Brave Parent
So, your child didn’t come with a manual? Finally, a powerful, fun-to-read parenting guide that combines science, professional perspectives, and personal experiences to empower parents to make the best—and bravest—calls for their children and set them on the right track for a healthy and happy life.
ABOUT THE BOOK
So, you want to know what it will take to assure your child will grow up to become a healthy and happy young adult in today’s world? Dr. Susan Maples, a dentist and passionate pediatric health educator, finally cracks the code on the most critical contemporary elements, and she passionately delivers the recipe:
Becoming a Brave Parent will change the course of your child’s life….and yours! By making the bold decisions you know are best, you’ll help inspire a new generation filled with longevity, optimal health, and happiness— beginning in your own home.
“A Brave Parent doesn’t have to be the birth parent at all—it can be anyone who sees that child’s wellness better than they can at any given moment. With my own child I continually prayed for adults who would see the best in him and conspire for his best interest despite societal norms, expectations, or fear of crossing the line and gaining a one-star review on Facebook. A Brave Parent is one who is willing to empower children to make choices that best serve their long-term health and capabilities—and not to make choices that feed their detrimental, short-lived gratifications.”
– Dr. Susan Maples
Why be a brave parent?
Read here to find out:
“Society is conspiring against parents. Whether it’s education, social media, pornography, or diet, the world is moving faster than any parent can keep up. Even a trip to the doctor or dentist is fraught with angst. COVID vaccine? Braces? Dr. Susan Maples breaks it all down for you. She lets science be your guide so that parents can be brave, instead of just faking it.”
-Robert Lustig, MD, MSL, Professor emeritus of Pediatrics at UCSF, Author of Metabolical, The Hacking of the American Mind, and Fat Chance
Introduction
“Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.”
-Winston Churchill 1874-1965
“Healthy children are the greatest asset any family can have.”
-(My version)
Unfortunately, health often goes unappreciated until we’re in crisis.
Speaking of crisis … as I write this, the health of our country is in serious jeopardy, and it happened on my watch, as a health care professional. It clearly wasn’t the case when I began my career in dentistry only thirty-six years ago. It should disturb us all that the US measures as the sickest population among industrialized countries and at more than double the cost of care of any other country.
As a whole, we are heavier, more diseased, more medicated, slower moving, faster paced, more socially pressured, less satisfied, more anxious, and more depressed than ever! And it’s not about to stop. By 2050, it’s projected that 43% of us will suffer from obesity, half from heart disease, half from cancer, one-third from type 2 diabetes, and 40% from anxiety disorder.
Wouldn’t it be nice if your kids were the exception to these skyrocketing disease trends? And if they drove change among their peers?
I wholeheartedly believe if we are ever going to change this abysmal situation, we must do it through a generation of children who “get it.” You, as the bravest of Brave Parents, can ensure this by working together to change detrimental habits during your kid’s formative years. Stand tall against cultural norms. Refuse to be intimidated. Are you ready? Just read on … with a curious and open mind.
Throughout the book, I use the word parent to include any brave adult who loves and cares for a growing child. Even if you’re not caring for children in your immediate household, keep reading. After all, there’s no such thing as other people’s children when we’re all facing this health crisis together.
A Wake-Up Call
In late winter of 2020, every US citizen stepped into freak mode. We began to face COVID-19, a pernicious virus that could potentially wipe out 1–2% of our population. Our immediate future looked like a horror movie.
So, imagine my surprise on March 2, 2020, when I turned on the morning news to get a panic-pulse on the imploding pandemic, and the terrifying report was interrupted by a cheery-voiced newscaster chortling, “On a brighter note, today is National Egg McMuffin Day, and McDonald’s is giving away Egg McMuffins for breakfast. Also, Wendy’s launched its new breakfast menu … and KFC is highlighting its new breakfast sandwich: two glazed donuts with hand-breaded extra crispy fried chicken in between.”
Are you kidding me?! The irony was too much! Please “get it” that the death toll from our collection of lifestyle-related, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) is astronomically greater than the pernicious coronavirus ever hoped to be. Eating commercialized, processed food is a slow-kill, so we are desensitized and dull to it. By the way, when did we give McDonald’s its own holiday?
I heard over and over that COVID-19 was even killing young, healthy people. I was quick to suggest that young and healthy are not synonymous. The majority of children in our culture are suffering from any number of lifestyle-related conditions: obesity, insulin resistance, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, early cardiovascular inflammation, active caries disease (rampant tooth decay), and addiction to everything from caffeine and sugar to heroin.
It’s estimated that 75% of our country’s health expenditure is for these lifestyle diseases that are preventable. Shouldn’t it scare us that every forty seconds one American dies of a heart attack and every four minutes another by stroke? Yet cardiovascular disease is preventable altogether if we would just eat real food, move more, and sleep well.
