This post may contain an affiliate link that doesn’t cost you more money and helps fund my coffee habit. 

I’ve updated my review with a new testimonial, which affirms what I discovered about the WaveLife Energy Cell, it’s a great pain-relieving product at a very accessible price point. Check out my review below and the WaveLife site for more information. 

I’ve heard from WaveLife Technologies that many of you have purchased the WaveLife Energy Cell from my review. I would love to hear how the WaveLife Energy Cell worked for you.

 

I focused on my left knee pain since it is the greatest pain I have on a daily basis. I’m months overdue for a total knee replacement and thought this was a great way to see how well the product worked.

I taped the Energy Cell right below my knee just to the side to get good coverage of the stick-on pads. I wore it for six hours and the tape on the bandage just started to peel on one side at the end of six hours.

After 20-25 minutes of wearing the Energy Cell, I could feel the pain in my knee start to dissipate. The pain didn’t completely go away but the first day I was able to delay taking a pain pill by an hour and a half hour. Pretty good for the first day. I was really surprised by how easy it was to wear not to mention getting some real results.

The second thru the fourth day I experienced the same results, shortly after taping on the Energy Cell the pain started to dissipate. I was able to go from an hour and a half to two hours later than normal before taking my scheduled pain pill.

I can’t recommend the WaveLife Technologies Energy Cell enough! Anytime I can get pain relief no matter how little is a great day for me. I plan on purchasing a second for my husband.

WaveLife Technologies 

*Here’s a discount code for 15% off your purchase, WAVELIFELIGHT15*

The Technical Information

Here’s more technical and scientific information about the Wavelife Technologies Energy Cell and the company.

The Wavelife Technologies Energy Cell is now available in the United States, you can find more information on retail pricing and how to purchase at concierge@wavelife.com.

WaveLife’s No Pain Energy Cell is a non-invasive, non-chemical pain management method that is based on over thirty years of research. It’s been developed in cooperation with over 2800 clinics in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. It’s reported to help a wide range of pain, such as arthritis, headaches, lower back pain, post-surgery pain, upper back pain, and osteoporosis. You can find out more about the device and whether it could help you here.

WAVELIFE ENERGY CELL has a wide range of possible applications to address pain and other complications on a cellular level by supporting cell communication and regeneration. The WAVELIFE ENERGY CELL is a reliable companion for physical problems, lack of energy, and regeneration.

Thanks to the special vital field frequencies on the chip, distressed areas in the body can be stimulated safely and non-intrusively to recuperate faster without chemical drugs. Countless applications by therapists have already achieved positive results, with over 30 years of development and successful applications in clinics that support vital field applications in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria.

Scientists developed the WAVE ENERGY CELL in an elaborate process over many years. Tests, numerous satisfied customers as well as therapist bear testimony to its effectiveness.

Bettie Hayes, 82, from Phoenix, Arizona, is a professional tennis coach who had a right hip replacement in 2013 due to osteoarthritis SEE HER VIDEO INTERVIEW HERE “I have been suffering from pain on my lower back for at least ten years now. As a pain sufferer, I struggled most with my mobility; I like to garden and I like to play tennis, so pain definitely had an effect on these activities. I first put the Energy cell in my instep and I didn’t see results there, but later I put it on my left and right side of my lower back and immediately felt my pain diminished. Eventually, I got my mobility back again. What I like most about the Energy Cell is that it’s natural and there are no side effects. What I like most about not being in pain is movement; it certainly makes life better.”

 

 

 

How long can I wear the WAVELIFE ENERGY CELL?

We recommend replacing the WAVELIFE ENERGY CELL after six months, although some users report much longer periods.

For more information please contact WaveLife Technologies

Here’s a discount code for 15% off your purchase, WAVELIFELIGHT15

In Health,

Melinda

 

 

 

WOW! I can’t tell you how honored and humbled I am to be nominated in these categories for the Ninth Annual WEGO Health Awards.

Best in Show: Blog

Advocating for Another

Best in Show: Twitter

Best Kept Secret

Rookie of the Year

 

What are the WEGO Health Awards?

