The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

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What to do about CLIQUES

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By Margaret Mak

sad-girlNot all groups of friends are cliques, but cliques are those groups who purposely leave others out. This can be especially hurtful to school-age kids who are outside of the clique. To help these children deal with being on the fringe:

  • Remind them to stay open to friendships outside 
 of the clique.
  • If they really want to be friends with someone in the  clique, invite just that person over to hang out.
  • Most importantly, reassure them not to take it out on themselves. Encourage them to be confident, true to themselves AND be kind to everyone, not just a select few.

Margaret Mak is the Director of Eye Level Learning Center of Pleasantville, located at 71 Wheeler Avenue. Eye Level (formerly E.nopi) is a 30-year-old supplemental education program with a philosophy that every child has the potential to learn and master math, reading and writing. “We enable students to realize this potential by bringing the instructional materials to the eye-level of your child,” states Mak. For more information, please contact her at 914-741-0407 or email eyelevelpleasantville@gmail.com.

Three Important Dental Safety Tips!

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dentistDr. Alexandra Chan Katz in Chappaqua recommends:

  1. Bringing in your baby on his/her first birthday for a visit. “We do mommy/daddy lap exams! 
Get your baby to know us early on! No regrets !”
  2. A check up every six months for a cleaning and exam. Dr. Katz’s experienced staff will give you a “personalized demo” on “home care and maintenance.”
  3. Floss only the teeth you want to keep and floss them “the right way!” “Healthy gums are so important; we  will show you the safe way to brush with a 
soft brush and floss!”

For an appointment, call: 238-8552

Swimming Pool Safety Advice: A Must Read

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chris-poolsBy Christopher Carthy

The party line may be that parents must watch their children, but swimming pool safety is really about protecting young children when the unexpected happens. Nothing is better than a good fence around a pool with operable self-closing gates. After researching fatalities around the country, I almost always find fence protection was broken or nonexistent. I have built many pools where we fence the property line and not the pool so that there is no fence between the house and the pool. Homeowners sometimes request this for aesthetic reasons (preferring no gate to open from the back of the house), but honestly, it is not as safe as a fence that encompasses the pool area.

An automatic cover does provide a safe barrier when it is closed, but it is not the equivalent of a good fence because a cover can be left open. Automatic covers are expensive and require a fair amount of maintenance. However, they are wonderful for heat retention.

Pool alarms are rarely effective; I would not rely on them. Diving boards get a bad rap: I would argue a pool is safer with a diving board as it designates an area from which to dive. A correctly placed diving board on a correctly designed pool promotes safety. On the other hand, diving rocks are not safe. They typically protrude into the pool and present the risk of a swimmer hitting his head on the rock.

Anti-entrapment safety measures guard against the rare possibility of someone getting entrapped by the suction of a pump. To guard against entrapment, be sure all your suction ports have a good (if possible VGB compliant) cover.

Finally, kids should not stand on rafts in a pool or they may fall and hit the edge of the pool. Remember the lifeguard from your youth yelling “Don’t Run?” Well, it is true, running and pushing can be dangerous around a pool. Like many things, good common sense goes a long way toward a fun and safe pool.

Christopher Carthy is the principal of Pools Of Perfection in Armonk. He is a Certified Building Professional by the Association of Pool and Spa Professionals. Pools of Perfection has rendered many thousands of service calls in the last 25 years and have built magnificent poolscapes in the Armonk and Chappaqua community. For more info, email: ccarthy@PoolsOfPerfection.com or call 914-273-SWIM (7946)

How to Avoid Cuff Injuries

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By Matthew Marucci, PT, MSPT, OCS, CSCS

NCPT-Cuff-storyThe rotator cuff is a group of four muscles whose primary function is to stabilize the shoulder. Given the amount of mobility our shoulders afford us (painting a ceiling, scratching our back) stabilization is no small task. The shoulder’s stability also depends on the strength of muscles attached to our shoulder blades. For more literature on avoiding cuff injuries and videos of the exercises listed below, please visit New Castle Physical Therapy’s Facebook page.

Reach smartly. There are obvious limits to this concept, but just as you can lift with your knees to protect your back, you can alter the way you reach to protect your shoulders. Two simple modifications are reaching with your thumb facing up and getting as close to the target object as possible.

Keeping your thumb up when reaching makes it less likely your rotator cuff will impinge on the top of your shoulder blade. Moving closer to the target object or using a step stool can result in significantly less motion required from your shoulder.

Take breaks. No one enjoys washing windows or painting ceilings, so most of us try to work quickly. For repetitive tasks, minimize risk by making the movement as low stress as possible. Take breaks. Even well designed movements can fatigue your cuff over time and place it at risk for injury.

Know your body. Most people would stop a particular activity if they felt discomfort in their shoulder, but many are unaware that a large number of cuff injuries cause pain lower down the arm. Pain halfway down the outside of your arm can be a hallmark sign of a cuff injury, even in the absence of any additional shoulder pain. Perform each exercise here three times per week; three sets of 12 repetitions.

Scapular Retraction: Using a resistance band, gently squeeze your shoulder blades together, taking care not to shrug.

Using a light weight (2-3 lbs), lift your arms (with your thumbs up as if the weights are ice cream cones) to the height of your shoulders.

Side Lying External Rotation: Lie on your side with a small folded towel between your shoulder and side. With your elbow bent to 90 degrees lift the weight (2-3 lbs) from your stomach until your forearm is parallel to the ground.

Matthew Marucci, PT, MSPT, OCS, CSCS, a partner at New Castle Physical Therapy & Personal Training, is also Chair of the Hudson Valley District New York Physical Therapists Association. Visit www.newcastlept.net or call 914-488-5440

 

Safety and Beauty in Musical Expression

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Janet Angier
Janet Angier

As the long time director of Music in Chappaqua, Janet Angier’s approach is one of nurturing students and unleashing the creative eager to surface in every budding musician.

At Music in Chappaqua, that is accomplished in a safe, non judgmental environment. Imparting the rudiments of music and exploring avenues to musical enrichment do not have to rely on memorization and forced instruction, she insists. As such, Angier has cultivated the concept of teaching through a freer and more passive route to musical enlightenment.

“What I’ve seen in public schools and in the many generations that have passed through my teaching and school is that the way music is often taught through the written page, works for some, but not all,” Angier explains. She envisions one day articulating her alternative methodology to public school music teachers and hoping that they will embrace it as fervently as she has.

Accentuating the positive, rewarding successes along the way, and reveling in the joy of creating music supersedes traditional study for many and is their preferred route to fluency, she says. “I’d like an approach where the intellectual level is reduced and the ‘feeling’ is more embraced,” she adds. Allowing students to choose a few chords and give them a rhythm to play with can set them on the road to understanding and improvised creativity. “It’s instant gratification,” she adds.

Angier’s own visits to Nashville have confirmed her observations: “I’ve seen how they teach bluegrass and the same applies in such things as African drumming circles. The non-Western approaches are very successful, and socially based, rather than intellectually based. This could be very gratifying” if offered as an alternative in the regular public school music curriculum, she feels. Angier champions the idea of students relying on self-expression early on in their study, rather than waiting years for their teacher to say “Add expression.”

“In teaching, it’s important to notice the good things: What you see and what you focus on is what develops. If you notice what the student is doing right, they’ll notice that as well, and it will grow. I encourage everyone to see the good, and not to focus on the things that are not.”

For more information about registering, write to mail@musicinchappaqua.com, or call 914-238-3123