It struck me the other day that we talk about influential politicians, business people, and others who are trend setters but I was thinking how this word applies to parents! Children are not a direct expression of us – of our particular child-rearing philosophy, our strengths or weaknesses, what we think we have done right or wrong along the way of raising our children. The closest thing I think we can get to really is having an influence on them.

I was seeing someone the other day and we were talking about observing her thinking. She told me she avoided this because she was frightened - imagine what it would be like to be scared of your own mind. However, I don’t think she is the only one - many people dislike introspection, or looking at what their minds are doing, but this I think is largely their thoughts often seem to be out of control.  Many personal and relationships problem arise because of lack of control – alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic violence – but these are just the big, and obvious ones. If we looked more closely we would find that many of our issues arise from lack of self-control or self-discipline.

In our book The Focused Child, Chapter 10 deals with some aspects of nutrition and children’s well-being. The following article updates some of that information with new work that has been done on the importance of good nutrition for mental well-being.