Since its inception in 2011, the WEGO Health Awards have proven to be one of the best ways to honor, recognize, and celebrate the work of patient advocates, influencers and healthcare collaborators who are helping others and transforming healthcare – often without any formal recognition. 

With 16 different award categories, it is the only program to recognize patient leaders across all condition areas and platforms; whether running an online support group, speaking at conferences or sharing their health journey on Instagram, there is truly an award category to recognize every patient leader out there. 

Endorsements for the #WEGO Health Awards are open!

Time to support your community leaders. You can think of your endorsement as a vote – so take a moment to browse these tremendous nominees and endorse those you believe should be recognized!

Nominations remain open until July 31st.

Here’s how you can nominate me for these or any of the other categories available. Thank you for all of your ongoing support. 

Melinda Sandor

Looking for the Light

https://www.wegohealth.com/87797365/awards

Re-energize, Re-generate, and Seek Wellness

Melinda

If you suffer from chronic pain chances are you’ve taken addictive pain medication or at least talked to your doctor about finding pain relief. With limited alternatives for those looking for consistent pain relief, many are faced with the tough decision to take addictive medications.

If you read about drug addiction, you’ll often run across the saying dependence is not addiction. To me, addiction means I can’t stop taking the medication without withdrawing and major side effects. Medically addiction is explained as someone who abuses, I agree that is also addiction. I don’t buy into the saying dependence is not addiction.

I have taken addictive drugs most of my adult life for mental illness and have been through withdrawal more times than I can count. My guess is the feeling I’m having while going through withdrawal is very much like a drug addict wanting a fix. It’s ugly!

I also live with chronic pain and have made the decision to take addictive pain medication. The decision was one of the easiest I’ve had to make since the onset of chronic pain in 2013. The biggest mistake I made was not starting or increasing doses sooner and dealing with my General Practitioner instead of a Pain Management doctor.

I took several pain medications while undergoing Lyme treatment but the one I took the most often was Tramadol. After my Lyme treatment stopped I continued to take Tramadol through my General Practitioner, at one point taking 10mg tablets eight times a day and still not getting consistent relief.

I found a Pain Management doctor and now receiving the most comprehensive pain relief to date. He addresses all of my pain each month, we talk about pain levels, exactly where the pain is, what’s changed and is the medication providing me the level of relief I’m comfortable with. I don’t expect to live without pain, I don’t want to take that much medication and I don’t want to increase my addiction level which in turn increases my withdrawal time when stopping a medication.

I struggle with Fibromyalgia, Neuropathy, Arthritis, a bum knee in need of surgery, Lyme, and Osteoporosis. My surgeon gives me a steroid shot every three months for my knee and I see a Pain Management doctor for the rest of my pain.

I’ve tried several drugs for Neuropathy and now manage with 600mg per day of Gabapentin. My doctor prescribed 900mg, which is the maximum dose but I work on the philosophy if fewer works go with less. I always have a higher dose to go up to.

I take Percocet 10mg tablets three times a day

Belbuca (buprenorphine hydrochloride) film strips 900mcg twice a day (oral not skin)

Zanaflex 4mg as needed for muscle spams

I’m addicted to drugs, several drugs and I have to be responsible for not taking too many a day or I have to skip one the next day. When the time comes to decrease or stop taking the medication, I have to work with my doctor to withdraw responsibly, I won’t go through it without medical attention. 

The medical community has left many people without medication and no withdrawal plan. It’s completely irresponsible. If your doctor cuts off your medication without a withdrawal plan, first find another doctor or go to the hospital for urgent care, and secondly file a complaint with the Medical Review Board. Together we can end this reckless behavior. 

Here is a resource for drug addiction if you’re left to find resources on your own.

NIH Addiction Resources (National Institute of Health)

I hope you never need to use the above resource. I pray you have a responsible doctor who knows how to slowly and safely taper you off of each medication. It’s important to remember if you are addicted to more than one drug, each has to be dealt with separately. Don’t be pressured into withdrawing off of two drugs at one time without medical attention, often hospitalization.

What do you think of Dependence or Addiction?

Re-energize, Re-generate, and Seek Wellness

Melinda

 

 

 

July 2, 2020 By 23andMe under 23andMe Research

Led by researchers in Australia, an international team of scientists uncovered new genetic associations for allergies, asthma, and eczema by studying how soon in life individuals developed those conditions.

The researchers identified 76 genetic variants associated with these sorts of allergic diseases in or near 18 different genes. They found that about 50 of the variants are associated with both a higher risk for developing allergic diseases and developing one of these conditions at a very early age.

Genetic Burden

The significance of the finding is that it can help determine the overall “genetic burden” for developing allergies, or asthma or eczema, according to the co-lead author of the study Manuel Ferreira, Ph.D., a specialist in the genetics of asthma formerly at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, Australia.

In this study, the findings indicate that people with the highest genetic risk are likely developing one of these conditions earliest in life. Those with the lowest genetic risk may never develop symptoms. Using this insight also helped researchers identify new genetic associations for these conditions.

While genetics plays an important role, environmental factors also influence the risk of developing an allergic condition. But the findings will help researchers better understand why and how allergic disease develops in some individuals and not others, as well as understand the genetic influences.

Overlapping Risk

Ferreira, now at Regeneron, previously worked on a study that found overlapping genetic risk factors for allergic diseases, such as asthma and hay fever, which used data from 23andMe. 

For this study, the researchers used data from the dozens of previously published genome-wide association studies for allergic disease — some of which included data from 23andMe, as well as the UK Biobank and others.

You can read the full study in PLOS Genetics.

Just in time for your summer vacation, ok, Covid-19 vacay. A natural incest repellent is a great alternative for those with sensitive skin or other skin allergies. Remember natural sprays do not contain DEET which can keep mosquitoes and ticks at bay that carry tick-borne illnesses like Lyme Disease.

Be Well

Melinda

Willow & Sage from Stampington http://www.stampington.com

You will need

1/2 cup vinegar

1/2 cup witch hazel

1/4 cup distilled water

1 TB. rubbing alcohol

20 drops eucalyptus essential oil

20 drops lemongrass essential oil

10 drops cedarwood essential oil

10 drops rosemary essential oil

10 drops peppermint/spearmint essential oil

Glass spray bottle 8 oz.

To Make

Add all ingredients together in a glass spray bottle in the order listed above, leaving essential oils to go in last. Shake to combine. Try to use an amber glass bottle if possible to prevent the sun from penetrating the oils inside, which could lessen their potency. Keep Bottle out of direct sunlight and somewhere cool.

IDEAS.TED.COM

Jun 22, 2020 / Mary Halton

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

One of the side effects of working from home full-time because of the pandemic is working with a less than ergonomically ideal setup. Most of us didn’t have a home office space ready and waiting when we began to shelter in place, so if you’ve spent the past two months shifting around on a borrowed dining room chair with a cushion wedged behind you, you’re not alone.

But no matter our seating arrangements, there are some important things we can do to care for our backs, says Esther Gokhale, posture expert, acupuncturist and creator of the Gokhale Method. It doesn’t mean buying an expensive chair, either. “You don’t need anything fancy if you know what you’re doing to your own body,” she explains.

First of all, the problem isn’t with sitting itself, but how we’re doing it, says Gokhale. “It’s a cute soundbite to say ‘sitting is the new smoking’, but it’s very inaccurate to blame sitting. But no one in modern Western society is doing very well by their spinal discs, or vertebrae, or muscles or nerves.“

So what are we doing wrong? 

It actually starts with something we were all taught — incorrectly, as it turns out — starting in childhood: sit up straight, shoulders back.

This advice, says Gokhale, sets us up in the wrong position. “What we end up doing is arching our backs by tensing up our muscles — the ropey ones that the massage therapist will tell you are tight. When we tighten them, we shorten them, and that arches the back, and what that does is it loads the discs [in the lower back] and jams the edges of the vertebrae against each other.”

When we keep trying to sit up straight, we can ultimately alter our anatomy, she explains. “If that becomes a habit — which it does for many people — then those tight, short muscles inhibit the blood supply in the area so now you have an anemic back and repair isn’t happening efficiently.”

This effort also takes an enormous amount of energy and it doesn’t actually last; we’re likely to slump again after a few minutes when we get tired.

