A Balanced Approach to Wellness!

Posts tagged ‘Children’

Growing up to fail

failure at math

Several readers wrote to tell me that the blog posts “Failure addiction is taught” and “Addiction to failure” explained family members’ difficulties in life. Until they read those posts, they had not been able to understand the inability of their siblings/children to function.

The distressing state of drug addiction (legal and not) to combat anxiety, sleeplessness, and normal coping behaviors, is a reason to look more deeply at failure addiction and its causes. The lack of success in relationships and in achieving goals are additional reasons for looking at the causes of failure addiction.

As stated in “Failure addiction is taught”, children experience uncertainty and dejection when their parents–or other beloved caregivers–are emotionally distant, are consistently absent, and ignore their children’s natural interests. Children are sensitive to the words and actions of their loved ones, so that distancing and disinterest harm their sense of self, which in turn, causes them to doubt their abilities and thwarts their capacity for perseverance. Without perseverance and belief in oneself, a person cannot achieve goals.

Attentive parents can instill tendencies towards failure addiction when they require achievements that don’t suit their child’s abilities and interests, when they push away natural childhood demand for affection (from the parent), and when they purposely ignore their child’s expressions of himself or herself (for example, seeing that the child has a sensitive nature and pretending that the child is unflappable).

These “attentive” parents create people who may “succeed”, but feel unable to cope. Eventually, the inability to cope will affect work, self-perception, and/or appetite. The failure-prone people will struggle throughout their lives with relationships, unless they are able to adjust their self-images.

Failure addiction causes breakdowns, breakups, and breakaways. It is a cause of depression, compulsive behaviors, eating issues, and social withdrawal. Failure addiction indicates deep sadness, and deep sadness is the source of debilitating anger and aggression.

Failure addiction is a heart impediment. It stops the intangible heart from opening to oneself and to others, so that the intangible heart is stunted and enfeebled.

Note: This information has been received from Spirit.

Category:

Well-being

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Children’s most important need

nationalities

Children need love. Lots of it! They don’t need distractions. They need loving attention! They don’t need lots of toys. They need lots of hugs! They don’t need stern warnings. They need kind guidance. They don’t need fighting among family members. They need patience.

Children need loving care. And they need to feel loved.

Note: Spirit says that children are easily damaged. They carry the damage throughout their lives.

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Children

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Unintentional child abuse through sugar

sweets for children

My childhood contained many spoonfuls of sugar. It started off with sweetened formula. There were doughnuts and ice cream, sugar cubes and sodas. Lollipops and candy canes were gifts at doctor appointments and my parents’ business friends’ offices. Halloween provided weeks of sugary treats. The other holidays had their special sweet treats and customary sweet dishes. My family’s snack drawer was full of snack cakes, cookies, and sno balls. At school, lunches included a sweet treat and the food provided was often sweetened. For breakfast, I ate sweetened cereals, sweetened oatmeal, and instant breakfast drinks.  Family trips to the local ice cream parlors and baseball games led to sweet celebrations galore.  Iced tea was always sweetened as were the fresh strawberries. Sunday morning pancakes smothered with imitation maple syrup were the weekly food highlight. Crackers, canned savory foods, spreads, and fast foods were sweetened as well. My diet was sweet foods with occasional breaks for the unsweetened things. I think that my diet was typical of children growing up in the 60s and 70s in the United States. All that sweetness influenced my health, my eating habits, and my thinking.

————————

This blog post is written to parents and grandparents to make them aware that their choices to sweeten the lives of their children and grandchildren delivers misery instead of the intended happiness. Sweetening a child’s life is love misguided.

Note: This blog post is not my opinion although I do agree with it. The wisdom presented here is straight from Spirit.

Parents and grandparents,

“Most of our diet is meant to be non-sweet. The sweet part should be about 8%, and of that 8%, all should be from natural sources—that is how our bodies are designed. .” …from the post “Sweeteners: The Facts“

More than 8% sweetness leads to:

  • changed appetite (wanting foods for their sweetness rather than for their satisfaction of hunger)
  • emotional turmoil
  • malfunctioning of the processes that handle sweetness
  • reduced resilience of body parts (for example, teeth)
  • illness
  • compromised attention capabilities
  • over-desire for sweetness
  • reduced muscle activity
  • feelings of negativity towards self

from the post “The Facts: Living in a World of Sweetened Sustenance”

Through sweets, well-meaning parents feed their children emotional turmoil and compromised attention capabilities. These changes to natural temperament and attentiveness cause problems with peers and in school.

