It’s back-to-school season in the Black Hills, and the start of a new school year for your children. From your littlest ones heading off to their first day of kindergarten, to your high schoolers, this is a great time to schedule a chiropractic assessment for your kids!
Children should have an annual assessment of their spinal health and central nervous system. This creates benchmarks for progress each year, as well as to gauge their readiness and aptitude for the demands they will be facing, academically, socially and athletically. The start of a new school year may also raise new concerns for your child, and new stresses and behaviors. This is an ideal time to address those concerns and offer meaningful solutions, as well as to assess their overall fitness and wellbeing.
The new school year may present new physical challenges for your child. Growth spurts, added carried weight from backpacks and books, and sports or other physical activities all can create new concerns. Those concerns may include back pain and strain, injuries and even stress-related behaviors like nail biting. Your chiropractor wants to improve the health and vitality of each member your family’s central nervous system, which helps to process stress. We can work with you and your family to address your child’s concerns and recommend corrective measures to make their school experience more pleasurable.
Obviously, back packs can apply great pressure to your little ones, especially with the heavy textbooks that they are required to carry back and forth each day. Here are some of the ways you can adjust and accommodate your child’s backpack, to prevent strain or injury:
* Make sure they are using both straps to prevent leaning and strain across their upper and lower back, shoulders and neck.
* Limit the weight of the backpack to no more than 15% of your child’s weight. Added pounds do pose risk of injury.
* Wide straps are best – narrow straps will cut into your child’s circulation around the neck and shoulders. This can cause numbness or tingling in their arms or hands.
* Encourage your child to use the waist belt to keep weight distributed evenly.
Children who participate in athletics also face the challenge at the start of each school year of adjusting to a more strenuous practice schedule. Those demands can result in additional pain, fatigue and stress. Working with a chiropractor, your child can learn valuable lessons in strengthening and conditioning their body for team sports and other athletic activity.
As adults, we often forget just how fast a child grows from year to year, and what the experience can feel like for someone whose body is changing so rapidly. These annual assessments can help to track those growth spurts as well as to provide sound medical advice to relieve pain and help your child feel their best. The start of the school year is an excellent time to create the next year’s benchmarks for your child’s development and spinal health!
