Organic Food Recommended for Children
I recently came across this video featuring fellow pediatrician Dr Harvey Karp, who describes the benefits of organic food for kids and babies. There are many reasons why it is a good idea for parents to consider this option for their whole family’s dietary intake.
All of us are exposed to toxins and chemicals in our environment and the food supply available to us through non-organic sources is likely to have measurable amounts of pesticides, growth hormones, and even antibiotics.
I agree with Dr Karp that it makes so much sense to pay attention to what we are putting into our bodies and the quality of our food choices. I also want to re-emphasize the point that because children are smaller in size, being exposed to pesticides and toxins for them is much more problematic and has a more concentrated effect than in an adult.
In addition, as Dr Karp mentions in the video, time is of the essence because kids have many more years of growth and life expectancy in general, and it is the cumulative effect of chemicals and other environmental pollutants that can have long lasting implications for your child.
Watch the video and leave your comments below. Do you buy organic food for your family? Let me know what you think.
Thanks for coming back to visit my blog. If you like the content I have here, let all your friends know and make sure you send me your questions and comments.
Online Course for Parents
I am pleased to introduce my new online course for parents called Energy Medicine 101 for Parents. This 12 part course includes the 7 secret principles I discuss on my audio CD of the same name and the 10 energy medicine principles I first revealed as part of my book called Energy Medicine Principles for Parents.
The first 3 lessons are available for you to preview right now in the members area of my site. I want this experience to be interactive as well as educational for you, so go ahead and check it out and let me know what you think by leaving your comments and feedback after each lesson.
I know that as a parent you are pressed for time, have multiple things to contend with on a daily basis, and yet you have questions that you’d like answered for the benefit of your child and family. This course attempts to answer some of those questions you may have and I have based the content on themes and topics that come up in my conversations I have with parents in my office practice.
The course is set up to allow you to go through the material at your own pace, and the majority of the lessons are given in both audio and text formats for you to choose from. A list of the topics covered in each lesson are given on this page with more details on the course.
I hope that you will find the information I have to give you to be useful, understandable and relevant to your child’s situation. Are you ready to give it a try? Preview the First Lesson Now
Parenting Tips: You Set The Rules
The next parenting tip I have for you is that you set the rules. You as the parent should have free reign to “set the rules” of your household and family. After all, this is in keeping with how the real world works. We all have to follow
certain rules to maintain order in our society. If the following of rules can be practiced by your whole family, it will make your lives much easier and less confrontational.
Key Points about RULES for your family:
- Follow the rules rather than enforcing your will.
- This is a key component that teaches respect for following rules.
- Example of the “training run” to the store.
- Direct experience of the consequences, not talking about them.
- You get to side-step the confrontation.
Let’s look at an example. If you are having difficulty with the kids
acting out in the car while you’re driving, make a new rule which says if
the kids are misbehaving in the car, you will turn the car around and go
back home. It is important to schedule “training runs” when you really
don’t have to go shopping or run errands but specifically designate a
time to drive to a location just like you normally would. When the kids
act up, immediately turn the car around and head home, with the
statement that the rule was broken, and therefore the result is you all
go home.
This as an event will be imprinted in your child’s memory banks, and even if you have to repeat this exercise many times, it will eventually lead to a resetting of the behaviors your kids will exhibit in the car. By direct experience, they will associate misbehaving in the car with having to go back home. You really don’t need to say very much if this action takes place on a consistent basis. In this way, you are working with the learning process of your child and giving them plenty of practice.
One last point to make on this is that now the confrontation stance is between your child and “the rules”, not you personally as the parent. If you can maintain neutrality in the interaction, you will see a dramatic decrease in the friction between you and your child.
In fact, you can take the same side as your child and empathize with the fact that they must follow the rules and perhaps things will turn out better next time. Now both of you will be working together the next time you’re in the car, to do what you can to prevent the rule from being invoked in the first place. Try this out and see how much it can help you and your family.
