It is time for Parents to Take Charge!
By Sandy Gluckman PhD
Let’s begin by exploring four startling statements based on the newest research. Here goes:
- Chronic stress is the No. 1 disease in children today. It is also the most ignored condition in children, and therefore, the most potentially dangerous.
- 95% of all learning, behavior and mood conditions that children are experiencing are triggered by, and made worse by stress.
- We have been misled to believe that when children have a learning, behavior or mood problem, they have a ‘disorder’. This ‘disorder’ is given a name and the child is given a medication. This is incorrect! Learning, behavior or mood problems that children experience are not disorders – they are symptoms of stress.
- When we identify and treat the underlying stress triggers, the child’s learning and behavior issues are significantly improved and, in many cases reversed. The biggest problem is that mainstream medicine is drugging the symptoms instead of identifying and removing the stress.
Now, more than ever, it is time for parents to take charge!
This is a highly pressurized world, and as a parent, you will need to equip yourself with the very latest information and skills that will help you prevent, and heal, stress-related conditions in your children.
“Okay”, you might be saying, “so what exactly should I do”?
Begin by understanding that if your child has attention, behavior or mood issues, this suggests that your child experiences life as stressful. This stress has begun to create an emotional and physiological reaction that is throwing your child’s wonderful spirit and body out of balance. In other words, your child has a hurting body and a hurting spirit. And both must be treated together.
Take Charge of Healing your Child’s Spirit
As parents we are all so focused on finding ways to help our children overcome their challenges that we forget to take care of ourselves. This is why on a plane you are instructed that in the case of an emergency you must put your own oxygen mask on first before you are able to help your child. A great deal of the stress of kids today is, unintentionally, caused, or aggravated, by parents who are stressed. So if you think the child is unaware that you are stressed, think again. They feel your stress and this affects their spirits, bodies and brains.
What is the point rushing around to psychologists, nutritionists, speech therapists, doctors and other kinds of therapists, hoping to find a solution to the child’s problems, when they are going to get back into your car and absorb your stress?
So if you want to heal your child’s hurting spirit, you must reduce your own stress first. Learn Stress reducing skills. There are many wonderful, easy-to-do tools that you can include as a regular part of your daily interaction with your child. As you use these fun tools each day with your child, both you and your child are stimulating healthy, anti-stress chemicals in your body and brain. All you need is a total of 20 minutes every day – five minutes, four times a day. Not only are you stimulating healthy chemicals but you are also building a stress-less relationship with your kids. This will make a huge difference to their lives!
Take Charge of healing your Child’s Body
While you are healing your kids spirit at home in this way, you also want to discover if there are underlying physiological issues causing stress in your child’s body. You would want to find the right healthcare professionals who give you answers to some vital questions such as:
- Does my child have food allergies and food sensitivities?
- Does he/she have any vitamin deficiencies?
- Is my child’s body absorbing and digesting food correctly?
- Are there toxins in my child’s body?
- Is there bacteria, fungus, yeast, worms?
- Are there indications of heavy metals, mercury, lead, mold and others in my child’s body?
- Is my Child’s Body Detoxifying correctly?
- Is my child showing signs of adrenal exhaustion?
Any of these issues in the child’s body can interfere with the child’s ability to learn and focus and can cause all kinds of negative behaviors.
Parents, your children need you to be their strongest advocate. They need you to Take Charge! and be updated and educated and fully informed. They need you to invest time in learning all about the role of stress and how this is impacting their lives. Above all they need you to have the skills that will enable you to play a significant role in preventing and healing the terrible effects of stress, which are reaching epidemic proportions!
In her Take Charge! Workshops Dr. Sandy Gluckman teaches parents and educators easy to use tools that will help children’s bodies heal from the inside, with little or no use of medication.
