Rivaroxaban May Improve Outcomes in Cirrhosis

My Son And I Were Turned Away From Ikea's Play Area For A Disturbing Reason. Here's What They Don't Understand.

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18 hours ago

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My Son And I Were Turned Away From Ikea's Play Area For A Disturbing Reason. Here's What They Don't Understand.

In late June, a few days before Disability Pride Month began, I took my 7-year-old child on an outing to an Ikea store. As I filled out a waiver so he could enter the store's small play area, I noticed I was the only parent present. It turned out that parents typically drop off their children while they shop, but that wasn't an option for me. My son has a rare, severe form of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome, among other medical conditions, and he can't be without a grown-up carrying his seizure rescue medication, as I was. The scary reality is that around one in five children with Dravet syndrome die in childhood because the seizures can be so severe. There is currently no cure. I explained this to a staff member and told her that I'd need to be in the room with my child. She informed me that no parents were allowed into the play area. 'But isn't there a policy for kids with disabilities?' I asked. She told me a service dog could accompany a child, but a parent could not. I stopped signing the form. I said to the staff member, 'That's discrimination against kids with disabilities.' She didn't respond. I hadn't known about the store's play area before this visit, and I had been happy to see that it wasn't a playground ― just a space with toys like a train set and dart board. Since my son had a seizure at an indoor playground a year ago, I'd stopped taking him to them. But now, even this play space was not an option for him. My child and I were both upset. He loves going to Ikea to walk through the showroom and eat in the cafeteria ― a place open enough that it was the only indoor restaurant he ate in during our four years of masking during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have several Ikea furniture items, including bunk beds, a coat/shoe cubby and a toy chest. He helped us build them all. Since his severe seizures began about two years ago, he's had to change his life in significant ways. Heat, sports, just running around to play, illness and excitement have all become triggers for him. Summer is especially hard — on hot days, he can't be outside. In fact, we had driven the hour to Ikea in traffic just so he could walk and have a change of scenery in a large, air-conditioned space because the temperature outside was dangerous for him. I told him, 'This isn't OK.' He said, 'We should talk to someone.' I was proud of him. After talking to a few staff members, we spoke with a manager, who said he wasn't familiar with the policy, and he'd get back to me the next day. He didn't. Later, I looked online, and there was a section on the Ikea website directing caretakers of children with disabilities to start a conversation with the Ikea store manager about how the child can best have their needs accommodated in the play area. I was hopeful that when we went in the future, we could show the policy to the staff. However, that doesn't undo the pain my child felt after hearing that he wasn't welcome in that play space because of his disabilities. During the hour-long car ride home afterward, we talked a lot about discrimination. I reinforced that what happened wasn't OK, and that the more than 3 million kids with disabilities in our country deserve to be included. I told him about my older sister, his late aunt, who had microcephaly and faced various barriers to equal access too, like having to sit on the sidelines of playgrounds in her wheelchair. It upset me. When I was 10 in 1993, I read about new accessible playgrounds in an issue of Scholastic News, and I hoped we could build one for her. Sadly, she died a few weeks later, but in her memory, my family and I worked with the Cincinnati Parks Department to build an accessible playground. My son thought that was cool. I also explained that many groups of people face discrimination for reasons such as gender, race, sexual orientation, immigration status and more, and we need to be allies and stand up against all forms of discrimination. I also told him that one way to help is to make disabilities more visible and raise awareness, as we have done in his school class for the past three years. This June, for Dravet Syndrome Awareness Month, he and I held a neighborhood lemonade and cupcake fundraiser and donated money to the Dravet Syndrome Foundation, which helps fund the kind of critical epilepsy research that the Trump administration has recently cut. After our experience at Ikea, as one of his bedtime books, we re-read the picture book All the Way to the Top, about a child who protested and helped advocate for the Americans with Disabilities Act, which passed 35 years ago. Afterward, I told him about children with disabilities who went to Congress this summer, asking their leaders not to make it harder for them to go to the doctor and get the medicine and treatment they need. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump's domestic policy bill has since passed, and many people, including children with disabilities, will be harmed as a result. Two days after the bill passed, my child woke up and said, 'I want to make a sign about disabilities.' He asked for my help with spelling before writing the words 'People with disabilities are important' in pencil and then tracing over them with marker. He stood by our Disability Pride yard sign, and then, since the temperature was cooler out, he walked down our street and held it up for cars passing by. He said that when he grows up, he wants to be an 'activist' and 'protester.' I told him that he already is. [Editor's Note: HuffPost reached out for a response, and Ikea US issued the following statement: 'At IKEA, we strive to offer a safe and inclusive environment for children to play while in our stores. Our Småland policies are in place to keep children safe when they are in our space. Regarding this family's recent experience in our College Park, MD store, we are incredibly sensitive to feelings of exclusion, and so we have shared information with the family about our accommodations process, so that they may have a more positive experience at IKEA. We are constantly working to improve how we create an inclusive space while maintaining policies that keep all children safe.'] This article originally appeared on HuffPost in July 2025 and was updated in August 2025.