Three Keys for Parents
The three keys I think all parents should know and use in their daily routines are awareness, context and education in that order. These three topics outline three skills that you can practice in order to benefit your child. They spell out the acronym ‘ACE’, making it easy to remember.
|
Let’s look at the first one called awareness. There are so many things that remain hidden or below our level of awareness. While it is true we live in a time of hustle and bustle, stress is perceived as par for the course, and kids have daily routines that bounce from here to there, I believe it all comes down to an awareness of what the reality is from your child’s point of view. If we can be aware of the actual perceived feelings, thoughts, visual and auditory cues your child is receiving in realtime, then we have a chance at understanding and helping them to cope with this world we are living in.
The second key is context. I delve into this topic in much more detail when I am conversing with parents in my office but suffice it to say the contextual framework has so much importance I cannot emphasize it enough. In medicine, we have a tendency to zero in on lab values, physical symptoms, and visible parameters. What I want to focus on is the context of your child’s situation. We have to take into account the surrounding environment, family dynamics, school situation, peer group interactions, and a whole host of other categories that make up the context of what your child is experiencing every day. Once we open up this framework and explore these topics, any condition or situation becomes much more understandable to all concerned.
Finally, I want to touch on education. We all know how important education is to kids for their overall growth and development. What I want to remind parents about is the importance of education beyond the classroom. What I mean is, your child has life lessons to learn at various stages and ages during their lives. Since many of these are long term and ongoing topics like developing individuality, self reliance, self confidence and self esteem, and personal interactivity and rapport with others, they tend to get the short end of the stick when it comes to our focus and attention. But by educating ourselves (you and me included) we can be in the best position possible to help your child through their formative and very important growing years. I guess what I’m trying to say is keep learning, exploring, contrasting and comparing what you know to what you don’t know yet. I believe this is the best stance to model for your kids and the nice side effect is it will keep you young at heart and constantly engaged in your child’s daily life, even after they are all grown up and on their own.
So remember these three keys with the acronym ACE: Awareness, Context and Education. I know it will help you as it has helped me to learn new things every day as a holistic physician and pediatrician.
Parenting Tips: Emphasizing Contrast
Another tip I often discuss with parents is the concept of “contrast”. This really refers to the idea that by contrasting what has happened in the past with what is happening now, you are making it easier for your child’s nervous system settings to stay up to date. The main points I like to make with parents regarding this particular tip include the following:
Emphasizing Contrast:
1. This is an important way of demonstrating to your child
the remarkable progress they have already made.2. It also reinforces the stage of development they are in
which “contrasts” with what came before.3. Ideally, this leads to the “letting go” of old, outdated, or
no longer relevant settings.4. Broadcast the right messages to be helpful, knowing
your child is receiving them all the time.
What I mean by this is, you can make statements about what your child used to do in the past, and how now they are able to do something different and probably better and more in keeping with their current age.
For example, as a parent you might say “I remember when you used to have trouble sleeping by yourself, but now that you’re older you can sleep by yourself every night!” Another example might be to say, “I remember when you had to use training wheels on your bike, but now you can ride so well without them because your balance is so good!”
Arc of Change for Your Child
By making these statements, you are describing the arc of change your child has gone through. It is truly remarkable to see the gains your child has made over a short period of time. Why not acknowledge and emphasize this for them? Ideally, this leads to the “letting go” of old, outdated, or no longer relevant settings.
I have had the experience of seeing some kids who have trouble moving forward in their development, not because they or their body and underlying system doesn’t know what to do, but because they feel an inhibition or a reluctance to adapt to the changes required of them based on the feeling of not being able to let go of their more familiar, previously appropriate settings. The shorter way to say this is: some kids don’t deal with changes very well, and it is up to us and especially you to help them move through their period of adjustment.
Parental Broadcasting
Another aspect of this idea of “contrast” I want to mention is the fact that in the energy medicine way of thinking, this information can arrive in your child’s consciousness in more ways than one. Not only can you present this by making statements, but you can also do the same thing by projecting your thoughts and feelings.
This broadcasting of your energy in the form of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and your attitude is happening all the time anyway. Most people are just not aware of this fact. I want to bring this to your attention so that you can make use of it. This is particularly important for the non-verbal or preverbal child, and for those kids that have a heightened level of intuition or energy sensitivity.
