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How parents and educators can help children to overcome ADHD and childhood depression, naturally. Lifestyle changes, educational efforts can be very effective. Many professional and other resources listed. Extensive bibliograhy and index.
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| Page last updated: June 22, 2009 |
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24 Positive Steps for Good Mental Health for Children |

Photo: Kevinfruet. Source: Valeria Resende
Diet:
1. Balanced attention to diet and nutrition: low sugar, low carbohydrate, no soda, within reason. Light on the fruit juice. No sugared fruit juices. Junk food snacking only on special occasions.
Media:
2. Cut down on TV, movie and video game activity as much as is possible.
3. Take video games and television out of the bedrooms.
4. Keep the computer in a public place in the house. and keep an eye on how much computer time is being spent and what sites. Talk to your children about it. It is not always necessary to have the Internet in the home. Do not allow children or teens to isolate themselves for hours a day on the Internet. Parental control software can be used to set firm time limits.
Professional help and education:
5. Pursue tutoring, coaching, mentoring in school. Personal assistants also can be of help. Inquire about it.
6. Pursue any other one on one programs in the public schools or public library such as reading tutoring that are available.
7. Communicate with your children’s teachers regularly-visit often and attend meetings.
Wholesome Recreation, Music and Art:
8. Provide wholesome recreation for you children during the week and weekends.
9. Consider enrolling your child in art lessons.
10. Buy how to books and supplies for your children on art and decorate your home likewise.
11. Try to weed out any comic books or games that have occult or spiritistic overtones, or that are violent. This is true also of music. Encourage lighter, mellower, music rather than heavy alternative music, gothic, heavy metal, grunge, hard core, or hard rock with spiritistic influences. Keep tabs on how much time is spent.
12. Get a pet or fishtank. (It teaches responsibility and giving, it’s a nice hobby with nice lessons to be learned.)
13. Enroll your child in piano or violin lessons.
Discipline and Support:
14. Provide loving but firm discipline for your children. Be consistent
15. Make sure your children have good companionship with suitable friends.
16. Keep up on your child’s activities when they visit other children. Communicate with their friend’s parents about your child’s special needs.
17. Plan day trips to art museums, aquariums, zoos or places of historical interest.
Outdoor activities:
18. Exercise, walk, camp, hike, visit local parks or lakes for recreation.
Sleep and Precautions:
19. Make sure your child is getting to sleep at a regular and reasonable bed time and don’t resort to medicine to help him to sleep.(it can create a vicious cycle.)
Time and Love:
20. Spend quality and quantity time with your child. Show lots of love and approval regularly. Be patient with your child’s progress. Try not to be a perfectionist.
21. Take personal responsibility for your decisions and actions.
22. Keep well-informed and well read on everything involved with your child’s situation. Parents magazine often has good articles, as does Awake magazine, in addition to many books that have been written. Be selective in which books you read on this subject.
23. Care for your family’s spiritual needs. Read the Bible, Bible stories and pray with your child. Teach him to pray. Pray for your child. Build a value system in your child. Don’t let TV teach life’s lessons to your child.
24. Keep hope alive and don’t give up. Your positive attitude will reflect in your decisions and your dealings with your child.
Study: Objective To test the hypothesis that audible television is associated with decreased parent and child interactions.
One clinical study was designed to determine the impact of television on young children with respect to children's language ability. While one might think that the viewing of television would increase a child's ability to understand and speak audible language, the study actually found that for every additional hour that a child was exposed to television, there was a decrease in 770 words (7%) that the child heard from an adult during a recorded session, as well as a reducation in the number and length of sounds and spoken words by the child with the adult.
Audible Television and Decreased Adult Words, Infant Vocalizations, and Conversational Turns - A Population-Based Study, Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, MPH; Jill Gilkerson, PhD; Jeffrey A. Richards, MA; Frederick J. Zimmerman, PhD; Michelle M. Garrison, PhD; Dongxin Xu, PhD; Sharmistha Gray, PhD; Umit Yapanel, PhD. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2009;163(6):554-558.
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