Mommy Manners: How to Play Nice with Other Parents

Meal planning can change your life

By Jodi Cohen | Published: January 23, 2012

When I was a kid, my mom used to drive to the supermarket every afternoon and “wait for g-d to talk to her” about what to serve for dinner that night. Continuing her tradition, I would typically panic each evening around 4 p.m. over what to serve for dinner. It never occurred to me that there was a better way.

Luckily, my super organized friend Andrea Dalhman was kind enough to share her amazing secrets. She plans and as a result, saves time and money. I know, what a concept, but it works. Every Sunday night, I now clean out the fridge and take stock of what we have, then I make a menu plan (I like this one because after you write down the menu item, you can write your grocery list right next to it)

. I’ve taken to letting the kids help pick the meals as well, so they eat them. But the best part is that I can plan to include a vegetable so that I actually use them (as opposed to forgetting about them until they rot).

Even better, Andrea shared some awesome make your own frozen food ideas. Basically you can divide up the chicken into portion size bags, make your own marinades (without sugar and MSG, how exciting) and freeze them – to later throw them in a crock pot to cook. I know this probably sounds obvious to most of you, but to me it was revolutionary. It took me less than 5 seconds to throw dinner in the crock pot and now I have one less thing to worry about tonight – so nice.

With the new year, I’m keen on making my life easier. If any of you have other tricks you’re willing to share, I’d love to hear them. Meal planning has changed my life. Always on the look out for more time/money saving ideas!

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The skinny on sugar

By Jodi Cohen | Published: January 18, 2012

While volunteering on a field trip, I decided to check out what other kids had in their lunch boxes in search of some new ideas. I was surprised to find many of the parents had packed the same thing – Capri Sun juice, Doritos (or some other kind of chips), a sandwich (that most of the kids didn’t eat) and Oreos – primarily processed, full of sugar foods.

I posted my surprise on Facebook and a friend who I both like and respect told me to relax because that sounded like a perfectly appropriate field trip lunch. I should mention that this friend is extraordinarily brilliant , a really good mom and sadly very in touch with how most of us think. “It’s no big deal”, “a little sugar won’t hurt them” “kids are resilient”.

I totally understand where she is coming from because that’s where I was coming from for a long time. It is a lot of work to limit sugar for ourselves and our kids. Our world is full of sugar, from the chocolate milk, juice, muffins and scones on display at Starbucks to the “healthy” fruit rolls and granola bars we give our kids to the campfire mints and cookies that we sell each year. Not to mention, Halloween, Valentines Day, Christmas and all the birthday parties and social events throughout the year.

Sugar is so ingrained in our idea of childhood that we no longer even stop to think about it. but it wasn’t always that way. Less than 200 years ago, in 1821, the average American consumed 10 pounds of sugar annually. Today that number has increased by 1400% to over 140 pounds of sugar annually. Let me say that again. THE AVERAGE AMERICAN CONSUMES 140 POUNDS OF SUGAR ANNUALLY.

Sadly, sugar has no nutritional value, so in order to digest it, we need to pull from our body’s reserves of nutrients. For example, for every one grams of sugar you consume, your body needs to pull 28 grams of magnesium (the mineral that helps us relax) from our reserves. Hence, why kids high on sugar can’t relax. Even worse, your body needs the nutrients that sugar depletes to keep the brain healthy and happy. Since these nutrients are finite, if we only deplete them and don’t replenish them (with leafy green veggies), our kids brains are going to suffer.

Obviously, this is a really difficult and sensitive issue and every parent has to do what feels right for themselves and their families. I trust that everyone reading this will make the choice that feels right for them. I just want it to be an educated choice. If you want to learn more about sugar, I’ve listed the some problems that sugar contributes to below.

1. Sugar decreases the effectiveness of the immune system.

2. Sugar can cause anxiety, difficulty with concentrating and moodiness in some individuals.

3. Sugar interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium. You need calcium not only for bones, but for every nerve function in the body (i.e. muscles moving and brain working).

4. Sugar can cause problems with eyesight.

5. Sugar can cause asthma.

6. Sugar can decrease growth hormone output, which is one of the most important hormones for muscular growth.

7. Sugar can trigger severe migraine headaches in those who are susceptible to them.

8. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of depression.

9. Sugar can cause hypoglycaemia, which will leave you feeling weak, tired and shaky.

10. Sugar can make our skin age by changing the structure of collagen.

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Why are we all so tired?

