People ask me why I call my program  Parents,Take Charge! and Teachers, Take Charge!   ‘Take Charge of what?’ they ask me.   I tell them that it’s about parents and teachers Taking Charge! of the  wellbeing of their children’s bodies, brains and spirits.

First and foremost parents and teachers need to Take Charge of the stressful, high-pressure world our children are expected to cope with.  Some kids are able to cope with stress but there are thousands upon thousands who are not so resilient when it comes to stress and pressure.  It eats away at their spirit, their body and their brain.  And yet, what do most of us do about this?  We act like there is nothing we can do about the stress our children face.  In fact, we pile the stress on even thicker and faster.  We rush them to all kinds of after-school activities, thinking that we are doing them a disfavor if we don’t let them do this.  We rush home so they can do their homework.  We push them to get good grades.  We expect them to behave and socialize in ways that will make them shine amongst their peers.  We buy them all kinds of material ‘toys’ so that they can feel  like one of the gang.  As parents we so desperately want the very best for our children in every way.  So we stretch ourselves in terms of our time and our budget.  Then we become stressed.  And when we are stressed the kids know it.  They know it because our bodies, our behaviors, the expression on our faces, the tone of our voice, they tense way in which we interact with them all screams the message that ‘mommy /daddy is stressed!’

 

What does a little boy or girl or a teenage son or daughter do when their parent is stressed?  They absorb the stress and become stressed themselves.  One 7-year old told me:  ‘When my mommy is stressed, I feel sick.  I want to take the stress away and help her but I don’t know how.  So I get stressed too.’  He is seven years old and he is talking about stress!  Another told me that ‘when our teacher starts the class and if we feel she is stressed, we all behave badly until she goes kaboom!’

 

So, parents and teachers, the message of today’s blog is this:  Take Charge of your children’s stress by Taking Charge of your own stress. 

The wellbeing of your child’s body, brain and spirit starts with you! Children absorb your stress. You cannot hide it. You cannot deny it. You cannot role-play or pretend you are not stressed.   

Every single sign of every single learning, behavior and mood symptom that children display is triggered by stress.   Too often when we, or the children, show all kinds of symptoms of stress, we treat the symptoms but we often don’t do anything about removing the stress that caused it.

  

Your behavior as a parent plays a major role in increasing or reducing your child’s stress.  Here are the 7 parent behaviors that reduce stress:

• Be sure you body language is calm and tranquil.
• Use a warm, quiet tone of voice.
• Behave like you and your child are on the same team shooting for the same goal posts.
• Provide structure.
• Teach personal responsibility.
• Build creativity/laughter/fun into each task/day.
• Live by, and speak about, your family values.

 

Dr. Sandy Gluckman is the founder and developer of the Parents, Take Charge!  Program.  This is an education- skills-based program for parents and teachers designed to teach them the tools to support the natural healing abilities of the child’s body preferably without the use of prescription drugs.

Here’s an illogical scenario.  You discover you have a nail in one of your car’s tires which is causing it to leak air.  You take it to the tire repair shop and ask them to leave the nail in the tire and instead do a temporary repair of some kind around the nail that will stop the tire from losing pressure and getting soft.   Ridiculous?   Sure it is!  And I guess this is something that you would never even consider as a solution to your ailing tire?  Yet this is exactly what we do with our children’s bodies when we treat the symptoms and not the root causes of what ails them.  
 

Literally millions of children around the globe are struggling with some type of learning, behavior and mood symptoms -  meltdowns, temper tantrums, depression, difficulty with paying attention, inability to focus and sit still, negativity, low motivation, amongst many others.   These symptoms are categorized and compartmentalized by different healthcare practitioners and labeled as ADD, ADHD, ODD, OCD, Aspergers, depression, Autism, to mention just a few.  This diagnostic label comes with a script for a medication that suppresses the troublesome symptoms.  And everyone sighs a huge sigh of relief.  Phew!  Now we know what the child’s problem is.  It is called ADHD  (or any other label).  And the even better news is that there is a medication that makes this go away.   Teacher is happy.  Parents are happy.  Siblings are happy.  And the child wakes up each day to receive yet another dose of medication that is an assault to its body and spirit!

 

Why don’t we remove the ‘nail?’

My question is:  why don’t we find and remove the ‘nail’ instead of using medication which is really only a temporary quick fix that will lead to more problems?   Perhaps it is because parents do not know one scientifically proven and hugely exciting fact which is that the child’s body can heal itself – provided we give it a little help to do this.  Let’s go back to my tire analogy.  Imagine if the tire was capable of ejecting the nail and healing the damage to the tire all by itself.   Well clearly tires cannot do this but the truth is that our bodies can.  Our bodies can heal from the inside out, given the right assistance.

 

So as a parent what can you do with this amazing information?

A. Begin by knowing and reading about this incredible fact:  Your child’s body has the built-in, natural ability, to protect, repair and heal itself.

B. Then discard any of the seven outdated and redundant beliefs listed below that you may be still holding onto.   Study the list below and identify any beliefs you still believe to be true.   Write these beliefs on a slip of paper, spend a moment looking at them, tear the paper into many pieces and put these into the trash.  It is these beliefs that will prevent you from taking charge of your own and your child’s health.

