It continues to surprise and motivate me how much the needs of your children drive your ambitions. Our oldest daughter struggles with focus and impulse and emotion control when something isn’t her own idea. Given that struggle for her, I have looked into more and more information on ADD and ADHD. One great resource I have stumbled upon is ADDitude Magazine. I signed up for a webinar with them through an email I received as a teacher. I thought this may help with some of my students as well as my daughter. Since that webinar, I have received several emails and read many articles about diet and behavior therapies and other alternative treatments for ADD, ADHD and their symptoms. As I have read these articles two things have come glaringly through. One is to avoid sugar and the other is to increase protein.

I have been working to do that for my daughter. We have especially been working on increasing protein at breakfast to help improve focus and control. It has had a HUGE impact on her behavior. We have also been working on limiting sugar since the end of the holidays. The combination of limiting sugar and increasing protein seems to really pay off at school. I have heard from both her regular classroom teacher and her interventionist that she has seemed a lot more focused and well behaved since coming back from Christmas break. It is such an exciting thing as a mother to finally find something that works! It is also so exciting to find something that is relatively simple but impactful! A positive increase in control and focus without a diagnosis or medication is positive all around!

One of her current favorites for breakfast is a breakfast burrito. I simply scramble a couple of eggs and dump them in a tortilla. Then we add some shredded cheese and some crumbled bacon that we cooked in the oven at the beginning of the week. I roll them up and then cut it in half (one half for each girl). I love this recipe because it is increasing the protein the oldest is getting and it is increasing the Vitamin K that both girls are getting. The latter has been a focus of mine since the girls have both gotten crowns on their baby teeth because of cavities. Since I have never had a cavity, all of this dental stuff is new to me and super alarming! So, of course I have been researching ways to improve their diet to help strengthen their teeth. If you have any tips or tricks that you have had success with for focus or teeth remineralization, I’d love to hear about them!