If you have a tendency to slump — and most of us do — then you need to learn to lengthen your back. “You could [periodically] stop work to stretch your muscles for a few minutes and they’d get some relief, but a much smarter way is to use the time that you’re sitting to stretch yourself against the backrest,” explains Gohkale. She has created a technique called “stretch sitting” to help perfect this motion. The key? Don’t tuck in your tailbone, and use your muscles more.

As she describes in her TEDx Talk (and you can see her demonstrate this by clicking here):

“You are going to sit with your bottom well back in your chair, and then hinge away from the back rest. Place your fists on the lower border of your rib cage, and then gently push back so as to elongate your lower back. And now, grab some place of your chair maybe your arm rests or any other part of your chair, and gently push the top of you away form the bottom of you, like this; and now, hitch yourself to the back rest.

OK, now, ideally the chair would have some grippy thing mid-back to hold you, like you see hereor you would have an implement like our stretch sit cushion or a folded towel — something with friction to meet your mid-back and actually hold you up. Since you don’t have any implement, you might try bunching up your fabric in the back of your clothing, creating a kind of ledge, then hooking yourself there, and totally relaxing.”

To have a healthier back, developing core strength is important — but avoid doing crunches. Gokhale believes that you should focus on what she calls the “inner corset”; the group of core muscles that support your spine. The problem, she says, is that people tend to focus on one muscle when developing core strength — the rectus abdominus — but this won’t support our spines.

In fact, the exercises we do to strengthen our back often end up hurting us. “Crunches are well named; they crunch your discs and they crunch your nerves,” says Gokhale. “Instead, you should engage particular muscles that are deep in the abdomen and back. Then, when you’re going to do something active, instead of letting your discs and your nerves take the brunt, you let your muscles do the job.” (Gohkale offers a free guide to caring for your inner corseton her website.)

Standing desks can be good, but it’s still about how you hold your body. When you stand, Gokhale recommends adopting a stance of “readiness”, maintaining a little bit of spring in your knees. “The average person stands parked in their joints, locking their knees back, locking the hips forward, and arching their back,” she explains. “However, the groin is where most of the circulation to and from the legs happens, so you’re blocking all of that. Then, you’re creating an extra curve [in the spine] but you’re distending the ligaments and damaging the discs.”

Here’s the adjustment you need to make. “So what I teach people is to have a little bit of a ready position, with a little spring,” says Gokhale. “That takes muscular effort, but it’s way sounder. If your muscles aren’t used to working this little bit, then the chair pose [in yoga] is something that I recommend as a way of strengthening the same muscles that you need for standing well. In general: Use your muscles, spare your joints.”

When you’re relaxing on the sofa, it’s important to think about your back. We don’t stop damaging — or taking care of — our backs when our working day ends; everything we do has an impact on our bodies. So we should consider stretch sitting while we’re on the sofa too, suggests Gokhale.

This doesn’t mean that you need to tense up there, or that you can’t have a nice, deep sofa to sink into. But you should add a few cushions if you feel you need more support. “The key thing is you want to be upright and relaxed, not upright and tense and not relaxed and slumped. The way you put your base — your pelvis — is key.” This means not tucking in our tailbones, as we often tend to do when we relax on the sofa.

How you sleep affects your back too. Unfortunately, Gokhale has bad news for front sleepers: Don’t. “When you lie down on your front, you have a tendency to arch your back, and your neck is being asked to turn 90 degrees, which it isn’t able to very well. So there’s a lot of squishing and squashing. It’s not good.” Instead, try sleeping on your side — with a pillow between your knees to balance your hips if you suffer from back pain — or on your back.

The good news, says Gokhale, is you don’t need a fancy mattress. “The most important thing to do is add length to your body. Whatever length you have when you plop yourself down onto the bed is the length you’re going to have for the rest of the night. If it’s your short, compressed, daytime, arched or slumped length, then that’s what you’re doing in your bed.”

She recommends stretching out a little bit when you first lie down, focusing on lengthening your back rather than stretching your front so that you don’t arch your spine. That way, you can relax and have a night of sleep that’s good for you and your back.

