Are your kids ready to take adult pain relievers? It's all about their weight, not their age

Several months ago, I was at an out-of-town soccer tournament with my older daughter when my nine-year-old came to me with a headache. We were on a soccer field, the first of two games for the day, and I had nothing but a few Advil that I usually have tucked away in my purse.

Could I give her one? I wasn't sure. It seemed likely. She's close to five feet tall. But I ended up giving her some water and finding a store with some children's ibuprofen instead.

"It depends on their weight," Dr. Collazo tells me. "We always dose it based on their weight, not by their age. There are kids who are 10 years old who could be the size of a 16-year-old."

Here's the rule of thumb, she said:

Children who weigh 50 pounds can take 200 mg of acetaminophen (AKA Tylenol) or ibuprofen (AKA Advil or Motrin). That's typically a single tablet or pill.

Children who weigh 100 pounds can take two of those 200 mg tablets for a total of 400 mg of the medication.

If kids aren't crazy about swallowing a pill, Collazo recommends having them swallow it with the help of a liquid yogurt.

"The thicker the liquid, the better usually," she said. "It kind of masks it, so you don't feel it going down. If there's a chewable option, I usually go for that."

If you're looking for other options, a friend, whose child had to take pills for an illness, had her kids practice by swallowing Tic Tacs.

While you never want to see your child in pain, there's one thing parents should never give their kids, said Collazo, and that's aspirin or anything with aspirin, such as Pepto Bismol. Skip anything with aspirin or its chemical name, acetylsalicylic acid, she said.

"If they happen to have the flu, it could cause Reye's Syndrome," she said. The illness can cause so much damage to the liver that a child may need a liver transplant.