For most kids in the UK, the academic year has just finished. It's certainly unusual for the summer holidays to start with such amazing weather and most of us will be hoping it continues. While many kids will be relishing the end of the school routine, and the idea of some fun and downtime, for [...]
Author: Rebecca Avern
Are our children all exhausted?
Someone asked me the other day what the most common piece of advice is that I give to the parents of children I treat. Without doubt, it is to suggest that they reduce their child's commitments and create more downtime in their schedule. It has become the accepted norm for many school children to have [...]
Snotty noses: illness or a necessary part of childhood?
I have seen several babies and toddlers in the clinic this week who have all been in the middle of what can only be described as ‘outpourings of snot’! They are not ‘ill’, as such, and their parents report that they are happy and energetic. However, they have an almost permanent stream of mucus [...]
Is social media really all that bad?
Almost every week there is a disturbing news item about the detrimental effects too much time on social media is having on our teenagers. In my clinic, I often perceive that a young person's symptoms are, at least in part, related to their social media use. But why is this so and what can we [...]
Babies and emotions
A friend of mine sent me this gorgeous clip of his baby daughter laughing. As well as making me smile, it made me think about babies and emotions. The relationship that babies have with their emotions is so different to that which we have as adults. The first thing that struck me is how wonderfully [...]
Water, water everywhere: how damp manifests in children
This is the view in front of my house at the moment! Very beautiful but very damp! Wolvercote is always a particularly damp part of Oxford - nestled on the flood plain between the river and the Canal, with the odd lake thrown in to boot. But the amount of water at the moment is [...]
Spring is here and yang is rising
Most of us feel a mixture of relief and happiness when the first signs of spring appear. We get a bounce in our step and sometimes a surge in vitality too. In Chinese Medicine, spring is a time when yang (the warm and active part of our energy) rises. One would think that the end of [...]
Children and the wind
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