Mamabear

November 23, 2014November 23, 2014

Flu Season Is Here. Are You Prepared?

Catching the flu is a real pain. First there is the physical pain or even worse watching your child go through it. Learn how to protect your health and your wallet.

by Robyn Spoto

Catching the flu is a real pain. First there is the physical pain that comes with the fever, headache, body chills, and nausea — which is even worse when you are watching your child go through it.

Then there is the financial pain that comes with paying for expensive treatment, doctor’s appointments, and prescriptions. Depending on the type of health insurance you have, paying out-of-pocket expenses for treating the flu can quickly add up.

My son recently had the flu and his doctor prescribed him Tamiflu to treat it. The cost — $250. That cost was doubled when the doctor also prescribed a preventive prescription for my other son. It was an $800 day after appointments and medicine. I was prepared with contributions to my health savings account as I haven’t yet met my insurance plan’s deductible for a co-pay. However, my heart broke thinking about the families that aren’t covered with health insurance to cover the expense.

Protect Your Health: Get Flu Shots for Your Family

Stop the flu before it happens by taking each member of your family to get a preventative flu shot. The flu vaccine causes antibodies to develop in the body which provides protection against the infection. So when you get a flu shot, you substantially decrease the likelihood that you will catch the flu.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that any person over the age of six months get a flu vaccine every season. The associated risks with flu shots are small, and despite what many think, you cannot get a case of the flu from a flu shot.

Many pharmacies and doctor’s offices offer inexpensive, easy-to-administer flu shots that are readily available. It’s a quick and effective way to protect your family from the physical pains of flu season.

Protect Your Wallet: Enroll in a Financially Responsible Insurance Plan

Plan for health care costs before they happen by enrolling your family a financially responsible health insurance plan that will not drain your wallet in the event that one of your family members gets sick.

Compare plans that make sense for your family.

With a co-pay plan, you only pay for a portion of the cost of treatment but a higher monthly fee. So a prescription that costs $250 could cost you $100, $30, or with some plans, even no cost at all.

With a plan that requires you meet a deductible, you pay the full cost of treatment (until you reach your out-of-pocket limit). A plan with with a high deductible may be cheaper per month than a plan with a low co-pay, but remember to factor in the extra expenses you may incur during the year given your family’s health needs.

Be aware of co-pay and deductible rates when shopping for a new health care plan for 2015, and educate yourself on the available plans by using marketplaces and exchanges to compare rates. Healthcare.gov is not the only available health insurance marketplace.

We’ve partnered with ACA Insurance Services, to offer a variety of affordable family plans that can increase the health of your family and your wallet. Open enrollment for 2015 plans has begun. Educate yourself and save money.

November 17, 2014

MamaBear 4.0 Connects The Family

We recently released a new update to MamaBear in the Google Play and iTunes stores with a focus on connecting the family. Prior to app version 4.0 the child’s view of the app was a separate interface with limited check in features. Our family empathy research and your feedback lead us to redesign the child view so all family members have a similar experience with a desire to find each other and share custom messages and images with their check ins.

Check out the new features of MamaBear 4.0:

A redesign for the kids in the family

A news feed of their own compiles messages and check ins.
Kids can check in with a custom messages, a selfie or choose from a new set of emoticons.
Now with a map view, kids have a chance to see all family members’ location.

Optional guardian location sharing

Guardians in the family can turn location sharing on and off to be included on the family map view for all family members.

You may have also noticed, we’ve been adding digital parenting news and resources to your news feed to help keep you in the know. And that’s just the beginning. Our mission to connect families is full steam ahead as we build on these features in upcoming releases. You’ll love what we have in store. Visit the Google Play and iTunes store to update or if you’re on auto-update, open the app and explore what’s new.

November 14, 2014

What #AlexFromTarget Can Teach Your Kids

A few weeks ago Alex Lee was a normal, 16-year-old high school student working at Target. He was an average social media user and had 144 Twitter followers.

But with one unsolicited photo and a catchy hashtag, Alex is now “internet famous.” He has over 70,000 Twitter followers, appeared on the Ellen Degeneres show, and has fans waiting in his line at Target to capture their own selfie with #AlexFromTarget.

Alex’s fame, like his photo, was unsolicited. He was merely going through the motions of a normal day when 15-year-old Brooklyn Reiff captured his photo and Tweeted it to her friend. Brooklyn didn’t plan on the photo going viral, but it did.

Alex’s photo along with the hashtag #AlexFromTarget was retweeted 800,000 times.

And while this may sound like an exciting situation for the teenagers, it brings up some pretty scary implications about what can happen through the power of the Internet. It also brings to light some important social media lessons that parents should share with their kids.

The world can see what you share on the Internet. Brooklyn didn’t plan on making Alex an online star. She meant to share his photo with her friend, not the world. But because she used a non-private account on Twitter, her photo was available to everyone. Kids and teens need to realize that the content they share has the potential to be seen by thousands of others and that mass-exposure has its negatives.
Over-exposure on the Internet isn’t always a good thing. Kids may look at Alex and Brooklyn and desire the same sort of online fame, but they need to know that online exposure isn’t always as good as it looks. This level of exposure comes with security issues. The world now knows Brooklyn and Alex’s full names, along with Alex’s place of employment. Strangers are lined up to see Alex at Target and Brooklyn has already received inappropriate attention from online strangers. Kids need to realize that online social sites aren’t for finding fame or connecting with strangers. They are for connecting with known family and friends.
Be mindful of the privacy of others. We focus on telling our kids to be mindful of the details, photos, and information they share about themselves. But we also need to make them aware of the information they share about others. They need to understand that they could attract unwanted attention and danger to others when they post their photos without their permission.
Not everything you see on the Internet is true. After the news of this story broke, an online marketing company Breakr made claims that they triggered the spread of #AlexFromTarget as part of a viral social media campaign. The story gained traction and began spreading around the Internet as a popular story — until the story was deemed false. Alex’s photo was in fact organically spread around the Internet without any marketing push. We need to remind our children of this fact, and make sure they know they can’t believe everything they see online.

Related: The Dangers of Talking to Strangers Online

The power of social media users is large and profound. We should teach our children to use that power fairly, responsibly, and maturely in order to protect themselves and those around them.

Are you unsure of how your teens and kids are using social media? Use the MamaBear App (available for iPhones and Andriods) to connect with your children’s social media accounts so you can be sure they are appropriately using their online platforms.

November 5, 2014November 5, 2014

Selfie Boom: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Wondering how the "selfie" became a social epidemic? Get the fact here.

The following post is a guest blog from Amy K. Williams. Amy is a journalist specializing in parenting, social issues and communication. She lives in Southern California, where she spends her time writing, cooking and volunteering. You can follow Amy on Twitter at: @AmyKWilliams1

As parents, we could have never conceived that taking photos of yourself and uploading them online would turn into a hugely popular trend…. But for kids and young adults today, it has, in the form of “selfies.” Selfies first became popular during the days of MySpace, but they really took off when the iPhone 4 was released in 2010 with a front-facing camera. Aside from being slightly obnoxious, is there anything really wrong with this fad?

According to the infographic below, there seem to be some mixed opinions on the subject. While there are those who believe selfies promote a healthy self-image, others think that frequently snapping photos of oneself only breeds narcissism and a preoccupation with self. So which is it?

At the end of the day, it comes down to your child and knowing what they’re like. If you find that selfies are instigating poor personality traits, it might be time to have a little chat and let your child know some of the drawbacks of this trend. Because unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon.