Bianca Tora is a writer interested in the relationship between lifestyle and the brain, specifically the area of emotional regulation and control. She has written a book on anger management for children. Visit her help-your-child-with-anger http://www.help-your-child-with-anger.com
Art therapy has long been seen as a form of therapeutic process for emotional disorders and anxiety. Van Gogh kept some of his demons at bay through art. More recently, therapists have reported a high success rate with the use of creative expression to deal with anger, depression and pain.
Take for example Carla P., who was saved from her 15 year severe depression by art therapy.
We know that art therapy can help children with anger, stress and depression. Do you know that it can also help children with heart disease?
One such patient is an 18 year old girl profiled in the July 1 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal. At age 9, she had her second heart transplant. Her body was determined to reject the first heart. She went into cardiac arrest six times in 2 hours.
Thirty years ago, children who balked at going to school were assumed to be unmotivated and lazy. Most parents assumed that their children had a "bad attitude" about school and that they would somehow grow out of it. Psychologists are now re-evaluating school phobia as an anxiety disorder that warrants early treatment and intervention.
Why Treatment is Necessary
Experts are urging parents to be aware of anxiety symptoms in children so that the disorder can be treated early.
We are what we eat. Moreover we need to be more careful about what we put in our children's mouths. Studies have shown that we have reason to be concerned about the relationship between food and behavior.
Our food is depleted of nutrients because of changes in agricultural practices adopted in the seventies. What we eat is contaminated by additives.
It is easier to bear a grudge against an enemy, easier to build walls than to let them go. Far easier it is to bask in righteous indignation than to admit that perhaps in the larger scheme of things, we are not all that right; perhaps we might even be wrong. Sam Keen once said,"Our problem lies not in our technology, but in our minds, in our ancient tendency to create enemies in our imagination.
What is most encouraging about the scientific world we live in today is its inexhaustible exploration of different approaches to the same problem. ADHD is a case in point. Research has demonstrated that the causes of hyperactivity and impulsiveness run the gamut from nutritional deficiencies to delay in brain maturation. Now new research proposes another reason for the problem: faulty time perception may be the culprit behind hyperactivity.
One form of anger management training takes into consideration a basic law of nature: energy can be changed from one form to another. Fossil fuels, for example, can be converted into electrical energy forms. Potential energy becomes kinetic energy when we move. The key is finding a fun and accessible way to make this conversion possible.
Helping your child move excess energy, stress or anger into something positive can easily be done through art.
We know that care of the brain is essential for the grandkids. What about us--the almost or over sixtysomethings? What goes for the little ones goes for us as well!
My mother used to say that her brain was stuck in cement. She could never learn as quickly as we (the children) did because her brain had hardened with age. This assumption about the brain has been tossed aside as another urban legend down the dust.
Television is so much a part of our lives we need to be concerned about its effect on our children. The problem is that violence in verbal and physical form appears on screen daily.
Do you know that there are
a)6 violent acts per hour on prime time television
6 violent acts per hour on children's programs
c)50,000 TV commercials exposed to children per year?
Studies show that violence in media does have an impact on children and adolescent behavior.
Years ago, we walked a mile to school without batting an eye. Then we walked back home, stopping often at the park to play unattended, unsupervised. After all, it was a park and kids were supposed to play there.
These were assumptions we took so placidly in those safer days before Madeleine McCann and Tori Stafford. The stories of these girls' terrible abductions remind us that the situation confronting parents and caregivers is totally different in this day and age.
Bianca Tora is a writer interested in the relationship between lifestyle and the brain, specifically the area of emotional regulation and control. She has written a book on anger management for children. Visit her 
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