Are you concerned about the mental and physical health effects of wifi in your child’s school? I know that I am. Please let me explain more fully in the talk I gave for the roundtable series by Wired Schools: Cancer, Depression, Anxiety, Suicide at Schools Exploring Causation and Solutions.
The replay began this summer, and I neglected to blog about it! So, in case you missed it, my talk is now available here!
Live speakers for the event included: Virginia Farver, Carla Atherton, Richard Lear, David James Rodriguez, Jeanice Barcelo and Dr. Priyanka Bandara. Interviews with Erica Mallery-Blythe MD, Olga Sheean and Shelley Wright will be added to the series separately.
My talk Chronic Childhood Conditions: Exploring Causations & Solutions is the first from 10 panelists who spoke on the subject.
Let’s discuss the problems AND the solutions!
Carla Atherton, MA, FDN-P, Family Health Coach, is the director of The Healthy Family Formula, host of The Children’s and Teen Health Summit, author of the forthcoming book Family Health Revolution (release date: January 2020), editor, book junkie, research geek, insatiably curious mother of three grown (son age 20), almost grown (daughter age 18), and growing (daughter age 15) children, one of whom has Type 1 Diabetes. Carla lives on an acreage in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, where she works from a home office with families from all over the world on the reversal of conditions such as, Autoimmunity: Type 1 Diabetes, PANDAS/PANS/Autoimmune Encephalitis, Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Celiac Disease and Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity; Asthma, Allergies, Eczema, and Reactivity; ADHD, Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder, Learning Disabilities; Depression, Anxiety, Mental Health Disorders, Eating Disorders, ODD; Other Neurological Conditions; Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and Metabolic Disorders; Untangling Mystery Symptoms, Complex Cases, and Co-Morbidities (having more than one condition); Mold Illness; Multiple Chemical Sensitivity; Lyme; Other Infection; and Addictions. Carla is on a revolutionary mission to empower families to transcend our new normal of ill health and chronic disease.
Just last week I released this interview about vitamin N, meditation, creativity, and play! It was one of my favourite interviews recorded for the Children’s Health Summit 4!
There is a lot to be concerned about regarding our current state of family health, but there is also a lot to celebrate! The reason we focus so heavily on what we can improve for our families is so that our children can have the best lives they can possibly have, naturally, so they can enjoy an existence full of wonder and creativity, a life that is full and inspired.
So, today I would like to share with you one of my Children’s Health Summit 4 interviews where one of my health coach trainees interviews me about all of those things that make life much more than trying to be healthy on the outside: Vitamin N, creativity, meditation, and play.
Kirstie Gran (Inner Shine and Naturally Awakened Mama) Interviews Carla Atherton on Vitamin N, Creativity, Meditation, and Play
What we discuss:
-raising spirited, engaged, and fulfilled children
-the importance of nature, creativity, meditation, and play
-modern life’s effects on human growth and fulfillment
-how does underdevelopment in these areas contribute to childhood chronic illness?
-how we can teach our children stillness and a sense of self and connection.
I hope you enjoy it!
Carla Atherton, MA, FDN-P, Family Health Coach, is the director of TheHealthy Family Formula, host of The Children’s and Teen Health Summit, author of the forthcoming book Family Health Revolution (release date: January, 2020), editor, book junkie, research geek, insatiably curious mother of three grown (son age 21), almost grown (daughter age 19), and growing (daughter age 16) children, one of whom has Type 1 Diabetes. Carla lives on an acreage in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, where she works from a home office with families from all over the world on the reversal of conditions such as, Autoimmunity: Type 1 Diabetes, PANDAS/PANS/Autoimmune Encephalitis, Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Celiac Disease and Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity; Asthma, Allergies, Eczema, and Reactivity; ADHD, Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder, Learning Disabilities; Depression, Anxiety, Mental Health Disorders, Eating Disorders, ODD; Other Neurological Conditions; Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and Metabolic Disorders; Untangling Mystery Symptoms, Complex Cases, and Co-Morbidities (having more than one condition); Mold Illness; Multiple Chemical Sensitivity; Lyme; Other Infection; and Addictions. Carla is on a revolutionary mission to empower families to transcend our new normal of ill health and chronic disease.