Watch her TEDxStanford talk here: https://www.youtube.com/embed/k1luKAS_Xcg?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Halton is Assistant Ideas Editor at TED, and a science journalist based in the Pacific Northwest.

The summer is in full swing. We may not be going out as much, but the heat is here and in this blog post I want to share with you 5 Anti-Inflammatory Summer Foods to fight the heat and pain. 

1. Who doesn’t love a tall glass of iced tea? We found this amazing recipe for Cinnamon Turmeric Iced Tea for you to try. Green Tea or Black Tea would be some great choices, but most teas would do. The recipe calls for a sweetener of your choice, but you may want to stay away from sugar as much as possible. You can go with a few drops of stevia or a little honey. Extra points if you skip the sugar. 
2. Frozen berries are another tasty way to stay cool this summer. Every supermarket has a frozen fruits section. Berries are full of anti-inflammatory properties and antioxidants to help you fight all sorts of nasty germs. You can eat them alone or blend them into a smoothie with some almond coconut milk. 
3. Enjoy a traditional greek salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, olive oil, vinegar, and feta cheese (or skip the cheese if you are vegan). 
4. Another favorite snack for the summer is hummus with pita chips or whole grain toasted bread. Extra points if your hummus has garlic! 
5. Finally, don’t forget to drink plenty of water. You can throw watermelon and mint into a jar with cool water the night before and the next day you can stay hydrated. 

Stay cool and fight the pain with these 5 Anti-inflammatory Summer Foods and don’t forget the sunblock!!

What are some of your favorites? Send us your suggestions and if chosen you will be featured in our social media and win a free Aromalief Cream. Send submissions to info@aromalief.com

My migraine journey started off very quickly, painful, and terrifying. I had no idea what was happening since I had not had a migraine before. I thought something else was wrong with me. Maybe my eyes were strained, maybe I was under to much stress, maybe my brain tumor had come back, I just didn’t know.

I would leave work as soon as I could to go home and lay down and pray for sleep. The pain was unlike any headache I ever had and my doctor called me “a headache person”. I was at the height of my career as a Senior Sales Manager, my whole week was spent in front of clients. It was excruciating to make it through a meeting before I could rush home and take a shot.

I was at more than one corporate meeting and have to leave, take an injection, and go back to the meeting. Those injections make you feel very strange, drugged, almost stoned. I would sit through the rest of the meetings and not remember half of what was said. Thank goodness I can take notes.

After experiencing several migraines in a month I went to my general doctor for help. At first, he gave me the injections to take, since I was only having a couple a month the injections should help. When my migraines starting happening every week the doctor put me on Beta-Blockers. I took them until the side effects were too much and I was still getting migraines.

He then put me on a daily pill for prevention and I continued to use the injections. I hobbled along like this for almost two years. Multiple migraines a week, missed work, missed family outings, and missing out on life. Migraines ruled my world.

One day while talking with my doctor and him scratching his head for answers, he said wait a minute, I read an article that might help us. He pulled it out and read it over and made a referral to an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor.

Sure enough, I had a deviated septum and the pressure was causing my migraines. I had the out-patient surgery and have had far fewer migraines since.

Here’s some technical information about deviated septum.

For most patients, a deviated septum is something they are born with or that they developed as they were growing up. In some cases, a septum can become crooked as time passes or as a result of traumatic injury. Aside from irregular air flow, the following symptoms may arise from a deviated septum:

• Nosebleeds
• Congestion
• Sinus infections
• Snoring
• Runny nose
• Headaches

When a Deviated Septum Causes a Headache

The association between a deviated septum and the migraine condition can be found in sinus infections. When mucus becomes blocked, it can lead to infections, discomfort and headache, which may in turn cause stress and trigger a migraine episode in some patients. It is important to note that the sinus infection is acting as a trigger of stress rather than a direct trigger of migraines.

A deviated septum can be cured with a surgical procedure known as a septoplasty, which can be performed on an outpatient basis. For patients who suffer from major sinus infections, headaches and snoring, a septoplasty can bring about a major improvement in terms of quality of life. This may also be the case for patients who live with chronic migraine conditions, but only if the majority of their episodes were actually triggered by stress emanating from sinus infections or lack of sleep. According to  Migraine Relief Center.

