They Are What You Feed Them: How Food Can Improve Your Child’s Behaviour, Mood and Learning

4. The big drug companies’ influence over medical publishing (and most other media) has become so great that the editors of several top medical journals have felt the need to ‘go public’ about this. Drugs are not the only approach to many common ailments, and aren’t always as effective as they’re made out to be.

5. Dietary changes can improve behaviour, learning and mood—although these are not a substitute for other approaches, and we still need more research into the brain’s nutritional needs.

6. Conflicting information and advice on food and diet has left most people very confused. Beware of hidden advertising, but do seek out and weigh up the information you need make up your own mind.

7. You need to think about your child’s health and performance as a whole. Diet is only one aspect, so you will need to look at other areas, too.

8. There are no quick fixes or miracle cures—you must take charge, start from where you are and work slowly but steadily towards a healthier diet and lifestyle for your child.

9. Three basic dietary problems affect many children, and probably yours, too. Your child may react badly to some additives or foods, may be ‘hooked’ on simple carbohydrates, and is probably eating too many ‘bad fats’ and not enough essential fats. In this book you’ll find out how to improve these things.

Chapter 3 What’s The Problem? (#ulink_9a8c8b8f-b4ec-5c66-bbcd-ce47c5a6800e)

Could Your Child Be Doing Better?

All parents will ask themselves this question at some time or other, and in most cases the answer will probably be ‘Yes!’ But if your child generally enjoys life, seems happy and fulfilled (most of the time) and causes no major problems for other people either at home or at school, then you should have no serious cause for concern. Nobody’s child is perfect—just as there is no such thing as the perfect parent, or the ideal relationship—and every child has her own particular pattern of strengths and weaknesses. All children also go through ‘phases’ or periods when they seem to have specific difficulties in one or more areas. They may even appear to lose some skills or interests that they’d previously mastered. These are all normal aspects of development and ‘growing up’.

However, if you think your child is struggling with real and persistent difficulties that are affecting her behaviour, learning or mood, what can you do? You obviously need to find out what’s wrong, but do remember that things aren’t always what they seem: the real, underlying problems aren’t necessarily the ones you think they are. You have to start somewhere, though – so first, try to identify the broad areas that are causing most concern:

Does your child have trouble making and keeping friends, or getting on with other family members?

Does his performance at school fall short of what you’d expect from the abilities he shows in other ways?

Does your child seem unhappy, or behave in a way that upsets, worries or puzzles others?

Does he seem genuinely ‘different’ in some way from other children, to the extent that this is causing difficulties?

Next, discuss your concerns with others who know your child. If you’re convinced that there really is a problem, always seek professional help. Start with your doctor, to check that your child has no physical health problems that could explain things. Talk to your child’s teachers or carers. Referral to other specialists may be appropriate, but will usually come through these routes. If formal assessments are carried out, this may or may not lead to a ‘diagnosis’ of some kind of recognized behavioural or learning disorder—such as ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism or some other label. (There are so many possible diagnoses that I won’t even try to cover more than these, which are the most common ones.)

Labelling a child in this way can be helpful—but it can also have its drawbacks. Even if the diagnosis you’ve been given is an accurate one (which it may not be), there’s still a great deal more to be discovered.

A ‘diagnosis’ is only a description; it is not an explanation.

These ‘diagnoses’ tell you nothing at all about the actual causes of your child’s difficulties, which will vary from child to child and always involve a complex web of interacting factors.

The experts who make these diagnoses rely on checklists of particular features or symptoms, backed up with what they call a good ‘case history’, and sometimes (but not always) on the results of psychological or other tests. Sometimes the information is gathered mainly from parents, although at least some input from others is usually required—typically teachers or others who are familiar with the child in other settings. Perhaps unsurprisingly, parents often tell me that when they are finally given a diagnostic label for their child’s difficulties (often after years of struggle and heartache), in the end this tells them nothing they didn’t already know!

A diagnostic label can be very useful, though, for a number of reasons:

You now have an explanation for yourself, and to give others. It explains that your child’s difficulties are not down to ‘laziness’, ‘carelessness’, ‘stupidity’ or any desire to misbehave or otherwise cause offence. Sadly, though, it does not explain why your child has these difficulties.

Your child now knows it’s not his fault . This is worth emphasizing to him, if he’s capable of understanding at this level. Most children dislike any label that makes them feel different—but try to help your child to see that this is not a disease, and is something he can overcome with the right strategies and help.

You now know it’s not your fault, either. Anything past is past—and you’ve now opened up opportunities to find out what works best for other children like yours.

A formal diagnosis can often allow you to access specialist help and resources. Medical or other therapies may be available if needed; your child’s school may be able to get funding for him to have extra help, or you may be able to get other assistance you may need with his care or education.

You don’t have to just accept a label—let alone things that may be offered along with it. This is not to say that you should ever just dismiss out of hand medications or other treatments that your child’s doctor or other professionals may offer, but do always discuss with them any concerns you may have, and get a second opinion (or referrals to other specialists) if necessary.

I’m not going to dwell for long on issues concerning the diagnosis of different kinds of behaviour and learning difficulties. These are beyond the scope of this book, and good information is available elsewhere.

(#litres_trial_promo) What’s more, the information I’ll be giving you applies to pretty much all children, although I’ll point out wherever I can the issues that may affect some kinds of children more than others.

