If you have high blood pressure you have probably been told to stay off the salt. This is possibly also true for you if you are at risk of a stroke or heart attack and certain other conditions. The overlooked (or unknown?) factor is that it isn’t so much that it is too much sodium, it is not enough potassium.
In natural foods such as fruit and vegetables, the potassium to sodium ratio is on average 20:1 – meaning twenty times more potassium than sodium. This is precisely the kind of ratio we need with potassium and sodium for the channels in our cells to work effectively. Too much of either and there are problems… serious problems that can and do result in death.
Potassium needs to be increased, and if it is increased enough, sodium need not be decreased. Some diets are so high in sodium that achieving a potassium balance of 20 times that amount could prove impossible without reducing the sodium. So sodium reduction does often have its value. However it is important to understand that reducing sodium alone is not working as well as it could for most people because of the potassium factor – they aren’t increasing it at the same time so the imbalance may well remain. Plus, it can prove very difficult to reduce sodium to an amount that reaches potassium balance due to processed foods containing so much sodium – people often “fail” such diets when an easier solution would be to take the pressure off (somewhat, not totally) from sodium reduction and place it on potassium consumption. People are more likely to comply with adding to the diet than taking away.
Finnish Your Salt
An experiment was started in Finland in 1970 and is still going. All the salt was changed from just the sodium chloride to a special blend of sodium, potassium, magnesium and lysine. In the Finnish research, the special salt was used nationwide—even by the local McDonald’s! The results were so outstanding that it is unbelievable and unacceptable that similar measures aren’t taken in all countries. 75 to 80% decrease in stroke and coronary heart disease mortality, life span increase of 6 to 7 years and 10mmHg decrease in blood pressure across the nation.
In addition to the statistically significant reduction in blood pressure observed in the Cardia group compared to the regular salt group, the following results were also reported:
– Cardia did not interfere with the effects of any of the antihypertensive medications and was shown to be especially beneficial to those patients on beta blockers and ACE inhibitors.
– There was a statistically significant increase in potassium excretion.
– There was a statistically significant decrease in sodium excretion.
– Magnesium excretion was increased, although not statistically significantly.
– Patients were unable to distinguish Cardia from regular salt, which confirms the findings from other clinical trials and patient taste tests.
Double Blinded with Salt
Another issue with focusing solely on decreasing sodium is a link to insulin resistance. This study was done in October of this year (2010):
Low-salt diet is associated with an increase in IR. The impact of our findings on the pathogenesis of diabetes and cardiovascular disease needs further investigation.
Most patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus do not meet NHF sodium or potassium intake guidelines. A diet high in sodium and low in potassium may contribute to the development of hypertension and to resistance to blood-pressure-lowering therapies.
Dietary potassium intake may serve as an important countervailing influence on the effects of salt in the vasculature.
They are the most recent… however there are previous ones and the studies continue.
What Now?
Well, if you were the average pill popping majority, you would get some potassium pills. The fact that you’re reading this suggests you are not the majority so let’s get funky.
Raw food! In particular, raw green leaves. Green leaves are the highest level super-food for humanity’s particular design. Cooking destroys pretty much everything in food and to test this theory one needs only to put one’s hand into a pot of boiling water or onto a hot plate and see how well the constituents of your cells fare.
When it comes to minerals specifically, such as potassium, water is the death knell as it pulls minerals out of the food into the water. Studies showed that even soaking in cold water can do this if it soaks long enough – osmosis is no myth, we can surmise. Apparently, uncooked rice has 9mg of sodium and 214mg of potassium yet cooked it reverses: 282mg sodium and 70mg potassium (maybe they salted the water? Either way, that’s a big drop of potassium). I’ll assume I don’t need to convince you that raw is better than cooked and move on. (I don’t recommend raw rice btw… I don’t recommend rice at all)
Green Teeth
Green leaves, when chewed like an ape, are chewed until they are liquid in the mouth before swallowed. This breaks all the cell walls in the plant, releasing the nutrients and exposes the carbohydrates to the enzymes in the saliva. Digestion begins in the mouth. Long pulverising also flushes the minerals around the mouth to mend cavities. Teeth are mended from the mouth fluids as they have no blood supply themselves, and together with calcium plied into the saliva by the body, the food we eat was designed to help teeth, not harm them. That is precisely what Weston Price found in his study of the perfect teeth of the indigenous peoples. I found my son forages in the garden and finds wild greens and puts them into his mouth – he could do this all day in his wanderings – and chews them until they disappear. I guess it is an instinct we eventually suppress. We mimic this mineralisation by using fluoride toothpaste… however sodium fluoride is a toxin and the fluorine that is suited to our body is calcium-fluoro-apatite – the fluorine found in nature. Demineralisation is worth learning about. The main cause of cavities is bacteria, so rinse with weak hydrogen peroxide or chlorine dioxide, especially if you don’t eat a raw vegan diet.
This is a great page about demineralisation, although it aims to sell you a particular toothpaste.
Pre-Chewed Greens – Smoothies
Green smoothies are also pulverised in a similar manner, and without them, I couldn’t get my daughter to eat greens so they are a god send. However, I have taught her to chew her smoothie a little, to help the digestion in the mouth. They taste like fruit unless you use strong leaves like beet leaves.
Sources of Potassium
Rockmelon (cantaloupe) is the blood pressure food medicine of choice. It helps remove sodium and is high in potassium, 825mg in half a rockmelon.
Mix the lot in a bowl. Eat at room temperature (cold food has less flavour and no aroma). Is a great side dish. I sometimes add a teaspoon of Thai fish sauce to this, but that adds 300mg of sodium to the dish.
One cup full of coconut water has more electrolytes than a sports drink and more potassium than a banana and so many other goodies it should be an every day part of a healthy diet.
Avoid canned foods… oh let’s cut the crap – avoid processed foods altogether! Why shop outside the green grocers? Anyway, back to canned… for example, an asparagus in nature has 2mg of sodium and 335mg of potassium (so much for 20 times, that’s over 100 times more potassium!) yet canned asparagus has 236gm sodium and 166mg potassium – we’ve lost potassium (in the processing) and gained a hundred times more sodium.
I should add that I do know many doctors tell patients to avoid potassium rich foods and potassium supplements when on blood pressure or heart medications. Check with your doctor, if s/he is a good one, that it isn’t just the fact that potassium is a SALT in foods and supps, and they’ve been taught to tell patients to avoid salt. Obviously you can see the flaw in that, so perhaps point it out to the doctor… if that is what the concern with potassium is. If it isn’t, have him or her explain exactly WHAT is their concern with potassium.
This is a test mostly used for asthma, although its significance in most areas of health cannot be overstated. Perhaps you’ve heard of the importance of the breath, through yoga, pranayama or breathwork. There is a sound scientific reason for the importance of correct breathing, and it is directly related to carbon dioxide (CO2), NOT just oxygen. With normal breathing, the blood contains a maximum amount of oxygen and cannot absorb more. It is known that even breathing pure oxygen from a hospital mask will only increase haemoglobin levels by no more than 1.5%.
CO2 is commonly seen as a “waste” product because it is something we breathe out.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Carbon dioxide is needed for all metabolic processes and many other body processes, including:
~ acid/alkali balance
~ cardiovascular function/heart
~ smooth muscle dilation
~ digestion
~ releasing and transporting oxygen (see picture)
The brain on the left hand side has normal oxygen levels. The brain on the right is dim from hyperventilation (over-breathing).
The brain on the left hand side in the picture is the brain with normal oxygen levels. The one on the right is dim from hyperventilation (over-breathing). Oxygen is not reaching all the tissues which is the opposite of what people logically expect to happen from over-breathing. Without sufficient CO2, oxygen cannot be released to the tissues.
The body has a CO2 setting and this will cause you to breathe more or less to maintain your carbon dioxide “setting”. These changes in breathing go mostly unnoticed by us all.
As an analogy, I’ll use a household thermostat. When you set the temperature on a thermostat, to maintain that set temperature it will self adjust – if it gets colder than the setting, it will switch on to heat up and off to decrease heat.
Carbon dioxide levels are set in the body like a thermostat. If your CO2 level goes higher than the “setting” you will increase your breathing slightly, without you consciously knowing you’re doing it. Chronic over-breathing will cause constant low levels of CO2 and your body will reset the status to that lower level. Even at the expense of your organs.
Why would it do that? Again we can use an analogy, this time of eating. If you constantly eat past the sensation of fullness, even by just a little, your body will eventually need more food to reach satiety. Some people are eating double the amount their body needs, otherwise they feel unsatisfied. This leads to inevitable weight gain.
To reset that level, you would need to eat a little less than a satisfying amount of food for quite a while and your body would reset again. Then you simply respect the sensation of fullness and you will maintain correct weight regardless of what you eat. (It’s the French secret to eating pastries, drinking wine and not gaining an ounce, btw)
That is what happens to CO2. We over-breathe for many reasons and they vary from person to person:
Many triggers, one cause
~ heat, including overdressing or too many blankets
Low Co2 plays a part at the very least in asthma, angina, low oxygen availability, poor enzyme function, ulcers, acidity and alkalinity, infections, cellular disruption, diabetes and other hormone imbalances, migraine, and many other issues.
As low CO2 messes with the pH and the oxygenation of cells, it gives rise to the perfect conditions for pathogenic infection – pathogens usually prefer hypoxic environments (low oxygen).
Professor Buteyko of Russia studied thousands and thousands of people and discovered that the length of a person’s control pause (CP) was directly related to the percentage of carbon dioxide in their alveoli. The higher the percentage, the better the health. If you have ever been with a person as they died, you will have noticed that they breathed quite hard or fast, eventually taking a big, last breath and died.
One of the oldest living Indian yogis breathed only once a minute.
correct breathing is a lost art in the western culture
The Test – For Adults
Note: this test is for adults. Young children find it difficult and the results are too variable.
Control Pause: be seated, good posture but relaxed. If you have been moving around a bit, relax for a minute or so. You will need to hold your breath and time the length of the hold so have a clock with a second hand or a timer. Before you do the breath hold, DO NOT take a deep breath first.
Breathe normally (whatever that is for you) and take a two second in-breath and exhale for two or so seconds, but leave a little air in your lungs. Look up, pinch your nose and time your CP. Start breathing again at the first sensation to inhale. Do not hold past this point or you will have to gasp or deep breathe. The goal is to resume breathing at the SAME RATE you were breathing before the CP. If your breathing has increased, you have held too long.
60 seconds – 6.5% CO2 – perfect health
50 seconds – 6.0 % CO2 - good health
40 seconds – 5.5% CO2 – probably symptom free
30 seconds – 5.0% CO2 – health may be struggling but is probably not noticed.
20 seconds – 4.5% CO2 – noticeable health problems
10 seconds – 4.0% CO2 – feeling lousy?
5 seconds – 3.5% CO2 – critically low CO2 levels; needs immediate attention
Death
The Test – For Children
Children find it hard to do a control pause, so they do what is called Steps.
+ try to make it fun, like a game but not hyped up; be sure they are relaxed.
+ Have her stand, ready to take some steps forward (be sure there is room enough to do this, outside might be best).
+ demonstrate how to take a small breath in and a small breath out.
+ have her hold her breath by getting her to pinch her nose, be sure her mouth is visible so you can monitor there is no mouth breathing.
+ have her walk as many steps as she can before taking a breath (through the nose). Encourage her to walk as many steps as possible without it becoming stressful.
+ don’t let her run, and each time you test, be sure the pace is similar.
+ Count aloud her steps.
+ when she starts breathing, calm her breathing immediately and help her relax (like “jelly on a plate”).
+ the first breath will usually be bigger than usual but suppress her following breaths.
Results
Results can vary for children even more than the control pause test for adults, which is inherently variable. However, less than 20 steps is less than ideal. The goal with treatment is to increase those steps. Very healthy children with beautiful breathing can achieve 50 steps and some much more than that. The steps test for children is really for a parent to guage if there is progress. Although, relief of symptoms or cure of disease is the best guage.
Disclaimer: This site is for information and interest purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease. Sagacious Mama and those affiliated do not accept any liability for the use and misuse of the information contained anywhere on this site, on any of its pages. Sagacious Mama can not be held accountable or responsible for any information on a site that is linked from this site and the opinions you find at external links are not necessarily those held by Sagacious Mama. Always check with your doctor before making any changes to diet, medication or lifestyle or anything else whatsoever. Lord knows you can’t be trusted to think for yourself.
You may have been directed to this page for information regarding anxiety, cancer, allergies, diabetes and numerous other conditions. Although this page focuses on asthma, the biology, philosophy and treatment remains the same for other conditions related to low carbon dioxide status. This information is particularly pertinent for sleep apnea.
The Least You Should Know
No matter what medication you take or what you do, if you continue to over-breathe you will continue to suffer asthma.
That is the most important thing to know about asthma, and if you take nothing else away from this article, take that. If your CP is low – take The Carbon Dioxide Test – then your body is set to a low level of CO2 and any trigger for over breathing can result in symptoms or an attack. Building up your level of CO2 is the only lasting treatment due to the fact that it is low CO2 that is causing the asthma to begin with.
CO2 is necessary for the dilation of smooth muscle tissue and vessels. The lungs have such tissues. When the CO2 level drops, broncho-constriction results. This is also a protective mechanism. The body is trying to stop you from losing any more CO2, and you will find it is harder to breathe OUT than it is to breathe in.
Professor Buteyko from Russia found that asthmatics through history used to suffer less chronic illnesses and died at a later age. He surmised that it was due to the fact that a person with asthma had a built in mechanism to prevent loss of CO2. The rest of us don’t. We will lose CO2 until internal disease occurs. This century, steroidal inhalers became the miracle drug for asthmatics because they opened the airways. But this comes at a price – the protective mechanism is now interfered with and the loss of CO2 is monstrous. Asthmatics are now becoming diabetic or suffering other debilitating illnesses that they were previously protected from.Medication is important! If an attack is in full swing, you need to dilate the airways with whatever method you use usually such as herbs or medicated inhalers. What is counter-productive is to over-breathe once the bronchioles have been dilated artificially. If an asthmatic has severely low CO2 levels and does not reverse the process, it can become an emergency as the lungs can shut down regardless of medication given. This is how stress can cause such emergencies as stress breathing is fast and deep. After taking medication, be sure to relax, remove any stressors and decrease the breathing rate.
The only thing the body wants is CO2 during an attack. Oxygen needs carbon dioxide to get into the cells. The coughing and over breathing is the body clamouring for oxygen as the airways shut down from lack of CO2, which is the paradox.
Medication cannot give carbon dioxide to your body! It will open your airways but it is then up to you to retain your CO2.
This is new information to the United States, but Australians have been using it for quite a while (although it isn’t very mainstream yet). Therefore, doctors may not recognize this link and encourage big breathing, big blows into testing devices, and deep breaths of nebulisers. This is completely counterproductive and the only reason they get any success at all (but never cure) is due to medication providing a false dilation of the bronchioles. This is short acting and does nothing for the problem in general.
You cannot cure something if you do not know its cause. Well, I suppose you could accidentally.
ATTACK
If you feel an attack coming on, decrease your breathing. This will feel like the complete opposite of what you want to do as you feel like you cannot get enough air. Decrease your breathing so you feel a slight hunger for air – smaller breaths or fewer breaths per minute. Don’t go so far as to make yourself gasp or need to take in deep breaths to regain equilibrium.
The thing to keep in mind is it was your over-breathing that caused the attack.
If you take medication, be sure to continue with the reduced breathing.
The aim for both adults and children is the same – to condition the body to accept a higher level of carbon dioxide.
The Treatment
NOTE – it is highly recommended you work with a Buteyko practitioner for these exercises and during the changes that occur. I give this information because practitioners are impossible to find in some areas, especially outside of Australia. It is also necessary to see your doctor about medication adjustments (do NOT stop or alter any medications on your own!). Changes can be unexpected, and range from the physical, blood chemistry and amount of medication needed.
Where do you breathe? Your stomach should move OUT with the in breath and IN with the out breath. Your chest shouldn’t move much at all.
Feel the difference between a big breath and a deep breath. Many people say deep breathing is good for you and they are right if they mean “deep into the lungs” or low into the lungs, with sufficient pause (as taught in yoga). You can have a slow, small breath and it can still be “deep” – it is where the air goes that defines deep. Whereas a big breath is just a lot of air exchange. We want to avoid big breaths.
Posture. Don’t underestimate your posture for breath control. Stand with your back to a wall – heels, upper buttocks and shoulder blades touching the wall. Pull your shoulders to the wall. Now relax shoulders down (but not forward). Feel a string pulling you up from the top of the head, like a puppet. Pull your navel toward your spine. Now relax into that position, it is the position of correct posture. It can take a while for this to feel natural, and for you to naturally move in this posture. It may even hurt in spots if you have had chronic bad posture.
Do not mouth breathe. This is singly the biggest reason for hyperventilation and the hardest habit to change. The nose was made for breathing as it warms and filters the air before it reaches the lungs. If you mouth breathe while sleeping, some people have changed the habit by taping the mouth with paper tape. Some do not recommend this for obvious reasons. Always fold a corner down for fast removal. Do not tape children or someone else while they sleep. For babies and young children, push their lips together if you see them mouth breathe and sleep them on their side, especially the left side. If your nose is blocked, use The Secret.
The Secret – Look up. Pinch your nose, hold your breath. Nod your head or move legs (moves muscles to produce CO2). At the first need to inhale (NOT longer) gently resume Reduced Breathing (small, shallow breaths that leave you with a feeling of slight air shortage). If this has not totally unblocked the nose, repeat until it does. If you have a cold, it may take a while to unblock. This works most effectively with a “dry” blockage but has been used successfully during colds, it just takes longer. Cut an onion and let the vapours make your eyes and nose water, this will thin the mucous; or eat spicy food.
Suppress your coughs as much as possible. Try coughing with your mouth shut if the coughs are those small irritating ones. The need to cough should lessen as your CO2 rises, depending on your current level of CO2.
Sleep on your side, especially your left side. Back sleeping, on a firm surface with just a tiny neck roll for a pillow is the best sleep posture. However, until sleep breathing is corrected, this position can backfire as it is most prone to opening the mouth when there is low CO2 status. The side position also helps reduce snoring, which is itself a symptom of low CO2, as is sleep apnea.
Avoid cigarette smoke, perfumes or highly polluted areas. If this is impossible, then note how you over-breathe during those exposures. This is because oxygen is competing with other air particles so to compensate, you breathe more in an attempt to get more oxygen. Unfortunately, you lose more CO2 with every out breath.
Treat your allergies if you have any. Exposure to an allergen causes over-breathing. (allergies page is coming soon)
Exercise correctly. During exercise and physical labour only breathe through the nose. You may find you can’t exercise as long or as intensely as you used to once you start nose breathing during exercise. You will build back up again but this time with correct breathing. Exercise is the best way to build up CO2, making the whole process much faster to your goal – as long as you aren’t jeopardizing it by mouth breathing.
Rebalance after laughter. Big belly laughs have their own health benefits, but until you have a new CO2 setting, your body will need help readjusting to the loss of it. Correct using The Secret.
Learn Pranayama breathing. A simple version is to use ring finger and thumb of the right hand. Block the right nostril with your thumb by putting it over the nostril, don’t push the side of the nose in. Breathe in through the left nostril into your stomach slowly, hold the breath; block the left nostril with the ring finger, exhale through the right nostril, hold, inhale through the right nostril, hold; block the right nostril, exhale, hold, inhale, hold, repeat. Don’t underestimate the power of this to transform your health and life.
Buy a Himalayan salt lamp.
The Breathing Exercises
See information about the Control Pause (CP) on The Carbon Dioxide Test page. You will be using that method. You will also be using Reduced Breathing (RB). RB is reducing the amount you breathe, either in depth or frequency or both. This creates a slight hunger for air (but not a starvation for air which will lead to gasping). It takes about half an hour. Do the exercise before eating where possible.
You will also take your pulse at the start and end of the exercise. When done correctly, your CP will go up and your pulse will go down. If the reverse happens, you are not doing it correctly.
1) Take your pulse and write it down.
2) CP
3) RB for 5 minutes
4) CP
5) RB 5 mins
6) CP
7) RB 5 mins
8 ) CP
9) RB 5 mins
10) CP
11) Check pulse and compare to #1.
