Children and their Behaviors

Where do most behaviors come from?

Behaviors are something learned. A young child does not come into the world with behavior patterns. A child will observe and intuitively feel their world, then they will take their own interpretation of what they have seen and felt to create their own modified version of the behaviors observed. They simply see the important people in their world behaving certain ways and mimic them with their own modifications.Sometimes they will directly mimic the behaviors, these are easier to identify.

• The child does this without consciously knowing what they are doing or the effects of their behaviors. 
• A child seldom really understands the definition of the words you use! 
• If you don"t believe this ask them to define the words in question. (see if their definition matches the dictionary)

Some of this is commonly understood in the psychology field but not often used in "real life".


The most important aspect that is missing in this is that: 

• Children mimic, react to and interpret the feelings in their environment also.  

Children FEEL Everything.

If a child is in a hostile environment they will quite often respond accordingly.

For example:
A mother and father are having trouble in their relationship. The mother and father are quite often hostile toward each other. The mother yells and screams and the father quietly takes digs and emotional potshots at the mother.

The child witnesses this growing up. At about the age of five the child begins to yell at the father and the father quietly is cold or distant from the child, allowing the child to perceive that the father doesn't love them.
At about the same age the child does not yell at the mother but begins to act out behaviorally when with the mother. And gets to perceive that the mother yelling at them means they are not loved.

Now even though both parents say they love them there is this silent treatment by the father and the yelling treatment by the mother which continually reinforces the child's misinterpretation that they are not loved. Now anytime the child feels not loved or disregarded the child will either act out or yell.

The child begins to develop these behaviors based upon their interpretation and feeling of their environment even though the parents in the beginning never directly did this with the child. although now as the child gets older the parents,without noticing, begin to treat the child like they do each other.this then has long term consequences on the child's life in all their relationships.


A child early on in life does not have the ability to reason or discern the difference between the behaviors and feelings of their environment. Nor do they have the ability to understand the people in it or interpret their environment appropriately.

They will create an inaccurate interpretation based upon the feelings they have in their environment and then create beliefs from that. Then they will use the behaviors they have witnessed as a way to deal with and handle their feelings and their perceptions of their environment and life.

Home
It is the total environment of the home that creates the foundation of a child's behaviors and personality. It is not simply witnessing behaviors, instruction or being told what to do that creates a child's personality and future. Again the key factor here is the feeling of the environment.

The feeling of the environment combined with the appropriate direction and instruction creates an emotionally and functionally healthy child.

• A child raised in a neutral or non-loving home with proper instruction and direction will be a dysfunctional child. 
• A child raised in a loving home without proper direction and instruction still creates a dysfunctional child.

For a child to be emotionally and functionally healthy they must be raised in a patient, tolerant and loving environment and then given the proper direction and instructions on how to be a healthy human being.

• Your child feels if you love them. 

• Saying it is not enough.

Love Your Child enough to be aware of their feelings and yours!

As always comments and questions are most welcome.

Love Your Child with All Your Heart

Love yourself with all of your heart. By doing this you set the example for your child so that they can love themselves. In doing so, you show your child that they have the right and the ability to love themselves.

There is no greater act of love!

When your child sees you loving and caring for yourself they will know that they can do this for themselves also. By giving them the space and the living example they will know how much you really love them!
Children learn by example and use what has been modeled for them. If you show them that you do not love yourself with all of your heart they will know, that they do not deserve to be loved. How so, you might ask.

A true loving heart is one that has loved them self first and shares that love with others. Sharing or radiating love is different than giving love.

By showing the child that you do not have love in your heart for yourself and that only others matter, they will then reflect and adopt this behavior as well as this belief system. What you teach them by not loving yourself is that they do not matter only loving others matters.

Teaching a child to love them self first is the sign of a truly loving heart. This truly loving heart is showing them that you love them so much that your personal needs are not involved in the equation, that your love is absolute and pure. The key to teaching this to your child is you learning to love yourself without conditions.

Traditionally people have been taught that the expression and display of love is the most important way to communicate it. But in truth love is a feeling, love is not a display nor a communication. You can feel if someone loves you or not, no matter what their words are. This is especially true for children. They feel your love, no matter what you do or say. As they become older they begin to understand the concept of love as it is explained, but this does not change their feeling experience of what love is.

