Children Who Are “Stressed”, Homeopathy Helps

With two calls this week about potential patients, I thought it was time to write this blog post. I had written a blog post about stress and had mentioned at the end of it (STRESS and Homeopathy) that we don’t often use the word “stress” when talking about children. But children do respond to things happening in their lives, are stressed, and have an automatic response to outside pressures, just as adults do.

Both phone calls were to see if homeopathy would be helpful for a child. One was younger than 5, the other was a preteen. Both children have seen or are seeing a therapist;  neither have started any kind of western medication.  Children do very well with homeopathy. It is a wonderful time to start homeopathy when they are young. I have been saying since these two phone calls that these children are at a fork in the road. If they go down the western medicine road, they will most likely be given medication, and that often snowballs, leading from one medication to another one. These two children are both too young to start this, and why do this to children anyway?

The following are some of the symptoms and behaviors we may see in a child who is having difficulties and is stressed: fears, phobias, depression, oppositional type of behaviors, acting out, bed wetting, PTSD type of symptoms, withdrawal, tantrums, difficulty concentrating, anxiousness, anger, crying, sadness, chronic colds or stomachaches, headaches, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, eating difficulties, digestion issues, skin eruptions and more. Actually anything, and everything. It is just how the child manifests his stress.

In some ways, children don’t have as much control over their environment as adults do. (Although adults may feel that they don’t have any control either, and that may be part of their automatic response).  The child may be responding and reacting to different things or events that are happening in his life.  The event or situation may have triggered the child’s sensitivity, and thus symptoms and behaviors are being expressed, some of them listed above.

I know as parents, we all do our best and want our children to be happy, healthy, safe, to be loved, loving, and develop into their full potential as human beings. With all our good intentions as parents, we sometimes don’t have control over things that do happen to our children, or to us. Things happen in life; changes occur; and we just go with it as best as we can.  Some of these events and situations could be: how a person is being treated, family issues, divorce, separation, financial changes, loss of a family member, poverty, reaction to medications or vaccines, malnutrition, abuse, disability, war, exposure to chemicals or drugs, food sensitivities, a difficult birth or start to life and more.

When someone brings their child to homeopathy, the homeopath is learning about this child’s sensitivity. This is done through observation, listening to both the parents and the child, finding out about dreams, finding out what bothers them, the child’s likes and dislikes, and more. With all of this, the homeopath gives a homeopathic remedy that is similar. The remedy stimulates the child’s healing process, and the sensitivity quiets down, the automatic response lessens, and the symptoms ease off. For example, the bed wetting has stopped, oppositional behavior has eased, fears have quieted down, coughs and breathing difficulties are no longer occurring. The situation may have not changed, but there is a shift in the child, and now he is able to move on, and handle things better in his life, perhaps even changing his situation if he can. A healing has occurred.

 

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STRESS and Homeopathy

Stress is a word we hear and use often in describing how we feel or what is happening in our lives. We say things like:

• I feel stressed.
• That was so stressful.
• I need to get control over the stress in my life.
• This stress will make me sick.
• Stress will kill me.
• Here is how to avoid stress.
• How you can I be stress free?
• You/this stress(es) me out!

These all sound as if stress is outside of us, as if it is its own entity doing something to us. And as long as we take care of this outside source of stress, we won’t have it anymore.

It is true that stress is outside of us. But it isn’t doing something to us. There will always be stress, because stress is living life – things happen.  Loss of a loved one, loss of a job, financial concerns, changes in the family, divorce, illness  – these are just some of the stresses we experience. It could also be an emotional slight. We all have our own sensitivities.

Stress is how we respond to life, to what is happening to us. So it is outside of us. But it is how we are responding to what is happening. This response manifests in symptoms or states of being. In a way, it is our default mechanism, our robotic mode, that we go to when things happen in our lives. It is how we respond when something happens to us. Each person is different in their response.

If you think about, or observe how you are feeling and thinking during stressful times of your life, what comes up? Are there particular physical complaints? Are there emotional symptoms? Mental symptoms ? Do you have the need to fix it right away? Do you go into an avoidance mode? Do you panic? Do you blame others? Blame yourself? Do you become angry? Fearful? Start to cry? This may be your automatic response.

Here are some of the symptoms or responses that people may experience:

Some physical responses could be: headaches, stomachaches, digestive issues, diarrhea, constipation, skin eruptions, eczema, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, no appetite, binge eating, pains in limbs, muscular twitches, frequent colds and infections, breathing difficulties and asthma, styes, cold sores, fatigue, changes in a women’s menstrual cycle, restlessness and more.

Emotional symptoms could be: anxiousness, depression, fears, anger, sadness, revenge, why me?, tearful, dread, loss of confidence, fussiness, irritability, apathy, alienation and isolation, apprehension, worrying, negative thoughts, impulsiveness and more.

Mental symptoms could be: difficulty concentrating, unable to focus, memory loss, difficulty retrieving words, impaired judgment, muddled thinking, indecisiveness, hasty decisions, prone to accidents and more.

Behaviors: changes in ones’ sex drive, drinking more, smoking more, binge eating, using drugs, taking more medication and more.

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With the healing from homeopathy, there is a quieting and lessening of the automatic responses, the symptoms and the reactions.  So when someone again experiences a stressful situation, their responses or symptoms may be less severe, not last as long, or not be there at all. For example, someone who gets headaches, may have milder headaches; someone who gets diarrhea may not have it as often; and someone who gets panic attacks may not feel panicky at all.  The situation will be still happening, and it is stressful, but the person will be able to handle it better, and not experience their automatic responses and symptoms.  This would be a good healing.

 

As a note, we don’t often say that a child is stressed. They are, but we don’t use the word stress when talking about children. There may be situations that they have no control over, such as abuse and mistreatment. The birth may have been difficult and resulted in some physical disability.  Behaviors and symptoms on the autistic spectrum may have developed. I want to say that everything that I  have written in this blog also applies to children. We will see in children physical symptoms, certain behaviors, fears, difficulties in school, learning challenges, nightmares, and more. Homeopathy helps with this.