Sat Nam everyone!

I had originally posted a question on this topic regarding my 9 year
old daughter. I have since purchased the book "Fly like a Butterfly"
for her -- and she LOVES it! When it first arrived, I was a bit
worried. The kids in the illustrations looked much younger than 9. I
thought that it may come across "for little kids" from her point of
view. But that never came up. She loves the way it's formatted with
the poses corresponding to the stories. So, if anyone else out there
is contemplating the same thing for their younger children, I highly
recommend it.

I have another question related to this topic. I also have a 4 year
old son (will be 5 in January). He's always been very independant and
head strong. I've always had to discipline him more than the other
two because he's usually the one breaking the rules. But the past few
months, he's begun to go to extremes in this area. I believe that
about 50% of his body weight is now attitude. I've continued the
discipline, but it doesn't appear to be working. I'm now thinking
that changing his diet will help. We don't do a lot of junk food, but
my husband does buy Count Chocula cereal and Chef Boyardi ravioli (I
can't stand either one). He hasn't been eating more of this type of
food than before, so I'm not positive it's diet. He also eats
strawberries, yogurt, cheese. He eats some of both healthy
and 'daddy' foods. I also don't by candy, except at halloween. But
the article that Dharam posted on diet and the student's behavior at
the one school really intrigued me.

My husband's out of town all week. So I'm implementing a vegetarian
diet with no processed foods to see if that helps at all. I don't
know how long it takes to have an effect though.

I also checked out his numerology report. I read it and I think his
is even more accurate for him than mine felt for me.
Soul = 5
Karma = 1
Gift = 8
Path = 9
Destiny = 6

His Soul, Karma and Gift numbers are 100% right on. I know he needs
to learn how to deal with his anger in a constructive way. But I
don't know what to tell him to do. When I first posted this asking
about my daughter, I had several responses, some off list and some on
list. They varied from: don't do anything till the kids are 13, to:
they can do all of the yoga you do except for the locks, and numerous
stages in between these two.

Given what I've described above, what are your thoughts on him doing
a kriya or two for inner anger (not using any locks). I didn't see
anything dealing with anger or self-discipline in my daughter's book.
Which is why I'm thinking of using one of the kriyas from my books.

I haven't had this problem with my other two children, so I'm not
real sure what else to try with him. But I don't want to just 'wait
and see' if he grows out of it. I'd rather try to catch and correct
the behaviour now.

Thanks!

Christa

Sat Nam Christa,
Having raised a couple of kids myself, both personally and professionally, I
gotta wade in here because, well, I'm like that.
You didn't say if both your other kids are girls.? But I know that raising
boys and girls really is very different.
From a developmental point of view, he should be getting a little pushy
about now. He's almost five, he recognizes that other people are not an
extension of himself and he's beginning to suspect that he isn't in charge any
more and it's pissing him off. He may even be feeling a little 'different' if
he's the only boy. (Dad's are boys - but it isn't the same as a brother). You
can teach him alternative expressions for his anger and fear and aggression. At
that age, I've always found little boys go in for HOWLING. Just take all that
negativity and HOWL IT OUT! Everyone feel free to join in. It's 'pack
behavior' that little boys can get. I hate to say it, but in early development
boys tend toward more primal/primative. Girls have their own primal times, but
they seem to come later and don't last as long. But right now, they're on
different planets developmentally, so they need to work on that changing
relationship. I still remember being just crushed when my sister, 4 yrs older,
"turned into a girl". She'd been fairly tom-boyish before that and since I was
a nancy-boy, we met in the middle. It took years for us to both be stable at
the same time in our lives that we became, and remain, very good friends.
ABSOLUTELY CHANGE HIS DIET!!!! Oh junk food as a treat may be ok, but NO 5
year old needs to consume a cup of sugar at breakfast! I don't know about
vegetarianism and kids. If he were mine, I'd still feed him meat because he's
probably growing like a weed, but cut out the CRAP. Be creative! If he thinks
gross is cool, give him grapes and tell him they're lizard eyes!
Hell yes, if he'll do some yoga with you, why not? But he may resist you
there just because he can.
Hang in there Mom! Remember: You out-weigh him. You have 'reach' on him.
And you have more experience. This one idea has always permeated my childcare
philosophy, " He's just a little kid and I'm an adult, it's more reasonable for
me to speak his language than to expect him to understand mine."
For what it's worth, that's my 2 cents. My pack seemed to come out ok.

Sat Nam, Leo


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thanks Leo!

