Faculty Bibliography

Klass offer parents tips on how to make their children's visits to the doctor for shots more bearable. Klass suggests that parents explain as simply as possible what shots are for and why they are given and suggests that parents hug their children when the shots are over

As a pediatrician, Klass receives many after-hours calls from worried parents that could have been handled during the day. Although the calls can be frustrating, she knows that sometimes parents just need a little reassurance.

As she watches her kids grow, Klass often finds herself in sympathy with common health myths, though as a pediatrician she recognizes their falesness. At the very least, she listens for the hidden messages and wisdom in the myths

What I dread when I see a note like this is a child who's terrified of me and of being examined. With a 5-year-old, I want a cheerful, sociable interview - not the tears that start to overflow as I ask my friendly questions or the quivering lower lip, sobbing or sometimes screaming when I actually touch her. Usually, though, you can comfort babies. I examine them in their parent's arms, crooning and cooing as I proceed. And you can often distract a toddler - set off your beeper, point to a picture on the wall - long enough to do what's needed. But older children may become specifically worried about doctors and medical exams, especially when it comes to shots and blood tests. I start to be concerned about it when a child is around the age of 3 and, I think, should have the understanding (and the language) to deal with me. There may be wariness about shots, and there may be wriggling and giggling when you press on the belly, but there shouldn't be terror or uncontrolled crying and screaming. And yet sometimes there is

Before I enter the exam room, I flip open the child's chart. I turn back a page or two to find out when she was last seen in our clinic and read, embedded in my notes from the previous year: 'Child very resistant to exam.' What I dread when I see a note like this is a child who's terrified of me and of being examined. With a 5-year-old, I want a cheerful, sociable interview - not the tears that start to overflow as I ask my friendly questions or the quivering lower lip, sobbing or sometimes screaming when I actually touch her. Certainly babies might cry when I examine them - especially those who are 8 or 9 months old, when stranger anxiety typically begins. It's absolutely normal that a 15-month-old objects loudly to being made to stay in one place, and even that a 2-year-old may shriek whenever anyone does anything to him that he doesn't want done

Klass offers tips on how to deal with young children's fears of a doctor. Sometimes he demonstrates on stuffed animals before examining a child in order to calm him or her down

Perri Klass reviews the children's novel 'Skellig' by David Almond

Klass contends that parents can't remove temptation from their child's path by legislating what someone else's child eats, calling it a misguided idea