Naturally Peaceful

            "Strong families and communities that build relationships of mutual trust and caring and that support all people in realizing the potentials of their humanity are the best guarantee of human security." (David Korten)

         The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that "all children are afforded ample, unscheduled, independent, non-screen time to be creative, to reflect, and to decompress."  

"Play is a young child's primary occupation. Through play, children develop their imagination, their understanding of the world around them, and their critical thinking skills. Through play, children also have the opportunity to learn about their environment, and how important it is to protect it."                                                                                        (Green Guide Families)

"When children are fed a diet of video games instead of real-life frogs and bugs they are deprived of crucial nutrients for their psychological and spiritual development. These kids grow up to be alienated adults who do not know how they fit into the big picture and who are less likely to care about ecological issues. Having unstructured childhood experiences in wild nature plays a central role in the making of environmental activists, whereas having only electronic information about the plight of the planet actually tends to turn people away from environmental activism."        Andy Fischer (Radical Ecopsychology)

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein     

This Great Turning we find ourselves in, begs us to reconsider how we live out the seasons of our lives, from cradle to grave. * LET'S BEGIN with BIRTH *

            

  check out: naturallysavvy -benefits of natural childbirth and also  kidshealth.org

All pregnant women, in all maternity care settings, deserve respectful, woman-centered care. "With the increased accessibility of midwives and doulas, women are now able to receive the support they need to move through the birth process naturally."  And we can rest assured that low-tech midwifery provides labor outcomes as good or better than those found in high-tech hospital settings, with fewer interventions.

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   When we raise our children naturally and peacefully from birth onward, we enhance peace on earth.

Thinking about how our birth choices impact our lives, leads us to naturally consider issues of birth control, over-population and over-consumption, as well.

      Talking about population issues can be a sticky matter.

Shall we choose to limit our population growth, or simply let our numbers overwhelm our natural and man-made systems.

                  Right now, we have an awful lot of people sharing this precious planet.

..."as population soars ... in the next 50 years, increased demands for food, clean water and fuel will have disastrous results. Among the projections are the emergence of new diseases, deteriorating water quality, dead zones along the coasts, the collapse of fisheries, and large shifts in regional climate."   Riane Eisler

        "Parenting is a responsibility that links us to Earth - to the air we breath, the water  we drink, the food we eat, and the homes we create for shelter and security."
     
   To best care for our children, "means fundamentally to care for the planet, that place where they will live for decades, and their childrens' children after them." (Wendy Gordon)

      Our kids are the key to transforming our future into a peaceful reality.

They come to us fresh - straight from God. You can feel it from them. Just holding a newborn, and breathing in the fresh-born smell, can be a window, an opening to Spirit. Their eyes reflect their deep, unrestrained and malleable potential. Our little ones accept whatever we offer them - good, bad or indifferent.

 * Let's provide our kids with safe, nourishing food and clean water & air.

                 
Generally speaking, the lifestyles and routines kids are raised with - day in & day out - become the habits and beliefs they carry into their adult lives. If we're ferrying our children everywhere in cars, they grow up believing this is normal and right. But if we're going to honor our planet, we need to wean ourselves away from car culture.

The foods that kids are raised with, will greatly influence their eating choices as adults.

In many American families, a third of kid's meals come from fast food outlets.

Many of the ingredients in these heavily processed foods actually come from chemists labs, not farm fields.
Check it out: The book "Fast Food Nation"- lists the ingredients in a "strawberry" shake from a leading fast food outlet. It's an A-Z list of about 45 synthesized chemicals, including: amyl acetate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate and more.

That's not real food. And these "food-like" substances don't support real health.

So - yes, it does takes more time to prepare food from scratch, from the good, basic ingredients available to us in our grocery stores, our gardens, and farmers market.
But if we feed our family real food, grown on healthy soil,
we'll notice the difference it makes in our childrens' health and well-being.

We need to notice that our youth have some serious health problems!

 Obesity.
 It was rare to see severely overweight children just a couple of generations ago.
 Now it's commonplace. Since 1980 the rate of obesity has tripled among children.

