Every parent wants their child to be happy.

Happy kids mean happy parents, but how do we foster happiness?

Growing Happy Kids: How to Foster Inner Confidence, Success, and Happiness by Maureen Healy promises to integrate “Eastern wisdom with Western psychology to keep children strong from the inside.”

Does strength equate happiness? According to Healy, self-doubt and sadness go hand in hand throughout the world.

We all want children to be happy and grow into productive, fulfilled adults, and according to parenting expert Maureen Healy, the secret to that success is in providing a foundation of inner confidence. With twenty years of experience as a spiritual teacher and child development expert, Healy knows that confidence is never “out there” but is something to be cultivated from inside.Healy literally traveled the world in search of the best practices in raising inwardly strong children and the connection between inner confidence and lasting happiness. In Growing Happy Kids, she draws on her Buddhist training, her background in child psychology, and the latest scientific research. The result is her insightful model for creating inner confidence and cultivating a sense of emotional strength that lays the foundation for children’s happiest lives.Anyone who touches the life of a child–parents, teachers, school administrators, grandparents, clinicians–will gain wise ideas and practical suggestions for nurturing a child’s sense of confidence and ultimately, happiness.

Examining the “confidence-happiness connection”, Healy uses examples of real parents and real children facing common problems, such as bullying.

A third way to lasting happiness is learning how to respond to life calmly.  Instead of being quickly swayed by negative emotions like anger, your child can connect with his or her calm center and make smart choices when life requires it-like when a beloved pet dies or a sibling breaks a favorite toy.

Calmness in the face of adversity…it is something my yoga teacher says when holding difficult asanas.

I love Healy’s chart of “Confidence Habits”, such as eating right and creating an uplifting community.  The affirmations at the end of the book are lovely.

If you read this book, will you be guaranteed a happy child?  Obviously not, but it does give parents some food for thought and ideas about how to positively support their child’s social and emotional development.

disclosure: The products described above were sent to us as free samples. Prior assurances as to the nature of the reviews, whether positive or negative, were not given. No financial payments were accepted in exchange for the reviews. The reviews reflect our honest, authentic opinions.

Where East Meets West: Growing Happy Kids is a post from: Eco Child's Play

English: Joseph Woodley, grandparents, Pierce and Mattie Gilliam (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I first became concerned about the environment as a preteen, my efforts were largely conservation based wanting to preserve and protect wildlife and wilderness.  As I grew older, these concerns switched  more to what our toxic world was doing to human health.  As an educator and a parent, seeing these effects on our children furthered my efforts of activism towards a cleaner, healthier world for all creatures great and small.

As a parent of a child with special needs, epigenetics hits home as the most likely cause.  It used to be children with special needs were an anomaly, but as rates, such as autism rise, these anomalies are more the norm.  As a culture we seek answers, but to truly find them, according to new research, we may need to go back generations to find the culprit.

According to new research, behavior problems, such as anxiety, can actually be linked to a specific fungicide our grandparents were exposed to.  

Science Daily reports:

The researchers — David Crews at Texas , Michael Skinner at Washington State and colleagues — exposed gestating female rats to vinclozolin, a popular fruit and vegetable fungicide known to disrupt hormones and have effects across generations of animals. The researchers then put the rats’ third generation of offspring through a variety of behavioral tests and found they were more anxious, more sensitive to stress, and had greater activity in stress-related regions of the brain than descendants of unexposed rats.

“We are now in the third human generation since the start of the chemical revolution, since humans have been exposed to these kinds of toxins,” says Crews. “This is the animal model of that.”

“The ancestral exposure of your great grandmother alters your brain development to then respond to stress differently,” says Skinner. “We did not know a stress response could be programmed by your ancestors’ environmental exposures.”

