Life Force Families – toddlers

by natalia | Jan 14, 2022 | Life Force Families

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CURRICULUM TOPICS FOR TODDLERS INCLUDE:

• What We Can Learn From Our Toddlers
• The Ideal Toddler Diet
• Toddler Food List
• Dietary/Home Life Tips and Tricks
• Converting the Picky Eater
• Strategies for Playdates and Social Interactions
• TV and Toys

“Perhaps we should give our children the freedom to grow up without our dogma and then ask the children where and which way to go.”

—Vladimr Megre, Anastasia, The Ringing Cedar Series, Book 3, p. 156.

This is a time of great sensory exploration for your little one—a continuation of the magical process of orienting him/herself with the world. The world for a two-year-old is delightful, as everything is a learning opportunity. A muddy puddle, a prickly stick, the smell of a rose, and a juicy strawberry all invoke wonder and teach the child about the physical elements of our world directly through their senses. In addition to learning about the natural world, the child at this stage is also learning about the nifty artifacts and tools that we adults use—for example, by spending hours figuring out how to use the salad spinner, investigating the contents of Daddy’s tool box, or organizing books.

This stage provides us a wonderful opportunity to slow down and see the world through our children’s eyes. If we pay attention, there is more to learn from our children than we could possibly imagine teaching them. For the time being, they are uncluttered by dogma, ideas about good and bad, and the voices of others, so there is still purity in their intentions and actions. The laws of nature apply here as they do in our bodies and in any other aspect of life. When we encourage our children’s curiosity and innate goodness, giving them the space to play and explore, learning is joyful and effortless. When we block or in any way stifle their natural unfolding—physically, mentally, or emotionally—anxiety, behavior problems, and illness quickly set in

Acidic environments, addictive and numbing food, the hypnotic nature of television, parental stress and anxiety, and alienation from nature can all block the natural flow of health, growth, and development. These are realities of the world we live in, and in order to be role models for our children, we have to work diligently to ensure these are not stifling factors in our own lives. The point here is not to become “the perfect parents” or to raise “the perfect children.” The point, rather, is to embrace this opportunity to become “perfectly human.” For years, indeed generations, the human race has been degenerating and mutating into weaker and weaker forms, and we not only want to stop this degeneration, but actually reverse it through clean living. Many of the unnatural and acidic elements in our modern world rob us and our children of that opportunity.

A great place to combat the ills of modern living is to observe the way our children approach the world. When we allow ourselves to see the world through their eyes, we can take a leap of consciousness. Children, and toddlers in particular, are captivated by nature in all its life forms—whether it’s the wriggling of the earthworm, the bright flash of butterfly wings, or the levitation of a hummingbird. Their instincts are not to consume animal flesh. In fact, they don’t generally want meat unless they are repeatedly exposed to it, and even then, only when it is disguised with ketchup or breaded with addictive additives. Toddlers cringe at the idea of killing animals for food, and unless they are repeatedly exposed to addictive processed foods and sodas, they are fully content with whole and blended fruits and vegetables—perfect human food. Children love the colors, textures, and sweet juiciness of fruits and many vegetables.

Toddlers also naturally live in the moment (unless they’ve been overexposed to artificial stimulation). Watching them interact with their environment and live in the present can help us rekindle the love affair we all once had with the world and embrace each and every moment. Our toddlers can teach us that there is an abundance of joy, love, and laughter to be found within. We adults just have to remove the clutter so we can see it.

IDEAL TODDLER DIET

Along with the natural desire to fully explore and embrace the world, children at this age want to taste most foods that are put in front of them. This is a critical time for wiring their senses for health-generating foods. If they are surrounded by the colorful array of apples, bananas, kiwis, and pineapples, they will take pleasure in these fruits and come to love nature’s offerings, setting the stage for a lifetime of natural choices.

If, by contrast, we are constantly exposing them to foods in bright, shiny, cartoon-character packaging in animal shapes and fluorescent colors, they will forever gravitate toward processed foods and their palates will be wired for those extremely stimulating flavors.

Never mind social pressures, this is NOT the time to expose your child to artificial, chemical-laden foods. This is the time to stay the natural course. This is the time to protect your child’s palate so that it remains pure and sensitized to the beautiful, subtle flavors of natural foods. Once exposed to chemicals in mainstream foods, the palate becomes tainted and eventually numb to whole foods. For example, an untainted palate can detect the deliciously sweet and delicately spicy flavors in a ripe pear and enjoy the earthy flavors of freshly pressed green juice.

In addition to devastating our children’s palates and reducing their ability to enjoy natural foods, chemicals in mainstream foods literally short-circuit the innate sensors that detect harmful toxins in the substances they consume. The toxins commonly used by food manufacturers today compromise the blood, create mucus, damage organs, and irritate the intestine, setting the stage for all manner of sicknesses—from behavioral problems to IBS to cancers. These processed foods are not innocuous substances that we can reasonably feed our children in moderation. They are dangerous—the harbingers of your child’s cellular deterioration. They will rob your baby of his/her physical power and mental acuity. We have spent generations excusing these destructive substances because they are fun or taste good, allowing them to silently destroy our children’s wholeness and power. How can we excuse that? How can that be worth it? It’s our job as parents to provide our children a safe place to grow up healthy and strong. It’s time to step out of the dark ages!

During these preschool days, you are in effect home-schooling your child. This is your best, uninterrupted chance to teach your child the fundamentals of what is life-generating and what is not. Make it easier on yourself by stocking your kitchen with only life-generating foods. And if you really want to simplify matters and ensure that the message sinks in at this early stage, eat the same foods that your toddler eats! Confusion and frustration can arise during the “this is OK for Mommy and Daddy but not for you” conversation.

TODDLER FOOD LIST

Here are the foods that both you and your toddler can enjoy in abundance. Have fun with any combinations of these foods and experiment often, as a toddler’s preferences can change daily. Just remember, due to the chemicals and highly addictive nature of the foods in the Toxic category of the Food Chart, avoid those items at all costs.

Fruits

• We find toddlers especially like avocado, banana, grapes, cherry tomatoes, melons, and berries.
• Baked apples and pears
• Stewed fruits
• Organic raisins or other dried fruits (no sugar added)
• Baby shakes
• Whole-fruit popsicles (you can blend fruits and add coconut water or regular water and make your own popsicles)
• Frozen bananas (blended in a blender or food processor with cocoa powder and/or raw nut butter)

Vegetables

• All cooked vegetables (Add sauces, butter, or spices to make these more interesting! Children especially like winter squashes such as butternut, pumpkin, acorn squash, and sweet potato.)
• Blended soups (such as broccoli or butternut squash)
• Raw olives

Grains & Legumes

Note: You and your toddler may enjoy these grains and legumes as desired, but remember that they are not perfect human foods, so do not let them take the place of life-generating fruits and vegetables.

• Spelt, buckwheat, or quinoa pasta
• Legume-based soups, such as split pea and lentil
• Sprouted-grain bread (Ezekiel, 4:9, Food for Life, Alvarado St. Bakery)
• Whole-grain cookies (Kollar, Kashi, Cascadian Farms)

Animal Products (limited to the following items)

• Raw goat or sheep cheeses (non-raw is OK if you cannot find raw)
• Organic, free-range eggs

Spreads & Sauces

• Organic marinara sauce (Paesana or Seeds of Change are two delicious options! Toss into raw baby spinach leaves for a tasty way to incorporate greens.)
• Hummus
• Nut butters
• Raw honey
• Pure maple syrup
• Organic ketchup
• Organic butter
• Any spices (especially cinnamon and sea salt)

Liquids

• Purified water
• Fresh-squeezed orange juice
• Green juice or any juice combination you and your child enjoy
• Coconut water
• Nut milks (It’s ideal if you make this yourself, but there are some good, high-quality brands you can purchase.)
• High-quality apple cider or juice (Pasteurized apple cider or juice is not ideal but fine if it’s high-quality, 100% juice, no added sugar, and diluted with water. See our Store for acceptable options.)

TIPS AND TRICKS

1. 1. The food in your refrigerator and cupboards and anything at “grazing level” in the house should be healthy enough to be free for the taking. Allowing your child to make food decisions will help him or her to feel empowered. As long as everything in your house is relatively health-generating, you can rest assured that this freedom will not result in an unhealthy compromise.
   2. Establish rhythms around the house—and by this we do not mean the traditional “three square meals” a day! We have been socially conditioned to accept the idea that humans need three meals a day with snacks in between, but a child will rarely gravitate toward such a schedule naturally. Children normally eat one very big meal and then essentially graze the rest of the day. Of course, this can change from day to day, based on how they are feeling.
   3. Do not stress about how much food your child is consuming. Toddlers instinctively listen to their bodies and eat as much as they need to!
   4. Unless your child has serious digestive issues, you do not need to worry about Quick-Exit Combinations at this time. However, keeping the “light to heavy” principle in mind throughout your child’s day can be helpful for digestion. But again, do not stress about this! However, in the case of digestive problems, food combining can be critically important. To determine whether or not improper food combining is an issue for your child, simply pay attention to your child’s eliminations. Does your child become gassy or constipated after miscombined meals? If so, try paying attention to the quick-exit food combination principles and see if the issue improves.
   5. There is no need to force-feed your child vegetables! Children instinctively prefer fruits, as these are the most health-generating, cleanest human foods. Your child will enjoy vegetables at some point, so don’t worry if he or she doesn’t love them now.
   6. If your toddler didn’t like something as baby, try reintroducing it now. Kids can change their minds from month to month, and sometime even from day to day!
   7. Instead of dictating, “Eat this” or “Don’t eat that,” try describing what each food will do to the body. For example, when presenting your child with fresh fruits and vegetables, try saying, “Here, this will give you lots of power.” When your child asks why you don’t eat junk food, try responding, “Oh, no, that sucks up your power like a vampire” or “That makes your blood dirty.” Using concrete but illustrative statements to explain why we do and do not eat certain foods helps a child conceptualize the physical effects of consumption. The earlier our children contextualize and conceptualize these things, the more sense it will make to them, and the more they will be empowered to make life-generating choices for themselves. Believe us, it’s never too early for that! In a world that’s largely clueless about the effects of food in the body, our children will be among the lucky few who are conscious about food and protected from a future of mindless consumption.
   8. Keep your food preparations VERY SIMPLE, unless of course you choose to play gourmet chef. Your kitchen staples are all you will ever need. And they’re cheap—carrots and other roots, sprouted-grain breads, apples, bananas, and avocados are even affordable organic! Baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, or olives can be put out before a meal. Just keep in mind the principles of “raw before cooked” and “light to heavy.” Think whole fruits and veggies in their whole forms. Here are some other simple, fun ideas to get you started:
      • Baked root vegetables
      • Baked sweet potatoes topped with organic butter and cinnamon
      • Grilled raw goat cheese on sprouted-grain bread
      • Organic free-range scrambled eggs with grated raw cheddar-style goat cheese
      • Lentil soup with a side of sprouted-grain buttery toast
   9. The simpler the meals, the less your child will expect and demand. That’s a good thing for you both. The idea that meals need to be elaborate is a result of social conditioning. You do not need to set yourself up for work every day and night! There should be variety in your child’s diet within a day or a week, but you do not have to worry about variety within every meal. The kids we know who are fussy started out with mothers who offered them the opportunities to become fussy. Toddler are always testing their boundaries, but don’t give them too much room to fuss. Establish solid boundaries around simple, real food. You can give your child two choices: sweet potatoes or eggs; grilled cheese (our version) or broccoli “pasta”; apples or bananas. It really can be that stress-free!
   10. Consider what you are putting on your child’s body, not just in it! For example, it is best to use natural shampoos and soaps, as well as natural toothpaste (see our store for good options).
   11. Children do not normally need extra vitamins. If their body’s pathways are open and flowing, they will absorb all of the vitamins they need from the fruits and juices you are giving them. If their pathways are generally blocked and congested, all of the vitamins in the world will not help.

CONVERTING THE PICKY EATER

We realize some of you may be new to this lifestyle and you may already have a child who refuses to eat fruits, vegetables, and anything that resembles a fruit or vegetable! Mainstream foods, like many drugs, are highly addictive and numbing to the sense of taste, so it is no wonder that after exposure to these foods our children will gravitate toward them exclusively. Moreover, children will crave more of the same chemical-laden foods in order to experience the same “high” as they get older. Therefore, now is the time to really “nip it in the bud” and be firm about the changes you want to make.

If you put natural foods in front of your child and he or she refuses to eat them, you will probably have some painful days or weeks. The transition may be challenging at first; when embarking on any significant life change, it takes persistence and a deep desire to do what you know is right. Do your best to keep your goals in mind and remind yourself that your child will not starve! In fact, over time, your child will develop a taste for life-generating foods. However, the process doesn’t have to be completely miserable for you or your child! To assist you in this process, here are some additional tips and tricks to help make the transition healthy and enjoyable:

1. 1. • Simply upgrading the quality of what your child is eating today will make a huge difference. Click here to see some suggestions for converting the picky eater with Transition Foods.
      • Stress the quality over the quantity of the foods your children are getting. If they are eating large amounts of processed, dead foods today, they are actually starving nutritionally! Therefore, if they start to eat just a little bit of natural, whole, live foods, or consume some green juice in the morning, they will be getting more nutritional value today than they were yesterday. Remember, what is important is progress, not perfection!
      • Focus on the fruits and vegetables they DO like without worrying about varying the types. If they will eat an apple every day, give them an apple every day! Don’t stress if your child will eat fruits but not vegetables. Younger children are wired for fruits. There’s no need to push vegetables on them. Their desire for more savory, vegetable-based fare will come later.
      • Use some tricks of the trade to make fruits and vegetables more attractive. For example, try raw honey, tahini, or almond butter on fruits such as bananas and apples; high-quality marinara sauce on acorn squash or avocado; or hummus with baked sweet potato. This is a great way to start getting the fruits and vegetables into your child’s diet. As your child’s palate changes, you may eventually be able to eliminate some of these extras.
      • Planting gardens, growing herbs, and having your child help you cook or prepare foods can help them enjoy the foods more. When children (and adults, too) understand the source of their food, they are more likely to appreciate it. We want our children to understand the “why” behind our decision to change their diet.

PLAYDATES AND SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

This is the time where healthy boundaries around what other people give your kids will come into play. It is way too early for flexibility, and although there is a time and a place to give in a little and allow for exploration, a playdate should not be one of those exceptions! This is definitely a time when you will want to stick to your guns and do what is best for your child’s health.

When your child is on a playdate, make sure to bring food for him or her. Since a toddler is still too young for drop-offs, you or your caregiver can be there to ensure feeding time goes as desired. It’s best to explain to your toddler beforehand that he or she may see foods at the playdate that are not good for her. It’s never too early to point out that what others do is not necessarily what you or your child do. If your child wants to eat unfit foods that he or she sees, gently remind your child of the family parameters and divert his/her attention with something more health-generating. If all else fails, take your child into another room and explain it all again. No matter what, stick to what you say or else you will set the stage for repeat behavior. Upon returning home, praise your child for being so clever and understanding. Take every opportunity to positively reinforce the behaviors and attitudes you’re trying to cultivate. Children learn far more from praise (which they will want to experience repeatedly) than from criticism and shame (which stresses them and shuts them down). Again, at this point, you still have most of the control around what your child consumes, so take advantage of this time to continue setting a solid foundation, nutritionally and emotionally.

This is also the time to establish boundaries socially. Kids are so much more comfortable knowing what’s expected of them and what they should expect in turn. We cannot emphasize enough how helpful it is to your child to explain a potential scenario before it occurs. Say things like, “We don’t eat other people’s foods that Mommy didn’t pack for you.” The more you explain to your child, the better. Even if you don’t think your child is understanding you, the tone you use and the approach you take make all of the difference. It makes your child feel like a part of the plan. If all else fails, just say, NO. Your child needs to know that no means no, without having to do a tango around it. There are times for explanations and colorful descriptions, and then there are times for a very strong, clear, unshakeable NO. Don’t be afraid of being firm. In our experience, firmness has only made our children feel safer and helps them understand the rules of the family more clearly. Happy, unspoiled, well-balanced children grow up with a firm sense of boundaries and a deep source of unconditional love.

If you are worried about others constantly offering your child substances you don’t want them to have and not respecting your preferences, you can always use the allergy excuse. Ultimately, we are all allergic to chemical-laden, unnatural foods, so it isn’t really a lie. The only difference is the degree to which we experience dramatic symptoms. Therefore in essence, saying your child is allergic to these foods is accurate.

TV AND TOYS

Media brainwashing is fast, deep, and lasting. It begins the moment you switch the TV on. As soon as children are exposed to targeted marketing, they start to be robbed of their power. Exposing children to the constant stream of commercials and the insidious messages of mainstream programming cements their social conditioning. In addition, TV shows and the Internet are extremely addictive, and too much exposure to television and computer content can erode a child’s attention span.

There is plenty of great entertainment for kids without ever switching on the TV. Consider buying, renting, and checking quality shows out from your local library, or even from online video stores. Consider banning TV at home (as many of us do), but reserve the right to pop in high-quality videos like the Baby Einstein series and all your old childhood favorites—like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Oliver, Pollyana, Mary Poppins, Annie, the Shirley Temple movies, The Little Rascals, Flipper, or Lassie. Our kids do not always have to watch what is on TV today (mostly junk) and this can be a fun trip down memory lane for you. The old musicals are especially fun!

As far as toys go, the idea that kids need flashing lights, talking dolls, and other obnoxious trinkets in order to learn or be entertained is far from the truth! Children do not need this extra stimulation. The world offers enough natural stimulation without synthetic and manufactured products always being pushed on them. Our children, if not overexposed to artificial stimulation, will gravitate toward the full range of nature’s wonders (such as bugs, leaves, flowers, and wildlife) and all manner of arts and crafts projects far more than TV and battery-powered toys. Best of all, they become completely engrossed in their discoveries, and you too can enjoy these quiet moments to yourself.

It is far too early to expose your child to the hyper-stimulating and often violent imagery of video games. Keep your toddler away from video games at this ultra-impressionable time. They interrupt brain development and are terrible for eyes and attention spans.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

People often talk about the “terrible twos” and think of temper tantrums and power struggles as normal and expected behaviors for toddlers. However, if we raised our toddlers on natural foods (to keep them balanced) and natural experiences (to support their instinctual learning processes) instead of canned stimulation—and if we set clear, healthy boundaries rather than confusing them with mixed messages—there would be no terrible twos!

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Life Force Families – Preschool

by natalia | Jan 14, 2022 | Life Force Families

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CURRICULUM TOPICS FOR PRESCHOOL INCLUDE:

• Why It’s Essential to “Become the Change We Want to See”
• The Ideal Preschooler’s Diet
• Helpful Guidelines for Busy Schedules
• Converting the Picky Eater
• Tips for Preschool
• The Drop-Off Playdate
• TV, Media, and Video Games
• Developmental Considerations

“Our children are not raised by parental admonition, nor by kindergartens, schools and colleges. Our children are raised by the way people live—the way we ourselves live and the way society in general lives. And no matter what kids hear from their parents or teachers in school or any other institution of learning, no matter what clever systems of education are adopted, children will follow the lifestyle practiced by the majority of people around them. This means that the raising of children depends entirely on your own understanding of the world, on how you live your own life, how your parents live and how society in general lives. A sick and unhappy society can only give birth to sick and unhappy children.”

—Vladimir Megre, Anastasia, The Ringing Cedar Series, Book 6, Chapter 1

Children have impressionable minds that are constantly being bombarded with misguided messages from the media and their peers. Proper parenting in today’s world means bringing children back to their natural state of health, happiness, and harmony. Children are hungry for knowledge that will help keep them healthy and strong—mentally, physically, and emotionally. As nurturers, we must share all that we know with them in a gentle, approachable way. The best way to do this is to be a living example to them.

