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Keeping Kids Germ Free
School is back in session. That means it’s time to make new friends and share new experiences. Unfortunately, it’s also a time when students tend to share something else: germs. Germs can cause the spread of diseases that might keep your student in bed instead of school.
More than 22 million school days are lost each year because of the common cold. And that’s just one illness that’s spread by germs. You can teach your child some very basic techniques that will help protect them from spreading or getting germs.
The best way to prevent the spread of germs is keeping hands clean. In fact, healthcare specialists point to handwashing as the single most effective way to prevent the transmission of disease.
Hands should be washed thoroughly before eating, after using the bathroom, and after taking off dirty clothes or shoes. The Centers for Disease Control recommends the following handwashing guidelines:
* Wet hands with clean running water and apply soap
* Rub hands together to lather and scrub all surfaces
* Continue rubbing hands for 15 to 20 seconds (imagine singing “Happy Birthday”
twice).
* Rinse hands well with water.
* Dry hands with paper towels or air dryer. If possible, use a paper towel to turn off
the faucet.
If soap and water aren’t available, alcohol-based wipes and hand sanitizers also work well.
Another important lesson to teach children of all ages is to cover the mouth and nose when sneezing or coughing. Droplets from a sneeze or cough are easily spread from person to person. That means that droplets from a person infected with a cold or the flu could easily infect someone else. Children should be taught to cough or sneeze into a tissue or into their sleeve or elbow (not the hand).
Teaching children healthy habits such as handwashing and covering a cough will go a long way toward keeping them in the classroom and out of the doctor’s office this school year.