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Parents need to re-think how they deal with medications in the home. In our new book, The Mother's Checklist of Drug Prevention, we went so far as to suggest: Maybe we should start calling the medicine chest the "potential to kill my children drug overdose, addiction, and death locker" instead, and see if attitudes about the compounds kept there change. Below is a section about medications from our new book: Establish a Pattern: Medicine and OTC Drugs Talk to your children about the fact that medicines are drugs, and that we don't need to be afraid of them, but we do need to respect their powers to help and to harm. Make it a rule: Your children are not allowed to take any medicine, no matter what kind, unless you know about it and have given permission for it to be used. Teach your children to check for expiration dates. This includes commonly used medications like Tylenol, Advil and Aleve, etc. If you take expired medicine, it might not work as well as it should, which could lead to more frequent or larger doses than are safe. Some medicines, such as tetracycline, become toxic after the expiration date. Teach your children the importance of following the directions that come with medications. As a first step: You know that folded piece of paper you pull out of the box and immediately chuck into the garbage? Stop doing that! There is a wealth of information about dosage and safe use on it that you should take the time to read. At a minimum, you should read all sections that have anything to do with dose, safety, warnings, dangers, and especially a section called "contraindications," which warns you about other drugs, foods, and beverages that should not be taken at the same time the medicine is used. If your children are too young to read, at least let them see and hear you read the directions aloud. Teach them to follow directions for medicine to the letter. We know it's really hard to stand by and watch your children suffer when they are sick or in pain, but for young children, sometimes the medicine is worse than the symptoms. In the past few years, the FDA has issued numerous warnings directing parents to stop using cold medications for children under the age of two. Thousands of emergency room visits and dozens of deaths have been reported as a result of reactions to these medications. In 2011, new FDA warnings also cautioned against the use of solutions or gels which contain benzocaine on children under two, due to the risk of a rare but possibly fatal condition that limits the amount of oxygen their red blood cells can carry. The most commonly used medicines of this type are drops used to reduce the pain associated with teething in infants. Talk to your children about the dangers of sharing medications, either by taking medicine intended for others or by giving medicine intended for them to other children. Reading labels doesn't stop at medicines. Help your children to read and understand other labels as well. Energy drinks are currently not required to list the amount of caffeine they contain, although some do in an effort to draw in people looking for a big jolt of caffeine. Labels on foods list ingredients by their predominance, with the highest percentages first, so if sugar, high fructose corn syrup or other sugary ingredients are high up on the list, you can be pretty sure it's not health food. Kelly also adds in her classes on reading labels, "If you can't pronounce it, you should think twice about putting it in your mouth." | 
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