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How Sleep Affects Behavior In Children And Teens – With Dr. Breus “The Sleep Doctor”

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How Sleep Affects Behavior In Children And Teens – With Dr. Breus “The Sleep Doctor”

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My guest this week is Dr. Michael Breus, a double board-certified clinical psychologist, and clinical sleep specialist. He's an expert resource for major publications, has written 3 books and is frequently featured on TV, doing more than 200 interviews a year. He's also been in private practice for over 18 years.

In this episode, Dr. Breus shares how sleep affects behavior. He walks us through how much sleep kids and teens need in order to function optimally. He also shares tips on how to develop better sleep routines. We discuss the common factors that affect quality of sleep in positive and negative ways like the use of electronics, lack of bedtime routine and caffeine vs exercise, reading, meditation, and a calming sleep environment. We also cover recommendations for night terrors and bedwetting. Learn more about Dr. Breus here. Connect with him on FB and Twitter.
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Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everybody. I'm Dr. Nicole Beurkens and welcome to the show. Today's episode is all about the connection between sleep and behavior. It's one of my favorite topics to talk about with parents and families at the clinic. I'm super excited to have as my guest Dr. Michael Breus, known as, The Sleep Doctor.

He knows more about sleep than just about anybody else that I know and he's got super credentials. He's a double board certified clinical psychologist and clinical sleep specialist - one of only 168 psychologists in the world with those credentials. He's the author of three books, with the newest book, "The Power of When", which is a groundbreaking biohacking book proving there is a perfect time to do everything, including, things like talk to your kids and actually get them to respond to you. He's an expert resource for major publications and TV doing more than 200 interviews a year and he's been in private practice for over 18 years. And I'm really, really excited to have you on the show. Welcome!

Dr. Michael Breus:

Thanks I appreciate it, Nicole. I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to share some wisdom and some knowledge and hopefully, we'll get there with everybody. So let's rock and roll!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely. You know, I want to start by having you talk about on a very basic level the connection between sleep, the quality of sleep and the amount of sleep that kids get and their behavior. Because I find in working with families a lot of parents really don't understand or appreciate the connection between those two things. So, can you start out by talking a bit about that?

Dr. Michael Breus:

Absolutely. So when we're looking at sleep. So first of all, let's be super duper clear. It's going to vary based on the age of the child. So when we've got younger kids sleep can actually have an even larger effect or really a different effect versus, for example, a teenager who might require a little bit less sleep. But, as we all know, teenagers like to stay up late and sleep late, which is kind of crazy. So we have to kind of factor those things in.

So first of all, it's going to depend upon the age of the child, generally speaking. But there are some things that I want people to kind of know and understand as we kind of move forward. So one thing, this is a crazy statistic, but 25 percent of children who've been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD actually have an underlying sleep disorder. And that disorder can be apnea, or it can be something called restless leg syndrome, or periodic limb movements.

Here's what's interesting is tired kids oftentimes don't act tired. Unless they're teenagers, right?

Let's think about it.

So I've got a 16-year-old and now a 15-year-old. And here's what I can tell you is when they were 5 and 6 and they got tired, they didn't say, mom, I want to take a nap. You know what they did was they got rambunctious and that can sometimes really look like some of that behavior that we have a tendency to see with ADD or ADHD children. And so there's a misdiagnosis that happens.

Here's where it gets even worse is in many cases some of those children are being placed on medication that's a stimulant medication. Which of course, affects their sleep cycle at night and can make restless legs even worse. So all of a sudden, we've got this super crazy cycle that we really have a hard time getting these kids out of. So the very first thing I like to let parents know is, just because your child has a diagnosis, I'm not thinking that it's a sleep disorder. There are different cases where actually that could occur. And we see that come out in their behavior.

Generally speaking, cranky kids are just not fun. And that's really where we're at a lot of times with sleep and many children don't even realize it is sleep that they need. Because they think, you know parents would think, oh, well you're just a little low on energy so here, have a snack. Even if it's a healthy snack you know, not necessarily a sugar snack, it's still not going to replace sleep. Right? There's no replacement for sleep and so thinking about that it's probably worthwhile maybe going over some of the ideas behind how much sleep children need at different ages so that we can avoid some of these problem behaviors as they come out. Make sense?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, I think that's a great idea and I appreciate you raising the point about the percentage of kids diagnosed with ADD or ADHD who actually have underlying sleep issues because I see that a lot in practice. Where kids will come in and they've been diagnosed with one of those conditions or a related type of condition. And, you know, I always am asking about sleep and it's because so many of these kids aren't sleeping well or maybe they're in bed long enough but the quality of sleep isn't there. And parents will say, oh my gosh, we've done every medication. We've done everything and my kid is still really symptomatic having all these symptoms. And it's amazing when we can address the underlying sleep issues those behaviors during the day just improve dramatically.

I'm glad that you raised that. Yeah, let's talk about the amounts of sleep that kids should be getting. Because I think a lot of parents are surprised to hear, especially when we think about teenagers, so yeah, let's cover that.

Dr. Michael Breus:

Absolutely so, I'm going to work my way backward from kind of teenagers going back right. And so when we look at teenagers it would be fantastic. I know it's not realistic but it would be fantastic if they could get 10 hours a night. Right? That would be the ultimate kind of number that we're looking for. Especially in the earlier teen years when we've got puberty hitting when we've got all those developmental changes going on. The more sleep, the better.

Remember something.

Sleep is healing and sleep is growing. And that's what sleep is, especially at these ages. So when we've got teenagers who've got busy schedules, they're on their devices late at night, they're chatting with their friends, they're watching YouTube, all of these things. They're not getting the rest that they need.

I just want to briefly talk for just a second about some of the devices and the use of devices that night because that can be a big one as well. Many parents might not realize it but there's a specific kind of light that comes from your laptop from your phone iPad, what have you. It's called blue light. Now, let's be honest it actually isn't blue by color, but it's blue in the spectrum of white. 450 to 480 nanometers is the frequency that's coming out of these things. Now, I don't mean to get too technical but it gets really interesting really quick. This frequency when it hits your eyeball, it actually tells your brain to turn "off" the melatonin faucet in your head.

That's not so great for adults but that's really bad for teenagers for two reasons.

Number one, is they have a tendency to use these devices much longer than adults do.

Number two, their internal biological clocks are already shifted later no matter what.

This is a biological function, if you remember back when you were a teenager, again, you like to stay up until 12 and sleep until 12. That's exactly what these kids are like biologically. Then they get these lights in front of them and it can push them even later. And, oh, by the way, you still got to wake up for school at 6:30 in the morning. And that just stinks. Not only for the kid but especially for the parents. Right?

I can't count the number of parents who have been like, Michael, what do I do with my kid? I can't wake him up! And I mean I've heard some horror stories you know, like ice water being thrown on these kids, you know, pulling the sheets out from under them. I mean, you know, the morning warfare that occurs with trying to wake up a teenage child it's no fun for anyone. Right?

And so, step one is usually education with these kids because a lot of times they don't know what's going on I mean just because it's their body doesn't mean they've figured all this stuff out. So a lot of times when I educate kids about it they're like, oh, well that makes more sense to me. And we give them solutions. And so, a solution that's actually a very kid friendly solution.

My initial solution in my house was I'm going to turn off the router at night. There was almost a mutiny at my house when I tried to do that. It just didn't go over very well. But we now have these glasses called blue blocker glasses and these are very good. Both of my children wear them starting at 8 o'clock at night.

Now yes, they look a little goofy but you can have fun with it. My kids actually post on Instagram like look what my dad is making me wear, I can't believe I'm the Sleep Doctor's kid. You know, all kinds of fun funky stuff.

What's great about it is it blocks this blue light and when it does that it actually reduces eye strain. Because we know lots of children are going to have eye strain kids they're looking at computers. But when we block that blue light, we're allowing that melatonin to be produced. And that's really something that's going to be important for our teenagers.

And when we go a little step backwards to our younger kids. So we're talking now 12 to about 8, the number actually increases in terms of the amount of sleep that we would love for them to get. We're thinking more like 12 hours in this age range especially towards the back end or the lower end of the age range. We really want these kids in bed earlier and then because they're going to get up fairly early anyway. Right?

Allowing them to get 10, 11, 12 hours is really going to be great for them. Again, this is a super big developmental time for them. We really want to make sure that they're getting the opportunity to grow. But also from a cognitive standpoint, this is where all the information is coming in. This is where they're learning how to learn. It's really hard to learn with a sleepy brain. OK.

When you've got a child who's got different types of behavioral issues, different types of things going on in their lives, sleepiness is just a factor you don't want complicating the whole thing. If you can get them to that you know 10 to 12-hour range, closer to the 12-hour range, you're going to be a lot better.

When you get down to the to the smaller kids, not the itty-bitty's. But the smaller kids, then you're really looking at 12 to 14 hours and usually, there's a nap in there somewhere and that can count towards that 12 or 14 hours. Those are the kind of things that parents should be shooting for. Now, look. I get it. Especially, having teenagers sometimes it's impossible to even get eight hours much less 10 hours.

So here's the thing that you're going to hear from me that you don't usually hear from most sleep specialists, which is, yes they can take a nap when they come home from school. Especially if they're teenagers because nothing is going to stop them from sleeping when they want.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Right.

Dr. Michael Breus:

But don't worry about that. And by the way, my son comes home he could take a two and a half to three-hour nap and all of a sudden I got to wake him up for dinner. And then he'll eat, do his work, and then go back to sleep. So don't worry about that. The second thing is, it's OK to let them sleep in on the weekends. Saturday it's perfectly fine. I mean honestly, nobody gets up in this house until noon. I mean I do. But other than that. Right? So that's OK. Be careful with letting them sleep too late on Sundays in particular.

And here's why...

Because if they sleep in on Saturday, if they sleep in on Sunday as well, their brain, especially the teenagers, is going to want to sleep in on Monday. So get them up within two hours of their normal wake up time on Sundays but on Saturdays let them sleep in.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah. And I think that that's really helpful for people to understand how important sleep is at that age. You know, I often say to parents that if you look at it both from a growth, a physical growth standpoint and a brain development standpoint, the fastest period of growth in life obviously during infancy but the second fastest is really during the adolescent years. They're undergoing so much physical growth and cognitive and brain growth and the sleep needs are tremendous. And unfortunately, a lot of kids at those ages get really shortchanged. Whether it's because of devices and things interfering in their sleep or just the fact that school starts so darn early. And that's such a frustration. Especially, you know, there's so much talk in the world of education about using evidence-based educational approaches. And yet, the evidence really shows that we have our start times completely reversed, right? Are younger kids or elementary kids should be starting earlier because that works for them. And our older kids, are teenagers, shouldn't be starting high school, middle school until 8:00 o'clock, 9:00 o'clock. And instead, we're getting them up at the crack of dawn, and I think that really does create a lot of challenges. Especially when we think about them, you know, trying to get homework done in the evening or participate in sports, things like that. I talk to families about shooting for eight hours. That needs to be the minimum goal and if they can get more, great, but what can we put in place to make sure they're at least getting eight. Because I see what a huge difference it makes in their mood and their anxiety level and their irritability. You know, their overall behavior.

Dr. Michael Breus:

I was also going to say, including their academic performance.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yes!

Dr. Michael Breus:

Right? So you know the parents are out there who are big on academics. Look, the data is super clear. Right? Is sleepy kids get bad grades. It's just the bottom line. Right? And and so if you've got a child who on top of behavioral issues, you've also got academic issues. You've got to look at their sleep. I can almost guarantee you there's something in there that's not going the way it should be. And you know there's a lot of different things out there that you can use, resources, that you can use to help you learn how to sleep better, deal with sleep issues and sleep problems.

And there are some sleep problems, by the way, that are very characteristic based on age. Right? And so, as an example, one of the things that we see in the younger kids in that earlier developmental stages. Right so, we're talking now ages 4 to about age 8.

One of the big things we see there are these things called night terrors.

Okay. Now I don't know if anybody out there has experienced them. My daughter had nightmares and they scared the crap out of me. OK. Because here's what it is, if you don't know. Is your child is lying there and then they just sit up and they just scream bloody murder and then you come. I mean I'm running across the house. I'm thinking you know, I'm going, there's an intruder or my daughter fell or something, and she looked at me and then boom she just fell back asleep. Right. And you know my heart is beating out of my chest. I'm reasonably certain I would have had a heart attack at this point. And she's perfectly fine the next morning. I said, hey Carson, what was all that screaming about? And she was like, what are you talking about dad? Because they're completely amnestic to it they have no idea that it occurred. So there's actually some very very good treatments for stuff like that. One of them and I will gladly share it here.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, please.

Dr. Michael Breus:

After they fall asleep if you wait about 45 minutes when they're into their deeper sleep cycle. Go in and gently wake them up and ask them two or three questions. Like, what day is it? Did you do your homework? What's your middle name? They can be the same three questions every night by the way. Just enough for them to think and then put them back to sleep. For some reason and we don't know why that seems to be kind of the reset button for night terrors and they just magically go away. I did that with my daughter it worked like a charm. I can't explain exactly why it worked from a neurochemistry standpoint but I can tell you it works a bunch. And it's very very helpful.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's great. You know, I had never heard that before. And that's awesome because you know, I'm convinced they are called "night terrors" because they're terrorizing for us as the parents.

Dr. Michael Breus:

Right!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

The kids are fine but for us it's horrible. And I know that those tend to run in families like often, you know I see a couple kids in the same family, you know there would be a couple kids with those issues but I hadn't heard that before. That's a really helpful tip for parents who are listening who have that issue with their child. Because certainly, I mean, while they're not, you know, alert and cognizant of what's going on. And that is still quite disruptive to their sleep. Right? Especially kids who are having several of those in a night.

Dr. Michael Breus:

Absolutely. And during this particular age range, another big problem that we see is called enuresis or bedwetting. Right? That's a very common issue. And it was surprising to me how many parents have come to me with children who have bedwetting issues. I was actually kind of surprised at that. And believe it or not, there are some very, very, simple techniques out there. So if you go to Google and you type in, Bell and Pad. B-E-L-L and pad. This is a little device and it's really quite interesting. It's got a little sensor that goes on the internal part of their underwear and it can sense moisture. And then there's a little cord that goes to a little alarm or a vibrating disc that goes in their pillow. And it just gently wakes them up when it senses this level of moisture. The child knows, oh I need to get up. Gets up, takes themselves to the bath and comes back. Usually, in seven or ten days the issue is gone. Right?

There is well documented, you know, protocols for a lot of these issues. Unfortunately, parents don't know about them or pediatricians may not know about them. So, you know, we've got to make sure that parents are getting well educated and understanding some of these things for sure.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

You know speaking about younger kids and you know night terrors and bedwetting. You talked about the amount of sleep that kids should be getting in different ages. This makes me think that I want you to talk about quality of sleep and sleep interruption. Because I think, you know, sometimes parents will say, well, gosh my kid is you know sleeping for 12 hours in a stretch. The amount of time that they're sleeping seems to be fine. And yet, when we dig into it more it turns out that they're having poor quality sleep or restless sleep. So can you speak to that a bit?

Dr. Michael Breus:

Absolutely. So the number one culprit for restless sleep, especially when you start to get into the like 10, 11, and up is caffeine. Lots and lots of people are allowing their children to drink sodas, diet sodas, anything, you know energy drinks Monster what have you. These are not appropriate for children at all. OK. Bottom line. Caffeine has absolutely zero nutritional value. There is no reason it should be introduced into a child's regimen. So that's number one is. And by the way, if your child is drinking caffeine do not cold turkey them off of it. OK. That's a nightmare. You need to slowly taper them off a bit, especially if they're drinking more than one or two in a day. That's really not good. If they are only drinking one or two in a day you can definitely get rid of that. And you'll be better off with it. Water is the best thing that they could be drinking. They don't need juice. They don't need Gatorade. They need water. That's it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely.

Dr. Michael Breus:

Well filtered water, I'm with you, but water is really where they need to go. But caffeine is a big one. Another big one that I found more so with itty bitty kids than larger kids, is what is the bedtime routine? Sometimes that bedtime routine can be different and that can throw the child off from a quality perspective. So, I'll give you a great example. I had a parent who the father had a very difficult job and wouldn't get home, oftentimes, until literally 10 minutes before the children were going to bed. But he planned it so that he could get home so he could put the children to bed because he wanted to be part of that. And so I thought that was great until I found out that part of what he likes to do. He had two boys was the roughhouse for bed. Because it's fun and your wrestling and all that. Worst idea ever. OK. What you don't want is a lot of physical activity right before bed. Remember everybody sleep is not an on/off switch. It's more light slowly pulling your foot off the gas and slowly putting your foot on the brake. There's a process that needs to occur there.

Roughly one hour before your child's bedtime, which you should know now based on kind of what time they wake up and how many hours they're going to need. One hour before, do yourself a favor and create what I call a power down hour. Twenty minutes for things that just got to get done before the next day. So that could be getting their sports equipment together, finding out what they want for lunch. You know, finishing up last minute homework details, something like that. 20 minutes for hygiene. Right? So brush teeth, wash face. Bath if you've got young kids. And then 20 minutes of some type of relaxing type of thing. So that could be story time, song, prayer. It could be reading. It could be if you have an older child teaching them meditation techniques.

There's a lot of different things that you can do to help ease your child into sleep. That has a tendency the data is interesting when children are doing positive things before bed they actually get deeper sleep and their dreams are more positive. Which is kind of cool, right? And it's a pretty easy thing to do.

One simple trick that I do with a lot of my kids is I have them create a gratitude list right before bed every night. Like just list five things that you're grateful for. Sometimes it could just be, I'm grateful that I liked dinner tonight. Or sometimes it can be something you know that's big that's going on in the household. Like, I'm grateful that Mommy's chemotherapy treatment went well. Because there are so many different issues that can affect a child especially while they're thinking before bed. And if you've got something going on in your household that's pretty stressful like a divorce, or an illness, or death of a loved one. You need to expect that your child's sleep will definitely be affected by this.

Even a purely emotional traumatic event can certainly have major side effects on the quality of their sleep. The final thing is their environment, right? And so, I know many kids will share a room with their brother or their sister. But if their brother or sister has night terrors, that's going to stink. You know, or if they snore, or if they like to play loud music, or if they get up at a different time.

Really looking at that environment can also be critical for getting children to have a better sleep environment, which then leads to better quality sleep.

The final way to increase quality sleep for kids I would argue is exercise. The data is super consistent. Children who exercise sleep better. Period. End of story. So for you folks out there who got kids who were on a bunch of sports teams, that's awesome. I don't have kids that are very sporty and so we find other exercises. Walk the dog, go out for walks after dinner. You know, whatever we can do to kind of promote that, especially in younger kids to make it habitual. It's always going to be better for the quality, not just quantity of their sleep.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's some super helpful things for parents to think about. And that's also something that you just commented made me want to ask you about specific signs or symptoms that might indicate to a parent that there is some sort of actual sleep disorder, you know, going on. There are kids who you just kind of are restless and don't sleep well and may be hard to settle down. Using good routines at night and not doing caffeine and getting exercise like those things do wonders for kids. And then we've got kids who are experiencing a level of restless sleep, or inability to fall asleep, or stay asleep, or who are super, super tough to get up in the morning. Like there are things that can indicate that there's something there that should be medically looked at, right?

Dr. Michael Breus:

Absolutely.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Can you talk to us about what some of those things might be that parents should look for?

Dr. Michael Breus:

Sure. First of all, no child should snore. Okay? So let's just talk through that idea for a second. Now I get it. If your child has allergies, if your child has asthma things like that. But, generally speaking, children shouldn't snore. When they're snoring that means that their airway is becoming compromised and that they're not breathing very well and they could have something called sleep apnea.

One of the first things that we look at in kids, especially kids with behavioral issues, is sometimes it makes a lot of sense to bring them in for a pediatric sleep study so we can learn if they've got apnea. Apnea is not just an adult disorder, it's definitely in kids. And as a matter of fact, in adults, the cut off for apnea is five times an hour or greater. Alright, stopping breathing. For children, it's one time an hour or greater. So it's very different. These studies are run differently. They're scored differently. You have very specialized sleep doctors and pediatricians who run these studies. So that's one thing I look for is the potential for sleep apnea.

Snoring, difficulty waking up, falling asleep in school, those types of behavior, lethargy, not wanting to do their favorite things anymore. And then also a tendency for them to eat high sugar, high-fat foods is also these are all potential signs of sleep apnea. Sleep apnea also, by the way, can be confused with narcolepsy sometimes. The good news here is narcolepsy almost never shows up before age like 13, 14, 15.

If you've got a sleepy young kid the chances of it being narcolepsy are very very small I wouldn't necessarily worry about that. Another thing that you can do is go into their room while they're sleeping at night and watch them for about 15 minutes. Are the covers flying? Are their legs moving? Or you hear vocalizations, are they talking? What's going on?

By the way, 25 percent of all children are sleepwalkers and sleep talkers. It's perfectly normal. It's only a safety issue. Right? And so, if you've got a child that's a sleep talker, you're fine they just might be a little bit noisy. But if they're next to their brother then that could be an issue. But have you got a child that is a sleepwalker, the big thing to make sure you do is put baby gates up at the top of the stairs and the bottom of the stairs. The reason I do it in both places is because a lot of times parents will only put it in one place. And what ends up happening is for some reason a gate gets moved and something goes wrong. So and children fall asleep on the couch, blah, blah, blah. So just be careful with that.

Also if you have a child that has a tendency to be very mobile, like they can walk across the house, down the stairs, and out the front door. Which happens more frequently than you'd imagine. Instead of having a bolt lock change it to key lock from the inside. Key lock it and then take the key and put it above where the child can reach for it. Make it obvious for the adult. I mean it can be on a tac right there, but while they're sleeping it would be almost impossible to go through that complex of a behavior for that but that's something. But by the way, sleepwalking and sleep talking are usually a sign of sleep deprivation. So the child is not getting the quality and quantity of sleep that they need. And that can be an issue as well.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's interesting. That's helpful to know. I didn't know that increased sleepwalking and sleep talking could be, you know, an indication of sleep deprivation. That's really good to know.

Dr. Michael Breus:

Absolutely, it can be. And then on the scarier side of things which is incredibly rare, are seizure disorders. Right?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Right. Dr. Michael Breus: And so if you have a child who has known seizures, which many parents who are watching this could have that as a situation. Then you also want to be careful to see if they're having seizures while sleeping. Because that can be incredibly disruptive and the seizures might be different. They could have grand mals during the day and petites at night and it would be hard to see.

Again, if you have any suspicion it's going to be good to get a sleep study done. Only because if you've got a child, again, with daytime seizure you really want to be careful about something like that. So those are kind of the bigger things that you would want to be looking for that could be sleep disorders.

Now, there's also, refusal to go to bed. Right? Which is a biggie. Right? And I don't want to go to bed, one more glass of water, or you know that kind of stuff. And so, look, that is nine times out of ten that is not a child issue. That is a parent issue. Right? So I have to reach through the children and strangle the parents. Right? It's all about consistency. You've got to put your small kids down at the same time every night. I don't care if grandma and grandpa are in town. And their flight was delayed and they get into your house at 9 o'clock and Johnny's bedtime is 8:30. Johnny needs to be asleep. OK. Like Johnny's not going to be great if he stays up until 9:30, then hangs out with grandma and grandpa till 10:30. The next day it's going to be a disaster. Right? And that doesn't do anybody any good.

Consistency, consistency, consistency, is really the best. And you can use behavioral charts and things like that. So in our house, we use hot wheels cars. So my son loved to get up. You know one more glass of water, one more this. And so what we did was, I said, Cooper, let's go to the store. And he was all excited. We went to the toy store and I said, there's a big wall of Hot Wheels. I said, pick out ten cars. He went crazy. He was having so much fun. We put them all in the bag and I held him up in the front seat while he was in the back and we got home. He was like, hot wheels! Hot wheels! Hot wheels! And I said, oh no, no, no, no. You don't get any hot wheels. You got to pick out the hot wheels. But here's what's going to happen. If you can keep your butt in your room all night long for one full night. You get a hot wheels car. And guess what? Magically, my son was able to do that. Now I will tell you the first night he peeked his little head in and I knew it was going to happen. I had the car that he wanted the most sitting right next to me and I raised it and I showed it to him. I said, you ain't going to get it if you walk through that door. He's spun around and went back.

So it is really about just being fun and getting them involved if you noticed I had him choose the prizes because that was an important thing. And it gets them involved. And I explained to him why sleep was important and why I needed him to stay in his bed until the clock in his room said 6-3-0. That was our deal. You did that. You could walk over to the basket and grab a hot wheel. And literally in ten days, we were done. So it's very very possible to train your children, but when you are inconsistent with schedules it's just going to make your life much more difficult.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, that's so important. It's something that I talk with families, about all the time. Often those types of issues are more the parent's issues. And our issue with not wanting our kids to be upset with us, or us being tired at night and not wanting to, you know, hold kids accountable. You know, and I will say the same type of consistency goes for older kids too. I mean, right now my four kids are 12 to 18. And I'm just as rigid with them about the importance of sleep and maintaining consistent routines. Obviously, they're doing more of that now because they're of an age where they can do more of that. But, but I think it's important for parents to recognize the huge role that we play in not only educating our kids about why sleep is important but also holding them accountable to learn how to sleep well. And to learn how to manage those evening routines, and how to soothe themselves when they wake up in the night. That's part of our job to help them learn to do that. And sometimes there can be challenges around that. Especially if parents have had their own sleep issues, you know, parents who don't sleep well, I think, struggle to help, you know, maintain routines with their kids.

That consistency is so important and recognizing that our kids aren't always going to like it, especially as they get older. You know? And little kids don't want to go to bed because they want to play and you know they're convinced that everything fun in the world happens while they're in their bed. And then when they get older, it's like they don't want to go to bed because they want to talk to their friends. Everybody else's Mom and Dad let them stay up until you know 2 AM texting or whatever it is, but I think being able to hold firm with that and say that this is such a huge part of your health and your wellness. And for parents to feel empowered to kind of set those expectations and hold kids accountable to that I think is super important.

Dr. Michael Breus:

I do too. And I'm not trying to give parents a hard time. I'm just saying, be consistent, you know.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yes. Yes.

Dr. Michael Breus:

Your body needs that level of consistency and your children's bodies will develop faster and better with consistent sleep. It's just healthier. It's probably the easiest thing that you can do for the health of your child is to keep them on a consistent sleep schedule. You don't have to... I'm not saying you have to feed them spinach every day. You know I'm not, I'm not saying that they have to run a marathon. I'm just saying, go to bed at the same time to wake up at the same time. That's all I'm asking. And I promise you, they and you, as parents, will reap the rewards.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, I love that. And I often say to parents that while just addressing sleep by itself may not be the only thing that's needed to massively, you know, shift especially more severe behavior problems in kids. If you aren't addressing the sleep stuff, you're not going to get very far with anything else.

Dr. Michael Breus:

Exactly.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

To me, it's one of the really underappreciated components of behavioral disorders, behavioral challenges in kids. And I think we need to be talking about it more and helping parents understand just how critical it is and that you can do all the behavior training in the world. You can bring your kids to all the therapy. You can be you know on all these medications doing all these different things. And if your kids not getting the right amount of good quality sleep at night, you're not going to get very far. And I've just seen that, you know, in 20 years of practice.

Dr. Michael Breus:

No question about it. And I know we're running a little short on time. But I did want to include one more thing if I can.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yes, please do.

Dr. Michael Breus:

So I have lots and lots of parents who say to me. Okay. Dr. Breus, I've tried all those things but my kid just doesn't sleep and I want to give them a pill. What do I do?

First of all, sleeping pills for children are only in the most extreme cases, you could imagine. We're talking about things like schizophrenia, bipolar, you know, those types like severe, severe autism like those cases. Absolutely. It makes sense, you would absolutely need to get this done with a pediatric psychiatrist who is on board with your psychologist and the therapy that's going on there because they have to coincide. You can't just give the kid a pill and think that they're going to sleep. Alright, that's number one.

Getting out of the pharmaceutical induced sleep and looking at, for example, over the counter stuff. Right. Lots and lots of pediatricians tell parents just give them Benadryl, it's all fine. Okay, it's really not fine.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Right. It's not fine.

Dr. Michael Breus:

Let's just be super clear about that. It's not fine. Okay, and there's a lot of reasons why it's not fine. But the biggest reason that it's not fine is what you're educating your child to do... is to think that they require a pill for this natural sleep-related process and that is not true. You are giving that to them because you don't want to deal with them up or being consistent or things like that and so it's an easier solution. This easy solution is not going to pay off long term. I promise you.

Now, if you've got a child and you have a 17-hour flight to Europe or something like that, absolutely, I get it. Okay. Weird environment. Sure, you know, or God forbid, that they're sick or something like that all bets are off there but if you're dosing your child with Benadryl nightly, bad idea. If you're doing it even once a week. Honestly, that's not really where you need to be here. This is a bigger issue and then you need to find a pediatric sleep specialist.

Either way, that's a good point. If you don't know where to find a pediatric sleep specialist, every major children's hospital has a pediatric sleep lab and a pediatric behavioral sleep specialist associated with that lab. So, if you're looking and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't know where to go. Whatever the closest pediatric hospital is or children's hospital is, that's the place to start. If they don't have a one, which would be kind of amazing, they'll know somebody who does in the community and be able to help you out with that. Also, we should talk about supplementation.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Sure!

Dr. Michael Breus:

I think that's an important aspect for people to understand as well. So, my favorite supplement for children for sleep is the recipe that I call banana tea.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: Nice!

Dr. Michael Breus: Right. And so it's all about magnesium. So it turns out that most of us, even kids, have magnesium deficiencies. Because you can eat a bushel of kale a day and it's not going to give you the right amount of magnesium.

Number one, our soil doesn't have a lot of magnesium in it any longer. So we at the end, by the way, our bodies don't produce it so we have to ingest it. It turns out that bananas are loaded with magnesium, but the peel actually has three times the amount of magnesium as the fruit itself. So simple recipe. Okay. It's called banana tea but it actually doesn't have any tea in it. So, you take an organically grown banana cut off the tip and the stem. Cut it in half. Leave the peel on and the fruit in it. Okay, then put it into about three cups of boiling water. I'm going to move this because the sunlight is... by the way, we are in my kitchen which is perfect because we can make banana tea!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's right!

Dr. Michael Breus:

And you take the banana, wash it off and then you put it into three cups of boiling water and you boil it until it turns brown. Then you drink the water. You don't have to eat the banana or the peel. Although plenty of people do. It's actually nice because it's mushy and it's not too bad -or- use it for banana bread or something like that.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah!

Dr. Michael Breus:

But the banana tea is great! And I have a lot of moms were take this mixture, they make it during the daytime and instead of presenting a hot liquid they put it in molds and make popsicles.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, nice.

Dr. Michael Breus:

And so it's a great little treat for the little ones. They got to like bananas, because it's very banana-y as my daughter likes to say. But it works really really well and it's a great form of supplementation because you're also getting a lot of the natural constituents from the banana which help you absorb the magnesium. So you're not just popping up pill and hoping for the best. Right?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome.

Dr. Michael Breus:

That's definitely one thing and then we really would be doing a disservice if we didn't bring up the idea of melatonin. And are parents using it? Should parents be using it? What should they do.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah.

Dr. Michael Breus:

So let's talk about it a little bit right now. So first of all, the appropriate dosage of melatonin is low, low, low. We're talking a half a milligram here for kids, right. For adults, it shouldn't be over one and a half milligrams. By the way, 95% of it is sold in over-dosage format. Okay. The only place I've found melatonin in half a milligram dose is actually at Trader Joe's. Their house brand and I've checked it out, so the quality is good. So if you're going go out and grab something that's the one to grab but remember something. Almost all children make enough of melatonin. Okay?

Melatonin is not a sleep initiator. It's asleep regulator. So melatonin doesn't make children fall asleep it changes their circadian rhythms. So, as an example. Let's say you've got a teenager whose circadian rhythm is shifted late. They want to stay up late and sleep late, but they've got to get up at five o'clock in the morning for some event. Melatonin the night before might not be a bad idea there. But again, generally speaking, giving a pill to a child every single night is probably unnecessary. However, there's a big caveat here.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Right.

Dr. Michael Breus: Children on the spectrum, there's a lot of really good data to show not only is melatonin very effective and should be used nightly, but the dosage is high. We're talking 3, 4, 5 milligrams at times can be very effective for kids who are on the spectrum. So if you don't have a child on the spectrum, I'd prefer if you can do things that were more behavioral... banana tea, stuff like that. Really, you don't want to head towards the pill right away but for kids, but if you've got a child is on the spectrum. Don't hesitate, because it can be very, very helpful in those particular situations.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: Awesome. Super helpful. So many great tips that people can take away from this and so much helpful information for parents to start thinking about how their child is sleeping and simple things they can do to improve that. If people want to find you online and get more information where can they go?

Dr. Michael Breus: Sure. So head on over to my website it's thesleepdoctor.com - it's pretty easy to remember, once I say it hopefully you'll never forget it. But also if you go to thesleepdoctor.com, I would suggest that you go to the section called, the Blog. And click on my blog. In the search bar, type in teens or children - I've probably written close to 20-25 blogs about this stuff and I go into the details on it. So you can really get some great information there. And we'll also make some stuff available in the show notes and links in the show notes for people as well.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome. Super. Thank you so so much. It's been great having you. I appreciate you being a guest.

Dr. Michael Breus:

Sure. It's my pleasure. I just want to wish everybody out there, Sweet dreams!

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How Sleep Affects Behavior in Children - Dr. Beurkens and Dr. Breus

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My guest this week is Dr. Michael Breus, a double board-certified clinical psychologist, and clinical sleep specialist. He's an expert resource for major publications, has written 3 books and is frequently featured on TV, doing more than 200 interviews a year. He's also been in private practice for over 18 years.

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Words Matter: How Conscious Communication Improves Behavior in Kids

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Words Matter: How Conscious Communication Improves Behavior in Kids

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My guest this week is Lori Petro, the founder of TEACH through Love, and the creator of Conscious Communication Cards. Lori is dedicated to helping parents learn how to communicate better with their child without blame, shame, judgment, and guilt. She created TEACH through Love as an online resource for conscious parenting, offering non-punitive and trauma-informed education and support.

In this episode, Lori and I discuss the importance of parent-child communication and how it affects children's behavior and development. Lori introduces her concept of 'Conscious Communication' and 'quality feedback'. She provides us with useful tips to help navigate and implement these skills in order to help improve the parent-child relationship, strengthen children's neural connections and improve their overall behavior. Learn more about Lori Petro . Connect with her on and .

Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi, everybody, and welcome to the show. I'm Dr. Nicole Beurkens, and today I'm super excited to have Lori Petro as my guest. I've been following Lori's work on social media and online for a while. She talks about a lot of really important aspects of parent-child communication that fit really went well with what I teach to parents in my community.

I just think that this whole topic around the relationships that we have with our kids as parents, and how we can use ourselves and our communication as a powerful intervention and support for our kids is so important. I'm really excited that Lori agreed to do this today. Lori is a child advocate, the founder of TEACH through Love, and the creator of the Conscious Communication Cards. Lori's dedicated to helping parents learn to communicate without blame, shame, judgement and guilt. She created TEACH through Love as an online resource for conscious parenting, offering non-punitive and trauma informed education and support.

Lori, thanks for being here. Welcome to the show.

Lori Petro:

Hello. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Nicole:

We've got a lot of questions that we want to dive into over the next half hour, but I'd love actually to just spend a few minutes right now, to have you share your story with people who are listening, how you got into doing this kind of work?

Lori:

I think in my heart, I've always had a real passion for advocacy, fighting for the underdog. Wherever I see injustice, or people being hurt, I have a very visceral reaction to it. I think that was always my path, but I was the misunderstood kid. I didn't really come from this. I have a degree in education. I had that backup plan, but I wasn't working as an educator right when I got out of college. I had artistic dreams, but it always came back down to this passion that I had for changing how we interacted.

I was a misunderstood kid. I grew up with a lot of blame and shame and punishment. I was always punished. I felt like I wasn't doing all the things that people said I was doing. The behaviors weren't my real problem, but nobody really knew how to get underneath that. That's where I come. I really come from a place of wanting, just parents to understand their kids and kids to feel like they're heard and understood by their parents. I think so much of that is missed.

Nicole:

I think that that's so true. For you to have had the personal experience with that as a child, I see so many kids in my practice who are misunderstood kids. The focus is very much on what's going on the outside, with their behavior as opposed to looking at what the underlying issues are and what the unmet needs are, that are causing kids to act out in the ways that they are.

I always feel like kids are doing the best that they can and the strategies that they're using, while we may call those inappropriate or unacceptable, they're doing the best they can to get their needs met and looking at those underlying pieces and being responsive to those is so important. I so appreciate the work that you're doing and the experience that you bring to this.

Lori:

Thank you. That makes total sense. If we could just look beyond those surface behaviors, like you said, really try to figure out what kids are communicating. It would be so much easier for parents. That's the thing. I don't want to tell anybody what to do. I don't want to come into a home to be like "Well you do this and sort this", it's more about, why am I feeling just regulated that my child isn't listening to me right now.

Why is my stress level rising? Why can't I stay confident and calm when I'm setting limits, why do I get triggered so much? I think when we start to really look deeper, not just at our children's behavior, but at our own behavior, it just becomes so much easier for us to really connect and communicate and then shift behavior, just as a natural, automatic- just the result looking deeper. We really get what we want without trying so hard.

Nicole:

That's a beautiful way to put that, and I love how your focus is really on how we, as parents, can shift and change things about ourselves, how we're thinking about things, how we are communicating, responding and behaving in order to encourage positive change in our kids. Because really, we can't control anyone but ourselves. As parents, to be able to think about what's within my control, to change here, to better support my child and to help our relationship move forward is so critical. I love this term that you use, 'conscious communication' and I think that that may be a term that's unfamiliar to a lot of people who are listening, so I'd love for you to delve into "What is conscious communication?".

Lori: For me, it really just means becoming aware of the words that we're using. It's not a list of things to say or how to act, it's really just "Am I conscious and aware of what's coming out of my mouth?". When we're stressed, we're usually not very conscious of those words. It's just a mindfulness that comes with communicating, slowing down and not feeling like we have to say something, because then that gives us a chance to really consider, is this- for me, it's about quality feedback.

I like to give kids quality feedback, feedback that informs them on how to change their behavior and doesn't just tell them what to do, or tell them how they're acting, or tell them how they're making us feel, or making me angry, or all of this stuff. It's just about becoming conscious, aware and present of the words that we use.

Nicole:

I love that. I think that you're right. When we're in moments of stress, of tension, of dysregulation, of hecticness with our kids, we tend to not be very mindful about the communication that we're using. Can you give some examples of common things that you see that would represent, that reactive communication or things that maybe, as parents, we would hear come out of our mouths that would not reflect conscious communication? Just so that people are clear.

Lori:

The thing about this is, it's definitely what we say. When we're using, when we're blaming or shaming or judging, that's not polite. "Why would you do that?", we challenge our kids. None of that really helps them figure things out, it just stresses them out. Something as simple as when we're trying to get out the door in the morning and we're just standing over them saying, "Hurry up. Why aren't you done? Get your backpack. Put it in." and we're just giving them direction after direction, instead of maybe stopping and thinking, "What's missing in this situation? Their socks are missing, they're not on their feet. I noticed you sneakers are still by the door.", instead of "Hurry up, go get your sneakers on".

For me what it does is, it gives kids a chance, not only in certain situations it'll connect us, but it also prompts them to use their brain. That thinking part of their brain isn't going to just mature and develop without input. If we are yelling directions, or nagging or even if we're doing it, we think it's kind and calm, "That wasn't very polite. Why would you do that to your friend? Look how sad you made her". Now we've got some shame and guilt.

We have the best intentions, but does the message translate? Those are just some really simple things that I am- this is not about perfection, I always say conscious, not perfect. When we say things that are blaming or shaming, we can go back and say, "How can I give this child quality feedback? I noticed your backpack was still by the door." or "We've got five minutes to leave. How can I help?".
Just offering children a chance to either respond, give us information about what they need, will help rather than always going in and trying to give directives or judging the behavior, or any of those other things that we might use, again with the best of intentions. When we're not conscious, it seems easy. It's easy to say all of those things, "If you would just study harder, you would have an easier time on these tests".

It's like that doesn't help the child, look into what's missing, what's preventing me from getting this better grade or from achieving success here, what's really getting in my way? When we look for that, we might find, "This child is struggling with attention." or they get headaches when they read for too long, so they need to break up their homework into shorter bursts like, "Do 15 minutes here". There are so many strategies and things that we can come up with, once we take the time to sort of, just step back.

Nicole:

I like this idea of slowing down and getting curious in a way, is what I hear you saying, getting curious about what's going on behind the issue in the moment, instead of just directing, "Get your shoes, get your stuff, why aren't you ready?" to step back and get curious about, "Why is this the situation every morning? Why is my kid never ready, what's going on here and how can I communicate in a way that helps my child to be able to, maybe share what some of the issues are, or allows me to be more helpful or allows us to just be in a problem-solving mode."

I think that's really what I hear you saying, is when we get curious about this and step back and get out of that over-directive mode, it allows us to enter into a problem-solving mode of, "What's really going on here?" What do we need to do to help you be more successful? Because I think that's really the goal with any area wherein our kids are struggling with managing their behavior or meeting expectations that it's really about how do we help you be more successful here? What we're doing isn't working, how can we help you be successful? I think that's a really different way of looking at it than that demanding constant prompting type of mode.

Lori:

When one focuses on what you said earlier, behavior. It's so behavior-focused that it doesn't really allow for that problem solving or that regulation to happen because it's so focused on the external symptoms that we see but they're really representing something deeper that's going on. For me, I use a three-prong approach when we have to look at behavior because I feel like it's always one or some combination of these three things.

Also, the first aid that we apply to help our kids is always going to come from these three things and they are support; in terms of our relationships. How are we connected? Stress. Is the child overwhelmed? Is there sensory stress that's overwhelming them? Are they cognitively stressed? They have this huge mental load at school all day and something is stressing their system. We can't think when we're dysregulated. Then skills. Are we tt trying to connect and repair a relationship to help the child? Are we trying to help them regulate their stress and find a place of calm and comfort so that they can learn and move forward?

Or is this a time where they are calm and they're connected, but we have to set a limit because we're helping them build skills. Maybe we're saying no to something, but we're not doing it in a punitive way. We're doing it because we know that they're working on something and they need to build the skill whatever it may be with whether it be focus, attention, responsibility, whatever skill we're working on. Skill, stress, support, for me, those are the three areas that we can always look to find the why about why is this behavior happening?

Nicole:

I love that. It really just simplifies all of those areas and helps us stay focused on the three main components of looking at what's happening. I think that's great. I want you to share a bit about why you feel that conscious communication, this being aware of our communication. You've touched on it, but I really want to be clear for people. Why do you feel like that's such an important core thing for parents to be thinking about and doing with their kids?

Lori:

Because this is what kids really need to thrive mentally, physically, emotionally. When we respond to our children with empathy, with prompting them to help them make better decisions without all the judgment to blame shame, judgment, and guilt, we strengthen neural connections in their brain. I don't like to get too technical with parents about brain science, but if we think of little kids as having very immature responses, it's because their brains don't have a lot of strong connection. They are very limited.
Every time we respond in this way to our children, we strengthen the right connections, we strengthen connections to the higher thinking part of the brain whereas when we use more traditional behavior focus type discipline, we really keep them stuck because we typically will trigger their fear sensor in their brain that says, "Okay. Something's wrong." Then what do they do? They freeze. They can't think, they can't take in new information and learn. If we're constantly triggering that part of the brain, we're teaching them how to be hyper-vigilant in the world and we're going to teach that.
They're going to be able to handle some tough situations probably because would be they'll react quicker, but these aren't really scary tough like death situations, but when we keep triggering that part of the brain, we're strengthening that and then they resort to using that. They never get a lot of practice. For me, it's about healthy development. It's not just that we use this because it sounds nicer, it's we're actually shaping the brain by how we interact with our kids and what we say to them and what they think about what we say. Not just what we say because I know we always have the best intentions, but it's what is that message that's being translated? What message are the children really receiving?

Nicole:

Yes. I love that. I think it is important for parents to think about how on a neurological level. How our behavior, our communication is shaping their neurological development, especially in younger children because they are developing those neural connections at such a fast pace. I think that's really important and then especially your comment about triggering some of that anxiety and strengthening those connections. I see that a lot in kids, especially kids who come to the clinic who maybe have diagnoses of things like autism, ADHD, more severe emotional behavioral disorders, many of them have been through the standard recommended treatment approaches out there that really do focus very much on behavior management, on really stern punitive style of communication, very directive style of communication and the amount of anxiety in these kids. Some of them have learned to be very compliant. They will do anything you tell them to do because they're really terrified not to.

The amount of fear and anxiety in these kids that we then have to unwind first before we can start helping move them forward with other things, it's really just incredible to see and really frustrating to see that some of the things that are promoted as far as the standard of interventions for kids with these emotional and behavioral needs, we can talk about throw kids with trauma and those kinds of things in there too. Some of the standards of care of things that are recommended in more of the behavioral realm for these kids. Actually, I find can do quite a bit of harm. A lot of it comes down to just lacking this conscious relational supportive communication approach. I'm curious what your thoughts are on that.

Lori:

You've hit my most heartfelt passionate point about all the work that I do and these kids, especially because they're highly sensitive. Whether you've experienced trauma, whether you're on the autism spectrum, all of these kids get triggered really easily. Sometimes it's just natural. I feel we know that some of these anxieties and stuff are even passed out so I'm not going to blame outside factors for it. Let's just say that they have a naturally sensitive temperament.

We're hardwiring negative behaviors when we use this approach, when we use a punitive approach where, yes. Absolutely, they can become- some kids will become super compliant just to get by, and other kids will fight you and their behaviors will be. Those are the kids where we think, "Oh, they need more firmness." We think that compliant kids are, "Oh, it's working." It's not. We're sending them both into that same just hyper-vigilant state where it's, "How do I live through this?"

We're never giving them the skill practice that they need and the supportive relationships and the understanding because we're so focused on Bobby, who punched somebody because they bumped into him next to his locker and he freaked out. We don't understand that the abusive relationship that he saw his parents and contributed. I'm just making that up as an example when we look deeper and we look at the child's history. For me, absolutely those kids especially are- I hate to say it, but they're harmed by punitive measures. They really are.

I know again that professionals and parents do not have that intention, which is why I hesitate to say that they're harming their children. I don't want to make it seem so awful or judgmental on my part. It's just that what we're doing is we're harming their development. They're not being able to thrive in the ways that they really could thrive if they had a supportive environment. It really just takes a shift in thinking, and as soon as we're able to go, "Okay. I want to investigate this behavior. I don't want to just look at the surface behavior."

Parents realize how much benefit and change can come quickly even when they shift. Yes. I completely agree with everything that you said about the anxiety and them really taking it. They take it harder even than say, typically, developing kids or sometimes those kids are like, "Yeah. Whatever." They kind of let it roll off their shoulders and it doesn't have the same intense effect, especially the relationship with the parent or caregiver.

That's what's affected most. That's where our influence comes from. I'm not even saying we're harming development, we're ruining, but our relationship is the thing that gets harmed the most there. Then, we don't have influence, because once they don't have to listen to us anymore, once they don't have to rely on us, they're going to seek that advice and support somewhere.

They're going to go outside probably that main family unit where they should rely and they're going to seek that connection, understanding, validation. They're going to seek that outside, and I think that's what we want to prevent.

Nicole:

Yes, and I think that whole keys to that how the communication in the way that we relate to and engage with our kids impacts our relationship over the long term is so important, because I know you feel the same way that really, parent-child relationships are at the core of where we need to be focused for early development and really development all the way through to strengthen that parent-child relationship. It really sounds like this shift towards conscious communication and parents being more aware of that really helps strengthen that parent-child relationship in general, right?

Lori:

Absolutely, and can I say something about conscious communication and the relationship?

Nicole:

Yes.

Lori:

It also affects the relationship that we have with ourselves. Whenever I do a class or training, first thing I do is talk to parents about that relationship that they have. I'm not going to tell you anything about your kids. We're going to talk about us. How do I feel, how do I talk to myself? What is my internal dialogue sound like? And sometimes parents realize that they're so very harsh. They have such a harsh inner critic. They're so harsh on themselves. They never paid attention to that internal dialogue that they have going on with themselves. Suddenly, they go, "Oh, if I can just change how I speak to myself." That helps us regulate. That helps us feel like we can then approach somebody else who's having trouble, but from a compassionate point of view because we've learned to be compassionate with ourselves.

Nicole:

I love that. I think that that's so important because really, in order to be more conscious of our communication with kids, in order to be more curious and come from this stance of relationship first with them, I find both as a parent and a professional that that really requires as a first step that I'm able to keep myself calm and regulated and in a thinking space. When I am getting triggered by what's going on with my kid, or when I've had a long day, or when I'm just not in a good frame of mind. Whether it's because as you've just mentioned that internal negative self-talk or just high levels of stress or whatever it might be, I certainly I'm not coming from a place then of support or relationship and then that impacts everything I do with my child. Would you agree that the first step to this is us, as the adults being able to be aware of and regulate our own emotions and behaviors before we can worry about what's going on with our kid's behavior?

Lori:

Definitely. Definitely, and when we feel that if we're in that moment and we're like we need to go set that limit but we don't feel calm and regulated. Unless somebody is going to be hurt, physically hurt, walk away. Walk away. Even that 10 seconds, which is a really long time. The 10 seconds that it takes you to walk to the other room and you're breathing, even that can do so much to regulate us. If we can just get a glass of water or sit down, look outside, look at a picture of someone you love. Anything to help reconnect us to ourselves.

Definitely, I would absolutely everytime, unless there's danger. I recommend that parents do that because they'll just feel more empowered and confident walking in and then suddenly when the four-year-old's going, "No, I don't care." You're like, you see that it's a four-year-old just having a rough time and you're now like, "Oh you're not going to tell me. I'm the parent." You don't have that reaction anymore. It's really for us. Makes us feel so much better when we do that for ourselves, so absolutely, I would recommend that.

Nicole:

Well, I know that we're running on a little bit low on time here, but I do want to have you touch on one thing that I think is important around this. That parents often will bring up when I'm speaking or working with families at the clinic. And that is, " But I need to set limits with my child, but I need to be firm." This idea that when we're thoughtful and calm in our communication that somehow that means that we are being a pushover or we're letting our kids do whatever they want. I think a lot of people really equate those things in their mind. That I need to be firm and I need to be powerful. I need to be in control because my kid needs to behave and they equate some of the kinds of ways of communication that we're talking about with meaning that they aren't setting those limits or that their kid isn't going to learn having manage themselves. That's probably something that you hear a lot from adults, too. Can you speak to that a minute?

Lori:

Yes, that's definitely a fear that pops up. A lot of that is once we start looking at our history as parents, which is a lot of the work that I do in the beginning, we recognize where that comes from. Where that condition. Where that knee-jack feeling to have it our way or make sure that we're setting limits. We figure out where that comes from and it starts to lessen once we do that personal investigation. Just to speak to why it's not a quality feedback for our kids. If we think about- I like to have parents list all the things that they hope their children- All the qualities that they hope their children grow up to embody. They put things like independent, thoughtful, leaders. I want them to be kind, compassionate, and responsible. They list all these things. Then I ask them, so let's list the five ways that you most often respond to your child. Sometimes the list has bearing things. Well, a lot of times it would sound like there's yelling, there's nagging, there's punishing, there is all of these things that we can come up with that aren't conscious and then I say, "Look at those two lists. Let's compare them." Are we going to get everything on list A if we're always acting in the ways that we talked about in the second list, list B?

We want to be confident. We want to be compassionate. If we want our children to grow up to embody these qualities... How do we get there? If parents say, "Well, consequences." Okay, let's talk about consequences. There's always so much more to look at. I think that we have to be the model. We have to look- For me, consequences is like, "Why do we have to put something in between us." We are the influential ones. We are the ones, we want our kids to rely on. When we do consequences, what we do is we essentially send them the message that I'm not in charge. It's consequences that are in charge and that gets put between us. Kids eventually are going to outsmart that consequence. They're going to outlast it, so you have to keep getting harsher and harsher. It's not quality feedback, it just puts external motivators or even just praise. Because then our kids keep looking for that motivator. That thing between us. They don't come to us they look for that. If it's not there, are they going to behave in the same ways? I feel like it gives away our power when we say I have to be- and yes, we want to be firm, we want to set limits where it's necessary, but we never have to be unkind to do it, and I feel like yelling, shaming. Those are definitely unkind, but even punishment and consequences. Let's look at the real reason that we're putting this in place. For me, it's just not long-lasting. It's just not sustainable. Our relationship is sustainable. It can last. None of these little external controls that we put around behavior, try to reinforce it and do all this - they're not long term.

Nicole:

Yes. Again that focus on relationship and our sustainability and our teaching kids how to really be emotionally and behaviorally regulated human beings as opposed to just compliant or doing what we want them to do because they're afraid of what happens if they don't, right?

Lori:

Right. Their social-emotional intelligence absolutely is affected, and that would be so- They will have such a greater ability to regulate their emotions and to go in and help others. To really go in to situations and see the conflicts and be able to help other people manage situations. That's a really amazing gift, and they don't get that gift when you just use consequences. This idea of being tough, they don't get that same social, emotional intelligence.

Nicole:

Yes, and that's a great point. I think really that idea that it's entirely possible and very beneficial to be calm and firm at the same time. That firmness that helping our kids learn how to manage themselves and regulate their behaviors doesn't necessitate us being angry, or punitive, or those types of things that we can be calm, kind, empathic, and still firm and have expectations at the same time.

Lori:

Exactly. I want people to have expectations. Kids love learning and they love building relationships and they love when they get our approval. All these things are good for healthy development, we just don't want to get in the way all the time.

Nicole:

This has been so wonderful. You've shared so many great things for parents and professionals. Any adult to be thinking about in relation to kids. I'd love to have you share where people can find you online. How can they find out more about you and the work that you are doing and what you offer people.

Lori:

Thank you. Absolutely. You can go to teachthroughlove.com, our website. And then, Facebook. I'm really active on Facebook. I post a lot of conscious communication examples. If you're wondering I get it but I still don't know what you mean by what to say just go on my Facebook page and look through all the different examples. Facebook and the website and my YouTube channel as well. Just quick Q&As you can find me on YouTube.

Nicole:

Love that. I think that's so helpful. I know on Facebook you provide lots of examples. Lori has these things called conscious communication cards that are awesome that give really helpful examples on each card for parents in certain scenarios and situations of what we might typically say and how we might typically respond and then what's the more conscious or helpful response. I think those are just awesome. I'm sure that people can find those on your website. Right?

Lori:

Yes. Right at the top, you can always find those. Thank you.

Nicole:

Fantastic. Lori, Thank you so much for being here today to share your expertise with everyone. I know that people will get a lot out of this. Thank you for being here.

Lori:

Thank you, Nicole.

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How to communicate better with your child without blame and shame

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My guest this week is Lori Petro, the founder of TEACH through Love, and the creator of Conscious Communication Cards. Lori is dedicated to helping parents learn how to communicate better with their child without blame, shame, judgment, and guilt. She created TEACH through Love as an online resource for conscious parenting, offering non-punitive and trauma-informed education and support.

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Amino Acids Can Help To Relieve Anxiety In Children

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Amino Acids Can Help To Relieve Anxiety In Children

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The Powerful Effect Of Nutrition On Children’s Behavior

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The Powerful Effect Of Nutrition On Children’s Behavior

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The Powerful Effect Of Nutrition On Children's Behavior

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Children with ADHD, mental health issues, Autism and other conditions can experience life-changing effects from nutritional interventions alone.

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Kids in the Kitchen Build Connection, Confidence, and Creativity

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Kids in the Kitchen Build Connection, Confidence, and Creativity

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My guest this week is Katie Kimball, a former teacher, blogger and mom of 4 kids who founded the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse . Through her online blog, Kitchen Stewardship , Katie's discovered that getting kids in the kitchen and teaching them to cook not only builds life skills but is the best way to show kids that they matter and can make a difference in the world. She believes if every child in America was taught to cook, we would smash statistics on childhood obesity, depression, behavior disorders and more.

In this episode, Katie and I discuss how the kitchen can be a source of connection, confidence, and creativity. Helping children build life skills in the kitchen yields incredible results, allowing children's curiosity and creativity to peak by engaging with nutrient-packed vegetables and ingredients. Children with ADHD, behavioral challenge, anxiety, or who are on the Autism spectrum gain independence in the kitchen and conquer fears and anxiety by learning valuable tasks. Learn more about Katie .

Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Transcript

I've gotten to know Katie in the work that she is doing with families around, getting families back into the kitchen and teaching kids how to cook, which I am such a big proponent of from a health and wellness and just physical and mental health standpoint. I'm really, really excited to have her here with us today and talk about the kitchen as a source of connection, confidence and creativity for kids. Katie is a blogger, a former teacher, and a mom of four kids. She and I have that in common too, who founded the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse. It's an amazing online course to teach kids how to cook.

She started her online life at her blog, Kitchen Stewardship, where she helps families stay healthy without going crazy. Katie's original goal with the cooking classes for kids was to help parents get a little help in the kitchen, build life skills and hopefully even get kids to eat some vegetables.

Love it. During her work and research, she realized that teaching kids to cook is the best way to show kids they matter and can make a difference in the world. She believes that if every child in America was taught to cook. We would smash statistics on childhood obesity, depression, behavior disorders and more. I could not agree more. Katie, welcome to the show.

When I'm trying to feed him, the ratio of bite to body is so much bigger than when you're feeding an adult. It was heavy on my mind to learn to feed him really, really well, which meant that I was spending a lot more time at the cutting board than I was used to. I was hearing from other moms in my circle the tension that they were feeling. It's hard to eat healthy and not spend too much money or eat healthy and not spend too much time in the kitchen.

As I was learning little hacks and tips and tricks for finding the center of all of the things that are pulling on us, I thought my heart is of a teacher. I was just always teaching people in my head at the cutting board. I thought, maybe I can actually help other moms make this easier, make this healthy living journey a little easier.

I could grease the shoot for them. We could get more people eating healthier because I was seeing benefits, feeling benefits in my own family and my own life. That's where I ended up blogging at Kitchen Stewardship and helping families stay healthy without going crazy.

As I got to know busy moms from all around the world, what I heard over and over was how difficult it was, still, because they were never taught to cook. I realized our generation was really skipped in that. Either our moms cook convenience foods or they cook from scratch but they just didn't tend to teach us.

I grew up learning to cook, but what has just shocked me in my professional life, especially in the last decade or so working a lot more with teens and young adults, they don't know how to cook. I'm not talking about maybe can't cook a meal. I'm talking about have never boiled water or have never done basic things. It's been shocking to me.

Where that becomes so important is, when as a professional, I'm talking with them about the importance of eating a healthier diet and not eating as many processed foods. Whether it's because they have anxiety or obesity or autism or whatever it might be that we're wanting to really clean up their diet and help give their brain and body the nutrients they need. They need to be able to grocery shop. They need to be able to know what whole foods are.

They need to be able to have some skills in the kitchen. That's such a huge gap, I think, for so many people as they grow into adulthood. That's what I love about what you're doing is teaching kids from the time they're younger so that as they get towards adulthood, they have the skills to do this.

I think that most parents would agree that things like relational connectedness, spending time with their kids, building confidence, creativity, those are really important things. I'd love for you to talk a bit about how do you see those things being built in the kitchen.

One comes to mind, a mom named Sarah whose daughter is nine. She has ADHD. She used to get a little more distracted than other kids. She had sent Sarah to a community cooking class in person. Sarah ... not Sarah. Sarah is the mom. The daughter came home with cuts on her fingers. Sarah is like "This is not going to work," but was able to use our courses, keep her safe in the kitchen. They had a beautiful family moment making a favorite recipe for chicken noodle soup.

A lot of moms talk to me about that. Another mom, Lorrie, she realized in her family they were eating out too much. She was like "Okay, we are going to do 30-day challenge. No eating out." Her girls completely lost it. "We're not okay with mom's new plan," but on day one, she got them in the kitchen. They had already done some of our course. They had some skills. They were able to help. They actually made sushi. These aren't girls with narrow palates.

Just that idea of working in the kitchen together, being a team, being a family, being a team working on something altogether got them connected enough to even be onboard with some of the crazy stuff their mom wanted to do. We hear crazy stuff like that all the time. I feel like service begets service. They always say with babies, sleep begets sleep.

Because I have yet to meet a kid no matter how severely impaired they are who can't learn to take on some level of meaningful role in the kitchen. There's just so many different things that they can do. I know there are some parents out there thinking, "Oh my gosh, I'd never give my kid a knife. They'd hurt themselves" or "My kid wouldn't be able to cook things."

I think what you're talking about is, really, cooking or these kitchen skills, breaking it down to everything from helping to mix something and maybe helping to pour ingredients or helping to clean up all the way to more advanced skills, right?

I often recommend to parents that repetition is really important. What I found over the years was that a lot of parents of kids on the spectrum or with down syndrome would email and say, "I know your class isn't designed for special needs kids, but it's working perfectly." Because we teach them really fun phrases, right? When we are cutting that banana or whatever, we might use up and over soldier hold and a tug of war. We just name everything.

What Katie is talking about with this involving kids in the kitchen, in the cooking process is really key for that because they don't have to just be willing to put it in their mouth to experience it by washing produce, peeling it, cutting it, sauteing it, cooking it. All of these skills that you're working on in the kitchen, that's exposing them to the sights, the smells, the textures. Everything with these foods. It moves kids more towards being interested in and willing to actually taste it and try it.

I don't know if you have found this true with your kids, your personal kids and your kids in the program, but for my personal children, they have an investment in things that they've helped make. They're more willing. They're more excited or interested in trying it because they've worked hard to help make it. I think that's a big factor too.

We've got parents now listening thinking, "Okay, great. I get it. I want to commit to getting my child in the kitchen more. We've never done this. Where do I start?" What are some practical skills that parents can tackle with kids to get this magic happening in the kitchen?

Generally, two year olds want to be involved. We have to be really careful not to break that line of motivation. Because if we don't, we probably will have a nine-year-old who can help and will actually want to help which is cool.

We want to think about radishes, mushrooms, strawberries, pineapples. Smaller, softer things. Cucumbers and zucchini are awesome because they're long. Fingers can stay far away and they're just the right density for a paring knife to easily get through and the child's like "I'm doing real work. This is awesome."

Then we take those skills and no matter what your child is, maybe you have a 12-year-old and they've never been at the stove and never used a small sharp knife, you're going to want to start there. Once you see some mastery in those skills, once they're showing maturity, then you can just move up into just about everything. We go to our kids' chef knives, starting about seven or eight or nine. Depending on interest and maturity. They have to be motivated to do it ...

We've been working on getting over the anxiety of that and taking it in steps, but I love that idea of really thinking it through and practicing with the skills of that with it off so that they gain confidence.

One of the things is, you're talking through the different ages. I think it's important to note, if you are the parent of a child who, maybe, their developmental level is not where their age is, you focus on where their developmental level is. If you have a 20-year-old who developmentally is that of three-year-old level, they can be doing those three-year-old level things. You don't have to say, "Well, they can't read and so they can't do anything in the kitchen."

No, start where they are and start with where that developmental level is and then let them build the skills from there regardless of what their chronological age is.

It teaches, it gives us forums for just being resilient around that, right, and figuring, "Oh, I screwed something up. How do I repair that?" So many kids now with learning and behavioral disorders, and just kids in general, are struggling with the idea of being okay with screwing things up, being okay with making a mistake. I think the kitchen is a great platform for learning that. Do you see that too?

Definitely, working in the kitchen, not only ... because you're building those strong family connections, that helps resiliency too because there is that trustworthiness, your parents trust in you with some real tasks that feels amazing. You're trusting your parents. You're working together. Studies show, if kids have just one strong bond with any adult, right, that gives them a better chance to have solid balanced mental health as they grow older. Building those connections is amazing. Learning to fail, absolutely. You can't just walk away.

Just so fabulous. I want to touch on one more thing. We've just got a couple more minutes, but on your Instagram, I see pictures all the time about your kids packing their lunches.

I know we're in the school year right now, lunches are the bane of every parents' existence, right? Getting those lunches packed in the morning. Can you just throw out one or two quick tips for people like if they want to get their kids involved with just making their lives easier in the morning with packing those lunches, one or two quick things for parents to start with?

First and second grade, they help unpack it, put things in the dishwasher, stuff like that but anyway, regardless of his packing, do it right after a meal. I like to tell people to have at least one no-brainer. Have something that your kids will eat every single day that you don't have to think about it. That way, you're not starting with the blank slate.

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Kids in the Kitchen: Build Connection, Confidence, and Creativity

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My guest this week is Katie Kimball, a former teacher, blogger and mom of 4 kids who founded the Kids Cook Real Food eCourse . Through her online blog, Kitchen Stewardship , Katie's discovered that getting kids in the kitchen and teaching them to cook not only builds life skills but is the best way to show kids that they matter and can make a difference in the world.

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An Anti-Inflammatory Diet Could Reverse Chronic Symptoms in Children

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An Anti-Inflammatory Diet Could Reverse Chronic Symptoms in Children

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My guest this week is Jenny Carr, a leading inflammation expert and international best selling author of ' Piece of Cake: The Secret To An Anti-Inflammatory Diet '. After surviving a near-death experience due to an autoimmune condition, Jenny is on a mission to aid others in healing through teaching how to implement and maintain an anti-inflammatory lifestyle. Jenny specializes in helping children and parents reverse symptoms from chronic illnesses like autoimmune diseases, behavioral disorders, and physical and mental disorders. All without feeling deprived and overwhelmed.

In this episode, Jenny and I discuss how incredibly impactful an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle can be for families. Jenny provides parents with practical tips on how to help their children identify, address, and engage in treating inflammation. Children on the spectrum, with ADHD, ADD, anxiety and behavioral challenges have seen life-changing effects by the safe elimination of toxic ingredients such as processed sugars while following an anti-inflammatory diet. Learn more about Jenny .
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Transcript

Let me just tell you a little bit about Jenny - She is a speaker, a leading inflammation expert and the International best-selling author of 'Piece of Cake: The Secret to an Anti-Inflammatory Diet'. She survived a near-death experience due to an autoimmune condition, is healing through upholding anti-inflammatory living. Jenny is on a mission to help others do the same, whether it's recovering from an autoimmune disease, reversing chronic physical disorders or easing behavioral or emotional conditions. Jenny specializes in helping families reverse these chronic symptoms by adopting and maintaining anti-inflammatory eating without feeling deprived or overwhelmed, which I think is key.

So think cupcakes, pizza, bread, muffins, the anti-inflammatory way. Jenny's been featured in all kinds of major media outlets and offers coaching as well as online courses, and she is a mom of 2 and lives in the mountains of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jenny, welcome to the show, thanks for being here!

Our body actually has inflammation that shows up to support the healing process, so that actually is beneficial for us. But chronic inflammation is this kind of slow, smoldering inflammation, which I like to swap out the word inflammation with toxins.

Because really, toxins are what cause so much chronic inflammation along with stress and some other things we can talk about here, but chronic inflammation gives us chronic symptoms. So it's not like if you happen to get food poisoning or you happen to have a really random one-off health experience that doesn't feel good, right? That's not chronic inflammation.

Chronic inflammation is showing up in our body when we have consistent bellyaches or digestive disorders, bloating, chronic headaches when we have chronic skin conditions. It shows up uniquely for each person. So the reason it shows up uniquely is because inflammation targets the areas that we are most susceptible to. And sometimes that can be from genetic predisposition, sometimes it can be from overuse, sometimes it can just be an area that isn't quite as strong as the others.

So inflammation will go to those areas. So it shows up for us physically as some of those examples I just gave. But also it can show up in especially our younger generation, we're seeing this more and more, in behavioral symptoms. ADD, ADHD, my son had a sensory condition, autism, it impacts people with autism. There's a whole slew of behavioral - and also chronic anxiety and chronic depression are directly linked to inflammation. So we're seeing that the emotional, the behavioral and the chronic physical symptoms are all tied with this inflammation.

So if you're still like, I'm not totally sure if I have chronic inflammation, I would like to give you this little trick: If you imagine that you have a magic wand, right? And just think if my body could feel like the most vibrant, amazing, healthy body ever and you had a magic wand and you can change anything, scanning from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, physically - what would shift? And this can be a tricky question because sometimes we get used to feeling bad.

Feeling these subtle... I remember that I felt nauseous for years and I was tired for years, and I just kind of said that's just me - that's my body, I'm just used to it. But that's not... we actually can erase so many of those symptoms and feel vibrant health. So just take a moment to kind of scan your body and say like, what do I change? Whether it's chronic, whether it's subtle or nagging - maybe your body is screaming at you and is in a ton of pain, maybe there is a chronic illness that you're dealing with. All of those come from chronic inflammation.

So this is why I really focus specifically on inflammation, it's because so often - even if we can't get a full diagnosis of what's going on, we just have all these different, weird things and our body just feels off, right? Maybe we have a diagnosis - I have a severe Lyme Disease and a crazy parasite infection, there are holes in my organs that ate away my endocrine glands, that almost killed me - those were causing massive inflammation in our body. Either way, whether it's diagnosed or undiagnosed - if we can remove the chronic inflammation, we will feel better. That's the bottom line.

That means your immune system is doing what it needs to do to heal that area. But sometimes our immune system gets stuck in a mode of fighting things in our body and that's the chronic inflammation where that immune system is stuck so our body is fighting and fighting and fighting these things that it shouldn't have to be fighting. And that's the stuck-ness then that we get into that pattern of having that immune response that then over time makes us feel worse and worse and worse and gives us all of these symptoms.

I like to draw stick figures and then have the kids point or draw an 'x', mark different spots on the stick figure - the stick figure represents your body, that doesn't feel great. And then you can write little notes up by the head. It can even be like, "I have a hard time making friends, and maybe that's because they have anxiety, or there could be other reasons due to their health and wellbeing that's stopping them from making friends or stopping them from achieving what they want to do in sports.

It all becomes related in helping them first identify how their body is feeling and how it's impacting them. I feel like that is such an important first step in getting kids on board with this process - which I'm kind of jumping ahead, but I felt the need to say that!

And I always say our children are our greatest teachers, right? It is amazing and so when my son was first born, the first year and a half of his life, he was very sick and at the time - I knew nothing about inflammation. I thought I ate healthy, I was an athlete, I used to run marathons - I was like oh, I am a healthy person.

And I would get my son, give him the organic formula or the organic baby granola bars, organic baby and health food products, but I didn't know that they were chock-full of organic inflammatory foods. Just because it's organic doesn't always mean it's great. And what happened was he had tons of ear infections. So chronic ear infections, every other month he was on antibiotics for like a year.

And I didn't know any better, I was a first-time mom and I wanted to help my son feel better and they were chronic, adenoid infections and chronic tonsils infections, he got abscesses in his throat, we were in the hospital, in and out of the hospital 4 or 5 times, multiple times when he stopped breathing.

Like his life was threatened, we ended up going to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City to have his tonsils removed because the doctors locally wouldn't do it because they were so severely inflamed. And after the surgery, he had recovered, but he wouldn't eat or drink, so they wouldn't let him leave the hospital and they said take him for a little walk and see if that will get him thirsty. So we took him for a 5 or 10-minute walk down the hallway.

We came back and within about 12 seconds, all of a sudden his monitors flatlined and he completely stopped breathing and it was code blue sirens, 12 doctors surrounding us and like 7-seconds flat, and they're like, "Are you okay?" And I said, "I think." - I didn't even understand what was going on, to be honest, and I said - "I think I'm okay. What's happening?" They said, "We're bringing him to ICU." And I remember thinking, "I am not okay. I am not okay."

So it was so many different chronic symptoms that kept building up, building up. And then we ended up in the hospital, we were in the hospital for a little over 4 weeks. And when we came home, he ended up with a sensory condition. I don't know if he had it before and we just didn't know, or if all of the medication that he had over that time... I'm not sure of what exactly happened but we found out when he was one and a half/two years old that sensory condition is on a spectrum, right?

So kids can have a sensory condition and not be very impacted, and others more severely impacted. He would get a drop of water on his shirt and he would scream and he tried to tear his shirt off and he would say, "It hurts, it hurts - mom it hurts!" He struggled with his focus in school, he struggled with transitions, he struggled with when he got frustrated - he couldn't communicate with friends. He was having difficulty making friends.

He couldn't... we live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, it's snowing, it's freezing cold outside in the wintertime, he couldn't put multiple layers of clothes on to go outside in recess. It would take him the entire time to get dressed. By the time he was dressed, everyone else was coming in. And so when I finally figured out what was going on, because we just thought, "Oh, terrible twos." When we finally figured out what was going on, I said, "Okay. I have changed my diet." and follow this anti-inflammatory protocol, which I'll share with you guys in a minute.

My mom changed it - she started to heal from Lyme, I had all these chronic symptoms just due to the stress of having my child in the hospital. I was tired, bloated, gaining weight, hormones out of whack. And when we changed our diet, my mom and I, everything - all the symptoms melted.

So I said, if it worked for us, let's do a science experiment. I love science experiments. Let's take two weeks, follow this protocol - I'm going to make everything for Josh, because he would come home and he would eat clean and then he would go to school and have snacks and lunch there.

So I made breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, snacks, everything for two weeks and his sensory condition improved unbelievably in that two-week period. I said okay, let's keep going. In two months it was 85% better, and there are still traces, we still have pieces that we have to deal with, but he went hunting with his grandpa this fall, and he had jeans, which he never used to wear jeans and he went into the water. I was like oh, my gosh!

That is such a big deal! It's just amazing what he was able to accomplish since then. And that became my mission. I have a little boy who now significantly, his life has significantly improved when he follows anti-inflammatory eating. So was mine, by the way. But at the time, I was teaching and I was working like 55-60 hours a week. I had a little nugget at home, I was like, how do I do this in a way that is not overwhelming for me and so that my son and I don't feel deprived? So I don't want him to have food issues growing up. So how do we do that? So that really became my mission.

Instead of drinking water, we drink coffee. Instead of drinking water, we drink juice for kids and sodas. We've replaced water with so many other beverages and water is key to the methylation process that takes place in our liver and actually up-regulates or opens up our detox pathways and allows for us to process toxins and inflammations. So besides just staying hydrated, there is this other process that it supports your detoxing and that's really important.

Stress. Stress is huge, and we've known this one for a really long time. I remember growing up and everyone saying stress is the number one predictor of heart disease and heart attacks. But what we didn't necessarily know at the time, or at least what wasn't mentioned in the media, was that stress is causing chronic inflammation and again that inflammation is at the root.

And today's modern day society, our kids and us, all of us are working so hard - there's not enough time in the days, that we extend our day into the evening, we get less and less sleep. There's more and more pressure on us to do more. There's even a general societal belief that the busier we are, the more accomplished we are. And our kids are starting to get like that, right? I was looking at my kid's schedule last night for after school this winter and I was like, this is crazy! We've got to pare it down a little bit. So that is a big one, and rest.

So that really ties in with stress and being really busy. If we don't get enough rest, again our body heals so much overnight, our liver goes into overdrive at night to help, which the liver processes so many of our toxins, right? So if we're up, if we're not sleeping, if we're not resting, we can not regenerate the cells in our body that we need to.

And what is the last one? The last one is just our thoughts, we can be so critical of ourselves and that really ties into stress, but our own thoughts, our own mindfulness, if you want to call it, or awareness, whatever it may be can have a huge impact. And I think that's especially important with all of us, but especially our children.

Their social/emotional wellbeing is, I want to say it's everything - it's not everything but it's close to everything. It makes a huge impact. So those as well as environmental toxins. And that's where like the Lyme and the parasites are environmental toxins or even household cleaning products or personal care products that we put on to our body, all of those can have toxins in them, which can make a significant impact on the levels of inflammation on the body. So that's like, phew. Have you just heard that? That's overwhelming.

Top 6: Processed Sugar - There are over 50 names of processed sugar. It's crazy and some of the names like 'brown rice syrup' sounds super healthy - highly processed, number one most inflammatory thing you can put into your body along with alcohol, which for kids, we don't have to worry about alcohol, but good to know as a parent, right? So processed sugar. And by the way, I'm going to be giving you all a free copy of my book if you want and in the book, 'Piece of Cake', I list out these over 15 names of the processed sugar, just so you can get your eyes on it and have a handle.

So processed sugar, alcohol, wheat and that, if you think about our grandmother, the bread that she used to make, that was a totally different food product. Our wheat has been so highly genetically modified, highly processed. Unless it's non-GMO organic, which is really difficult to find for wheat, there are tons of pesticides in it, roundup, there's a lot of news right now about roundup causing cancer, etc. So wheat is one of those top 6 inflammatory foods.

Then we move on to cow dairy. And I specify cow dairy because cow has a protein molecule, which is quite large. And our bodies from when we're born to around 3 or 4, we actually create - what's the right word... an abundance of digestive enzymes to help break down these large protein molecules. That's because, from that evolutionary standpoint, we used to nurse our children for quite some time. And so around the age of 3 or 4, those digestive enzymes begin to get depleted and we can't break down the large protein molecules found in cow.

However, goat and sheep milk and dairy have smaller protein molecules. So not for everyone. If you can't do casein and goat, sheep or cow, it's not going to work. For a lot of people, when you are looking for a cow dairy alternative, especially when we've got younger children and trying to give them milk, a goat milk is a really great swap. So cow dairy is at number 4, I think. Let's see here, processed sugar, cow dairy.

So, GMOs - genetically modified foods. And the top GMOs are wheat, corn, and soy and cane sugar. But we're not eating processed sugar, so we don't have to worry about that one, But wheat, corn, and soy. So if you buy anything with corn, wheat or soy, which by the way is 97% of all food products, you want to make sure it's non-GMO and ideally also organic.

That will make a huge difference. That causes leaky gut, directly tied to autism, autoimmune disease, a lot of different components. And then the last is just what I called inflammatory oils. And this is vegetable oils, canola oil, corn oil, and even seed oils like safflower oil that have been heated. So if it's a seed oil and it hasn't been heated - awesome.

But if it's been heated, it changes on a molecular basis and causes an inflammatory response. So we want to be careful with that because a lot of health food companies put safflower oil in their chips and those have been fried and heated and that causes an inflammatory response.

Because so many of the ingredients in the things you are talking about are in virtually every packaged processed food item and that's the challenge, right? Is when you're feeding your kids that stuff, it's easier and maybe stuff that they're used to and their friends are eating what they like, but it's got a lot of these ingredients that really drives inflammation.

So talk to us about your secret for following an anti-inflammatory diet because I think what you said is so true, it's like okay - now as a parent I have this information, I know that these foods aren't great for my kid to be eating, might be causing or worsening some of the symptoms they are having, but oh my word, how do I do this?

Jenny: Yeah, where do I begin? How do I do this? When I give this list, people say, well that's everything! That's all the food! Now what? Officially, we are doing the 0-calorie diet! I've created this streamlined process and what I realized is, so often in our society, a clean diet - we hear gluten-free and dairy free. Those are the big things.

Gluten-free and dairy-free, which is great, right? Obviously, those are some of the 6 top inflammatory foods. But here's what I discovered you guys, processed sugar, because it's the #1 most inflammatory thing we can put into our body, that FDA actually came out with a statement a number of years ago saying that if it was put into the market now, processed sugar would be deemed an illegal and a toxic drug.

The FDA is a very conservative organization that would not normally come out and say something like this, sugar corporations smacked that statement down, there was a massive lawsuit, but the fact that it came out shows how incredibly harmful processed sugar is to our body from an inflammatory standpoint.

It causes toxins, right? So what if instead of focusing on gluten and dairy and inflammatory oils and all these other things that can be overwhelming - what if we just focused on one thing? And that can be processed sugar.

What if we swapped processed sugar out with options that taste similar but don't cause inflammation, such as pure maple syrup, raw honey?

These are naturally occurring sugars that haven't been processed, that don't cause an inflammatory response. Whole fruit, dried fruit - I love baking with dates, I use dates in my baked stuff all the time, it tastes amazing.

Or you could even do liquid stevia or monk fruit, which is not a sugar, but it is a naturally-derived sweeter that also doesn't cause an inflammatory response. And is a great way, like I use stevia in my kid's hot chocolate, right? With raw cacao, a little bit of stevia, some vanilla extracts, some coconut milk - it's like the best hot chocolate you've ever have in the world.

So there are these ways that you can swap out the processed sugar with sugars that don't inflame. And when you do this, by default, those top 6 inflammatory foods fall to the wayside for the majority of the time. It's their cousins like you said, it's in all processed foods.

So when you find a company that uses coconut sugar, or uses pure maple syrup - not always, but more times than not, they are in integrity and they're really trying to make an effort to have their product stand for health. And so they are also non-GMO. And they also are often gluten-free, they also typically follow the elimination of those top 6 inflammatory foods. So focus on processed sugar. Swap it out for the non-inflammatory sugars. Start there and actually that's what my book is really all about.

And one of the cool things about where we are now with people's awareness and companies trying to create products to meet the needs of people with chronic inflammation, people who are interested in better supporting their health with food, there are so many more options.

When I was working with families 10 years ago, 15 years ago or more around removing gluten or not doing processed sugars or things like that, people were really stuck with having to make everything from scratch, figuring it out themselves.

And now, today, there are so many more options. Not just recipe-wise, but even packaged stuff. Because companies are responding to that. So if you as a parent have been reluctant to consider shifting some of the foods that you are feeding your kids because you think it's going to just be an impossible thing to do, I really think you will be pleasantly surprised how many options there are even for packaged things that you can send in lunches and stuff like that. There's just a lot more available now that fits within the realm of what you are talking about with trying to get rid of those primary inflammatory types of ingredients.

Degenerate our health and well-being and the fact that there are so many companies that are standing up in integrity, and there are a lot that are sneaky about it and not in integrity, so filtering through those can be a little bit of a process, but once you do, it opens up to the door to, okay - I've got soccer practice, my kid is starving - I have like 10 minutes, instead of going to McDonalds and going to the drive-through, I'm going to run to the grocery store, I know what to grab.

That's easy and quick, and that's huge. 'The Clean Eating Kid', my book that is coming out, the second half of the book, I walk you down the grocery store aisle as I show you all of the different foods that I put in my grocery cart. What's really interesting is that since writing this book, right? And it's under editing now. So it's been a few months that it's been completed. And just in the time that I wrote this book to now, so many more food companies are popping up, that I'm like I need to add more to this book. It is so cool to see this movement that's taking hold, it's awesome!

So just giving people some simple tools and starting to look at that, I think is great. Now you've got so many great resources available to people online, on your website and I know that you're running a Clean Eating Kid challenge that's coming up, so tell us all about that, how can people access some of the resources that you've got to tap into what you're doing?

So having sweet treats on hand that are clean, that are non-inflammatory and letting your kid just have them. Let them choose them, go to the grocery store and really try not to restrict that too much to begin with, that is a key piece to moving away from processed sugar. I just had to add that because it is so, so important.

You will get a free copy of my advanced reader book, The Clean Eating Kid - which has not come out to anyone! No one else has seen this. So, I'm super excited, like I said, it's still under editions, but you're going to see you'll get to walk through a grocery aisle with me and see images of all the foods, ingredients - it'll give you so many ideas of what to put in your pantry and so many great food swaps for you.

It also walks through those top 6 inflammatory foods, how to swap them out, tricks to get your kids to eat more or drink more water or move their body - really adopt this anti-inflammatory living and lifestyle as well. And so again, that's at www.thecleaneatingkidchallenge.com , you can also view my website at www.jennycarrhealth.com .

Is sometimes as parents, we know what we're supposed to be doing, but in the business of life and the overwhelm of life, the how-to or the actually doing it can be the barrier there. And what I love about what you are doing with people and the book and just all the information that you're providing, is you're really focus on the 'Here's how to do this.' Because you've done it as an individual, as a parent with your kids, and I think that's really awesome.

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Anti-Inflammatory Diet: How to Reverse Chronic Symptoms In Children

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My guest this week is Jenny Carr, a leading inflammation expert and international best selling author of ' Piece of Cake: The Secret To An Anti-Inflammatory Diet '. After surviving a near-death experience due to an autoimmune condition, Jenny is on a mission to aid others in healing through teaching how to implement and maintain an anti-inflammatory lifestyle.

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My guest this week is Rev. Mantu Joshi, an author, minister, and instructor on disability at Western Michigan University. He is the facilitator for Family Foundations at the First United Methodist Church. He has been a resident chaplain with the Oregon Burn Center and Randall Children's hospital, and has appeared numerous times nationally on NPR. He is author of the popular book, "The Resilient Parent: Everyday Wisdom for Life with Your Exceptional Child" , which ADDitude Magazine has called one of the eight most important books for parents.

In this episode, Mantu and I discuss how parents can find resilience through mindfulness, especially for those who have children with special needs, sensory issues or disorders. Mantu offers personal insight as a special needs parent and enforces parents with the confidence, tools and tips they need to acknowledge and accept their feelings. Parents often place the needs of their children above themselves, disregarding their feelings out of guilt leading to heightened anxiety and depression.
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

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Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Hi Everyone, welcome to the show - I am Dr. Nicole, and in today's episode we're going to be talking about a really important topic that I think isn't discussed nearly enough. And that is the emotional health and resilience of parents who have special needs kids, and I can't think of a better person to have on the show to talk with us on this topic than my longtime friend Mantu Joshi. Reverend Mantu Joshi is an author, minister and instructor at Western Michigan University, where he teaches on disability. He is the facilitator for family foundations at the First United Methodist Church, he's been a resident chaplain with the Oregon Burns Center and Randall Children's Hospital and has appeared numerous times nationally on NPR. He is the author of the popular book, 'The Resilient Parent: Everyday Wisdom for Life with Your Exceptional Child', which Attitude Magazine has called one of the 8 most important books for parents, and has been called one of the most important resources for parents of children with sensory issues by Lucy Miller, author of 'Sensational Kids'. I can say on a personal and professional note, it's an amazing book and we recommend it very, very often at our clinic.

Mantu and I have know each other since college, so it's been a long time now and I'm sure that neither of us would have guessed that our lives would intersect in this way after all these years around supporting special needs kids and families, but we're going to talk today about how parents who have special needs kids and may be experiencing some sort of empty emotional, spiritual, or physical tank - because that happens, we get depleted - how we can begin to get a sense of self and wellbeing again. And in order to enjoy even the most difficult parenting situations, and I know that this is a topic that's going to speak to many of you on your parenting journey. So let's go ahead and dive in. Welcome to the show, Mantu!

Rev. Mantu Joshi:
Thank you so much for having me, Nicole.

So I would love to start out by having you tell our listeners your story of how you came to be interested in this, how it is that life and your family led you to a point where you would write this book, because I think it's really helpful for parents to know what your context and perspective is, so can you share a bit of that story with us?

And I began to feel depressed, began to feel the weight of the journey, and at that time, my spouse gave me some really, in retrospect, some life-changing advice. She said, "You know what? I know how hard you are working. I think you need some time to be able to write." And that time, I just... I don't really think of myself as a writer. I have written sermons, as a minister in the past, but I hadn't really had tried anything like that before. She said, "No, you know? I think you're a writer. And what we're going to do is we're going to figure out a way for you to have an hour off, maybe even an hour and a half off a week.

Somehow we're going to make this miracle happen. We're going to have an hour and a half a week off." And at that time, that seemed like crazy talk. And we found, by some miracle, someone who was willing to watch out kids for an hour. And I ran like crazy to a coffee shop and I wrote for an hour, hour and a half, once a week for 2 years. And that's all the time that I had.

And toward the end of that time, I began to also have some time to meet with other parents who have kids with special needs in a small Portland coffee shop. I was delighted and surprised when a publisher jumped on it right away, and it just kind of went out into the world.

So when I first saw the book, when you told me about it before it officially came out, I was so excited about this because it gives peoples many practical tools for thinking about that piece that really isn't talked about. And I think for parents out there who are listening, who are like - uhh, I don't have any time to think about myself or take care of myself or do any of those things, what I love about the story that you shared is - even with really brief amounts of time, we can all find a few minutes here and there and we can all find some opportunities here and there to implement some things that are going to support us, support our families, so I love that. I would like to have you define the term 'Resilient Parent' for people, because it's the title of the book and I think we all have a general sense, maybe, of what the word resilience means, but I would love for you to share how you are using that. How are you defining resilience in this context?

And the only way forward is to become new and to accept who we are becoming.

And it's often why I use the image of the penguin. It's actually on the cover of the book. And it's not just because penguins have a lot more male penguins doing some of the work, and I was a stay-at-home dad, so there is that connection. But it is because penguins are this image of resilience. And the fun thing about penguins that I often share with parents is that they are birds who have learned to adapt to the coldest place on the planet and they have to learned to fly under water. And for those of us who parent, we can still fly but it's going to look completely different.

We have to adapt and we have to learn to fly in a place that we even maybe never even considered before. And when we think of resilience in this way, that we are becoming, that who we are inside can grow despite this exposure to all these stressors. Then it becomes this whole new way of being. And if we can get into that kind of maybe more positive space, then it doesn't feel like our life is being destroyed by our family and all the dynamics that are coming. We begin to kind of go, oh - these are things that are helping me to kind of fly underwater. To change and to be in a new environment. But that takes accepting and accepting our losses genuinely and that's a totally different way of being.

This is how life is going to be and yes, kids can and do and improve and all of that, but it really is coming to a new understanding of - life is not going to be the way we thought it was going to be when we first envisioned having kids or being parents. This is a whole new way of thinking about it and how we can grow into that and grow through that because it's not going to stop. Our kids are not going to wake up one day and not have these challenges, these special needs, whatever. So I love that perspective on the longer term, this is what life is, this is the new normal of our lives, and how do we really embrace that and grow through that.

That's not to say that we don't love our child or think that they're awesome and that we help their self-esteem - that's true, but at the same time if we don't process the grief and accept the new waters we're in, accept that loss, we just find ourselves like the penguin on land. Just out of sorts and never really able to fully function.

So in the book, we talk about looking at the stages of grief. And since writing the book, I have kind of shifted that to looking at the tasks of mourning, this comes from another researcher on grief, William Worden. And he talks about grief as being four tasks, and they're not necessarily in any particular order, but the four tasks he talks about are: Accepting the reality of the loss, and so that's a piece. Processing the pain of the grief is another task. Adjusting to the world without that person, in this case, we're not talking about someone dying in our context, but it has a similar feel. And then, maintaining a connection.

That first piece - Accepting the reality of the loss, for many of us, especially if we have kids with invisible needs, it's really hard to accept the reality of the loss. Because nobody else around us is accepting it. People are just treating the kids in our family as if everything is just normal. And it is, and it isn't at the same time. And when we can accept the fact that what we were hoping for as parents, what we were always dreaming about family life would be, when we can get to the point where we can say, "You know what? What I thought this was going to be, this is nothing like that." And when we can accept that, there is a kind of freedom for us to begin to kind of rewrite our story.

And when we rewrite our story, then it feels like new possibilities can begin to exist. And I think a practical way of acknowledging that loss, if we're talking real pragmatic. When you're in the midst of it, I would say is to write it down. Write down - these are the things that I thought it would be. And it could just take 5 minutes. Even just keywords written down. These are the things that I thought it would be. And then in the other column - these are the things that it actually is. And just that simple 5 minutes of accepting that, and giving yourself even 5 minutes a day for a while, if it's really a painful part of your existence to say, yeah. I have lost this, we have lost this for each other. And then the amazing thing is, out of that, for many people, that acceptance is actually a freedom to begin to think differently. And that's where the accommodations, that's where the crazy fun ideas that a family can come up with, that's when things start cooking, and a family starts to kind of integrate and kind of come back together, and it's a joy to watch that happen. But we just can't shortcut it - for most people. We really have to say, "I have lost something." And then we can move on. It makes such a difference.

And I find that accepting that grief, is a way for me to actually accept my daughter. She really is.... and unconditional love is possible when I just accept where we actually are, and I don't worry so much about the future and all the problems that are going to come later on. Being in the now just is so important and is also another part of what we talk about on 'The Resilient Parent'. This piece of mindfulness, being in the now is so much easier to say than to actually do.

I remember being with a family who had literally survived their house being hit by a tornado. And it would have been very tempting to ask them all these questions about being in the tornado and how crazy that was. And yet that wasn't really where they were. They were with their loss and the things that they had lost in that moment in the hospital room. And in the same way, I think as parents, part of the challenge is to be in the now. Even when the storm is out there and there are all these things going on and it feels like everything is swirling, right now, we need to be in the room and present with what is happening in that stage, in that moment with our child. Because that is where real empathy starts. And real mindfulness is just about a doorway to that empathy so that the storm outside doesn't overwhelm the conversation.

I am curious what you have found or maybe what you can share with people, because I think that's a hard thing to do. I think people can understand the benefit of that, and I often talk with parents on a practical. Level about the importance of keeping themselves calm and trying to steady themselves in the midst of whatever chaos or challenge might be going on with their child. It's a tough thing to do, and I think different things work for different people. Their certainly isn't a one size fits all strategy, but I'm curious - for you, have you found something or some things that you have found particularly helpful to stay more calm or present in those moment or maybe things that other parents have shared with you that have been helpful for them?

And so having something like that, where you have a ritual practice, depending on people's spiritual backgrounds. I know that in my particular background as a Christian, and I also know, for those who are Jewish as well as those who are Islamic - we share these scriptures, where people tie the scriptures on their head, I don't think that that's necessarily literal - but this idea that you have something with you that grounds you back on your person. So this is really practical thing that people can do right now.

And at first, it may not do much. But when the cortisol starts rushing through somebody, when you feel the anger starting to go and you start to kind of feel like your amygdala is going crazy, because your kid's amygdala is going crazy, you can just reach down in your pocket or your purse and just say - this reminds me of where I am going to be. Especially if, while you had your coffee or whatever, you touched that item - it'll bring you back to that quiet space, even if you don't have time right in the moment. So that's one practical thing.

Another practical thing that people can think about - we often forget about our physical selves. We think of our physical selves as being separate from our head experience, but especially people who experience yoga for instance and this kind of comes from people who are Hindu as well and many other beliefs and backgrounds and cultures around the world, practice this idea that through our body, we can connect with our mind and our spirit.

And so one really simple thing is to concentrate on our tongue and our eyes. Two centers. Now of course, everyone knows that they should take deep breaths - I think most of us have heard this. So that's the first and central thing, but also if we think about our eyes as we are talking to our children and to our partner or our spouse, whoever it is that we are engaged with, are our eyes soft. Do I have soft eyes, are the muscles around my eyes relaxed? And if they are, if I concentrate on that for a second, almost always immediately our heart rate will slow down, and we will begin to actually be less in fight or flight and ready to engage. So that's a really simple thing we can do, soft eyes, kind of comes from these yogis, this idea of this.

The other piece to this is the back of the tongue. A lot of us hold tension and we don't realize it subconsciously, like gritting our teeth or tightening everything in the back of our tongue. So if we concentrate on first releasing the back of our tongue and also releasing our jaw and in including that as we're breathing. So we have these soft eyes, and now I am kind of releasing the tongue, that does 2 things.

It changes the physical response, it takes us a little bit out of fight or flight, and also just the mindful aspect of thinking about our body in the moment, it removes from us the ability to forecast and to think of the future. It removes our ability to think of the past because we have to physically concentrate on a part of the body that we are not used to concentrating on - and like magic, it just pulls us back to the present moment. And it takes some of that distorted thinking immediately away. And as parents, distorted thinking is our bear trap and it holds us and it just bites in and we just can't let it go.

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How Parents Can Find Resilience Through Mindfulness

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My guest this week is Rev. Mantu Joshi, an author, minister, and instructor on disability at Western Michigan University. He is the facilitator for Family Foundations at the First United Methodist Church. He has been a resident chaplain with the Oregon Burn Center and Randall Children's hospital, and has appeared numerous times nationally on NPR.

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Addressing the Root Cause of Your Child’s Chronic Illness

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Addressing the Root Cause of Your Child’s Chronic Illness

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My guest this week is Dr. Sheila Kilbane, a board-certified pediatrician also trained in integrative medicine by Andrew Weil, MD. She uses the best of traditional and integrative medicine to help families find the root cause of their child's illness by walking through her seven-step process to significantly improve or resolve, illnesses such as: colic, reflux, eczema, recurrent ear and sinus infections, asthma, allergies, ADHD, and stomach and GI issues like constipation, abdominal pain, celiac disease, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and sensory integration disorder. Sheila conducts an online course to help parents resolve chronic illness in their children by using her step-by-step approach and is the author "Healthy Kids Happy Moms - A Step-by-Step Guide to Improving Many Common Childhood Illnesses".

In this episode, Sheila and I discuss the difference between the conventional and integrative approach to medicine in pediatrics and how parents can take simple steps toward improving their child's chronic illness. Sheila shares her seven-step approach to addressing illness and provides valuable resources on where and how parents can begin to incorporate simple changes that bare significant results. Learn more about Sheila .

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Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: Hi Everyone, welcome to the show - I am Dr. Nicole, and today I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Sheila Kilbane as my guest. Sheila and I have been friends for many years now, and she's absolutely one of the best pediatricians out there, so I'm really excited that she's going to talk with us today, and I think one of the things that I most appreciate about her is the focus on root causes of childhood illness.

So many kids who have have emotional, learning, behavioral, developmental challenges also have many underlying physical issues that they are dealing with in terms of their health, and Dr. Kilbane really gets to the root of treating those things, which ultimately helps all of the behavioral and mental health issues improve too, so Dr. Sheila Kilbane is a board-certified pediatrician who has also trained in integrative medicine with Dr. Andrew Weil. She uses the best of traditional and integrative medicine to help families find the root cause of their child's illness. She walks families through her 7-step process to significantly improve or resolve altogether illnesses such as colic, reflux, eczema, recurrent ear and sinus infections, asthma, allergies and stomach and GI issues like constipation, abdominal pain, celiac disease, Crohn's and ulcerative colitis.

And I know many of you are ticking off that list in your mind as I'm reading that because you have kids who have many of those symptoms. In addition to seeing individual patients in her unique clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina. She also gives educational lectures to parents and healthcare professionals. And if you don't live in North Carolina and don't have access to an integrative pediatrician in your area, Dr. Kilbane has written a book and has an online course to help resolve your child's illness using her step-by-step approach. Welcome to the show, Dr. Kilbane, thank you for being here.

Dr. Sheila Kilbane: Thank you Dr. Beurkens, I'm so happy to be here and as you and I have spoken, all of what we do overlaps so much that I list all of those physical symptoms, but so many of the kids that I see have many of the symptoms that you see also in your practice and this nutritional approach and functional medicine, integrative medicine approach - it's just such a great tool for all of us to have.

Now even, when I give talks, I have this picture of a big elephant sitting in the middle of the room. And that's what I talk about, food in the conventional medical world because we don't get any training on it. And so I just started, little by little, I would do a selective elimination diet with families. So maybe we'd take one food group out of the child's diet and it was like magic. So the physical symptoms would start melting away, but not only that - they would start sleeping better, their moods would be better, their ADHD symptoms would be improved and so I thought it had to be a fluke, so I didn't really talk openly about it. And even my partners at that time, you know this was years ago, but my partners would say to me - "What's that Voodoo medicine you're doing, Sheila?" Yeah, and then a year later, they would come to me and say, "What's the does of those probiotics, Sheila? What should I do with this patient?"

And that's how I felt many years because I didn't want to rock the boat, I didn't want to be looked at as that crazy pediatrician who talked about food, which when you really think about it, food is everything, right? So it gave me so many more tools in my toolbox and it made practicing so much more fun again. There was never anything else I wanted to do but medicine. And the frustration that I felt right out of residency, I was miserable. So things had to change for me or I was going to have to change careers, and it's just been phenomenal ever since then. And it's just so much fun to come to work everyday and get to make these changes with people who have been from specialist to specialist to specialist. And we get to come in and really say okay, we're going to look at your whole family, the dynamics, the stress, what are we eating, we're going to look at the gut microbiome, and we just get to make these really profound improvements and it's just extraordinarily satisfying.

And it's interesting because you said, you see people coming in for the physical stuff - right? My child's got ear infections all the time, or constipation or whatever. You would treat, with these approaches, and then also their behavioral and neurological symptoms get better. I see the same thing in reverse. People come into my office for help with focusing and managing their anxiety and behavior and those things - I say okay, we're going to focus on that, and by a side effect of that - their constipation and their ear infections and their eczema improve!

And Roundup is a chemical that most people know, it is sprayed on certain crops, especially things like wheat and it helps the farmers to turn the crops over more quickly if they are spraying at the end of the harvest. If they spray with this Roundup, because it kills the crop quicker. They can combine them and harvest them and then that gets absorbed by the part of the plant that we actually end up eating. And Roundup was originally patented as an antibiotic and so what it does is that it selectively goes in and it's killing the good, healthy bacteria in our guts. So things like the bifidobacterium, which is what we get from breastfeeding, the lactobacilli, which is what we get through the birth canal and allowing the growth of some of the not-so-healthy bacteria. Things like e. coli, clostridia, and those are bacteria that we need certain species of, but there are certain species that we are getting an abundance of.

And in my clinic, we do stool studies in a lot of the kids that we see and it's a snapshot in time, it's not a perfect study, but it allows for me to look at the certain symptoms of the kids - what we're seeing in their gut and how when we start to shift that, these symptoms really improve. Because even 7 or 8 years ago, we could just take dairy out of a child's diet, maybe put them on a probiotic and their symptoms were gone. And now we're having to do a lot more work to get their guts back into balance and to resolve their symptoms. And so I really think that these herbicides are playing a big role, and we have to know where our food is coming from and we have to really look at, what are we putting in our kids' bodies.

And if we're doing wheat, corn and soy and they're not organic - the kids are going to be exposed to these things, and so there are all sorts of tips and tools and we can talk about how to do it without breaking the bank. And the Environmental Working Group has lists - the clean 15 and the dirty dozen. So it's super doable. And that's what my intention for our talk today is that I want you to understand that you can make a few tweaks with your child and start to see improvements. It doesn't have to go down this very expensive route of changing absolutely everything, but if we make a few tweaks, you can really start to see a big difference.

But the third category, the environmental toxins - my medical school did not get any training in this. So that's where we're looking also at things. You can have mold exposure, the kind of mold that grows behind a wall in a water-damaged building. That's where the herbicides, the pesticides and all of the different chemicals that we get exposed to in our environment come into play. And then, when we are talking about infections, that can be bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites - and parasites are another biggie. I've had a couple of patients really in the last 6 or 7 months, one of them, was a classic asthma eczema and the family came back to me, because I had seen him when he was a baby because I was doing primary care. And a lot of his asthma and eczema were under good control, but they came back to see me because he wasn't sleeping. So we did a stool study and he had a parasite. We treated the parasite and he in the process jumped 2 reading grades. And so in medicine we have to be careful not to say, just because we did that this happened, so yes it could have been a timing coincidence, but the teacher actually called mom and said "I've never seen a child jump that quickly in their development for reading." And the mom really thought it was from treating the parasite.

We have another boy who is on the spectrum who had a parasite and we treated him. We've not only been able to get rid of all his asthma medications but he used to cry every time he would read. And he is now reading, he would pick up a book and read. So it's going through that process of looking at where is their system inflamed. Because if your body is inflamed, if you have eczema, if you have uncontrolled asthma which means you may be using your inhaler two times a week - or if it's constipation and the child isn't having a nice, easy bowel movement everyday, that's inflammation in your body and inflammation in your body means inflammation in your brain. So that's harder for our neurotransmitters to do their work. So the neurotransmitter is going to find the receptor side on our cell and it's going to send the signal. And so all we do is we look at what's going on in the cellular environment. We decrease the inflammation so we just allow the body to do its job the way that it's supposed to happen. Does that make sense?

I mean this is more of a process but I always say to people when we slow down and really work on the foundations, we actually speed up the process because over time, what you get is a much better result. So I love that you talked about that 5 areas because that's so helpful to break that down and I think for our listeners to understand that we're not just talking about food or just talked about infections or toxins. There are several other things and that's a helpful way of conceptualizing that. So you really kind of got into how you approach looking at the root cause, looking at those 5 areas. Let's talk about steps that are involved. So parents might be like, "Okay this makes sense - we've got to look at these areas." How do you actually approach this? So what should parents expect in terms of, what are the various types of steps to help a child who maybe has been struggling for quite a while with these physical or neurological types of issues.

So I'd like you to do an assessment first. And we can't know where we're going unless we know where we are. And do this: look at your child's health the same way you plan a vacation. What do we want to do? Where do we want to be? I mean you don't ever get in your car for a vacation unless you know exactly where you're going. So let's figure out where your coordinates are before you start. So looking at that first of all. And then the second thing we do is understanding that inflammation is illness. So whether it's mood swings, behavioral challenges. And I personally always look at behavior in kids as a signal for us adults to look at how they're processing information, how they're processing food. I really don't believe there are many kids who just do things intentionally to irritate mom and dad. I mean yes, there's manipulation, but I always say you want a child who is smart enough to manipulate us, right?

So it's the assessment, understanding inflammation and illness, triggers of illnesses and the fourth thing is gut health - and that's where we think about the microbiome, how many antibiotics have they been on. The fifth step is food and that's where we really look at what we are going to be eating. The sixth step is supplements. I'd love to think that we can get everything we need from food. In my experience, we need to use some supplements to get us back into even playing ground, and then we have some foundational supplements that we need. And the seventh step is the roadmap. So once we've figured out what we need to do and we get the child back into balance, what's our long-term? What do we need going along? What do we need for the long-term gain?

So I'll go into number 5 and I'll address that and a few things that I love for families to do, Nicole I also would love to hear what you start with, but I always start with breakfast and I say - if we can take cereal and milk out of breakfast, we are eliminating a lot of sugar. And can we do a green smoothie? Can we do eggs if your child tolerates eggs, even an organic piece of bacon or sausage or even a burger. I love to see the dads, like the big dads who think I'm going to be saying all this stuff and then I say I'd rather have you have a burger for breakfast than cereal and they about fall off their chair. A piece of salmon, wild-caught sockeye salmon, some leftover chicken from the night before. But we want to think about, we want your child to have that, a clean fat, a clean protein and then something colorful. So a fruit or a vegetable. And that's one of the reasons I love a green smoothie.

And if we're starting off and if your child does have any kind of gut issues like constipation or loose stools or stomach aches - the green part of your smoothies, I prefer that to be something like lettuce, microgreens or bok choy vs. spinach because spinach can be a little bit hard on the gut at first and I know that sounds crazy to say. We don't want to do a ton of spinach right away. But if we can do that, do a little bit of fruit in it, maybe make the base water so we are not getting a lot of sugar from any of that other kinds of milk, whether it's hemp milk, oat milk, things like that - that would be great, and then you want to have your fat and your protein, maybe some avocado. Again, you can have an egg, any kind of piece of meat and if you're vegetarian or vegan, chia seed, flaxseed and hemp seed provide a really good amount of vegetable or plant-based omega 3 fats. So that is where I start because we can do a huge decrease in the sugar load, we can get a lot of fat, we can get protein and that's going to keep the kids full until lunch time.

So now we gradually - and that's what I do in my online course, is that on the first week we take dairy out of breakfast, the second week out of lunch, the third week out of dinner and snacks. And if you can do that, and if you can start to look at added sugar - so the American Heart Association has created guidelines for how much sugar your kids should have. And the amount of sugar, even in something like a vanilla yogurt, even in organic yogurt, even coconut yogurt, it can have up to 3 or 4 teaspoons of sugar a day. And for a young school-age child, that's the amount of added that they're not supposed to have more than that for a day. So before they've even left the house, if they've had one of those yogurts, you've maxed out your sugar. So just really thinking about the added sugars in things and I'm not a big one, I don't love to have people scrutinizing packages. I do want moms to be looking at the sugar content and then I want you to be looking, if we're doing less and less packaged foods, then we have to do less label reading.

And you can decrease your pesticide exposure by up to 92% by following their guidelines. And as you see everyday, Nicole - the studies are pretty clear that kids with pesticide exposures that are higher, have higher rates of ADHD and within a week, we know that kids going on clean food, their urine will clear from these pesticides. So I always love to talk about that because just as you said, doing a few simple steps can really make a big difference.

I also like going to one of your 5 core things about some of the environmental toxins too that come into our body in the form of personal care products or things that we use to clean. I always recommend to families - you know the Environmental Working Group has a great guide they put out every year for clean sunscreens and all of that kind stuff, lotions and different things, it's a great resource for just looking at products that can help reduce our overall toxicity in terms of what we're using in our homes, what we're using in our kids bodies. It really is a good guide for that.

You may have your favorites. I have a couple of the filters I prefer and that's another way. Third thing is food that we're eating. 3 meals plus a day and then the last are all of those things that we have on our bodies. I had one case straight out of residency and it was a terrible, the worst eczema - one of the worst cases I have ever seen. And I didn't figure it out, but it was the dermatologist who figured it out that it was the Glade plug-ins that was triggering this girl's eczema. And we just have to be sleuths and that's what I always tell parents, is that I am going to give you this list of things that can be the triggers and often, it's the parents who figure it out. So information is power.

So there are certain triggers that will turn some of these genes on that are not going to allow us to detoxify and to get these things out of our system as easily as someone else will. And so it's really important not to discount it or to discount what's going on just because it's only one person in the family. And those kids are like the canaries in the coal mine. Their bodies are more sensitive and they're alerting us to the fact that these chemicals really are not good for us and if we're exposed to them for a long enough period of time, everybody is going to have some subtle changes, but it may happen so subtly that you don't realize wow, I actually have a headache everyday. And I'll use myself as an example with this, which is when I was a kid, I had to take antibiotics for 6 months. I used to get these kidney infections and I never had any problems with my kidney again. But when I was started medical school, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune thyroid condition.

Well they told me at the time at the student health center was that it was the best thing to get because all you have to do is to take a medication for the rest of your life. I had no idea about food at that point in time. And after I went through all my training and through my integrative fellowship, I said - you know what? I'm going to take gluten out of my diet. And I took gluten out and it was like someone took a bag off of my head. I could think more clearly, I didn't have energy slumps after I ate, and all of a sudden my GI system worked and I didn't have a stomach ache after I ate and I don't have celiac disease, but I have a gluten sensitivity and I am pretty... I really think mine was partially from the antibiotics and glyphosate which is in Roundup, they started to use it a lot more in the 90s and the late 80s. In college, what would I do is I ate a lot of pizza, I drank beer and you can see the difference in my face when I was in college.

And unfortunately it wasn't until years later that I figured it out, but that's the whole thing. So that's an example of not being able to tolerate something, and I think it's just the timing for it. And I think it was just built up over time, and I wish I had known to go off of gluten right when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's, because I probably could have stopped it in its tracks, or potentially could have. So I hope that explains it but it has a lot to do with our genetics and snips and how we detoxify and clear things from our system.

Dr. Kilbane: So my book is on Amazon, it's called 'Healthy Kids, Happy Moms' it's a step-by-step guide to improving many common childhood illnesses and then my online course is called '7 Steps to Healthy Kids, Happy Moms.' And you can go to my website, it's sheilakilbane.com and we have links to all of those from the website. We do have a lot of out of state families, you just have to come to Charlotte at least once in order for me to be able to see you and the goal is to have enough resources that you can really start to make a big difference. I'd say for 60-70% kids using the resources I have online is going to be all that you need and then it's only the more severe cases that are going to need a lot more in-depth work. Looking at the gut and labs and things like that.

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Addressing the Root Cause of Your Child's Chronic Illness

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My guest this week is Dr. Sheila Kilbane, a board-certified pediatrician also trained in integrative medicine by Andrew Weil, MD.

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How Vision Problems Impact Child Behavior

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How Vision Problems Impact Child Behavior

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My guest this week is Dr. Dan Fortenbacher, a board-certified fellow and clinical professor at the College of Optometry at Ferris State University specializing in developmental vision, Neuro-Optometry and vision therapy. He has developed models of innovation in the delivery of developmental, binocular and Neuro-Optometric vision rehabilitative care. In addition to his private practice, Dr. Fortenbacher is an adjunct faculty at Southern College of Optometry, where he is the program supervisor for the W.O.W Vision Therapy developmental vision and rehabilitation private practice residency.

In this episode, Dr. Fortenbacher and I discuss how to detect vision problems in children (even if they have 20/20 vision) and when parents should prompt their doctor for further testing. Dr. Fortenbacher highlights the most common vision problems, how often they are overlooked by routine eye check-ups and their effects on academic success. Visual issues such as convergence insufficiency, developmental dyslexia, amblyopia or lazy-eye, strabismus or crossed-eye can be effectively treated and eradicated with proper visual therapy techniques. Learn more about Dr. Fortenbacher .
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everyone, welcome to the show, I'm Dr. Nicole and today I have the pleasure of having Dr. Dan Fortenbacher as my guest. Dr. Fortenbacher is an optometrist specializing in developmental vision, which goes way beyond what we normally think of with vision and glasses and those types of things for kids. I've learned a lot from Dr. Fortenbacher over the years about the eye-brain connection, how much that impacts child development and functioning.

We refer patients to his practice often from my clinic. We happen to be in the same state and not too far from each other, which is great. So I'm really excited to have him here to share his knowledge and experience around the role of vision - not only in improving things like reading and learning, but also things like attention and behavior. I think this is an often overlooked issue for kids, and one that makes a really big difference when those issues get properly diagnosed and treated.

So let me tell you a little bit about him: Dr. Fortenbacher received his Doctorate of Optometry from the Michigan College of Optometry at Ferris State University and his interest in developmental vision and rehabilitative vision therapy began early in his career, working with and helping children who struggle with binocular vision problems. He's a board-certified fellow of the College of Optometrists and Vision Development and lectures extensively on developmental vision, Neuro-Optometry and vision therapy. Dr. Fortenbacher is a past examiner for the International Examination and Certification Board of the COVD and has served in several leadership positions at the state and national level. He has developed models of innovation in the delivery of developmental binocular and Neuro-Optometric vision rehabilitative care. Whoa, that's a mouthful!