Through sweets, well-intentioned parents offer their children reduced resilience of body parts as rewards for good behavior and grades. Even parents who know the facts about sweetness succumb to societal pressure to provide their children with changed appetite and over-desire for sweetness. Combating the pervasiveness of sweetness in society is not easy.

Rewarding children using sweets that contribute to feelings of negativity towards themselves is building people who are unsure of themselves. Rewarding children with causers of malfunctioning of the processes that handle sweetness is mistaken gifting.

Sweets that are natural, such as fruit and pure maple syrup, are building unless they exceed the 8% limit. Sweets that are destructive, such as sugar and corn syrup, cause disruptions in functioning and in future functioning.

Going against the typical way of pushing sweets onto children is not easy. Defying the advertisers and makers of sweet things is work. Understanding what you are doing each time you give your child a soda or a candy bar or a sweetened cereal, might help you change your outlook on how you stock your house and how you supply nutrition to the children you love with all your heart.

Category:

Children, Food & drink

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A tip when raising children

caring

This tip is for parents, grandparents, and caregivers. It applies to children being raised in today’s world of constant external stimulation.

  • The most important thing to limit is your time away from the children.

The children require your time and your attention. They require material things less. They require your eyes on them, not you looking at a screen or you placing them in front of a screen.

Children thrive when their loved ones give them security. The security develops through loving touch, words, and facial expressions.

Note: This information has been spiritually received.

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Children

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Reaction #3 to “The health effects of the latest technologies”

Heart wise

The future holds so much promise, yet our advances—the ones that make our lives more easy and predictable—are the ones that will upend the advances’ promises of better.

The advances of “smart” technologies will create entrenched changes in people that will defy treatment. Besides the effects from the smart technologies, the lessening of joyous movement by children and the withdrawal from nature will cement the entrenched changes further.

Offering young children smartphones as playthings is the beginning of the entrenched changes. The children will be affected in the eyes, in the cardiovascular circulation, in the olfactory abilities, and in the processing of emotional thoughts. The addictive draw of the screen’s amazingness pulls from the children their natural rush to move, which will affect their spinal and muscular development. The wondrousness of the screens’ offerings will lessen the wondrousness of the natural world and the children will lose their connection to the Earth’s glory, which will affect their senses of taste, touch, and intuition.

Adults who wear the smart gadgets will have less ingrained changes than the children, but if they also reduce their movement and distance from nature, then their bodies will respond unhappily. The changes depend on age, length of exposure, and time spent with other people.

Distancing from nature and lessening of movement, when accompanied by the side effects of the latest generation of medications, will exacerbate the side effects. People who take these medications require continuous connection to nature and joyous movement to lessen the side effects.

Here ends input from God about the impact of smart gadgets and medication side effects combined with sedentary lifestyle and little exposure to nature. This response relates to the blog posts The health effects of the latest technologies,  Reaction #1, and Reaction #2.

I am sad to be the bearer of this information, but I do hope that people will heed these messages of warning.

Category:

Health afflictions

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Reaction #1 to “The health effects of the latest technologies”

smart gadgets

IN yesterday’s blog post, we were informed that the latest technologies are causing new types of illnesses. That knowledge is distressing, to say the least.

I pushed for advice about dealing with the onslaught of external changes (like smartphones, smart watches, activity trackers, wearable computer glasses, and to-be-announced-soon footwear, that uses computer tracking).

In today’s blog post, we will receive advice from God about protecting ourselves from the latest invasive technologies. I know these new devices seem helpful and are appealing, but we’re being warned about their future bad effects, and we really need to pay attention–me too!

  1. Wearing computer devices is harmful. They disrupt the body’s functioning. The longer they are next to your bodies, the more harm they cause. Keep them at a distance. [This advice also applies to smartphone that are kept in pockets or in arm bands and other containers very close to the body.]
  2. Tracking steps is confused desireability. Knowing exactly how far you’ve walked or how many steps you’ve actually taken seems desireable, but the devices that provide this information will cause illnesses and changes in body functioning. Don’t use these devices.
  3. Placement of the devices is very important. The farther away from the body, the better. Keep smartphones in a container [backpack, thick waist pack, purse, or messenger bag]. When holding a smartphone, hold it for short periods of time. For children, no more than twelve minutes and no more than three times a day (no more than 36 minutes); for ages 20 and up, no more than fifteen minutes and no more than four times a day (no more than sixty minutes). For extended viewing of the screen, place the smartphone in a holder and don’t hold the holder.

