Thanks for this post . . . changes to diet can make a HUGE difference.

Last year, my husband took an assignment overseas. We moved with our two kids, ages 6 and 9 to Central Europe. The first few months went really well – other than the normal bumps of a move, the kids transitioned beautifully. We were thrilled. They loved their new school. We loved our new church. All was well. Then we returned after spending Christmas in the States, and my 6 year old (almost 7) son changed. I mean really changed.

I have to preface this by saying that DS is very sensitive guy, who since birth, has always been a bit on the grumpy side. He has always had a glass “half-empty” type of perspective on things. Not sure where such cynicism comes from (his sister is the complete opposite), but we have always sort of attributed it to his being a sensitive soul.

And, despite sort of having a “Debbie Downer” attitude, he really had always been a sweet little boy. His kindergarten teacher, the one who was rumored to hate boys, LOVED him. He was never a problem – a quiet, polite student who always did what he was told.

And all of a sudden, he was a DEFIANT, OBSTINATE, ANGER FILLED CHILD . I now had a first grader with the sulky, defiant attiude of a 16 year old and the tantrums of a two year old. The littlest things set him off into a major rage (like I put the wrong cereal in his bowl). Embarrasing outbursts in public places became common. It was contantly walking on eggshells with him. It was a nightmare to get him to school: he didn’t like the shirt I picked out, or the pants, or the socks. He hated everybody and everything.

I wracked my brain trying to figure out what had caused such a personality change.

I spent hours researching the internet. He seemed to either be bi-polar, or have oppositional defiance disorder. I was scared.

I talked to the school psychologist first. They saw none of this behavior at school – he was the same sweet little boy that I used to know. But as soon as I picked him up at school, the tyrant began. I HATE YOU. I AM GOING TO KILL YOU. I AM GOING TO THROW MYSELF IN FRONT OF THIS CAR. It was like he held all this hate in for six hours, and then it was set free. But, the school psychologist assured me, if it was a real problem, they would see it at school. Perhaps a little more discipline at home was needed?

And we did try some new discipline methods, hoping that would curb some of the outbursts. Specific consequeces for specific behaviors, more hugging and patience on our end. But nothing seemed to work. My husband was at the end of his rope. We seriously considered an exorcism for him.

The strange thing about our son’s behavior was that it seem clustered. He wasn’t always demon boy. In fact, we would have stretches of our old son for days, sometimes weeks at a time. I tried to tie his mood swings to sickness, lack of sleep, anything, but I couldn’t seem to find any one common denominator.

We tried a another pyschologist, one outside the school. Her second visit came after a two week calm period. Maybe you two (meaning my husband and I) need to drink a little more wine (honestly, this was her advice).

Shortly thereafter, my brother and his wife and son visited. We did some traveling together, and my son’s demons returned in full force.

We ate out quite a bit when we traveled, and we often treated the kids to soda when eating out. The year before we moved overseas, we changed our diet to exclude articial flavors and colors, preservatives, and really tried to limit the sugar – my daughter has sensory issues, and this definitely seemed to help.

So, when we travelled, we lifted the ban and let them have soda with one meal. But the drink selection is limited here (no lemonade or chocolate milk), so I would let them have Coke, or more precisely, Diet Coke.

Now, I had heard that having too much diet soda was a bad thing, but this I thought was in moderation – a once in a while treat. I thought that Diet Coke was the better choice than its sugar-laden counterpart.

It wasn’t until my sister-in-law told me she did not allow her son to have diet pop, because the ingredient aspartame is dangerous and isn’t processed correctly in children, that I made a connection.

Could an ingredient approved by the FDA really be the source of my son’s demons? It seemed too simple to be true. But I did some research, and I was shocked. First of all, how did this chemical get approval for food use to begin with? Second, studies showed that a certain segment of the population reacted adversely (mood wise) to aspartame.

Looking back, we had done a lot of traveling from February to June, which meant we ate out quite a bit, meaning the kids most likely had diet soda in high frequency. I checked for products around the house to see if aspartame was lurking anywhere else. Oh yes, it was.

Before we moved from the US, I was hyper-vigilant over checking the ingredients for artificial colors, flavors and preservatives. But in our host country, most foods are without such ingredients (it is wonderful!), so when we did get a few items from the US, I just made sure their consumption was in very limited moderation. And when my husband brought back “normal” vitamins (with food coloring) from a trip to the States in January, not the ones I usually bought at Whole Foods, I decided that it was no big deal. Until, a few months later, when I realized aspartame was in them.

So, IMMEDIATELY, everyone was prohibited from anything with aspartame in it. We had three straight weeks of bliss (ok the normal kid stuff, but compared to how it had been, it was heaven!). Three weeks was probably the longest we had gone without the demons surfacing.

But then they surfaced. We were in the States on summer vacation, and I dropped my children at my in-laws so I could meet some friends for an early dinner. When I picked them up at around 8 pm, my son seemd fine, but then flew into a rage. And I mean a rage. It took 20 minutes to get him to leave. My father-in-law had to carry him kicking and screaming out to the car, and we could barely get him buckled into the car seat. I started driving and he threatened to throw himself out of the car. He threw his shoes at me. My daughter used all her might to keep her hand over the seat belt button, so he could not release himself. I pulled over.

What did you have at Grandma and Grandpa’s? I asked him. A sugar free popsicle, he told me. We suffered for 3 days with demons.

It has been six weeks since the popsicle incident. We have been demon free ALL of that time. PRAISE BE TO GOD!

So, there was a time that I would have dismissed such an idea – I had way too much confidence in the safety of our food items. My ignorance caused our family, especially my son, a lot of pain. I feel a lot of guilt. But now I can tell you that it is true – you are what you eat – so eat wisely!