Your CP length will indicate how often to do this exercise. If it is 30 seconds or above, you can afford to do this once or twice a day. You will find you are thinking about your breathing all the time. This is good. It will take a month or two before you naturally breathe correctly without thought. Regardless, it is always a good thing to stop taking for granted important things like breathing by bringing it into your life focus.
If your CP is 20 seconds or below, schedule four times a day for exercises and fit in a couple more when possible.
Treatment for children:
Use The Secret to unblock the nose.
On this page you can register and receive a free download of the treatment for children. I have downloaded this before and I recommend it. I am not affiliated with the website.
Children find it hard to do a control pause, so they do what is called Steps and mouse breathing.
+ try to make it fun, like a game but not hyped up; be sure they are relaxed.
+ Have her stand, ready to take some steps forward (be sure there is room enough to do this, outside might be best).
+ demonstrate how to take a small breath in and a small breath out.
+ have her hold her breath by getting her to pinch her nose, be sure her mouth is visible so you can monitor there is no mouth breathing.
+ have her walk as many steps as she can before taking a breath (through the nose). Encourage her to walk as many steps as possible without it becoming stressful.
+ don’t let her run, and each time you do the steps, be sure the pace is similar.
+ Count aloud her steps.
+ when she starts breathing, calm her breathing immediately and help her relax (like “jelly on a plate”).
+ the first breath will usually be bigger than usual but suppress her following breaths.
If Steps becomes boring you can switch occasionally to other games or exercises, concentrating on mouse breathing and breath holding during play. Muscle movement produces CO2; reduced breathing helps retain it. Explain to children the importance of nasal breathing and remind them if you see them mouth breathe.
Mouse Breathing (MB)– tell the child they are a little mouse and put their finger under their nose so they can feel the breath. The little mouse has to breathe so quietly that the hungry cat won’t hear them. Pretend to be an elephant – push out a big breath from your nose; show the difference between that and a mouse.
They will breathe faster while taking shallow mouse breaths but this is ok, you want to decrease the volume of air.
The exercise – it might take about 20 minutes:
CP – steps – MB – steps – MB - steps
CP – steps – MB – steps – MB – steps
mouse breathing – CP
Write the number of steps. It should take a couple of months of twice daily (before meals). The goal is 50 steps. 100 steps is considered a CP of 50. Skip the CP if the child has trouble with it and switch to mouse breathing. Take a rest after the steps before the CP.
Babies
Viruses such as the common cold are the biggest triggers for babies and children to start wheezing. One of the main reasons is because they start to mouth breathe due to a blocked nose. If your baby or young child gets a cold, be watchful of their breathing, and help them clear their nose if they are having trouble breathing through it. Preventing a baby from mouth breathing when they’re not sick is important, whether they have symptoms of asthma or not. Mothers in other cultures will push a sleeping baby’s lips together if they are mouth breathing; I’m unsure if this is instinctual or learned but it is a very intelligent practise.
Older children can use a neti pot to clear the nasal passages and sinuses. My daughter used one from the age of 5, and I suspect could have used one a little earlier than that. If introduced gently and with experience, the first time can be a pleasant experience for them and they won’t object too much in the future. Use a neti pot yourself several times first so you know how much salt to use, the right temperature, how to angle the pot and whatnot.
Babies cannot use a neti pot but they can have a few drops of saline (salt water) put into the nose. This thins mucous and can help clear it; wait up to ten minutes for this to have an effect though. It is frustrating when a baby has a blocked nose as they find it hard to sleep and are very irritated at having to mouth breathe. We are born with a fierce protective mechanism built in to protect us from mouth breathing, but habit can change that mechanism fast. I know babies who mouth breathed almost habitually by the age of 6 months.
Some advise using a nasal aspirator or bulb syringe for squelching out the mucous from a baby’s nose but I personally never found that useful although I have on occasion heard a good report. It it a little too traumatic for the little benefit, also.
The best bet with babies is to help as much as possible with the acute stage of runny and blocked nose and then treat for low carbon dioxide when they can breathe through the nose again. There isn’t much else you can do really, as you can’t explain to a baby why they must breathe nasally at all costs.
Watch their breathing during sleep, especially toward morning as this is when the mouth most often drops open. If you notice them mouth breathing, gently use a finger to push their lips together; this should kick start nasal breathing again. Risk waking them to do this, it is worth it. NEVER TAPE THEIR MOUTH CLOSED. Even if you think you’re the only parent on earth who would do it safely keep in mind every other parent that messed up also thought they were the only smart ones. Just don’t do it.
You may notice a baby’s mouth is open but they are nose breathing and this is normal and the most common. The tongue rests on the roof of the mouth, directing air flow through the nose, leaving the mouth completely out of the equation.
Sleep them on their left side. During waking hours also watch their breathing strictly for a few days and then randomly after that. Remember that the more they mouth breathe the more tight the nasal passage becomes which causes more mouth breathing. Give them as much exercise as they will do; if they are under six months, assist them to move their body while nose breathing – this will cause them to create more CO2 with the exercise and retain that CO2 with the nasal breathing.
If your toddler or baby is on medication for asthma, this is probably steroidal and opens their airways. Remember from this page and the one on the Carbon Dioxide Test that the body is closing those airways to retain carbon dioxide and because CO2 is needed to relax smooth muscle. Help the body do this, especially if taking steroidal medication. It is more important than ever while on those medications to decrease the breathing in toddlers and avoid mouth breathing in babies. Increase CO2 production with movement. Keep stress levels low, keep a baby skin to skin or at the very least in physical contact with the mother or main carer. To keep a baby skin to skin you can wear them in a sling under your clothing, this is how skin to skin contact is done in cold climates; this has been shown to regulate the temperature of the baby and mother so is still applicable in hot climates. You may find that wearing the baby in hot weather is uncomfortable if you are not skin to skin. Keep them away from allergens, extreme temperatures, chemicals, smoke and pollutants which cause over-breathing. Treat for yeast overgrowth and parasitic infection (link coming soon). Talk, sing and sleep close to their face. Only dress them in natural fibers and sleep them in natural fiber bedding (other fibers off-gas); throw out an old mattress or wrap the mattress. If able, invest in an organic cotton or latex mattress. Buy a himalayan salt lamp and use it wherever the baby/toddler is, especially for sleeping.
If you are concerned with the sound, frequency or any aspect of your child’s breathing, please see a health professional.
Disclaimer: This site is for information and interest purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease. Sagacious Mama and those affiliated do not accept any liability for the use and misuse of the information contained anywhere on this site, on any of its pages. Sagacious Mama can not be held accountable or responsible for any information on a site that is linked from this site and the opinions you find at external links are not necessarily those held by Sagacious Mama. Always check with your doctor before making any changes to diet, medication or lifestyle or anything else whatsoever. Lord knows you can’t be trusted to think for yourself.
“When an American physician says that circumcision prevents UTI or cancer of the penis, he is sincere. But, it is like a medieval Chinese physician saying that foot binding prevents flat feet. If someone asks me, “What rate of preventable UTI would justify male circumcision?” I respond by asking, “What rate of preventable UTI would justify female circumcision?” The second question is patently absurd unless one’s cultural bias allows a sympathetic view of female circumcision. Therefore, the first question can be only slightly less absurd.”
The foreskin is attached like a fingernail (see #4).
Need I say more?
Don’t forget to have the volume on for the following video.
That we have the legal and ethical option to inflict pain upon vulnerable, trusting, helpless babies for an unnecessary procedure is a testament to how far we still have to go before we can consider ourselves out of the dark ages.
50% of circumcisions in the United States are performed without any anaesthetic at all. The 50% that do use it, often use the topical cream which is wrought with hazards. The toxins in anaesthetics aside, the major problem is the doctors are not waiting long enough for the anaesthetic to work (link shortly), they are waiting an hour or less (sometimes only minutes) when it takes two hours or more to work. Add to this, in babies under 6 months of age, they must not have the cream on longer than 1 hour.
The dorsal blocks and other needle locals have their own problems. The pain of a local is quite significant and for a newborn it is shocking at best. Then we have the issue of whether the block worked – for some it simply doesn’t, as many of us know ourselves. For others, it takes longer, or it needs a top up… all these things an ADULT can communicate, a baby cannot. So when the baby cries, they do not know this baby is experiencing great pain. That is offensive and out of order, officially it is torture, although many parents who circumcise their boys object to the use of such a term… a rose by any other name… is still torture.
Then we have the millions upon millions of boys who are circumcised without anaesthetic because that is their custom, often ritualistic or religious.
It was not long ago that there was debate whether babies even feel the pain of having the most sensitive organ on their body sliced and peeled off. This has now been conclusively scientifically debunked, however I think many people still cling to the idea that a newborn is such a non-entity, or the common, “they made it through the birth canal didn’t they?” that they don’t feel as much pain as an adult. Add to that the fact that newborns in our society protest and scream so much that we can jot their experience of circumcision up to just another inconvenience, pat them on the back, and move past it.
Studies show there is tremendous pain felt by infants during and after circumcision.
Over a dozen studies confirm the extreme pain of circumcision. It has been described as “among the most painful [procedures] performed in neonatal medicine.”(2) In one study, researchers concluded that the pain was “severe and persistent.”(3) Increases in heart rate of 55 beats per minute have been recorded, about a 50 percent increase over the baseline.(4) After circumcision, the level of blood cortisol increased by a factor of three to four times the level prior to circumcision.(5) Investigators reported,
“This level of pain would not be tolerated by older patients.”(6) …
When you lay them on their stomachs they scream. When their diaper is wet they scream. Normally, they don’t scream if their diaper is wet. Baby boys who are not circumcised do not scream like that. The circumcised babies are more irritable, and they nurse poorly.(24) (see note on affects to breastfeeding, below)
Babies can actually survive torture, abuse and many other emotionally and physically horrific things and look quite fine in the morning, smiling at those who inflicted it upon them. Did they not feel that pain, just because they cannot communicate it in a language we understand? Or could it be that they are much more zen about suffering than an adult, who will replay the event over and over in their head and moan and whine about it for long lengths of time? Could a baby also give up trying to communicate their continued suffering, because they are not linguistic and in our culture, that is all we consider to be ‘communication’; screaming and bucking at restraints apparently isn’t clear enough to us.
Men who have been circumcised as adults have said that it hurts like hell to have their foreskin cut and removed. However, they had it easy compared to a baby because a baby’s foreskin is still attached to the glans. “Fused” is the term used in medical books. It slowly and naturally wears down so that by the age of ten the foreskin is independent of the glans. So a baby not only has the pain an adult has of circumcision but also the added pain of ripping the foreskin from the glans prematurely.
If you still insist on doing this to your child, do you know the answers to these questions:
Do you know for sure they are going to use anaesthetic on your child?
Do you know for sure the anaesthetic is a cream or a needle, which can be painful in itself?
How do you know for sure the anaesthetic will work?
Will you know the anaesthetic has kicked in before they cut? This is a very common problem that an infant cannot communicate.
Do you know why they prefer you do not accompany your baby to be circumcised and in some places you are not allowed to?
Perhaps you’d like to consider the instincts a mother has to protect her baby are there for a reason. If you see your child restrained and screaming desperately for you, even before the pain occurs, you will feel an overwhelming urge to grab your baby and run. Trust nature and follow that instinct. Keeping mothers from their babies during this abuse prevents that instinct from fully kicking in, although it will be there to some extent.
A friend told me she couldn’t watch her child being circumcised. I asked if she would sit by her baby if he had been harmed in an accident and was screaming for her, perhaps in much pain. “Of course, that’s my job.”
“Could you sit through awake surgery, blood and all, for your son?”
“I see blood every month on my panties; I’d walk through fire for my son, I would be there.”
So I asked, “What is so different about this? Because you’ll be the cause of it?”
Her mouth did the open-close goldfish thing but I could see I’d asked “the” uncomfortable question. Congratulations, you’ve just given birth to several pounds of guilt. Such is motherhood.
If you still do this to your child, at least have the guts and decency to be there. You are putting them through this, stand up and be accounted for, don’t turn your back because it’s too hard for you to sit through. This isn’t about you, it’s about them, snap out of it. Learning that now will save you the next 20 years of anguish as you battle for your lost identity to the new one of “mother”.
2) The procedure and pain has long lasting consequences.
Like we should need to be told something like that.
We don’t remember our babyhood and most of our childhood is a blur. This had led us to believe that anything that has happened during those “black” spaces of memory has not affected us. Now that science and psychology is becoming more advanced, just what it can see on the surface shows this is far from the case.
The foundation years, although not even a memory to almost every adult, are profoundly important and influential to our future reactions, relationships and general interaction with the world. The implications of being taken from the natural home of our mother’s arms, having our most intimate sexual body part forcibly inflicted with pain and altered while spread eagled on a table and with no compassionate face or touch to be found before we’ve even been given a chance to figure out where we are in this world, is profound.
That should not be a surprise. Yet how often I hear, “I hadn’t thought of that.” That’s because: We’re just not thinking about this at all. We do this out of social norm, habit and medical mythology and only a tiny fraction of people research this.
Trauma results in dissociation, a separation of the traumatic experience and associated emotional pain from awareness [28]…
The possibility of circumcision resulting in traumatic effects on older children can be better explored because of the easier access to memory and the child’s ability to talk. Two reports have studied the ritual as practiced without anaesthesia on children in Turkey. In the first report, testing subjects 4-7 years old shortly before and after the ritual yielded this result: ‘Circumcision is perceived by the child as an aggressive attack on his body, which damaged, humiliated and, in some cases totally destroyed him’ [37]. According to this study, circumcision resulted in increased aggressiveness and weakened the ego, causing withdrawal, and reduced functioning and adaptation. Withdrawal is a defensive response that individuals use to protect themselves against further attack.
Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity, and fashion will drive them to acquire any custom.
~ George Bernard Shaw
Anyone who was instrumental in having their son circumcised bucks at the term “mutilation”. It is the correct term, however. We don’t use the term commonly yet because people don’t like to hear the blatant truth of what it is.
The female version is female genital mutilation (FGM) according to most medical, legal and social arenas.
If we’re not comfortable with the term, there’s good reason for that. It isn’t the name of it that should make us uncomfortable but the FACT of it.
An interesting parallel:
According to a joint WHO/UNICEF/UNFPA statement, the use of the word “mutilation” reinforces the idea that this practice is a violation of the human rights of girls and women, and thereby helps promote national and international advocacy towards its abandonment…They also state that parents resent the suggestion that they are “mutilating” their daughters.
Specifically, it fits the criteria of mutilation in these ways:
- to cut off or otherwise destroy the use of;
- deprivation of a limb or of an essential part
The foreskin is cut off and destroyed. Just that alone fits the criteria. It is an essential part. Some contest “essential”, apparently. Yes, we live without it but we can live without many body parts, so that is not what is meant by “essential” here. Essential to natural penile function. And again, I agree a cut penis “functions”. But it no longer functions naturally. For the natural functions of the foreskin and penis, check the points about sensitivity loss and female problems.
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4) In babies, the foreskin is attached like a fingernail.
Rip off your fingernail. Notice the pain.
In infants, the foreskin is attached in the same way to the glans. Medical texts call it “fused”. The glans and the penis are like “one”. This slowly separates over time until the foreskin moves independently from the glans. A baby’s fingernails are more easily peeled off – anyone with kids may have accidentally discovered this horrifying fact! My son loses bits of nail covering now and again, his nails are like paper. Peeling back the foreskin of a baby is possible, difficult, but possible – like his fingernail.
The glans (or head of the penis), like the clitoris, was designed to be an internal organ that only comes “out” for intercourse. It is important not to retract the foreskin of an intact baby due to this as damage can result. Protect your intact son from doctors who will retract the foreskin in an examination. You don’t peel back a fingernail to see what is underneath it, to clean it or to treat any condition of it. Like a fingernail, you can see any problems from the outside and treat it orally or topically. Step in fast, doctors can rip it back before you even get a chance to stop them, causing damage. If a doctor or other health care worker attempts to retract, or already has, please follow these guidelines to prevent it happening to another baby: A Warning For Parents of Intact Sons
Once the foreskin has been removed, there is absolutely nothing to protect the glans, and it remains exposed. What was meant to be a moist, deep red internal area like the mouth is now dried out, chafed and skin coloured like the surrounding skin.
The circumcised male brings little lubrication to intercourse as the foreskin is retains the pre-ejaculate fluid; as such, western sexuality is almost cliche with the expectation that it is the woman who brings the wetness or a tube of lube. The woman alone cannot maintain the lubrication required to prevent chafing and friction for the full length of a sexual experience. Even entry to the vagina requires saliva or other artificial means most of the month except commonly during ovulation. Most of the brunt of friction was meant to be taken by the foreskin, not a glob of lubricant. Add to that the fact that a large percentage of cut men tend to thrust longer and harder to achieve the necessary sensations due to decreased sensitivity (see #8).
I once met a nurse who said a foreskin was hard to look after, yet compared to post-operative recovery, how bad could it be? Turns out there are three rules to the care and feeding of the intact penis:
1) leave it alone.
2) leave it alone.
3) leave it alone.
Uhhh, that doesn’t seem all that difficult to me. Two years on, and I have never had to do a thing to my son’s penis. It cleans itself, it’s the easiest part of his anatomy, truth be told. And no, he isn’t just “lucky”. 80% of the world is intact. Problems with body parts occur in the ears, eyes, hands, umbilical cord, heart, brain and yes, penis and foreskin. They are all rare, not something you “expect” just because the baby has that body part.
One day, male genital mutilation will be invalidated the way female genital mutilation (FGM) is in most countries now. Females are mutilated in certain cultures for the same reasons we mutilate our boys, reasons like religious morality, hygiene, protection from disease and simply out of habit. They see all that female flesh and think it serves no purpose, is ugly, pointless and a trap for discharge and dirt and the cause of immoral behaviour. All these things are exactly the way the male foreskin has been viewed. On both counts, male and female, they are all myths, dangerous, damaging myths.
The female equivalent of the foreskin is the clitoral hood (not the labia, or “lips” as commonly believed). It is called the prepuce in both men and women and has been the most vilified normal human anatomical structure for at least several thousand years.
FGM varies in severity from removal of the hood right through to removal of the entire outer labia and clitoris itself. However, the removal of the clitoral hood is technically termed Type 1a FGM This is the equivalent of “circumcision” in males, however it is illegal in most of the world and recognised as mutilation. FGM even has it’s own UN sponsored awareness day, Feb 6: International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation
I predict that one day, so shall male genital mutilation.
Just as calling male circumcision mutilation has elicited strong emotional reaction in parents, so has likening it to female genital mutilation. I’ve personally been told that it is an “offensive” and “ridiculous” comparison. This only shows the common ignorance to the facts of both male and female genital “alteration”. Apparently the removal of the female prepuce (clitoral hood) is completely different to the removal of the male prepuce (foreskin).
The idea nature or God made some kind of mistake in males or females like that is ludicrous. Nature doesn’t make mistakes. WE do.
FGM is most common in Africa, and most commonly done on young girls although often on babies, too. The parallels are interesting:
- the mother is offended at the term “mutilation”. She does NOT believe what she did to her daughter is mutilation.
- they believe it helps prevent disease. They believe it keeps things ‘cleaner”. They believe it looks better than a natural one. They believe it makes absolutely no difference to the sexual experience, or that it is better.
- they have orgasms, and believe their sexuality is fully functional and that nothing traumatic happened to them, and that no deprivation of liberty occurred. They do the same to their own daughter.
- the mother believes she has the “right” to do this to her daughter.
Now, if you’re a woman with your foreskin (prepuce) intact, are you glad you still have it, or do you think you would have been better off if you were pinned down screaming and cut because “your mother was” or because “it’s unclean” and “dirty” and “ugly”??
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6) It is pointless and absolutely unnecessary.
Remaining intact is natural. Surgery immediately upon birth is not.
There are NO medical advantages. HIV was the only medical idea showing results slightly in favour of circumcision occasionally. However, not in the most recent studies of grown males:
After adjustment for age and number of partners, circumcision was unrelated to STI history except for non-specific urethritis (higher among circumcised men) and penile candidiasis (lower among circumcised men).
Circumcision was unrelated to any of the sexual difficulties we asked about … except that circumcised men were somewhat less likely to have worried during sex about whether their bodies looked unattractive. No association between lack of circumcision and erection difficulties was detected. After correction for age, circumcised men were somewhat more likely to have masturbated alone in the previous 12 months.
I really like this man’s response to all this data:
Why are people even doing this research. You wouldn’t cut of any other healthy functional part of your body on the off chance that it may later be involved in a disease. Posted by Peter Hoathhere.