A reminder from yesterday’s blog post: the younger the age of exposure to these devices, the more havoc created for the body. If you have young children, resist the pull to use these devices to pacify your children.

 

Category:

Health afflictions

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A child’s heart

heart of a child

Note: This information was received through my heart’s connection to Spirit.

 

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Children, Heart

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Do violent video games cause violent behavior?

thoughts

There have been studies that try to answer this question, and the answers have been contradictory. Some say Yes, the violent video games contribute to violent behavior and some say No, they don’t. It’s time to ask the authority–>Spirit.

Spirit says:

Stop studying this problem and face it. Exposure to violence triggers changes in thinking, and often, in behavior. Witnessing violence through the senses–through the eyes and ears and touch of the body–creates changes in thought patterns. Watching a violent movie that affects the eyes and ears can challenge thinking, but the added component of touch–the touch of the hands and fingers and possibly the rest of the body as it “enters” the game–directly affects thinking. The more violent the game, the more changed the thinking. Violent video games are misguided entertainment that should be stopped!

The makers of violent video games won’t want to hear this answer, but there it is.

 

Category:

Conflict

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Child Abuse with a Spoonful of Sugar

sweets for children

My childhood contained many spoonfuls of sugar. It started off with sweetened formula. There were doughnuts and ice cream, sugar cubes and sodas. Lollipops and candy canes were gifts at doctor appointments and my parents’ business friends’ offices. Halloween provided weeks of sugary treats. The other holidays had their special sweet treats and customary sweet dishes. My family’s snack drawer was full of snack cakes, cookies, and sno balls. At school, lunches included a sweet treat and the food provided was often sweetened. For breakfast, I ate sweetened cereals, sweetened oatmeal, and instant breakfast drinks.  Family trips to the local ice cream parlors and baseball games led to sweet celebrations galore.  Ice tea was always sweetened as were the fresh strawberries. Sunday morning pancakes smothered with imitation maple syrup were the weekly food highlight. Crackers, canned savory foods, spreads, and fast foods were sweetened as well. My diet was sweet foods with occasional breaks for the unsweetened things. My diet was typical of children growing up in the 60s and 70s in the United States. All that sweetness influenced my health, my eating habits, and my thinking.

————————

This blog post is written to parents and grandparents to make them aware that their choices to sweeten the lives of their children and grandchildren delivers misery instead of the intended happiness. Sweetening a child’s life is love misguided.

Note: This blog post is not my opinion although I do agree with it. The wisdom presented here is straight from Spiritual Presence.

Parents and grandparents,

“Most of our diet is meant to be non-sweet. The sweet part should be about 8%, and of that 8%, all should be from natural sources—that is how our bodies are designed. .” …from the post “Sweeteners: The Facts“

More than 8% sweetness leads to:

  • changed appetite (wanting foods for their sweetness rather than for their satisfaction of hunger)
  • emotional turmoil
  • malfunctioning of the processes that handle sweetness
  • reduced resilience of body parts (for example, teeth)
  • illness
  • compromised attention capabilities
  • over-desire for sweetness
  • reduced muscle activity
  • feelings of negativity towards self

from the post “The Facts: Living in a World of Sweetened Sustenance”

Through sweets, well-meaning parents feed their children emotional turmoil and compromised attention capabilities. These changes to natural temperament and attentiveness cause problems with peers and in school.

Through sweets, well-intentioned parents offer their children reduced resilience of body parts as rewards for good behavior and grades. Even parents who know the facts about sweetness succumb to societal pressure to provide their children with changed appetite and over-desire for sweetness. Combating the pervasiveness of sweetness in society is not easy.

Rewarding children using sweets that contribute to feelings of negativity towards themselves is building people who are unsure of themselves. Rewarding children with causers of malfunctioning of the processes that handle sweetness is mistaken gifting.

