This web class was taken from a special Facebook Live broadcast with a focus on Children’s Health & Wellness.
As a parent or grandparent, you cannot afford not to know this vital information.
Don’t let your children or your grandchildren suffer needlessly from health issues such as . . .
“Tomorrow’s world is already taking shape in the body and spirit of our children.” – Kofi Annan
This quote from the seventh United Nations Secretary General (from January 1997 to December 2006) and 2001 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kofi Annan, reminds us of the critical importance of attending to the needs of children, not only for their own sakes in the here and now (as “beings”), but also as the “becomings” of the future.
While children’s health and development is dependent on a myriad of factors that we mention below, their eating behaviours are fundamental to their health. If we as parents, want to ensure that we have not only healthy kids but smart kids as well, we must pay attention to what is affecting them.
Did you know that the development and long-term health of children, physically, mentally and emotionally, is linked to their nutritional habits from their early life onward?
Parents obviously have a high degree of control over the environments and experiences of their children, partly because children model themselves on their parents’ eating behaviours, lifestyles, eating-related attitudes and habits, and their happiness or dissatisfactions regarding body image. Eating behaviours are thus likely to be established early in life and may be maintained into adulthood with little thought given to their long-term effects.
A few years ago a mother brought her 5-year-old, supposedly ADHD son to see me during their holidays interstate. Without his usual Ritalin, which was required for him to attend school, he was often impossible to manage, yet his mother knew that inside was a gentle little boy who occasionally appeared. I asked why she had come to me.
Concerned at the side affects of the Ritalin on her child, a friend had suggested she pay me a visit, to see if any light could be shed on his erratic behaviour. Her friend had had personal experience with our savvy strategies on her own children’s health, with great success.
Meanwhile her son had roared through the home, knocked over a lamp and proceeded to terrorise my dog until we took him out on the balcony, where he sat crying. Even the most casual observer would agree that this little boy’s behaviour was more than just being naughty. He was acting as if something was irritating him, almost behaving as though someone was constantly sticking him with thumb tacks, or as if he was actually wearing the proverbial ‘hair shirt’.
Apologising profusely, his mother said that he just didn’t like wearing clothes. She told me that he was always most calm after his bath but that they only used plain water. However his tantrums started up again at bedtime, and he usually woke up during the night with a mild bumpy rash over his body. So that led me to suspect that there was something about his clothing and bedding that was irritating him. I suggested she remove his clothes.
Sure enough, within 30 seconds of doing that he began to calm down. He actually relaxed and curled up into his mother’s lap and fell asleep. When he woke 15 minutes later, he remained calm and played quietly for the next 40 minutes while I chatted with his mother about making sensible choices, so that they could have a healthier home.
I discussed the things I had learned over the years, about the wide variety of triggers I had come across. These children often have excessive sensitivity, and this constant inner battle they experience can use up essential nutrients, which then causes other symptoms.
The disastrous effects of what seem like insurmountable issues, syndromes and the like, can be as simple as dealing with three simple steps that any family cam take. 1-2-3. After all, as we say ‘Wellness, It’s Not That Hard!‘.
In June 2006, there were 4 million children aged under 15 years in Australia, representing one-fifth (19%) of the total population (ABS 2006a). In 2004-05, 41% of children aged under 15 years had a long-term health condition compared with 44% in 2001 (ABS 2006 & ABS 2002). That’s a 3% decrease in just three years – things are on the improve. Or are they?
In fact issues like SIDS reduced dramatically, but others were still on the increase. The Health & Welfare Institute and other organisations looked at the following emerging health concerns in Australian children:
So lets look into what this means. As a parent myself, I have seen a struggling health system failing us in providing adequate health improvement for our children, and knowing what I knew that could make a difference, I determined to do what I could about it. But what are parents actually dealing with today? Read More