Pro-circumcision advocates will tell you that circumcision in infancy prevents penile cancer and STDs.
An infant is not sexually active! They have no risk of STDs, so again… it can wait.
As for penile cancer, it is not a risk in infancy, prophylactic surgery on an infant is maniacal. Especially when you consider the fact that penile cancer is actually more rare than breast cancer in men! 2000 men get breast cancer, 500 die in a year.
1 in 100000 men get penile cancer. When someone gives you this as a reason, feel assured you are dealing with a desperate pro-circ advocate who will be extremely biased because this particular statistic is not a valid reason to mutilate a child upon their birth. No reason is, however this one is particularly offensive.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) at least have a statistic in whole numbers, at about 1 or 2% in boys depending on who’s statistics you buy. 8% are suffered by females. They are also the only reason given by pro-circumcision activists for circumcision in infancy. UTIs are easily treated, leaving a very tiny statistic of children at risk of any kidney involvement.
Over all, the medical argument is the weakest area of the pro-mutilation argument. Studies are showing there is no benefit, now or in future. Earlier studies that showed those benefits are so obscure (penile cancer) or simple (UTIs) or futuristic (STDs) that it is rather comical.
There are no advantages to genital mutilation for either a boy or a girl however there are many disadvantages and risks.
Aside from very rare medical issues, such as phimosis, there is no reason to remove a foreskin. We don’t cut every baby’s eye muscles just because a rare few are born with strabismus (crossed eyes) and need those muscles cut. The foreskin is necessary, removing it is insanity based on mythology and in our culture almost always done simply for tradition.
Cutting a pumpkin for Halloween is a cute tradition, stick with that. Cutting a penis just because the rest of the family is cut… not so cute.
Circumcision actually has it’s history based in religion and morality (more on this in #18). However, once that reason lost favour with the people in the 1900′s, the medical reasons became popular. There are no medical benefits to having a perfectly good body part removed, and that includes the foreskin… just so we’re clear.
However, there have always been an interesting list of things the medicos of the day said you could avoid if you were circumcised.
For over a hundred years, circumcision has been a solution looking for a problem, and the problem has typically been the most frightening disease of the day -
“masturbation insanity” in the 19th century,
then tuberculosis,
Sexually Transmitted Diseases (then called Venereal Disease or VD) after World War I,
penile cancer in the 1930s, and
cervical cancer in the 1950s, when cancers were terrifyingly untreatable,
Some will say there is one advantage of genital mutilation, and that is of course, satisfying God or the religious community’s expectations. The covenant with God in the Jewish faith, for instance, has always entailed circumcision of an infant at 8 days old. Only 3% of Israeli Jews refuse to circumcise their sons. However, the movement against MGM is growing, and questions are being raised amongst the faithful.
There is the option for Brit Shalom, or Brit b’li Milah (covenant without cutting). Your son can choose to have his foreskin removed in his teens, it is the only right course of action. God will understand. What is God, if not the energy of understanding? If you believe in a vengeful God, and many do, then you may fear God’s wrath will rain upon your son. Fear not for your son. God will not blame your son, for the choice is not his, he cannot be blamed for having an intact penis. The choice to leave him intact will be yours. Therefore, the blame falls to you.
The question then becomes: do you have the courage to take the blame from God to protect your son’s genital integrity so he may make the choice for himself at a later age?
Here’s a tip: God can see into your heart, even more clearly than you can. God knows you are acting with love, he will forgive you. A loving family will also forgive you. No one will blame the child, no one who isn’t a raving lunatic, at any rate. God made the foreskin, and many babies die with one, are the babies to blame? No, God’s not stupid.
Will you act from fear, or will you act from love? Think deeply, the two are easily confused.
Many parents say it is their “choice” and they have the right. This is FALSE. You do not own your child’s body. It is their body, from birth until death. You are to help them keep it clean and healthy and safe, that’s it, that’s all.
Back OFF.
This is as much a choice as removing the labia from your daughter – do you consider that a choice that you have? Why not? Do you have the right to alter your son’s earlobe? No? Why not?
We get confused, thinking all the decisions we make on the behalf of our children such as vaccinations, schooling and dental visits are the same as removing a perfectly healthy part of their body for no reason other than “preference”. Circumcision has been put on the smörgåsbord of parental “choices” out of sheer madness and lack of clear thinking and knowledge.
If you have ever been a foster parent, you will be aware of the odd sensation of parenting a child who is not, and perhaps never will be, “yours”. You are entrusted with their care but unlike other parents, you don’t make long term decisions on behalf of that child, because it might not suit the child’s future family, religion and preferences.
It is a shame we don’t apply this same respect to our own children.
“The court will not approve the treatment unless it is necessary and in the young person’s best interests.(132)… The basis of this attitude is the respect which must be paid to an INDIVIDUAL’S BODILY INTEGRITY…. On a strict interpretation of the assault provisions of the Queensland Criminal Code, routine circumcision of a male infant COULD BE REGARDED AS A CRIMINAL ACT.”
This is the most studied and obvious aspect of this topic. Regardless of the volumes of studies on the tissue, the science, etc, the best evidence of this comes from studies of intact men who get circumcised as adults. Regret is almost inevitable. They do this for newly adopted religious reasons, misguided ideas or information on benefits and other reasons.
The foreskin is full of nerve endings and is the way of retaining natural lubrication. It is also a protective cover. Removing that cover exposes the glans of the penis to constant stimulation and rubbing against clothing. This idea makes an intact male shudder. Where some people think the exposed glans heightens sensitivity and sexual pleasure, the reverse is actually true. The penis desensitises to cope. The newly cut man will experience heightened sensitivity, however it is usually uncomfortable more than enjoyable and it does not last.
If you ask a circumcised man about sexuality and sensitivity he will usually tell you everything is fine, great, just dandy. However, he doesn’t know it any other way. You can’t miss something you’ve never had. Only those who have been circumcised as adults have that perspective.
The whole of this article is full of reasons and links about the decrease of sensitivity. However, aside from the before and after stories of men who were cut as adults, another way you can note the lessened sensitivity is the way a cut man masturbates. He will often grasp the shaft really tightly and may even reef up and down like he might pull it right off. If you have never done this, and are partnered with a circ’d man, clasp his penis and have him clasp around your hand and show you how tight to hold him, you might be surprised! It is actually difficult to maintain that kind of grip for very long. Intact men usually have to “teach” an experienced woman how to hold gently. Tell me, how is a soft vagina that has perhaps pushed out a baby supposed to compete with that kind of grip? No wonder a “tight vagina” is the holy grail in our culture.
As a female, this was a particularly important aspect in my research.
It includes problems in the relationship, problems people would never think to suspect altered genitals as the culprit. Yet, it makes so much sense when a little thought and research is put to the topic.
Mutilated/altered genitals = problems during sex for the victim and the victim’s partner. It’s not a big stretch. Suddenly everything starts to make sense. How does a woman tell her partner that although long hard thrusts are good now and then, particularly when begged for, overall, they are more irritating and… let’s be frank, boring if that is how it goes every session.
Female orgasm during sex is almost myth, with the majority of orgasms occurring during foreplay or a specific part of intercourse dedicated to “her”. The amount of books in the American market on the low libido of women is phenomenal, with sexual dysfunction in men a close second. A little anthropological look around the world will unearth the disconcerting fact that this is not occurring in natural cultures. Although there are many contributing factors in our culture, it’s time to take a good hard look at what we’re really trying to achieve by mutilating perfectly good sexual organs. Are we really going to play shocked at this point that it may be a contributing factor to one of our culture’s biggest relationship problems?
Emotional issues such as low libido, sexual frustration, disconnection from partner, lack of bonding and physical problems with lubrication, friction, and lack of clitoral stimulation to name a few. The original reason to cut men was to decrease sensitivity and keep him morally upstanding… however, these are not goals in the bedroom of a long term loving relationship!
The loss of the required extra 15 inches of flesh means the erect penis is very tight; depending on the amount of foreskin loss, it can actually pull the pubic hair off the pubic mound and up the shaft, causing chafing in the lower vagina.
America has one of the highest global rates of circumcision and is the highest by a huge margin for non-religious cutting.
One of the more common problems with circumcised penises is the tendency to cause chronic bladder infections in women from the long thrusts and “bladder banging”. Ya hear me girls? I know you hear me. Amen.
Perhaps you agree with some, all, or none. Regardless of your experience, the fact is, these things affect many people. Some may seem unrelated, too big a leap… and to that I say, unless you’ve been there, you are not in a position to say. We can only give our own perspective, we cannot speak for the truth of others.
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10) The option will always be there when he grows up.
This speaks for itself. It is my son’s foreskin. It’s his choice.
As an adult, he may wish he was circumcised at which point he can go ahead and get it done. The reverse is not true. Should he wish he had a foreskin as an adult, he cannot ever put it back on. Restoration is possible, but it is not the same as the original, with all its nerve endings. Which is tightly related to the next topic…
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11) It is irreversible.
Once gone, it’s gone. That’s it. Kaput.
Restoration is not the same. The percentage of men who become circumcised as adults is very small. The percentage of those who then restore is even smaller, mostly because people don’t know it is an option. However, those men do exist and the reports are that sexual function and sensation was a 10 before the cut, a 3 after the cut and a 7 after restoration.
Restoration won’t make it a natural 10, but a 7 is better than a 3!!
It is an incontestable fact at this point that there are more deaths from complications of circumcision than from cancer of the penis.
It is unlikely that a listing of the hazards of circumcision will deter parents who insist on circumcision of their infant for religious reasons. However, for all other parents, physicians should become more vociferous than they have been in discouraging circumcision of the newborn.
(from link above)
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13) Babies Tell You They Don’t Want To Be Circumcised.
Although I find it ridiculous that I must write this “out loud”, write it I shall because the world is full of twattery. Fathers actually believe their child wants this done, because they prefer their own circumcised penis and are glad their parents made that choice. Mothers believe their child wants it for much the same reason – they see their partner is happy with their lot – and because they prefer the look of the cut penis.
