For a while now we've avoided giving our kids Red dye #40. This started as an unintentional science experiment after I witnessed a Jekyll and Hyde like episode from Emma after she drank an ICEE. She literally turned from sweet compliant child to angry maniac. I read up on the issue and EVERYTHING they said "may" happen to a child DID happen to her.
Red dye #40 was out.
And, you know what? It helped. Emma has quite a few sensory processing problems. She's a classic sensory processing disorder case. She's sweet as pie....but we don't need to add "crazy angry maniac" child to our list of issues if we can help it.
So, in general we try to live by the 80/20 rule. We don't give out red dye at home- and avoid it in reasonable situations. She even knows when she picks up a cereal box at the grocery store that we look for "food dye" before we buy it. She is fine with this rule. However, when we're at a birthday party we don't make her the weird kid who can't have a cupcake.
BUT, the weird thing may come into play a little more often after our week this week. Sunday Emma came out of her class and VERY happily announced they had Mario fruit snacks in her class and she had eaten 2 packs! I cringed a little thinking that this may be a rough afternoon. Well, it was a rough couple of days. Sunday night Emma was angry at everyone for everything and was slamming around and bouncing off the walls like someone had given her a couple of red bulls with a side of angry preschooler. Sunday night she had a nervous breakdown thinking about being on a soccer team because her team might lose a game and she never ever wanted to play soccer. This speech was made through LOTS of tears. Like she was coming off of a high or 48 hours with no sleep.
I cursed those Mario fruit snacks for about 48 full hours.
No. More. Red. 40.
It makes my kid crazy. She's got her own issues with sounds, textures, smells and wanting things to be a certain way. She doesn't need this poison making her angry and crazy too.
This week I feel like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland thinking about this house.....when Alice says she doesn't want to go visit someone mad....and the Cheshire's cats eyes start to go swirly and he says "we're all mad."
Yes we are.
4 comments:
Brooke this is SO interesting. I am going to try this. I think it could help Ashlynn. Is red 40 is alot of foods?
I never knew this was a problem! thanks for educating me. I sent the info to my mum too who works with elementary school students. She hadn't read anything about it either.
You look GREAT in your photos!
big hugs to all!
Interesting stuff. I'm going to have to look at some of our cereal boxes & stuff. I had no idea it could do such things.
Very interesting. Jace has a problem with loud sounds and can go from very happy to very angry really quickly too. I wonder if it would help him???? hmmmm
Post a Comment