Januari 10, 2017
good morning everybody, andwelcome to the balancing act. we are so glad you joined usthis morning. i'm julie moran.and i'm olga villaverde. alright, do you know your creditscore? i actually do.i actually do. and if you don't, you should.it's easy to find out and it plays a really important role inyour financial well-being. it does.and when it comes to our children's well-being, there isnothing that we as parents
wouldn't do to save them.coming up, one family's fight to save their son from a rare bonedisease. theirs has been an emotionaljourney with a lasting legacy. you have to see this story.the balancing act starts right now.(music). quick.off the top of your head, what's your credit score?you're not sure? you're not alone.most of us just don't know what our credit score is or how tofind out.
what's worse, lots of us don'treally understand why a credit score is so important.well, all that's about to change this morning.we're going to welcome scott lascelles, chief marketingofficer for springleaf financial.good morning. good morning, olga.so let's talk about credit score and why it's important.i'm already talking to my children about it and they'reonly 11 and 13. your credit score impacts somany parts of your life people
aren't aware of.everyone knows it will impact you getting approved for a loan.you apply for a credit card, a car loan, you get a yes nodecision based on your credit score.it also impacts the rate you'll pay.the lower your credit, the higher our rate, but what peopledon't know is that it actually impacts whether a landlord isgoing to charge a larger deposit or not.when you get a cell phone, they ask for your social securitynumber, because they're puling a
credit bureau report.utility companies, even insurance companies indetermining your premium use your credit score.it's like a background check, and when i was growing up, mymom always used to say if you can't afford it, don't buy it.you don't want to be up to here in credit.you don't want to have a bad credit score, and i've lived bythat rule, and i think i've got a pretty good one.it's empowering for me to have a good score because i feel like ican go out there, get that loan,
and be trusted.absolutely. but, the reality is for mostamericans 50% of them can't raise $2000 in a month, so theyneed access to credit, and to get good credit, you need tomake sure you know what your credit score is, and you takecontrol of it. so, let's say i want to know mycredit score today. how would i find out, scott?actually, there's a really good website the government had thecredit agencies do. it's calledannualcreditreport.com and as
you can see, if you go there,you can actually get your credit report once a year from tu,equifax and experian, so a good strategy is to go to the websiteevery four months, and you can actually check three times ayear, to see what's going on with your credit report.so, i just plug in my information and for free, i getmy score and how i'm doing. absolutely.it's free. you just have to enter yourname, address, and social security number, and then whenyou log in, you can check to see
if that credit card was actuallyopened in your name, if there's any reporting errors, and ifyou're delinquent on any cards you weren't aware of.so, let's say the credit score is bad.you've been late on some payments, some tragedy hasoccurred. i'll give you an example: i havea family member that just got divorced, credit has gone downthe drain. then what?bad credit happens to good people.life happens.
it's not that it happens, it'show we deal with it. so, there's five things thatreally impact your credit score that you can do to focus on toimprove it. the first is your paymenthistory. paying your bills on time.i'd recommend enrolling yourself in on-time bill payments.so, it's the min-due is automatically paid on yourbills, so you're not late. that's difficult with managingyour finances, but it's very important.the second is how much debt or
utilization you have.the third is how long is your credit history.the fourth is credit mix. if you have an auto loan, acredit card. you want to have a few differenttypes on your credit bureau, and the last is how many inquiriesyou have. in other words, you don't wantto go out when you need credit and apply for three or fourloans at a time. that actually will hurt yourcredit score. and what are my options if ineed to apply for a loan and i
have bad credit.there's a lot of options. people have more options thanthey think. they don't have to take whateveris offered to them. so, you have options like usingyour car as collateral. getting a secured loan.what we do at springleaf is we sit down with our customers.we have 800 branches. over 5000 employees in thefield. they sit down with you andthey'll do a budget to see what you can afford and what type ofloan is right for you.