Sweets that are natural, such as fruit and pure maple syrup, are building unless they exceed the 8% limit. Sweets that are destructive, such as sugar and corn syrup, cause disruptions in functioning and in future functioning.

Going against the typical way of pushing sweets onto children is not easy. Defying the advertisers and makers of sweet things is work. Understanding what you are doing each time you give your child a soda or a candy bar or a sweetened cereal, might help you change your outlook on how you stock your house and how you supply nutrition to the children you love with all your heart.

Category:

Children, Food & drink

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Awe-tism Reality

autism

Note: The source of the information provided here is divine inspiration. The information has not been scientifically verified.

Autism disconnects. Disconnection is autism’s reality. Disconnection in relationships and disconnection in cue exchanges.

Generalizations are easy to make when talking about autism, but this disconnecting reality actually differs from person to person. Only one generalization can be made about autism and that is its disconnecting nature. (The reason that generalizations cannot be made is because people with autistic interference have the normal differences that people without autistic interference have. They have a temperament [as do “normal” people], they have likes and aversions [as do “normal” people], they have a natural pace [as do “normal” people], and they have sense dominance—stronger sense of hearing or smell or vision or touch or taste [as do “normal” people]. That each person has an individualized character and nature is accepted in “normal” people and should be for those affected by autism.) The disconnection happens to all who are affected by autism, but the expression of autistic behavior will differ because of each person’s character, nature, severity of autism, and external happenings.

Each person who experiences autism’s disconnection experiences it with self-created intensity (due to the person’s character, nature, severity of autism, external happenings, and current state of well-being). The causes of autism are explained in the blog post “Awe-tism“ https://energy-guidance-complete.com/2014/08/31/awe-tism/ and the causes contribute to each one’s disconnection and stoppage. Stoppage refers to autism’s halting of stimuli messaging. This stoppage affects the body’s interpretation of feelings and gestures. Feelings are internal signals slowed or deflected by the autism. Gestures are external movements and spoken expressions by others that are echoed or misdirected depending upon other stimuli occurring internally and externally. External background stimuli and internal state of well-being affect the stoppage as well.

Autism is experienced anew every day, because the varying of stimuli each day requires the person experiencing autism to relate to the slowed or deflected or echoed or misdirected messaging differently each time.

Living with autism is a Sisyphean feat, and people who do not face autism’s challenges should be in awe of those who do.

Category:

Health afflictions

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Curiosity fuels success

Curiosity-stilts

People who are curious succeed in business and in social situations more than people who hold back their curiosity. All of us start out as curious infants, exploring our world as busily as we can. Curiosity is built-in and propels development of our senses and our abilities.

Often, curiosity is halted because of societal restraints, family restraints, and environmental barriers. People who experience too much repression of their natural curiosity add to the repression by quashing their urges to learn and explore. Sometimes, the desire to experience is so strong that curiosity leads the way and the repression can be overcome.

People who grow up in a nourishing environment that allows natural curiosity to flourish are able to develop more freely. This type of environment does not guarantee achievement, but it does offer support.

To enhance curiosity

  • Approach the known with questioning. Do you always do something a certain way? Why is that? Notice your habits and question the ones that don’t make sense.
  • Approach the known with innovation. Notice the choices you make repeatedly. Do you eat the same foods over and over again without evaluating their appeal? Do you tire at the same time every day? Why is that? What can be done about these things?
  • Approach the known with wonder. When the rain starts, don’t rush to take cover. Feel the drops and be connected to them. Look at the trees and other vegetation that you see every day and really notice them.
  • Approach the known with certainty. The things that are familiar are comforting. Let them bring comfort, but then move beyond them. Explore something less familiar while keeping the familiar within reach.

Curiosity is with us from the moment we can experience awareness until the moment that we cannot. The more we let ourselves develop, the more fully we live!

Category:

Development

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Awe-tism

autism

Note: The source of the information provided here is divine inspiration. The information has not been scientifically verified.

Those who study the phenomenon of autism are confused and unsure. Those who live with people that present autistic characteristics are determined, overwhelmed, searching, and/or sad. Those who have the autistic presentations are diSTraCteD, kaleidoshcopic, d r i v e n, sensitive, and companionship-aware.