I’ve always thought that my grandparents lived healthier lives than the current generation. Their diet was full of whole foods, and many lived on farms.  Even with a more natural diet, the birth of the chemical revolution not only exposed the air and water they drank, but advertising sold them on all sorts of toxic home products to clean their ovens and get rid of soap scum.  It was viewed as progress.  Three generations later, our genes are paying the price.

What about our grandchildren?  What sort of effect will the thousands of chemicals pervasive in our environment and in our products do to their health, both neurologically and physiologically?

Rodale explains how epigentics will change how we view medical problems:

Here and now, pregnant women may want to pay special attention to avoiding environmental exposure to chemicals with these kinds of adverse effects. Eating organic and avoiding plastic are good places to start. Skinner also suggests knowing what’s in your water and filtering accordingly.

But down the line, Skinner says studying epigenetics could change the field of medicine as we know it. “Today, what we do is reactionary medicine. We don’t do anything until the disease happens,” he says, adding that in the future, we may be able to test a person earlier in life to figure out what his or her ancestors were exposed to. “Then, we might be able to figure out if you have a 95 percent chance of developing a mammary tumor, and we could develop a therapeutic treatment to use years before the disease occurs, as a way of preventative medicine.”

It is frustrating, but we can’t do anything about the past.  What we can do is clean up our world immediately to protect future generations!

We have poisoned so many place on Earth, that many of them are uninhabitable like Treece, Kansas. Other places shouldn’t be habited, like Camp LeJeune.  We need to stop this crazy toxic chemical use before it is too late.

Is Grandpa’s Chemical Exposure Making You Anxious? is a post from: Eco Child's Play

I have long advocated that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is bad for our health and has no place in school lunches.  It is banned from our home. I personally banned it from the preschool program I taught for eight years.

Now, there is evidence it is not just the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes, but HFCS actually affects memory and thus learning.

Mother Jones reports:

 A team of UCLA researchers has observed that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) makes rats more forgetful, while omega-3 fatty acids—chemical compounds that research has shown can protect the brain’s synapses—seem to have the opposite effect.

The researchers, whose paper will be published this week in the peer-reviewed Journal of Physiology, trained a group of rats to navigate a maze. Then, they randomly divided the rats into four groups, and for six weeks they fed each group a slightly different diet in addition to the usual rat chow: One group received HFCS in its water; another received omega-3 fatty acids. A third received both HFCS and omega-3s, and the fourth, a control group, received plain old rat chow.

At the end of the six weeks, the group that had been given omega-3 fatty acids but no HFCS was the speediest at remembering how to get out of the maze. The control group (no HFCS or omega-3s) was the second fastest, and the group that had received omega-3 fatty acids and HFCS came in third. The slowpokes of the lot were the group that had only received HFCS. The takeaway: HFCS seemed to impair rats’ memory, while omega-3 fatty acids seemed to help it.

I can’t help but think of Ralph S. Mouse running on top of the maze.  Apparently, he didn’t find any HFCS in the Irwin J. Sneed Elementary School cafeteria to be able to outsmart the maze.

Actually, the UCLA study has been corrected, as the researchers did not study HFCS soley, but fructose ”generally”.  Even so, the research is still important:

While earlier research has revealed how fructose harms the body through its role in diabetes, obesity and fatty liver, this study is the first to uncover how the sweetener influences the brain.

Sources of fructose in the Western diet include cane sugar (sucrose) and high-fructose corn syrup, an inexpensive liquid sweetener. The syrup is widely added to processed foods, including soft drinks, condiments, applesauce and baby food. The average American consumes roughly 47 pounds of cane sugar and 35 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We’re less concerned about naturally occurring fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants,” explained Gomez-Pinilla, who is also a member of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center. “We’re more concerned about the fructose in high-fructose corn syrup, which is added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative.”

High sugar consumption impaired cognitive abilities and disrupted insulin signalling by engaging molecules associated with energy metabolism and synaptic plasticity; in turn, the presence of docosahexaenoic acid, an n-3 fatty acid, restored metabolic homeostasis.

