Recently a 9-year-old client of mine was complaining of stomach aches – really bad ones. They didn’t seem to be correlated to any specific foods and didn’t have an apparent pattern. They’d come on randomly, and disappear just as mysteriously. They got bad enough that she had to miss school.
Her mom was worried, and so we ran a stool test and discovered that she has multiple highly inflammatory species of opportunistic bacteria growing in her gut, along with a fungal infection and parasite. Alongside this, we did some food sensitivity testing and discovered some of the foods she was eating on a daily basis were causing high levels of inflammation in her body. Yikes.
In the Eat Naked Kitchen practice, we work with lots of kids who’ve been told they’re “fine” by their pediatricians, or that it’s “all in their head” when they don’t have any overt pathology. Yet when we do deeper digging, we discover that indeed it’s not a disease state (thank goodness!!) but some underlying imbalances that can be highly problematic and cause a lot of discomfort.
Thus we enter into a healing protocol: a combination of customized dietary changes and some targeted supplements to help eradicate any pathogens and bring their body and digestive process back into balance as it heals.
Now, I’ve got to say, while these protocols are extremely effective, they’re hard. They’re hard for adults, let alone children! (In case it’s helpful, here’s an article for adults to survive their own healing journey.)
While we can’t make this process outright easy, we can absolutely make it doable. Here are the key strategies we use to make this experience as pleasant and achievable as possible for our own children as well as those we support clinically through our private practice:
1. The whole family comes along for the ride.
If you only do one thing, let this be it. The only thing harder than having some of your favorite foods taken out of your diet for a while? Watching other people at the same table gobble down those very foods in front of you. It sucks. This is an extremely challenging situation for even the most will-powered adult. For a child, it’s torture.
We have a rule in our house: only one protocol at a time. This means that we’re not cooking multiple meals or tempting (which can easily turn into taunting) one another. When I had to go 100% gluten free, we removed all gluten from the house. When Sia couldn’t eat eggs, neither did any of us.
This one strategy is the most important thing you can do because it shows through impeccable action that the whole family is in this together. Social exclusion is one of the hardest elements of a dietary protocol for a child, and if they feel excluded in the one place they should feel most embraced – at home – it will never succeed. When everyone adopts the same diet, this also removes temptation and the in-fighting that can come between siblings if one can eat something the other wants, but can’t have.
2. Involve your child in creating a meal plan and food prep.
Sometimes we think we have to figure it out for them, but we don’t give our kids enough credit. And when we include them in creating their own meal plan and food prep, this gives them agency and control in a situation where they may feel these qualities are lacking. Just yesterday, Sia and I sat down and brainstormed all her favorite ways to eat veggies and protein as well as her favorite root veggies and tubers, which will make up the starches in her diet for the next couple of months. Her ideas totally surprised me, and now that she’s helped to influence what’s for dinner, the likelihood of it being a fight at dinner time is greatly reduced.
3. Create a list of treats that are “on plan”.
Every diet has some kind of workaround so that you can have a treat. While, just like any treat, these should be enjoyed on occasion it’s helpful for your child to know that they can still indulge. For example, our kids love flavored fizzy drinks and these are the kinds of beverages we have instead of soda when we’re out. We’ve identified a handful of them that are sweetened with stevia instead of sugar and we’ll have these on hand for special occasions.
4. Find creative substitutes for comfort food favorites.
This can be a little tricky if your child is really attached to a given food, but for some, finding a creative protocol-friendly substitute for some favorite comfort foods that they’d otherwise have to skip can be a real-life-saver. In our household, the comfort food of choice is mac and cheese. We’ve already moved to gluten-free versions, but on tighter protocols, it will also need to be dairy-free and low-carb. Not an easy thing to do. Our workaround: a homemade dairy-free “cheese” sauce made from soaked cashews and some seasonings with lentil noodles, which are higher in fiber and lower in “fast carbs”. Will it be the exact same? No, but it scratches the itch well enough to do the trick for a couple of months.
5. Explain to your child why you’re doing this protocol.
One of the steps that can be easily forgotten is to sit down and have a good heart to heart with your child about why you’re doing this work, what it will entail, and why you’re going to ask them to be really disciplined with it. Sometimes we take these pieces for granted, but it can be so invaluable to actually take the time to unpack the whole situation with them. For the client I mentioned above, I sat down with her and her parents and we talked through how these changes to her diet and the supplements she would be taking would help ease her stomach aches and help her go to the bathroom more easily.
We talked not only about the “why’s” and “what’s” of this protocol, but also we were really honest about the fact that it was going to be hard. There would be times when she’d be eating different foods from her friends, there would be times when she’d really want something that she’d need to say “no thank you” to. We talked through these scenarios and strategies that would make it easier for her (for example, having friends to her place for sleepovers so her parents could control the food rather than going to their house for sleepovers).
Supporting our children’s health doesn’t have to be a fight. With these strategies in hand, you can help them navigate the challenges with love and compassion. And a nice bonus? Not only are you helping your child heal, but you’re also showing them “we can do hard things” as the author Glennon Doyle would say.
What strategies do you use to help your child through tough protocols like this? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
This is a great post guys!