The causes of autism are partially in utero and partially after birth. In utero causes are smoking tobacco, nutrition that decreases estrogen (for example, too little phytoestrogens during pregnancy or too much calcium lactate before and during pregnancy), injury to the cervix after the fourth month, and contracting a certain virus during pregnancy (not a cold or flu virus).

An infant can display autistic presentation soon after birth if one or more causes of the autism occurred in utero. Each cause does not affect every infant. If that were the case, all mothers who smoke during pregnancy would have an autistic child. No, there is something else, something beyond physicality that determines autistic presentation. It is related to the mother’s emotional well-being and to her feelings of security and acceptance. Without these emotional safeguards, the mother cannot protect her fetus from the onslaught of autism instigators. The mother does not have to be happy at all times during her pregnancy to protect her fetus, but if she is emotionally fragile at the moment the autism cause occurs (or in the case of smoking and decreased estrogen, at the moment that the amount reaches the too-much or too-little point), autistic presentation will most likely develop.

Post-birth, an infant who has not experienced any of the in utero causes can still develop autistic tendencies because of allergies to formula or other supplemental nutrition (supplemental to breast milk) and respiratory malfunctioning. These causes depend upon the health of the infant and his or her own emotional well-being. If the infant has autistic presentation from in utero causes, post-birth causes can deepen the autistic presentation.

Autism is new: new name, new causes, new awareness. Autism existed before the official diagnosis, but it was less widespread, less afflicting. The new causes did not exist then. They have developed with technology. They have developed with changes in society.

To protect against autism, a mother must not smoke during her pregnancy. She must eat foods containing phytoestrogens (in moderation) to supplement her body’s need for increased estrogen. She must not use products containing calcium lactate during and a year before her pregnancy. She must strive to stay healthy by eating properly, exercising wisely, and surrounding herself with supportive people. After the baby is born, breastmilk should be the food of choice rather than formula.

Autism won’t occur when all these safeguards are in place. Other afflictions can happen, but not autism.

The next post about autism will be about lessening autistic presentation.

———

The reality of autism is discussed in this post: https://energy-guidance-complete.com/2015/09/12/awe-tism-reality/. Caregivers are discussed in this post: https://energy-guidance-complete.com/2015/09/16/awe-tism-to-caregivers/

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Health afflictions

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The sense of self—the sixth sense

sense of self

While writing Awaiting Light—Understanding the Development of the Soul, I learned that there is a sixth sense:  “The senses develop in staggered pairings (taste and touch, sight and smell, hearing and the sense of self [one’s boundaries])…”.

The sense of self is awareness of oneself separate from others, awareness of boundaries, and awareness of one’s body. An infant normally develops these awarenesses unless interference has occurred. Interference can be natural (such as complications during the birthing process or genetic causes) or unnatural (such as complications during the birthing process that are not related to natural birth, accident, or abuse).

The sense of self is connected to all the other senses: tasting one’s skin, touching oneself, seeing one’s body, smelling one’s body odor, and hearing one’s voice and the sounds emitted from one’s body and from using the body. An infant experiences these sense sensations and through the awareness of them and through maturation of the thinking process, comes to understand that there is a physical container for all these developments. The physical container is the baby’s body, and a baby delights in his or her development.

The sense of self has impact on future development. A baby who receives encouragement develops with strong sense of self. A baby who receives negativity often develops with skewed sense of self. The sense of self accompanies a person into adulthood and influences actions and decisions.

Here is an example of a person I have worked with: a woman in her 30s is battling excess weight. The struggle began when she was very young because she was a pudgy baby whose mother had weight issues. The mother related to her daughter’s size negatively, which affected the daughter and her sense of self.

The sense of self has physical and nonphysical elements. The physical elements are the sense organs that continuously feed information to the brain about the body and its boundaries, actions, and hurts (wounds, aches, pain). The nonphysical element is the emotional component of health: the feelings for the body, its actions, and its hurts. The feelings about bodily functioning include acceptance or disregard for normal bodily functioning, admiration or impatience for the body’s actions and abilities, and reasonable or overzealous focus on hurts.

The sense of self and the other senses create the feedback that people require to live and grow.

“Smells and sounds and textures and visual cues and taste bud activity provide interest to human life. And provide warnings. And provide information for storage. And notice for information retrieval. And input for reactions. And input for instigation of creativity. And awareness of outside interesting sensations and varieties. And wonders.” –from Pond a Connected Existence.