How is this related to loving myself first you might ask. Well let us tell you, loving yourself first makes you a Hub of Love. They will feel the love that is inside you and no matter what your behaviors are they will know in their hearts that they are loved because they feel the love in your heart.


Remember:

Love Your Child with All of Your Heart

Anti Depressants in Children

This Article was sent to us and we felt it would be of interest to many parents.

Effect of stimulant medication on children with attention deficit disorder: a "review of reviews.": An article from: Exceptional Children
The link between suicide and antidepressants like Paxil is so strong that they are required to carry black box warning labels detailing the risk. In young adults, particularly, the link is glaring and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) even sent a warning letter to physicians in 2006 alerting them that Paxil may increase the risk of suicide attempts in young adults.

    Despite this, or more likely because of it, the company is now carrying out a study in Japan to test the efficacy of Paxil versus a placebo in children with depression. They are actively recruiting children between the ages of 7 and 17 years, who may be among the most vulnerable to Paxil’s suicidal side effects.

    Why would GlaxoSmithKline test Paxil on kids?

    It’s clearly not to find out whether it’s effective -- the drug is already approved, so this is a moot point. Instead, they are likely hoping that, come September 2010 when the study is supposed to be completed, they can somehow present their results to show that Paxil is not so bad after all.

    As Big Pharma analyst Jim Edwards wrote on BNET:

    “It’s not clear why the company would want to draw more attention to its already controversial pill, but it appears as if GSK might be hoping to see a reduced suicide risk in a small population of users — a result the company could use to cast doubt on the Paxil-equals-teen-suicide meme that dominates discussion of the drug.”

Kids Increasingly Targeted With Antidepressants

    Every year, 230 million prescriptions for antidepressants are filled, making them one of the most prescribed drugs in the United States.

    The UK banned nearly all antidepressants in kids in 2004, due to the increased risk of suicide. The United States, however, is still allowing Big Pharma to rake in the profits from selling these deadly, mind-altering drugs to kids.

    The amount of drugs being given to U.S. children is outrageous, and the extent of the problem becomes clear when you compare the statistics with other countries. U.S. children are getting three times more prescriptions for antidepressants and stimulants, and up to double the amount of antipsychotic drugs than kids from Germany and the Netherlands.

    Depression can indeed progress to suicide if left untreated. One would think that antidepressant drugs would be useful here but interestingly they actually have been shown to CAUSE both suicidal and homicidal thoughts and behaviors. For example, seven of the last 12 school shootings were done by children who were either on antidepressants or going through withdrawal.

    It’s not just the drugs prescribed, but the diagnoses that are in question, particularly in children. Six million children have been diagnosed with serious psychiatric disorders warranting drug treatment -- 1 million with bipolar disorder, long believed to occur only in adults.

    The fact remains that most of the kids being given antidepressants should simply not be taking them.

What Happens When You Take Your Child to a Psychiatrist …

    Mental health issues, including depression and unresolved emotional traumas, are among the most significant factors contributing to disease. And psychiatry is the branch of medicine that should be best suited to address this wounding.

    Unfortunately, psychiatry has long ago elected to follow a drug-based paradigm in their resolution of this wounding and in so doing has done its patients an extreme disservice.

    This is not a new occurrence, but rather one that has been going on for years and seems to only be getting worse. It reminds me of one particularly poignant letter written by Dr. Loren Mosher, a board-certified psychiatrist who received his BA from Stanford University and M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1961, where he also subsequently took his psychiatric training.

    In his letter, which is a resignation letter sent to the president of the American Psychiatric Association in 1998, Dr. Mosher stated:

        “After nearly three decades as a member it is with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment that I submit this letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association. The major reason for this action is my belief that I am actually resigning from the American Psychopharmacological Association.

        Luckily, the organization's true identity requires no change in the acronym.

        Unfortunately, APA reflects, and reinforces, in word and deed, our drug dependent society …

        APA likes only those drugs from which it can derive a profit-directly or indirectly. This is not a group for me. At this point in history, in my view, psychiatry has been almost completely bought out by the drug companies.