Image:  License Some rights reserved by disrupsean

High Sugar Consumption Makes Kids Dumb is a post from: Eco Child's Play

Growth of organic farmland since the year 2000 Development of organically managed land by world regions since 2000 Data: www.organic-world.net Deutsch: Entwicklung der Öko-Anbaufläche nach Weltregionen seit 2000 Daten: www.organic-world.net (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Population growth is a huge strain on the environment. Reducing family size is vital to saving the Earth, no matter how much the notion upsets some folks. Feeding the world‘s 7,013,987,392 people is a challenge and often cited as to why organic food is not as green as consumers believe.  In my opinion, this is just a myth.

Yes, we can feed the world organically!

Marc Gunther writes for GreenBiz.com:

New scientific research points to a key drawback of organic agriculture, unfortunately: It is typically less efficient and productive than conventional growing methods. That’s a problem for fans of organic because the world has a limited supply of farmland, a billion or so undernourished people, a growing population, an expanding middle class and therefore a vast appetite for affordable and nourishing food.

If, in fact, organic methods are less productive, scaling up the production of organic food at will require more land, contribute to deforestation and cost more than growing our food using conventional methods. That suggests that organic methods alone can’t feed the world in a sustainable way.

Clearly, organic farming is a more environmentally friendly “method”, as Gunther points out, reducing pollution and health risks to workers from dangerous agro-chemicals; however, when “outcomes” are examined, the smaller yields of organic farms is cited as cause for concern.

I find such concerns hogwash.  Given our current system of waste (both conventionally and organically) and consumption of meat, these lower yields of organic food production would not be a concern.  According to a 2004 study by the University of Arizona (UA), between 40 to 50 percent of food grown is wasted and never reaches consumers.  Furthermore, we waste even more food after it has left the farm.  The New York Times reports:

You’d never know it if you saw what was ending up in your landfill. As it turns out, Americans waste an astounding amount of food — an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption, according to a government study — and it happens at the supermarket, in restaurants and cafeterias and in your very own kitchen. It works out to about a pound of food every day for every American.

US Meat Consumption (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And what about meat?

According to the UN, meat production is responsible for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.  The UK’s Food Climate Research Network cites lower estimates holding food production for livestock accountable for 10 to 15 percent of emissions.  Whatever the statistic, the impact of global meat production is significant, and meat consumption is up in the United States.  Biofuels Digest reports:

70 percent of US corn and soy production is devoted to feed, not food, and not fuel…According to the FAO and the USDA , US meat consumption has increased 137 pounds per person since the 1950s, with a resulting increase in grain usage of 375 pounds per person (the grain fed to cattle and poultry). Cheese consumption has increased faster than milk’s decline, and Americans consume 179 extra pounds of milk, which uses up another 63 pounds of grain.  In short, dietary change in the US has resulted in an additional 438 pounds of grains per capita, or 8 bushels of corn.

These statistics on food waste and meat consumption only reflect 313,562,376 of the world’s population, but other developed countries probably have similar statistics compared the US.

If we ate less meat and reduced the tremendous amount of food that is wasted currently, I do believe we could feed the world organically.  That is the sort of outcome I would like to hear discussed when talking about organic versus conventional farming.

Organic vs. Conventional: Can We Feed the World? is a post from: Eco Child's Play

When I was a preschool teacher, we wanted to improve our school play yard to be more developmentally appropriate and natural.  The only equipment that was allowed to be purchased and installed had to first be approved by the school’s insurance company and installed by a million dollar bonded contractor. Needless to say, our $30,000 amounted to to very little that was natural, and the commercial play structure was small and disappointing.

The risk of being sued for injuries has caused many schools and playgrounds to remove the element of nature in exchange for plastic and metal structures with eight inches of cushioning below.  Fortunately in Canada, there is a movement afoot to bring back nature and its inherent risks to play.

The National Post reports:

At first, parents fretted about the rocky hillside.

