What's The Agenda?
By Dr. Gene Clerkin
Not long ago I heard about new laws being enacted that would allow authorities to screen all school children for mental health and enforce treatment as they see fit. Parents could lose custody if they did not go along. All part of the “no child left behind program.” Isn't that good, you ask? We could find the children that need help and help them. The question is how? Even if the lawmakers are looking out for our best interest, I see a few very serious pitfalls.
First of all, who's going to be administering the “verdict” on your child? What if the screener is incompetent, overworked, or in need of medication them selves. Do parents really want to relinquish their right to decide what's best for their children? And who's defining mental health? Who's making the distinction between a chemically imbalanced kid and one who's experienced trauma and needs more love and attention?
A recent conference revealed that there is no clear way to diagnose ADD or ADHD. And if you could, then what do you do? Well, the current conventional treatment is medication, even though psychotropic drugs like Ritalin have been shown to produce some serious side effects, including depression and suicidal tendencies. I read an article which discussed the rash of school ground killing sprees. Apparently every one of the perpetrators had taken psychotropic meds. Yet we have school teachers and administrators regularly suggesting these “treatments” to parents.
This is a very disturbing trend that we may want to examine a little closer. The fact that there's a political push to support that methodology is even more alarming. You've got to ask yourself, is it possible that there is an agenda here. It's no secret that pharmaceutical companies were major supporters and financial contributors to politicians behind this legislation.
This month's newsletter contains a couple of articles that highlight some different perspectives about challenging children. In “ADD: America's Designer Disease” Dr. David Ross takes an alternative look at hyperactive tendencies in children and Patricia Baily shares information about how children today are a different breed. These articles provide some practical infomation for parents looking for alternatives to drug therapy. Personally, I've seen very positive results with kids in my care, so I know first hand that unconventional options are worth pursuing. (Network Care increases brain function) Parents and society as a whole may want to look a little deeper. Pretty soon they might not have the chance.
Check out www.citizens.org to keep up with health legislation
Symptoms Of Inner Peace
• A tendency to think and act spontaneously, rather than from fears based on past experiences.
• An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.
• A loss of interest in judging others.
• A loss of interest in judging self.
• A loss of internal conflict.
• A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.
• A loss of ability to worry.
• Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.
• Contented feelings of connectedness with others and with nature.
• Frequent attacks of smiling through the heart.
• Increasing susceptibility to love extended by others, as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.
• An increasing tendency to let things happen, rather than to manipulate them and make them happen.
ADD: America's DesignerDisease
By David Ross, ND
Attention Deficit Disorder has been called " America 's Designer Disease." We made it up. It didn't "exist" until 1987, when the American Psychiatric Association created it. A year after it was created, nearly half a million children were "diagnosed" with it. Now fifteen years later we're surrounded by over five million children medically diagnosed with ADD and ADHD (the "H" stands for "hyperactivity"), and schoolteachers have probably "diagnosed" on their own millions more. (Schools often receive additional funding for each ADD-diagnosed student they have. Is there a correlation between diagnosis and funding?)
Where did all this ADD come from?
If you're over 40, you probably can't name three kids you ever knew when you were in school who might have been "attentively challenged." Sure, there were a few "wild ones," but they were certainly the exception, not the rule like it seems to be today. What's different today than when I was a kid?
What are the symptoms of ADD and ADHD?
In general, having a short attention span, having an inability to focus for any length of time, becoming frustrated easily, having any learning disability, talking a lot or too loudly, or a having a tendency to argue can get your child branded ADD.
I'm not saying there aren't kids who display these symptoms -- I'm saying that lumping all these symptoms into a "disorder" and then treating everyone who is diagnosed as having the disorder with a powerful drug -- Ritalin -- is a questionable practice. Most medical practitioners don't seem to be interested in causes anymore. Instead, medicine seems to have become an assembly line for the drug industry. "Bring 'em in, diagnose 'em, drug 'em" seems to be the Medical Mantra.
So what's the answer. First, obviously, if your child shows the classic ADD symptoms FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME, see your medical doctor to rule out any pathological, serious medical problem that might cause these symptoms. Vision or hearing problems, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, complications from pre-natal alcohol or drug abuse, asthma, leukemia, and other true disorders may play a role in manifesting the symtoms.
If no medical complication exists, then you should search out the cause, not simply attempt to "medicate away" the symptoms.
Where to Start
Studies and a lot of anecdotal evidance show that we can see incredible positive changes in ADD-diagnosed children, quickly, by changing their diet and their environment. We live in a much faster-paced, more polluted, more stressful, more "artificial" world than we did even 30 or 40 years ago. We eat junk food, sleep poorly, watch more television, and poison our bodies with sugars, chemicals, hormones, artificial flavors, artificial colors, artificial sweeteners, artificial preservatives, vaccines, antibiotics and prescription drugs. The result is toxic overload, both mentally and physically.
