Some Strategis for Dealing with Your Child's Mood & Behaviour

IN OUR SOCIETY we pay a lot of attention to physical and mental development. There are many educative books on the physical developmental milestone of children, but what is often missed is that children also go through more subtle, emotional development stages.

Our aim here is to introduce you to some of these stages and to recommend homoeopathic treatment where appropriate. There will always be children who cry and worry more than others. Here we are talking about the crying and anxiety that are not related to something obviously wrong, such as hunger, thirst, wet nappies, loneliness or pain. Constitutional homoeopathic treatment can help in situations where anxieties and tear-fullness escalate into excessive states of clinginess or crying. Homoeopaths may use such remedies as PULSATILLA, PHOSPHORUS, CALCAREA CARBONICA OR STAPHYSAGRIA. These help children to feel calmer, enabling them to work through the miseries and anger that events in daily life bring.

Older children often suffer from specific fears. These can include fear of dark, of animals, ghosts, crowds, strangers, thunder-storms, new situations and loud noises. Nightmares sleep-walking and teeth-grinding are other ways that anxiety manifests in children. Homoeopathy helps to settle these emotional upsets.

Some Strategies

• We all have moods and so do children. Try not to feel responsible if your child is in a bad mood. You do not have to do anything about it. His mood will change. If you like, you can try to find ways of involving your child in something else to take his mind off his bad mood.
• Be firm, objective and try hard not to get caught up in your child's moods. Try to be a stable and if there is something your child seems to be trying to tell you, try to be open to it and to respond to it constructively.
• Boundaries must be firm. For example, if your child is angry because he cannot get something he wants, such as a Sweet, do not let him wear you down. If you can not bear the noise, leave the room (so long as it is safe to leave him where he is). Take a deep breath and stay away for a few minutes, checking periodically to make sure that your child is safe.
• Find out if there is a pattern to the mood swings. Hunger and fatigue can easily set a child off. See if you are pushing yourself beyond your own limits. If you are feeling upset due to overwork, your child will pick up on this and react to it.

• Discuss your child's difficulties with a homoeopath to find out whether the problems are suitable for homoeopathic treatment.

Constitutional Treatment & Remedy Types/Pictures

Many people think that Homoeopathy is only about helping colds get better or healing injuries after accidents. These uses represent just the TIP of the Iceberg.

When Samuel Hahnemann first started treating people with Homoeopathy, he treated mostly acute diseases or the acute phase of a chronic disease. The patients usually improved, but the disease often came back. This disappointed Hahnemann and he decided to investigate further. He waned to find a way to treat the source that the acute disease sprang from. He focused his attention on how the patients were between acute attacks. The factors he observed acknowledged the person as a whole and included such things as weather, food, sleeping habits and their loves, fears, hates and general behaviour. He then decided to try to find a remedy that suited the person, not just the acute disease. What an amazing discovery when he found out that this approach worked! He called it constitutional treatment.

When we use a remedy for constitutional treatment we are treating Chronic Diseases. Some remedies are used primarily as constitutional remedies, but this does not mean that they cannot also be used for acute conditions.

Since Hahnemann developed this approach there have been further observations made by those Homoeopaths who have followed in his footsteps. Out of this came the idea of remedy pictures or remedy types. The total nature or disposition of a person becomes in many instances more important than where in the body the disease is located. For example, if your child is weepy, demands affection and takes a dislike to hot stuffy rooms and rich foods, we would say he was a PULSATILLA type, because in the proving these are all symptoms of PULSATILLA. The constitutional treatment for this child would be to give him PULSATILLA regardless of his physical symptoms. By this method your child's total mental, emotional and physical state is taken into consideration. In this way we treat the sick child not just the disease.

A homoeopath will put all this information together and try to find a remedy that will stimulate your child's innate healing capacity. We often find a link between the state of the mother during pregnancy and that of her child. Both may actually need the same homoeopathic treatment. This is fascinating, as it shows of the developing foetus on many levels.

Constitutional treatment can be very profound and requires more knowledge of homoeopathy. Should you wish your child to receive constitutional treatment, consult a professional homoeopath.

Behavioral Syndromes associated with Psychological Factors

Anorexia Nervosa

It occurs much more often in females as compared to males. The common age of onset is adolescence (13 - 19 years of age). There is an intense fear of becoming obese. This fear does not decrease even if body becomes very thin. There is a body image disturbance. The person is unable to perceive the body size accurately. There is a refusal to maintain the body weight above a minimum normal weight for that age, sex and height. Anorexia is a misnomer, as there is never a decrease in appetite initially. In fact the patient is often preoccupied with food.

The treatment is taken in two phases which merge into each other.

(A) Short Term Treatment, to ensure weight gain and correct nutritional deficiencies, if any. (B) Long Term Treatment, aimed at maintaining the near normal weight achieved in short term treatment and preventing relapses.

Bulimia Nervosa

It occurs in early teens or adolescence. There is an intense fear of becoming obese. There may be an earlier history of anorexia nervosa. There is also a body image disturbance. The person is unable to perceive the body size accurately.

Over eating associated with other psychological disturbances.

Over eating may sometimes be caused by a reaction to distressing situation. This eventually leads to obesity. The treatment depends on the underlying cause, for example psychotherapy for stressful life conditions and antidepressants for depression.

A CASE TO ILLUSTRATE EFFICACY OF CONSTITUTIONAL TREATMENT IN CHILDHOOD BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS

NANKI aged 5-years came with her Mother for homoeopathic treatment for ASTHMA. She was very afraid of the dark, of ghosts and of loud noises. Her Mother went out to work and was aware that being away during the day contributed to Nanki fears. Arranging a good child minder after school was essential to help with the separation anxieties.

Nanki also received the remedy PHOSPHORUS as constitutional treatment. Her ASTHMA improved and her parents found that Nanki became more confident and that her night-time fears diminished.