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Part of the care you give is helping parents create a safe, hazard-free environment for their children by discussing a variety of age-appropriate topics at health-maintenance visits. Yet, despite attention given by the national press to the threat of child abduction in recent years, little discussion has taken place about the role pediatricians can play in preventing abduction, as well as in facilitating retrieval of children who are taken. That's surprising, considering the traditional role we have assumed for children and their families.

What you see on the outside can provide valuable clues that all is not well on the inside. Here are some important signs to watch for.

In telling their story, children's books often paint vivid pictures of human emotions. Some single out happiness, anger, or depression, to name a few, as their obvious focus; others weave together these and other feelings to enhance the tales they tell.

Music, carefully selected, may reduce stress, enhance relaxation, offer distraction from pain, and even improve cognitive performance. So, should you be prescribing tunes for tots?

A Monday morning in September has come galloping in after a relatively quiet weekend, bringing with it to your office a 17-year-old Caucasian boy for evaluation of a developing rash on his hands and feet.

Lighten the winter doldrums with a selection of tried-and-true ideas to use in your practice—including a CLIA-waived test for detecting alien life!

Too often, confusion clouds the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in pediatric patients. To help ensure that these children get the treatment they desperately need, pediatricians must understand the unique way that this illness manifests in the young.

Children who are uncomfortable with their gender are often in distress and represent a source of tremendous anxiety to their parents. Consider your role in such cases to be one of helping the family adjust to and support their child's development with the goal of optimizing the outcome for parents and child.

A very smart 7-year-old girl in my practice has difficulty taking timed tests in school. Also, she is able to spell complicated words but sometimes has problems spelling simple words, such as "the," and may spell the word backward. What could explain these difficulties?

The father of two siblings in my practice—a 7-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy—is upset by the fact that their mother (from whom he is divorced) showers with the two children together. At what age is it no longer appropriate for a parent to shower with a child of the opposite sex, and for two opposite-sex siblings to shower or bathe together?

For the past few months, a 2-year-old in my practice has been smearing stool on herself and her crib almost every time she has a bowel movement. What can help stop this behavior?

Uptick in Medicare payments, threat to cut Medicaid reimbursement, and a possible booster dose of varicella vaccine

It's dark now when I go to work and dark when I drive home. But my home has walls and a roof, and it's warm.

How many times have you been frustrated trying to open a crying newborn's eye to evaluate red reflexes?

An index of articles in Contemporary Pediatrics in 2004, by author and by subject.

Gambling among youth is an underrecognized problem. To prevent serious consequences of this activity over the short term and during adulthood, the authors recommend that you screen patients for a gambling habit and refer those in whom you uncover cause for concern.