I was smiling at your comments. Ever since I had my daughter, MY
personal bias has been gender stereotypes - my 'soap box' to speak. I
know I'm very sensitive to them (my father was quite the chauvinist
and we butted heads a number of times). I try to keep the rules of
the house same for all kids, regardless of gender. I have 3 kids. My
oldest is a girl. The other two are boys. So he does have a brother.
But they are very different. The older one is much more emotional and
caring, but still very athletic as a 'boy' usually is. He rarely
misbehaves. When he does, just raising my voice usually causes him to
just start crying. Raising my voice to the younger one usually
results in either him raising his voice back at me or laughing and
talking back to me, or both!

I try to treat the differences based on who they are and not just
because they are boys -- although no one in my family agrees with
that approach. (which is why I was smiling while reading your
comments about boys vs girls).

And he does eat grapes and healthy foods, but Daddy doesn't. I think
the biggest contributing factor is Daddy's eating habits. The only
green vegetables he'll eat are broccoli -- and only if it's covered
in cheese sauce -- and peas. He likes fruit, but rarely eats any.
He'd rather snack on chocolate cupcakes or ice cream. If I can see
any change in our son's behaviour, I'll need to adjust Daddy's
behaviour to reinforce and not contradict the eating habits.

Howling out....I'd never thought of that. And it's funny, because
lately when he does raise his voice, it's actually yelling something
like NOOOOOOOOO really loud. And that sounds very similar to what you
are describing. I have construed it as talking back to me though --
because he's yelling NO.

And I completely agree with explaining things in his language. I do
believe that he's only 4. He can only grasp so much. My stumbling
block now is how to put this stuff into something he'll understand.
But the howling sounds like a good idea. And one that he appears to
be trying on his own.

Thanks a bunch for the advice Leo!!

Christa

Christa,

My son sounds very similar to yours in terms of personality! He was having
trouble with behavior at school, and I was told that he has some ADHD
tendencies. Rather than put him on medication, I started eliminating some
foods from his diet - first dairy, then wheat. I also added an essentai
fatty acid formula made for kids called Attention Memory formula by Natrol.
You can get it in a health food store or online from vitaminshoppe.com.

The dietary changes plus the supplement have worked wonders. He is like a
completely different child! I now get excellent reports from his teacher
instead of complaints. I highly recommend exploring dietary changes - they
can be amazing!

I also highly recommend a book called the ADD Nutrition Solution by Marica
Zimmerman. It was very helpful to me! Good luck!!

Janet


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Leo, all I want to know is when can I buy your book?


Leo Miller wrote:

> Sat Nam Christa,
> Having raised a couple of kids myself, both personally and professionally,
I gotta wade in here because, well, I'm like that.
> You didn't say if both your other kids are girls.? But I know that raising
boys and girls really is very different.
> From a developmental point of view, he should be getting a little pushy
about now. He's almost five, he recognizes that other people are not an
extension of himself and he's beginning to suspect that he isn't in charge any
more and it's pissing him off. He may even be feeling a little 'different' if
he's the only boy. (Dad's are boys - but it isn't the same as a brother). You
can teach him alternative expressions for his anger and fear and aggression. At
that age, I've always found little boys go in for HOWLING. Just take all that
negativity and HOWL IT OUT! Everyone feel free to join in. It's 'pack
behavior' that little boys can get. I hate to say it, but in early development
boys tend toward more primal/primative. Girls have their own primal times, but
they seem to come later and don't last as long. But right now, they're on
different planets developmentally, so they need to work on that changing
relationship. I still remember being just crushed when my sist
> er, 4 yrs older, "turned into a girl". She'd been fairly tom-boyish before
that and since I was a nancy-boy, we met in the middle. It took years for us to
both be stable at the same time in our lives that we became, and remain, very
good friends.
> ABSOLUTELY CHANGE HIS DIET!!!! Oh junk food as a treat may be ok, but NO
5 year old needs to consume a cup of sugar at breakfast! I don't know about
vegetarianism and kids. If he were mine, I'd still feed him meat because he's
probably growing like a weed, but cut out the CRAP. Be creative! If he thinks
gross is cool, give him grapes and tell him they're lizard eyes!
> Hell yes, if he'll do some yoga with you, why not? But he may resist you
there just because he can.
> Hang in there Mom! Remember: You out-weigh him. You have 'reach' on
him. And you have more experience. This one idea has always permeated my
childcare philosophy, " He's just a little kid and I'm an adult, it's more
reasonable for me to speak his language than to expect him to understand mine."
> For what it's worth, that's my 2 cents. My pack seemed to come out ok.
>
> Sat Nam, Leo