Recently, I had a conversation with a mother who realized that she had made a critical mistake regarding her child’s health. Though she saw the forecast, and knew the winter season was coming (in Houston that means low 60’s :) ), she confessed that she did not properly prepare herself to survive the season.

One of her critical mistakes, she recalled, was not building up her child’s immunity. She explained to me how she normally insures that the children are on a nice vitamin regimen and makes sure that the kids are drinking and eating properly.

Her other critical mistake was not making sure that her child had the right clothing for the season (for the sake of the blog, I will call it covering). She had the winter clothes (2 sweaters and a jacket :) ) stored in the garage in a plastic storage container. Though she meant to get it right away, she kept putting if off to the next day and tried to compensate by double shirting her children.

It didn’t work!!!!! He took ill almost right away. He missed 4 days of school, and she had 4 days of added responsibilities and stress to her day, not to mention the 4 days of lost instruction!

Follow up:

Headed into this TAKS season I am going to suggest that we as parents and educators prepare our students for success by building up their immunity and by properly clothing them.

With the TAKS just a stone’s throw away, we need to place our students on a vitamins and supplements. Though many of these pills are hard to swallow, making them difficult to administer, the vitamins and supplements I am referring to are easy to give, receive and 100 % soluble into the system. These vitamins and supplements are words of support, belief, and encouragement. Before the TAKS arrives, let’s begin giving these vitamins each morning, and then offer them supplements’ right before their work out (study time).

Then we must follow up these affirming words with the right covering. We must make sure, headed into the test, that we began giving our students positive and affirming touches. These touches will cover them in such a way, that they will be prepared to handle the difficulties of the test. The right covering, you will find is everything. It is a way of reinforcing the words that are verbally administered and often can be the difference maker in how a child feels about themselves.

Now, like many parents, this mother waited too late to offer her child what he needed to survive the oncoming weather system. Let us make sure our students are prepared. Let’s start now giving them what they need to survive now, or else we will spend our time helping them recover later.