In this Vital Wellbeing post I give you my “tell it like it is” approach in Drug Pushers are closer than you think. This is not an article for the faint hearted but one to “alert” you to the fact that they are right there. This may even spark some conversation, which I am up for, but my purpose for writing this is to raise awareness and break the illusion that exists about who indeed the drug pushers are and unveil a truth that not everyone wants to read about, hear or acknowledge.

So if you’re willing then read on!

At no other time in a person’s life will children experience such rapid growth than in the 0-7yr age group. It’s a time of expansion in physical growth. Children whilst growing through this time will create opportunities to challenge their body in order to stimulate development. Discomfort and pain are but one of the many signs which indicate the changes internally are taking place and growth is occurring. In fact children will create sickness to grow, develop and adapt to their environment.

When children are young and have created a sickness of some sort parents want their children to feel comforted and one of those ways is by wanting to take away the pain that they the parents perceive them to have. The most common approach to “remove” this pain amongst the majority of society is to provide an over the counter medication or a prescription medication depending on the perceived severity of the health challenge.

Lets for a moment take a 10,000 foot view of this scenario…

Essentially when children are young parents push the pills, yes I know it sounds frightening doesn’t it, that a parent could be the drug pusher? Children when young often naturally shy away from medications be that tablets, liquids, injections and the like unless an association is created for them. For example when a parent gives their child a medication or an alternative medication they more often than not will say this statement or something similar…”this will make you feel better“, firmly anchoring a lifelong belief that their body is incapable of healing, growth, adaptation or transformation. The lesson learnt for the child is health comes from a pill… “they make me feel better“. It establishes a dependence on something outside of them to make them feel better, to be safe or be healthy.

As a child grows an arbitrary line gets crossed; a line that appears at different ages. The age can vary, but children as young as 12yrs old replace the “drug pusher” from the home to one from the street. Children choosing drugs and pills from the street drug pusher as a way of escaping pain or discomfort are deemed to be troubled children “mixing with the wrong crowd”. Parents often become disillusioned about why their child took the drugs. A large portion of a parental time and energy is then spent attempting to reverse the anchor the parent established when they were young in the first place. What was a quick fix anchor for taking away the pain of let’s say an ear ache in the young child then becomes a quick fix answer for taking away the pain of a teenager.

If as a society we are against illegal drugs, why are we so immune to over the counter and prescription medications?

Did you know…”annual deaths from painkillers now surpass those from heroin and cocaine combined, and have pushed the overall death toll from drugs above deaths from motor-vehicle crashes in some states,” said R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House office of National Drug Control Policy.

R. Gil Kerlikowske also said that “Prescription-drug abuse is the nation’s [USA] fastest-growing drug problem,” as written in the Wall Street Journal.

And take a look at these from A Partnership for a Drug Free America…

• 12 to 17 year olds abuse prescription drugs more than they abuse ecstasy, crack/cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
• Just as many children per day abuse prescription drugs as there are abusers of marijuana.

But… that is just the tip of the iceberg…

According to the American College of Preventative Medicine “over the counter medication use in children is twice that of prescription medication” [1]

So as parents here we are on this merry-go-round, not questioning what we are doing or what is being done or even what health is and why pain and discomfort are created by the body in the first place. Then we are dumbfounded when our children, firmly cemented with the anchored thought “this will make me feel better“, decide to take a drug they have been offered. Makes you wonder doesn’t it?

Some of you may just be having an “Aha” moment right now and you’re thinking well how can I approach my child’s health differently? If this is the case then great because it means your on your way to looking at health differently. Here are some simple steps to consider…

1) At the root of your child’s sickness, or health expression as we call it here at Vital Wellbeing, is their nerve system, the master communicating system of the body. The nerve system controls the communication between the brain and the body and back again. Nerve disturbance to the flow of messages diminishes your child’s body’s ability to express health. A child’s perception and response to early health expressions (sickness) is crucial for their future. This is why your response to your child’s health expression is even more crucial as it lays down a set of values and beliefs that they anchor to as a future way of responding to trauma, sickness and pain.

The chiropractic profession works specifically with the nerve system and acknowledges yourself and your child as self healing and self regulating people. The primary aim of the adjustment is to remove nerve disturbance in the first place and help optimize your child’s health potential. Physical, chemical or emotional challenges create nerve disturbance which alters the messages from the brain to the body and back again creating changes in your own or your child’s health. Making sure you and your child’s messages from the brain to the body and back again are clear of nerve disturbance is one of the best ways to boost their health potential.

2) Begin to firmly anchor a belief in your child that their body heals itself and part of that healing opportunity is feeling your body when it is in a comfortable state and when in an uncomfortable state. Teach them to trust in their ability to adapt to their environment. Create the space for them to respond to their health expressions innately, which often results in them wanting to be quite, lie down, eat less, rest and cuddle up to mum and dad. Avoid the ‘pain’ word as it can create a sense of wrongness and urgency in their experience that fosters fear. Their experience is one that is inevitable in life and you have the opportunity to help them shape the amount of stress and fear that they take on board.

3) Get excited about the opportunity that lays ahead for your child once they have moved through a health expression. With any health expression you’re alerted to the fact that changes are afoot internally. Creating the opportunity to celebrate those changes allows the child to be comfortable with them: “Wow _____, you will be so much stronger once you have worked through this health expression”, or “What do you think this health expression is about?” and let them answer. You’ll be amazed at what they say!

4) We are a household that has no medications in the house. We have a ‘medicine cabinet’ but inside our ‘medicine cabinet’ are toilet rolls and beautiful essential oils! So our children never see me take a medication or my husband for anything that we have created because that is not what we do. They don’t associate with “this for that” scenario. We do create health expressions and our children see us handling what we have created in a very different way to most households, so we to lead by example with congruency in our message.

Our kids have never been offered nor have they taken an over the counter medication or prescription medication. Their perceptions and experiences therefore are vastly different to many of their peers. They believe in their body’s ability to be well and heal. We push the point to our children that their bodies are self healing and self regulating; that they are constantly adapting to their environment and at times that may be discomforting and at other times wonderful.

What are you pushing?

____________________________________________________________________________________

GOOD TO SHARE? You’re welcome to reprint this article when it is properly attributed to Drs Randall & Sarah Farrant with a link to Vital-Wellbeing.com

It must include the following: Since 1990 Drs Randall & Sarah Farrant have been global mentors to thousands of individuals, families, health professionals, celebrities and sporting personalities. They have facilitated and inspired people to live a vitalistic life.

Bibiography
1. American College of Preventative Medicine. Over the counter medications: use in general and special populations, therapeutic errors, misuse, storage and disposal. [Online] 2011. [Cited: 22 Mar 2012.] https://www.acpm.org/resource/resmgr/timetools-files/otcmedstimetool.pdf.

[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]