Nutritional Supplements

Lady Godiva

Wed, Mar 09 2011, 5:19 pm

What nutritional supplements do you give your children to help their behavior and performance in school?
What age is the child?
Have you seen a difference in behavior and/or school work?
(I am not asking for medical advice, I just want to get some ideas.)

Mitzvahmom

Wed, Mar 09 2011, 8:55 pm

the only way that I found that omega worked... was to do an elimination diet..

Find out every type of food that caused her to have a reaction.. It was eye opening..

No red dye, no refined sweets... It worked while I was single, but once I married my dh (the junkfood junky), I had to put her on regular medications... she could not focus again..

tikva18

Wed, Mar 09 2011, 10:37 pm

IMO, the first thing to do is determine which foods are not good for your dc. We did non-mainstream testing to help us narrow it down. I had my ds first pay attention to how he felt after eating foods. He correctly identified almost every single allergen.

We then put him on Shaklee vitamins (in the beginning) - they come in a strip. Plus we added in omega 3s (EPA Xtra by Nordic Naturals) along with choline bitartrate and inositol. Eventually we switched over to Empowerplus by TrueHope (www.truehope.com ) . He now takes other things as well. For us we were after a viable alternative to meds - this met our needs.

Key is making sure your dc's vitamin D3 level is good (optimal is somewhere around 100 - some say 80-100 some say only 50-100). I'd also invest in a good B complex (I use shaklee's - which I do NOT sell, btw).
Both Bs and Ds help with mood moderation. Omega 3s are also good for that - and they feed the brain. Make sure you aren't using diet sweeteners and low fat. Fats feed the brain as well - of course there are good fats and bad fats. IMO, bad fats are anything trans and anything GMO along with soybean and canola oils.

He isn't my only child - but each child gets their own tailor made vitamin situation. All of my kids are vit D, but some must get vitamin A, while another needs so much vitamin B.
Likewise, each child is on different diets to meet their needs best. I understand that some people won't want to do this, but this is what I must do to help my children thrive.

Lady Godiva

Thu, Mar 10 2011, 12:06 pm

Thanks, guys. I appreciate your sharing what you do. I was thinking about Omegas, but my son won't change his diet. He's okay most of the time in school, but occassionally he has his moments where he just acts out and can disturb the class. I'm going to speak to a behavioral specialist, but I wanted some ideas for nutritional supplementing, too.

tikva18

Thu, Mar 10 2011, 12:52 pm

Lady Godiva wrote:

Without dietary changes I wish you the best of luck. I didn't give my kids much of a choice. I simply told them that certain foods made them weak and sick while others made them strong. Didn't they want to be strong?

tikva18

Fri, Mar 11 2011, 12:52 pm

amother wrote:

mitzvah mom, why do omega's only work with an elimination diet? you would think either they work or they dont. or that the elimination of foods would work or not work? can u elaborate - I'm lookign into doing it for my son

You might find them helpful without doing dietary changes, but perhaps the results you will see will be diminished. As in, if you do the dietary changes, then you will get more mileage out of the omegas because the body won't be fighting the ongoing damage of bad foods. Does that make sense? If it doesn't, I apologize as I'm in bed sick. I'll come back when feeling better to explain again if necessary.

mom & more

Mon, Mar 28 2011, 11:11 pm

My ds (age 4) is taking omega 3, vitamins b & D and a multi every day; when I am religious about giving it, we see a major difference in his behavior. He told me that he doesnt feel so jumpy when we remember and his teachers and therapists find that he's easier to work with.