It screamed danger to some who gathered at a town hall about Lord Selkirk School’s new playground plans three and a half years ago. What if the children were running over the hill, didn’t see the rocks and tumbled down, scraping their knees and elbows or worse?

Stormie Duchnycz, principal of the Winnipeg school, and the landscape designer who was working on the plans carefully explained its hidden virtues: The rocky hill would help expose their children to nature, it would be physically challenging and engage the whole of their little bodies. Kids would be aware of their surroundings, but their imaginations would also run wild as they incorporate the rocks into their play.

I love this idea of a “nature-oriented playground featuring rough materials” such as logs and rocks!  It is much cheaper than commercial playground equipment and inspires children to play. Their imagination, even for older children, is not bound by a structure that dictates the kind of play or how it is to be used.  No one is telling a child what to pretend to be when standing on a log, besides it is a pleasant place to hang out and socialize.

No matter what caring adults do, children will get hurt on playgrounds.  Removing apparent risk will not prevent this, and risk is good for child development.  We cannot protect our children from everything.  The National Post continues:

Last week, advocates lobbying for a more natural, challenging schoolyard announced the formation of the International School Grounds Alliance, a global voice to address the “increasingly sedentary and risk-averse generation of children disconnected from nature.” Its members hail from Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States — all countries hoping to trade ideas and become an influential force that will help schools see the learning opportunities that can come from peering under rocks and maybe even skinning a knee during recess…

The international alliance has introduced lots of ideas for how to re-introduce risk, many of the more tangible ones from parks and schoolyards in Berlin, Germany: a rough hewn bridge that introduces kids to natural textures, a tensioned, spider web-like play structure that helps them problem solve and develop a sense of balance, a boulder wall made of natural stone that kids can climb and jump off of.

Logs, stumps, rocks, sand, mud, water, etc.  These are all things that are good for kids!

Image:   The National Post

Canadian Playgrounds and Schools Bring Back Risk of Nature is a post from: Eco Child's Play

Fracking sounds like such a dirty word, and it is.  I don’t want my kids using it.  Even though it is not a curse word, it is one of the dirtiest words I know literally!

What is fracking?  It’s not the latest teenage slang word; it describes a mining process that is polluting our earth and making people sick.  Food & Water Watch explains:

To frack an oil or gas well, a massive volume of water, sand, and chemicals is injected underground at high pressure to break up rock formations, allowing oil or gas to flow up the well.

Fracking threatens the air we breathe, the water we drink, the communities we love, and the climate on which we depend.

Mothers are rallying against this horrible practice!  In fact, they are outraged the practice is considered for use around schools, let alone their homes.  Food & Water Watch explains and asks you to take action!

Mothers in the community of Erie, Colorado, are working desperately to stop a giant oil and gas company from fracking next to their kids’ elementary school. They’ve asked Encana, a giant oil and gas company, to abandon this one well and protect their children, but the company refuses.

Fracking is associated with increased truck traffic, dangerous chemicals as well as air and water contamination. It’s hard to believe Encana would even consider fracking near an elementary school – worse, its hard to believe that regulatory systems in Colorado have failed to prevent this from happening. And yet, Encana has gone through all of the proper channels and has the green light to start fracking on May 26th.

I have heard so many people express support of oil and shale gas mining on American soil who do not understand the issue of fracking. They believe the false job promises of domestic oil production not realizing how their very water and air are being dangerously contaminated.

Fracking is one of the biggest environmental crises facing this country!

It’s poisoning our drinking water, even making it flammable!  Propublica explains:

For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire…

“This study provides eye-opening scientific evidence about methane contamination and the risks that irresponsible natural gas drilling poses for drinking water supplies,” said Congressman Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y. “It provides yet another reason why more study of the environmental and health risks associated with hydraulic fracturing is needed.”