 

The 7 Outdated Beliefs Parents need to discard…Urgently!

1. The doctor knows best.  
2. Every child showing the same set of learning and behavior symptoms has  the same ‘disorder’ and can thus be treated in the same way.
3. My child’s body needs antibiotics, prescription medications to heal. 
4. There is something wrong with my child’s brain.  
5. My child is born with certain genes and is stuck with them.
6. My child has its own personal brain capacity –the child’s IQ is unchangeable.
7. I am only the parent – what can I do?!…what do I know?!

 

When you have replaced your outdated beliefs with updated  ones  you will have the ability to begin the journey of finding the ’nail’ in your child’s body and spirit instead of using quick fixes to treat the learning, behavior and mood symptoms that your  wonderful children are challenged by.   By updating redundant beliefs you will  have the courage and desire to learn how to be a parent-healer and provide the necessary conditions for your child’s body and spirit to do what it instinctively knows is best.  Parents,  Take Charge!  It is your responsibility to know exactly how to identify and remove any obstacles that are getting in the way of your child’s natural  ability to heal from the inside out.

 

Dr. Sandy Gluckman is the founder and developer of the Parents, Take Charge!  Program.  This is an education-skills-based program for parents and teachers.  The program is designed to teach tools that will  support the natural healing abilities of the child’s body, preferably without the use of prescription drugs.

Do you have a child that has been described as having behavior problems?  Perhaps they have been described as being defiant, disorderly, disruptive and being disobedient. Perhaps they are being called bullies. Perhaps they have been labeled as ODD – oppositional defiance disorder – the favorite new label for children with behavior issues. Maybe your child is one of the millions that is taking one or more medications for their behavior issues because somebody thinks their behavior is caused by anxiety or depression or hyperactivity.  Read the rest of this entry »

 

Today I sat across the table from a wonderful lady who lost her son 18 months ago to drugs.  He was in his early twenties.  Her journey to that terrible moment was one that hundreds of thousands of parents can sadly relate to.   When he was six years old he was diagnosed with ADHD. This led to different prescriptions for different drugs as this wonderful, bright young boy struggled to learn. 

Then he began to display, what the doctors called, ‘behavior disorders.’  He became angry and rebellious.  They called this Oppositional Defiance Disorder.  Then he became anxious and obsessive and they called this OCD.  And, of course, with each new diagnosis, more prescription drugs were recommended.  

This young boy always loved to take risks and push the boundaries, whether they were physical, social or legal.  This, of course, created all kinds of problems in his teens because nothing seemed to frighten him. But, interestingly enough, as a young adult this risk-taking behavior made him hugely successful in business.   He became a wealthy young man and loved to spend his money on skydiving and other such adrenalin-enhancing experiences. Read the rest of this entry »

Now, more than ever, it is time for parents to take charge of the way that their children’s learning and behavior issues are being treated.

Frightening numbers of children are struggling with issues like underachievement, low motivation, meltdowns, bullying, anxiety, behavior problems, depression, OCD, ADHD, autism, eczema, asthma, allergies, low immune system … and others.   Here’s my take on why this is happening: Read the rest of this entry »

So often we find ourselves making decisions and trying treatments that do not bring the hoped-for result when trying to help our children overcome their learning, behavior or mood challenges.  In many instances this disappointment is due to the fact that we started off with outdated information which caused us to ask the wrong questions and look in the wrong places for answers.   In other words, what we were thinking and believing was a myth.  So let’s start with a quick quiz which will reveal if you are holding onto a myth about the learning, mood and behavior challenges that children face. Read the rest of this entry »

This blog should definitely get you thinking!   We have all heard the saying that perception equals reality.  So it would be a good idea for us to do a reality check, by checking our perceptions, as often as possible.   Here’s an opportunity for you to check the way you perceive your child.  After doing the four quick and easy steps below, you will probably see your child in a whole new light which will impact everything you do and say and plan for your child.  So here goes.  Be prepared to have your mind turned upside-down. Read the rest of this entry »

When I asked a focus group I conducted with kids between 7 and 11 years of age, what their top three stresses are, they all agreed the No. 1 stress in their lives is achievement stress, as discussed in my previous blog,  The Lower the Stress, the Higher the Grades.  I could have guessed that,  but I was pretty shocked when I heard what their next two major stresses are!

The Second Major Stress:

The Stress of their Parents and Teachers. Read the rest of this entry »

In my previous blog, If You Want To Know About Stress,  Ask the Kids,  I indicated that it was the first of a 3-part series on what children in a focus group told me about stress.   As I started to write this second part today, I realized that there is so much vitally important information from this focus group that I still want to share with you and so I am extending this into a 4-part series. Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to know the real truth about anything, described in graphic and honest detail, ask kids.  That’s exactly what a TV station and I did in South Africa – we conducted a focus group with children between the ages of seven and twelve to discover how they interpret stress and what they do to try and cope with it. 

This is the first of a 3-part series of blogs describing what the children in the focus group told me.  Their responses were hugely insightful and eye-opening.  None of the participants attended special needs schools.  They all came from middle to upper class environments.

‘What happens to you when you feel stressed?’  Read the rest of this entry »