I had the honour and privilege of being interviewed on Dr. Christine Schaffner’s Spectrum of Health Podcast back in May and neglected to post the announcement here on my website! Shame on me!
Our topic: Creating a Family Health Revolution in Your Home and Practice.
If you missed it, do click here to listen to my interview and for links to many other fascinating interviews from others aiming to revolutionize health!
Carla Atherton, MA, FDN-P, Family Health Coach, is the director of The Healthy Family Formula, host of The Children’s and Teen Health Summit, author of the forthcoming book Family Health Revolution (release date: March 15th. 2019), editor, book junkie, research geek, insatiably curious mother of three grown (son age 20), almost grown (daughter age 18), and growing (daughter age 15) children, one of whom has Type 1 Diabetes. Carla lives on an acreage in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, where she works from a home office with families from all over the world on the reversal of conditions such as, Autoimmunity: Type 1 Diabetes, PANDAS/PANS/Autoimmune Encephalitis, Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Celiac Disease and Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity; Asthma, Allergies, Eczema, and Reactivity; ADHD, Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder, Learning Disabilities; Depression, Anxiety, Mental Health Disorders, Eating Disorders, ODD; Other Neurological Conditions; Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and Metabolic Disorders; Untangling Mystery Symptoms, Complex Cases, and Co-Morbidities (having more than one condition); Mold Illness; Multiple Chemical Sensitivity; Lyme; Other Infection; and Addictions. Carla is on a revolutionary mission to empower families to transcend our new normal of ill health and chronic disease.
When her son started exhibiting sudden and disturbing psychiatric symptoms, Heather Korbmacher had no idea that everything was about to change for her family.
Currently, thousands of parents are confounded and distressed by a dizzying and horrifying array of symptoms caused by an outcropping of neuropsychiatric disorders caused by pathogens. There are many infectious agents that can create severe neural inflammation and autoimmunity to the brain, and in Heather’s son’s case, it was a common childhood infection: strep.
Heather’s experience was often terrifying and lonely, and it was only her fierce determination that enabled her to get her son well. She had to ignore what many professionals were telling her (that her son was mentally ill), find the cause and the help they needed to address a condition that is not uncommon but grossly misunderstood, ignored, and sometimes outright denied. After completing and succeeding in her harrowing mission, Heather wrote a book to do all she can to make sure others can find the answers and the help they desperately need.
This book is not a clinical guide, but just as importantly (and perhaps moreso), it is a mother’s account of what she did to recover her son. It is an exceptional resource and inspiration for clinicians and parents, alike.
I had the honour and privilege of both editing the book and writing one of the two forewords. Here is what I wrote:
“When I sat down to read Heather Korbmacher’s book What Happened to My Child?, a riveting account of the author’s son’s intense struggle with PANDAS/PANS/AE and her heroic journey to heal him, I didn’t stop until I was finished. I was educated by her medical explanations; I was moved by the pain her experiences caused her; I was inspired by the fact that, although she never knew what to expect, she got up every day to face whatever was to come. I call Heather a hero, but she would tell you that she just did what she had to do, what she chose to do, that the word that would best describe her would be mom.
What Happened to My Child? is a book about hope, strength, and determination; and it is also about the pain, fear, worry, and exhaustion that is inevitable when our children get sick, struggles that are all part of the healing process. It is about those pivotal moments that show us parents in no uncertain terms that nothing you have imagined for your life or for the lives of your children will ever go perfectly as planned; we just find it within ourselves to handle whatever life throws our way. It is how one mother simultaneously hung on with formidable grip and focused with unwavering vision, while at the same time, had to let go of what she had foreseen as the perfect life, to let go of what her family’s future, their focus, their everyday existence was going to be. Not stopping there, however, we readers get to witness how their family then transcends the new expectations that could have come out of their devastating difficulties.
Heather Korbmacher is no victim: she is a revolutionary mama who would not give up, who knew there were answers even when no one solution was the panacea or cure, even when doctors and practitioners could not or would not help, even when she was told that PANDAS/PANS/AE did not exist, even when various therapies did nothing or made things worse. This book is not only about strength, it goes beyond that: it is about love, hope, and recovery. It is an essential message every mother or father with a child who has serious health challenges needs to read and take, not only to heart, but also to spirit.