Hinchey is one of several Democratic members of Congress who recently re-introduced the FRAC Act, which calls for public disclosure of the chemicals used underground. The bill, which is currently languishing in the House, would remove an exemption in federal law that prohibits the EPA from regulating hydraulic fracturing.

Such lack of federal oversight has forced states to individually look at fracking to protect its citizens. Vermont has banned it; California is looking at regulating it. The Los Angeles Times reports:

California lawmakers on Wednesday took preliminary steps to increase the size of the state’s oil and gas agency — with the condition that regulators draft rules for hydraulic fracturing, a controversial form of oil extraction that some say can pose a hazard to drinking water.

The lack of “fracking” regulations has been a sore point for legislators who have said that rules are long overdue for California, the fourth-largest oil-producing state and the birthplace of the modern environmental movement.

With the federal government doing very little, and states waffling, mothers are stepping up to ensure their children are protected from fracking.  Please support the mothers in Erie, Colorado!

Image:  License Some rights reserved by ProgressOhio

Mothers Against Fracking is a post from: Eco Child's Play

Via: Just Label It

Label GMOs: Mom’s Have a Right to Know What! [video] is a post from: Eco Child's Play

A Crab-eating Macaque (Macaca fascicularis) Monkey eating peanuts. Pictured in Bangalore, India Français : Un Macaque crabier (Macaca fascicularis) mangeant des cacahuètes, Bangalore, Inde. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The link between autism and vaccinations is being rekindled again by revisiting research from a few years ago.  Even though the media has convinced most of us there is no causal link between vaccinations and the rise in autism, some scientists have not dropped the subject thankfully, although more studies need to be done.

Research has found autism like symptoms in infant macaque primates after being injected with vaccinations that follow the 1990s CDC recommended schedule.

Natural News reports:

If vaccines play absolutely no role in the development of childhood autism, a claim made by many medical authorities today, then why are some of the most popular vaccines commonly administered to children demonstrably causing autism in animal primates? This is the question many people are now asking after a recent study conducted by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh(UP) in Pennsylvania revealed that many of the infant monkeys given standard doses of childhood vaccines as part of the new research developed autism symptoms.

Presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research(IMFAR) in London, England, the findings revealed that young macaque monkeys given the typical CDC-recommended vaccination schedule from the 1990s, and in appropriate doses for the monkeys’ sizes and ages, tended to develop autism symptoms. Their unvaccinated counterparts, on the other hand, developed no such symptoms, which points to a strong connection between vaccines and autism spectrum disorders.

Macaque monkeys are often used in research for their “closeness to humans anatomically and physiologically”. In fact, they are used in human vaccination development.

In doing a little more research into the study cited by Natural News, I am not sure I would use the word “recent”, as it was published in 2010.  VacTruth explains:

Lead investigator Laura Hewitson, PhD, probably dropped a bombshell when she and her colleagues completed a macaque monkey (primates) study of the very same vaccines given to children during 1994-1999, i.e., the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine and several Thimerosal mercury-containing vaccines injected into children during that time frame when the autism spectrum disorder skyrocketed.

The results of that pilot study were published as a Research Paper in Acta Neurobiological Experimentals in 2010 and titled “Influence of pediatric vaccines on amydgala growth and opioid ligand binding in rhesus macaque infants: A pilot study.” [1] Even though there was alleged controversy revolving around Hewitson’s monkey studies, e.g., charges of conflicts of interest since she filed a claim with the vaccine court on behalf of her child, [2] the information generated needs to be revisited and duplicate studies need to be undertaken. Why haven’t they?  Is there too much influence from vaccine makers not to do them?

Dr. Hewitson ended up leaving the UP, and as expected, the study has been criticized.

It would be interesting and prudent to see if other scientists could replicate the UP’s results to confirm the link between autism and vaccinations. I  am not in favor of continuing to subject primates to studies, but our children should also not be subjected.