Many of us work diligently to secure our children’s futures by contributing money to college funds, making sure they attend the best schools, and supporting after-school activities. However, the most valuable investment we can make in securing our children’s futures is providing an exemplary standard of values for them by example. We must embody the core values of compassion, honesty, bravery, fidelity, honor, and universal respect for all life if we wish our children to reflect them as well. Yet, our mainstream values (both societal and individual) do not remotely reflect such standards. If they did, we would not be rendering 200 species a day extinct in order to maintain the infrastructure of our man-made, shortsighted, selfish world. If we support the latter unquestioningly, we will raise children who do likewise. Only by challenging every thread of the fabric of our destructive society can we expect to raise children with a better future.

Our children will do as we do, not as we say. If we want to raise a generation of children who are healthy, happy in their professions, and able to sustain loving and fulfilling relationships with others, we must apply this vision we have for them directly to our own lives—through the strength of conviction and everyday practice. If we do not, we seal their doom with the status quo and worse. Yes, it is all well and good to put money aside for college, but what good will that be if our children become so sick in body and spirit in this upside-down world that they seek refuge in drugs and alcohol? Or if their souls are so repressed and shut down by social rules and expectations that they engage in self-silencing behaviors (e.g., eating disorders, sex addiction, binge shopping) and never blossom enough to benefit from higher education?

We cannot underestimate our influence as parents, particularly in these formative years. We have all the power to shape the lives of our little ones. Look at your values closely because they will be your child’s values. Look at your behaviors closely because these will be your child’s behaviors in time. The great news is that everything we do as parents is meaningful—whether it’s encouraging family walks and talks instead of watching television, teaching our children the value of sustainability and whole foods, educating ourselves on natural remedies and the real reasons for childhood illness, or going out of our way to get the highest-quality produce and non-toxic cleaning products. Every conscious, authentic step we take really matters. Our dedication to what is truly valuable in life will be passed along to our children.

Many lessons and adventures await you and your child as the school years begin and your child starts to make sense of his or her place in the world outside the home. If your child’s role models (primarily you) embody peace and clarity, he or she will be grounded and strong enough to brave the outside world. Educate and excite your child about what really matters—namely, conducting love and life force energy all around you!

Sadly, most children don’t see a bright future on offer, but rather a world that doesn’t really work for the adults. The uninspired adult experience is not lost on kids. They just chew quietly on the bizarre ways that most adults slog mindlessly through modern life, and eventually come to mimic these behaviors. So parents, if you want your children to experience the great joys of life instead of a never-ending stream of disillusionment, you must first experience the real joys of life yourself—in your own body, in your home, in your work, and in your relationships.

We appreciate that this may be a very difficult concept to grasp if you’ve never experienced the euphoria of clean living. Our best suggestion in this case is to put a little time aside each day to reflect on your values and society’s values and where they have brought you; and also, on a physical level, to undertake some cellular cleansing so you can begin to feel the power of the life force conducting through your body. The experience of unobstructed energy flowing through you extends to all aspects of your world. It’s a great place from which to start educating yourself and your child.

“Be the Change You Want to See”: A mother once came to Gandhi with her son in tow. “Gandhi,” she pleaded, “Please tell my son to stop eating sugar.” Gandhi told her, “Come back in three days.” Puzzled, the mother did as she was asked and went back home. When she returned with her son three days later, Gandhi told the boy, “Stop eating sugar.” The mother then asked Gandhi, “Why didn’t you just tell him to stop eating sugar three days ago? “Because,” Mahatma Gandhi said, “Three days ago I hadn’t stopped eating sugar myself.”

Recommended Reading: Magical Child by Joseph Chilton Pearce; The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann; Ishmael by Daniel Quinn; all books and e-books by Natalia Rose (for cellular cleansing).

THE IDEAL PRESCHOOLER’S DIET

If you have been following the Natalia Rose Institute parenting lifestyle from your child’s birth through the toddler years, you know that up until now we have emphasized vigilance in the diet to ensure our children are not exposed to chemicals, hormones, and other synthetic elements in mainstream foods. Until now, establishing this healthy foundation was largely in your control and probably relatively easy to accomplish. However, if you have decided to send your child to preschool outside of the home, you will begin to experience many new and interesting challenges! You may be packing daily lunches and frequently interacting with the principal, teachers, and fellow parents. New social activities, such as birthday parties and drop-off playdates, will become commonplace.

These changes present an opportunity for you to reestablish your dietary boundaries—what’s acceptable, what’s not, and what you can occasionally allow. It’s important to periodically consider your boundaries and remind yourself of why a dietetic philosophy that ensures cellular cleanliness is so important. This way, when unplanned events and circumstances pop up (and they will), you won’t make knee-jerk choices you’ll regret. As you consider your dietary philosophy, keep in mind that there may be situations where flexibility is valuable to you and your child. We want to be firm in our beliefs, but not so rigid that we cause undue stress. Being vigilant over your child’s well-being requires a great deal of intelligence, as there are many factors to weigh at any given time. Some of you will readily see the nuances and respond accordingly. If you find complex, on-the-spot decision-making more difficult, we advise you to rehearse these possible scenarios in your mind (and if absolutely necessary, with your child) so that you are ready. Life throws enough curve balls even when you are prepared. But have faith that, with practice, such decision-making will become second-nature to you.

As you develop the practices that works best for your child, keep in mind that, in order for a food to be truly health-generating, it must (a) have a negative ionic electromagnetic charge (alkaline as opposed to acidic); (b) be water-containing; and (c) be seamless for the body to digest, assimilate, and eliminate. By this definition, the only truly health-generating foods are raw fruits and vegetables, their juices, young coconuts, and mother’s milk for babies. There is room for some non-life-generating substances and neutral substances, of course! But it’s helpful to discern between the real health-generators and the substances that are merely neutral or mildly acidic.

Ideally, a child would eat predominately raw fruits and vegetables. The other foods we offer are just filler and what we refer to as “safe poisons”—foods that conduct minimal life force through the cells and bloodstream, but have generally nutrient-rich properties and are not too difficult to process when consumed as supplements to a diet primarily of fruits and vegetables. We have typically referred to these substances as Transition Foods—though we also like to call them “bridgers.” These include: sprouted whole grains, legumes, raw cheeses, organic/free-range meats, fish and eggs, and several higher-quality packaged foods. We completely understand that existing exclusively on health-generating foods is too extreme for children today—emotionally, socially, and even physiologically—given the inescapable toxic realties of the modern world. These transition or bridger items offer dietary flexibility without overly compromising your child’s health.

A good rule of thumb is to keep your preschooler on a diet of about 75% Ideal foods, 20–25% Transition foods, and less than 5% Non-Ideal foods. It is still important to work very hard to avoid anything from the Toxic food category. Here’s a list of foods that you can include in your child’s diet at this time.

PRESCHOOLER FOOD LIST

Fruits (in the 75% category)

• Any and all fresh raw fruits!
• Baked apples and pears
• Stewed fruits
• Organic raisins or other dried fruits (no sugar added)
• Fruit smoothies
• Whole-fruit popsicles (you can blend fruits and add coconut water or regular water to make your own popsicles)
• Frozen bananas (blend in a blender or food processor with cocoa powder and/or raw nut butter)

Vegetables (in the 75% category)

• All cooked vegetables (add sauces, butter or spices to make these more interesting! Children especially like winter squashes like butternut, pumpkin, acorn squash and sweet potato)
• Blended soups (like broccoli or butternut squash)
• Raw Olives

Grains & Legumes (in the 20–25% category)

Note: Your child may enjoy grains and legumes as desired, but these are not perfectly ideal and should not take the place of life-generating fruits and vegetables.

• Spelt, buckwheat, Kamut, or quinoa pasta (see grain/cereal section of our store for ideas)
• Legume-based soups, such as split pea and lentil
• Sprouted-grain bread (Ezekiel 4:9, Food for Life, Alvarado St. Bakery)
• Whole-grain cookies (Kollar, Kashi, Cascadian Farms – see Grocery/Snacks and Sweets in our store for more ideas!)

Animal Products (in the 20–25% category)

Limit your child’s intake of animal products to the following:

• Raw goat or sheep cheeses (non-raw is OK if you can’t find raw)
• Organic, free-range eggs
• Wild and free-range fish and meats

Spreads & Sauces (use as desired with fruits and vegetables)

• Organic marinara sauce (Paesana and Seeds of Change are two delicious options! Toss into raw baby spinach leaves for a tasty way to incorporate greens.)
• Hummus
• Nut butters
• Raw honey
• Pure maple syrup
• Organic ketchup
• Organic butter
• Any spices (especially cinnamon and sea salt)

Liquids (in the 75% category)

• Purified water (ideally living spring water placed in glass rather than plastic. If you cannot find this, reverse osmosis water like Essentia is a good option)
• Fresh-squeezed orange juice
• Green juice or any juice combination you and your child enjoy
• Coconut water
• Nut milks (ideal if you make this yourself, but there are some good, high-quality brands you can purchase – see our store for some good options)
• High-quality apple cider or juice (Pasteurized apple cider or juice is not ideal, but it’s fine if high-quality, 100% juice, no added sugar, and diluted with water. See our store for some good options)

AVOID all foods in the Toxic category of the Food Chart!

HELPFUL GUIDELINES FOR BUSY SCHEDULES

We know your schedules are intensely demanding, so we encourage you to create a system you can rely on! With a consistent approach, you won’t have to reinvent the wheel each week.

