Here is more on Kava with children. This is a quote from the book, "Hawaiian 'Awa, Views of an Ethnobotanical Treasure", page 9.
"Paraphrasing native accounts, Martha Beckwith (1970) provides readers with furthur documenation of practices and uses of 'awa in Hawaiian culture. Babies were given the juice of the nene variety as a soothing syrup. "This is a fretful (onene) child and must be given the awa", was the saying. "
FYI, the word Nene in Spanish is used to describe a baby and is also used to describe Jesus as a baby in a popular Christmas song. Did the Islanders propagate Nene just for the use of sick children? After all, they still had least 12 other varieties which they painstakingly propagated by taking the Somatic Mutations that pleased them.
So does fretful sound like a child who may be a tad hyperactive? Possibly. The Islanders in Hawaii did not have Ritalin so they made use of the mildest and most Noble kava and made a syrup for the "fretful" child. For reference, look at
Deleted User's Charts to see Nene's ranking. Number 1. I'm not recommending Kava for children, but if I had a hyperactive child, I might do a guarded experiment rather than jump into a Ritalin. By the way, Ritalin is sold and traded in high schools for recreational use. I got this info straight from the horse's mouth, a teenager in high school.