    The APA could not continue without the pharmaceutical company support of meetings, symposia, workshops, journal advertising, grand rounds luncheons, unrestricted educational grants etc. etc. Psychiatrists have become the minions of drug company promotions.”

    This type of blatant conflict of interest continues to plague the psychiatric profession today.

    One of the most telling examples surrounds Dr. Joseph Biederman of Harvard Medical School, who is a world-renowned child psychiatrist. His work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children … and he earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007.

    So you should know, plain and simple, that if you’re worried your child may be depressed or suffering from any other mental health issue, and you take him or her to a psychiatrist, you will most likely leave with a prescription and the advice to start medicating your child.

    This is especially concerning in light of new findings that indicate antidepressants may actually worsen depression.

Antidepressants May Lead to Chronic Depression

    In my recent interview with medical journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee Robert Whitaker, he shared some very concerning insights about long-term use of antidepressants, which often happens when kids start taking them at young ages.

    According to Whitaker:

         “… that’s one of the things I looked at in this book and there are really two things that you find.

        You find that even with major depression, in the pre-antidepressant era – and this is depression so severe people were hospitalized – they could expect to get better. The episode would eventually pass.

        … So when antidepressants were introduced, the thought was okay, we really can hope to improve on this sort of natural recovery, but maybe we can help people recover quicker? So that really was the rationale for the use of antidepressants.

        But it’s really interesting if you follow this course through, forward in history. The minute they start using antidepressants in any sort of large numbers, doctors start saying, “Well, you know, my patients may be getting better, the depression maybe lifting faster, but then we’re noticing that they’re also relapsing more frequently than before, back into depression.”

    This begs the question, does the drug treatment actually put people on a more chronic course than before?”

    Long-term studies now indicate that of people with major depression, only about 15 percent that are treated with an antidepressant go into remission and stay well for a long period of time.

    The remaining 85 percent start having continuing relapses and become chronically depressed.

    “By the 1990s, this change in the long term course of depression was so pronounced that finally it was addressed by researchers,” says Whitaker.

         “Giovanni Fava from Italy said, “Hey, listen, the course is changing with antidepressants. We’re changing it from an episodic illness to a chronic illness, and we really need to address this.”

    Not only that, but the depression is sinking into people [on antidepressants] in a deeper way than before.”

    According to Whitaker’s research, this tendency to sensitize the brain to long-term depression appears to be the same both for the earlier tricyclic antidepressants and the newer SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors).

    Another famous psycho pharmacologist named Ross Baldessarini at the Harvard Medical School also began asking whether or not these drugs may in fact be depressogenic (causing depression).

    Unfortunately, the evidence points that way, and the long-term prognosis when taking antidepressants is quite bleak, as this type of drug treatment has a whopping 85 percent chronic relapse rate.

Antidepressants are NOT the Solution

    If your child is suffering from an emotional or mental challenge, please seek help, but do so from someone who does not regard psychotropic drugs as a first line of defense.

    The research is very clear that, along with the side effects, antidepressants do not work any better than sugar pills. Some studies have even found that sugar pills may produce better results than antidepressants.

    Even meta-analysis of published clinical trials indicates that 75 percent of the response to antidepressants can be duplicated by placebo!

    Personally, I believe the reason for these astounding findings is that both pills work via the placebo effect, but the sugar pills produce far fewer detrimental side effects…

    Unfortunately, antidepressants are far less innocuous than sugar pills, and aside from increasing the risk of suicidal thoughts they also increase your risk of diabetes and harm your immune system, among other risks.

Resolving Depression Naturally

    If your child is depressed, you will likely need to find someone outside of the conventional psychiatric medical community to help you work through the problem without drugs.

    When someone very close to me was suffering from depression, it was energetic techniques that assisted this person in full recovery from depression.

    In that case, a very advanced form of cranial osteopathy was administered by a skilled physician, however, there are other similar tools, such as Emotional Freedom Technique/Meridian Tapping Technique (EFT/MTT), which I’ve found can make an enormous difference if you suffer from depression or any other kind of emotional dysfunction.

