Problem: Article: Ticks like tall grasses, wooded areas, and shrubs. Walk in the center of hiking trails to avoid brushing up against tick infested areas. Pants and long sleeves can protect your from ever having to deal with tick bites. Tuck your pants into your socks or boots to prevent them from crawling up under your clothes. This is the most effect barrier against tick bites. Avoiding the noise, eyes, and mouth, spray your skin with DEET every 2-3 hours to avoid bites. If you can’t use DEET, some naturalists swear by 2-3 drops of strong smelling Rose Geranium oil as a natural repellent. This chemical is too toxic to put directly on the skin, but it creates a barrier against ticks that lasts through up to 5-6 washings. Clothes that are advertised as “tick-repellent” are coated in permethrin.  Many ticks will be on your body for several hours before biting. Wash off with soap and water to remove them and easily see if any have already bitten you. Ticks can get into clothing and bite you anywhere, so be sure to check under the arms, behind the ears and knees, and in any hair. Perform this check as soon after leaving the woods as possible. Any ticks trapped in your clothing will die in the drier. Using high heat, dry your clothes for at least an hour to get rid of any remaining ticks.
Summary: Know common tick-infested areas. Wear long clothing while hiking. Use insect repellent with 20-30% DEET on exposed skin. Coat clothes, tents and equipment in 5% permethrin. Never apply permethrin directly to your skin. Bath or shower shortly after returning indoors. Use a mirror or a friend to check your entire body for ticks. Tumble dry your clothes on high-heat to kill ticks.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: If your child says something negative about his or her body, don’t ignore it or brush it off. Instead, discuss it. Ask your child why he or she is concerned about the body, and why it matters. Talk about why your child feels this way. If your child says a comment about being fat, ask him why he thinks this way. Who told him? Should he believe this person? Why or why not? Is it important what this person thinks? What does your child think? If your child experiences criticism about his or her looks, help put it in perspective. Help your child work through hurt feelings, then examine the comment further. Brainstorm how to handle comments in the future and how to stick up for other kids that may experience similar comments. If your child gets teased at school for her weight, assure your child that this was a mean comment and provide comfort for her. With your child, ask why some people say mean things. Then, together think of things she can respond with in the future, or how to respond to defending someone else. Teach your child to express what is hurtful in the statement. Teach your child to say to a bully, “It’s wrong to tease someone and it can hurt their feelings. Whether you like the way someone looks or not doesn’t change who that person is, and reflects more about you being mean than who the other person. is.” Teach your children that celebrities are paid to look a certain way and not everyone looks like them. Show your children that magazines often use airbrushing and editing to make people look flawless. Remind them that comparing their bodies to those of celebrities is silly, and that photo editing is often used to sell products. Remind kids that celebrities and professional athletes have teams of people to help them look and perform a certain way. Athletes often have special trainers and nutritionists to help keep their bodies in optimal shape. Celebrities sometimes change their bodies for certain roles they play for a movie or tv show. These people pay others to help them maintain their image, which is unrealistic for most people. Encourage media that displays positive body image. Avoid tv shows, magazines, movies, and music that are not body positive. If something comes along, take the opportunity to talk about it with your child. Ask your child why it’s harmful to show this kind of behavior on tv or in a magazine. Ask what kind of effect it can have on people, and how that can be harmful. If you have a young child, it’s harder to have these discussions. Instead, simply say, “I don’t like this program because it hurts how women see their bodies. I’m going to change the channel.” Don’t allow children to think there is one “ideal” body shape. Remind kids that every body is different, and those differences are okay.  Look at people that deviate from the “ideal” image, and talk about how they influence society positively. Instead of looking at images of celebrities, talk about people with roles in government, religion, environmental groups, and health organizations, and discuss how their bodies don’t affect their ability to do good work.  If your child likes to play with dolls, let your child play with toys that celebrate body diversity. Choose dolls with different body size, skin color, hair color, eye color, and hair texture. Take a look around your community and notice how different people look: people have different eye colors, hair colors, hair textures and lengths, clothing styles, skin colors, and body shapes. Remind your kids that these differences are okay. Remind your children that their bodies have changed a lot since they were babies, and all their changes are okay. As their bodies continue to grow, these changes are okay, too.

SUMMARY: Don’t ignore negative comments from your child. Help kids work through negative comments. Teach about the media. Look for alternative media. Emphasize different body shapes.

In one sentence, describe what the following article is about: This is important because once you have a good idea of what's behind it, you can select a solution that is more likely to work. Perhaps there is an issue of you not liking some classes but loving others. This can result in feeling bored during the dull classes but feeling energized when you're interested in the topic.  Is the subject matter too hard? Sometimes boredom is a way of deflecting the need to work harder or to ask for help. Is the subject matter too easy? If you feel that you've been there, done that and want to be challenged a lot more, you will be bored really easily. Is the class using a teaching method you find uninspiring? For example, the use of worksheets all the time can lead to boredom because nothing else is used to mix up the variety. There are times when you just want to be bored because you can't be bothered with the class. It's that simple, and you need to ask yourself if that is the best approach to your learning and future.
Summary:
Find out what is driving your boredom. Consider whether you're bored in all classes, or just some. Decide when you've made a choice to be bored.