It’s worth emphasizing that the ‘symptoms’ or features that define ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia or autism are almost all ‘dimensional’. That is, they are not categorical things that children do or don’t have. They occur to differing degrees, and most of them simply form part of normal, individual variations in children’s behaviour, learning and mood. There are no ‘hard’ objective tests and no ‘biological markers’ for any of these conditions.

The patterns of behaviour or learning that define ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia or autism are not ‘diseases’ or ‘disorders’ in any conventional medical sense.

This may help to explain why these kinds of conditions now seem to affect, to some degree, around 20 per cent of school-age children in the UK.

(#litres_trial_promo) In most cases these children’s difficulties don’t even attract a formal diagnosis; and in many cases they go unrecognized by both parents and teachers. For reasons we don’t yet know, more boys than girls are affected—though there’s growing concern that many girls with these kinds of difficulties are underachieving and suffering in silence, simply because they don’t behave the same way that boys with these difficulties do, so the problem goes unrecognized.

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So what should you look for? I’ll give a brief overview of each of these conditions here, and the Resources chapter will tell you where you can get more information if you need this.

Dyslexia

If your child is dyslexic, this can only be formally diagnosed after he’s spent many years struggling (and failing) to learn to read and write to the level expected for his age and general ability. Dyslexia involves more than just difficulties with written language, though. Early clues may include an unusual curiosity and an ‘intuitive’ kind of intelligence, with a tendency to think ‘holistically’, ‘laterally’ or ‘divergently’ rather than in a linear, sequential way. Dyslexic children are often particularly good at solving complex problems by seeing the bigger picture and using their creativity and logic to find original solutions. By contrast, despite their best efforts they experience failure and frustration in some tasks that other children find (literally) as simple as ABC.

A classic dyslexic area of weakness is ‘working memory’, especially for verbal, sequential information. Things can seem to go ‘in one ear and out the other’—particularly sequences of information with no intrinsic meaning, like telephone numbers, security numbers or the sequence of letters in the alphabet. (If your child is dyslexic, you’ll need to make sure that any important information of this kind is heavily ‘over-learned’, and/or that there are good back-up and reinforcing strategies.) Learning any verbal sequence—like the days of the week, or the months of the year—can be problematic, particularly more complex ones like reciting multiplication tables by rote. (This doesn’t necessarily mean that the mathematics isn’t understood – just that other ways of determining this will need to be found.) There may be persistent difficulties in telling left from right, and in learning to tell the time from a clock face. Difficulties with phonology (the sounds in words) are often regarded as a core feature of dyslexia, but this argument can be rather circular: We learn many of our advanced ‘phonological skills’ through learning to read—so any poor readers, including adults who are illiterate for social or cultural reasons, tend to find these tasks difficult.

When it comes to strengths, many dyslexic individuals show unusual talent in business, the visual arts and/or the sciences. A number of top financiers and outstanding business ‘visionaries’ are dyslexic

(#litres_trial_promo)—and other professions with an over-representation of dyslexic adults include the arts, architecture, engineering, physical sciences and information technology. People with this profile are far less well suited to repetitive clerical or administrative jobs, but—provided they can avoid being judged too harshly on their spelling and punctuation—there’s no reason why dyslexic individuals can’t succeed in any occupation they may choose. One in 20 children is severely affected by dyslexia, and a further one in 20 has mild to moderate difficulties of the same kind—although the frequency in boys is slightly higher.

Common Indicators of Dyslexia

Difficulties in reading and spelling that are relatively specific, and which interfere with academic achievement or daily living skills

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Directional confusion (such as difficulty telling left from right)

Poor working memory (especially for information that carries no obvious meaning in itself—like telephone numbers, or anything learned ‘by rote’)

Particular difficulties in segmenting words into their individual sounds, or building up words from their component sounds, when writing or speaking

May have early delays or difficulties learning spoken language

Difficulties with ordering and sequencing information

‘Intuitive’, holistic style of problem-solving, using lateral or divergent thinking rather than following a linear, step-by-step strategy

Dyspraxia

Dyspraxia (or Developmental Coordination Disorder) is just as common as dyslexia, and again boys are more susceptible than girls. Praxis means ‘doing’, and the most obvious difficulties are usually in motor coordination, affecting either fine motor skills (like holding a pen), or gross (big) movements like running or throwing. Muscle tone may be poor, resulting in ‘floppy’ movement, or joints may be unusually flexible and ‘bendy’, leading to other kinds of postural and movement difficulties. As in dyslexia, left-right confusions are common—with particular difficulties coordinating actions between left and right sides of the body (‘crossing the midline’). Thus, complex tasks that involve using both hands together (tying shoelaces, or doing up buttons) can prove frustratingly difficult to learn.

Not all dyspraxic children are overtly clumsy, though. The younger child may compensate for his unsteadiness by using excessive muscle tension, so the problems may go undetected. Later, when he tries to run, jump or dance, or to throw and catch a ball, his lack of coordination becomes apparent. Difficulty or failure in these areas can lead to anxiety or embarrassment, and more tension. He may therefore dislike and avoid team sports and games (or dancing, where he may epitomize the saying about having two left feet!). Dyspraxic difficulties apply more fundamentally to the planning and carrying out of any complex, sequenced actions. Organization and time-keeping are usually poor, and if he’s dyspraxic your child may be slow to start and finish tasks. He may be able to do one thing properly at a time, but can easily get distracted and try to do too many things at once, so none gets finished.