Photo by Laurie Tennent Photography.

SOUTHFIELD — Children grow up to realize their parents’ worrisome nature is an instinct once they have to raise and protect their own.

When they are young, it is quite difficult to understand, especially if they suffer from diseases like cancer, asthma, diabetes, autoimmune disorders and others that might restrain them from living their childhoods normally. 

Many parents don’t want their ill children to hurt themselves, catch something new or get worse. It’s all understandable, but problems arise when they let their negative feelings and concerns control both their healthy and ill children. That’s why special programs are a great benefit to families in situations like this. 

“As a family we were struggling a lot,” Amal Albayati said. 

Amal Albayati and Sirwan Arif, an Iraqi couple from West Bloomfield, lost their 21-month-old toddler, Avesta Arif, to a disorder called Miller-Dieker Syndrome. She was diagnosed with the disorder three weeks after she was born. 

“I knew that my baby girl was not going to live beyond her childhood, which was extremely difficult,” Albayati said. “But I also have another boy, who at the time she was born was only 4-years-old and didn’t exactly understand what was going on or why his baby sister was suffering.”

Albayati explained that they were afraid of losing him, too. 

“It isn’t his fault that he is healthy and his sister was sick,” she said. “I wanted him to feel that we were still okay and that he has to live his childhood just like other children.”

At the time, Albayati asked the case worker from Hospice of Michigan to help her find a program that allowed her son to express himself. The case worker told her about Kids Kicking Cancer, a non-profit organization based in Southfield, providing free martial arts lessons. 

Rabbi G with students – Photo by ArJo Photography

The program started off teaching cancer patients, but expanded to any children in pain and even their healthy siblings, so they don’t feel left out.

“The KKC manager told me that my son Adam was qualified to be in the program,” Albayati said. “I was so happy to hear that and I was moved.”

Adam Arif has been participating in the program for more than a year. According to Albayati, Kids Kicking Cancer taught him how to control his emotions. 

“The program teaches kids how to use their power breath to breathe in the light and breathe out the darkness,” she said. “Every time my son sees me angry, he says, ‘mommy ,use your power breath.'” 

Also, the program has many activities and events that involve the whole family. The couple got to know other families  who shared similar stories from these events.

“I just felt that we were not alone in this,” Albayati said. “KKC has always been our family.”

The founder of this therapeutic program is Rabbi Elimelech Goldberg, who likes to be called “Rabbi G.” He is a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at the Wayne State University School of Medicine and a black belt in Choi Kwon Do.

“My first teacher in the world of Kids Kicking Cancer is our daughter,” Goldberg said. “At 1-years-old, she was diagnosed with Leukemia.”

In 1981, at age 2, she would tell the doctors, “no medication today, please” and “tell the 5-year-old children not to cry,” he said. 

“She would pat me on the back and say, ‘it’s okay Abba (dad), I love you,'” he said.

On her last day, he asked her where she wanted to go, naming many places, but she said no to all of them.

“I thought maybe there was a place that I didn’t mention,” Goldberg said. “The bed was right next to the window, so she lifted up her hand and pointed up to heaven.”

Goldberg was asked to direct a pediatric oncology camp in New York a number of years after his daughter’s death. He taught a 5-year-old boy who was screaming before his chemotherapy treatment a simple tai chi breathing technique.

 “Twenty minutes later, the nurse pulled out the needle and he said, ‘did you do it yet?'” Goldberg said. “That’s when Kids Kicking Cancer was born.”

Now, Kids Kicking Cancer sees more than 3,000 kids around the world. It is associated with hospitals in cities like Los Angeles, New York City, Gainesville, Windsor, Rome, Florence, Jerusalem and more.

Goldberg emphasized that there is no contact in any of the martial arts taught. 

“The majority of what we focus on is inner meditation and breath work,” he said. “We use the martial arts to center ourselves and push our pain, fear and anger and respond to everything with a sense of inner power.”

A new study from the Wayne State University School of Medicine on how the program reduces pain in children shows that 85 percent of children who have pain report less pain after the program intervenes in that cycle, Goldberg said.

“We see constantly that children are better because they are not preceded by their disease,” he said. “Giving them that mindset that they can take control is very, very essential.”

Goldberg said what might seem like an overwhelming problem is an opportunity to be a blessing in the world. There’s a purpose and a way to find inner power.

“As you say Alhamdullilah (thank God), it’s all the ability to be able to be a blessing in this world,” he said. “A perfect God created an imperfect world perfectly; that’s really the mantra of Kids Kicking Cancer.”