My 13 year old daughter spent the weekend with a friend, and when she came back, she told me how healthy the family was. It’s nice to see other families practicing good nutrition. The two girls ended up trading back and forth their familial nutritional practices.
About a year ago, my daughter noticed this friend had a wart on her hand and gave her a suggestion for how to take care of it. When they spent the weekend together, her friend was pumping her for more natural remedies – why? Because after she tried what my daughter recommended, the wart disappeared. So she was eager to get more tips because she saw my dd knows what she’s talking about. (If you’re wondering, she told her to split open the stem of a milkweed plant and rub the juice on the wart – she’s full of useful information like this. :))
She told me how surprised she was that her friend actually tried her suggestions. She said she’s used to her peers not being open to even thinking about things differently, let alone doing something different about them. When she spent the past summer at overnight camp for four weeks, she had several opportunities to help her bunk mates with simple things like nauseau, stomach pains, etc, but most of them said they’d rather take medicine. So she quickly learned what the typical response is. Not very different from adults, is it? When we’re faced with something different than what we’ve experienced, the tendency is to reject it without further exploration or consideration.
But my daughter doesn’t relate to that way of thinking, of being unwilling to learn something new that might be useful just because she never heard of it. She’s educated herself about natural remedies with her independent reading, and definitely knows more than I do in this area.
I think our children pick up the nonverbal messages that we send, by virtue of who we are, and internalize that. I’m constantly learning about new things and sharing that with my kids. It seems that every couple of weeks I find another new issue to research and learn more about. I don’t care if someone is a lay person or a trained professional; if they have knowledge that I could find helpful, I’m open to it.
Seeing her confidence in learning and independently applying new information is rewarding to me as a parent. Actually, it’s been rewarding for everyone in the family, from dealing with car sickness, diaper rashes, dandruff, and lots more!
Avivah