I’m so glad my doctor kept up with reading the medical journals or who knows how much longer I would have had to suffer. If you have constant or more than normal migraines, see an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor. Maybe you will be lucky enough to have a fixable problem.

*Just a note about having nose surgery*

My surgery was around 1994 so the way doctors approach nose surgery may be different today. At the time there were two schools of thought. Packing the nose and not packing the nose after surgery. Thank God my doctor was of the “not packing” school of thought. What that means is after my surgery there were no gauzes packed into my sinuses. I had to take these long q-tips and put Neosporin way up my nose for two weeks. During that time I had to be careful when sneezing and blowing my nose. At the end of the two weeks I went in for a check-up and he gave me the green light everything had healed fine.

The “packing” school of thought is packing your sinuses with gauze. I don’t remember how long you had to leave them in. When it is time for them to be removed, the doctor pulls them out through your nose. Most people I talked to said you want to lose your cookies when they come out. The only comparison I have is when my belly button was pierced. I felt like my stomach was coming up through the needle when he pierced me. To say it was painful is an understatement. 

I hope the technology is different today but you might want to ask your doctor before surgery.

For those of you who continue to suffer from migraines, my heart goes out to you. I know how they can disrupt your day and your life. Keep looking for answers, keep reading the medical journals. 

Melinda

Six months ago I was diagnosed with Hypogammaglobulinemia, an immune disorder where the body doesn’t create enough antibodies to fight off disease. The Immunologist ran a comprehensive round of labs and found I have low antibodies for all types of Pneumonia except one. He wanted me to get a Pneumonia vaccine now even though they are normally not given until age 65.

My General Practitioner has now given me both rounds of the vaccine. The pneumonia vaccine is a two-prong, one-shot then another eight weeks later. While there she asked if I had Chicken Pox as a child. Yes, I had Chicken Pox so she suggested I get a Shingles vaccine once we completed the Pneumonia vaccines. I go back after September 17th to get my Flu and Shingles round one shot. Yes, Shingles is also a two-round shot. 

Shingles is another vaccine that isn’t normally talked about until your 65 but with my weekend immune system, it is better safe than sorry by waiting. Shingles are terrible and extremely painful. The Chicken Pox virus lives in your body and can reactivate by becoming Shingles later in life.

I already knew about the vaccinations because of my grandparents but had not thought about needing them at 55 years versus 65 years old.

Talk with your doctor about your risk for Pneumonia, it was a simple lab test and it clearly showed my body could not fight off all but one type. Who knew there were different types of Pneumonia?

 

The Washington Post

By Amber Leventry 

Feb. 17, 2020 at 8:02 a.m. CST

As a parent who is also a survivor of incest, I want nothing more than to protect my children from sexual violence. I constantly wonder what it will take to improve, if not end, rape culture in our society.

Every 73 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, or RAINN. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1 in 5 women and 1 in 38 men have experienced completed or attempted rape — forced or coerced vaginal, anal or oral sex. Rape can happen at the hands of known or unknown assailants, including spouses or significant others.

My oldest daughter is 9, and my twins — a boy and a girl — are 6. They are not too young to be educated about sexual health and what healthy relationships look and feel like. We refer to their body parts with the appropriate names; we talk about hygiene, privacy and boundaries. I have taught them about tricky people, and the thing we probably talk more about than anything else is consent.ADADVERTISING

At the core of its meaning, consent is about permission or an agreement to give and take something. When we use the word “consent,” we often use it in a sexual context because when someone is raped, permission has not been given, and something incredibly personal has been taken.

My goal is to protect my children, but I also have a responsibility to send them into the world with respect for all bodies and an understanding of how consent works and why it is important. The nuances of communicating our wants and then hearing the response or seeing it in a person’s body language during nonsexual situations are lessons we can teach our kids now so that later, when the stakes are higher, they already have the tools to build safe sexual relationships.

I was in the kitchen one evening and could hear my kids trading Pokémon cards. My 9-year-old daughter asked her 6-year-old brother if he would give up one of his cards for one she was offering. He hesitated and told her he wasn’t sure. She tried again. He considered but was reluctant. She tried to negotiate. He said no. She continued to offer him cards he might like, but he clearly didn’t want to trade. She was badgering him. I knew it was making him uncomfortable because he wanted to please her, but he didn’t want to say yes; he was saying no but, in my daughter’s opinion, not enthusiastically enough.AD

The situation was making me uncomfortable, too, so I stepped in. I praised my son for using his voice to communicate what he didn’t want. I told my daughter that she needed to walk away from the situation. He was telling her and showing her that he didn’t want to trade. I explained that her desires should never be forced onto someone else.

I reminded my daughter of the phrase “You asked, I/she/he/they answered.” This is meant to eliminate nagging when my kids want me to change my mind, and it helps me teach them that they can’t always get what they want. The phrase is a lesson in consent. “You asked for the card, he said no.”

Lexx Brown-James, a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified sex educator and author of “These are My Eyes, This is My Nose, This is My Vulva, These are My Toes,” is also a parent navigating these issues. “When we teach consent to our children — across the gender spectrum — we also have to teach and model respect, [but] respect has changed so much even throughout my own lifetime,” she says. Brown-James grew up in the South and was taught to obey authority without question, but she points out that the definition of respect has changed. It can be a shared goal of treating others how we would want to be treated, no matter the age or power difference, she says.

Middle schools enter a new era in sex ed: Teaching 13-year-olds about consent

Brown-James says it is important to empower our children to say yes as well as no, and to make them feel like they will be heard. But kids can’t be in control all of the time, so it’s necessary for adults to model informed consent. Brown-James gives the example of a child going to the dentist. It’s scary, and a child may not want to go, but healthy teeth are important. She suggests giving power to a child’s voice even in those situations. Let them choose the side of the mouth the dentist can look at first. Allow the child to say when they need a break. And be sure you or the dentist check in to see how the child is doing.AD

Consent also needs to be visible and identified in everyday acts. Asking kids if we can hug them, tickle them or take a bite of their food are great ways to model patterns of asking before taking and then showing them that their voice has power. Notice how none of the situations discussed so far have anything to do with sex? This is important.

I emphasize “no means no” and “stop means stop” with my kids, but it’s not always easy. If something hurts or makes us uncomfortable, telling someone to stop is still confrontational. We may want to keep the peace rather than face another person’s negative reactions. Although I hope my kids will speak up for themselves, I also want them to be able to interpret the other side of the no. If they are ever in a situation where consent is not clear through words, I want my kids to learn how to read body language so they can safely stop an action that is making someone uncomfortable.

Joe Navarro, 25-year FBI veteran and author of “What Every Body is Saying” and “Louder Than Words,” writes that parents should start to teach about body language as soon as their children can understand simple instructions. He emphasizes that all nonverbal communication has meaning and that body language conveys our emotions. Navarro encourages parents to remind children that learning to read body language is a way to make people comfortable.AD

But what happens when consent is given, but with hesitation? Not all consent is enthusiastic, so Brown-James refers back to teaching kids how to check in. Kids provide plenty of teachable moments for this when they want to do something but are nervous. Brown-James uses an example of her daughter wanting to pet a dog but feeling anxious. She said yes, but her body language did not convey excitement. By using a slow, check-in-as-you-go approach, Brown-James’s daughter got close to the dog, decided where and when she wanted to pet the dog, then finally touched the dog and was ecstatic. With each step, Brown-James asked whether her daughter felt okay.

The work and mindfulness necessary to teach these nuances are worth the initial stumbling points or emotional labor involved. Rape culture will not improve with a one-time talk at puberty. A foundation of empowerment, respect and thoughtfulness for others needs to be put in place early so kids’ intuition can guide them, whether because someone has touched them inappropriately or because they are navigating a new physical relationship as a teen.

Before our kids become teenagers, though, they need the skills to say no for themselves and for others if a situation doesn’t feel right. Deliberate, ongoing and forward-thinking conversations about consent in nonsexual situations will help them navigate higher-stakes sexual decisions when they are older.AD

Amber Leventry is a writer and advocate who lives in Vermont. They run Family Rhetoric by Amber Leventry, a Facebook page devoted to advocating for LGBTQ families one story at a time. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram@amberleventry.

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