Have Confidence Using This New Perspective
As an aside, this understanding comes from an energy medicine perspective, something I did not learn about or have the awareness to see in my practice back when I was a primary care pediatrician. This is one of the reasons why I have such an interest in getting this information out to parents right now.
So have confidence that your child is actively receiving information from you all the time. Now you can make sure they are “receiving” the messages and inputs that you want for them, using techniques like emphasizing contrast for your child as part of your ongoing role as a parent giving them reinforcement and encouragement.
For more tips on other topics and techniques, find out more about my 8 Tips for Parents.
Parenting Tips: Giving Choices
The next tip I want to discuss is giving choices. This is another tip taken from my 8 Tips for Parents.This is a very important concept that really begins from the time a baby is born and can be used throughout childhood and adolescence as part of a holistic pediatric approach to your child.
Giving Choices Accomplishes the Following:
1. Gives your child plenty of opportunities to practice this important skill of decision making.
2. Gives them a sense of identity and individuality through this process.
3. Helps with the long term goal of building self esteem.
4. Lays the foundation, and builds a track record of choices made and their outcomes.
5. Empowers your child and gives you some control at the same time.
All kids need to make choices and learn the difference between making individual decisions and complying with others. You want your kids to have plenty of practice at this so that by the time they reach their teenage years they will be well versed at making good choices.
This gives them a sense of their own identity and individuality. In addition, the consequences of making good choices will reflect on their own self esteem, and the consequences of making bad or poor choices will lead to learning valuable lessons so as not to repeat them again.
This lays the foundation and builds a track record of the choices they have made and their outcomes which is stored in their own memory banks. These choices are what they will refer back to over the course of their whole lives as they live, grow and learn more.
I usually recommend giving choices as early as possible. This serves the dual purpose of giving practice for the child, and it gives them an outlet to exert their own will power. Of course, in reality, you are the one who is giving the list of choices to choose from, but the overall feeling of making a choice can be very empowering for your child. It fulfills an important developmental need and it doesn’t require you to have to exert your own will power over your child’s.
This is an invaluable tactic when you’re trying to navigate through the preschool and early childhood years; when testing the limits of acceptable behavior and your patience are pushed to their maximums.
An example of giving choices might be asking, “Which of these three outfits do you want to wear to school today?” or maybe asking, “Do you want to help me clean up the kitchen, or help me vacuum the living room?”
In other situations, it may be more appropriate to give time windows as choices like, “Do you want to do your homework before dinner or after dinner?” Another one might be “Do you want to do your chores before school or after school?” I’m sure you can think of an infinite number of ways to use this technique. I highly recommend that you use it frequently.
For more information about my approach to holistic pediatrics,
visit this page on the Principles for Parents website called Your Healthy Child.
Parenting Tips: Foreshadowing for Your Child
I wrote my 8 Tips for Parents piece a while ago, and I just wanted to share one of those 8 tips today called, “Foreshadowing”. I borrowed this literary term to describe the exercise of narrating the future for your child. This is basically a technique that gives your child something to shoot for. In other words, it gives them a direction or a pathway to follow, and the advantageous part of this is that you are the one leading the way.
There is no doubt that parental expectations can be a powerful motivator especially in the early years. In the energy medicine system, this foreshadowing is happening all the time, and can be very useful if it is harnessed and used correctly.
Let’s take an example of preparing for school. This is a significant milestone around age 5. It includes the novelty of school with its rules, order, and social scene. At the same time it involves the necessary
absence of you as the parent, as your child enters the long process of becoming educated through the school system. By foreshadowing what will happen when your child enters school for the first time, you can essentially prepare them in advance. This can take the form of statements directly to your child or to others. It can take the form of actions, like visiting the school itself, going to the playground, or maybe meeting teachers or the principal. These preparatory steps are basically foreshadowing for your child what school will be like.
I often recommend that parents make statements like, “I wonder what you’re going to learn in kindergarten?” or “How many friends do you think you’ll make in your first month of school?” These types of statements foreshadow the positive aspects of the upcoming scenario and they can make it much easier for your child to make this important adjustment.
