A mother asks help for her 3 years old son. She calls him hyper-active and very aggressive.
I meet her at her place; observing little kids can be best done in their own surroundings and an important deal of choosing a remedy consists of careful observance.
I do not find the boy super active however; okay, he is quite active and moves a lot but a healthy young child is supposed to be energetic, and this boy stays most of the day indoors. First of all I think he needs more space.
I ask if the boy likes playing in the garden. Yes, he does very much, under all circumstances he wishes to be outdoors. “But then I have to remain in the garden too” his mother says, “he wants to have me with him and he gets angry when I am inside the house. He is very demanding. And he is eating sand.” Meanwhile she firmly holds her 2 years old daughter in her arms and explains me how sweet she is.
The little boy keeps on repeating: “breaking, tearing, must break things” and he confirms his words by destroying his toys. When by means of punishment he is sent to the hall he keeps on yelling and banging the door.
He also beats his sister, but the little lady firmly strikes back. So these two make a lot of noise together.
Next the mother complains that the boy refuses to eat his dinner. To me that’s not surprising since she gives a lot of sweets during the day he is constantly begging for to ‘keep him sweet’.
Enough test results have proven that the sugar and chemical substances to enhance taste, color and smell in sweets are related to behavior problems like hyper-activity and aggression. So the first thing to do is radically diminishing (or even better leaving out) the sweets and replacing them for healthy food like fruits, nuts and an extra whole wheat sandwich. The next thing is replacing the artificially colored drinks he gets and which contain sugar as well by drinkable yoghurt, soy-milk, fruit-juice and herbal tea.
A nasty little habit he has lately developed is spitting on everything and everywhere and there is no way of keeping him from this.
Another thing the boy keeps on repeating is “spider”. He sees terrifying spiders everywhere; he points at little flies and mosquitos and calls them spiders as well and wants me to kill all these frightening creatures for him.
His fear of spiders is very prominent. But when I look up/check his symptoms with the homeopathic repertory I cannot find any remedies known for their fear of spiders that further match the symptoms of his case. The remedy that really comes to mind considering his need to move, destructiveness, desire to be outdoors and eat sand, and trying to draw attention through extra-ordinary active and aggressive behavior is Tarentula.
But then I realize that this remedy is made from…a spider!
So I come back with a big smile on my face, saying: “your son is afraid of spiders, isn’t he? He’ll get a spider!”
Not that we tell him, I tell him that he gets ‘vitamins’ and since the remedy tastes sweet he even asks for more vitamins.
Six weeks later Tarentula has done wonderful work. “He is so very sweet” the mother tells me, “he is also very kind to his sissy.” Yes, the boy is really very lovely. And I have not heard him about horrible spiders anymore.