    For serious problems, it would be best to contact a trained health care professional to assit you in these techniques. Here’s a helpful list of certified practitioners worldwide.

    I strongly believe that energy psychology is the single most important tool to resolve depression, but its effectiveness will certainly be significantly improved if combined with an appropriate Nutritional Type diet, along with dramatically lowered intake of sugar, grains, and processed foods.

    This is particularly true for children. I have treated many hundreds of children with behavioral and mental disorders and have consistently seen them improve once underlying toxicities and food changes were addressed.

    Artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, and preservatives can have a very negative impact on your mental state as well as your physical health, so browse through my nutrition plan to find out what type of diet your child should be eating.

Using Exercise to Treat Depression

    Regular exercise is one of the “secret weapons” to overcoming depression.

    As Dr. James S. Gordon, MD, a world-renowned expert in using mind-body medicine to heal depression, said:

         “What we’re finding in the research on physical exercise is, the physical exercise is at least as good as antidepressants for helping people who are depressed … physical exercise changes the level of serotonin in your brain.

        It changes, increases their levels of “feel good” hormones, the endorphins. And also -- and these are amazing studies -- it can increase the number of cells in your brain, in the region of the brain, called the hippocampus.

        These studies have been first done on animals, and it’s very important because sometimes in depression, there are fewer of those cells in the hippocampus, but you can actually change your brain with exercise. So it’s got to be part of everybody’s treatment, everybody’s plan.”

    This is a very effective and beneficial treatment strategy. One study conducted by Duke University in the late 1990s divided depressed patients into three treatment groups:

       1. Exercise only
       2. Exercise plus antidepressant
       3. Antidepressant drug only

    After six weeks, the drug-only group was doing slightly better than the other two groups. However, after 10 months of follow-up, it was the exercise-only group that had the highest remission and stay-well rate.

    Some countries are taking these types of research findings seriously, and are starting to base their treatments on the evidence at hand.

    The UK, for example, does not routinely recommend antidepressants as the first line of therapy for mild to moderate depression anymore, and doctors there can write out a prescription to see an exercise counselor instead.

    I suggest you take these findings to heart now, and encourage your child to stay active if he or she is struggling with depression.

More Natural Tips to Address Depression

    I also strongly recommend supplementing your child’s diet with a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat, like krill oil. This may be the single most important nutrient to battle depression.

    Making sure your child is getting enough sunlight exposure to have healthy vitamin D levels is also a crucial factor in treating depression or keeping it at bay. One previous study found that people with the lowest levels of vitamin D were 11 times more prone to be depressed than those who had normal levels. Vitamin D deficiency is actually more the norm than the exception, and has previously been implicated in both psychiatric and neurological disorders.

Why do kids talk to adults in disrespectful ways?

The answer to this question depends on the age group you are talking about. For the purpose of this writing we will address this in general terms. So let's start from the beginning.

Children do not know how to deal with their feelings and often do not even know what they are. Because of this fact children will revert to behaviors observed by the people around them when similar circumstances have occurred. They will also use these behaviors imitating what they have observed in order to find out what works to either get them what they want or be accepted.
Basically here we are talking about family behavior patterns.

For example: when a child has seen someone in the family, usually mom or dad, drop and break something and then respond with an outburst, swear or even be silently upset the child has just learned what you do when you drop and break something.
What has just occurred is the child has unconsciously recorded these behaviors and options of what to do when you drop and break something. So in the future when a child drops something and it breaks they respond with either an outburst, swearing or being silently upset. Often times it comes out of the blue and you as the parent will think or say “I don't know where they got that behavior”. This is because you as the parent react to automatically in ways that you are not even aware of but the child records everything that you do.
To sum this up we would like to say, everything you do, say and feel is recorded unconsciously by your child. Your child at some random age will draw upon these unconscious memories and react to the situation with the behaviors they have witnessed. Often times this is to the surprise of the parents.
Another piece to this is, the child may put their own personal spin on those behaviors. This may cause the behaviors they are exhibiting to be unrecognizable by the parents.

