In our commitment to raise healthy, conscious children and create a healthy world, it is hard to understand how people can choose to spend money for something that not only does not work, but poisons humans and the environment.

Research shows that what works and is healthy for adults also works well for children, if adjusted to be age-appropriate. Children, like adults, do not suffer from a deficiency of white sugar, white flour, junk food, or processed foods. A growing child as well as an adult is hurt by junk foods and benefited by healthy foods.

Dietary patterns are set at a very early age—somewhere between four and eight years old. The research shows that children who have established a healthy diet are healthier in the longer range and less likely to develop cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and obesity.

Try as we might, we cannot force our children to reach their full potential. Theirs is the life that they alone must live. The role of the parent is to prepare the most fertile soil and appropriately water the seedling so it can most fully blossom.

The metaphor of transformation deepens as we consider how a butterfly needs to struggle for its ability to fly. If the chrysalis is broken by someone in an attempt to help free the butterfly, its wings will be shriveled and immobile.

As the adults, we are the ones who set the stage for vitality, love, or disharmony in the home. We set ourselves up for one or the other, and our children take their cues from us.

Parenting is a gift for adults’ spiritual growth spurts, and it’s a challenge to think of anything else that fills a home with more laughter!