Heather’s story is about making it through the storm, adjusting to an ever-changing new normal, and then recreating yet another normal as they continue to reclaim their son’s health, to reclaim their family life, and take the power into their own hands to create a brighter future for their own family and for other families like theirs. A phoenix rising from the ashes.”
~ Carla Atherton, MA, FDN, TNC, Director of The Healthy Family Formula, Certified Yoga Instructor, Epidemic Answers Certified Health Coach, Host of the bi-annual Children’s and Teen Health Summit, Children’s Health Advocate, and Revolutionary Mama
Do help to keep the momentum of this movement to inform going! Here are some action steps you can take:
(1) Watch and share the trailer (2) Write a book review on Amazon (3) Give a book to a pediatric provider or legislator
As Heather, says: “Believe! Together we make a difference!”
I hope that you are having (or have had) a wonderfully restful, fun, joyful, memorable holiday! I am not sure how much rest we’ve gotten, but we sure have had some fun! Big family gatherings, performances and concerts, and successes such as my own grandmother becoming as close to pain-free as she can be for the first time in decades (I will write about how we accomplished that very soon!).
I have spent the last few months (including the holidays) deep within a creative space while finishing my book, Family Health Revolution. This process has taken me places I really needed to go and has allowed me to communicate what I have learned about family health to other parents like me. It has been cathartic, exhausting, daunting, but mostly empowering, and I can’t wait to share it with you within the coming weeks.
We tend to reflect and create when we have some space to do so, or when we turn our focus to relationships, start to question why we do what we do, ask ourselves what we want and desire and if we are living the lives we want to live, and the holidays, in particular, are a special time full of possibility for the future. The new year brings with it evolved versions of ourselves. We can try to make sense of what we do and why. We can ask ourselves these questions so we can also guide our families. We can reflect and have a good look in the mirror. With the new year comes the potential for change, for newness, for progress, and for creation. Reflection allows us insight, gives us a map toward the goals we set for our futures.
The holidays can be a time of pivotal moments, and one of mine was creating a literary piece I was inspired to write while teaching a creative writing/philosophy class to my small group of lively, inspired and inspirational teens. I wrote a spoken word poem for one of my daughters that is the culmination of everything that has been thrashing, no, rolling, no, splashing around in my head and heart for the last 6 years, or maybe even since her birth 17.5 years ago, about our experiences together. And I feel like this piece is, like her, everything I had hoped for.
Many of you are parents and would be able to relate to what I had to sort out, not necessarily because you have a child with a chronic or life-threatening illness, or because your child has grown out of childhood and into teenhood, or because you have had boughts of burnout or pain or because you have come out the other side ready to allow your child to have wings. But you have had unique challenges and triumphs that have led you to your own conclusions about life and love and what this whole parenthood thing means. For me, it is protecting while allowing them to be independent, it is about guidance in order to empower. For example, I don’t want to tell my children what to think, but that they can and should think. I want them to understand that they can always make a situation better and that those solutions are for them to uncover.
I am sharing this poem with you, fellow parents and caregivers, fellow sons and daughters, in case you find connection within, in case it sparks some reflection of your own, the reasons for my writingFamily Health Revolution folded within the stanzas.
Family Health Revolution is not a book of poetry, but a book that expresses, outlines, and demystifies the practicalities and solutions to so many questions I asked and had to answer throughout this on-going journey of parenthood – “how do I raise healthy children so they can have the best life possible when faced with the realities of our often physically, emotionally, and socially toxic environment?”
In my own journey, the “why” was easy to figure out.
The “how,” not so much.
I have spent the last 6 years expanding my own understanding of health. I have spent a great deal of time figuring out how I was going to present the information I wanted to share in this book. And I hope I have done the research of many brilliant family health advocates, researchers, and scientists, my teachers and mentors, my own experience, and the experiences of my family justice.
Although Family Health Revolution is not a book of poetry, I cannot introduce the motivation behind it in any other way than in that poem that poured out from me the other day, a poem I called: “Firsts: With My First Daughter.”
So, in celebration of newness, of possibility, of a healthy, fresh new year full of health and vitality, I wish you all so many more firsts with your own families; some of them joyful, some of them hard, but all of them beautiful.
“Firsts: With My First Daughter.”
Listen to the first take of the audio: (contains mistakes, but you get the idea:)