The babies are not giving you “future” consent. There is no such thing. They are not giving their consent at all, and their reactions make this clear. There are different cries in babies, and mothers in a natural setting (the jungle, for example), are so in tune with their babies they rarely cry. In fact, they don’t have diapers/nappies at all, they “just know” when the baby needs to go. When asked by Westerners how they could possibly know this, the mother looks at them like they’re whacked and says, “How do you know when you need to go?” It’s a no brainer to them, yet such a mother-child connection is an unfathomable freaky weird mystery to us.
Infants DO communicate, in quite a complex fashion. Their cries change and even our culture can tell the difference between some cries, for instance, the pain cry. If your baby is sick, a doctor will ask if your baby has a “high pitched, urgent cry” and this cry elicits panic from those around the baby, especially the mother – nature intended this reaction.
Watch this video again if you are not sure what a “pain cry” sounds like. THAT is a pain cry. Mixed with terror and confusion.
Don’t forget: they are human beings.
Our culture tends to forget that. We treat our children with much less respect than we do adults, and we already treat each other with such little respect that doesn’t say much for what’s left over for kids. If an adult hits another adult, even on the legs, he or she can be charged with assault. Yet an adult can hit a child, even in public, and not only is nothing done, they may get smiles from onlookers. That alone speaks volumes. But it’s the tip of the iceberg. We take liberties with our children, and then wonder what the heck is wrong with our social chaos, depression skyrocketing, crime widening… something is obviously going horribly wrong and I suggest how we treat our very foundation, our children, is the root of the problem. Circumcision is only one of many ways we have lost our innate ability to parent effectively.
Breastfeeding in our culture is difficult enough with everyone urging you to put the baby on formula at the first hint of a problem. A woman doesn’t need the added stress of a baby in pain and recovery from a surgery that can be completely avoided. Peeing hurts them, laying on their belly hurts them… there are many things to consider and with all the other things on a new mother’s plate, why add to that?
The statistics of failed attempts to breastfeed are huge in the United States.
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15) It Goes Against Natural and Attachment Parenting
At the moment in our culture/society attachment parenting is a minority, but it is growing. It is based on the earth-based cultures who have less or no crime, no social dysfunction and have extraordinary children, and babies that rarely cry. Anthropologists have always been amazed at these striking human/social differences to our own culture, and plenty of texts have been written on the subject, however most are not layman user friendly. For more easy to access info on this topic, I highly recommend The Continuum Concept by Jean Leidloff and The Vital Touch by Sharon Heller. The connection becomes stronger, perhaps not as strong as living wild in community and nature, but much stronger than it otherwise may have been. This connection steers you so well, you don’t need any other books as you learn from the master – your baby!
A mother ignoring her instincts will often experience what we call “post natal depression”. And the baby will experience what we call “colic”. We have a barrage of medicines for both (typical attitude “just medicate it!”) when the remedy is simple. Teach the mother to trust her instincts and stay 24 hours a day with the baby. Yes, even when she is complaining that she feels “trapped by the baby”. I had PND, very severe in fact. The remedy was information and trust and the overwhelming relief that I could bond with my baby and stop his crying if I just held him – all the time! No prams, no cots, no swings or electronic baby sitters, just me (and usually a warm breast nearby).
Babies studied in other cultures don’t arch back like they’re in pain, don’t draw their legs in like they have gas, don’t vomit like they have reflux, and don’t scream constantly. If the baby has been used to longing for you, it may take a while to build that trust, so hang in there and just hold him while he readjusts. When in doubt, hug. Good rule, that.
So for me, this was a very important point as I am an attachment parent of two. The birth is sacred, with appropriate quiet and darkness, like a cat or any other mammal giving birth seeks these elements. When born, the baby, if untouched by anyone else and left in peace, will actually crawl her own way to the breast and latch on. It is called the “newborn crawl”, and you can see it in this video. Nature always provides, in ways we can’t even imagine yet. Inbuilt mechanisms and connections… the way breast milk changes from the touch of a baby’s lips to give the baby what it needs – how does the mother’s body know from his lips what he needs? Miraculous.
If we leave things alone, and trust nature and our bodies and instincts, things go well. Removing a baby from the mother any time within the first weeks has further reaching consequences than our current medical system will admit, even with the evidence dancing in front of it.
When a baby cries, a mother wants to pick him up but our society has told her she is “spoiling” the baby. For centuries now we have left babies crying, using judgment instead of instinct to decide if they “deserve” to be given affection or if they are better left to “cry it out”. Reject judgment, trust your baby. He’s not manipulating you, you’re trying to manipulate him, he’s just trying to restore order.
Leave the baby alone, leave the mother alone, they know what they’re doing.
∞
16) It is Medieval, Shocking Barbaric and Weird.
People in the future will look back at MGM the way we today look back at public disembowelment as a form of punishment, or blood letting and leaches as sound medical practice. Back then, they scoffed at the previous century’s weird medical ideas and practices. We always think we’re so advanced, but really, we’re just infants of the scientific stage. When a thing is all pervasive, a normal part of one’s culture, even those who don’t practise it can’t see it for what it really is. If you can step back for a minute and take a good hard look at circumcision, really think about it, think about the vulnerable, trusting babies… the whole fact of it, how can a reasonable person not come to the conclusion that it is weird, barbaric and medieval?
∞
17) Spread eagled restraint is like torture to a baby.
Some babies are simply strapped down, others held down. They buck and writhe so severely they have to bolt the circumstraint to the table. Some babies have vomited from the hard crying, some have bled internally from stress. And all that is before they even start to mess with their organs – often without anaesthetic.
A baby has a natural urge to ball up, preferably on the chest of his mother It’s a gorgeous photographic moment for a reason, but it isn’t meant to be a moment, it is meant to be where the baby lives for quite some time. Natural baby slings help. Simply taking the baby from his mother will usually cause him to cry unless he is less than two weeks old (sleepy weeks). Taking a baby from his mother and wrenching his body open will cause him to react violently. Do not mistake this for stubbornness, for God’s sake he’s just been born!
I’m finding this hard to write, I hope you are finding it hard to read. If you are, maybe you’ll spread the word with me. We need to stop this, have I made that clear enough yet? That I protected my son is not enough for me. Information will stop this practise, please help me.
∞
18.) The historical reasons for it are morality based
I don’t know about you but I’m the captain of my own morality. I don’t need to be told what is wrong and right and what is respectful loving behaviour and what is out of line.
The history of circumcision is firmly rooted in morality judgments. This changed once this angle lost favour but for centuries (at least) the moral majority really felt that reigning in our sex drive would cure all societal ails. Two problems with that, one being circumcision does not curtail the sex drive, the second being… it failed miserably at curing anything, let alone society’s ails.
I believe that the best thing I can do for my son’s sense of “morality” is to be the best person I can be. I can tell him things until I’m blue in the face, but it is who I am that shapes him. I want him to know that nothing external really matters, that no matter how he alters himself or adorns himself, be it tattoos, piercings or clothing, he is already perfect, if he will just be still enough to allow that perfection to shine through.
How can I send him that message if I cut and alter him? By altering him to somehow make him “better” than he was born, I would instantly become a hypocrite.
Morality is not contained beneath the foreskin, if you hope to expose it there, you will be sorely disappointed.
∞
19) 80% of the World’s Males are Intact.
Circumcision is the overwhelming minority, and America has the highest rate of non-religious male genital mutilation in the world.
Most of the world has normal, natural, whole penises. This usually comes as quite a shock to the average American. Yet the rate of divorce, cancer, HIV, and pretty much every reason to circumcise is highest in America.
From a global perspective, most of the world does not practise circumcision; over 80% of the world’s males are intact (not circumcised) [1]. Most circumcised men are Muslim or Jewish; the USA is the only country in the world that circumcises most (60%) of its male infants for non-religious reasons. Other countries that circumcised a significant minority of male infants for non-religious reasons include Canada and Australia.
Spread the word, particularly to parents-to-be: It’s A Boy!
Talk to each other. Talk to your parents about it, but try not to blame. Who can we really blame, the parents, the doctors, or the whole system? To point that finger we first need to check the ways in which we, personally, do things out of habit or tradition or culture; the way we parent, the choices we make.
Talk to your own son if you are the regretful parent. Let him in on the secrets you’ve learned, perhaps he would benefit from restoration. Perhaps a deep psychological healing will occur just from acknowledgment and validation.
None of this is intended to make a circumcised man “feel bad about himself”. I have been told many times that it is better for men to never know they have been missing something and were so terribly brutalised. On some, ostrich-type level, yes, this is true, ignorance is bliss. However, by not disclosing the truth, it continues, and that is unacceptable. They deserve to know the truth! They still have a choice to do foreskin restoration. In the meanwhile, let’s stop this from happening to other babies, other men. Truth is power, but it isn’t always pleasant.
Good” Children – at What Price?
The Secret Cost of Shame by Robin Grille and Beth Macgregor
A five-month-old baby is lying in his mother’s arms. He is close to sleep, then wakes and begins to cry. His mother tells him that he should stop being a naughty boy, and that she will be cross with him if he doesn’t sleep.An 18-month-old child is taken to a restaurant with her father and uncle. Her father goes to the bar, leaving the child with the uncle at the table. The child gets down from the table to follow her father. She is grabbed by her uncle and told that she is a bad child, and to stay in her chair. She looks around worriedly for her father.At an adult’s birthday party, a six-year-old is awake long past his bedtime. He is running around the hall with the helium-filled balloons. His father yells at him to leave the balloons alone, and tells him to stop being a trouble-maker.What did these children learn from these experiences? Many would say that the adults’ responses were necessary to teach the child the difference between right and wrong: between “good” and “bad” behavior. Verbal punishment is common in almost every home and school. It relies on shame as the deterrent, in the same way that corporal punishment relies on pain. Shaming is one of the most common methods used to regulate children’s behavior. But what if shaming our children is harming our children? Could it be that repeated verbal punishment leaves children with an enduring sense of themselves as inherently “bad”? If so, what can we do differently?What is Shame?Shame is designed to cause children to curtail behavior through negative thoughts and feelings about themselves. It involves a comment – direct or indirect – about what the child is. Shaming operates by giving children a negative image about their selves – rather than about the impact of their behavior.What Does Shaming Look and Sound Like?Shaming makes the child wrong for feeling, wanting or needing something. It can take many forms; here are some everyday examples: The put-down: “You naughty boy!”, “You’re acting like a spoiled child!”, “You selfish brat!”, “You cry-baby!”. Moralizing: “Good little boys don’t act that way”, “You’ve been a bad little girl”. The age-based expectation: “Grow up!”, “Stop acting like a baby!”, “Big boys don’t cry”, The gender-based expectation: “Toughen-up!”, “Don’t be a sissy!”, The competency-based expectation: “You’re hopeless!”. The comparison: “Why can’t you be more like so-and-so?”, “None of the other children are acting like you are”.How Common is Shaming?