Take into Consideration:

• Your budget
• Refrigerator and pantry items
• On-the-counter produce (This is the fresh fruit that will be accessible to your children all day so they actually eat lots of fruit without you even mentioning it!)
• Shopping (Whether it’s small daily trips to local shops, online shopping for bulk items, or a long ride to a farmers’ market once or twice a week, develop a regular routine, and don’t forget to ask about order and delivery options!)
• Your child’s lunch bag items
• Dinners at home (Do you like to entertain or have candle-lit dinners with your spouse? If so, by all means factor these important evenings into your schedule to maintain a sense of joy at home. It makes a big impression on our children to see us keeping the romance and magic alive in our daily lives. Try a candle-lit dinner for the whole family!)
• A list of rules for feeding your child that you can use to brief a babysitter
• Travel needs (if applicable)
• Vegetables for juicing

STRATEGIES FOR MAINTAINING BALANCE:

1. Your child will probably want to start trying things like pasta, cookies, chips, and pizza. See the Transition Foods Chart for for healthier substitutes. Just remember, don’t let the diet exceed 25% of these foods.

2. Unless your child has serious digestive issues, you do not need to obsess about quick-exit food combinations at this time. Most children have naturally strong bowels. In the end, you probably won’t be successful enforcing quick-exit combinations anyway, so this is one battle not worth fighting! However, do keep in mind the “light to heavy” principle throughout your child’s day to aid digestion; but again, do not stress about this!

3. Make your home a safe “grazing zone” for your children. Put out bowls of fresh whole fruit. Also, create a cabinet of accessible treats, such as Cascadian Farms bars, Kashi cookies, or dried fruit, and keep natural popsicles in the freezer. Home should be an empowering place for your children, food-wise. Among the high-quality foods you make accessible to them, let them flex their independence muscles! You may be more restrictive about playdates and other social interactions, so counterbalance this by allowing them to make choices throughout the day and in your home.

4. Print our Lunch Bag Ideas page to help you prepare lunches the night before or in the morning before school.

5. When you are out and about with your child, take along fresh fruit or other healthy snacks so you do not find yourself in positions where you will have to compromise.

6. Do not force food on your child. Children know when they are hungry and will stop eating when they are full.

7. If your child does not want to eat the dinner or meal you have prepared and you are concerned they will be hungry later, try saying something like, “If you’re hungry later, Mommy’s not going to cook again, so this is your last chance for a warm dish. But you can have it cold later, or have a banana or another piece of fruit.” By doing this, you are giving your child the freedom to eat when he or she is actually hungry—but you’re also teaching your child that you are not a short-order cook!

8. If you bring your child with you to the grocery store, empower him or her to help with the shopping. One fun idea is to have your child pick out 3 fruits and 3 vegetables that he or she has never tried before, and you can try them together as a family.

9. Remember, if your child is eating extremely well 90% of the time and only moderately well or not so well the rest of the time, you are still on a very good path!

CONVERTING THE PICKY EATER

We realize some of you may be new to this lifestyle and you may already have a child who refuses to eat fruits, vegetables, and anything that resembles a fruit or vegetable! Mainstream foods, like many drugs, are highly addictive and numbing to the sense of taste, so it is no wonder that after exposure to these foods our children will gravitate toward them exclusively. Moreover, children will crave more of the same chemical-laden foods to experience the same “high” as they get older. Therefore, now is the time to really “nip it in the bud” and be firm about the changes you want to make.

At this point, your child has probably had his or her fair share of colds, flus, ear infections, eczema or other skin issues, and possibly more serious digestive, respiratory, and autoimmune disorders. These ailments can be due to compromised lineage, but they are mainly the body’s way of signaling that something unnatural is going into the body, resulting in blockages within the system. Suppressing these conditions with drugs without addressing the causes of the sickness in the first place will only result in recurrence and chronic illnesses in the future. This is a great time to start gently transitioning your child toward a more health-generating diet.

If you put natural foods in front of your child and he or she refuses to eat them, you will probably have some painful days or weeks. The transition may be challenging at first; when embarking on any significant life change, it takes persistence and a deep desire to do what you know is right. Do your best to keep your goals in mind and remind yourself that your child will not starve! In fact, over time, your child will develop a taste for life-generating foods. However, the process doesn’t have to be completely miserable for you or your child! Below are some additional tips and tricks to keep the transition enjoyable.

TIPS & TRICKS

• Simply upgrading the quality of what your child is eating today will make a huge difference. Click here to see some suggestions: Transition Foods Chart.
• Stress the quality over the quantity of the foods your children are getting. If they are eating large amounts of processed, dead foods today, they are actually starving nutritionally! Therefore, if they start to eat just a little bit of natural, whole, live foods, or consume some green juice in the morning, they will be getting more nutritional value today than they were yesterday. Remember, what is important is progress, not perfection!
• Focus on the fruits and vegetables they do like without worrying about variety. If they will eat an apple every day, give them an apple every day!
• Use some tricks of the trade to make fruits and vegetables more attractive. For example, try raw honey, tahini, or almond butter on fruits such as bananas and apples; high-quality marinara sauce on acorn squash or avocado; or hummus with baked sweet potato. This is a great way to start getting the fruits and vegetables into your child’s diet. As your child’s palate changes, you may eventually be able to eliminate some of these extras.
• Planting gardens, growing herbs, and having your child help you cook or prepare foods can help them enjoy the foods more. When children (and adults, too) understand the source of their food, they are more likely to appreciate it. We want our children to understand the “why” behind our decision to change their diet.

PRESCHOOL

It is common for preschools to provide snacks or to have parents provide snacks for their children. These snacks normally consist of Goldfish, cookies, pretzels, and other items we do not want to be feeding our children on a daily basis. It is very important to have conversations with your child and say things like, “Sweetheart, I don’t like you to eat those things because they poison your blood and take away your strength.” Be playful and creative in using terminology that connects with your child but that’s also true (such as the above statement, which is well-tested and child-approved!). For these snack times, pack your child healthy and tasty alternatives so he/she has good options to choose from.

School birthday celebrations will also become commonplace at this time. These celebrations usually bring with them cookies, cupcakes, birthday cake, and candy. If your child’s class is fairly large, these birthday celebrations can occur as frequently as once a week or every other week, and this is far too frequent for such mainstream indulgences! Fortunately, many schools nowadays are finding it makes more sense to celebrate all the birthdays within the same month on one communal day.

Typically these parties are held at snack or lunchtime. This makes it easy. If you want to be flexible, just instruct your child—and ask the teacher to reinforce this—to eat his or her own snack and/or lunch first, and then allow your child to enjoy a bit of birthday “treat.” Or, if you opt for a stricter approach, you can pack an alternative dessert for your child. The latter route will depend on many factors, such as your personal dedication, your child’s health needs, allergies, and reactions to refined sugar and other processed substances and food additives. Take into consideration the frequency of these parties and what you feel is right for your child at any given time—both physically and emotionally.

There are as many reasons to bend the rules as there are reasons to be steadfast. Again, intelligence and intuition are your best guides. Whichever choice you make, it is important to consistently communicate with your child so they understand why eating birthday cake and cupcakes is not in their best interest for either the short term or the long term. It’s much better for your child to be conscious of the fact that this treat for the taste buds is not actually a treat for the body’s blood, cells, and overall strength than to have no awareness at all. Either choice is fine, as long as it’s a conscious choice, not a conditioned one! Children understand more than we give them credit for—so don’t sell your child’s intelligence short!

Many parents are concerned that if their child eats differently from the rest of the class, he or she will be made fun of, left out, or labeled “weird.” We like to remind them that there are many kids with special dietary needs these days—whether due to allergies, early onset sickness, or religious or cultural beliefs. There is no reason to fear that your kid will be “weird” or cast out of the group because he or she doesn’t eat salami and cheese and chicken nuggets for lunch! Now if you feed your kid a mainstream diet that triggers autism, obesity, or diabetes at an early age, you can be sure that he or she will have much more difficult social issues to contend with. Keeping the big picture in mind makes adhering to your beliefs much easier.

While health is obviously a serious topic, it is still important to have a sense of humor around unpredictable situations, which you will find yourself in on occasion. We parents at Life Force Families have found that it is very helpful to give kids, teachers, and other parents the benefit of the doubt. As long as you communicate your preferences clearly and respectfully, they will generally be agreeable—and, who knows, your child’s eating habits may rub off on others! Many teachers we encounter are just as troubled by the foods their young students eat as we are, and they will happily support you.

THE DROP-OFF PLAYDATE

In addition to the new situations at school, preschool-aged kids are at an important phase of social development. They will begin to socialize with other children and will want to experiment with foods outside of the home. It is good for them to try new things! Remember, if you are still feeding your kids health-generating foods 90% of the time, the occasional treat is not going to be the end of the world! Normally, kids raised on a clean diet will only eat a few bites of these other foods anyway, so allow some freedom within your boundaries.

Most parents mistakenly believe they feed their children well. This can make it tricky to provide your child with food from your home without insulting other parents. In this potentially uncomfortable situation, you can say something like, “My child only eats fruit between meals. I’d appreciate it if that’s all s/he has to eat while s/he’s here.” Or “He/she has special dietary needs, so I’ve put together a little bag of things that s/he can eat.” It may take a little trial and error, but you will find an approach that works for you. In our experience, these playdates are not a time to abandon your boundaries, but a time for reinforcement and steadfast dedication. Treat them as extensions of their playtimes at home. Your child is better off having clearly understood boundaries than ending up confused and always testing limits. A little bit of flexibility and experimentation is important once in a while, but remember, kids like consistency because it makes them feel secure. If you’re always bending here and there, you’ll never set a proper foundation.

TV, MEDIA, AND VIDEO GAMES

The brainwashing effect of modern media is fast, deep, and lasting. It begins the moment you switch the TV or Internet on. As soon as your children are exposed to targeted marketing, they start to be robbed of their power. Exposing your children to the constant stream of commercials and the insidious messages of mainstream programming cements their social conditioning. In addition, TV shows and the Internet are extremely addictive, and too much exposure to television and computer content can erode your children’s attention spans.

There is plenty of great entertainment for kids without ever switching on the TV. Consider buying, renting, and checking quality shows out from your local library, or even from online video stores. Consider banning TV at home (as many of us do), but reserve the right to pop in high-quality old childhood favorites—like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Oliver, Pollyana, Mary Poppins, Annie, the Shirley Temple movies, The Little Rascals, Flipper, or Lassie. Our kids do not always have to watch what is on TV today (mostly junk) and this can be a fun trip down memory lane for you. The old musicals are especially fun!

The world naturally offers enough stimulation for children without the need to push all those synthetic products on them. If you protect your children from the barrage of marketing and social programming, they will gravitate toward the natural and simple. Plunking your kids in front the TV, computer, or video games might seem to buy you time for yourself, but in the end it’s a trap for both of you and them. Children who are not overexposed to technological stimulation tend to enjoy the full range of nature’s wonders (such as bugs, leaves, flowers, and wildlife) and all manner of arts and crafts projects far more than TV and video games. Best of all, they become completely engrossed in their discoveries, and you too can enjoy these quiet moments to yourself. This is how children learn about themselves and their environment.

One rule you may want to enforce is a complete ban on video games in the home. At the very least, violent games should be completely off-limits. The hyper-stimulating flashing screens may erode your child’s eyesight, brain development, and attention span, and the violent images will embed themselves in your child’s consciousness and nervous system. During this impressionable time in your child’s life, we highly recommend a no-video-game rule.

THE ADDICTIVE NATURE OF TELEVISION

If you are interested in reading further on this subject, Thom Hartmann speaks eloquently on it in The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight:

“One measure of a drug’s addictive potential is what percentage of people can take it up or put it down at will and with ease. This behavior is called chipping a drug—occasionally using it, but also walking away from it without pain or withdrawal for months or years at a time. Research reported in Science News found that while large percentages of people could chip marijuana, and medium percentages of people could chip alcohol, cocaine, and even heroin, very, very few people (less than 5%) could chip tobacco. But imagine a “drug” that fewer than even 5% of Americans could walk away from for a month at a time without discomfort. Such a drug, by the definitions of addiction, would be the most powerfully addictive drug ever developed.

In addition to discouraging chipping behavior, this drug would also have to stabilize people’s moods. It would put them into such a mental state that they could leave behind the boredom or pain or ennui of daily life. It would alter their brainwaves, alter their neurochemistry, and constantly reassure them that their addiction to it was not, in fact, an addiction but merely a preference. Like the alcoholic who claims to only be a social drinker, the user of this drug would publicly proclaim the ability to do without it…but in reality would not even consider having it be completely absent from his home or life for days, weeks, or years.

Such a “drug” exists.

Far more seductive than opium, infinitely more effective at shaping behavior and expectations than alcohol, and used for more minutes every day than tobacco, our culture’s most pervasive and most insidious “drugging agent” is television. Many drugs, after all, are essentially a distilled concentrate of a natural substance. Penicillin is extracted from mold; opium, from poppies. Similarly, television is a distilled extract—super-concentrated, like the most powerful drugs we have—of “real” life.

People set aside large portions of their lives to watch a flickering box—hours every day. They rely on that box for the majority of their information about how the world is, how their politicians are behaving, and what reality is, even though the contents of the box are controlled by a handful of corporations, many of which are also in the weapons and tobacco and alcohol business. Our citizens wake up to this drug, consume it whenever possible during the day, and go to sleep with it. Many even take it with their meals.

Most people’s major life regrets are not about the things they’ve done, but about the things they’ve not done, the goals they never reached, the type of lover or friend or parent they wished they’d been but know they failed to be. Yet our culture encourages us to sit in front of a flickering box for dozens (at least) of hours a week, hundreds to thousands of hours a year, and thereby watch, as if from a distance, the time of our lives flow through our hands like dry sand.”

DEVELOPMENT

Around the age of 3 or 4, children develop the ability to communicate with the natural world around them, and some researchers have found that children at this time actually have what many would call “extrasensory perception.” In addition to being able to communicate with animals and other animate and inanimate elements around them, many children can see energy colors or “auroras” around people and objects; communicate telepathically, especially with their mothers; and even predict future events.

Perhaps you can even recall this heightened perception from your own childhood—e.g., having conversations with your family pet, listening to the whispering of the trees, seeing rocks and leaves as having their own personalities and histories, or inventing elaborate stories about the world around you. Many of us write this phenomenon off as merely part of childhood innocence and do not consider it real. However, a closer look at the few remaining indigenous cultures in the world suggests that communication with nature and perception beyond what we can see is not only possible and natural, but also an extremely helpful survival tool.

Animals also have the capability to sense and communicate what is happening around them. For example, before an earthquake, domestic animals become nervous and rats and mice leave buildings. In addition, researchers have found that the capability of our children to see, hear, and communicate with the natural world is in fact real and a natural part of development. Unfortunately, by the age of 7 or 8, most children in modern civilization lose this capability. There are many contributing factors to this silencing of the natural world, including parental admonishment and a society that only embraces what can be seen and measured.

This is a time to encourage fantasies and imaginative play. Do not be so quick to dismiss and write off what your child sees and believes as mere childishness. Quite possibly, he or she is seeing something you are not! And perhaps, if we really listen to our children, we can learn a few things about what Mother Nature is trying to tell us at this point in history. With their heightened perception, sensitivity, and intuition, our children can help lead us back into the interconnected web of life.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Preschool marks the beginning of your child’s more autonomous stages of life. Just as a proper in-arms period during infancy sets the stage for security and independence for the baby and toddler, a happy home with clear boundaries provides a safe haven as your child begins his/her exploration of the world. Establishing boundaries with built-in flexibility will help your child feel safe to make choices and reduce anxiety for you.

• For more Life Force Families content, click here 

Life Force Families – elementary schools

by natalia | Jan 14, 2022 | Life Force Families

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CURRICULUM TOPICS FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL INCLUDE:

• The “Dance” – Learning when to be flexible and when to be firm
• The Ideal Elementary School Daily Diet
• Bagged Lunches
• Public and Private School Cafeteria Foods
• Converting the Picky Eater
• Home Life
• Dealing with a Hectic Schedule
• Social Activities
• TV, Media, and Video Games

We like to think of the elementary school years as the “inspirational years” for educating children about proper nutrition. Up until now, you have probably been educating your child about food through simple words and actions, but, naturally, two-way conversations have been a bit limited! At this next milestone of life and development, children can start to express their perspectives and receive more complex information. This will make your conversations much more interesting and enriching for both of you!

At this time, we want to convey to our children that taking care of our bodies through proper nutrition is a joyful part of life—one that empowers them, that helps them to grow strong and remain creative and full of energy. Eating foods that work in harmony with our bodies and our environment should be a pleasurable experience! Children enjoy learning about the body and how it functions, so go ahead and feed this natural curiosity. If you are unclear about certain principles, you can learn them together! No one should feel like a dark cloud is hovering over the house just because your family is not eating what everybody else is eating. On the contrary, your family should find great joy and security in knowing that you’re eating the most naturally delicious and nourishing foods on the planet. Dark clouds result from addiction to substances that compromise our health, cause disease, and rob us of our natural joy and creativity.

While we want to keep a cheerful attitude about healthy eating, we also know that it is critically important work. We want to be light about the topic, but not take the topic lightly! Through proper nutrition, we are shaping the future of our children’s bones, muscle tissues, organ health, and ability to fight disease. We know what it’s going to take to avoid the common childhood imbalances (e.g., ADHD, obesity, diabetes, pre-cancerous conditions, digestive and respiratory problems, and myriad other physical, mental, and emotional issues). We know that it’s absolutely essential to provide our children with the most health-generating foods and environmental conditions possible.

However, we want to acknowledge that we walk a fine line between knowing what is right for our bodies and minds and living in a world that does not always embrace health-generating activities. We must become skilled at balancing these two paradigms and understanding when it is more health-generating to bend the rules a bit instead of causing stress with too much rigidity. To determine whether flexibility is appropriate in any given situation, weigh the relevant factors, such as your child’s age and current physical condition. Listen to your own intuition. What would the true (not imagined) outcome of this decision be both physically and emotionally for your child? How often is this happening? How offensive is the substance in question? Do you understand what it takes to counterbalance the physical ramifications of consuming this substance, and could this be used as a teaching opportunity for your child? If you do your best to understand the basic components of good health, you can determine whether you’re being too flexible by succumbing to peer pressure or striking the right balance for you and your child.

When the path is unclear and you feel intimidated, stuck, or confused, we urge you to look within yourself and reflect. Be extremely honest with yourself about the intentions behind your decisions. Imagine your child’s bloodstream, tissues, and organs—and remember that just because they’re beneath the skin does not mean they are not real! Many people today forget what lies within, leaving their bodies behind for external pursuits that do not serve their highest good, and this almost always catches up with them in painful ways. Try not to let this happen to you or your child.

We understand this path is not always the easiest! At times, it will feel like the cards are stacked against you and that you are living in a world of insanity. This is where we have the opportunity to put our gifts to the test—our intuition, our intelligence, and our compassion for others. We must all become like professional dancers, capable of bending, jumping, and flowing through our lives with an unbelievably strong center, a deep passion, and a smile on our face. This takes practice, patience, reflection, and a true commitment to life.

THE IDEAL DIET

The ideal diet for elementary school aged children is no different from the ideal diet for all humans! The diet should be focused on foods that are:

1. Vital conductors of life force energy (i.e., high-vibration, negatively charged, alkaline). The only truly vital foods by this definition are raw plant foods (and their juices) grown in the soil and under the sun, and mother’s milk for babies. These foods deliver vitality to the body’s cells and bloodstream. We also get vitality from clean air, sunshine, and clean water. Vital foods conduct life force energy through the body and brain, helping children to absorb and receive information and remain creative throughout the school day. (Other foods, such as sprouted grains, fish, eggs, and goat cheese, have a place in this diet. They are not vital, but they won’t harm the body as much as other insulting substances. Refer to the Food Chart and the Transition Foods Chart for more information.)
2. Easily digested, so waste and waste by-products are not accumulated in the body.
3. Eliminated easily, so blockages do not occur in the body and create a fertile breeding ground for viruses and diseases.

THE IDEAL DAILY DIET OF AN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILD

Breakfast

• Whole or sliced fresh fruit, preferably organic, as we do not want to expose children to chemicals and pesticides. However, if you are new to this, just getting the vital fresh fruit into your child’s system is the first step; organics can come later!
• Smoothie—any blended concoction of fruits, juices, water, and ice that your child likes! See our smoothie recipe in our Recipes section to get you started. Throw spinach, sprouts, romaine, or any other greens into the smoothie. Your child shouldn’t be able to taste or see the greens, but simply adding these items will give the smoothie so much more vitality!
• If your child desires more than fruit and smoothies in the morning, or if your child is used to eggs, bagels, toast, and pancakes, the key is simply to upgrade the quality of those same items. Anything you were serving your child before can be tailored with better ingredients. Here are some examples of common breakfast items and easy upgrades:

Omelet: Use free-range, organic eggs. Avoid mainstream cow dairy, but goat or sheep cheese is perfectly fine to use.

Cereal with milk: Brands such as Barbara’s, Cascadian Farms, Kashi, EnviroKidz, and Mother’s offer high-quality cereals that have few ingredients and are not highly processed. Serve this with almond milk (you can either make your own nut milk or use a store-bought brand like Pacific almond milk.) Use honey, agave, or stevia for added sweetness, if desired.

Pancakes: Use spelt flour or a high-quality “ancient grain” pancake mix, organic butter, free-range eggs, nut milk, and high-quality maple syrup.

French Toast: Use sprouted-grain bread battered with a free-range, organic egg and organic butter for the skillet.

Bagel: Serve a sprouted-grain bagel with organic butter and raw honey or a high-quality jam like St. Dalfour.

Lunch

If your child is attending public school, we highly recommend sending your child to school with a bagged lunch. The cafeteria food served in the vast majority of public schools is “dead” and full of toxic chemicals. Because the food is made for mass consumption at cheap prices, it is normally inorganic, filled with additives, overly processed, made from white/refined flour and sugar, and contains mainstream meat from the cheapest cuts and dairy products, which are pumped with hormones and antibiotics. These foods are extremely devitalizing and result in a hypersensitive nervous system followed by a shutting down of the system (commonly known as a “food coma”). They are extremely difficult to digest, and thus lead to constipation and an inability to fight viruses and bacteria. If your child is eating these foods on a daily basis, you can expect him/her to catch any sickness that’s getting passed around in the classroom. There may be rare exceptions to the school cafeteria norm, due to localized initiatives of parents or local farms, but for the most part, cafeteria foods in public schools should be avoided at all costs. Even just a few public school lunches per week will wreck havoc on your child’s ability to fight infection, stay focused, and thrive.

Unless you are sending your child to an extremely unique school, the situation is not normally much better in private schools. However, private schools may have slightly better food options, as their food is often cooked on the premises and most will at least have a salad bar and include some cooked vegetables with the meal. If it is necessary that your child eat the food served at school, allow this only for one meal per day, not two, and encourage your child to find the colorful, vital food options. Teach your child to stay away from meats because they will most likely be mainstream meat products (highly toxic). To compensate for the mainly acidic lunch they will most likely be exposed to daily, make sure you feed them a substantial breakfast comprised of vital, alkaline ingredients before they go to school and a vegetable-centric, highly alkaline meal for dinner. Snacks should be mainly raw fruits and vegetables.

In either the public or private school scenario, we highly encourage you to send your child with a bagged lunch. This does not need to be an arduous task and can take as little as 4–5 minutes in the morning to put together. See below for lunch bag ideas and tips for sticky social situations:

• See our convenient Lunch Bag Ideas, which we have used successfully with our children and clients.
• Parents often feel they should include something more brightly packaged or processed in their kids’ lunch bags because that’s what other parents are giving their children. Do not fall for this kind of peer pressure! As long as there is an abundance of items that you know your child enjoys, he/she will happily eat the lunch you provide. Our concerns as parents are often our own projections of what is happening at school, not the reality.
• Lunchtime has gotten shorter and shorter, so kids don’t have time to trade foods and sit around and worry about what they are eating. Most schools get the kids fed quickly in the cafeteria and move on to the next activity with great efficiency. There’s no need to be a bleeding heart—we just need to think of lunchtime as an opportunity to get the necessary nutrients in our children’s growing bodies!
• Remember, there are many kids with special dietary needs these days, either due to allergies, early-onset sickness, or religious/cultural beliefs. There’s no reason to fear that your kid will be shunned or seen as weird because he/she doesn’t eat salami and cheese and chicken nuggets for lunch! On the other hand, if your kid has to deal with autism, obesity, or diabetes from an early age, you can bet he or she will have much more difficult social issues to contend with. If you can keep the big picture in mind, adhering to your beliefs will be much easier.

After-School Snack

It is a great idea to make after-school snacks freely available for the taking. Putting big bowls of fruits and vegetables out takes a burden off you and creates an environment of freedom for the children. Here are a few fun snack ideas:

• Place plates and bowls in accessible areas with sliced or whole apples, bananas, dates, figs, grapes—select whatever is in season and whatever raw fruits your kids will enjoy.
• Serve raw vegetables such as olives, carrots, and bell peppers with hummus, salsa, and guacamole.
• Keep fun treats in the freezer, such as blended frozen bananas or strawberries, Rice Dream ice cream sandwiches, or blended smoothies made into popsicles.

Dinner

There is no reason to place undue importance on dinner. It is only social conditioning that has led us to believe that dinner needs to be an elaborate, perfectly balanced meal! This causes unnecessary stress for the parent who’s responsible for serving dinner. You should emphasize overall balance and variety throughout your child’s daily and weekly diet, not variety within each individual meal.

Try to make dinner a vegetable-centric meal as often as possible. This does not mean you need to serve only raw salad for dinner; but instead of serving a plate full of pasta with a little broccoli, try serving broccoli with whole-grain pasta instead. In addition, always put a platter of raw vegetables out before dinner—such as olives, carrots, celery, raw corn on the cob, slices of avocado, raw sweet potato slices (sounds odd but tastes amazing), bell peppers, or any other vegetables your children will grab. Serve the raw veggies with dipping sauce if they need extra enticement. Visit our Recipes section for inspiration or try some of the following dinner ideas:

• Free-range, organic egg omelet with goat cheese and vegetables
• Steamed broccoli and carrots topped with a generous helping of home made or jarred, high quality marinara and shredded goat cheese.
• Spelt, Kamut, Quinoa, or Buckwheat pasta with marinara and steamed vegetables
• Acorn or spaghetti squash with marinara and goat cheese or served simply with butter and sea salt
• Hearty blended soups, such as butternut squash, broccoli, or tomato soups
• Lentil soup
• “Tacos”—steamed corn, black beans, guacamole, salsa, lettuce, and shredded cheddar-style raw goat cheese tucked into large romaine lettuce leaves or sprouted-grain tortilla.
• Quesadillas—fresh salsa, guacamole, and shredded cheddar-style raw goat cheese on sprouted-grain tortillas, using organic butter to brown tortillas.
• Baked sweet potato with organic ketchup and side of steamed vegetables, topped with marinara sauce

Dessert

Some kids really love dessert, whereas others can take or leave it. Here are some dessert options that are delicious and not overly toxic:

• Kashi Oatmeal Dark Chocolate and Oatmeal-Raisin cookies
• Late July Oreo-style cookies
• Laloo’s Goat’s Milk Ice Cream
• Rice Dream ice cream sandwiches
• Blended smoothies made into popsicles
• Sweet Nothings Fudge Bars (frozen popsicles)
• Frozen banana or strawberry ice cream
• Homemade nut-based ice cream
• Homemade baked goods*

*There is no reason to stop baking for your family in this lifestyle! Kids love to help in the kitchen, and baking together can be sacred time in the home. Simply adjust your recipes to include spelt flour instead of white flour; high-quality chocolate chips such as SunSpire or Ghirardelli; free-range, organic eggs; and maple syrup or turbinado sugar (natural brown sugar) instead of refined white sugar.

CONVERTING THE PICKY EATER

We realize some of you may be new to this lifestyle and you may already have a child who refuses to eat fruits, vegetables, and anything that resembles a fruit or vegetable! Mainstream foods, like many drugs, are highly addictive and numbing to the sense of taste, so it is no wonder that after exposure to these foods our children will gravitate toward them exclusively. Moreover, children will crave more of the same chemical-laden foods to experience the same “high” as they get older. Therefore, now is the time to really “nip it in the bud” and be firm about the changes you want to make.

At this point, your child has probably had his or her fair share of colds, flus, ear infections, eczema or other skin issues, and possibly more serious digestive, respiratory, and autoimmune disorders. These ailments can be due to compromised lineage, but they are mainly the body’s way of signaling that something unnatural is going into the body, resulting in blockages within the system. Suppressing these conditions with drugs without addressing the causes of the sickness in the first place will only result in recurrence and chronic illnesses in the future. This is a great time to start gently transitioning your child toward a more health-generating diet.

If you put natural foods in front of your child and he or she refuses to eat them, you will probably have some painful days or weeks. The transition may be challenging at first; when embarking on any significant life change, it takes persistence and a deep desire to do what you know is right. Do your best to keep your goals in mind and remind yourself that your child will not starve! In fact, over time, your child will develop a taste for life-generating foods. However, the process doesn’t have to be completely miserable for you or your child! To assist you in this process, here are some additional tips and tricks to help keep you balanced and confident.