and to make sure you can pay itback. absolutely.we want to do business with people that can pay their bills,and that can pay us back, so we make sure you do have theability to pay. the other thing we do is have a7-day money back guarantee on your loan.there's no high-pressure sales with us.when you come in, if the loan wasn't right, you can return itwithin a week. the second thing is, in everybranch, we have a prominently
displayed customer bill ofrights, so you know that we're going to treat your properly andfairly, as we should. so, the bottom line.if you've got bad credit, and you can do a 180 and turn itback into good credit. absolutely.do business with a reputable company you trust.thank you so much, scott. i appreciate your time.if you would like to learn more, and learn more about your creditscore, or learn about loans, log onto thebalancingact.com.we've got all the information
there.you can also follow us on facebook and twitter.(music). (commercials).(music). (music).imagine your newborn baby being diagnosed with an extremely rarebone disease. then, being in a race againsttime waiting for a life saving bone marrow match for yourchild. well, that's exactly whathappened to my next guests. with us today are paul andbarbara wursten, and also
joining us is one of the expertson this disease, dr. paul orchard.good morning. good morning.thank you so much for being with me.thanks for having us. barbara, let me start with youand paul, what happened with ryan?tell me what happened when he was born.it was a normal pregnancy, a normal delivery, and shortlyafter he was born he was put into the nicu for beingjaundiced.
during that time, they just runa panel of blood work just as part of the process of being inthe nicu. it kept coming back that hiscalcium was low, and the doctors didn't know why.so, after about a week and a half, we had him transferred toanother teaching hospital, and it was there that between allthe experts and all the facets of the hospital, he wasdiagnosed with malignant infantile osteopetrosis.and paul, did you even know what that was, and were you soconfused at that moment, trying
to figure out what is this?at that point, the information we had been given was "pray thatit's not malignant infantile osteopetrosis" so we knew thatthe diagnosis was not a good one.we knew that there were two courses of action.they basically told us you can take ryan home and live throughthe inevitable, or you could put him through a bone marrowtransplant. and let's talk about that bonemarrow transplant, because i know it wasn't easy.he was a fighter.
he went through the bone marrowtransplant and he spent a month in the icu at boston children'shospital, fighting for his life every day, and we were told manytimes that this is it, and then he'd fight and he'd come aroundagain. he was known as the miracle babyin the hospital. did he ever get out of thehospital, paul? ultimately, yes.we had the second best christmas gift ever, when we were able totake him home on christmas eve. it was an awesome christmasmorning when we
were able to be able topick him up out of a crib in our own living room, as opposed toout of a hospital bed. and what happened afterchristmas? because of the bone marrowtransplant, your immune system is wiped out, so he wound upgetting an infection. we spent several days in ourlocal hospital, and then he got a little stronger again, andthen he got another infection which ultimately wound up takinghis life. i can't imagine your pain.how did you survive that?
i think, really, we leaned onour faith, largest. and each other, and had toaccept a new normal. doctor, let me bring you in.what is this disease? what did ryan have?ryan has severe malignant osteopetrosis, or smo.it's also known as malignant infantile osteopetrosis, ormiop. it's a rare, inherited, bonedisease. we don't, ordinarily, think ofbone as being a dynamic tissue, but it really is.there are cells that are making
bone.there are cells that are taking bone away, and so that's howbone is remodeled and we grow and bones assume their normalshape. the cells that take bone awayare called osteoclasts, and in this disease, those cells don'twork. you have an imbalance of bonedensity. you make bone, but you can'ttake it away. the bones become very dense,very hard, and they're easy to fracture.one of the most important pieces
is that bone marrow cavity,which is where you make all your blood, isn't created, becausethe cells can't do that, and so most of these children run intoproblems with not being able to make blood cells, and so most ofthe babies die, actually by the time they are 10 or so.pretty rare, doctor? it's a very rare disease, soit's about 1 in 200,000 babies are born with osteopetrosisevery year. is it hereditary?it is. so, it's a recessive disease,meaning the parents are
carriers, and they would have noway of knowing they're carriers for the disease.it's a 1 in 4 chance that any baby born to a couple that arecarriers of osteopetrosis would have a baby with the disease.doctor, i want to talk more about the disease, so we'll becoming back in just a few moments to learn more about hisrare disease, which is so critical to bring awareness tothis morning, so stay with us. (music).(commercials). (music).welcome back to the balancing
act.we're rejoined by a remarkable couple.paul and barbara wursten, who just shared their story of theirson ryan, who fought to survive a rare disease, but passed awayat six months old. also, joining me again is dr.paul orchard, one of the foremost experts on this raredisease. doctor, let's talk a little bitmore about this disease. diagnosis must be so important,and getting that diagnosis quick, as well.is it?
