Healthy Parents — Healthy Kids. . - BookCorners - Holistic Parenting - book review

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Jan, 2002  by Irene Alleger

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Holistic Parenting

by Lynn Wiese Sneyd

Keats Publishing,

4255 West Touhy Avenue,

Lincolnwood, Illinois 60712 USA

Softcover

2000, US $17.95/Can $25.95, 313 pp.

I wasn't quite sure, at first glance, what "holistic" parenting might encompass. Healthy child-rearing practices perhaps, certainly nutrition, possibly family dynamics. The introduction answered some of those questions, particularly the author's experience as a wife and mother.

After six years of frustration with conventional "non-treatment" of her husband's myasthenia gravis, Lynn Wiese Sneyd was ignited with a burning desire for answers -- for something they could work with, hope with. Her search of medical literature and alternative systems of medicine led her and her husband to an alternative practitioner trained in Homeopathy, Ayurveda, Chinese and Tibetan medicines. After 6 months of primarily homeopathic treatment, the patient's symptoms improved for the first time. Another convert!

What Holistic Parenting consists of then is the author's personal experience and research into so-called "holistic" medicine. She explains the basic systems of allopathic and alternative medicine, then presents a chapter each on three major systems: herbal medicine, homeopathy, and Ayurveda.

The chapter on "Eating Well in Spite of Our Food" focuses on buying whole foods, avoiding processed foods, and additives, as well as synthetic sweeteners, genetically engineered foods, etc. and in general, buying as much organic food as possible. The author also cautions against depending on vitamin and mineral supplements for children, prefering to give them as nutritious and "clean" a diet as possible.

A basic chapter on the home environment includes good information on chemicals, especially cleaning products and pesticides. A healthy home is a chemically-free home. One of the more important chapters in Holistic Parenting is on "The Vaccination Ritual," citing Dr. Viera Scheibner's Vaccination: The Medical Assault on the Immune System. With a brief history of the use of vaccines and clinical information on the major vaccines, the author encourages parents to weigh the benefits and risks of artificial vs. natural immunity.

Holistic dentistry for the child is covered in brief, informing parents of the hazards of fluoride and mercury amalgams, and how to avoid using them.

So what holistic parenting consists of is mainly avoiding commercially grown and processed foods, a most important parenting responsibility, and generally avoiding mainstream medicine in favor of non-pharmaceutical options and self-care. The emphasis is on raising physically healthy children, an important aspect of good parenting. Holistic Parenting is a very basic introduction to safer medical care for children and especially, good nutrition, for parents who may not be familiar with alternatives to toxic medicine and food. What you won't find in this book is any reference to ADD or unhealthy behavior.

I have a hunch that if children are fed whole foods and are not vaccinated, do not use fluoride, etc. their behavior will be healthy, as well.

COPYRIGHT 2002 The Townsend Letter Group
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group