TIPS AND TRICKS

• Unless your child has serious digestive issues, you do not need to worry about quick-exit food combinations at this time. Children have strong bowels and worrying about this can drive you crazy! And in the end, you probably won’t be successful enforcing quick-exit combinations anyway, so this is simply one battle not worth fighting. However, keeping the “light to heavy” principle in mind throughout your child’s day can be helpful for digestion. If, for example, your child is very gassy after serving him or her fruit after a dinner of spelt pasta, you’ll know why. But again, do not stress about this!
• Home should be an empowering place for children, food-wise. Children should have access to a range of foods that you approve of and be allowed to make independent choices within this safe environment. Just make it clear that they are free to take these foods anytime they want to.
• When you are out and about with your child, take fresh fruit or other healthy snacks with you so you don’t get stuck in situations that tempt or force you to compromise.
• Do not force food on your children. They know when they are hungry and will stop eating when they are full.
• If your child does not want to eat the meal you have prepared and you are concerned that he or she will be hungry later, try saying something like, “If you’re hungry later, Mommy’s not going to cook again, so this is your last chance for a warm dish. But you can have it cold later, or have a banana or another piece of fruit.” This way, you’re giving the child freedom to eat when he or she is actually hungry rather than threatening your child with future deprivation—while also teaching your child that you are not a short-order cook!
• If you bring your child with you to the grocery store, empower him or her to help with the shopping. One fun idea is to have your child pick 3 fruits and 3 vegetables that you have never tried before, which you can try at home as a family.
• If you have the courage, this is a good time to pull all Non-Ideal and especially Toxic foods out of your kitchen, per our Food Chart. Let there be a complete purging of the kitchen so these foods are not there to tempt your family or create opportunities for arguments with your child. Remember, these foods are highly addictive and can be very difficult to resist. If your child insists on certain mainstream foods, there are many delicious substitutes to help make this dietary lifestyle flexible and approachable for you and your child. Given the availability of so many great Transition Foods, you won’t need the highly toxic foods anymore.
• Stress the quality over the quantity of the foods your children are getting. If they are eating large amounts of processed, dead foods today, they are actually starving nutritionally! Therefore, if they start to eat just a little bit of natural, whole, live foods, or consume some green juice in the morning, they will be getting more nutritional value. Remember, what is important is progress, not perfection!
• Focus on the fruits and vegetables they do like without worrying about variety. If they will eat an apple every day, give them an apple every day!
• Use some tricks of the trade to make fruits and vegetables more attractive. For example, try raw honey, tahini, or almond butter on fruits such as bananas and apples; high-quality marinara sauce on a corn squash or avocado; or hummus with baked sweet potato. This is a great way to start getting the fruits and vegetables into your child’s diet. As your child’s palate changes, you may eventually be able to eliminate some of these extras.
• Planting gardens, growing herbs, and having your child help you cook or prepare foods can help them enjoy the foods more. When children (and adults, too) understand the source of their food, they are more likely to appreciate it. We want our children to understand the “why” behind our decision to change their diet.
• Remember, if your child is eating extremely well most of the time and only moderately well, or not so well, the rest of the time, you’re still on the right path!

HOME LIFE

Although children are spending more time outside the home these days, the home continues to be the centerpiece of their life experience. There are many aspects of home life that are unique to modern society and that can contribute to a wiring of stress and anxiety. When children are in elementary school, parents are typically between the ages of 35 and 50, and many of us are in our biggest earning years and as active in our careers as we will ever be. Life can become very difficult trying to balance demanding work schedules with raising and providing for a family, especially when the world of wireless communication keeps us switched on 24-7. Everybody is so accessible that the experience of work has morphed into something that it wasn’t when we were kids.

As a result of these demands and the blurring lines between home and work/school, many kids are experiencing home life as an outgrowth of student life, where they are always rushing and there is never enough time. Mornings are whirlwinds of everyone trying to get themselves (and each other) ready for school and work and a stressful commute. Before our children even get to school, their day is already wired for stress. Then the school day itself (much like the average adult’s workday) is stressful. The teaching styles, the number of teachers, and the amount of funding a school receives are all based on how well children do on standardized tests. The result is an academic day that is so highly disciplined that children do not learn to be great learners and thinkers; their learning experience is limited, lacking the freedom and joyfulness that many of us experienced as kids. Many parents are choosing to diffuse or neutralize this phenomenon by making radically different schooling choices, but for the majority of households, school is stressful during these elementary school years.

In addition to being a time of school and work challenges, this can also be an interesting time for marriages. Many marriages are in the 7- to 10-year period, when growing pains can be common and children will feel deeply any instability and uncertainty that their parents are going through.

The obvious questions are: How can we as parents implement changes to create a more sane, calm haven for ourselves and for our children? What steps can we take to create a sense of peace in our lives so we avoid wiring our children for stress at such an early age? Our children are little sponges, absorbing everything, so we really have to honor their perspective of the world. How can we create a home environment where their true natures can blossom? How can we give them the safety and freedom to grow into their authentic selves, rather than losing them to survival mode in the face of peer pressures and social expectations? It is a heartbreaking moment for parents when their children lose their innocence and start to put on armor to protect themselves.

At least for the sake of our children, if not for ourselves, we must make a dedicated effort not to succumb to the madness around us. In a world of never-ending rush and stress, it is very difficult, but not impossible, to slow down and break free from the clutches of the rat race. If we make sincere and concerted efforts in this direction, our children will respond positively. However, children can sniff a fake from a mile away, so we must be authentic of heart and action. This does not mean that we need to be perfect, but that our children will know if we are truly dedicated to our vision of life, or if we are just going halfheartedly through the motions.

Our homes can be sacred spaces in an otherwise crazy world. If children can come home to a place where energy flows openly, if there is cleanliness and order and harmony, they respond well. Children want to know what to expect and what their boundaries are. The less chaotic their home life is, the better they can understand and make sense of situations outside of the home. If our children are overloaded with stress and chaos, they will shut down intellectually and will put on armor instead of opening their heart. We want to create an environment where our children can feel safe to be themselves, where their true spirits can blossom.

Although most of the answers for accomplishing this in your own home can only be found within yourself, we offer some strategies to assist you. Implement as many of them as you are able and notice the positive shifts in energy with each adjustment you make.

1. Take a moment to reflect on your life and begin to eliminate unnecessary distractions.

In the modern age, many of us are wired for stimulation, which means we gravitate toward distraction. As long as we are distracted, we don’t have to look at any real issues in our lives. Common distractions include excessive phoning, e-mailing, Internet surfing, television watching, socializing, overeating, and drinking. Such activities create a constant buzz of drama in our lives, maintaining the illusion that we must constantly rush around, while allowing us to avoid any true evaluation of our lives. Distractions also put us on autopilot, allowing us to become lazy with our lives.

In order to begin breaking yourself from these addictive distractions, ask yourself: Am I really putting my energy into those things that give me life force and vitality? What is it I don’t want to look at and see? Am I really present for my child when I am with him/her, or am I constantly distracted? Are these distractions really necessary or am I using them to create a false sense of importance or as an excuse to avoid important issues? These are serious questions to consider, but we must be honest with ourselves if we want to raise happy children.

It’s always difficult to do at first, but honestly dealing with those things you’d rather keep under wraps is, in the long run, so much easier than letting them continue to fester like a low-grade fever that you walk around with every day. They will not go away on their own just because you’re distracted! Plus, children are extremely perceptive and sensitive, and they will pick up on your unhappiness. They will also develop resentments if you always seem too busy or distracted for them.

Just as we advise when you transition from a mainstream diet to one more centered around vital fruits and vegetables, you may need to take things slowly and gently as you eliminate the unnecessary distractions in your life. It’s also important to replace the old distractions with other activities that are enjoyable and life-generating. Make a list of your distractions and then start eliminating them slowly, one by one. For example:

• Reduce your television watching to just one hour, two days per week, and not on weekends. Replace this time with games you can play with your kids, a yoga class, a run, or a session on your rebounder.
• Put your BlackBerry away during dinner or after a pre-determined time at night. Use that time to truly catch up with your children about their days.
• Eliminate social activities with people or groups who are not very important to you, and plan family nights or fun daytime excursions with your loved ones instead.

Consider this an extension of any detoxification you are doing for your body. These efforts will help you detoxify your life and will free up precious time and space to give your child the attention he/she needs to flourish and grow. Reflect on the inner pain that is keeping you in states of distraction and addiction, and release it as best as you can. As a result, you will start accomplishing so much more of what’s necessary, and you’ll find engaging with people to be less stressful and taxing.

2. De-clutter your house.

This is something really tactile and satisfying that you can do to create a better flow of energy in your house. If you haven’t been diligent about getting rid of things through the years, you may have an overwhelming accumulation of clothes, books, toys, and other items you no longer need. Take time once a month or every other month to get rid of things that aren’t relevant to your life right now.

Involve your children in this. Ask your kids to go into their rooms and pull out 10 things they aren’t wearing anymore and that they don’t need, or to pick out 20 toys that they aren’t playing with anymore. Inspire them to give away more by explaining that these old clothes and toys will be going to children who need them. This teaches the joy of giving as well as the importance of not being overly attached to material possessions. Normally children are better at this than we are because they have less attachment to material things than we do! If they pick out items that you are very sad to see go, tuck them away in a memento and put that box out of sight in storage or in your garage.

Take joy in releasing things! A house filled with stuff we don’t really need just contributes to the chaos and clutter we feel in our lives. If you have an excess of cushions, little knickknacks, or magazines and books, and you’re not ready to part with them permanently, throw them in a box or a bag and put them out of sight for a week or two and just see how it feels. Enjoy the extras space, and notice how clear your mind gets. You will probably notice your business decisions getting better, your interactions with your spouse/partner becoming calmer, and a general release of tension in your home. Just as it is with our bodies and minds, the more we get rid of the clutter in our physical environment, the better our life force can flow.

3. Keep your personal rituals sacred.

There are rituals that we can do in our daily lives to keep us grounded and centered. Some examples include always having our juice in the morning, getting outside in nature on a daily basis, or finding a sacred moment between the end of the workday and the dinner/evening hours to take a bath or do a brief meditation. It is so important to make a commitment to yourself and create boundaries that you and others respect. You will notice that if you let these little things slip, you will start to feel out of control in your life. Take time to connect with your higher self every day. This will help you to make decisions with a clear mind and to keep calm in the midst of chaotic situations.