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a day ago

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My Son And I Were Turned Away From Ikea's Play Area For A Disturbing Reason. Here's What They Don't Understand.

In late June, a few days before Disability Pride Month began, I took my 7-year-old child on an outing to an Ikea store. As I filled out a waiver so he could enter the store's small play area, I noticed I was the only parent present. It turned out that parents typically drop off their children while they shop, but that wasn't an option for me. My son has a rare, severe form of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome, among other medical conditions, and he can't be without a grown-up carrying his seizure rescue medication, as I was. The scary reality is that around one in five children with Dravet syndrome die in childhood because the seizures can be so severe. There is currently no cure. I explained this to a staff member and told her that I'd need to be in the room with my child. She informed me that no parents were allowed into the play area. 'But isn't there a policy for kids with disabilities?' I asked. She told me a service dog could accompany a child, but a parent could not. I stopped signing the form. I said to the staff member, 'That's discrimination against kids with disabilities.' She didn't respond. I hadn't known about the store's play area before this visit, and I had been happy to see that it wasn't a playground ― just a space with toys like a train set and dart board. Since my son had a seizure at an indoor playground a year ago, I'd stopped taking him to them. But now, even this play space was not an option for him. My child and I were both upset. He loves going to Ikea to walk through the showroom and eat in the cafeteria ― a place open enough that it was the only indoor restaurant he ate in during our four years of masking during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have several Ikea furniture items, including bunk beds, a coat/shoe cubby and a toy chest. He helped us build them all. Since his severe seizures began about two years ago, he's had to change his life in significant ways. Heat, sports, just running around to play, illness and excitement have all become triggers for him. Summer is especially hard — on hot days, he can't be outside. In fact, we had driven the hour to Ikea in traffic just so he could walk and have a change of scenery in a large, air-conditioned space because the temperature outside was dangerous for him. I told him, 'This isn't OK.' He said, 'We should talk to someone.' I was proud of him. After talking to a few staff members, we spoke with a manager, who said he wasn't familiar with the policy, and he'd get back to me the next day. He didn't. Later, I looked online, and there was a section on the Ikea website directing caretakers of children with disabilities to start a conversation with the Ikea store manager about how the child can best have their needs accommodated in the play area. I was hopeful that when we went in the future, we could show the policy to the staff. However, that doesn't undo the pain my child felt after hearing that he wasn't welcome in that play space because of his disabilities. During the hour-long car ride home afterward, we talked a lot about discrimination. I reinforced that what happened wasn't OK, and that the more than 3 million kids with disabilities in our country deserve to be included. I told him about my older sister, his late aunt, who had microcephaly and faced various barriers to equal access too, like having to sit on the sidelines of playgrounds in her wheelchair. It upset me. When I was 10 in 1993, I read about new accessible playgrounds in an issue of Scholastic News, and I hoped we could build one for her. Sadly, she died a few weeks later, but in her memory, my family and I worked with the Cincinnati Parks Department to build an accessible playground. My son thought that was cool. I also explained that many groups of people face discrimination for reasons such as gender, race, sexual orientation, immigration status and more, and we need to be allies and stand up against all forms of discrimination. I also told him that one way to help is to make disabilities more visible and raise awareness, as we have done in his school class for the past three years. This June, for Dravet Syndrome Awareness Month, he and I held a neighborhood lemonade and cupcake fundraiser and donated money to the Dravet Syndrome Foundation, which helps fund the kind of critical epilepsy research that the Trump administration has recently cut. After our experience at Ikea, as one of his bedtime books, we re-read the picture book All the Way to the Top, about a child who protested and helped advocate for the Americans with Disabilities Act, which passed 35 years ago. Afterward, I told him about children with disabilities who went to Congress this summer, asking their leaders not to make it harder for them to go to the doctor and get the medicine and treatment they need. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump's domestic policy bill has since passed, and many people, including children with disabilities, will be harmed as a result. Two days after the bill passed, my child woke up and said, 'I want to make a sign about disabilities.' He asked for my help with spelling before writing the words 'People with disabilities are important' in pencil and then tracing over them with marker. He stood by our Disability Pride yard sign, and then, since the temperature was cooler out, he walked down our street and held it up for cars passing by. He said that when he grows up, he wants to be an 'activist' and 'protester.' I told him that he already is. [Editor's Note: HuffPost reached out for a response, and Ikea US issued the following statement: 'At IKEA, we strive to offer a safe and inclusive environment for children to play while in our stores. Our Småland policies are in place to keep children safe when they are in our space. Regarding this family's recent experience in our College Park, MD store, we are incredibly sensitive to feelings of exclusion, and so we have shared information with the family about our accommodations process, so that they may have a more positive experience at IKEA. We are constantly working to improve how we create an inclusive space while maintaining policies that keep all children safe.'] This article originally appeared on HuffPost in July 2025 and was updated in August 2025.

