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Blog: When Parents Punish for Chemical Exposure  



Over the holidays I had lunch with a friend, Kate, and somehow the subject of “my story,” came up, that being my story of having been poisoned by pesticides, and having central nervous system damage that manifested as hyperactivity, inability to concentrate, and mimicking at its worse a clinical depression. During the discussion I mentioned how tragic it is to me when I see such symptoms showing up in children exposed to such neurotoxic chemicals and punished by parents unaware that such chemicals can cause  these symptoms.

Kate called me the next day, stunned, she said, with the epiphany that when I was describing parents unwittingly punishing their children for behavior triggered by chemical exposure, I was describing her with her third son. Apparently, every time he was on a soccer field (a big, well-manicured, heavily sprayed  soccer fields in the Tampa, FL area), he went completely berserk, screaming, kicking, and behaving in a completely inappropriate way. The same thing happened, except worse, in front of her mother-in-law after a trip to the vet (kennels are notoriously toxic places). Fit to be tied, she had implemented some serious consequences and punishments for bad behavior.

“Annie – you have to tell your story,” she said, “so that other parents don’t do what I did! It never occurred to me Paul could be having a chemical reaction from being exposed to pesticides! But I think he was! The poor kid was just reacting to the pesticides on the field. He was fine at home!”

The heartbreak here and the lesson, is that the child was punished for behaviors that were not in his/her control, nor that he/she was responsible for. Such a situation can lead to the child losing trust in themselves and uncertain of how they fit into society, and believing they are bad, when in fact, the symptoms were most likely caused from being exposed to a highly neurotoxic chemical.

Does this situation ring a bell for any of you?

Posted: Wednesday January 4, 2006, 11:21 am
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Falcon S. (139) 		Wednesday January 4, 2006, 11:29 am
thank you...

Falcon S. (139) 		Wednesday January 4, 2006, 11:33 am
Something else I noticed, not all children get hyper when exposed to these toxins some children seem to get into a 'brain fogg' and just seem to 'daze off' and get very lethargic ... many will complain of 'aches and pains' and syptoms that are similiar to depression.... I wonder if that is why there has been such an increase of late in teens that are being diagnosed with depression?

Tanya H. (5) 		Wednesday January 4, 2006, 12:47 pm
My son is autistic and, up until now, I hadn't included possible environmental triggers along with food triggers in his behavioral evaluations. Thanks for bringing this up!

Will Knott (0) 		Wednesday January 4, 2006, 2:41 pm
Living in a rural area, farmers and milling operations use TONS of chemicals... I myself have noticed mental and physical reactions based on seasonal spraying etc. However, there is NO doctor or specialist in this area that believes in evironmental toxins but they are most willing to insist that I need a script for an antidepressant! No thanks! It is sad, that this is our reality.

Natalie K. (96) 		Wednesday January 4, 2006, 3:17 pm
Thank you for sharing this. I wash my daughters fruits and Veggies as well as I can and buy organic when ever we can afford it ( we are poor). But I never think about the pesticides in fields we visit. :(

Ivy Little (11) 		Wednesday January 4, 2006, 5:11 pm
Thank you so much-- this is very important information, and I had never heard of this possibility!

Val L. (19) 		Wednesday January 4, 2006, 7:55 pm
Thank you for the information .I wash my fruits and vegetables . I didn't think about our fields that children visit and play in .

Lilia Letsch (70) 		Wednesday January 4, 2006, 10:33 pm
My mother has very bad chemical exposure allergic reactions, and the only things that have worked for her are avoiding all places contaminated with chemicals (that includes people wearing perfumes), and a technique called accupressure...a very self-empowering form of healing, based on accupuncture, but involving tapping, not needle insertion.

The Real Donna F. (675) 		Thursday January 5, 2006, 4:00 am
I`ve known about lawn spraying and peoples (especially children)sensitivity to the chemicals but the soccer field example hadn`t occured to me. I`m wondering if this could be why some parents go ballistic fighting each other at these games. I imagine these chemicals are sprayed near the bleachers as well. There are a handful of companies that have natural lawn treatment and it would be great if people started demanding their schools and other government properties switched to that, not to mention got the word out about it to those who have their private properties sprayed. These chemicals also cause cancers and deaths nationwide, leukemia, etc. Unfortunately beautiful grass can equal grave health risks. One day last month I was stopped in traffic next to a cheerfully painted truck with huge sunflowers with smiley faces and bright green cartoonish plants. It was a chemical lawn spray truck. How devious. I hope we all get educated on how to change our communities. This has been going on for far too many years, we were just uneducated to the facts.

The Real Donna F. (675) 		Thursday January 5, 2006, 4:10 am
Would someone please put this blog on my BOYCOTTS R US Care2 Group? I`m certain many there would wish to boycott these chemical lawan "treatment" companies. I still havn`t learned how to work the Share thing. I`m used to the old Network Messaging way to send alerts.

The Real Donna F. (675) 		Thursday January 5, 2006, 4:12 am
Would someone please put this blog on my BOYCOTTS R US Care2 Group? I`m certain many there would wish to boycott these chemical lawan "treatment" companies. I still havn`t learned how to work the Share thing. I`m used to the old Network Messaging way to send alerts.

Past Member (0) 		Thursday January 5, 2006, 10:31 am
I have been a housekeeped for 15yrs and have done damage to my lungs an throat. It's all chemicals we should look at and especially in the home. There are no government regulations on the kind of chemicals companies can put in home cleaning products. children are dying by taking one drink from these products. I started a business and am trying to get families to detox their homes by using environmenatall safe products. 200 childrenc have drank our products, none were hospitalized and none died. I didn't just take their word for it I called poison control and checked out all the ingredients and it was true. Unless they decided to drink a gallon of the oil alone they may and they said may have respiratory problems. Kids only take a taste and it's yuck but, by then it may be too late.

Faith Creates (112) 		Thursday January 5, 2006, 2:06 pm
I had Autistic twins 24 years ago and realized, before they were even dx'd, that they, ( like myself ), had minor to severe reactions to all kinds of things. One of mine, that I could get no one to believe when I was small, was a reaction to florescent lighting. Now they're changing it to incandescent in some schools because they don't flicker or give off as much energy. On that same note, power lines, cellular phone towers and cell phones themselves are a neural irritant. I could go on and on with this list that also applied to my children. Is there anywhere in C2C where we can file all of these "neurotoxins" for parents who don't understand why their kids go nuts for no apparent reason? These are things the medical community never knew or shared with me. I had to figure them out for myself. Just knowing that other parents and kids are losing it when they walk into an office or onto a baseball feild might help others to look into causes they may never have considered before...

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