When the bubble has holes: kids and toxic chemicals

In the tube, originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

It's hard to protect kids from all the dangers out there in the world.  A few years ago, I remember a radio interview exchange from the mom who wrote the book Free Range Kids about how she was told, in the uproar about her letting her pre-teen take the subway alone, that a parent's most important job was to protect their child.  She thought, 'No, my most important job is to raise a caring, competent person and teaching them to face the world and it's dangers is going to be part of that.'

While we can work with kids to teach common-sense strategies for managing public transportation on their own, how do we deal with the toxic chemicals their little bodies come across every single day? 

The following blog post came out of a playground exchange the day I took the above photo:

Originally posted on Care2 in Environment & Wildlife as

Keeping Toxic Chemicals Out of Our Bodies

"Do your kids have allergies? . . . Oh, you're so lucky. So many kids have allergies these days. . . Their little souls agree to come here but their bodies can't take it. This world is so messed up."

That's pretty much how a recent playground conversation with a neighborhood grandmother went. We struck up a conversation after my toddler daughter began to imitate her granddaughter's cough (good time for a pre-flu season lesson about coughing into your sleeve). We ended up discussing the causes of the marked increase in childhood environmental and food allergies.