Parents

Sports can help teens discover their mental and physical strengths and begin building physical activity habits that contribute to a lifetime of healthy behavior. Annual sports physicals are important in order to reduce risk of physical injury during organized sports. These physicals contain two parts. First is a pre-participation questionnaire, followed by the actual physical exam. School sports physical forms are required to be completed annually after May 1st for participation in sports during the next academic year. The annual requirement prompts the athlete to be reevaluated regularly to ensure his or her risk for injury has not changed from the previous year.

The Children's Clinic also uses the sports physical appointment to conduct a comprehensive adolescent health exam including screening for mental health issues, educating on healthy relationships, monitoring for chronic diseases, and providing immunizations. This more comprehensive exam is why we encourage teens to get their sports physicals at the Children's Clinics rather than doing it at the big sports physical days hosted by other clinics in the community who are focused in those moments on the more narrow requirements the schools ask about.

We generally send all of our labs that cannot be analyzed at the Children's Clinic to the laboratory at St. Vincent Healthcare. While our providers will set up a plan with you for communicating results, many parents like to review results in MyChart on their own time. Unfortunately, labs run at St. V's will not show up in the Children's Clinic MyChart. As a result, please call your Children's Clinic provider to discuss results.

These developmental screening questionnaires help us see whether your child is at risk for problems, now or in the future, and if so, what to do next. The screening tools we use also give you a chance to talk to your child’s provider about what you need to know as a parent, how you are coping as a parent, and how you are doing as a family. The questions we will ask are important because they assist us in helping your child to become as successful as possible in school and in life.

The American Academy of Pediatrics is working to ensure this service will become fully covered by all insurers and Medicaid. However, if you do receive our bill for screenings after denial of the claim by your insurer, please understand how important this service is to your child’s well-being.

We are here to support you as you support your adolescent and begin preparing them for adulthood. It is critical that teens learn how to talk to a healthcare provider about health issues. Like most things, learning any skill is best done by practicing over time.

The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly recommends that adolescents have the opportunity to discuss their healthcare privately with their provider. We follow this practice. Children's Clinic providers typically ask parents/caregivers to step out of the exam room for a portion of your adolescent's exam starting at age 12. We are not here to take the place of a parent or guardian or to get your teen to talk behind your back. However, this one-on-one time gives adolescents an opportunity to take some degree of ownership over their own medical care and helps transition them to young adulthood (hopefully instead of just nodding “yes” or mumbling “no” to a series of questions!).  It also gives adolescents the opportunity to share information about their health that they may not yet feel comfortable talking to parents about, but are important issues for their healthcare provider to know about to provide good care.

We know it can be uncomfortable not being part of a portion of the visit. We, as pediatric providers, fully acknowledge that parents know their kids best, and the last thing we want to do is undermine that relationship. This is why we want you to continue to be part of your kids' care. And we always encourage strong communication between adolescents and their parents, no matter how uncomfortable the topic may be for them to discuss with you. Furthermore, we often provide coaching during that one-on-one time with the adolescent on how to talk to their parents about their health and what's on their mind. However, if adolescents don't have time to talk with a trusted provider openly, we may miss the chance to give the advice, information, tests, and treatment that they need to stay safe and healthy.

What rights does your teen have to confidentiality? Confidentiality means that your teen may discuss issues with us that we will keep private. Legally adolescents have a right to confidentiality in regards to reproductive health care. However, we encourage interactions within the family and encourage teens to discuss serious issues with their parents. We offer to help facilitate this if necessary. It is also important to understand that issues of serious consequence such as suicidal and/or homicidal thoughts and abusive relationships will always be shared with parents.

Check out this great handout from the CDC on what parents can do to support their teens as they begin to build their skills at taking care of themselves and taking charge of their healthcare. It encourages preparing yourself, preparing your teen, and partnering with your teen's provider so that-- together-- we can all look out for your teen's health and well being

We strongly support immunizations for all teens and believe that immunizing patients is the most important act we perform as pediatric healthcare providers.

Please take a moment to review our Immunization Schedule as well as check out the reliable information we have gathered and shared from trusted sources on our Immunizations tab.