And in addition to his amazing private practice, Dr. Fortenbacher is also a clinical professor at the Michigan College of Optometry at Ferris State and an adjunct faculty at Southern College of Optometry, where he is the program supervisor for the W.O.W Vision Therapy developmental vision and rehabilitation private practice residency, so lots of exciting things that he has going on. And Dr. Fortenbacher, welcome to the show, thank you for being here!

Dr. Fortenbacher:

Thank you, Nicole, it's wonderful to be with you.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So I want to get right into this because there's so much to talk about with this topic that many parents and even a lot of professionals who work with kids with challenges don't even have on their radar as something that they need to be aware of or thinking about. So I want you to start out by just talking about how is it that a kid who is having problems with reading, attention, behavior - those kinds of issues, how is it that they can have an undetected vision problem even when they've had their vision screenings, maybe at their pediatrician, or they've even gone to the eye doctor and they've been told they have 20/20 eyesight. So parents are thinking, oh - we've passed that, my kids got great eyesight, no problem! Talk about how it is that vision can be connected to these things.

Dr. Fortenbacher:

This is a really important question because so often when I sit down with parents and talking about their children's vision problems, one of the first things we address is the eyesight, eye health and glasses question. Because when you go to the eye doctor, this is fundamental in every eye exam. It's important that when you have your child's performance as a concern that you do have a comprehensive eye health and vision evaluation. But vision goes beyond being able to see clearly. That's the paradox to this. You might assume, well I got 20/20 vision, fine. But what? We also have two eyes, right? And they have to work together. And if you're eyes aren't teaming together, especially when you look at near, that can result in difficulty with sustained attention, it can result in the words coming apart, overlapping when the child is reading, and it can also interact with the clarity at near that's not measured when you're testing at far.

So you can actually have some blurry, overlapping images when a child is trying to read at near. So this affects their performance, it affects their attention, it affects their reading fluency - and a lot of times, if parents don't simply ask the question to their doctor: Is it possible that my child has a problem with their vision that's affecting their reading, they may not have the testing done to actually probe these areas.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, I agree that that's true, I think that at my clinic, we see parents frequently who have done their job of making sure that their child who is having reading problems or other kinds of academic issues has had a vision exam. But when you don't know the questions to ask or how to go beyond that, it can be hard and parents go okay, we were told that everything was okay. And what you're saying is that there are things that need to get looked at beyond just the physical health of the eyes and beyond whether the acuity is okay, whether they need glasses or not. There are other things that need to be looked there, right?

Dr. Fortenbacher:

Exactly, and I often times refer to it - instead of getting technical, and this is one of the things I learned early on in my career when you use the doctor lingo, it confuses people. And basically, if you look at your visual system, you've got two eyes that have to team. They also have to track and you have to focus. So those are the eye coordination abilities to take in visual information. Team, track and focus. Beyond that, well - then you've got to make sense of what you see so that visual processing part of the puzzle is also a very much integral piece to being able to perform and reading, and in the classroom - and inattention. To get the visual perceptual areas and then after that you've got the integration. So you've got to integrate those visual functions with motor skills, with balance, with listening and ultimately, thinking.

So you got the teaming, tracking, focusing, visual processing and then integration. And those are developmental processes. Those are things that... we don't come into the world knowing how to do this. It's something that develops normally, naturally on its own. But a lot of the children that we see, the majority of them haven't gotten it on their own. They've got a delay in that development, and our role is to help accelerate that development, get it up to speed so they can imply themselves more effectively.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, I think that one of the things that strikes me about this whole area is just how much we take our vision and our ability to process what we're seeing for granted, right? Aside from needing to wear my glasses, I don't really think about my vision, I don't think about all the processes that are going on in my brain to be able to take those images in, to understand what I'm seeing - I just take it for granted, and I think it's really... you breaking it down like that: Here is all the different things that the brain needs to do with the information coming in from the eyes, suddenly, it makes us realize, oh my gosh! It's kind of amazing that that works for anybody, right?

There are so many pieces to it. And I think that when we don't struggle with these things, it's easy to dismiss it and yet - when we work with kids, or even adults who are having these challenges, you step into their shoes and suddenly you realize, oh my goodness, there are so many working parts to this and so many things that need to be working together properly for the brain to be able to make sense of this, especially in a busy classroom environment, in a fast-paced environment and to me, I see that's where a lot of the behavioral challenges can come in with kids who are having these types of visual processing or developmental vision types of issues, because they're trying really hard to keep up, they're trying to do what they're supposed to do and they're just getting overwhelmed and they are getting frustrated and they're shutting down and then it looks like they're just a behavior problem, right? Like Johnny wouldn't want to do his work or whatever, when really the underlying issue is that they're struggling with these vision problems.

Dr. Fortenbacher:

Yeah, exactly. And what you've described are the emotional consequences of a visual condition when a child is trying to apply themselves and they can't do it as a level that should match with their overall capabilities in other areas, they're frustrated and they start to feel down on themselves. And they say to themselves, "Well, I tried that but it didn't work, so now - I can't." And they get this attitude of, I'm not even going to try. And so that's where these visual conditions that I'm describing which are medical diagnosis, they aren't just observational - we're talking about the one that is the most common, the medical term is called 'Convergence Insufficiency'. Inability to converse the eyes. And one of the things, when I sit down with a child initially in examination, I'll say, "Do you like to read?"

And just watch the response to that. And 9 times out of 10 and the reason they are here seeing me is because that's one of the concerns that parents have, and they'll say, "No." And they'll frown. I'll say, "Well, when you look at words on the page," And then I'll hold my hands up and this is where the audience has to visualize this: Put your two hands together, one on top of the other and just slide them across one another. And I'll do that, I'll hold that gesture in front of that child and say - do you ever see words slide on top of one another like that? And a lot of times, the kids that I see that have this condition called convergence insufficiency - they will acknowledge, yeah, they see that.

This is the first time the parents ever heard that. And if I ask the child, do you ever see double and they have double vision, they'll typically say "No." We don't know what that means, but when we show the gesture, they get it. So to your point about they don't understand what they're missing, to them that's their world. And this condition occurs in 8-12% of the pediatric population, so it's not rare. This condition of convergence insufficiency is significant. And it's by far the #1 visual, binocular vision eye teaming conditions that's then tested and researched. 3 multi-center clinical trials have been done, NAH funded over the course of 25 years, there have been many, many research projects determine that this is impacting performance and yes it can be treated effectively with vision therapy.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

First of all, I didn't realize those statistics. That's a pretty significant number of kids, 8-12%, you said. And the other thing, I think that's so important there is, you're saying there is good clinical research to show that these are real issues and the problems that they present. And I think that's so important because a lot of times it's easy to dismiss things that we haven't heard about or we don't really understand, right? Or that's some idea or opinion that somebody has, but what you're saying is there has actually been quite a lot of really good research into establishing what these conditions are, how they impact kids and then what is needed to treat them.

Dr. Fortenbacher:

Exactly. And one of the most recent publications from the journal of American medical association, in the ophthalmology division was to study - yes, these conditions exist, we know, convergence insufficiency, the tracking is another area that's called oculomotor dysfunction, and accommodative dysfunction is the focusing condition. We know it exists, but the research that was done and published by the JAMA publication was to determine - what's the frequency of these conditions with children that have reading problems, and they coined it 'Developmental Dyslexia'. And what they found was a significant amount of children with developmental dyslexia have binocular, accommodative and oculomotor dysfunction. So we are seeing research that shows that these conditions are present compared to a normal reader and then the next question is, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to do something to treat these children or are we just going to work around it with compensatory strategies. So there is treatment for this to help these children.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I want to get into that because I think that's such an exciting part of what you do in your work and at your clinic, is innovative ways to treat these things. I want to spell out for people, so parents who are listening who might be thinking, oh my gosh! This maybe sounds a little bit like my kid, or no one's ever looked at this for my child, I wonder if this is an issue. What are some things that parents should be looking for, or what are some signs that would indicate that maybe this is going on for a child, or that this is something that parents should be delving into further?

Dr. Fortenbacher:

I think anytime that you have your child struggling in reading and learning, it should be one of the things that you check off the list. It should be, let's rule this out first. And so, first of all you have to consider, when your child is struggling - let's have their vision evaluated. Not just in eye health and eyesight glasses. That is important, yet you have to go beyond that. So we have to evaluate these areas of binocular vision, tracking, focusing, visual processing to truly determine if there's an issue with that.

The other areas again would be falling into attention and concentration. Another area that falls into the common theme that I see are children that just resist doing their homework. Homework is a battle. And we'll see that it's the visual motors. The visual eyes and hands working there to copy from book to paper or they're just burned out at the end of the day, they're just so visually stressed, they can't concentrate to do their homework. So it's the avoidance of reading, dislike for reading, the attention, the difficulty of homework. Reversals is another common theme, the children that we see that have frequent reversals beyond a certain age. Usually, by age 7, those should be worked out developmentally, but if it's persisting, then that's a concern. And otherwise, I would say the other performance concerns could be with general coordination too. So that would be another category to look at.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, I was going to say, beyond the things that you mentioned, some the things that I just scream for clinically are things like kids who are having very immature gross motor skills or coordination problems well past the age when they should be able to throw and catch a ball or do balance activities or things like that and they're really struggling with that, I've seen that it's another indication too. So I think that all those things are really helpful for parents to think about - okay, if these are some of the things going on with my child, then this is stuff that I should look into further. So let's talk about the assessment and then the treatment process because I think, first of all, a lot of these problems go undiagnosed or under-diagnosed in kids. Nobody realizes that this is what's going on. So can you talk a bit about what an evaluation for this looks like, what kinds of things are you doing with the child, and then I want to get into how we treat these.

Dr. Fortenbacher:

Exactly. And then the initial evaluation does look - and I want to emphasize that it is important that we look at the ocular health, the visual acuity and also proper lens application because lenses are a critical piece to getting the eyes in balance. So if lenses are needed, that's an important aspect of the assessment. And then after that, we are looking at binocular vision, eye teaming which begins with the ability to converge the eyes. So we have testing that is very basic and even a parent can do this at home and on your own child. You can just use a pencil or a pen or an object.

Just put it in front of the bridge of their nose and move it towards the bridge of their nose and have them report when they see double. Now there are more sophisticated ways we look at this but the research shows that that should be about 2-3 inches. They should be able to converge their eyes on a pencil or a pen at 2-3 inches. And if they can't do that, if they start to report they go double beyond that, that's a big red flag. We then look at tracking. A tracking test, there are standardized methods we do, and there is also a chair-side method that also can be done at home, and a lot of times teachers will do this. They'll use a pencil or a pen and have them just follow the object as they move it up and down, around in a circle and see if the child can keep their eyes on that target.

That simple test can tell you a lot of information about that child's visual readiness for reading and paying attention in the classroom. The third area is the focusing category and that's a harder one for you to measure at home, but in the office, we are using lenses to measure their amplitude or strength of focus, their ability to relax focus and their ability to jump focus from near to far, which is what you have to do when you are in the classroom copying from board to paper. So we are looking at those areas. That takes about an hour. In our evaluation process, that's about an hour - a long procedure.

After that, when there is a reason for concern that there are visual processing issues, we'll have them return for a more comprehensive evaluation of their visual perceptual abilities and that takes about an hour as well and there's a long list of things that we do to address that, whether it be from form perception to visual memory to visual directionality, which measures letter reversals, we look at eye-hand coordination, we'll do reading tests to see where they are. This is an important point: Is it a reading disability or is it a reading fluency problem because they're not the same. Your child is in 4th grade but doesn't know their words at a first-grade level, that's more of a reading disability, that's another type of issue vs. a child who is in 4th grade but reads very inefficiently, losing their place and having to reread to get the information. They know their words but they're just having fluency issues. So those are 2 different areas we want to evaluate.

And then after that, we are looking at visually directed gross motor skills, vision imbalance and some of the visually directed fine motor skills. That's kind of the big picture. Once we have a diagnosis, then we sit down and talk about how we treat this. And the therapeutic part of this is like thinking of vision therapy as other rehabilitation, whether it be occupational therapy or speech-language therapy - and to some extent physical therapy.

But we're really working on helping a child, and we do work with adults too - I think that's important to emphasize, but for this talk, we're working with a child on activities that are visual challenges woven into something that's interesting and fun but has ways for them to develop awareness, feedback and do this with distraction. So each activity is kind of like a sports drill. So they're doing activities that have visual challenges guided by the therapist, one on one in the office, typically once or twice a week with some home reinforcement.

And in the course of time, we are reevaluating the progress periodically and we're measuring feedback from the parents and we're also getting feedback from the therapists and the doctor working with the patients. So that's is how we measure the progress. In general, it takes us about 3 to 4 months to completely remediate these areas we're talking about. The more complex patients have more complex issues, it could be with autism or another developmental place, certainly that takes longer and kids that have strabismus or a crossed eye or amblyopia, lazy eye - that's more complex and can take longer but the thing to understand is that it doesn't have to be a lifelong problem. This can be addressed in a relatively short period of time.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's great to layout how you go through that process, what parents can expect from a good therapy protocol like this and the kinds of things that are worked on. And I know because I've been in your office. When you talk about visually engaging tasks or just tasks that are motivating engagement, kids are really engaged and they're working hard and they're certainly working their brain and their vision hard, but it's an enjoyable process.

The way that you go about this is to have the kids doing tasks that are meaningful, that are interesting to them. Because I know that some parents may be listening that are going, "Ugh, the thought of trying to get my kid to do vision exercises again." Because a lot of us who are parents think of maybe vision exercises that we were given when we were young or something that the eye-doctor handed them, you know - have your child do this kind of drill over and over, it's like pulling teeth to get kids to do that. But what you are talking about is really incorporating the practicing of these skills into meaningful and engaging activities, which I think makes a big difference.

Dr. Fortenbacher:

That's huge. That's so important. Without having that awareness and feedback and engagement, it's monotonous. And what you've just described is an example of where giving somebody an "exercise" over a period of time becomes monotonous and your brain turns off. You really aren't developing anything from that. So it's so critical to have a large repertoire of variety and that's what we draw from. Whether it be low technology or high technology, we are now on the cutting edge of vision therapy applications.

I just wrote a text, a chapter in the textbook in the latest advancements in optometry and ophthalmology on vision therapy applications in virtual reality. And so this is what we are working on now, is we are working on virtual - we're actually able to use vision therapy in virtual reality examples. Not just virtual reality games, but therapy and applications that have been designed in a virtual reality. So that has its place in certain types of cases. Not everybody applies to that, but we use other examples of technology that makes it engaging, makes it fun and interesting. And bottom line is, we get fast results. Because when the patient is engaged and we're stimulating these areas, the brain catches on faster and we get better results.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Two things I wanted to circle back and touch on because I think these are really important. One is: you've talked about treating adults as well and I do think that's really important to mention. We're talking a lot about kids, but kids of all ages, right? Little tiny kids, all the way through to our older kids, our teens and our young adults. But also adults maybe who never had these issues treated, or maybe who have had a traumatic brain injury or something that has happened later on in life that has impacted their visual processing. So I think that that is an important thing to mention because there are maybe some parents listening who are applying this to themselves and then going - wait! I have this issue! Or, you know, these are things that I had when I was a kid. Is the process pretty similar for adults as it is to kids?

Dr. Fortenbacher:

It is. Actually, our adult patients are our best patients because they are motivated to be there for one thing. And while the kids, we have the toys section and they do well and we reward them, they can select from the toys. The adults, I don't have to give them toys for them to participate in these activities, they are there because they want to be there. And age is not a barrier, that is another myth that is percolating so long out there that somehow this only works for children. I have had patients in their eighties working with us in vision therapy.

So there's plasticity in our brain, no matter what age - as long as we can interact and engage in the process. So I would say about 30-35% of our patients are adults. All the way from older teenagers to college-aged kids and older adults. A lot of the adults are with us because either, like you say, they've had the condition their entire life or it could be that they've acquired a concussion or a traumatic brain injury. So a lot of our - again, the segment of our patients, about 25% have had some kind of a neurological event that has also resulted in them having these visual issues and we work through the process with them the same.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, and this makes me think another issue that we didn't touch on in sort of the list of symptoms or the challenges to watch out for, but I am thinking about a particular adult patient who had a very successful course of treatment with your clinic. I sent her there just because of a lifelong history of severe dizziness issues. And you were able to identify some of the underlying brain-eye pieces there and she went through treatment and did really well with that. So I think that might be another thing for people to be aware of, that maybe that's a symptom that your child has as well, but nobody has ever been able to get a handle on it, could be that some of these things would be helpful for that too.

Dr. Fortenbacher:

Yeah, the one condition that is common is motion sickness with the children we see. Very sensitive to taking trips with family and anywhere in the car, easily, they are having motion sickness. And for a lot of parents, that was like, oh he's got motion sickness, but they didn't really associate that with what we're doing. That's one of the things that resolves pretty quickly, actually. And the reason for this is because vision ties with a part of the brain that's to do with balance, it's called a vestibular system. So you get this visual-vestibular integration and if there's a disruption in that for whatever reason - again, it could be developmental or it could be some kind of neurological event. That can be rewired if you will, through vision therapy. So a common theme of the patients we see is that, we call it SEE Sick protocol. See - S E E Sick protocol and a very effective way to resolve this. Usually, we can take care of that particular aspect in maybe as little as 8 weeks.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's great. That could be life-changing for so many families, especially if this is a chronic issue. Kids who can't ride on the bus comfortably, can't go on car trips, plane rides, those kinds of things, so that's great. I wanted to circle back too because you mentioned more specific issues like strabismus, amblyopia - conditions that very often, parents are told, "There's not really anything that we can do about this, so we'll do some patching or we'll do some surgery to correct your child's crossed eyes." And I see kids who have had those kinds of traditional procedures or treatments done and they are still really struggling with using their vision with being able to interpret what their eyes are seeing. And I know I've learned a lot from you about that over there. Can you just touch on that briefly for parents who are dealing with that with their kids?

Dr. Fortenbacher:

Right, so the strabismus, that's the medical term for eye teaming failure, that's where the eye crosses in or turns out or up or down or other varieties of that. But basically, what we are describing there is a dysfunction in binocular vision that is more severe than the ones I was describing earlier. They do take a more advanced approach to the treatment. Patching in itself doesn't treat the strabismus.

Patching is designed to stimulate the sight that was lost due to the crossed eye, that's called the amblyopia lazy eye. And what we have now are techniques - evidence-based methods that allow us to treat amblyopia without having to use patching as our go-to approach. It's in a binocular approach to treatment, so patching is no longer needed as the go-to method. And that's so hard on parents and for the patient to do patching anyway.

But it is one of the advancements I would say, now and there's more information on that on our website and also the amblyopia project by the VisionHelp project is another resource I'll touch on. But the strabismus area is one that usually you might think of as eye surgery, but in reality, eye surgery is a cosmetic procedure - it doesn't teach the brain how to use the two eyes. There is a place for it, and we do, from time to time, refer when it's a severe form of crossed eye. But in general, it is not teaching the brain how to use the two eyes and that's what vision therapy is for.

