How do we help children with ADHD or who lack focus?
In Part I, we talked about using outdoor time, nature, and exercize to help relax your child. We also talked about how important it is to have the child’s nervous system as healthy and relaxed. You can’t learn or focus when your nervous system is uptight.
Here, I want to look at diet, particularly sugar. Sugar in our diet has gone through the roof: we are meant to ingest about 25 grams of sugar a day, and in our diet we have 3, 4 or 5 times as much. For kids who have ADHD problems, this kind of sugar intake makes it way worse.
One simple (but not easy) tip to begin addressing this issue, is to eliminate all sodas and all juices from your child’s diet. Juice is juice, whether 100% juice or not. It comes with sugar. The only exception is juice squeezed at home with the fibers and the vitamins. That’s good stuff for your children. The rest of juices is bottled candy.
Most parents know that they can’t give too much candy, too much cookies to their children. But juices and sodas are bottled candy. When our child is dehydrated (all of use for that matter), the brain does not work as well. Our brain is 80% water. It needs hydration as well. When we reach for the sodas and juices, that’s not a good way to hydrate.
Sodas actually produce just the opposite reaction: they take water from our body to eliminate some of the chemicals and toxins found in sodas.
Make it easy on yourself: Don’t have juices and sodas in your home. Then there is no battle.
Tell your children they can have a soda once a week if they have a good week. Then it’s a treat, something special, not a daily thing.
In the water, you can add a little bit of fresh lemon, grapefruit, orange, for variety. The best thing for your children is water. Keep them hydrated, keep their brain hydrated and working well, and keep that sugar at healthy levels.
Dr Joanne Haupert, Chiropractor
4858 E Broadway Blvd, Tucson
(520) 584-0343
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