Shaming is very common, and is considered by many to be acceptable. Shaming is not restricted to “abusive” families; in fact, it occurs in the “nicest” of family and school environments. A recent study of Canadian schoolchildren, for instance, found that only 4% had not been the targets of their parents’ shaming; including “rejecting, demeaning, terrorizing, criticizing (destructively), or insulting statements” (Solomon & Serres, 1999).
As parents we tend to resort to shaming when we feel overwhelmed, irritated or frustrated, and we feel the need to control our children. Until very recently little consideration has been given to its harmful effects.
Shame: A New Frontier of Psychological Study
The use of corporal punishment against children has been hotly debated, and under increasing negative scrutiny in recent years. More and more nations legislate against it, schools ban it, international organizations devoted to its elimination are proliferating, and research psychologists have amassed mountains of evidence of its long-term damaging effects. In the meantime, the issue of “shaming” as punishment has been largely overlooked. Only recently have psychologists begun to discover that shaming has serious repercussions.
Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, says that we are now discovering the role that shame plays in relationship difficulties and violent behavior. There is a new effort by psychologists to study shame, how it is acquired, and how it affects a person’s relationships and functioning in society. The study of this previously “ignored emotion” is such a new frontier because it is the most difficult emotion to detect in others. Dr Paul Eckman, from the University of California, says that shame is the most private of emotions, and that humans have yet to evolve a facial expression that clearly communicates it. Is this why we might not see when our children are suffering from this secret emotion?
How Shame is Acquired
Children have a natural desire to develop a social conscience. When treated with the same respect as adults, and exposed to adults who respect each other; children will naturally develop a capacity for empathic, caring and respectful behavior.
No-one is born ashamed. It is a learned, self-conscious emotion, which starts at roughly two years of age with the advent of language and self-image. Although humans are born with a capacity for shame, the propensity to become ashamed in specific situations is learned.This means that wherever there is shame, there has been a shamer. We learn to be ashamed of ourselves because someone of significance in our lives put us to shame. Shaming messages are more powerful when they come from those we are closest to, from people we love, admire or look up to. That is why parents’ use of shaming can have the deepest effects on children. However, shaming messages from teachers, older siblings and peers can also injure a child’s self-image. Since children are more vulnerable and impressionable than adults, shaming messages received in childhood are significantly more difficult to erase.Messages of shame are mostly verbal, but there can be great shaming power in a look of disdain, contempt, or disgust.Why Is Shaming So Common?Shaming acts as a pressure valve to relieve parental frustration. Shaming is an anger-release for the parent; it makes the shamer feel better – if only momentarily.When made to feel unworthy, children often work extra hard to please their parents. This makes the parent think that the shaming has “worked”. But has it?
The Damaging Effects of Shame
To understand the damage wrought by shame, we need to look deeper than the goal of “good” behavior. If we think that verbal punishment has “worked” because it changed what the child is doing, then we have dangerously limited our view of the child to the behaviors that we can see. It is all too easy to overlook the inner world of children: the emotions that underlie their behavior, and the suffering caused by shame. It is also easy to miss what the child does once out of range of the shamer.
Even well-meaning adults can sometimes underestimate children’s sensitivity to shaming language. There is mounting evidence that some of the words used to scold children – household words previously thought “harmless” – have the power to puncture children’s self-esteem for years to come. A child’s self-identity is shaped around the things they hear about themselves. A ten-year-old girl, for example, was overcome with anxiety after spilling a drink. She exclaimed over and over: “I’m so stupid! I’m so stupid!”. These were the exact words her mother had used against her. She lived in fear of her parents’ judgement, and learned to shame herself in the same way that she had been shamed.
If children’s emotional needs are dismissed, if their experiences are trivialized, they grow up feeling unimportant. If they are told that they are “bad” and “naughty”, they absorb this message and take this belief into adulthood.
Shame makes people feel diminished. It is a fear of being exposed, and leads to withdrawal from relationships. Shaming creates a feeling of powerlessness to act, and to express oneself: we want to dance, but we’re stopped by memories of being told not to be “so childish”. We seek pleasure, but we’re inhibited by inner voices telling us we are “self-indulgent” or “lazy”. We strive to excel, or to speak out, but we’re held back by a suspicion that we are not good enough. Shame takes the shape of the inner voices and images that mimic those who told us “Don’t be stupid,” or “Don’t be silly!”
Shame restrains a child’s self-expression: having felt the sting of an adult’s negative judgement, the shamed child censors herself in order to escape being branded as “naughty” or “bad”. Shame crushes children’s natural exuberance, their curiosity, and their desire to do things by themselves.
Thomas Scheff, a University of California sociologist, has said that shame inhibits the expression of all emotions – with the occasional exception of anger. People who feel shamed tend toward two polarities of expression: emotional muteness and paralysis, or bouts of hostility and rage. Some swing from one to the other.
Like crying for sadness, and shouting for anger, most emotions have a physical expression which allows them to dissipate. Shame doesn’t. This is why the effects of shame last well into the long term.
Recent research tells us that shame motivates people to withdraw from relationships, and to become isolated. Moreover, the shamed tend to feel humiliated and disapproved of by others, which can lead to hostility, even fury. Numerous studies link shame with a desire to punish others. When angry, shamed individuals are more likely to be malevolent, indirectly aggressive or self-destructive. Psychiatrist Peter Loader states that people cover up or compensate for deep feelings of shame with attitudes of contempt, superiority, domineering or bullying, self-deprecation, or obsessive perfectionism.
Severe Shame and Mental Illness
When shaming has been severe or extreme, it can contribute to the development of mental illness. This link has been underestimated until now. Researchers are increasingly finding connections between early childhood shaming and conditions such as depression, anxiety, personality disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorders. In his book, The Psychology of Shame, Gershen Kaufman goes further to assert a link between shaming and addictive disorders, eating disorders, phobias and sexual dysfunction.
Shame Doesn’t Teach about Relationship or Empathy
While shaming has the power to control behavior, it does not have the power to teach empathy. When we repeatedly label a child “naughty” or otherwise, we condition them to focus inwardly, and they become pre-occupied with themselves and their failure to please. Thus children learn to label themselves, but learn nothing about relating, or about considering and comprehending the feelings of others. For empathy to develop, children need to be shown how others feel. In calling children “naughty”, for example, we have told the child nothing about how we feel in response to their behavior. Children cannot learn about caring for others’ feelings, nor about how their behavior impacts on others, while they are thinking: “There is something wrong with me.” In fact, psychotherapists and researchers are finding that individuals who are more prone to shame, are less capable of empathy toward others, and more self-preoccupied.
The only true basis for morality is a deeply felt empathy toward the feelings of others. Empathy is not necessarily what drives the “well-behaved” “good boy” or “good girl”.
The Myth of Morality
We are naive to confuse shame-based compliance with morally motivated behavior. At best, repeated shaming leads to a shallow conformism, based on escaping disapproval and seeking rewards. The child learns to avoid punishment by becoming submissive and compliant. The charade of “good manners” is not necessarily grounded in true interpersonal respect.
What Should We Consider Shameful?
Shame varies among cultures and families: what is considered shameful in one place may be permissible, unremarkable, even desirable in another. What is called “naughty behavior” is usually arbitrary and subjective: it varies significantly from family to family.
In one family, nudity is acceptable, in another unthinkable. Being noisy and boisterous is welcome in one family, frowned upon in another. While one family might enjoy speaking all at once around the dinner table, another family might find this rude. Such examples help us to realize that our way is not the only way: that our own way of deciding what is shameful behavior can be arbitrary and variable.
The History of Shaming
Children have been shamed for many hundreds of years. Historically, they have been thought to be inherently antisocial, and their behavior was seen through this lens. One seventeenth century author,Richard Allestree, wrote: “The newborn babe is full of the stains and pollution of sin, which it inherits from our first parents through our loins”1. In the Middle Ages, the ritual of Baptism actually included the exorcism of the devil from the child. Children who were felt to be too demanding were thought to be possessed by demons. Some early church fathers declared that if a baby cried more than a little, she was committing a sin. It has been an age-old pattern to blame the child for the numerous challenges and difficulties encountered by parents.
This way of thinking about children has persisted into modern times, although in less extreme ways. For example, a child having a tantrum is often seen as “spoiled”, and deliberately trying to antagonize his parents. A crying child risks being described as a “little terror” or “whiner” who is “just trying to get attention”.
There is no question that parenting can be frustrating sometimes. But it is groundless to automatically assume that the child is out to upset us, or to attribute some kind of nasty intention to the child. This imagined malevolence is usually what underlies the impulse to shame children.
A Shift in Attitude: Respecting the Child
It is entirely possible to set strong boundaries with children without shaming. However, this requires a fundamental attitude shift, beginning with re-evaluating what we think is motivating our child’s behavior.
Children have a natural desire to develop a social conscience. When treated with the same respect as adults, and exposed to adults who respect each other; children will naturally develop a capacity for empathic, caring and respectful behavior.
“Misbehavior”? Or Developmental Stage?
Toddlers can be exasperating. But does this mean they’re “misbehaving”?
Sometimes what we condemn as “misbehavior” is simply the child’s attempt to have some need met in the best way they know, or to master a new skill. The more parents can accept this, the less they are tempted to shame children into growing up faster. For instance, it is normal for toddlers to be selfish, possessive, exuberant and curious. It is not unusual for two-year-olds to be unable to wait for something they want, as they don’t understand time the way adults do. It is quite ordinary for three-year-olds to be sometimes defiant or hostile. If we shame instead of educate, we interrupt a valuable and stage-appropriate learning process, and our own opportunity to learn about the child’s needs is lost.
A three-year-old who defies her mother by refusing to pack up her toys – after being told to do so repeatedly – may be attempting to forge a separate and distinct self-identity. This includes learning to exercise her assertiveness, and learning to navigate open conflict. Toddlers can be exasperating. But does this mean they’re “misbehaving”?
