The week's best parenting advice: June 28, 2022

How to time the COVID vaccine for little kids, the truth about the 'Mozart Effect,' and more

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1. How to time the COVID vaccine for little kids

The CDC is advising parents of young kids to vaccinate their children against COVID as soon as possible, but the decision is more complicated if the child has already been infected, writes Emily Oster in ParentData. The point of the vaccine is to prime the "immune system to respond to the virus if it encounters it in the wild" by prompting it to produce antibodies against the viral spike protein that will also train other parts of your immune system to fight the virus. Catching COVID does the same, and each infection or vaccine dose will improve your child's ability to fight the virus both now and later, so it does make sense to vaccinate them if they've already had the disease. But timing matters. "Multiple doses are more effective with more time between them. So if your child just had COVID last week, it likely makes sense to wait."

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Stephanie H. Murray

Stephanie H. Murray is a public policy researcher turned freelance writer.