Pandemic Planning: Creating a Schedule
December 15, 2020
By Stacy Leatherwood Cannon, M.D.
Henry Ford Health System
With coronavirus continuing to grab headlines and physical distancing orders still in place, every day tends to feel the same.
More parents than ever are working from home, have reduced hours or may even be out of work due to the pandemic. Those who are working at full capacity may feel the strain of trying to balance work and childcare. Many schools and extracurricular programs have been moved online or canceled.
With both parents and kids feeling the stress of new daily routines, it's more important than ever to create a schedule that all family members can follow.
Staying On Schedule
When schedules are off (particularly sleep schedules), children and teens may be at greater risk for depression and anxiety. Younger children may act out because they have increased energy with no outlet. The good news: Creating a schedule — and sticking with it — can help everyone feel more grounded.
Children thrive with an understanding of the daily routine. Knowing what to expect and what they need to do reduces anxiety and helps kids feel more in control.
A few ways to achieve an effective schedule:
• Make it a family affair: Instead of drawing up a schedule and expecting everyone to stick to it, involve your children in the process. Call a family meeting where you come up with sleep and waking times, mealtimes and breaks. Kids are more likely to embrace a new schedule if they played a hand in creating it.
• Enforce bedtime: Children doing remote learning may not have to rise as early to make it to school on time. Even so, it's important to set a regular bedtime so they can remain on task during daylight hours. Your best bet: Establish a bedtime routine that includes calming activities (like a bath and reading) and ensure your children go to bed at an appropriate hour. School-aged kids should get about 9 to 10 hours of sleep each night.
• Stick to mealtimes: Keeping mealtime consistent allows for a structured break where kids and parents can reconnect and troubleshoot when necessary. This is especially important with older adolescents who may work independently during the school day. Unfortunately, what works for one family member may not work for another. Ideally, families should work together to establish mealtimes, then adjust based on each individual's needs and assignments.
• Encourage breaks: Kids and adults alike become zombie-like after sitting in front of a screen for extended periods. For children who are distance learning, frequent breaks are especially important. The younger the child is, the more breaks they need to stay engaged. That said, even older kids should take breaks every 30 minutes or so to walk around, get a snack and do some simple stretches. Better yet, take your breaks together and do some jumping jacks or share a snack as a family.
Successful Scheduling
Coming up with an effective schedule that the whole family can follow is not something you do at the last minute. Plan for the week ahead over the weekend. Sit down as a family and discuss what worked — and what didn't — the previous week. Then tweak as necessary.
Most important, be patient. These are unprecedented times for all of us. And while we have months of experience dealing with this pandemic, transitioning back to school has brought new challenges.
Try to shift your focus toward the perks of this experience. This is a rare moment in history when families can come together and spend a lot of quality time together. It could be a time of growth and transformation for your whole family.
Concerned about how your children are managing the pandemic? Help is available. To find a doctor or pediatrician at Henry Ford, visit henryford.com or call 1-800-HENRYFORD (436-7936).
Stacy Leatherwood Cannon, M.D., is a board-certified pediatrician and the physician champion for childhood wellness for Henry Ford LiveWell. She sees patients at Henry Ford Medical Centers in midtown Detroit and Sterling Heights. Learn more about Dr. Leatherwood Cannon
PHOTO: Novi's Abigail Pheiffer, a senior on the MHSAA Student Advisory Council, gets in some wall sits during a break in her day.
5 Strategies To Improve Range Of Motion
March 6, 2024
When it comes to health and fitness, regular exercise and strength training get the most attention. But it turns out that improving your range of motion may pay greater dividends, particularly over the long haul.
“All kinds of things can impact our range of motion,” says Jennifer Burnham, an athletic trainer at Henry Ford Health. “As we age, our joints become less pliable, but any kind of surgery or injury can also impact our range of motion. And if you're somebody who sits at a desk all day long, that can affect your range of motion as well.”
Why Is Improving Flexibility Important?
Staying active with regular cardiovascular exercise and strength training is a great way to maintain your overall physical health. But it’s important to remember that flexibility exercises come with plenty of perks, too, including:
- Preventing injury
- Staving off arthritis by lubricating joints and tissues
- Improving posture and balance
"Unfortunately, if you have limited range of motion, you may perform tasks incorrectly, causing other muscles and joints to overcompensate for the lack of mobility,” Burnham says. “Over time, that compensation mechanism can increase the risk of injury.”
To complicate matters, our lifestyles often don’t support our range of motion goals. Many of us spend most of our days sitting at a desk or hunched over a screen. And when we’re not sitting still, most of us are slouching.
What Are Some Ways To Improve Range Of Motion?
You don’t have to be able to twist your limbs into a pretzel to achieve full range of motion. Instead, try to improve on your current level of flexibility with these five simple strategies:
- Pay attention to timing. If you’re not ready to add a stretching day to your workout regimen, consider adding a set of flexibility exercises at the end of every session. Pre-workout stretching is helpful, too, but stretching when your muscles are warm is a more effective way to stave off injuries.
- Focus on mobility and stability. Even if you can do the splits or touch your toes to the back of your head, you won’t be able to hold the position if you don’t also have strong core muscles. “Most people do stabilizing exercises such as strength training and lifting weights without paying much attention to mobilizing activities like stretching and yoga,” Burnham says. “But you really need to do both stabilizing and flexibility exercises to get an effective workout.”
- Do a mix of dynamic and static stretches. Two types of stretches can help you gain an edge when it comes to improving range of motion: Dynamic (an active type of stretching where you’re moving within your range of motion) and static stretching (where you hold a stretch). Dynamic stretching with arm and head circles, side stretches, and hip circles before exercise is a good way to warm up cool muscles and help lubricate the joints. With static stretching such as touching your toes to stretch your hamstrings, the goal is to hold a position for 30 seconds or more. Static stretches are often best performed after a workout when your muscles are warm.
- Try foam rolling. Foam rollers act almost like a rolling pin to smooth out tight muscles. Used correctly, they can help improve range of motion — and release stress and tension. You can use foam rollers to prime your body for exercise, or to recover after a workout.
- Aim for balance. If one part of your body is super flexible, focus on increasing range of motion in the opposing muscle group. “So, for example, if your hamstrings are very flexible, make sure to target your quadriceps with flexibility exercises,” Burnham says. “The goal is to make sure you’re aiming for balancing in your body.”
While stretching is an important way to achieve and maintain balance, flexibility and range of motion, it isn’t always intuitive. Not sure where to begin? Consider meeting with a personal trainer or athletic trainer to help you devise a program.
“Watching YouTube videos can be helpful, but if you’ve never done flexibility exercises before, you could overstretch your muscles or find yourself in an incorrect position to stretch,” Burnham says. “And yes, you can create bodily injury by overstretching.”
To find a sports medicine provider at Henry Ford Health, visit henryford.com/sportsmedicine or call 313-651-1969.
Reviewed by Jennifer Burnham, MS, AT, ATC, CSCS, a certified athletic trainer at the Henry Ford Center for Athletic Medicine.