This is Dr. Mercola, and today, I have an amusing story for you about how a birthday invitation I recently received can be an important reminder of how valuable your communication is to your children. You see, it all started recently when I received an email from one of our Canadian readers named Corey. Recently, her family, including her grandson, Adam, were together, planning for Adam‘s third birthday. So, the family asked him who he wanted to invite to his birthday party. Adam went to his grandfather and asked, "Would you come to my birthday party?" and the grandfather said, "Sure. I‘ll be there."

Then, Adam went to Corey and asked her, "Would you come to my birthday party, Grandma?" and she said, "Sure!" Then, Corey asked him who else he would like to invite to his birthday party, and she thought for sure he would invite one of his cousins. But remarkably, he said, "I want to invite Dr. Mercola!"

Now, to me, that is remarkable because it shows that Adam had been listening to the talk between his mother, grandmother and the other family members. They were avid readers of the newsletter, and really passionate about applying these health principles. So, even a three year old can start to appreciate and understand this.

Now, the communication we received didn‘t really go into how much TV Adam was watching, but my guess is that he wasn‘t watching much. This clearly is the key. You want to keep your kids away from TV; it should be really rarely, if ever, used as a passive babysitter. One of the worst things you can do is to allow your child to be brainwashed by the deceptive marketing and media messages that traditional media will throw at them.

Instead, you can start to read and discuss some of these natural health principles, in an age-appropriate fashion, so that they‘ll be inspired and encouraged. Kids want to follow the example of their role models, of their parents, grandparents and other relatives. So, clearly, this is another important reason why you need to be an example to the people in your life, that you can lead a healthy life and be an inspiration to them, leading by example.

So, remember, it‘s all about education and helping people to understand how you can take control of your health.