(hassling siblings) and tiring situations (going out and playing).
   Reducing unnecessary inputs involves limiting of food quantity, all heavy foods, all mucus- forming foods. We do not have television but if we did, that is another input which would be restricted, purely to save their mind the diversion away from its healing needs. You see, TV, radio, computer games, even reading and talking, are all just forms of mental food and when the body needs rest to heal it shouldn't be trying to digest anything very much. A sick child, propped up in front of the TV, snacking whenever on whatever takes their fancy, will stay sicker a lot longer than one who is resting alone in a darkened room with small amounts of nourishing food and liquid. They also have a lot more incentive to get better quicker!
   If children can be taught that "being sick means being sick"; and that you are actually helping them by reacting early on to the signs; and if they can learn to accept mild isolation and mild deprivation for the purposes of getting better quicker; they will soon experience how quickly their body can recover in those times rather than nursing an illness for 2 to 3 times as long. My children have all accepted this system and know its effects so well that they will all (from about age 4 upwards) often choose to miss a meal and go to bed early if they feel their energy is low or feel something coming on.

Children and Psychosomatic Illness
   In using the term psychosomatic, I do not mean to infer that an illness is not real. Psychosomatic illness refers to conditions which have their origin in the mind, the psyche - meaning the sum of our intellectual, emotional and psychic aspects. In any state of illness, it is also important to consider the link between its physical manifestation and any possible causes at the mental level. Since children are more sensitive to, yet frequently less aware of, psycho-emotional tensions both in themselves and others, they tend to suffer stress at a much earlier stage than we might ourselves. What we might consider only a little problem, may be much larger to them; situations which we think they are handling OK, may be subtly brewing below their rational level and may surface as a physical illness or a behavioural disturbance. Frequently, they are not able to elucidate what is actually bugging them. They may have "caught that bug going around", but maybe only because their immune system was stressed by other factors. They may well have a sick tummy and diarrhoea several mornings a week, but it may have more to do with fear of the bully at pre-school than not washing their hands after going to the toilet.
   The amount of stress within a

household is a most significant factor in the onset of, and recovery from, illnesses in young children. The quality of the relationship between the parents; parental unhappiness or depression; the amount of quality time spent with the child; friction and jealously between siblings; are some of the most obvious ones. The sorts of symptoms babies and young children exhibit when overcome by such stresses include: unexplained crying when alone in bed, disturbed sleeping, skin conditions, headaches, chronic tiredness, avoidance of interactions with people who stress them, disinterest in food. Illness in children can also be a form of attention seeking, a way of playing off one parent against the other, or can be a way (conscious or unconscious) of getting out of things they don't like.
   Parents need to be highly intuitive, not only when the situation arises but some time before things come to a head. I have found quiet meditative times with them helps greatly in this regard as well as the sensitivity and perceptions gained through regular meditation. Sometimes, a thought, an idea, a worry about one of the kids comes in meditation which leads me to watch them more carefully or ask some leading questions about their life. If you can detect in your children what is called their "true self", you can then better sense any deviations from this self which arise in their life.
   At around the age of 6, I detected that Satyaprem had started losing her joie de vie. She seemed listless, uninspired, and I could see in her heart she was sad. She seemed not in touch with it and could offer me no rational reasons for my perceptions. She wanted for nothing (that she could identify). She said she was happy at school (her teacher confirmed this) as well as in her home life, but still there was something not quite right. She was sleeping in later and later, not welcoming the day as she always used to. It was when I asked her if she would like to do homeschooling like her older brother that her eyes lit up and she rushed off to start some "schoolwork" right then and there. I took this as a sign that she needed to be even more free and self-inspired in her learning, and made the decision to home-school her from that point. She now bounds out of bed most mornings, loves to initiate her own schoolwork and has rediscov-ered her earlier love of life and thrill in self exploration. I can only put this down to the slow but gradual effect of her first 6 months in the lifeforce-suppressing school system and the spiritual depression it causes in many children. My lesson from this is that we must never take at face value, or take for granted, a child's apparent happiness or sorrow. We must continually measure their