A Compliment: 'The Parents Complete Guide to Ayurveda'

For those of us parents, we learn over time that routines support happy, balanced children. ‘The Parent’s Complete Guide to Ayurveda’ provides exactly this message regarding health routines and lifestyle practices to cultivate wellness for happy, balanced children. This book is unique in it’s specificity to childhood as there’s already a plethora of adult centric Ayurveda resources and guidance.

To begin - what is Ayurveda? Sanskrit for the science of life, Ayurveda is one of the oldest healing sciences (either slightly preceeding TCM/ Traditional Chinese Medicine or concurrent), developed and codified over 4-5 k years ago on the Indian subcontinent with emphasis on prevention of disease and health maintenance as well as interventional healing techniques and curative medicines for specific conditions. Learn more.

Ayurveda offers an understanding and template for individual constitution that we don’t see in western medical traditions. A constitution can be loosely understood as an individual combination of physical, mental and emotional characteristics that is illustrated as our body’s overall energy in metabolism, structure and movement. Ayurveda categorizes each main constitution type as a dosha, Kapha, Pitta and Vata, which are not completely fixed, and instead affected by place, climates, seasons, aging.

To circle back and not dive into Ayurveda as a paradigm and philosophy - my inspiration to share this book is the resonate overall message of prevention and health maintenance for our children.

Prevention as a health concept in parenting can get lost in the busy-ness of western lifestyle - where our routines are fundamental (eg beditme, mealtime, running out the door for school time) although lacking in the additional subtelties accounting for constitution and other individual variations, until health is disrupted with common ailments like stomachache, anxiety, wakeful sleep or growing pains. Three main pillars of Ayurveda, right diet/nutrition, lifestyle and herbs are applied for childhood conditions in an accessible approach, offering homemade remedies and practices to support childhood wellness.

Here’s a simple example that applies Ayurveda to feeding a toddler:

My simple go-to while cooking dinner, while I’m still buzzing from a hectic workday commute, dog is barking, child is zingy & hungry from a school day and dinner isn’t yet ready…

Warmer months: frozen peas & corn, carrot matchsticks or cucumber wedges

Colder months: heated/warm peas & corn in a bone broth, olive or coconut oil, butter & salt.

So basic, so intuitive right? Yes, on the surface. The books dives into more interventional remedies as needed if your child may be prone to certain conditions.

The excellent resource in use

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