Test for Food Allergies -- Sensitivities to certain foods -- an inability to properly digest or utilize certain foods -- can cause immediate brain and body changes, including the classic ADD symptoms. A medical doctor can run a "Food Allergy Panel" test, or, as a parent, you can find out which, if any, foods your child might be sensitive to by adding and deleting certain foods from his diet, and observing any changes in behavior. Don't overlook or underestimate this approach to ADD.
Eliminate Sugar -- Aggressive and destructive behavior has been shown in numerous studies to be related to the consumption of raw sugar. But you don't need a study -- every parent has probably seen a calm child turn into a "terror" after eating candy or ice cream. Avoid not only the candy and ice cream, but cookies, doughnuts, and even canned vegetables (which are loaded with salt and sugar). Don't substitute with aspartame, either. It can create havoc in the brain as well. If your child must have something sweet once in a while, use honey, fructose, xylitol, malt or stevia. Use fruit as snacks.
Beware of Low Blood Sugar -- A second way that sugar can change a normally mellow child into a hyperactive, "bouncing of the walls" kid is through causing low blood sugar. Yes, odd as it sounds, the presence of excess sugar causes low blood sugar. When you blast your child's bloodstream with sugar, the pancreas responds with insulin, to lower the sugar level. The more sugar introduced, the more insulin produced. The more insulin produced, the lower the sugar levels in the blood go. Low blood sugar may eventually lead to high blood sugar, known as diabetes.
Conscious Parenting and The Indigo Child By Patricia Baily
Parenting in today's world is challenging and it can be the most rewarding job on the planet. Often we have simply stepped into parenthood, hoping for the best while striving to do our very best at all times, often against tremendous odds. It's just that too often our best is simply not enough to prevent the unhealthy patterns we have inherited.
The times and children have changed. The tactics our parents used simply don't work anymore. Divorce, two career couples, and single parents have made parenting a greater challenge. Recent evidence and personal experience suggests that we are raising a different sort of child, often called Indigo children. The difference is rooted not only in the individual child, but is also closely tied to cultural and social change as well as the subtle shifts of consciousness underway around the world. This calls for an entirely different way of parenting.
Indigo children are natural empaths who are hypersensitive to feelings and thoughts. They “see” the parent's holographic pictures—one of their special gifts is thinking in pictures. This is also how they learn. Life is very confusing because of all of the thoughts and feelings they pick up. They do not know how to deal with them. They see the unhealthy acts in the world and can't make sense of it. They feel very different from everyone else, yet they are more alike than they know. What's difficult for parents is that we have an old paradigm for how children should behave, what they should do, and it doesn't fit with the new Indigo child.
Indigo children often exhibit behavior considered to be unacceptable in our old paradigm. Their behavior breaks down our forms and systems that do not work, but the children are commonly labeled with disorders such as ADD, ADHD, or other disruptive behaviors. This is confusing and painful for them. Indigos want us to understand why they are here and recognize their gifts so that they can fulfill their purpose by helping the planet to make the shift to higher consciousness. That's why conscious parenting is so important today.
We as parents and adults have to expand our vision of how we see our children. Indigo children are a great gift to the planet, but it is not an easy life for either the parent or child. If we could protect them from all of the world's unhappiness, it would be better for them, but that's not why they are here. They are here to affect change. We, the parents, have to accept and acknowledge them for the incredible beings they are. We also have to admit that we have created a negative world image and become creative enough to imagine a better world. It is what most of our current spiritual teachings teach us.
These children are showing us every day. These children think in pictures and in holographs, and they see all the pictures we as parents make about them. If we see them misbehaving, then they see that picture, repeat it and bring it into reality. Indigos are masters of manifestation. As parents, we need to look at what we think, feel, and picture about our children. Do we create holograms of the kind of behavior and life we want for our children, or make holograms of negative thoughts? Our focus and attention needs to be redirected to what we want. We want our children to feel accepted and understood.
Parents today have been given a tremendous gift in their Indigo child. The Conscious Parenting course provides parents with understanding and insight into their child, as well as practical parenting skills grounded in love, respect, cooperation and tolerance. Indigo children are bursting our old parenting paradigm so that we can learn these lessons for the planet. Parents will learn to resolve conflicts through negotiation and cooperation replace negative messages with positive messages, assist children in becoming self-sufficient, responsible and self-confident.
Focusing on our own spiritual growth and behavior is the most important step we can take for our child. We must take time to meditate, exercise and care for ourselves. We have to nurture ourselves as well as our children. Certainly one of our most important life purposes is to parent an Indigo child. We've been given a great gift and a great teacher in our child. They give us the universal “kick in the pants” that is sometimes needed to wake us up to our divinity.
Parents must evolve spiritually in order to meet these new children. That is what they are asking for. That is what they are here to do. Conscious Parenting teaches practical parenting skills by helping parents discover how their own spiritual development can create a more harmonious family life.
Patricia Bailey is a certified parent educator who facilitates courses in Conscious Parenting. She has eight years experience in Waldorf education as a parent, school administrator and faculty advisor and personal experience parenting a 15-year-old Indigo child. For more information about her parenting classes, contact her at consciousparent@bellsouth.net or 678.570.1054.