Through a Child's Eyes

Many of you know that myself and my family love to spend time outdoors. Even when the temperature is really cold, we bundle up and head outside to have some fun and enjoy nature. This past weekend our daughter Grace made it her mission to do all of the winter activities that she could while we were at our place in the Adirondacks. She managed to go ice-skating, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling and sledding. She wanted to go downhill skiing, but no one would take her. After a fun day on Saturday, we headed home. As soon as we unpacked the car, Grace said to me, Dad can you give me an adjustment?

Now to most of you this would sound like an unusual request coming from your child or grandchild. I remember being her age and asking my father the same question. To me and our family it is a common question that is asked regularly. This is because we have grown up knowing that taking care of their spine and nervous system is important and it is good for you. I still remember when I was a young kid feeling lousy because I had a cold and my father said to me “let’s check you.” I didn’t know what “let’s check you” really meant other than going into his home office, laying down on his chiropractic table, and him analyzing my spine and adjusting where necessary. I also did not really know why he would want to adjust my spine when I had a cold? Here is the kicker that made me doubt this whole thing, when I got off the table, I still had a cold.

What I failed to understand, because it was not explained to me was that he was checking my spine for areas of nerve interference. I also didn’t know what nerve interference was. I didn’t know that the brain and the body were in constant communication, and when the spine misaligned or became “subluxated” the communication was stressed or interrupted, which in turn causes a loss of function or down regulation of the body’s performance. I also didn’t really understand that when I was adjusted, even if I felt no different, my nervous system was communicating at a higher level, with greater clarity and efficiency giving me an increased capacity to heal and function. All I knew was that when I was sick with a cold, all I wanted to do was to lay down and rest. Which is exactly what the body needs to do when our immune system is fighting off microorganisms that are attacking us.

Another memory as a child that has stuck with me was in elementary school. We had a dentist or hygienist come in to our class room to give us instructions on how to brush our teeth. They gave us these red tablets to chew on and look at our teeth in a mirror. They gave us a tooth brush and tooth paste and told us to brush our teeth thoroughly until all of the red was off of our teeth. It was a fun thing to do with your classmates. We were all foaming at the mouth with tooth paste and spitting in the sink. From then on, we all understood the message that caring for our teeth was good for us and we should do this practice regularly for the rest of our lives.

Proverbs 22:6 says: Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. This is just as true today as it was when it was first written. I had a conversation with a man on Sunday who has lost a significant amount of weight over the last several months. He originally was told that his only option was to go on blood pressure medication or he could have a stroke. This didn’t sit well with him, so he sought alternative advice and was prescribed a lot of supplements and major lifestyle recommendations. I was commending him on his journey offering him encouragement. He said the doctors and people are just too focused on treating symptoms and not interested in getting to the root cause. I replied that is exactly what most people teach their children to do. When your child gets a headache or a fever, most people look to treat those symptoms with a medication, instead of understanding that the body is intelligent. Those symptoms mean something that we need to pay attention to, and work with the body’s natural design by supporting it, not suppressing it.

I am super grateful that I was born into a chiropractic family that taught me this right from the beginning by how my parents cared for us. I didn’t fully understand it, yet I benefited from living in a way that was more congruent with the laws of nature. BJ Palmer asked the question “Have you more faith in a spoonful of medicine than in the power that animates the living world?”