Children's Health

Need some great gift ideas for kids? Use our hol­i­day gift guide!

QMG Phys­i­cal Ther­a­pist Sam Wil­son and QMG Speech Ther­a­pist Anne Zinn with our Pedi­atric Ther­a­py depart­ment put togeth­er their top gift ideas for chil­dren, with a major focus on pro­mot­ing fine and gross motor devel­op­ment as well as speech devel­op­ment, all while hav­ing fun!

Get ready for a rare sight! A total solar eclipse will grace the U.S. skies on April 8, the first since 2017. Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG) Oph­thal­mol­o­gist Dr. Eric Sieck reminds every­one that while this is a sight to behold, pri­or­i­tiz­ing eye safe­ty is cru­cial for a tru­ly unfor­get­table experience.

Think­ing out­side of the box to max­i­mize treat­ment out­comes is some­thing Kristie Kem­n­er-Schoen and Lyn­nae Glas­cock have been doing for years in their roles in pedi­atric ther­a­py at Quin­cy Med­ical Group. Their suc­cess in part­ner­ing with their meth­ods is a mod­el they want to share.

No more school, no more books, no more…you can prob­a­bly see where this is going. Sum­mer is great! For kids that is. But for par­ents, it can be an entire­ly dif­fer­ent sto­ry. Some­time around the sec­ond or third week after school lets out, the nov­el­ty of break starts to wear off for mom and dad. Tat­tling, whin­ing, argu­ing, fight­ing, tantrums, and aggres­sion–all of these can increase dur­ing the sum­mer months. If your kids are melt­ing down, there are sev­er­al pos­si­ble reasons.

Anoth­er school year is upon us. This is a wel­come relief for some and a cause of heart­burn for oth­ers. What­ev­er side you’re on, here are a few tips to start the year off right.

In the past, it was com­mon for home­work time at my house to end in tears, yelling, and occa­sion­al­ly, threats of world dom­i­na­tion. For­tu­nate­ly, we’ve all learned a few things since then and I’m here to tell you home­work doesn’t have to be a fight. I’ve teamed up Lyn­nae Glas­cock, occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pist at QMG’s Behav­ioral Health Depart­ment, to tell you about the best strate­gies for tak­ing the bat­tle out of homework.

Most of the adults I know have a hard time deal­ing with big emo­tions. Watch me try to par­ent in the gro­cery store and you’ll wit­ness an adult mis­han­dling a vari­ety of feel­ings. Yet we often expect chil­dren to keep it togeth­er under the most demand­ing cir­cum­stances. Their lit­tle brains are still grow­ing though, and the part respon­si­ble for emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion won’t be ful­ly devel­oped until they reach their mid-twen­ties. So when your child los­es it, he isn’t try­ing to embar­rass you or make you crazy. He sim­ply lacks the skills nec­es­sary to man­age those big feelings.

At no point in his­to­ry have humans had such easy and con­stant access to news, infor­ma­tion, enter­tain­ment, and singing goat videos as we do now? Gam­ing sys­tems, smart­phones, tablets, lap­tops, and smart TV’s – these devices allow us to see and do things pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions could nev­er have imag­ined. It blows my mind that I can ask Siri what a word means and get an answer with­out even pick­ing up my phone. Any­one else adore that you can set an alarm, apply for a loan, shop for under­wear, watch a movie, talk with any­one you’ve ever met (or any­one you’ve nev­er met), play games, and take high-qual­i­ty pho­tos all on the same device?

Ocu­lar motor skills are basi­cal­ly just watch­ing things with our eyes. Lyn­nae Glas­cock, a pedi­atric occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pist with Quin­cy Med­ical Group, dis­cuss­es why these skills are impor­tant for kids to learn.