Children's behaviour and diet

Dontknowanymore

At my son's parent's evening last week the teacher suggested looking at my son's diet.

Basically he lacks concentration, fidgets a hell of alot, is rather impulsive and sometimes is literally bouncing off the walls, now it is affecting his school work, at the start of the year he was ahead of most of his peers, now some of them are taking him over even though he is more than capable.
After a very turbulant year (this is the 3rd school as we had to move twice) the school and I have worked blooming hard to get his 'bad' behaviour sorted and have managed to get him to a point where he is alot better but now the whole concentration thing is dragging him back academically.

Anyway, she suggested looking at his diet as she said certain foods could possibly be causing him to display certain behaviours. She did say that it's not necessarily 'sweets' or 'junk' but could be other things.

Now I know I could just google this, but there is soooooooooooo much information out there I have no idea where to start?! Also I have no idea wether it's actually true that certain foods can affect behaviour, so thought asking on here would be a good starting ground as I am sure someone will have some knowledge.

McKneff

Why not start with some of the things that you actually do feed him.

DVardysShadow

I've taken a quick peep back at your previous threads and there is I think every reason for him to be bouncing off the walls and not concentrating - probably it would be a bigger cause for concern if he were completely unaffected.

Food generally seems to be accepted as a behaviour modifier. Colouring agents have been implicated in concentration type issues. Generally, if the budget allows, you could try looking at the ingredients of everything you buy and making a choice of the products with least additives.

Another area to look at is play. If boys don't get enough boisterous play burning off energy, it can work itself out as a lack of concentration and the onset of fidgeting. Sleep too is relevant.

pigpen

Is he ilke this at home? If he isn't then his diet is more than likely fine.. food allergies cannot be school specific so he can't just turn it off at 3pm!

Maybe he is bored in class and needs more interesting topics or taxing work rather than easy stuff!! Maybe he is just acting up because he wants to be funny and popular.

Don't be too quick to start eliminating vital stuff from his diet without advice!

My sister has severe food allergies... she can eat pears but no other fruit! So it might not be something 'unhealthy'

Dontknowanymore

Right, a typical day for him is.

Breakfast - Toasted ham or chicken sandwich on white or 50/50 bread, or on the odd occasion - about twice a week, cereal which will be weetabix, or 'kids' cereals which is bad I know . I always give them a piece of fruit with their breakfast too ( I have a 22 month old boy aswell)

Lunch - school dinners - they are steam cooked meals.

After school snacks - fruit and on the day he goes to after school club they have toast, oh and I buy 1 box of jaffa cakes a week.

Dinner - This can be anyting from frozen pizza to homecooked meals, I am on the slimmingworld diet so cook alot of stuff from scratch (spag bol, homemade oven chips, 'Healthy living' sausage & mash, roasts, stir frys, meatballs, homemde burgers, the list goes on) aswell as freezer stuff, like smiley potato faces, fish fingers etc, I'd say that 4 out of 7 meals are freshly cooked, but then obviously some weeks it's less or more.

I try to limit 'treats' like choccie bars and crisps to a couple of times a week, usually after swimming lessons and on the weekends.
They drink the concentrate dilute orange juice or water, I don't let him drink any fizzys unless it's a special occasion (like partys).

Dontknowanymore

pigpen wrote: »

Is he ilke this at home? If he isn't then his diet is more than likely fine.. food allergies cannot be school specific so he can't just turn it off at 3pm!

Maybe he is bored in class and needs more interesting topics or taxing work rather than easy stuff!! Maybe he is just acting up because he wants to be funny and popular.

Don't be too quick to start eliminating vital stuff from his diet without advice!

My sister has severe food allergies... she can eat pears but no other fruit! So it might not be something 'unhealthy'

Sorry I forgot to say, yes he is like it all the time....

He does tend to be able to concentrate for long periods when doing what he wants, such as lego or the laptop (which he is only allowed on at the weekends) yet even doing that when I watch him, he is constantly fidgeting about, the thing is, I have no idea if this is 'normal' behaviour for children as apart from my own, I rarely have prolonged contact with any others!

Lara44

Have you looked into low GI diets -- the idea is to switch to foods that release energy over a longer period, therefore not having energy spikes (hyper) and slumps.

I don't know a great deal about it, but this link might be helpful.

Best wishes

Dontknowanymore

DVardysShadow wrote: »

I've taken a quick peep back at your previous threads and there is I think every reason for him to be bouncing off the walls and not concentrating - probably it would be a bigger cause for concern if he were completely unaffected.

Food generally seems to be accepted as a behaviour modifier. Colouring agents have been implicated in concentration type issues. Generally, if the budget allows, you could try looking at the ingredients of everything you buy and making a choice of the products with least additives.

Another area to look at is play. If boys don't get enough boisterous play burning off energy, it can work itself out as a lack of concentration and the onset of fidgeting. Sleep too is relevant.

Well, the child can sleep for England :eek:, 12+ hours a night and even sleeps through his brother crying during the night.

Also he has always been like this from nursery age so although things that have happened in the last year or so will have definatly affected him, I think it's a case of worsening it rather than causing it.

He probably needs to let off more steam too, he has swimming lessons once a week and goes to an afterschool club, but other than running around playing it's not excersise.
He does not like sport, tried him in football and he absolutely hated it.
He's very creative, loves art and crafts and is a complete computer wizz lol but he doesn't sit around playing video games at home, it's mainly lego or drawing.

faithcecilia

Dontknowanymore wrote: »

Well, the child can sleep for England :eek:, 12+ hours a night and even sleeps through his brother crying during the night.

Also he has always been like this from nursery age so although things that have happened in the last year or so will have definatly affected him, I think it's a case of worsening it rather than causing it.

He probably needs to let off more steam too, he has swimming lessons once a week and goes to an afterschool club, but other than running around playing it's not excersise.
He does not like sport, tried him in football and he absolutely hated it.
He's very creative, loves art and crafts and is a complete computer wizz lol but he doesn't sit around playing video games at home, it's mainly lego or drawing.

From this, I would suggest trying to work more physical activity into his daily routine - even at 31, if I can't burn some energy off I become fidgity and restless! Does he show intrest in any sport? Maybe he would like karate or even ballet?? Both of which also teach an 'old fashioned' type of discipline which I believe can only benefit children.

jackieglasgow

DKAM have you looked at omega oil supplements? I have two boys, and the older is ASD, as soon as I learned about these I put him on them, and it made a marked difference. HE also eats fish once a week now, too, even though I am vegetarian and would prefer him to be but it greatly aided his concentration and his mood. I would also try and get your boys into foods with more soluble fibre, which as someone said, is slow release energy, things like porridge for breakfast, eating lentils barley and nut products and cutting back on white flour and sugary products. My boys do eat breakfast cereal every morning (bran flakes, weetabix and special K), but they know the sugary ones are for holidays only, and always look forward to them as a big feature of the holidays

Spendless

How old is he now DKAM? I was always told my son was 'hyper' and needed to calm down, but he was just boisterous with bags of energy and didn't need much sleep! He eventually slowed down around age 9, and he had been nowhere near as much as your son has. One of the best things I did was put my son in cubs. They did different actvities from swimming galas, to watersports to bowling tournaments as well as camps and working on different badges and they chanelled his 'boisterousness' into leadership.