Here’s another serious issue. Our health care system doesn’t pay for prevention, only treatment. Recognize that “preventive” procedures like colonoscopy, mammography, and PSA tests (screen for prostate cancer) are for early detection, not prevention. We need medical coverage for all aspects of teaching how to live a healthy lifestyle. And we need to revamp our processed food supply.
Instead, medicine has been on a quest to treat one problem at a time, prescribing drugs only to quell the symptoms, not the disease itself. The system is broken! Imagine instead, all health care professionals taking time to identify the underlying root cause of disease and learn to effectively facilitate behavior change. Talk about a revolution.
To do that we must learn to see the human body as a whole—and learn what to do to care for it. How do we breathe? What’s the quality and quantity of our sleep? What do we eat? How do we effectively move our bodies? How do we respond to stress, both acute and chronic? How do we nourish and nurture our brains? And how do we improve our gut/mouth microbiome?
Your Brave Parent Journey Begins Now!
If you want to help put a child in the driver’s seat on a lifelong journey to health, consider this book your roadmap. Let me help you set up your kiddo for a lifetime of health—truly against all odds in today’s world.
Eat
Your kid vs. today’s food craziness: It’s a lot to swallow!
Drink
Bubble, Fizz, Guzzle, Gulp: What is this stuff anyway?
Digest
Support the bugs in your kid’s gut… or their gut will bug them.
Breathe
Growing the tongue box: It’s the shape of things to come.
Sleep
The greatest underrated frontier!
Feel & Think
Brainiac-Yak-Yak!
Chew & Smile
Oral health wise… Your mouth is a tattletale!
Move
Foster a daily dose of get-up and go!
About
Dr. Susan Maples
Dr. Susan Maples climbed from being an effective, busy clinician doing tooth-based dentistry, to an accomplished and fulfilled total health and advanced restorative dentist, performing at the forefront of her profession. Susan recognized first-hand the declining health trajectory in America, and wanted to help. She saw that patient’s mouths provided plenty of telltale signs of systemic disease, putting her preventive team in a perfect position to help patients turn things around and reclaim their health, happiness and positivity.
Spearheading Total Health Dentistry (or Integrative Dental Medicine) has become her passion. In 2015, Susan co-authored the book, BlabberMouth! 77 Secrets Only Your Mouth Can Tell You To Live a Healthier, Happier, Sexier Life, where readers learn how the mouth reveals early signs of disease in the body.
As a recognized expert in mouth-body connections, Susan has become a sought-after speaker for her ability to inspire just about anyone—medical and dental professionals, business executives, and team members—but Susan’s real passion is to help children. She believes they are our future and need to be put in the driver’s seat for a preferred future of better wellness. To reach them, Susan knew that she needed to help their parents better understand how to roll up their sleeves and become brave parents. And thus, the concept of a book for parents was created.
“I have come to learn that lifespan and healthspan are two very different things. Unhealthy adulthood begins in childhood. “
– Dr. Susan Maples
What People Are Saying
“In fact, the entire book is filled with great nuggets of information that I will definitely share with the families I care for in my practice. I loved this book, and wish I had it when my kids were little!”
–Dr. Lisa Thornton
Division Chief for Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine, Sidra Medicine, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar
“Dr. Susan Maples has done a wonderful job researching the necessary building blocks and identifying a multitude of actions parents can take now to give their child advantages throughout life. I’m also in awe of her writing style. I only wish I had been able to read this when my own children were little!”
–Dr. Shereen Lim, Dentist and Pediatric Health Advocate, Author of Breathe, Sleep, Thrive: Discover how airway health can unlock your child’s greater health, learning, and potential
“Every parent would benefit from reading Dr Susan Maples’ inspiring approachable book . There are so many easy to implement suggestions. Your children will thank you.”
–Michael L. Gelb DDS, MS
Adjunct Professor NYU
Foundation for Airway Health
Co-Author of Gasp: Airway Health, the Hidden Path to Wellness
“In a society where parents may outlive their children due to endemic health issues, Brave Parent is a treasure trove of science, wisdom and support for parents wanting to guide their children into a life of health rather than disease. Dr Maples weaves an easy-to-read narrative through gut, brain and airway health, holding parents’ hands with her practical tips and insights along the way because she knows, that it is the parents of the world that will set the future pathway for their children’s health, with the right knowledge right at their fingertips.”
–Sharon Moore, Founder of Well Spoken, Speaker and Speech Pathologist, Author of Sleep-Wrecked Kids: helping parents raise happy, healthy kids one sleep at a time
“I can’t get enough of this book! It’s comprehensive and so compelling. Not only will you be hooked but as you read on you will find answers to many questions you either didn’t know to ask, or know who to ask. This book is written from the heart of a parent and the mind and expertise of an accomplished (and ever curious) practitioner. It’s a tremendous resource covering everything from growth and development to setting your child up for a lifetime of healthy habits. This book will inspire, empower, and cheer you on to make educated, healthy choices for your little one.”
–Kelley Richardson, Pediatric Airway Health Advocate, author, and blogger
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