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.

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Energy: A New Term to Help Your Child

Energy is the new “common currency”

Along with this new time that we are living in, it is apparent that we need a new language or new terminology to describe what is happening in as close to realistic terms as possible. Only in this way can we have a meaningful and productive discussion. I propose that we use the term “energy” as our common currency of information exchange.

The previous method of using physical components like chemicals, hormones, anatomical and physiological words to describe what is happening in our physical systems including your child’s body and mind; they have simply become obsolete. Even in the rigorous halls of academia, the descriptions of what is actually going on in our bodies has had to undergo a radical shift in perspective and consequently nomenclature.

I believe we are in a profound period of transition, and it will not be easy to reconcile or even understand the meaning of this change in real time. This is even more compounded by the fact that your child is changing on a daily basis, and the methods and strategies that may have worked yesterday will no longer work or even apply today. In my experience, simply changing to “energy” as our common denominator can make a huge difference in how we evaluate, describe, and come up with strategies to treat your child.

I see kids in my practice for varied reasons and at varying times in their development. I have learned over the years, that the energy medicine system provides a wonderful and comprehensive framework to work within and to better describe what’s happening with your child. Let’s look at an example.

A child presents with new onset allergies to grass and pollens at age 10. This is not that unusual, but the circumstances reveal that this child has not had any major changes in living situation, routine, school, relationships, etc., so the question that must be asked is, “Why is this happening to this child now?”.

I think this is a legitimate question, given the fact that he did not have allergies in the first ten years of life. This is where the energy medicine system comes in very handy. This child experienced a fearful event in the winter, just prior to developing these springtime allergies. What was that event? He needed to have surgery and stayed in the hospital for 5 days.

From an energy perspective, this has tremendous meaning. Do we think this child’s energy system is more likely to pay attention to an event like having surgery and being away from home for 5 days, or is it more likely to keep the immune system in balance so as not to over-react to environmental allergens like grass and pollens as he had done for the previous 10 years?

It turns out that in the Chinese medicine system, the same reservoir of energy required to deal with fear and fear-provoking events is responsible for the health and maintenance of your child’s immune system. In accordance with the principle of balance, a disturbance in the immune system or any other body subsystem can take the form of over-reaction or excess (like allergic responses) or under-performance and deficiency (like having a weakened constitution and predisposition to getting sick and catching colds frequently).

Again, I just want to emphasize the framework and the context which this perspective and viewpoint provides both to the practitioner trying to help the child and family, and to the parent who can appreciate and understand the activity of their child’s system in a new way.

Perhaps the most valuable result of this way of looking at any child’s situation, is that it shows how logical and conservation and preservation oriented the body and energy system really is, as opposed to a random series of events and misfortunes that a child has to endure.

Once we switch to using the child’s energy system and describing energy related functions, now we have moved into the territory of energy medicine and the term “energy” being used in the context of distribution and decision-making by the child’s own intelligent underlying system.

Do you see how the onset of allergies is much easier to comprehend and explain in this context? This allows us to not only address the new symptoms that have appeared for this child, but we can simultaneously focus on the underlying part of his energy system that could use some re-balancing or strengthening right now. It is much easier and better to tackle certain issues sooner rather than later. I think everyone can identify with this concept, once it is put into terms we can understand and agree on.

I believe it is extremely useful to use “energy” as a new medical term and as a systematic way to explain what otherwise would likely never come to the awareness of parents, practitioners, or children themselves. I have been amazed at how useful this way of thinking about symptoms, disorders and diseases is for me as a doctor who works with kids and their families. I encourage parents to learn more about this approach to evaluating what’s going on with their children.

Energy Medicine Principles for Parents Ebook Released

My new ebook called Energy Medicine Principles for Parents was just released this week. I am very grateful to all those who contributed to the completion of this project. Even though it took me a little over a year, I feel very satisfied with the outcome and the final product. I want to say a special thank you to Dr John Veltheim, the founder of the BodyTalk System, who graciously wrote the foreward to the book, and who has paved the way for many people to understand and utilize energy medicine in new and exciting ways.

My goal with this book is to provide parents with an introduction and a working understanding of what I define as energy medicine and why I think it is so important. As a pediatrician and holistic physician, I have spent the better part of the last 10 years devoting myself to learning and putting into practice the energy medicine modalities I mention in the book. They are: The BodyTalk System, acupuncture point stimulation techniques (with and without needles), essential oils used mostly topically, and other supplementation strategies.

Many people wonder why a board certified pediatrician like me would choose to change his practice into one of holistic or alternative methods only. My response is that I do not reject the western medical model or its utility, I simply prefer to practice in such a way that I am able to provide what I think is the best, most comprehensive approach for my patients and families. My opinion is that ideally, all families have access and an openness to all modalities which may be of benefit to them. I generally see my role as an adjunct or a complement to a person’s healthcare team, not as a stand alone substitute.