absolutely.so, olga, if we have a diagnosis earlier, as a bone marrowtransplant specialist, it helps us be more effective in terms ofgetting the transplant done. it also helps minimize thecomplications because a number of these children are affectedby the disease in ways that are irreversible.so, for instance, overgrowth of the bone can affect the nerves,and a lot of the children end up being blind very early in life.some of them lose their hearing, and those things, even iftransplant works well, you don't
get those things back.and once you do that, doctor, is there treatment available todaythat can help delay the disease progression?well, olga, the definitive therapy is still bone marrowtransplantation. however, there is a drug that isfda approved to delay the time to disease progression inpatients with severe malignant osteopetrosis.it's called interferon gamma 1b, or actimmune.so, it may be that the use of interferon, in association withbone marrow transplant is going
to make therapy more effective.it really hasn't been studied at this point, and it's somethingwe're very interested in doing. what about side effects?well, the patients that are older and can describe whatthey're experiencing, describe flu-like symptoms?so, sometimes there's fevers, muscle aches, those types ofthings. patients that have neurologicproblems, cardiac problems, may have difficulties with the drugas well. in the babies, we follow liverfunction tests to make sure
there aren't any issues there.barbara, i want to bring you back in.i know he fought, so hard, and i know you continue to rememberhim every day through a wonderful foundation that youstarted. can you talk to us about that,and share, maybe how that has helped you get through this?we've started the ryan wursten miop foundation in ryan'smemory, and it is a way for us to fight to keep his memoryalive. we have partnered with dr.orchard, as well as helping some
families who need some financialassistance while they're going through the bone marrowtransplant process. i also want to share with ourviewers, another joy that you have in your life, you adoptedan 8-month-old baby. his name is alex.how old is alex today? he is seven years old.he is a wonderful, amazing child.he's from kazakhstan, and we just love him to pieces.he's a thrill ride at heart, and he loves his big brother andloves to talk about him and help
with fundraisers.you do talk about ryan? we do.we sure do, and he talks about him daily, about his bigbrother, and that he can't wait to meet him again.thank you so much for sharing your story.god bless you, and alex. doctor, thank you so much forbringing this to our awareness this morning.we do appreciate your time. absolutely.you can log onto curemiop.org or compassforpatients.com oractimmune.com and of course,
thebalancingact.com for moreinformation on today's segment. so, what can you say in 140characters? a lot, so let's get social.join the conversation, follow us on twitter @thebalancingact.tv.(music). enrolling your little ones inearly childhood learning or day care is more than a conveniencefor today's moms and dads. it's also an important part oftheir development. and new research shows thatquality early childhood learning also has long term benefitsincluding improved physical
health in adulthood.and joining us on the balancing act is dr. elanna yalow, ceo ofkindercare early learning program.and dr. yalow, i'm so glad you are with us this morning.good morning julie and thank you so much for having me here.absolutely and you know choosing an early childhood learningcenter is a big decision for parents, right?it absolutely is a big decision for parents.it really, early childhood education sets the foundationfor a child's success in school
and later life.what a lot of parents don't realize is that 70 percent ofbrain development actually occurs by the time a child isthree years of age. and it really develops the wholechild. cognitively, physically,socially, and emotionally. so, what do parents really needto know when they are evaluating the quality of a learningcenter? that's a great question becauseit's such an important decision for parents.the first thing that i would
always encourage parents tothink about is that they are really the experts when it comesto their child. they are the ones that know bestif something feels right for their child and their family.so you start with how the center feels and then you kind of lookat some minimal standards and there's licensing standards thatlook at basic health and safety of the center but then you wantto look at whether or not the center is clean and neat andorganized. and does it really feel likecomfortable and inviting place