By Jodi Cohen | Published: January 9, 2012

Do you remember how much energy you had as a kid? You could run around all day without feeling tired? Sadly, many in the next generation lack that vitality. They tire easily, their bones break and muscles tear much more regularly and their ability to maintain sustained activity is compromised.

I heard recently that they no longer play games like Red Rover because too many kids were pulling their arms out of the sockets. My children’s elementary school doesn’t allow kindergartners on the monkey bars because too many of them were breaking their arms. Our teenage babysitters are tearing their ACLs and having major muscular skeletal problems. Within a generation, our children have gotten much more fragile and it hasn’t occurred to anyone to consider why. Here’s a clue…

It’s not the economy, stupid! It’s the diet! When our bodies don’t have the right building blocks (essential vitamins and minerals that are absent from processed foods) they cannot form healthy bone, muscle and connective tissue. So our kids tire and hurt themselves more easily.

A friend of mine likes to say, “you can pay now, or you can pay later” I will be the first to admit, it is a lot of work to feed your kids nutritious meals. It takes time, money and effort. But it is also a lot of work (and insane amounts of money) to nurse a sick kid back to health. Given the choice, I’d rather invest in the prevention.

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The best thing you can ever do for your family

By Jodi Cohen | Published: January 6, 2012

Take the corn syrup challenge. Unlike the Special K challenge, you will lose more than inches. You will lose a lifetime of future health problems and gain a happier, healthier child. It’s true, high fructose corn syrup has no nutritional value and robs your body of nutrients in order to be metabolized. But it gets worse… To illustrate the impact of the intense heat and refinement process required to produce corn syrup, I’d like to share a story I came across in my early days as a journalist covering the ethanol industry.

Ethanol, as you may know, is a bio-fuel that can be made from processing corn. The corn industry in the U.S. is flat out brilliant. They receive a government subsidy for growing corn and they have managed to get corn syrup included as an ingredient in a shocking number of products. The most obvious, and most lucrative, is soft drinks. But this creates a distribution challenge, as consumers purchase significantly more soft drinks in the warm summer months, leaving a surplus of corn syrup in the winter months.

Since the corn lobbyists are brilliant, they realized that they could solve this problem and collect another government subsidy at the same time. If corn syrup is processed just a little bit further it becomes Ethanol, a biofuel. The corn industry cleverly inserted a mandate in the 1992 Clean Air Act that fuel in the winter include a 10% blend of ethanol into the gasoline. This was an especially impressive feat since adding the ethanol to the gasoline actually increased pollution, but I digress.

Since the corn lobby is so brilliant and so ambitious, they decided to push the 10% envelop, creating dedicated ethanol fleets in key farm states like South Dakota and Nebraska. Why, you may ask, have we never heard of cars that run on 100% ethanol. Great question! It’s because the ethanol corroded the cars from the inside out. Basically, ethanol, which is corn syrup, can eat through a car AND WE’RE FEEDING IT TO OUR CHILDREN!

If you do one thing, and one thing only, for your family, do this: Read the labels and get rid of the corn syrup!

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Bio diversity in parenting

By Jodi Cohen | Published: January 5, 2012

Bio diversity is a great term in nutrition. It basically means that what works for one person may not work for another. Like I need protein to function, but I have several vegetarian friends who feel sick if they eat meat.

I think the term applies to parenting as well. The attachment parenting method might work for one family, while another is more free range in their approach. Sadly, a sense of judgment seems to surround both our parenting choices and our food choices.

And yet, the whole concept of biodiversity implies that one size indeed does not fit all. It makes sense if you think about it. Our ancestors who grew up in fishing villages were able to metabolize protein in a way that more agricultural based societies probably could not. And yet, people who have experienced great success either with paleo or vegetarian diets, formula or breast fed infants or you name the parenting approach sometimes forget that what worked for them may not work for everyone.

I think there is a better way. A biodiversity way. I’d like to advocate that instead of feeling the need to force our way of doing things on anyone else, or feeling defensive is anyone advocates an approach (be it parenting, nutrition or anything else) that doesn’t gel with our sensibilities, we just mark it up to biodiversity. My mom used to say “that’s why there’s chocolate, vanilla and strawberry,” referring of course to the limited three flavors of ice cream that some of us grew up with. Since I now know that ice cream is not the healthiest choice, I think I’ll modify it to “that’s why there’s biodiversity”.

If I offended anyone with this post (or any other), please don’t judge. Just mark it up to biodiversity.

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Is it your personality or your nutrition?