For example: your two-year-old child has done something you dislike and you respond by suppressing your anger and talking through your teeth firmly yet appearing not to yell. Yet silently and feeling wise you have yelled at your child. For the sake of this example we will assume that you have continued the same behavior.
 At age of 10 you have done something that has displeased your child and they yell at you “I hate you mom” or “god mom that was stupid”. The typical parent would be surprised and offended that their child was yelling at them.
What has gone unrecognizable was that when the child displeased the parent the parent let them know with feeling but without yelling and the parent assumed that the child did not notice the same communication. All that has happened is that the child has taken the suppressed displeasure and verbalized it.

The moral to this story is “you reap what you sow”.

In other words the way you behave and the feelings you convey are intuitively and cognitively understood and felt by your child. These were the examples of how to behave and react in any given situation and your child is simply repeating them.

Children do not invent behaviors they simply imitate and modify behaviors. Parents should be aware of their behaviors and feelings and know that they convey these to their children and someday their children will mirror them back to them. If you are aware of this you will know where their behaviors have come from. If you are a self aware parent you hopefully will have corrected your behaviors and feelings that are inappropriate or unkind and you will be able to instruct your child on how to change theirs.

Loving care of yourself as a parent will make you a loving caring parent.

We hope these articles help and as always all questions and comments are welcome.

Childhood Obesity and Emotions

Childhood obesity is not as simple as watching your food or trying to lose weight. As you can see from our previous article on childhood obesity there is a whole lot going on. Human beings are very complex creatures.
We experience, feel and make judgments in such a multitude of ways. Children are even more sensitive in many ways than the average adult. Along with the sensitivity a child has very limited coping skills and cognitive understanding about what's going on in our world. This makes it easy for a child to misunderstand, misperceive and make up stories about what has occurred in their life. This lack of clarity can lead to personally perceived emotional traumas. These emotional traumas may have no basis in reality, but are very real to the child. When the child realizes that eating can satisfy the need for pleasure to compensate or numb them to avoid the negative feelings that are being created within them, this is often the beginning of the eating disorders or childhood obesity.

Many adults do not believe in this idea or concept and often chalk the eating obsessions and changes up to commonplace “growing up”. Introducing this idea may be a challenge for many adults because in growing up this was not understood and rarely if ever discussed by anyone in society. We hope that you can open your awareness to see how this is a possibility that may be adding to your child's food or obesity issues.

Five things you can do to assist in avoiding childhood obesity:
1.    Be aware of any change in eating habits at any age. It could be the eating habits of an infant, a toddler, a six year old, pre-teen, teenager or young adult.
2.    Be aware of your child's mental and emotional state as well as their abilities to cope with their life. Do not be fooled by appearances of these abilities. “Normal” appearances may just be a façade.
3.    When your child's eating habits change or become excessive in any way do not brush it off as normal. Assist them in managing their eating style in spite of any whining or complaining. Most importantly, explain to them what you are doing.
4.    When assisting your child do not cave in to any anger, temper tantrums, whining or crying. They will quite often use this and many other techniques to continue their eating patterns.
5.    Assist your child in dealing with emotional traumas (perceived or real), difficulties and mental understandings of what is going on in their life. Contrary to popular belief, a child is never too young to receive this type of assistance!

What are emotional issues or traumas? From our vantage point emotional issues have very little to do with emotions such as anger, sadness or anxiety themselves. Emotional issues are the root cause of the emotions. 

For a very simple explanation of emotional issues we would say they are:

A judgment made from a perception of an event, followed by an internalized meaning by the individual about themselves. Followed by a belief, attitude or judgment held by that individual about themselves and events. This judgment then determines the way an individual feels about them self, when like or similar circumstances occur or are observed.

Watch for our next article in this series on childhood obesity and food issues.
Visit   www.teamworkwins.org 

Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity and excess weight is commonly seen as a health problem. The long-term effects of childhood obesity are physiologically understood and commonly believed to contribute to physical health problems such as high blood pressure, cholesterol, liver disease, etc.

A common misperception is that being, overweight leads to emotional issues.
We would like to suggest that the opposite is actually the main problem.

