Tag Archives: growing pains

Do Growing Pains Really Exist?

Every once in a while, my eldest son will complain that he can’t sleep because his legs hurt. We will inspect his legs and other parts of his body to make sure that he isn’t ill or injured, and we come up with nothing. There is no redness, swelling, bruising or other outward signs of something wrong. Joints don’t make any noise and skin is in intact. It isn’t even time for school or a hated chore. What then could be wrong? When I was little, I remember my parents calling these growing pains, a mysterious pain, usually in the … Continue reading →

Dealing with Growing Pains

It’s not just a television sitcom from the 1980s! (I won’t mention my crush on Kirk Cameron, either!) Growing pains are actually a quite common phenomenon in children. I don’t remember suffering from them when I was a child — did you? Growing pains occur most often in the legs. They are often felt after strenuous play or exercise (maybe that’s why I didn’t have them — I wasn’t much of an athlete as a kid). A child may experience growing pains during two periods of development: between the ages of three and five and between the ages of eight … Continue reading →

Growing Pains

When you are a parent writing about parenting issues, sometimes you don’t have to go in search of topics to write about, they come to you. Take Sunday night for instance. It was about 11 PM and I was working on an article that’s not due until the end of January but I like to finish far in advance in case something happens. Anyway, Tyler cries out in pain that his legs are hurting “bad, bad, bad.” He was on the verge of tears and I could tell by the expression on his face that he wasn’t pretending. Since I … Continue reading →