One question I have is why are spectrum disorders still growing when current vaccinations use different preservatives?  Thimerasol is no longer as common (still in the flu-vaccine), thus I would like to see this experiment conducted with current vaccines and the current CDC schedule.  Yes, we saw a huge increase in autism in the 90s, but the rates continue to rise at a greater rate now.

I have never felt that vaccinations are the sole cause, but I do there is something happening with epigentics and the chemicals we are exposed to, including vaccinations.

Vaccines Cause Autism Symptoms in Infant Primates is a post from: Eco Child's Play

Midwifery Care: What’s in it for Women? [video] is a post from: Eco Child's Play

Cold and flu season is typically thought of as during the winter months, but I always seem to catch some virus as the seasons change and the daylight grows longer.  I never use over-the-counter medicines, as I trust nature over pharmaceutical companies when it comes to my family’s health.

 I have just discovered a new natural health care company offering excellent throat and lung support guided by Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophic beliefs.

True Botanica was founded by three doctors.

We create innovative nutraceutical supplements, herbal tinctures, functional foods and natural cosmetics. The blending of unique ingredient mixes with novel manufacturing techniques results in synergistic formulations for a deeper health of body, mind and spirit.

The products are subjected to costly and exhaustive quality assurance tests.

The ingredients for our formulas are carefully sourced from non GMO, biodynamic and organic materials.

The formulas are designed by keeping in mind the best of insights given by the scientist Rudolf Steiner and the latest in modern nutritional technology.

Although I do not agree with all of Steiner’s philosophies, his thoughts on health and biodynamic agriculture are remarkable.  Whenever I see a company has based their products on Steiner’s ideals,  I know they are founded on ethics that are truly natural.

We were sent products from two of True Botanica’s line:

Lungroot (menthol or lemon flavored):

Lungroot^TM is an exceptionally high quality, pelargonium root (rich in umckalin) containing product. The root of Pelargonium sidoides has been known in traditional medicine, and confirmed by modern research, to be a significant support for the immune system and support the health of the lung and upper respiratory tract. Modern European research has also confirmed other beneficial properties, like its ability to help expelling of mucous.

Throat Defense (berry or menthol flavored):

Our mouth, ear, nose and throat are meant to be the first line of immune defense!

They were designed by nature to be a formidable barrier that traps all kinds of bacteria, viruses and other agents trying to enter our bodies.

This “trap-and-destroy” barrier can be weakened by stress, use of antibiotics, heavy exercise, advancing age, and other factors…

With Throat Defense^TM, you can now support this immune barrier with breakthrough, throat-specific Probiotics and other helpful ingredients like xylitol and trace minerals.

The BLIS K12 Probiotics have a dual function: they discharge bacteria- fighting proteins and also replenish the desirable normal cells in the lining of your mouth, crowding out and making it more difficult for the “outside” invaders to establish themselves.

It turns out the BLIS K12 probiotics also fight the growth of those bacteria that cause malodor, the bad breath that we want to avoid.

The berry flavors are popular with kids. The throat defense is meant to be used daily, like any good probiotic, whereas, the lungroot is to be used in response to illness.

Both of these products are free of common allergens like gluten, dairy, eggs, fish, and soy.

True Botanica also supports the True Botanica Foundation:  ”a not for profit organization in order to further research, education and social activities that would enhance the awareness and practice of anthroposophically oriented health care.”  The company provides their products to needy families, as well as supports biodynamic farming.

True Botanica follows good manufacturing production (GMP) federal guidelines, so you can trust consistent quality in their products.  Each ingredient and product is triple tested to ensure they meet high standards.

I am really excited about discovering True Botanica and hope to try more products in the future!

Disclosure:  The products described above were sent to us as free samples.  Prior assurances as to the nature of the reviews, whether positive or negative, were not given.  No financial payments were accepted in exchange for the reviews.  The reviews reflect our honest, authentic opinions.

Anthroposophic Natural Health Care: True Botanica Lung Root and Throat Defense is a post from: Eco Child's Play