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.
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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™