I believe that the energy medicine paradigm provides an extremely useful framework to discuss and manage those aspects of pediatric symptoms and conditions that are outside of the diagnostic parameters available today. When I practiced primary care pediatrics in the past, there were many times when no diagnosis could be given, and no treatment offered, simply because the child’s condition or presentation was outside of what conventional medicine could categorize and differentiate. This does not mean that conventional approaches are all bad or all wrong, it just means they are incomplete.

With energy as our common currency and as a way to describe and interpret what’s going on with a child and their family, a whole new vista is opened and made accessible and workable to me as a doctor, and to the families I am working with to try and help.

Getting back to the book, there are 4 parts and a final section where parents can get into action right away.
Part 1: Energy Medicine Principles – ten energy medicine principles I think all parents should know about
Part 2: The treatment process and the BodyTalk system
Part 3: Pediatric applications discussed by age range
Part 4: Energy Medicine Synthesis – 3 case studies of different conditions and age groups
The last section is called “What you can do for your child right now!”

If you would like to read a short excerpt from the book, you may download it from my homepage on PrinciplesForParents.com.

If you would like more details about the contents of the book itself and the bonus materials, you may read more about my Energy Medicine Principles for Parents Ebook here.

As always, I welcome your questions or comments on the book or any other topics.

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.

What’s Age Got To Do With It?

I’ve started to put up pages on my website Principles for Parents that address the different age ranges that your child is likely to be in right now.

One of the things I have learned in my practice is just how important your child’s age is as far as how they view the world, themselves, and their life experiences. I’ve started with the prenatal time period and I’m now moving into the toddler age range.

The most important concept I want to convey to you is that we have to take into account your child’s age both currently and historically. What I mean is: the age your child was when some significant event or experience took place has a tremendous influence on how they have stored the memory of that event. An even more crucial point is that their brain is likely to associate many varied factors along with the event or experience and this can lead to misconceptions and beliefs about the world that may not be true. This in turn can cause energy expenditures on your child’s part that will interfere with how their body and system functions as a whole.

Here’s an example. Let’s say your child was in the car when you had a minor car accident. Everyone was fine afterward but it left you and your child pretty shaken up. If your child is less than 5 years old, it is very likely they will interpret this event as kind of a surprise or shock to their system. However, the end result may be to associate being in the car with ongoing or imminent danger. This can lead to inordinate amounts of energy being expended by your child whenever they are in the car. Since this kind of experience is equated with survival, you can see how difficult it can be for them to resolve or reconcile the need to expend energy on this versus other needs of their energy system.

I think it is well worth the time to explore this with you as the parent because you are the one who can most help and influence your child. As with many other things, the earlier one intervenes and corrects an energy imbalance the sooner and more complete the resolution will be for your child.

You can read more about this topic of how I relate the importance of your child’s age in the context of their overall evaluation on the age ranges page on my website.

Overscheduled Children

In an article called “The Overbooked Child” published in Psychology Today a few years ago, David Elkins described what has been happening to kids who are over-scheduled and pushed too hard by well meaning parents to be successful and involved in too many activities. As in all areas of pediatrics, there is wide variation in parenting styles.

However, I believe that given the high stress nature of our environment and society, children could really use more free time and a relaxed schedule. Parents can help even more by modeling the need for relaxation and non-goal oriented activity, like puttering around in the yard, going for a walk, spending time playing sports or wandering on the beach or in the woods.

If children grow up thinking it’s their job to be busy every minute of the day, this will surely take a toll on their health and wellbeing in the long run.

Let me know what you think about this topic by leaving a comment.

To read the original article on overscheduled kids, follow this link to the Psychology Today reprint called “Are We Pushing Our Kids Too Hard?”

Helping Promote Conscious Parenting

I came across this site called TEACH through love, an organization dedicated to helping to raise awareness of emotional harm that children can be subject to. It’s run by Lori Petro, a writer, producer, former educator, child advocate and mother of one.
In addition to articles on conscious parenting and really great resources, there is a section on baby horoscopes which may give you some insight into your child’s underlying personality characteristics.
Take a look at the site here and share your comments if you’d like.
Teach-through-love.com

Parenting Advice from Mom

One of the things I recommend to all parents is to get plenty of good resources together for the long haul. No one person can lay claim to the best advice out there. It has to be a combination of different perspectives, different disciplines, and different points of view. One of the best resources I’ve come across is Janet Allison’s site called Parenting-Advice-from-Mom.com. Janet has put together a great website with topics ranging from quick reads on child development, evidence that boys and girls really are different, how to use words that get results, practical parenting tips & techniques and much more! Janet happens to live in my local area so I have had a chance to meet and talk with her in person! I highly recommend her site so go and check it out for yourself. Parenting-Advice-from-Mom.com

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