Emotional issues, the lack of coping skills, the inability to comprehend and manage their perceptions of the world are more often what lead to childhood obesity and overweight conditions. Would also like to suggest that being overweight may be a stage that a child goes through while learning to manage their inner feelings.
Yes there are some who will argue it is genetic, it is the food etc. we are not negating that this does have some factor. We are suggesting that the deeper causes of childhood obesity occur because of the emotional state, emotional traumas or misperceptions of a child. There is the possibility that the child is unconsciously using the weight and the food to comfort and numb themselves. This is done because of their inability to cope with and understand their feelings and experiences.
From this perspective childhood obesity can lead to adult obesity if the trauma and misperceptions have never been resolved. Resolution does not only take place from a mental understanding. At the core of resolving these problems is the resolution of the emotional traumas and or misperceptions that cause a child or adult to over eat and hold on to the weight.

As a result of childhood obesity the child/future adult may be more prone to noticeable emotional issues as well as physical or medical problems. As a child some of these difficulties are not easily noticeable and only become evident as an adult when they are able to express themselves. As an adult they may tend to act out or be extremely withdrawn in a way that others can more plainly see.

We agree that physical care and nutritional understanding is required to manage obesity. However we would like to suggest that without addressing the emotional state, emotional traumas and misperceptions that childhood obesity will be a lifelong struggle. From our experience at Teamwork Wins we have seen that when these difficulties have been addressed childhood obesity often goes into reversal.
For what you can do about childhood obesity please look for our next article.

10 Parenting Tips for Homework and Your Child

Parents often try to convince their children that they must do their homework so they do well. But doing well is the parents’ perspective not the child's. Yes it is your job as a parent to guide your child and prepare them for the world. But it is not your responsibility to make their choices for them. All too often parents decide what their child should do or be and do not leave this up to the child to discover for themselves. This approach in the long run creates a dependent person who is not a freethinking self-governing individual.

Careful guidance and detailed instruction is definitely part of your job as a parent. When it comes to homework it is the child's decision and decision-making skills that are being discovered and explored here. You as the parent must allow them to explore these decisions and their results. Your fear of whether they will be successful or get good grades is not theirs so please do not make it theirs.

The best thing you can do is allow them to make choices even if it includes failure. As long as you are sure that they understand the situations, options, alternatives and the process the decision should be allowed to become theirs. The only time that there should be different is if you know your child has some type of Invisible Challenge™ and needs more detailed direction.

Assuming your child knows the rules and responsibilities regarding homework try the following tips. Remember if you baby your child and do not allow them decision-making and potential failing opportunities they will grow up to be a baby in an adult body who often fails.

10 Parenting Homework Tips

1.    Ask them so that you are sure they clearly understand the rules and results of their choices. (If not make this information clear)
2.    Once they understand inform them that it is their choice to do it or not.
3.    Be sure to let them know that if they are having any problems or difficulties in doing their homework or getting it done and desire help that you are always available to assist them.
4.    As a courtesy remind them to do their homework if they are still having difficulties.
5.    Once they have made their choice allow them to experience the results. This may include poor grades, detentions and in extreme cases failure.
6.    Once you have stated your position and have empowered these children to make their own choices do not allow for any complaining or whining about their grades or experienced results. Simply state to them, it is/was your choice to do it or not and now you must experience the results. Do not engage in any pity parties or arguing. If you must, walk away from the situation and tell them they know what to do.
7.    This one is an absolute must to be successful in this process - Keep your issues/feelings out of the conversations! Do not get emotional and do not yell!
8.    Find a process or a way to assist you in dealing with your emotions or feelings that come up in regards to doing homework, being successful and getting good grades.
9.    Remind your child that you love them no matter what their grades or their choices are.
10.    Be sure not to punish them emotionally, silently or with any subtle remarks made about their homework or decisions.
Contact us at www.teamworkwins.org  for more information on how to help and raise the sensitive, indigo child and children with Invisible Challenges™

