It’s common knowledge that kids are overmedicated, but I’m concerned that medications are taking the place of parents to keep kids under control and, in a weird way, to show that they care!
Young people today are on their own and faced with a multitude of problems: parents don’t have time for their children, they are both working and are likely divorced and often there’s a new step-mother or step-father to contend with; raging hormones; peer pressure at school to smoke or do drugs; a junk food diet because nobody has time to cook; growing up on vaccines and antibiotics; and keeping up with social media. With all this pressure, kids may “act out” in school and they are often put on medication to make the teacher’s job easier, as it dulls reaction to the chaos and to the kids’ true feelings.
Overwhelming trigger events can happen in a child’s life that set the stage for ongoing fear and anxiety. Parents divorcing, a parent or grandparent dying, a family pet being struck by a car, a fire or a flood can all make a child feel unprotected, abandoned and fearful. When a parent’s “protection” is lost, a child often blames him/herself and “bargains” to reverse the situation. The bargaining often takes the form of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) behavior. Fear that the traumatic event is going to repeat itself leads to anxiety and panic attacks, or the child shuts down and becomes depressed. Parents often misinterpret emotional reactions to teenage angst and ignore the kid shut up in a room listening to loud music. Girls, more often, will develop physical symptoms in an attempt to get attention and comfort.
The adult that kids are exposed to most is the teacher, who is often the one to tell the parent that the child needs to be medicated! A supportive school counselor may be helpful at this stage, but they are few and far between. Now your child is on meds and the only job of the parent is to make sure the meds are taken – which becomes that way they show they care! They don’t have to take time out of their own Total Body Meltdown and Medicated life.
I’m amazed that a good diet, along with minerals, can quickly turn this picture around and result in a positive outcome. No, it won’t change the stresses but it will change the ability of a child to cope with stress. With minerals and a good diet they don’t get sick, they don’t get irritable, they sleep well, they don’t get constipated, and they can focus, concentrate and lead happy lives.
A good diet is often the hardest part to attain, but it is the most important. To prove how important it is, run The Experiment on your kids or grandkids. Tell your kids that if they avoid all sugar and junk food for a week, then at the end of the week, on Saturday, they can eat as much sugar and junk food as they can swallow. You have to do it on Saturday, so they have Sunday to recover. This experiment will prove to them how yucky the body feels on a bad diet and will make your job of keeping them healthy much easier.
