Money-Saving Solutions for Detoxing Your Child’s Environment

Are Your Children At Risk?

If you have ever been in the position of working with, or raising special needs children, you are aware of their sensitivities to the environment. Whether it’s food-based allergies or backyard playground hazards, simple steps can be taken to ensure your kids maximum health.

In many cases detoxing your child’s environment will erase allergies to foods, seasons, and family pets. Just as important as removing sharp objects from their reach, so too removing invisible hazards that toxins present can be life-saving, especially for a special-needs child.

Detox Outdoors

Stop using toxic pesticides and weed killers such as Round-Up that take years to clear out of the soil. Instead use small, diluted amounts of dishes detergent and water in a spray bottle, to safely remove bugs from plants, and patios around your home, as recommended in the book “How to Grow an EMERGENCY Garden” (Badgett & Majors 2010).

Many plants are natural bug repellants and can be safely planted in and around your home. Lemon grass will keep mosquitoes away due to their citrine content, and planting onions and garlic around your garden will keep insects from eating garden fruits and vegetables.

Neither plants nor pets will be harmed by using a diluted dish-soap and water solution, only the bugs. In fact some plants even thrive on soapy water, as does the banana palm and papaya tree.

Weeds should be pulled out by the roots to prevent regrowth. Poisoning weeds where your children play can harm them as well. Demand to be informed whenever bug or weed killers have been sprayed in or around your child’s school grounds.

Toxic Plants

Certain plants and even beautiful flowers can be toxic to your child’s health. When my son was young I can remember a news story about a 2-year-old boy who died before his grandparents could rush him to the hospital, after ingesting a flower or leaf from their backyard Oleander bush (pictured above).

I immediately removed 2 Oleander bushes from my yard which had been there for at least 20 years. This bush is so toxic it should have laws passed against growing them in the yards of family homes, not against backyard vegetable gardens.

Other less-deadly plants can create severe rashes and should also be removed from your child’s play area. Holiday Poinsettia flowers, sticker weeds, poison oak, and poison ivy can cause rashes, and painful blistering depending on your child’s sensitivity level, which could require medical attention. See the article “Christmas Poinsettias: Natural Holiday Decor or Toxic Threat?”

Detox Indoors

White vinegar works like window cleaner, or bleach to clean and shine everything from windows and mirrors, to stoves, sinks, and toilets without toxins. For more difficult streaks or dried-on spills, baking soda works as a non-toxic, non-abrasive, cleanser-type of scrubbing agent.

Baking soda and white vinegar mixed together will create a bubbling, non-abrasive bleaching action to remove stains in sinks and toilets. The foaming chemical-reaction will also unclog those same sinks and toilets.

The beauty of baking soda and white vinegar are that they are both edible, should they accidentally be consumed, or tasted. Neither of these baking ingredients will produce rashes or send your child to the hospital.

Read the labels of any cleaner, disinfectant, or bug repellant you bring into your child’s environment. Fly-swatters still work wonders, and are inexpensive enough to put one in every room. You will see your child’s health begin to improve as you start implementing these simple, yet effective (and money-saving) home and yard detox solutions.


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