5 Things Every Parent Should Do Before School Starts, Pediatricians Say

Yahoo

2 days ago

Yahoo

5 Things Every Parent Should Do Before School Starts, Pediatricians Say

This article may contain affiliate links that Yahoo and/or the publisher may receive a commission from if you buy a product or service through those links. Most parents turn to their child's pediatrician for almost everything during the school year. And understandably so. That inevitable first sore throat warrants a call to the doctor. Ditto when it comes to that suspicious rash that popped up after recess. And what if it seems like they can't keep up at the same rate as their peers? The list is nearly endless once the school year begins, but what about before then? While most of the parent population spends the weeks leading up to the academic year with backpacks, lunches, and school supplies on the brain, pediatricians have a different playbook. And so we asked them how they prepare their own kids for back-to-school season, and learned exactly what the doc ordered: 1. Get back to an earlier bedtime. As you might have guessed, pediatricians start preparing their kids for the start of school well before the first day. In fact, Katie Lockwood, MD, attending physician with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Primary Care Network, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, and host of the Primary Care Perspectives podcast, transitions her kids from the fun-filled late nights toward an earlier bedtime at least two weeks in advance. 'It takes a while to readjust, and you don't want to wait until the night before school starts,' the mom of two tells to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), school-age kids need nine to 12 hours of sleep and teens need eight to 10, so work your way backwards when establishing their school year bedtime. This way, kids will hopefully have an easier time waking up and staying alert during class. 2. Don't overplan the first two weeks of school. As for the two weeks after school starts? Well, that's when Lockwood is thinking about scheduling. Or, rather, a lack thereof. 'No matter how old your child, the first two weeks of school are a big transition,' she says. 'I try not to plan anything big after school or on the weekends in the first two weeks to give my kids lots of downtime to relax and acclimate to the new routine.'Read: Soccer sign-ups and family reunions can be put on pause. 3. Make sure all vaccinations are up to date. What shouldn't be put on pause is your child's regular vaccination schedule (plus a flu shot in the early fall!) and conversations about good hygiene. 'I always remind my kids to wash their hands often because the start of the school year means the sharing of germs,' Lockwood says. She also stocks up on hand sanitizer for her kids to have in case a sink isn't generally available and to use before lunch. 4. Remind kids to stick to their own lunch boxes. As for lunchtime, that can be a prime time for germs to make their way around a school. It might seem fun and nice for friends to share their snacks, but parents should remind their kids to stick to their own lunch boxes. Jennifer Walker, RN, BSN, pediatric nurse, podcast host, and cofounder of Moms on Call, says her kids have a strong understanding that they shouldn't share food or straws with other people. 