(Parenting.com) -- It's understandable that parents want to keep their children's environments clean, especially when kids are young. Moms wash bottles in hot water, clean pacifiers that fall on the ground and take dirty things out of their kids' mouths.

But overall, when it comes to germs, most people have it backward: With relatively few exceptions, they are good for our kids.

Keeping things clean is smart, but going crazy using antibacterial hand soaps, buying antibacterial kids' toys and other products and overusing antibiotic medications is actually killing off the microbes that can help strengthen the immune system.

Antibacterial products may help to reduce some infections, but they also promote the growth of drug-resistant organisms and weaken the good bacteria within us. Rather than focus on killing germs, we need to think about how to encourage their growth.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/famil...tml?hpt=hp_bn6