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.

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.

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.