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if you follow the Feingold diet, can you answer a question for me?


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Let me start with my question: How do you know if a behavior is a reaction or just bad behavior? Now, for some basic information. My target son (age 10) is actually quite mild in his reactions compared to many, so his reactions aren't nearly as obvious as those in other children. we did S1 100% for about 7 weeks and these are the behaviors we saw change: he could concentrate on school subjects without frustration, he could settle down in bed quicker and easier than before, when he got hurt, his reaction was age appropriate (whereas before, he would WAY overreact), he didn't get as irritated by others as quickly and our home was generally much more calm.

 

When we were in school (I homeschool), if his concentration level dropped, I knew he had eaten something wrong (and I usually could figure it out), and that was usually my biggest, easiest marker. But now that we aren't in school, I can't use that. So now, I am tempted to use almost anything other "off" behavior as a possible reaction...but I know my son isn't the perfect child (even when he is eating perfectly), so how do I know if him getting angry at his sister and throwing something at her is a reaction or a bad behavior? How do I know if when he doesn't listen to a set of directions it is a reaction or him not wanting to do what he is told?

 

And then the next big question I have...is how do you know when and how to discipline...hitting your sister isn't allowed reaction or no reaction...but if he ate something unclean, is his behavior really totally his fault? How do you handle this? My husband and I are really struggling with this balance and need some answers. I hope someone here will give us some answers.

 

Thanks.

 

Kathy

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We don't follow the Feingold diet, but we do have food allergies, so I'll make a couple of comments and bump this up for you.

 

Can you tell if it is something that he can reign in? Usually a reaction is harder to reign in even if you want to.

 

Have you talked about alternative ways of handling his emotions? For example when he wants to hit his sister, he can walk away instead A ten year old should be able to get this.

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I don't know how to give advice because it is very, very difficult. Dh and I took awhile to work through this. Ds' biggest behavior reactions were from gluten (we did Feingold for awhile but it wasn't a real big trigger for him and we generally eat whole foods anyway). Anyway, we still would discipline but if I seen it was a pattern I would often send him by himself for awhile, not necessarily as a punishment but to help give him some space when he his having difficulty with self-control. Regardless fo the reason, some behavior is not allowed. I'd also try to pull him close sometimes as well so I could keep a close watch and redirect quickly.

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I'm a Feingold volunteer who has worked with families for a very long time. We tell people to use the program 100% and then after 4-6 weeks of success, before introducing Stage Two. During that time you usually learn what is a reaction and what is just a bad day. All kids have those days! And much of it is just normal behavior. What is different is the patterning of the behavior. There's never an excuse for poor behavior--just maybe a reason for it.

 

As a family moves forward, the child sometimes has to relearn appropriate behaviors. He's learned to react a certain way and now must learn the right way to deal with situations. Parents, too, might also have to learn new ways to discipline. KWIM?

 

Are you a member of the Feingold Association? Or the Yahoo Group?

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:grouphug:

 

hitting anyone is not okay, so we disciplined for that each and every time. teaching alternate behaviors when frustrated (we use Peaceful parents, peaceful kids by Naomi Drew), helped everyone.

 

but now i'm puzzled; he's seven. how does he eat things that aren't included in the diet? or are you reintroducing things from outside the diet to see? for ours, if something was a trigger, it wasn't just a trigger once or in one behavior area, but they went off the rails more globally.

 

hth,

ann

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Just reread my post. I didn't mean there was anything wrong with your discipline. :tongue_smilie: What I meant was that as a Feingolder gains better behavior and is learning better ways to handle things, we parents may have to try new things too. Sometimes we can jump to discipline, jump to punish when maybe something calmer may work now.:)

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Just reread my post. I didn't mean there was anything wrong with your discipline. :tongue_smilie: What I meant was that as a Feingolder gains better behavior and is learning better ways to handle things, we parents may have to try new things too. Sometimes we can jump to discipline, jump to punish when maybe something calmer may work now.:)

 

 

this is a really good point. having a difficult child for so long, our discipline has been harsher than I would like and I appreciate your point...now we wouldn't have to be so quick or so harsh....thanks for the reminder on that point.

 

thanks also for all who reminded me that a reaction would be more than one isolated event...but rather a series of events over a span of time. That actually helps me out a lot.

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For ds for the longest time I literally thought he couldn't control himself and it was a bit of a debate between dh and I, as he wanted to come down harsher. Finally when we started dietary changes (gluten was his big trigger) we realized that it literally was like he couldn't control himself because all of a sudden it was much easier for him to behave and he just wasn't obstinate at all, seriously for 3 yrs (he's gotten a bit more so lately but I think that is moving more into independence). He was 4 when we started. We still had to work out though appropriate consequences and setting him up to succeed when his body and mind were not cooperating. He had a bit of a rough day the other day and dh and I were racking our brains trying to figure out if there was some exposure but we couldn't think of anything different. I think though it was due to being tired, he refuses to nap and had been to bed late and up early. I spent a lot of one on one time yesterday with him and he was back to normal (normal for an almost 8 yo boy).

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