Encourage your children to do the same. For example, if you sense that your child is getting stressed, have him or her take a soothing bath. Keep the lights low and light a few candles. The more we can expose our children to the peaceful feeling that we get when we take time to slow down, the less likely they will automatically reach for stimulation and distraction when they get stressed. This teaches them to look within when their world feels challenging and overwhelming.

When children are young, they don’t need stimulation the way adults do, yet we tend to wire them for it prematurely. Most young children could be content to sit calmly like yogis and look at the clouds float across the sky for stretches of time. Keep them in touch with their childlike wonder and innate love of nature.

4. Be extremely selective about the activities you participate in.

Are you taking time to meet people for coffee who leach your energy or spending time with groups of people you don’t truly enjoy? Are you having lunch dates or dinners where you’re gossiping, spending too much money, and worrying about the way you look? Are you spending money and time on toxic beauty routines such as mani-pedis, spray tanning, and any number of other cosmetic procedures rather than cultivating beauty from within? Are these activities merely stimulating and distracting or are they making you feel more peaceful and fulfilled? It’s time to be vigilant about your life. Take a half hour to sit quietly and follow your every thought and see where your mind goes. This is a great way to see where you’re investing your energies.

Instead of spending time on activities and people that are not helping you reach your highest potential, go for a long walk in the park, jump on the rebounder, do a guided meditation, write down your thoughts in a journal, or take a bath. If you can replace just some of the energy-draining activities with life-generating ones, you will be less likely to burst out in frustration around your family. You will start to reassess the ways you allocate your time and resources. Such honest self-assessment can be scary at first and can lead you in unfamiliar directions, but if you let it happen organically, if you understand why you’re doing it and recognize that it’s best for your children for you to be present, then it can be extremely liberating and rewarding.

The same is true for your child. Children do not need every moment of every day to be scheduled and crammed with activities. They enjoy unplanned moments of solitude, quiet, and freedom as much as we do! Such moments are necessary for their development.

5. Rid the house of toxic substances.

Make sure detergents, shampoos, toothpaste, and soaps are organic and free from harmful chemicals.

6. Have children help with your daily efforts to keep the house in order.

Some examples of “jobs” that children can be held responsible for are making their beds in the morning, not leaving the house until their desks or study spaces are in order, and helping with the dishes. Just like adults, children do a much better job with their schoolwork and feel a sense of calm and peace when their living space is clear and clean.

7. Keep your family rituals sacred.

Just as you want to honor your personal rituals and encourage your children to have their own rituals, it is equally important to hold family rituals sacred. Maybe this is walking or driving your children to school and listening to or singing your favorite songs on the way, or picking your child up from school and having one-on-one time, or making green juice together in the morning. Whatever the rituals are, do your best to honor these and keep them consistent. Children find peace and comfort in this kind of predictability, which lends a pleasant rhythm to family life.

SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

When attending parties, it is OK to let your children have what they want (within reasonable boundaries), but it’s always a good idea to make sure they are really well fed BEFOREHAND. This way, they will not eat a ton of the non-ideal or toxic foods that will be served there, but more likely just to taste it. For example, make them a big free-range, grass-fed omelet or quinoa pasta or sweet potato pudding with some carrot slices and apple to enjoy before a party.

If your child has frequent playdates, make sure the other caregiver knows what foods you feed your child and send your little off with the foods you know he/she really loves.

TV, MEDIA, AND VIDEO GAMES

The brainwashing effect of modern media is fast, deep, and lasting. It begins the moment you switch the TV or Internet on. As soon as your children are exposed to targeted marketing, they start to be robbed of their power. Exposing your children to the constant stream of commercials and the insidious messages of mainstream programming cements their social conditioning. In addition, TV shows and the Internet are extremely addictive, and too much exposure to television and computer content can erode your children’s attention spans.

There is plenty of great entertainment for kids without ever switching on the TV. Consider buying, renting, and checking quality shows out from your local library, or even from online video stores. Consider banning TV at home (as many of us do), but reserve the right to pop in high-quality old childhood favorites—like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Oliver, Pollyana, Mary Poppins, Annie, the Shirley Temple movies, The Little Rascals, Flipper, or Lassie. Our kids do not always have to watch what is on TV today (mostly junk) and this can be a fun trip down memory lane for you. The old musicals are especially fun!

The world naturally offers enough stimulation for children without the need to push all those synthetic products on them. If you protect your children from the barrage of marketing and social programming, they will gravitate toward the natural and simple. Plunking your kids in front the TV, computer, or video games might seem to buy you time for yourself, but in the end it’s a trap for both of you and them. Children who are not overexposed to technological stimulation tend to enjoy the full range of nature’s wonders (such as bugs, leaves, flowers, and wildlife) and all manner of arts and crafts projects far more than TV and video games. Best of all, they become completely engrossed in their discoveries, and you too can enjoy these quiet moments to yourself. This is how children learn about themselves and their environment.

One rule you may want to enforce is a complete ban on video games in the home. At the very least, violent games should be completely off-limits. The hyper-stimulating flashing screens may erode your child’s eyesight, brain development, and attention span, and the violent images will embed themselves in your child’s consciousness and nervous system. During this impressionable time in your child’s life, we highly recommend a no-video-game rule.

THE ADDICTIVE NATURE OF TELEVISION

If you are interested in reading further on this subject, Thom Hartmann speaks eloquently about it in The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight:

“One measure of a drug’s addictive potential is what percentage of people can take it up or put it down at will and with ease. This behavior is called chipping a drug—occasionally using it, but also walking away from it without pain or withdrawal for months or years at a time. Research reported in Science News found that while large percentages of people could chip marijuana, and medium percentages of people could chip alcohol, cocaine, and even heroin, very, very few people (less than 5%) could chip tobacco. But imagine a “drug” that fewer than even 5% of Americans could walk away from for a month at a time without discomfort. Such a drug, by the definitions of addiction, would be the most powerfully addictive drug ever developed.

In addition to discouraging chipping behavior, this drug would also have to stabilize people’s moods. It would put them into such a mental state that they could leave behind the boredom or pain or ennui of daily life. It would alter their brainwaves, alter their neurochemistry, and constantly reassure them that their addiction to it was not, in fact, an addiction but merely a preference. Like the alcoholic who claims to only be a social drinker, the user of this drug would publicly proclaim the ability to do without it…but in reality would not even consider having it be completely absent from his home or life for days, weeks, or years.

Such a “drug” exists.

Far more seductive than opium, infinitely more effective at shaping behavior and expectations than alcohol, and used for more minutes every day than tobacco, our culture’s most pervasive and most insidious “drugging agent” is television. Many drugs, after all, are essentially a distilled concentrate of a natural substance. Penicillin is extracted from mold; opium, from poppies. Similarly, television is a distilled extract—super-concentrated, like the most powerful drugs we have—of “real” life.

People set aside large portions of their lives to watch a flickering box—hours every day. They rely on that box for the majority of their information about how the world is, how their politicians are behaving, and what reality is, even though the contents of the box are controlled by a handful of corporations, many of which are also in the weapons and tobacco and alcohol business. Our citizens wake up to this drug, consume it whenever possible during the day, and go to sleep with it. Many even take it with their meals.

Most people’s major life regrets are not about the things they’ve done, but about the things they’ve not done, the goals they never reached, the type of lover or friend or parent they wished they’d been but know they failed to be. Yet our culture encourages us to sit in front of a flickering box for dozens (at least) of hours a week, hundreds to thousands of hours a year, and thereby watch, as if from a distance, the time of our lives flow through our hands like dry sand.”

CLOSING

Cause and effect is one of the key natural laws of the universe. We can either put in motion the causes that result in our children’s vitality and blossoming, or we can be a part of the causes that result in imbalances and suffering. These are the years when we are shaping our children’s bodies and perspectives. If you take an empowered approach and they see joy in it, they will receive it well because they want their parents to be happy, and every child responds to the flow of positive energy. However, if you seem nervous, overwhelmed, or overly rigid about this approach to life, they will have no reason to believe in its life-generating effects; they will see it as a burden rather than a joyful expression of life and love.

Enjoy the process and remind yourself that the goal is progress, not perfection. Use your own intuition and expert knowledge of your family, and take full advantage of the community resources we’ve provided here for all parents. Remember, we are all connected and in this together!

• For more Life Force Families content, click here 

Life Force Families – tweens and teens

by natalia | Jan 14, 2022 | Life Force Families

Coming soon! We are working diligently on creating an all-encompassing resource for adolescents and preadolescents. This resource will include a rich and empowering curriculum for tweens and teens on the subject of their health and overall well-being. Young men and women will also have an opportunity to connect with each other in our online community to discuss the challenges they are facing in their daily lives as well as to support and encourage each other. The curriculum will be organized by gender and by topic. Below is a list of topics that will be covered in detail:

YOUNG WOMEN

• Caring for the female body during this time of change
• How to recognize and interpret the body’s symptoms and signals of change
• Safe and effective methods for becoming naturally gorgeous and vibrant
• How to love yourself and your body, and how to live from a place of strength
• How to dispel disempowering media messages that affect your body, your mind, and your relationships
• The toxicity levels of the products you are using (e.g., mouthwash, self-tanner, makeup) and less harmful alternatives
• What constitutes healthy, loving relationships
• Issues surrounding alcohol and drugs
• Birth control and sexuality
• Recommended reading to help you connect with your authentic self and reach your full potential

YOUNG MEN

• Caring for the male body during this time of change
• What it means to be a man, and how to harness your inner strength
• How to recognize and interpret the body’s symptoms and signals of change
• How to dispel disempowering media messages that affect your body, your mind, and your relationships
• The toxicity levels of the products you are using and less harmful alternatives
• What constitutes healthy, loving relationships
• Issues surrounding alcohol and drugs
• Sexuality
• Recommended reading to help you connect with your authentic self and reach your full potential

• For more Life Force Families content, click here 

Life Force Families – families live calls

by natalia | Jan 14, 2022 | Life Force Families

• For more Life Force Families content, click here