It is the start of a new year and the ideal time for goal setting and planning for the year ahead. Having a clear focus helps directing energy and attention and eases decision making for how to spend our precious time and resources. This is the advice I have been given by every mentor, teacher and coach I have had in my 33 year career, and of course they are right.  However, with the risk of being ridiculed and dismissed, I contend that yes, goals are really important and helpful, but equally as important is it not to stare so blindly at our goals that we don’t see the shining opportunities that appear in the periphery of our lives.  This is often where the magic happens.

Back in 2015, when I should have been paying attention to my very clear goals of writing my Switched-on Kids book and organising seminars, I somehow got side-tracked and suddenly profoundly inspired to procure research into the effects of chiropractic care in children. Not condition based research, but more to understand what actually happens in a child when there is interference in the nervous system and what effect does it have when that interference is removed? I am no researcher, so my input could only be raising funds for proper scholars to look into this.  The New Zealand College Centre for Chiropractic Research had at that time done some awesome research like this in adults, and when I approached them, the director Heidi Haavik was very keen on the concept.

Fast forward 7 years, and my distraction, which gave rise to the not-for-profit organisation ‘The Kids’ Summit’, has raised a significant amount of money.  So far the Kids’ Summit has fund three Master student projects investigating the effect of chiropractic care on children with ADHD, autism and cerebral palsy.

And now in 2022 we finally get to what we initially set out to do. The Kids Summit will be funding a randomized controlled trial examining the short term and long-term effects of Chiropractic care in children aged 10-18 years old with subclinical spinal pain.  The study will look at whether chiropractic impacts the function of the pre-frontal cortex and thereby behavioural and cognitive function as well as immune function.  It will also measure the impact of chiropractic care on psychological health and stress, and health-related quality of life parameters. The Kids’ Summit has, thanks to you and our dedicated speakers, raised the NZ$240.000 required to run this study.

This is sooo exciting!!  Finally we get the opportunity to see the potential effects of subluxation of the health and function in a child, and whether chiropractic care improves function and adaptability across central nervous system and autonomic functions.

Thanks to all of you who have so kindly donated your time, your expertise and your hard-earned dollars over the past 7 years to make this happen. It is so cool to see what we have worked so hard to achieve finally happen.

If you should feel inspired to help more, you can still donate on www.thekidssummit.com.

So as you are working out your goals for 2022, don’t forget to leave a little room to be impulsive and creative. As BJ Palmer said: “We never know how far reaching something we may think, say, or do today will affect the lives of millions tomorrow”.