Category:

Development

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Stuttering

Stuttering

Social deficits cause uneven positions, jagged edges, and repetitive angles. They (social deficits) wallflower complete. Ellos displace.   (a stuttered paragraph)

Expectations or fear or pressure or hardness and other things as well can uneven jag uncomplete displace. Let’s repeat that sentence in a socially understandable way.

Many pressures such as unrealistic expectations, fear, hardness, or other oppressive treatment can cause off-balanced behavior in children that leaves them feeling unsure, unsteady, and undone so that they do not feel complete in their true selves. Each person is born with a temperament, likes, dislikes, and more, and sometimes the caregivers are unable to handle the child’s way of being. Even caregivers who truly care.

As a child navigates the life that is presented to him or her by caregivers and other people, patterns are acquired. Patterns of movement, of speech, of viewing, and of hold-approach develop that are specific to the child. Some patterns are idiosyncratic and some are socially reasonable. The socially reasonable behavior provides easier access to others. Idiosyncratic behavior confounds. The more a child behaves in socially confounding ways, the more the child self-torments and self-deplores because of the reactions of others to the idiosyncratic ways.

Stuttering is one example of idiosyncratic behavior.

Fixable?

Throughout the stages of life, there is possibility of stopping idiosyncratic behavior. The age is not important, but the desire is. There are many proposed therapies for the phenomenon of stuttering. The therapies that include relaxation, breathing guidance, self-acceptance, and singing are the therapies that are most successful.

Category:

Healing

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Nature’s impact on us

Gift of nature

Want a fantastic treat? Try spending more time in nature.

Many of us tend to trivialize the importance of our encounters with the environment and with other living creatures. Besides the enjoyment that can come from being in nature:

 “The connection to flora and fauna significantly 1) broadens and heightens understanding of cycles and fluctuations; 2) develops appreciative and inquisitive capabilities; and 3) causes people to examine and work with vegetation that aid human life and animals that enhance human existence.” – from “Oneself-Living”

When the weather is hot, many people look for cool retreats. Instead of heading to the mall with its over-air-conditioned assault on the body, find a shaded walk with broad trees, chirping birds, and bountiful vegetation.  The air conditioning overtaxes the body (even if you think it feels good), but the outside temperature strengthens the body (even if you feel sweaty).

Being outside in nature is relaxing, invigorating, and mesmerizing. There are “rules” for feeling relaxed, invigorated, and mesmerized when you are walking in nature:

  1. Have sufficient water so that you stay hydrated.
  2. Wear a hat and clothing that protect from too strong sun. Sun screen is important.
  3. Keep your mobile phone in a bag and not in your hand or pocket. The less you use it or think about it, the more you can enjoy your outdoor experience.
  4. Pay attention to the things that draw your eye. You will gain understanding about yourself and your soul when you recognize natural draws of your attention.

There are magical moments that only occur in the out-of-doors near the trees and vegetation,  really!!

Category:

Flora and fauna

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Serving distraction, athletic shoe style

Distracting colors

See those colors and patterns above? They are the colors and patterns on popular sport shoes for boys. Colorful! Bold! Eye catching!

Yes, eye-catching. A boy who is struggling to stay attentive in class will be easily distracted by his colorful, bold, and eye-catching footwear. For one moment, he’ll be listening to his teacher and then his eyes will lower, he’ll see his shoes, and then his mind is off—not necessarily off thinking about a game he’ll be playing, just off away from where his mind needs to be.

If you have a son (or grandson) who is easily distracted, consider this information before you buy the latest fad in footwear.  There are so many distractions anyway. No need to serve another form of distraction.

Category:

Attention deficit

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Screen! My beloved screen!

 Post 122-screen love affair

If people looked at a garden as much as they look at their computer screen, they would be more alive. If people looked at the faces of other people as much as they look at the faces on their screen, they would be more enriched. If people looked at their living environment as much as they look at their screens, they would be more active.

The time spent with the smartphone screen, computer screen, TV screen, tablet screen is time spent. Sometimes wisely, sometimes not. Time that cannot be returned, that cannot be spent on more sustaining activities.

How to break free of the screen love affair!

