Helping Children (and their Parents) with Homeopathy: Desiree Brazelton (S3034)

 

Desiree Brazelton approached me about sharing her work addressing parenting within her practice of consulting with children, and indicated that she had been thinking about the remedy states of certain parenting styles.

 

I loved this idea, as in my own life as a homeschooling parent and a practitioner who has a lot of families and children in my practice, I feel like I observe first hand how different parenting styles can both enrich and support the homeopathic process, and how they can also be a huge barrier and obstacle to cure- as you heard in the introductory quote.

 

So today I’m going to share with you our conversation which ranges far and wide, as we touched on so many of the elements of parenting and homeopathy that intersect when working with children.

The ability to work with children and infants and even pregnant mothers is such a cornerstone of homeopathy, and I have always felt,  a unique aspect to it because with many other modalities, the options are limited. Acupuncture, for example, may be challenging with a child who has a fear of needles, or is too young to participate in the process and doesn't lend itself at al to the at-home needs of a mom or dad tending young children through illnesses and other acutes.

 

Traditional medications and even herbal supplements must be prepared specifically for children in appropriate doses, and even then, we often learn- too late- that certain preparations and medications are not safe for children and are in fact quite harmful, in addition to our inherent understanding of suppression etc.

 

But homeopathy is that most democratic of all medicines, where a vital force is a vital force, and it’s reach is deep and vast, and so the potential is there not only to address those standard children’s issue such as teething and bed wetting and nightmares, but also to address big miasmatic issues and behavior and developmental issues that are impeding the child from thriving.

 

Homeopathy can be so profound for children in fact that we find ourselves walking a fine line between suggesting a remedy for true pathology and suffering and a remedy that might temper a child to make the parent’s life easier. I confess to having thought of homeopathy this way in my early years, when my son was tantrumming and my daughter seemed overbearing… I thought : if i just find the right remedy!!

 

But in fact, often the greatest shifts I saw in my children were after I had a profound remedy for myself, and i was able to be in relationship with my children in a different way, allow them more space, and shift how I interacted with them.

 

Desiree and I talk about this at some length, and I feel it’s a very important piece for homeopaths to think about, as we all know what it’s like to have a desperate parent on the other end of the phone or email begging us to DO SOMETHING.

In these situations, we have to be able to look beyond the remedy and consult with parents on multiple levels.

 

My conversation with Desiree that I bring you today is exciting in that we look at how all these pieces play against each other, ultimately allowing us to fulfill the call of the Organon paragraph 1.

 

You can find some of the resources Desiree mentions at: 

https://www.hoffmaninstitute.org

and also at her own website: 

http://sparkwellness.net