Sensible limits are essential, but if children are shamed for their fledgling and awkward attempts at autonomy, they are prevented from taking a vital step to maturity and confidence. In the period glibly called the “terrible twos”, and for the next couple of years, toddlers are discovering how to set their own boundaries. They are learning to assert their distinct individuality, their sense of will. This is critical if they are to learn how to stand up for themselves, to feel strong enough to assert themselves, and to resist powerful peer pressures later in life. If we persist in crushing their defiance, and shaming children into submission, we teach them that setting boundaries for themselves is not okay.
Even babies are thought to misbehave, such as when they don’t sleep when they are told to. How could a five-month-old baby, for example, possibly be “naughty” for failing to go to sleep? Though it can be difficult for parents when babies experience disturbed sleep, it is nonsensical to see a non-sleeping baby as “disobeying” the parent, and to blame the baby for this.
Consider the example of an eight-month-old who crawls over to something that has flashing lights and interesting sounds. He pulls himself up to it and begins to explore. He does not know that it is his father’s prized stereo. He finds himself being tapped on his hand by his mother, who tells him to stop being naughty. He cries. At eight months, a baby is unable to tell the difference between a toy and another’s valuable property, and would be incapable of self-restraint if he could. Children’s ceaseless curiosity – a frequent target for shaming – is what drives them to learn about the world. When a child’s exploration is encouraged in a safe way, rather than castigated, their self-confidence grows. Unfortunately, we frequently call a behavior which may be entirely stage-appropriate “naughty”, simply because it threatens our need for order, or creates a burden for us.
A flustered mother and her distraught four-year-old daughter emerge from a local store. The girl is sobbing as she is forcefully strapped into her stroller. “Stop it, you whiner!” screams the mother, as she shakes her finger in the little girl’s face. Children are often berated for simply crying. Many people believe that a crying baby or child is misbehaving. Strong expressions of emotion – such as anger and sadness – are the child’s natural way of regulating their nervous system, while communicating their needs. Children cry when they are hurting, and they have a right to express this hurt! Even though it is often hard to listen to, it must be remembered that it is a healthy, normal reaction that deserves attention. It is tragic to see how often children are shamed for crying.
Here is a further example of what happens when we are unaware of developmental norms. Until recently, toddlers were started on potty-training far too early, before they were organically capable of voluntary bowel control. Many found this transition to be a battle, and toddlers were commonly shamed and punished for what was a normal inability. What was once a struggle for both parents and children has been greatly alleviated through more accurate information about childhood development. Shaming often takes place when we try to encourage or force a behavior that is developmentally too early for the child’s age.
We have come a long way in our understanding about child development in recent decades, and made many advances in childcare as a result. Easy-to-read child-development books fill the stores, by authors such as Penelope Leach, Katie Allison Granju, Pinky McKay and Jan Hunt, and these can help parents to have reasonable and realistic expectations of their children. Children and parents are both happier when parents have reasonable and age-appropriate expectations of their child’s behavior.
Understanding Instead of Shaming
Is it possible to understand what motivates children when they are “behaving badly”, instead of shaming them? What might “bad” behavior be a reaction to?
When we don’t seek to understand a child’s “bad” behaviors, we risk neglecting their needs. For instance, sometimes children repeatedly behave aggressively – over and above what can normally be expected of children their age. This could be due to conflict in the home, bullying at school, or competition with a sibling. Often what we expediently label as “bad” behavior is a vital signal that the child in question might actually be hurting. Research has repeatedly shown that a consistent pattern of antisocial behaviors, for example hostility and bullying, are children’s reactions to having felt victimized in some way. Children often “act out” their hurts aggressively, when they have not found a safe way to show that they have been hurt.
Ironically, shame itself can be the underlying cause of difficult behavior. Since shaming is a judgment from someone with more power than the child, this makes the child feel small and powerless. Sometimes, children turn the tables: they reclaim this lost power by finding another person to push around – usually someone smaller or more vulnerable than themselves.
Children are usually highly sensitive to the “vibes” in their environment; they pick up tensions between their parents, or other family members. At times “naughty” behavior may be the child’s way of reacting to this tension.
Children are less given to act out when they are receiving enough attention, when their hunger for play, discovery and pleasurable human contact is satisfied. Provocative behavior can indicate boredom, or perhaps the need for another “dose” of happy engagement with someone who is not feeling irritable, someone who has the time and energy to spare.
Finally, children can be grumpy or “difficult” simply from over-tiredness. In this case, what is dismissed as “bad” behavior might be a child’s way of saying “I’m over the edge, and I can’t handle it”. Curiously enough, when we as parents react with verbal assaults, we are communicating the same thing. Isn’t yelling at children that they are “naughty” or “terrible” (or worse) a kind of adult tantrum, a dysfunctional adult way of coping with frustration?
It is worth remembering that some causes of “misbehavior” are a lot less obvious. For instance, children need to feel our strength – they are uncomfortable with weakness in our personal boundaries. They need exposure to our true feelings, and they sense when we are hiding or pretending. They need their feelings and opinions validated, and are highly sensitive to poor empathy. Frequently, they react to any of these conditions by becoming provocative. Sometimes we blame and shame children for their vexing behavior, because the causes are hard to see.
Cultivating Empathy: Through Remembering
Parents often do to their children as was done to them. It is known that violence can be passed down through generations. Many parents realize that they are perpetuating a cycle in which they are shaming their children, in the same ways that they were once shamed by their own parents. Those that have forgotten the sting and humiliation of being shamed, risk being insensitive to the shame they inflict on their own children. Change requires deepening one’s empathy toward the child, and this comes from remembering how it felt to be a child. The understanding that comes from seeing the world through a child’s eyes can help adults to influence children without shaming them.
Managing Emotions
As parents, it is not unusual to find ourselves struggling, frazzled, or nearing an emotional boiling-point. When we don’t find healthy ways to discharge this frustration, we risk taking it out on our children. Although irritation is a normal part of parenting, this is not because children are “too demanding”. Children are children, and the fact that child-rearing can be difficult is not their fault. There are many ways to reroute our excess anger, such as chopping wood, going for a walk, or talking our frustration through with friends.
Everyone’s capacity for loving patience is finite; that’s human. When parents experience excessive strain this is largely due to our adherence to the myth that it takes just two adults to raise a child. Our society has grossly underestimated the energy required to truly meet children’s needs. We can avoid shaming simply by sharing the load – by asking for, and accepting, practical help from trusted friends and community. When we hear ourselves shaming our children, we might take this as a sign that we are needing more assistance.
What Do We Do Now? A New Paradigm for Boundary Setting
Respectful boundary-setting implies a strong statement about you, as opposed to a negative statement about the child. In this way, children gradually develop a good capacity to hear and comprehend the feelings of others. Children benefit from open expression of emotions; from seeing when their parents are angry, or upset. It is OK to be angry with your children, to let them see you are annoyed at something they have done, (as long as you don’t shock or terrorize them). Children learn best when they can see the kind of impact their behavior has on the feelings of others. Finally, it helps children to listen to and respect your feelings, if their right to express their feelings is equally respected.
Redirecting the Child’s Impulses
From time to time, we are compelled to intervene in our child’s activity, when we fear that either a person or a treasured object might get hurt. Shaming can be avoided if, instead of just chastising or stopping the child, we also provide a safer, alternative activity. Occasional aggression is part of normal, balanced healthy development. Children are often shamed and punished for this, when instead they could be shown ways to channel their natural aggression safely. Sometimes it is important to re-evaluate whether we need to chastise at all. A guideline comes from considering whether the behavior in question is actually causing harm to anyone, or creating a concrete risk.
The Role Model
Role-modeling is the most powerful teaching tool. Children don’t do what you say, they do as you do. The kind of respect they show others and themselves is a reflection of the kind of respect they have themselves been shown – and the respect they have witnessed displayed between the important people in their lives. Are we role-modeling the kind of behavior that we want our children to display?
Conclusion
Many people are still convinced that smacking or shaming are the only antidotes for preventing antisocial behaviors in children. The suggestion of giving up shaming or smacking is misinterpreted by some as attempts to disempower parents; to turn them into guilt-laden, ineffectual and permissive wimps. Not so. The most effective and healthy boundaries can be set without resorting to violence or shaming. Being strong with children does not mean being harsh, or humiliating.
There are alternatives to shaming that are healthier and more effective. Children who are shown consistent boundaries by parents who are able to express their feelings and needs in a trusting and respectful way, grow up with stronger self-worth and social awareness, free of the toxic effects of shame.1 Richard Allestree, The Whole Duty of Man (London, 1766), p.20.
Editor’s note: See “The Myth of Original Sin” for a conflicting theory formulated by Arminius in the same century.
Most of the references are strewn through the article itself with links; these are extras:
References
Bradshaw, J. (1988) Healing The Shame That Binds You
Gilbert P & Gerlsma C (1999) “Recall of Shame and Favouritism in Relation to Psychopathology” The British Journal of Clinical Psychology Vol. 38 p.357-373
Goleman, D. (1995) Emotional Intelligence – Why it can Matter more than IQ. New York: Bantam Books
Kaufman, G. (1989) The Psychology of Shame – Theory and Treatment of Shame-based Syndromes. New York: Springer-Verlag
Loader, P. (1998) “Such a Shame – A Consideration of Shame and Shaming Mechanisms in Families” Child Abuse Review, Vol. 7 p.44-57.
Solomon C. R. & Serres, F. (1999) “Effects of Parental Verbal Aggression on Children’s Self-Esteem and School Marks”, Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. (23)4 p.339-351.
Tangney, J.P. & Fischer, K. W. (1995) The Self-Conscious Emotions – The Psychology of Guilt, Embarrassment, and Pride. London: Guilford Press.Robin Grille is a Sydney-based psychologist. He has a private practice in individual psychotherapy and relationship counseling. Robin can be contacted at: interact@worldpacific.com.au.Robin Grille’s book Parenting for a Peaceful World (Longueville Media, 2005) is available in our gift shop for North American buyers. Buyers from other countries can order the book from Robin’s website.Beth Macgregor is a psychologist, and an adult educator in the fields of child protection and child development. She is a member of the NSW Committee of the Australian Association of Infant Mental Health.First published in Sydney’s Child, May 1, 2002.Reprinted with permission of the authors.
The brain on the left hand side has normal oxygen levels. The brain on the right is dim from hyperventilation (over-breathing).
correct breathing is a lost art in the western culture