For adults

  • Don’t turn on any screens in the morning, unless you need them for work, in which case, only turn on a screen right before you are going to use it (for work).
  • Turn off all screens two hours (or more) before bedtime.
  • In the middle of the day, do the same as above. Turn off screens unless you are using them for work. On your smartphone, close all unnecessary apps, especially the distracting ones. Set a time in the day for Facebook-type activities and don’t stay on longer than that set amount. Set a time in the day for handling social emails. Abandon computer and app games—they are time obliteraters. Set a time in the day for looking at online information that is important to you (like this blog 🙂 ) and stick to the schedule. Examine the online information you look at that is not sustaining and work towards reducing the time you spend viewing the non-sustaining information. If you use any type of reminder system, use it to remind yourself about these screen changes.

For children

  • If your child is under the age of 13 (12 and under, toddlers are not being discussed), you—the parent—have the authority to limit their screen time. Be authoritative and set limits that are realistic. A child who is under the age of 13 should not be viewing a screen for more than two hours in a day. Don’t use screens as a way to keep your child quiet. If you need your child to be quiet, be more creative in your solutions. Also, follow the guidelines above and be a good example.
  • If your child is 13 or older, you do have the authority to limit screen time, but the weight of your words is less. The best you can do is follow the guidelines above and be a good example and provide interesting alternatives to screen time: family hikes, family puzzle building, family bike rides, etc.

People don’t realize the extent to which screens are devouring their lives. If you can make the changes suggested above, you will enable more balance in your life. Best wishes for successful declawing of your screens!

Category:

Addiction to screens

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Kids and LCD addiction

 

Post 120-lcd addiction

In my EGC sessions with children (ages 10-13), I am seeing children addicted to their *LCD. I also see adults who spend way too much time on their computers and/or smartphones, but they are not being affected the same way as the children are.

I want to start with the boys, because they are the most worrisome to me.  Children are supposed to have eyes that sparkle, and as they age the sparkle usually diminishes. I am seeing boys with hollow eyes that do not sparkle. The reason—because if they are not in the middle of a computer/app game, they are thinking about being in the middle of the computer/app game. Their minds are not present and their vision has gone elsewhere. Of course they can’t focus on schoolwork or teachers’ lessons; the game/app has taken over their attention. The only things that break this LCD focus are physical activity, making music (not just listening to it) and art, but most boys aren’t getting enough of these things.

As for girls, some girls get the hollow eyes affliction, but most have a different affliction—the eyes and neck affliction. Their eyes are constantly darting to check their communication programs and their necks are held incorrectly as they type and check messages. Strains the eyes and stresses the neck muscles. Boys can also have the eye and neck affliction.

Boys and girls should be socializing more in person and less through LCD screens. They should be moving and creating and moving more and experiencing life through all their senses.

Parents need to be aware that keeping their young children quiet through play on computers and smartphones can lead to problems when the children are a bit older. The children get LCD addicted, and it is hard to break the addiction.

* LCD is the abbreviation for liquid-crystal display. It is a flat panel display used on computer monitors, televisions, laptop and tablet screens, smartphones and mobile phones. (LCDs are also used on watches, clocks, instrument panels, and many other devices, but this post is not about these uses.)

Category:

Addiction to screens, Children

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Distractions along the way

Post 82-

Maintaining concentration is made difficult when pressure is felt or goals are not concrete and personally important. When a person is easily distracted (which is most people), small or seemingly important distractions can completely upstage the true goals. On top of that, if a person is a “deficit in attention” labeled person, he or she may accept the easily distractedness as a personality trait rather than work at maintaining concentration.

All people are designed to be distracted; it is a survival technique. People are also designed to concentrate in short segments of time. Prolonged concentration is not to be expected without a price in imbalance in the body. Also, making excuses for lack of ability to concentrate for prolonged periods of time is wasted effort. Of course most people can’t do that; it’s not part of the design.

Rather than label children (or adults) because they can’t sit still or focus on personally unimportant information, parents and caregivers (including teachers) should consider issues such as nutrition, home dynamics, sleep disturbances, lack of sufficient physical movement, interests of the child, intellectual challenges (or lack of), stimulation from too much exposure to technology, lack of stimulation from natural elements (nature, animals, and the seasons), and invisibility (the child feels that he or she is not really seen for who he/she is). All these influences come into play when maintaining concentration is too easily broken.

More to come…Please share this information with people who question the status quo of dealing with attention deficit issues.

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Attention deficit

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