for your child.then you want to look at the teachers and the children andsee if they are actively engaged with each other and if it feelslike a really warm, inviting environment.and then you want to look around and make sure that it feels likethe children are going to have an enriched learning experienceat the center. but once you get past thoseminimal standards then we like to look at something callednational accreditation and it's really a great system that'sbeen developed already where
outside experts come in andactually validate the quality of the program.so, you are really counting on them to help assure you that thecenter is meeting the highest standards of excellence.and what's great about that is, it gives you an extra set ofeyes on the program to tell you that it's the best place foryour child. so good to know and what elseare our children really learning at that early age?oh, children in that earlier ages are really getting thefoundation that they need for
success and future life.and they are learning how to think and how to speak and howto interact with others. there's a really importantprocess called serve and return that we really talk about as oneof the foundational elements .. i want to stop you right there.serve and return. explain that to me in detail.what do you mean when you say that?so, serve and return is a process of interaction betweenyoung children and really responsive adults.just to go into a little bit of
brain science.i kind of apologize for that. but a child's brain circuitry isactually being developed in their earliest stages and it'sdeveloped based on the interaction between a responsiveadult and a young child. think of it as a game of pingpong or tennis. it's back and forth interactionbetween a child and an adult. let me give you an example, evena young child before they can speak they might be cooing orbabbling or pointing and then the adult actually responds andthey look at where the child is
pointing and they talk to thechild and then the child smiles or responds.this back and forth, back and forth or i bet you may haveexperienced this one, with an older child.yes. the child asks you a questionand you respond, you give them the answer and what does thechild say? the child says why?why? (laughs).i've heard that one. from my two daughters all thetime.
all the time.and you answer and then they say, why again.right. that's actually serve andreturn. it's that children questioningand really they are trying to engage the brain through thatprocess. so, kindercare is actually thenations largest and leading provider of high quality earlylearning centers for young children.nation wide, we have about 1400 locations.we have the privilege of serving
about 160 thousand childrenevery day. wow.fantastic. infant through school age.yes, we're so proud of that. and we have over 800 centersthat are currently nationally accredited and the rest of ourcenters are in the process of getting accredited as we speak.we're so very very proud of that.well, you are just passionate and i love that.and i want to know what you do at kindercare and a little bitmore about you.
i have a phd in educationalpsychology from stanford university, the graduate schoolof education there. and at kindercare, i have thegreat privilege of working on developing all of oureducational programs for our young children.and i also get to work on supporting our qualityinitiatives and the professional development of our teachers.and one really exciting thing that we are doing now is we areactually working with the states to see how children fromkindercare do when they go into
school and enter kindergarten.and what we are finding is that children who attended kindercareactually out perform their peers who didn't attend our programs.so, we are so excited to learn, that's a great statistic.yeah. yes, and do you have children aswell? i do.i have two young men now. two sons.and i really wish i knew what knew then when i was raisingthem about early childhood development and braindevelopment.
i hear you.i feel the same way with my two daughters.but it was so great to have you on the show.this is such an important topic and thank you for joining ustoday. thank you so much julie.it's been great to be with you. alright and you want to learnmore? log on to thebalancingact.comalso find us on facebook/thebalancingactfans(music). thanks for being with us today,and for starting your morning
with the balancing act.and i'm still so moved by ryan's legacy, julie, and his parents.they are helping raise awareness and support.all children and families living with that rare disease, godbless them and for what they do. god bless them, absolutely.there's always lots more on the website thebalancingact.com.we're also on facebook and twitter.until next time. remember, find your balance.so long everybody.
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