By Jodi Cohen | Published: January 4, 2012

I used to be a real bitch. Everything annoyed me. The barista at Starbucks was too slow. A friend was a few minutes late. The “idiot” in front of me in traffic didn’t know how to drive. You get the picture.

I just assumed that was my personality, take it or leave it. Imagine my surprise when my nutritionist started explaining that these personality traits were actually symptoms of mineral deficiency. The feeling that I wanted to crawl out of my skin showed magnesium deficiency. The fact that I cried easily (at Hallmark commercials no less), that’s a B6 deficiency. The list went on and on. Waking up in the middle of the night between 1 a.m. – 3 a.m. – that’s from the liver working too hard.

As I started changing my diet, my personality slowly started to change as well. I didn’t get as annoyed as quickly. I was more patient with my children. I stopped tearing up at the drop of the hat. My PSM disappeared and my sleep improved. It was interesting. All these aspects of myself that I always considered to be part of my personality were really just a symptom of my sub-par nutrition.

I will be the first to admit, I am still far from perfect, but I have a lot fewer traffic moments and I feel much braver about taking on new changes for myself and my family. If you are feeling angry, overwhelmed or quick to tear up, I’d be happy to share more of what I have learned. If you don’t have any of these issues, then I’d love to know your secret as well!

Posted in Bad Manners, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Good Fats to make your kids smarter

By Jodi Cohen | Published: January 3, 2012

The New York Times and I must be on the same wave length. They published this article yesterday about how some fats make you smarter.

It’s true, good fats like Omega-3s can make your kids smarter. Both my kids seemed to make a huge cognitive jumps after we started giving it to them. The NYT study found the same results, noting that “Omega-3 levels were linked to better cognitive functioning and to healthier blood vessels in the brain” and also that “higher blood levels of trans fats, on the other hand, were significantly associated with impaired mental ability and smaller brain volume.”

The right kind of fats also make you calmer, happier and healthier (and bizarrely skinnier, but that’s a blog unto itself).

So, here’s the deal. This whole low fat, no fat, transfat thing is relatively new – pretty much taking off after WWII when food giants started processing our food, so approximately in the last 65 years. Prior to that, our ancestors ate unprocessed, real fat (i.e. no low fat, no fat or transfat). That means that as few as 65 years ago, our ancestors were consuming actual fat, not processed fat. Our bodies are direct descendants from theirs. That means that our bodies are designed to eat actual fat, like butter, animal fat and unrefined oils. Are you with me so far? Our bodies are designed to digest and run on real fat for brain and muscle fuel. They don’t know what to do with processed fats.

Sadly, most of the fat that our children consume today has been processed to make it last longer on the shelves. These fake fats interfere with brain development and brain function. Even worse, the real fats, like the Omega-3 fats from fish oil that we no longer consume, are absolutely vital for brain function. It’s almost like we’re putting diesel fuel in our bodies when we should be running on unleaded – and it’s killing our engines and our children. This is why adding Omega-3 fats to our kids diets helps everything from autism and ADHD to eczema and allergies. It is a vital nutrient that we are missing and it’s absence makes the body malfunction a bit.

I know this is a lot of information and it’s super-complicated, but if you want to do one thing and one thing alone to make your kids (and yourself) calmer, smarter, healthier and happier, try adding in more Omega-3 fats to the diet. My kids like Artic Cod Liver Oil. They bite into it and swallow the oil. This is actually better than swallowing the capsule as the oil is digested better this way. Two other easy things to increase good fats are adding eggs (a great source of Omega-3 fats) and cooking in coconut oil – a really healing fat that boosts the immune system.

Also, if you want more information on healthy fats, I really like this online article from the author of “Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill”

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An ounce of protection is worth a pound of cure

By Jodi Cohen | Published: January 3, 2012

My life was hell, or at least it felt that way. My kid was out of control. He would hit his sister and sometimes other kids. He would “hurt the house” and I couldn’t manage to fix things at the rate he was breaking them. And worst of all, he wouldn’t listen to me. He could barely focus on my nose or look me in the eyes.

It all felt so overwhelming and I was so deeply exhausted and insecure about my lack of parenting effectiveness. So I tried Love and Logic, and Positive Discipline and Emotional Coaching. I read “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen”, “Raising your Spirited Child” and even “The Difficult Child”. But nothing seemed to work

Until, at my wits end and fearful that his behavior would lead to a lifetime of medication, I decided to try nutrition. We were fortunate enough to find a very talented nutritionist who helped us discover that my son was intolerant to corn, soy and dairy and consuming them sent him into a state where he could no longer control his behavior. He was also extremely deficient in some critical minerals, like magnesium and B6, that help the body calm itself down.