Bullying - Part Two

Often times children considered bullies are provoked by the children who are seen as being bullied. All too often adults are on guard for the bullies but not aware of the provocation that takes place prior to the bullying incident.
Children with poor social skills often inadvertently do things that provoke bullies into acting out on their angry and appearing aggressive behavior.
A child with poor social skills unaware of his physical body and his behaviors for example may: get up from his chair put on his coat, while putting on his coat slaps the bully in the face with the sleeve. Later in the day the same child runs through the room stepping on the bully's foot. Now the bully reacts, pushes the child down maybe even hits them. The teacher or adult sees the bully hitting the child and then punishes the bully.
What's missed here is the previous incidences that occurred prior to the bully hitting the child. It is not that you the adult can be aware of everything at all times. You must however look at the big picture and be aware of the personality of both the bully and the bullied child. In the above example this punishment reinforces to the bully that life is not fair and he must fight for himself. What is reinforced for the bullied child is that someone will protect him in spite of the lack of awareness of his behaviors. This also reinforces the possibility that he will be bullied again because he has not been taught to be conscious of his behaviors and how his behaviors affect him directly.
More in part three

Bullying - Part One

Bullying is an interesting subject when it comes to children. We have been watching bullying since her children were little and now we watch it occur in our nonprofit organization Teamwork Wins LTD.

One of our children in particular got bullied. Why did this happen? From our experience a major reason is the attitude of the person being bullied. Let's take for an example, a four-year-old wanting something from appear, wanting them to play or wanting a toy that their peers playing with. The child who appears to be the bully is no different than an adult who is a sales person and wants a sale so badly they will stop at nothing until they close the sale. The question here is will the buyer give in to the salespersons seeming aggression.

This same question can be paralleled with the child that is appearing to be bullied. Will the child be able to express what they want and say no I do not want to share my toy right now or will they give in and do with the bully wants? At this point is where the child decides unconsciously or consciously whether they are going to be a victim to the bully or are they going to be an individual could say what they feels and take a stance because they believe enough in what they want. This is not to say that a child should become aggressive themselves, although they do have the right to defend themselves. Inner feelings of a child that would assist in this would be feelings like, I care enough about myself and what I want to express myself and it is perfectly natural and fine for me to feel this way.

It is so very important for you to teach your child to respect themselves first and foremost and then to be respectful of others. If you teach your child to be respectful of others first then they will always come second and will become more susceptible to bullying. This does not mean that they should avoid the rules and avoid proper social behaviors. There is a fine line between social behaviors and respecting others before you respect yourself.

 Bullies use many different styles and techniques from yelling to the silent treatment to physical aggression. Bullies come in all different shapes and sizes from child to adult, from large bodies to tiny bodies. For example we have seen even the tiniest little child bully their parents in order to get their way.

At Teamwork Wins LTD we teach children and parents about expressing what they want and how to get it without becoming a bully. We also teach them what is acceptable from others so you won't ever appear or feel bullied. We work with both the bullied child and the bully both deserve the right to have a good and healthy life and it is so important that they both learn these skills.

Parenting the Unique Child

Unique children that we are referring to here have difficulties in such areas as socializing, feeling like they fit in, see things that aren't there, have extrasensory abilities. But have also been labeled as indigo children, as having attention deficit disorder, Asperger's syndrome, pervasive developmental disorder, emotional challenges, sensory integration disorder and a long list of acronyms.

You as their parent need to understand them and need to have tools in order to help them. This will make your life and theirs much easier. These children do not understand themselves. They do not understand why they are having difficulties in their world. These children need help in understanding in order to be able to become fully functional in their world.

We have personally raised several of these types of children and have spent the last 15 years working with them and their parents in order to understand themselves and teaching them to be functional in today's world. This process at times can take a lot of energy and focus. Answers are available but you must have the dedication to see them through. Traditional methods are not enough yet they do assist.

We currently run camps, consult with schools and teach parenting classes. Making changes is a process and does take time and patience. Each child progresses individually at their own pace so there is no blanket formula but there is a common theme in assisting each child.

This blog is for you to write questions and suggestions to other parents who have unique children. Your child does not need one of these famous acronyms in order for you to have unique child. Many of these children fly just below the radar/fall between the cracks and are not labeled but still have many of the same challenges.
This blog is for you, please take advantage of it and share it with everyone you can, so that we can get the word out to the world.