Depression. 
Ten percent of American children and teens are taking antidepressants ! WHY ?  Honestly, why are so many of our youth suffering so deeply?

Childhood should be a time of vitality and hopefulness.

The number of reported cases of autism in the U.S. have skyrocketed way beyond anything attributable to better diagnosis and public awareness. There are rising concerns about environmental risk factors, like pesticides and heavy metals.                                    

More girls are starting puberty at younger and younger ages. A significant number are starting breast development as early as age 7 or 8.
Toxic chemicals known as endocrine disrupters are playing havoc with our daughters hormonal systems."Bodies that grow up too fast can break down too easily" (cancer risks & skeletal problems). "When presexual minds find themselves in newly sexualized bodies, a there is emotional damage that can be done as well."  TIME magazine

 
 

---- please check out ----

• "The Hurried Child: Growing up Too Fast Too Soon" by David Elkind
• "Simplicity Parenting" by Kim John Payne "Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids"  
• "Last Child in the Woods" Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv
• "Living Simply With Children" by Marie Sherlock
• "The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering Our Children" by Dr.Shefali Tsabary
• "Child Honouring.. How to Turn This World Around"  Raffi Cavoukian (ed) "By putting the universal needs of children first, strategies can be developed to meet our most pressing needs: building community, restoring planetary health, peacemaking, and creating sustainable economies that support the well being of children and families."
•  "Earth in Mind" by David Orr
•  "Green Guide Families" (The Complete Reference for Eco-Friendly Parents) National Geographic                                 This book offers good advice and hard facts. You've got to wonder though, who chose the book cover, with a photo of a baby wearing disposable diapers? Aside from the fact that disposable diapers contain a number of toxins, including  dioxins, styrene and acrylic acid, they take about 500 years to break down in landfills.  Can any single use item be considered "green"?

Where are our kids and grand kids playing?  Outside in nature? Or indoors, eyes glued to a screen?

American youth aged 8-18 spend an average of 7.5 hours a day consuming media.                                     Kaiser Family Foundation

"What we witness on TV, in films, and on the internet, what we read and therefore imagine, all are firing mirror neurons in our brains and forming us." Francis Moore Lappe

Those who watch a lot of simulated violence, common in many popular video games, can become immune to it, more inclined to act violently themselves and less likely to behave empathetically.

Currently in the U.S. about one mother in three now gives birth by cesarean section.

"Pain medications often dull a woman's senses, leading to a physical detachment from the birthing process.                Many women report dissatisfaction with their   birthing experience when they are not fully alert for their first out-of-womb contact with their baby."

"More women need to hear that natural child birth is doable and can be a wonderful experience.  

  Women need to regain trust in their body's ability to birth and understand the pain they experience is never in vain.  

For many moms-to-be, having a natural child birth isn't about being         'brave' or a 'martyr', it's      about treating labor and delivery as a natural event."

By using free web sites like Take Them a Meal, friends and family can help provide new parents with meals and encouragement for weeks postpartum.  www.takethemameal.com/

Let's face it, "most of our environmental problems stem from large numbers of people consuming too much, especially in rich places like North America."

"The average American child will consume almost 30 times the resources the average child in India does."

"One of the most important choices we can make is to reduce the distinction between the child in India and our own children as much as possible - to use a fair share of the planet's resources. But what a fair share actually is depends on how many people there are in the world sharing."

"If we are to reach real peace in this world ... we shall begin with the children." - M. Ghandi -

So let's get out and ride bikes with our children. 
 And encourage them to walk to school and their friends houses. Rely more on human power. Increase our use of mass transit.                    Perhaps just stay home a bit more ... not be in a race to go, go, go.

 Overweight kids are suffering from ailments more often seen in aging adults -
 high blood pressure, joint pain, type 2 diabetes and liver damage. They are at higher risk of suffering heart disease, stroke and atherosclerosis.

Here in the U.S.- "for the first time ever, a generation of children may have a shorter   life expectancy at birth than their parents."                     TIME 3/3/2014

Isn't it reasonable to make some serious lifestyle changes for the benefit of our children?

Let's get together and raise our kids in harmony with nature's ways, and we'll  transform our culture as joyfully, playfully and rapidly as possible.