Kids today are just as anxious and stressed out as adults. Anxiety & stress in children is a major problem in society, and in fact, it’s a sad social commentary.
Being a kid should be easy, and yet we allow kids to become heaped up with all the weight of the world.
They experience stress in every corner of their short lives. School is definitely stressful; home lives are often extremely stressful; just hanging out with friends can even be stressful because of all the media pressure to be this kind of person or that kind of person or to look a certain way or act a certain way.
And what about bullying? Bullying is way out of control. And then there’s the Internet, which should be a recreational escape for kids. Instead, it is fast becoming one of the most dangerous and stressful places for kids to be spending their time. Whatever happened to the good old days when kids were allowed to be kids?
Bad Food is a Major Cause of Stress in Children
Then there’s the food we give our kids? In order to have a less stressful experience of life, and do well in school, for example, we have to eat the right foods. We need food that doesn’t mess up our blood chemistry or damage our emotional balance.
Greasy, fried foods, salt, refined sugar, and other bad food are being pumped into our kids daily as though they are hooked up to an IV line. Our kids don’t stand a chance. Kids rarely get good fiber and good protein and fruits and vegetables.
Instead, they get bad fat, more bad fat, and still more bad fat. They also get processed sugars, more processed sugars and still more processed sugars. And don’t even get me started on excitotoxins or neurotoxins and how they mess up the human brain.
When I was a kid, we had two fresh vegetables with every dinner – not processed – and we had more fruits and vegetables with the other meals.
When it comes to food, it’s time to go back to the old way of doing things because not all modern developments have been a good thing for kids… or adults, for that matter.
Strong Emotional Support Systems are Mandatory
As a society, we have strongly moved away from typical support systems that have historically played a role in helping children cope with childhood.
- Mom and dad are often both working for extended hours, assuming mom and dad are not divorced or separated;
- Kids, today, have few positive role models and their best friend is often the television or gaming machine;
- We enroll our kids in lots of sports and other activities, but these are becoming very competitive and so very stressful as well;
- Enrollments in Girl Scouts and Guides or Boy Scouts or other positive youth organizations are way down;
- We spend very little time with our extended families so kids often don’t have a trusted uncle or aunt or grandma or grandpa they can talk to when they are troubled; and
- Church memberships are down meaning fewer children have access to a supportive relationship with a higher power.
Chronic Disease & Stress in Children – Kids Need Much Better Immune Support!
Millions of kids are just playing a waiting game to get one chronic degenerative disease or another, but they won’t be as lucky as we were, twenty or thirty years ago.
We used to be reasonably assured that we wouldn’t get really sick until we were in our 50’s or 60’s or later, but kids today will most likely be really sick before they reach age 20 or 30 and it’s all because of childhood stress… physical, chemical, electro-magnetic and emotional.
As parents, we must work hard to get our children back on track in terms of stress management and diet. At the very least, we must try to get them some nutritional support so they can strengthen their immune systems and fight childhood stress and disease.
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