[email protected]

In a message dated 11/16/05 8:03:17 PM, sandrewmama@... writes:


> -=-What would you say to a mother who insists that her children (teens)
> eat little to no sugar, especially on an empty stomach because
> it "wreaks havoc on the pancreas and insulin production" not to
> mention suppresses their immune system?-=-
>

If I knew the whole family, I'd talk to the teens and not to the mom.

Either way, I'd discuss it with my kids (if they were interested--that would
be Holly and maybe Marty, for such a topic) and use it as an example of a
parent micro-managing a kid's life, and about bad science (or superstition,
depending).

That's what I'd do. That and try to avoid hearing her tales of doom.

Sandra


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[email protected]

In a message dated 11/16/2005 9:03:15 PM Central Standard Time,
sandrewmama@... writes:

Someone on my local list told us that
her son came down with a cold because he drank a root beer float
with his cross country team to celebrate a victory. The poor kid
couldn't run so well with his cold and got knocked down to JV and
his mom is convinced it's because he drank that root beer float.




~~~
He caught a cold because he had too much exposure to one of thousands of
cold viruses he came in contact with in the course of an hour at a public high
school. sheesh.

Where do we get this idea that we can always prevent disease, no matter
what, if we just do x and such?

Karen


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Joyce Fetteroll

On Nov 16, 2005, at 10:03 PM, Sandrewmama wrote:

> She said she found out about it from her daughter because her son
> was afraid to tell her because, "he knew" she'd "be mad that he had
> made
> such a poor choice when he knew better."

Suspecting a connection between two things is the beginning point of
scientific investigation, not the end point. To be a valid conclusion
he would need to repeat the experiment several times.

But since he was afraid to tell her it's also possible he was
convinced he couldn't fight off a cold because of the root beer so
his body gave into it

And if that's true the experiment wouldn't work. Now he's more
convinced her idea is right.

Joyce
Answers to common unschooling questions: http://home.earthlink.net/
~fetteroll/rejoycing/
Weekly writing prompts: [email protected]




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Liz in AZ

Chris, I work with this woman. Okay, not really, because my coworker
doesn't homeschool, but I work with a woman who believes that *all*
colds are caused by drinking milk (not, for example, by exposure to
a sick person), that consumption of **any** soy will wreak immediate
and lasting damage on the endocrine system, and on and on and on. I
have worked with her for 5 years, through 2 pregnancies (mine, I
mean) and my kids' early lives. I have suffered a pretty steady
stream of "advice" and other "helpful information". I have tried
talking sense to her; I have tried showing her research and studies
online that refute her "information"; I have tried telling her to
buzz off. Nothing works. I now either ignore it or gently tease her
for her "wacky ideas".

What I'm getting at is that there is probably nothing anyone can say
or do to disabuse a person like this of their notions. That frame of
belief is so strong, in my experience, that reality gets warped to
fit it, not the other way around. [My coworker, for example, is
never sick--because she takes so many vitamins. But once or twice a
year she "eats some bad food", resulting in symptoms that look for
all the world like intestinal flu.]

Liz in AZ

--- In [email protected], Sandrewmama
<sandrewmama@m...> wrote:
> What would you say to a mother who insists that her children
(teens)
> eat little to no sugar, especially on an empty stomach because
> it "wreaks havoc on the pancreas and insulin production" not to
> mention suppresses their immune system?

[email protected]

-=-
> Where do we get this idea that we can always prevent disease, no matter 
> what, if we just do x and such?
> -=-

People like control and feeling they're powerful.

They don't mind there being God of the one-and-only or some sort, as long as
they're sure they can control him too.

Last time there was a mini-ice age, in the Middle Ages, people undoubtedly
thought their crop failures had to do with how much money they were giving the
church, or whether they were being faithful in marriage or saying prayers at
night. That seems silly to most people now (not at all to Pat Robertson, but
he's a nut). But there are even more people now and then pretty sure that
we've angered and endangered Gaia (or some representation thereof) and now there
will be a flood of coastal reas because People Were BAD.

People claim to respect God or the planet or whatever they consider bigger
than they are, but ultimately they want to control them too.

Sandra



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