'So much so that once my sister offered them a lollipop that she had already licked, and they replied, 'In our house we don't share food other people have already licked.'' Most schools should have school lunch information readily available. Be sure to walk your kids through the steps of ordering lunch at school, should they need to, so they don't have butterflies in their empty tummy. 5. Make sure kids know their address and phone number. And while you're in practice mode, keep this tip in mind: Walker says she would also have her sons practice reciting their address and phone number, and she helped them recognize who to ask for help. These are all good things to know in case of an emergency. Final Thoughts But pediatricians aren't only considering their little learners' physical health and safety. They are also thinking about their kids' mental health when preparing for the school year. Tracy Burton, MD, pediatrician and chief medical officer of As You Are, always has open-ended conversations with her child about school and their feelings. Which might not sound as straightforward as shopping for a backpack that fits and filling it with hand sanitizer, tissue packs, age-appropriate hygiene products (like deodorant or period supplies), child-size masks, and the like. 'I tell parents to think of these chats as gentle check-ins instead of a big, one-time conversation,' Burton says. 'In the middle of prepping for dinner, you might ask, 'How are you feeling about school starting?' Or while running an errand, ask, 'What are you most looking forward to this year?'' This isn't about grilling kids, but about giving light prompts and following their lead. Toward the end of the summer, Burton plans to ask her 10-year-old questions about both their social life and academics. 'Questions like, 'It's normal to feel butterflies, do you remember what helped last year?'' she lists. ''Are there any friends you're excited to see again? Is there someone you're unsure about?' and 'How do you feel about having a little more homework this year?'' When in doubt, parents should feel comfortable checking in with their child's pediatrician and/or educators before and during the school year. And, Walker reminds herself and others that this is a 'wonderful' and 'exciting' time to allow kids to navigate new freedoms and challenges.'Challenges are good for kids,' she says. 'Just recognize they are strong, adaptable, and resilient, and help them understand that it is OK to ask for help. This communicates that you trust in their decision-making and that you are more interested in what they are capable of than afraid of what they are not.' Further Reading We Used Our New 'Room Plan' Tool to Give This Living Room 3 Distinct Styles — See How, Then Try It Yourself The Design Changemakers to Know in 2025 Create Your Own 3D Room Plan with Our New Tool

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My Son And I Were Turned Away From Ikea's Play Area For A Disturbing Reason. Here's What They Don't Understand.

My Son And I Were Turned Away From Ikea's Play Area For A Disturbing Reason. Here's What They Don't Understand.

5 Things Every Parent Should Do Before School Starts, Pediatricians Say

Rivaroxaban May Improve Outcomes in Cirrhosis

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My Son And I Were Turned Away From Ikea's Play Area For A Disturbing Reason. Here's What They Don't Understand.

My Son And I Were Turned Away From Ikea's Play Area For A Disturbing Reason. Here's What They Don't Understand.

5 Things Every Parent Should Do Before School Starts, Pediatricians Say

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