Accepting a "No" Answer

How many of us like to be told "no?" I sure don't. Lately I have been getting many of these. I've had two fairly big projects that I was working on. With one project, I went to a meeting and found out that the assignment had been given to someone else. All the hard work I had put in to the project went down the toilet. With another one, no one got back to me so I assumed it was a go ahead only to find out (after several months) that, no, it is not. I had a mini tantrum last night. Not too pretty. This morning I woke up and realized that sometimes I have to follow the very instruction I have given my children. In this case, try and disagree appropriately and if the answer is still, "no", I must accept the answer and drop the subject. "Teaching Self Government" has helped me again. I'm in the process of disagreeing appropriately. My assumption in this case is that the answer will still be, "no." Now I have to swallow my pride and drop the subject. I have found that sometimes logic and reason don't work with certain people and either am going to be upset or I just have to let it go.

FOOD!

Food, it's been the topic in our home for well over a year. What should we eat, what shouldn't we? We found out Jacob had an allergy to sugar some time ago. We were already eating very well at home. We had gone to almost complete whole grains and had taken out most of the obvious sugars. It seemed that behavior really got out of hand during the school year and holidays. My kids were homeschooled last year and it helped immensely. However, scouts, homeschool activities and sometimes church seemed to hold setbacks. We're still working out those issues.
Recently, I stumbled in to another look at food. It now seems that my son is having yet another allergy to food. We are in the middle of testing to find out for sure. It looks like gluten. We have taken out most gluten for the past several weeks. I have seen a calm in him that hasn't been there before. His impulses also seem to be much better. One great improvement for him is that his terrible headaches have ceased. He had a setback after the 4th of July when he ate a ton of candy that was thrown at the parade. During all of this I have been studying what I can about gluten and other food allergies. Much research suggests that autoimmune disorders (diabetes, fibromyalgia, etc.) can be controlled by finding out what is attacking the body. Apparently, whatever in the body is the weakest is targeted when a person is having an autoimmune response. Many parents of autistic children have found that by removing allergens (most common seems to be gluten and dairy) the children improve in areas like language, behaviour, etc. Just this morning I read an article about inflammation and obesity. It seems that much of the food we eat is literally killing us.
The good news is that by changing what our family has eaten, over time, we are all feeling a great deal better.