How Is Your Sun Blocking IQ? Do you know how to protect your skin from the sun and skin cancer as well? Why should you worry about too much sun? Can you help your family know how to protect themselves?
As the statistics continue to accumulate about the dangers of being in the sun are you realizing that staying safe is up to you? Are you working towards good and safe resolutions for your families and yourself to stay healthy and safe when out in the sun’s rays?
There is help for you for taking care of your family’s skin and protecting all of you from too much sun. Sure, we know most of us enjoy some time in the sun, but do you know how long is safe?
How your family can enjoy the sun, and still stay safe from sunburn? What is available to help protect everyone’s skin from too much sun?
When you add to this the facts about the thinning Ozone layer, does this make you aware that we need to find a way to take care of our skin and that of our families?
We do have a starting place by being able to use sun blocking clothing, including sunglasses and correct sunscreen use. Using these tools, you will find your family better protected. Skin Cancer
There are so many ways to have fun and get good exercise in the sunshine. We all want to live healthy lives. Does the sun make it impossible to stay healthy and enjoy being outdoors?
We know that things are different for our kids than it was for us. So, some things are changing. How do we go about making ourselves aware of what we should be doing for ourselves and our families?
What is your risk for sunburn?
How Long Can I Stay In The Sun With Sunscreen?
Do You know Your risk for sunburn? If your bare skin normally starts to turn pink when it has no sunscreen on it, in about 20 minutes, your risk of sunburn will be at about 40 minutes. Your sun hat and sunglasses should go on as you go out the door. Protect your skin from early aging.
A broad-spectrum sunscreen with at least an SPF Of 30 should allow you to be out about 90 minutes, providing you apply the sunscreen thoroughly. Applying a new layer of sunscreen in 90 minutes does not guarantee that you can stay out for another 90 minutes, without a sunburn.
Your body can only safely handle limited amounts of direct sunshine. Help your sun blocking IQ. improve
To stay safe in the sun, you must know your personal risk for sunburn. after your safe time is up, it is time for your long sleeve loose-fitting shirt.
Your kids need to learn to play outdoors with their sunhats on. Our faces get so much reflection even wearing a wide brim hat and sunscreen. That still leaves the hours in the vehicle driving, back and forth in and out of the house and buildings as we go about our day. A hat to protect your face will keep some of the dangerous sun off your face.
In my part of the world, here in central Texas, the bright sun is a very real part of every day. It is simply a lifestyle choice to protect you and your family from the sun.
Are My Kids Safe In The Sun?
Just because your kids are your children, they may not be able to take as much direct sun as you can. They are younger, and their skin is not as tough as yours. They may also have a different skin color from you, with different risk factors.
Do you or your kids have dark-colored eyes? Or do red-heads or blondes with green or blue eyes live in your household? We all have different risk factors. Each individual family member’s risk should be considered to make sure everyone in the family stays safe from sunburn.
So, have you figured out your personal risk? You should not have your children who are under the age of 12 months in the sun at all. They still have baby skin, and sunscreen is not safe for their skin yet. They can not protect themselves. Keep your little ones sheltered and out of the direct sun between the hours of 10 AM and 4 PM.
The hotter times of the day are just too dangerous for your younger kids. They do need sun blocking clothing, a hat, sunglasses, and long sleeves and pants to be safe when they reach 12 months. Even the reflections can cause damage quickly. Stay alert to your youngster’s skin. How does it look?
Are the younger members of your family too hot? Their body’s system may not be ready to do the job of keeping them cool enough to stay safe. A baby can have a heat-related injury just as adults can. We should keep them in deep shade or indoors during the hotter sunnier time of the day.
Being safe under a shelter so they do not have to have clothing keeping them too warm, is usually much better for the younger members of your family.
Who in your family will be the most at risk for sunburn when your family has a fun day in the sun?
Who Is Most At Risk For Sunburn In Your Family?
Health Tip: Risk Factors for Sunburn
- Babies and young children have skin that is more sensitive than adult skin, so they are more likely to be badly sunburned if unprotected.
- People with fair skin are more likely to get a sunburn than people with darker skin — although all skin types and complexions can burn.
- The Senior citiens of your family are also at very high sunburn risk. Their bodies often have conditions that make it difficult to cool themselves properly.
You must be alert to how the heat is affecting you. You can’t help others stay safe as effectively if you allow yourself to get too overheated, or sunburned. Staying alert to help others is harder to do when you are not well yourself.
What Can You Do To Improve My Sun Blocking IQ?
To be able to help your family stay healthy in the world we live in today we have to make ourselves aware. You need to be aware of the amount of direct sun your family is getting.
What is your family doing that has them in the direct sunlight? Do they participate in structured and scheduled activities times?
Is it possible to request a different time when there is less danger of getting too much sun? Can the practice times be changed, even if the actual game times can’t? A concerned parent’s voice raised at the meeting times can make more difference than you think.
Even if those ball games can’t be rescheduled, the practice times often can. As your child gets older and involved in more sports, these practice times will add up to more time in the sun for your child. More time for you as a parent waiting through practice time, out in the sun.
You do have a voice, and you can ask for consideration in this matter. It is important and will be more so as time goes by and your child has repeated exposures. Skin cancer is a result of continued exposure to the sun.
I Put On Sunscreen, So I Am Safe From Sunburn
Yes, you should be safe from sunburn for a short while. Forget all day, you probably should not consider yourself safe, over 90 minutes, if that long. Sunscreen is easily sweated off, rubbed off, dissolved in water. It is not a sure bet that you can have extra long times in the sun, and not sunburn.
How long can you be safe in the sun? Here is a bit from the skin cancer website, skin cancer. org:
6 different Doctors recommend applying one full ounce or about 2 tablespoons of sunscreen to the exposed body. The more body you have exposed, the more sunscreen you will need. Apply sunscreen 30 minutes before going out into the sun.
When should you apply another application of sunscreen?
a. After one hour outside?
b. After one hour outside on especially
sunny days?
c. After two hours outside?
Remember you are protecting yourself from early aging as well as sunburn. Apply sunscreen often when you aren’t wearing a sun hat.
At what age do doctors consider it OK to use sunscreen on your youngest family members?
a. 9 months
b. 1 year
c. 2 years
Should I Be Worried About My Sunburn?
Should I be worried about my sunburn, I don’t feel very good. But really it is just a sunburn.
Yes, it may be “just a sunburn” but sunburns are dangerous. Not only is your health involved, but a sunburn brings you one step closer to the danger of skin cancer and melanoma.
Talk with a doctor for sunburn treatment if:
Your sunburn is severe, which means you have blisters on your skin full of fluid. If the blisters cover a large portion of your body, seeing a doctor is important.
It will be hard to wear clothing on the blister-covered portion of your body for several days. With more places to make open sores, the more places you will have for infection.
Even if you don’t have blisters yet if your sunburn is accompanied by a high fever, headache. Is the pain more than uncomfortable, but you are in severe pain? Are you dealing with dehydration? Are you also dealing with confusion, nausea, or chills? Get a friend to drive you for medical care.
Sunburns do usually get better but take a good while. Even with a Doctor’s care, you may be in bed for a few days. Get the care you need so that you can be assured that along with the sunburn you didn’t suffer from heatstroke. The two conditions can be dangerous together and often occur during the same time period.
Get checked out and have the medications you need to heal properly and safely.
A reminder of what to watch for:
- The sunburn is severe, with blisters, and covers a large portion of your body.
- Your sunburn is accompanied by a high fever, headache, severe pain, dehydration, confusion, nausea or chills.
- If you’ve developed a skin infection, indicated by swelling, pus or red streaks leading from the blisters.
- You tried to care for yourself and your sunburn just doesn’t respond to at-home care. You may need some additional medical care.
Your doctor may feel that you need corticosteroid cream for your sunburn or a short course of prednisone if you have a severe case involving large areas of your body. Antibiotics are most often not required unless you develop an infection.
Share Awareness With Your Family
Sun Danger Awareness is a shared responsibility. Your family can learn to be more sun conscious. I doubt you will get to turn all the sun safety over to your family, but you can share. Just like learning about other important parts of life while growing up, they can learn about sun safety. You can be the educator and trainer
Families can help each other remember the safety rules and about leaving on their sun blocking hats, sunglasses, and loose-fitting long sleeve shirts.
Kids are quick to help with younger siblings as well. You are the parent, and a helpful youngster who knows the sun safe rules will be helpful.
What About Your Younger Kids
Becoming aware of the dangers of too much sun exposure and considering how to keep your family safe, your younger kids, and playtime comes to mind. Having time to just play outside is important for your kids.
