spread easily in schools.

Stress Weakens the Immune System

According to a 2024 study published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine ongoing stress directly hits a teen's immune system, which is their body's way of fighting off sickness. When stress hormones are released, they can damage the immune system. Long-term stress can even lower the number of white blood cells that fight infections. If teens are always busy, not sleeping enough, and ignoring their own self-care, it sets them up perfectly to get sick. Stress also causes swelling in the body, which further weakens the immune system. During very stressful times like exams, it's really important to encourage teens to slow down and take care of their body and mind

Tips to Help Teens Stay Healthy and Less Stressed

Here are some simple ways to help your teen stay healthy, both mentally and physically:

Get Enough Sleep

Most teens don't sleep enough; they often get only about 7 hours, but they need much more, especially when stressed. Aim for up to 10 hours of sleep a night during stressful times. Good sleep helps their body and mind recharge, boosts their immune system, helps them manage emotions, and improves their thinking. Help them set a sleep schedule, put away phones at least two hours before bed, keep their room dark and cool, and try relaxing activities before sleep.

Find Ways to Cope

Help your teen discover ways to calm down and lower stress. This could be things like walking outside in nature, making a healthy meal, writing in a journal, trying simple breathing exercises, or using a meditation app. Teens who regularly practice mindful exercises to reduce stress often feel much less stressed overall.

Take Breaks from Tech

Many teens spend hours every day on phones and other devices outside of school. Too much screen time can actually make stress worse, not better. Encourage your teen to "unplug" by taking breaks from their devices. Suggest setting time limits for apps and social media.

Plan Ahead

If your teen has a stressful event coming up, help them prepare. Suggest a study schedule with breaks, and work together to make a plan. Getting organized can really help. Encourage them to use a planner or calendar, or help them make "to-do" lists, which makes managing deadlines easier.

Eat Well and Drink Water

While sugary snacks and caffeine might seem helpful during study sessions, they usually do more harm than good. Keep healthy snacks like protein bars, nuts, and fruit around. Providing healthy, comforting meals can also help lower stress. And don't forget to remind them to drink plenty of water, as not drinking enough can affect their body and even make them feel more anxious.

Is It Sickness or Just Stress?

Stress and anxiety can cause physical symptoms that feel a lot like being sick, such as headaches, stomach aches, and muscle pain. Often, teens might "feel" sick when they are actually just anxious. It's tough to measure stress because what causes it and how much it affects someone is different for everyone. It's important to talk to your teen about how they're feeling. If they have physical symptoms, take them to a doctor to make sure they aren't actually sick with the flu or another virus.

If your teen does get sick during a stressful time, help them deal with it so it doesn't add more stress. Let them know it's okay to take breaks for their health, and help them figure out how to catch up on any schoolwork. Teaching teens to take care of themselves is really important.