In The Middle

Welcome to In The Middle. Here you will find great parenting resources related to school aged children and pre-teens.

Parenting Articles:

Dietary Guidelines for a Child's Growing Brain: The Basics

Once a child moves beyond breastfeeding, it's up to us parents to take on the awesome responsibility of navigating our way through a pretty lousy American diet and nourishing our kids in ways that help -- not hinder -- their growing bodies and brains.

This is more challenging than it ought to be, because the American diet -- especially for kids -- is so skewed toward empty calories. Too many of the foods favored by kids have too much carbohydrate and sugar but not enough protein and far too few good fats (especially EFAs) and micronutrients.

It's our job, then, to make sure that our kids aren't poisoned or sickened by diets that are aggressively high in sugar and high in saturated fat but low in protein, vitamins, minerals, and essential trace elements. We need to resist the urge to let marketing efforts (especially those of the fast-food industry) lure us into giving our kids the wrong kind of nutrition. Instead, we have to dedicate ourselves to feeding them adequate amounts of the six key nutrients.

Over the years, parents have asked me to provide a quick overview of the basic dietary guidelines they should follow with their children in order to promote optimal brain health and development, which also means optimal overall growth and development.

Dr. Shannon's Basic Dietary Guidelines for All Children

If you have the desire to enrich your child's diet in order to safe-guard healthy brain growth and development, here are a few simple guidelines that may help. I encourage you to consider these suggestions, but please disregard those that don't apply to your child. For example, if you already know that your child has a peanut allergy, of course she shouldn't eat nuts. If your toddler seems to tolerate dairy well, there's no need to switch him to rice or soy products. Feeding our children well requires effort, but it isn't complicated. The results will be well worth the effort. Here are the basics. Read More..