Years ago when I started learning the principles of self-government I was foster parenting really difficult children. Most of these children had some things in common. They were on medication, they had severe anger control issues, and they had terrible eating habits. The medication situation was evaluated, and in most cases stopped when as self-government principles were taught. Sometimes the anger control issues stopped immediately when self-government principles and skills were learned. However, with some youth I had to look at another aspect of their self-government, their diet.
In many cases I would notice the children were really addicted to sugar and junk food. I know it seems like an old wives tale to associate sugar or food to behaviors, but it's not. I am the kind of person who literally feels my chemicals change when I eat certain things, so I know food really affects the way a person feels and acts. For some of the foster children in my care I needed to alter their diets in order to get them chemically ready to learn self-government. Most of the diet changes were easy, I would remove sugar and lots of white flours and then introduce a lot more vegetables and fruits.
In most cases, when the nutrition of the child was adjusted the behaviors improved and the contentment of the child increased.
These last two years I have had multiple parents contact me for help with their angry, or difficult, children. I helped them with many of the structure problems in their homes and helped them improve the communication with their children, but the children weren't able to have complete self government until their chemicals were fixed too.
One way parents are helping children chemically in this time of processed everything is to remove gluten from the diet. It is especially effective with autistic children. Once gluten is removed, most of the children feel more calm and in control. They are not as volatile, and express feelings of increased security and happiness. Some of the children even mention that they think more clearly when they don't eat gluten.
I have a friend who, as a regular mother, was having a hard time concentrating. After a short time off of gluten she was able to concentrate like normal, had a lot more energy.
So, if you are doing all the self-government teaching correctly, and your child is still anxious or angry a lot of the time, then you may want to think about adjusting their diet too.
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Disclaimer:
This article was not written to get anyone paranoid or fanatical. However, this was written to offer additional help to parents who are struggling with really difficult children. We are a combination of chemicals, feelings, and learned behaviors. All these things need to be considered when helping a child learn to govern themselves.
Nicholeen Peck: Author of Parenting A House United and popular public speaker around the world. You can get more useful parenting advice is on Nicholeen's blog.