At first, the diagnosis felt overwhelming, I mean corn is in everything. Well, everything in processed food land, which I’ll be the first to admit, was a big part of our diet. If you could buy it at Costco, even better. Out went the cereals, the little frozen pancakes, the Ritz crackers, even some canned vegetables. It was a good day for the food bank, but a sad day for me. I was actually going to have to learn to cook, as opposed to just reheating. It took a lot more time and it felt completely daunting, but I slowly waded into my new life.

I wandered into PCC, tried farmer’s markets, and gradually learned to cook. It was a hard transition, the biggest obstacle being my own fear of how much time and effort it would take.

Then a remarkable thing happened. My son’s behavior began to change – he was calm. He was kind. He was sitting still and coloring (for extended periods of time). All of his personality quirks and sensory issues fell away. With it, all the time and energy I had spent trying to cope with his behavior was freed up.

I actually had more time for myself. It sounds crazy, I know. I was definitely spending more time shopping for groceries and cooking. But in return, my calmer, kinder kid needed less of my energy, both during the day and at night. His sleep improved dramatically, which meant that my sleep improved dramatically and with it, my mood, my confidence and my self-esteem.

These nutritional changes that felt so impossible and scary, that I hesitated to even implement due to the time it would take up, actually wound up giving me more time. More energy. And significantly more joy!

If you are struggling to survive behavior issues, I have so much compassion. That was my life and it really sucked. But there is a silver lining – nutrition really can change your mood and your child’s mood. It is a lot of work, that ounce of prevention. But the pound of cure is worth the effort.

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Looking within

By Jodi Cohen | Published: January 1, 2012

When I originally started this site, I was having mommy manner conflicts every time I left my house. The other mom at the playground who tuned out as her child bit mine, the random woman at the supermarket who scolded me for not making my child wear a coat, the other gal in playgroup who was constantly bragging about her little genius. I was surrounded by mommy manner dilemmas 24/7 and it never occurred to me that I was part of the problem.

And then, something changed. I found yoga. I started changing my family’s nutrition. Gradually as the improved nutrition helped my children sleep through the night, I started sleeping through the night. My own sleep improved, along with my mood and my disposition. Suddenly, the mommy manner conflicts did not seem so omni-present or overwhelming.

When I encountered another mom with steam coming out of her ears, I just stepped out of her way. When others bombarded me with their unsolicited advice or competitive assaults, I smiled politely and ignored it (which is kind of a huge accomplishment for me).

The key to solving mommy manner dilemmas, as it turns out, is really about how you choose to handle them. You can let them upset you and stew for days, or you can be so solid in yourself that the external rattles don’t shake you as much.

As we look forward to the New Year, my focus will be shifting away from the rants and external blame toward the internal changes that can make a difference in your mood, vitality and happiness.

Happy New Year!

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High water lifts all boats

By Jodi Cohen | Published: October 10, 2011

You know that whole expression about taking the high road, being the better person, all that crap. I think it rings of martyrdom. You know, you’re the better person, but you’re really still pissed off and not standing up for yourself, honoring your boundaries, whatever it is. Like when someone piously tells you how to parent your kid and you politely listen, even though what they’re saying has little merit. Like the time an acquaintance casually suggested I put my two year old on Ritalin – really? But instead of ripping her a new one, I politely smiled and said I thought two was a little young for medication.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately as I am a very accomplished martyr – I take the high road, swallow my anger and try to pretend it doesn’t matter. But the truth is, it does. At least to me.
Since that approach wasn’t working for me, I instead tried to turn the issue on it’s head and look at it from different angles. I found one that is kind of working for me. It’s very yoga and it’s the idea that high water lifts all boats. In other words, it’s not that they win and I lose when they say something nasty, and I keep my mouth shut. Or that I am somehow holier than thou for being mute which often mistaken for polite (a passive aggressive way of thinking that the martyr wins). It is simply that by just doing the right thing for myself and my family, not medicating my son, not causing a scene on the playdate, not sharing feedback in a hurtful way that the other person really can’t hear anyway, I am putting that energy out into the universe and letting other people rise up as well.

I don’t need to be a martyr and fall on my sword. I just need to do the right thing for my family and everything else will work out from there. So, there’s my oddball insight for the day. Try not to think of things in a competitive context of one person has to win and the other has to lose. Instead try to just think that when you make the right choice for your family, all parties can rise to their best behavior.

Nameste

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