Licensed mental health counselor Laurie A. Couture discusses how normal boy behavior is often pathologized and offers advice on nurturing children through diet and attention. She highlights the importance of avoiding unhealthy foods like refined sugar and soy, and using trauma healing methods such as EMDR. The podcast addresses challenges boys face in society and advocates for understanding over medication for behavioral issues.
Normal boy behavior is often pathologized, leading to unnecessary medication, instead of investigating underlying distress and needs.
Advocating for boys' well-being involves dietary changes to avoid inflammatory ingredients and addressing traumas with therapies like EMDR.
Deep dives
The Crisis Facing Boys
Laurie Couture discusses the crisis that boys are experiencing in society, schools, and homes. Approximately 8.2% of children in the United States, aged 5 to 17 years, are on psychotropic drugs, with the majority being boys. Normal behavior displayed by boys is often pathologized, leading to unnecessary medication. Laurie recommends dietary changes and investigating food sensitivities to support boys' health and well-being.
Harmful Effects of Psychotropic Drugs
Various classes of psychotropic drugs harm children on developmental levels like epigenetic, neurological, and psychological. These drugs can increase suicidal and homicidal ideation in children and have negative impacts on their overall health. Medicating children with psychotropic drugs suppresses symptoms but fails to address underlying issues like trauma, food allergies, or medical conditions.
The Role of Diet in Children's Well-Being
Laurie emphasizes the importance of diet in children's health, advocating for dietary changes like avoiding refined sugar, soy, and other inflammatory ingredients. Refined sugar disrupts gut health and contributes to chronic inflammation, while soy, especially since 2000, negatively impacts children's development, feminizing boys' bodies and affecting girls' estrogen levels.
Empowering Boys Through Nurturing Practices
Laurie focuses on the unique issues boys face, including societal pathologization of normal behaviors, lack of emotional nurturance, and exposure to harmful media messages. She recommends treatments like EMDR and attachment therapies to heal boys' traumas. Advocating for boys' well-being, providing nature-centered education, and supporting an ancestral diet are crucial steps to empower and nurture boys.
Normal boy behavior is too often pathologized and drugged and medicated. When our children "act out" or "act up," it doesn't mean that they have poor behavior, a learning disability or a mental illness. It actually indicates that they are in distress and it's up to us as adults to investigate the cause of the behavior and to attempt to meet their needs.
Laurie A. Couture is a licensed mental health counselor and the author of "Instead of Medicating and Punishing" and "Nurturing and Empowering Our Sons." Today, she addresses the crisis our boys (and all of our children, really) are facing when it comes to physical and mental health. Laurie offers sound advice for supporting and nurturing our children through appropriate diet and attention. She makes specific recommendations for what foods to avoid to protect their health (like refined sugar and soy) and how to help them deal with trauma (like using protocols like EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing).