Today we are going to see how I help parents deal with children who are agitated coming from school or day care. I will guide the Young Discouraged Mother (YDM) through the steps of dealing with issue.
YDM: Charles, my son is 4 years old, every day it is like if he took PCP - he is out of control, just short of peeing on the walls, and ripping down the curtains! Is there anything nutritionally I can do to help him out? My husband and I are at our wit’s end.
CP: Sort of like the Tasmanian Devil with a tooth ache?
YDM: You read my mind.
CP: Does he sneak 5 Java Stim after school? Just kidding. Does it happen around 6 P.M.? And only on school days?
YDM: Yes, exactly! I never noticed that is was just on school days.
CP: Your complaint is quite common, and yet fairly easy to solve. I get this question every single BioSignature class from at least one of students, and every single parent of young kids chimes in wanting to know my answer.
First of all, your son is not the reincarnation of Ted Bundy, what is happening is common. Pay attention, I am saying common, not normal. And it does not make him a bad person. Therefore if other parents say “Ah, don’t worry about it, it happens to mine too”, don’t accept it. Usually, you see this in children 1-2 hours after coming in from day care, their nervous system cannot find a way to calm down. Why? What is happening is that your son’s cortisol levels are out of whack. When school ends, and you are four years old, it is a very stressful experience. You have 20-30 kids trying to get dressed at the same time for parental pick up, they have low blood sugar at that time, and the teacher is out of her mind at that time too. Kids pick up on that. Since your son’s blood sugar has dropped, the body compensates by making cortisol to make energy, hence the rebound of energy around 6 PM; the low blood sugar makes him irritable, and inattentive. Which frustrates you, which he picks up on, which makes him more irritable, which yanks on your nerves…you get the drift…
The good news is that the solution produces results practically instantly. The answer to your problem is a phospholipid called phosphatidyl-serine (PS). PS is what functional medicine doctors called a neuroceutical. In other words, a nutrient that feeds the nervous system. Since most kids are not comfortable swallowing tablets or capsules, we make it available in powder form. So when you pick him up from school, give him a snack that will raise and yet stabilize his blood sugar. So what you can do is give him sliced apples on which you have spread a nut butter, in which you added a very small quantity of PS (100-150 mg), which is basically a pinch of the powder. You can also add a pinch of a probiotic powder, such as our Proflora Excellence Powder, in it. He won’t pick up on it.
YDM: Why a probiotics powder? I don’t understand a gut product is going to influence his behavior.
CP: Very few medical doctors know this, but roughly two-thirds of neurotransmitters are made in the gut lining. So the major chemicals that are responsible for our moods are made in the gut. The gut is our second brain. Hence the expression “I have a gut feeling”. Most children nowadays have very poor gut flora, hence the epidemics of ADD, ADHD etc… In other words, your brain can only function right if your gut works fine.
YDM: Any possible side effects to those products?
CP: Actually no. Now here is the even better news: PS will help him at school. PS has been shown to help raise school grades, and help tremendously with brain metabolism, socialization skills, reasoning, and memory. Parents who are clients of mine, who implement this PS/probiotics stack, always rave about the benefits of this combination. The most common comment being - “why did my pediatrician not tell me about this - he wanted to put him on Ritalin!”
YDM: Thank you so much!
CP: Before you leave, what are your two take home points?
YDM:
1. PS will bring his cortisol down and maximize his brain function.
2. You need a healthy gut for your thought processes to be optimal.
C.P.: Excellent, looking forward to your feedback.