Unstructured playtime is how they learn to be independent. Your child will probably take a toy truck out the door and be in the sandbox for a bit. However, if your kids are like mine, they will soon abandon their toy truck for a stick, or a rock. They may put a rock on the swing seat and push it to watch it fall.
Free-range play is important. This is all a part of imagination development or idea growing that will help your family meet challenges in their lives.
When they get so involved in their play, sun awareness is just not on their minds. This is why you as a parent will need to stay alert. If they develop protective habits as they leave the shade and protection of the house, your child will be more ready for longer playtimes in the sun.
Children Model Your Behaviour
Some kids like to grab a cap or hat when they get ready to leave the house, just like Dad. This is a cute thing, wanting to be like Dad, but can often be an easy way to get a good habit started.
The one thing that was always the “fly in the ointment” was that my son couldn’t always find his hat! Finally, an acquaintance stated the obvious, “If he had a place to put his hat, he could find it!” Adding a hat rack only makes sense!
It also keeps the hat in better shape than being at the bottom of the toy box or behind his bed. There are many things that we as parents can do to help our kids build good habits to protect themselves from too much sun.
If you have a designated place for the hat, the sunglasses, even the sunscreen, you can find them quickly and be out the door. As your kids are maturing to the point that a bit of outdoor play is Ok, teaching them good habits makes the job easier.
Something as simple as a hat rack, a box, or a basket with their sun protection gear is important. So, in your awareness plan, where will you start to help your family have good sun protection habits?
Sunglasses For Your Kids
The problems of sunglasses with kids do get easier as they get more accustomed to wearing them. Just like with the hat that they grab when they see you grab yours, the sunglasses is one that will have to work on.
They need a place to put their sunglasses when they take them off. The most practical solutions are that Mom or Dad has them. With a parent to make sure they are worn, that they are kept safe, there is less chance the sunglasses will get lost, left, or broken.
Now the other part of this is, to make sure the parent who took them last has a place for them. If you only have one child, a Mom’s vehicle pair, a Dad’s vehicle pair, and a house pair may make sense.
If you have several children, this may seem a bit over the top. However, you are teaching them to protect their eyes! This is a step that is worth the effort.
My kids had skin cancer surgery because I was not careful about teaching and helping them learn to protect themselves from the sun. I had cataract surgery because I know about sunglasses protection.
As your children will be living in a time of a thinner Ozone layer, it is important to take care of this part of their education. Their training. How will you get things lined out to help your kids? How will you teach them to protect themselves from too much sun?
Sunburn The New Smoking?
One thing that kind of struck home to me as I was getting some information ready for this post, trying to decide if anyone really cared. The scientist said that sun exposure could be compared to smoking.!
All scientific information points to sun exposure being the blame for skin cancer. Yes, CANCER! Yet, few seem to be taking this information and doing anything with it.
Just like with smoking. Blamed for most lung cancer that occurs. Yet we have those die-hard smokers! A socially banned practice that makes you sneak out of the general population to a spot to smoke. Is this the behavior you would have your kids and teens emulating? Sneaking out to smoke after meals?
I really had not had this perspective before. Yes, allowing your family to be in the sun unprotected is like allowing a 6-year-old to pick up a cigarette. You are allowing a habit to develop that is proven dangerous to their health and welfare.
Awareness
Parents face many unhealthy influences when raising their families. I have no idea how you will resolve all the issues that you will have.
I am hoping to make you aware of the dangers of too much sun exposure and how it can harm your family. You will be able to make some changes in how you live your daily life and the health of your family.
Sami’s Take On How Is Your Sun Blocking IQ
As I have often stated, my sun blocking IQ was nonexistent while my family was growing up. We didn’t seem to even possess common sense. The kids are paying dearly.
As I have learned to be more careful, and they have to because of experiences in the dermatologist’s office! Sunblocking clothing and sunscreen help us protect our skin now. We attempt to make some wiser lifestyle choices as well. Which we didn’t earlier.
With our younger grandchildren, we try for wiser hours to be out. We use sun blocking clothing and sunscreen as well.
Hopefully, their lives will not be spent in and out of the skin doctors’ offices. Living a life with no fun in the sun isn’t what we want for them. We do want them to know how to take better care of themselves.
Have you gotten your sun blocking wardrobe together? Do you wear your sunhat and sunshades when you go out?