Here are three things I want you to remember about this topic called foreshadowing:
1. Foreshadowing allows your child to get in sync with your expectations of the future.
2. This means they have something to shoot for, or a pathway to follow.
3. Foreshadowing is best used with open ended, nonchalant, “I wonder” type of statements and questions.
Another very important tip is to use what I call “gossiping”. If your child hears you talking to someone else about them, their ears are sure to perk up. In the energy medicine way of looking at your child, this can happen even if your child is too young to understand what you’re saying. The typical scenario would be if you are talking on the phone to grandma, and you mention something about your child by name. Something like “Guess how well Bobby is doing in school?”, or “You should see how fast Bobby is learning to read!”. These statements directed at other people but particularly extended family members can be like gold.
If you make use of this technique, I am optimistic that you will see your child responding to new situations or previously stress provoking ones in a more calm and confident manner. So keep foreshadowing in mind as a technique you can use whenever you see an opportunity to prepare your child for the near or the distant future. Give it a try, and let me know what kind of results you get.
If you liked this tip, you may want to know the other seven included in my 8 Tips for Parents here.
Raising Intuitive Children
There is a new book out called “Raising Intuitive Children” by Tara Paterson and Caron Goode, Ed. D. I believe this is a much needed topic of discussion, especially with the nature and characteristics of kids growing up in today’s world. This is a short video clip from a news program highlighting one of the authors, Tara Paterson.
The book details how kids are naturally intuitive. Another word used often to describe these kids is “sensitive” and I have seen many children in my practice who fit this characteristic. In the energy medicine way of looking at a child, we must take into account the dynamics of their degree of sensitivity because it often leads to energy expenditures that might be better utilized elsewhere in the child’s system.
When parents are aware of how their kids are affected by both internal and external influences, they can then take actions to explain and buffer these energetic impacts on them.
I’m very encouraged and grateful that more and more people are addressing this issue and using multiple media outlets to get the word out.
If you’d like to find out more about the authors of this book, explore this site called Parenting Intuitives.
If you have an intuitive child, share your experience with other readers below.
Parental Wisdom
I had the pleasure of speaking with the Founder of Parental Wisdom.com, Lisa Nocera, and I must say we are on the same wavelength.
Her site uses a patented format to field questions anonymously from parents and then matches them up with experts who can give relevant answers. The key is that you as parents have the ability to receive multiple responses to the same question, thereby enabling you to choose which one fits best with your point of view and philosophy.
I think this is a great idea and it is sorely needed in our current fast paced culture and world. I believe it is especially needed when it comes to parenting advice and I couldn’t agree more with Lisa when she says,
Parenting is the ultimate in on the job training, with no qualifications required or formal training program. And let’s not forget that each child is unique. That means what worked for one child, won’t necessarily work for the next child. Every parent with more than one child knows that!
Parental Wisdom was created because kids don’t come with manuals® they never have, never will, because you can’t write a manual on a work in progress.
I highly recommend that you become a member and get the free benefits of having access to multiple experts. Click here to visit the ParentalWisdom website.
8 Tips for Parents
I just put my “8 Tips for Parents” available to download on the home page of Principles for Parents. These tips are more related to energy medicine principles and how to use them in parenting your kids. Some examples include techniques like “foreshadowing”, “contrast”, and “practice”. These are taken from conversations I’ve had with parents over the past several years.
I think this will give you an idea of my style and philosophy when it comes to energy medicine and your child. When you receive the download email, you can choose to watch the short video/slide show or listen to the mp3 audio file. You may also download the ebook and read it as a pdf file. Click here to go to the page where you can download it from my Principles for Parents site. Hope you enjoy it!
UPDATE: Please note the 8 Tips for Parents is no longer available on the Principles for Parents home page. Instead I have an excerpt from my new ebook available now. The 8 Tips for Parents will be included with the purchase of my new ebook as a bonus, or you can get it separately from the multimedia store page on Principles for Parents.
Thanks!
Dr Pete