So for patients that we treat that do ultimately need surgery, we do the vision therapy to get both eyes aware and turned on, then surgery to get them in the ballpark to where they need to be, and then post-surgical vision therapy for those that are again, the more severe forms. But the majority of the patients we see that have the crossed eyes don't need surgery.

And we can get the excellent results, develop the binocular vision, and also the ultimate is depth perception. Back to your point about now knowing what you're missing - when you have 3D vision, you can see pockets of space. And I had a patient, an adult patient last night as a progress evaluation and he just was saying how he's just so amazed at what he's able to see now. He said, "I'm playing around with my vision." He's playing around with seeing pockets of space. And for those of us who know how to do that, it's just like so what - but if you've never had that before, it's kind of a cool thing.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, it's amazing that the things that can be done and just to open people's minds to the idea that these things can be treated, that you don't just have to settle for, well maybe just put a bandaid on this or you know, kind of do a little bit of this or that and get it to be okay - that really, you can, using these kinds of techniques and therapy processes, kids and even adults can develop really... they can have the joy of having vision that really works for them and experience the visual world in a way that the rest of us do and I think that's so cool.

Dr. Fortenbacher:

Yes, and I want to make one other final point, is that when I talk about these areas that vision affects attention, vision affects reading, vision affects sports. Vision therapy by itself sets the stage for the patient to respond. So a lot of the patients we see that have reading problems, they still require educational support. It's not like you do vision therapy and suddenly now they're going on and they're just a - the kids that have visual fluency problems, they can take off. But the kids that have reading disabilities, they still need educational support. Kids that have these potential issues, those are deep-seated issues. They need to work with counselors, they need to work with coaches, they need to work with psychologists to help continue. So it's a collaborative effort here. It's not like a panacea that fixes everything. And if you have a problem with golf and you do vision therapy, it's not going to automatically make you a scratch golfer. You've got to get up and play golf, so the same principle applies in other aspects of life.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, I think that's a great point and it's one of the things I appreciate about you in your clinic is that it is a collaborative approach, there are pieces that we offer, there are pieces that you offer. Many of these kids, especially with more severe challenges need a team approach and the way that I look at it is addressing these visual issues that you are talking about as part of the foundation and it sets the stage then for other treatments and for further development to rest on. So I appreciate you mentioning that. Unfortunately, we are at the end of our time together. That went so fast! We can talk for a lot longer, but I want to make sure that I give you a chance to let people know where they can find more information about these topics, where they can find information on your clinic, what are your websites and other resources that you have.

Dr. Fortenbacher:

Well there's a lot of really excellent resources now and one of them I want to direct attention to is a project that was put together by the VisionHelp group, and it's called The Vision and Learning Project. So visionandlearningproject.com , and it's taken all these things that I've talked about and it has warehoused them into one site, it's got the research, the white papers, the videos, the books - it's a composite for parents, for allied professionals, for eye care professionals, so check that out. Also, the website, so has also find-a-doctor if you are not in the area, or if you are in an area that you aren't sure where you might be able to find a provider, . Also our website for sure, we have an abundance of information, wowvision.net . And so we've got the resources there, we've got examples on our Facebook page, of success stories, our YouTube channel and a variety of other material. So I encourage people to take a look.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome. Thank you so much for being here today and for sharing your knowledge and experience with us. I know that so many families are going to find that helpful, so thank you so much. And I hope that you find this helpful, apply this information to your kids, keep doing the best that you can for them each day and we will see you on the next episode of the show!

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How Vision Problems Can Easily Go Undetected In Children

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My guest this week is Dr. Dan Fortenbacher, a board-certified fellow and clinical professor at the College of Optometry at Ferris State University specializing in developmental vision, Neuro-Optometry and vision therapy. He has developed models of innovation in the delivery of developmental, binocular and Neuro-Optometric vision rehabilitative care.

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How Family Mealtime Impacts The Behavior of Children

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How Family Mealtime Impacts The Behavior of Children

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My guest this week is Leanne Ely, a certified nutritionist passionate about bringing families back to the dinner table and eating meals together. In addition to her syndicated column, 'The Dinner Diva' that appears in 250 newspapers nationwide she writes a popular food for thought column on the ever popular flylady.net . In 2001, Leanne created the Menu-Mailer on SavingDinner.com and has been dubbed the "mother" of menu planning. Leanne's goal is to bring families closer together by enjoying healthy and easy-to-prepare meals.

In this episode, Leanne and I discuss the importance of the family dinner table and the incredible effects it has on both parents and children. Leanne provides us with steps on how to approach integrating mealtime back into our family culture and practical tips to make the transition become a new habit. She shares her personal experience and tips on resistant children that struggle with developmental or behavioral disorders and encourages parents to not lose heart. Children and teenagers who connect with their parents during mealtime build better parent-child relationships and have fewer chances of creating habits of substance abuse. Learn more about Leanne .
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Hi Everyone, welcome to the show - I am Dr. Nicole Beurkens and my guest today is a great friend of mine who shares my passion for getting families eating meals together on a daily basis. Leanne Ely is a certified nutritionist and the host of savingdinner.com , which is an awesome website - if you haven't been there please check that out.

Her syndicated column, 'The Dinner Diva' appears in 250 newspapers nationwide, she writes a popular food for thought column on the ever-popular flylady.net website and hosts 'The Dinner Diva' radio show on Blog Talk Radio. She's a New York Times author of several books, and not only all that, but Leanne has raised 2 kids through to adulthood, so she gets the real life issues that are involved with meal planning, getting kids around the table, getting kids involved in the kitchen - and I'm really excited to have her share tips and strategies to make this easier for all of us. Welcome to the show, Leanne.

And plus - the whole psychological, and you understand this critically, the whole psychological element of being there, being together, being a part of something, being 'this chair is reserved for Jimmy', this chair is reserved - this is their place. And the children, the security, the bonding that happens at the dinner table, you just can't talk enough of, as you know. So that dinner table too often becomes a place to dump the junk mail and the book bags and things like that, but if we start treating it like the sacred place that it is, things turn around.

There's also some really important research that has come out in recent years about the - just family relationship benefits, communication benefits, cognitive benefits for kids of being in families where meal times together are prioritized and many parents might not be aware of that - that when we're sitting down to eat meals together, it is not just a nice thing to do, there is real research behind why that is such a positive thing for our kids' development, and I would say especially if you are raising kids who have challenges - whether those are emotional and behavioral challenges, learning challenges, all of those things are benefited from being together around the table, so yeah - a simple thing, but it's powerful. Right?

So what I love about what you share is really some down to earth, practical strategies for helping families think about - how do we do this. So what are some of the starting points that you want families to consider if they're thinking, wow - we really should be doing this, or we should be doing it more often. Where should they start?

Because if we plan something, it's going to happen. We'll have the food for it, you know we can't expect that we can just go off the cuff and expect to get dinner at the table night after night. Night after night, I guarantee you, they're going to want to be fed. So having a plan in place and having that food there is going to make a big difference.

That said, once you get kind of a community aspect, a kind of an agreed upon - this is what we're going to make this week, then take one of the children with you to go shopping - or make it a thing that you do yourself. Or give it to your husband and make him do - whatever, but disperse the responsibility. Secondly, bring the family into the kitchen to help you. It is not a one-woman show. I always say to the women, because 99.9% of the time talking to women is: Have a discussion with your husband.

Don't spring it on him, and he's going, "Where did this come up!" Left field! Just have a discussion. Say, "You know what? Dinner time is overwhelming for me." I need some help. And it's our family dinner, therefore, I want to start training the kids on certain aspects of it and I need you to come alongside with me and let's do this together." And get an agreement before you even start to approach it with the kids.

So once you have that, you go ahead and you bring the children into the kitchen, start teaching them to cook. When my two children were little, they each had a little apron that they decorated themselves. They had little hooks where they hung them up, they had little step stools. Monday and Wednesday, it was my daughter's turn in the kitchen. Tuesday and Thursday, it was my son's turn in the kitchen.

They each had my undivided attention. Can't always do that if you've got a whole gaggle of kids, obviously - but as much as you can, it's a great time too to build that relationship in doing something.

And I learned a really valuable trick too - my son, was a little bit... you know how kids are with some textures. Salad - I couldn't get him to eat a salad to save my life. So one day he was 7 years old and I said "You." - it was his turn in the kitchen, "You get to make the salad." So he trashed the kitchen. It was just every... what do you want to put in it!

He kept looking at me and saying, "Am I doing this right?" And I kept saying, "Whatever you want to do." By the time we sat down for dinner, he had 3 helpings of salad and kept asking everybody, and of course, we were praising him like crazy for the salad - but the point is hands-on nutrition? You just can not beat that, when they have their hands on and doing, is so much more effective than "Eat this, eat this, eat this."

Kids can put up a whole lot of resistance, and picky eaters, that's a completely subjective topic, because you know - there are 3000 definitions of picky. But the thing is, when children are touching the food and they're a part of the process, even if... go choose some lettuce at the grocery store, bring it here, we're going to go wash it, here's a stool - the more they're into it, and believe me at first, it's such a pain in the neck.

It is, it's easier to do it yourself - I'm not going to lie. But in the end, you get your kids trained, and I will tell you: This is a true story - my daughter, freshman in college and she prepared Thanksgiving dinner for her floor at school. She asked me a bazillion questions. But my children both left the house knowing how to fully cook anything. And they both have... I'm watching their Instagram, both - and my son's got this whole video of this breakfast he's making. That's pretty good-looking stuff there, son!

So not only are you giving them the nutritional advantage and getting them to more likely eat what they have, but you're giving them the responsibility of understanding what goes into a family meal and not keeping them in this little padded box where all they're doing is either doing their homework, watching TV or they're playing a video game. They need to be a part of - it's super important.

You just get so much bang for your buck even with 5 minutes of time spent in the kitchen with your child. And I think a lot of people overlook that because it's as you said, it just seems to us like it's quicker for me to do it myself. And one of the things I tell parents is: You don't have to involve them in preparing the entire meal.

Most days you probably don't have time to do that, especially depending on the age or the functioning level of your child, just involve them in something. You can involve them in chopping up something or stirring something or getting something together to help not only with spending that time together with them, but helping them feel connected to the process.

They're sponges, they'll pick this stuff up and they'll learn all of these things. So it seems like a lot and it is, but like you said - it doesn't have to be the entire meal and it doesn't have to be hook, line, and sink or all the things. Just one little job. You know, a 3-year-old can put spoons in the dishwasher.

And I will tell you this, because you know - and we both travel in a lot of the same circles, I have a lot of friends who have children who are younger, and they send their children off to cooking camp. They send them off to camp and they pay hundreds of dollars so they can learn how to cook because they don't want to do it at home themselves.

And you know, you can even say, "We're going to have cooking camp at home on Tuesday nights. You get to have it at home, and I'm going to show you what to do! And here is something that I'm learning" And just, if you put an element of fun in it, it'll happen.

And the other thing is having this idealized Norman Rockwell thing of, we've got a child over here peeling a carrot and another one over here - and everything is happy, we're all wearing matching aprons and music is playing, you're about to light the candles on... it's not like that. It's totally chaos, except that... it's your chaos though, and have gratitude for that. I think if we can change our mindset and get away from this perfectionist notion, it's not an instagramable moment.

It's crap and kids are everywhere, and you've got to get out of the trap - what did I tell you about this, don't eat the dog food! It's all the things! You have all the things going on all the time! Embrace your chaos, embrace your family, fix the things you can fix and just do the best that you can. It will get better as time goes on. I promise.

And if you just let it go, you're just going to be all over the place, and really there is nothing more frustrating than trying and then stopping and then trying and then stopping, you know, in order to get through the hard stuff, you have to get through the hard stuff. You can't give up.

And I'm thinking about some of the obstacles that parents have shared with me that they have run up against with something like family meals, where we have to start as the adult, modeling what we want the kids to do, right? So if we're saying we're going to have family meals, that means my partner and I need to be on the same page about... that we're doing that. Because if dad is off eating in front of the TV or doing whatever, and we're saying to the kids, we're going to sit down and have this family meal, that's tough, when we're not on the same page and modeling that.

We have those ruts in our brains too. We have this tendency to go back to that. We have a tendency to go back to what it is that we know, what it is that we've done. And to break that habit, we need to create an environment that responds to a new habit that we're trying to create.

So having that conversation, like you said, with your partner and saying, "Look, this is really important to me. And it's got to be for you, these are your kids too." Or these are step-kids or whatever it is, "We're in this together, right? And if we're in this together, we want to do better, then we have to do better." So let's plan on it, say he has - like I've heard this. This is my 19th year of doing this.

My husband always works late, this, that, he's out of town so much, this, that. I get it. Do the best that you can with what you have. Just because your partner is out of town all the time, and maybe he's home on the weekends, that means that you do the best that you can during the week. And on the weekends, when he is home, you make it a point that that's one of those nights that you do it together as a family. It's important that your children see both parents model this kind of behavior. It is not a one woman show.

And I just want to pick up on what you're saying about doing the best you can, I think even in those situations when you have a super resistive child or a lot of issues around that, you still create the standard as a family that this is what we do, and even if that kid doesn't always join you at the table or maybe they stay there for 2 minutes and you let them leave, or maybe they hole up in their room or whatever, I think even in those more extreme cases, still setting the standard and modeling what it is that you want to have happen, there is great benefit in that.

And I have seen it happen time and time again, where even really resistive kids will start to pick up on what's going on and will join in at some point. Maybe that takes one meal or ten meals or a pair of meals or whatever, but not allowing your child's challenges or resistance to dictate what you do as a family, I think is huge, especially with something like this.

So we all have things, and we all have our reasons why things don't work - if we can look instead at the positive, what one little thing can I do that might make a difference with this particular child.

Because at the end of the day, don't all kids want to feel like, "Hey, I did it."? Don't they? You can give them one little tiny thing. It might not be like come in the kitchen and help with whatever, because they can't do it. But if you give them one little tiny thing like, put the napkins down on the table - and they do it. Wow!

Stickers, fireworks, celebration! You know? Everybody. We all live for that, we are all Pavlov's dog. We all want that reward, we all do. So we can work from that, we work from the littlest, tiniest place that we have to start - to we have a big picture of what we want, but we start with the tiny details of what's going to work for everybody.

And that sense of belonging and inclusiveness and being a part of and being connected, I think about a lot of kids, especially kids with these kinds of challenges - they don't get to experience that very often. School is often not a place of security or connectedness or inclusiveness for them.

They may struggle with even having friendships where they feel connected to other people. So it really strikes me that the power of this dinner table of everybody having a place whether you happen to be there at that moment or not - this place is reserved for you. And should you choose to come and join us, we're here and we want you here and we've got a spot for you, and boy, that's just really powerful!

My ADD son was not doing well, because the more we did, even though they were great, fantastic activities, the more we were gone - get in the car... I mean my whole, I just remember coming out of my mouth multiple times a day, hurry up, get in the car.

Hurry up, get in the car. Hurry up, get in the car. Grab your backpack, get this, get that - and it just... I'm not suggesting everybody do what I did, but at some point you have to take kind of an inventory of where you are, and are you giving up those precious moments for all these enrichment activities and what have you that are out there, when maybe just having a dinner at home would be so much better than going to scouts or going to this, or dance lessons or music or whatever.

My whole heart is: I don't want people to miss out on their kids' childhood. Dinnertime with our children is something that is just a commonplace thing. We have one way... we don't have one way, we have a way to elevate it so that it is something that brings security and comfort to a child, or we have a way of making it chaotic like everything else that's going on. And if you think about it, because you were talking about the dinner table, it's the only time that we sit down as a family unless we're around a TV but somebody else is commanding the attention.

Now we all have these devices and little TVs and things - we don't need to be sitting in the living room or in front of the TV - even little kids have these things. So what do you say to parents about the use of electronic devices at the family mealtime?

But I think we need to have that kind of a rule because we are plugging in. In order to plug into our family, we need to plug out from social media, games, anything that has a screen needs to be off. It's one thing if you do, "We're having a family game." Or "We're going to watch a movie." And you have kind of set it up so that's what's happening that night, then it's special. And it's a treat, instead of - that's just the way we do dinner.

I can't believe how many restaurants I go to, just observing families there and it's like you're out to dinner together, but you're not together, everybody's got their face in a device and again, I think that starts with parent modeling, of here's the expectation, here's how we engage in conversation in mealtime together. And this is a no-device zone and I think that's a really simple but powerful expectation to set for that mealtime together.

My daughter has been married for 5 years. I have experience in this. And during the time that I was raising them, we didn't have quite the smartphones situation - that wasn't quite on the thing, but there were still times where I fought those devices, tooth and nail, and I am so grateful that I did because I had that time with my children.

Can you imagine if you are looking back on your child's childhood and it's kind of a blur and you can hardly remember anything because you're sitting there nursing your baby and you're on the phone? At some point we've got to just say "Stop, that's enough."

And if you had had the habit before of 'anything goes' and they've been able to do the phone, then start weaning them off. So this is what you can do: Just let them sit at the table with their device to start, and just say:

"Okay, look we are not..." at the end of the week, or end of the month or whatever you decide, whatever is appropriate for your family - "We're not going to have these things anymore at the table." "While I'm getting dinner on the table, however, you're allowed to have it." And then you pass a basket, have everybody put their device in it and we're done."

Sure, so if they go to savingdinner.com , that's my website and they can get a free meal plan for the week if they want to just take a look. And we have all kinds of meal plans because I know that a lot of families are dealing with food allergies, food sensitivities, all kinds of things.

So we take that into consideration, we've got your classic family style, which is just no allergies, no sensitivities at all, low carbohydrate, AIP - autoimmune protocol, as well as Paleo diet and Keto as well. So some families are doing Keto and it works really well for their children, so we have those menus available.

Plus, your website just has tons of great recipes that people can download and great tips and information, so definitely head to savingdinner.com to check that out. Leanne, I'm really grateful that you were willing to spend the time with us today, this has been so helpful. Thank you for being here.

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How Family Mealtime Impacts The Behavior of Children

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My guest this week is Leanne Ely, a certified nutritionist passionate about bringing families back to the dinner table and eating meals together. In addition to her syndicated column, 'The Dinner Diva' that appears in 250 newspapers nationwide she writes a popular food for thought column on the ever popular flylady.net .

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Mental & Physical Health Risks of Birth Control For Girlsing

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Mental & Physical Health Risks of Birth Control For Girlsing

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My guest this week is Dr. Jolene Brighten, a functional naturopathic medical doctor and nutritional biochemist with a focus in women's endocrine health. She is recognized as a leading expert in Post-Birth Control Syndrome and the long-term side effects associated with hormonal contraceptives. Dr. Brighten is the author of ' Beyond the Pill: A 30-Day Program to Balance Your Hormones, Reclaim Your Body, and Reverse the Dangerous Side Effects of the Birth Control Pill '. She is a speaker, women's health advocate and a medical advisor for one of the first data-driven apps to offer women personalized birth control recommendations.

In this episode, Dr. Brighten and I discuss the physical and mental health risks of hormonal birth control and the importance of informed consent before taking it. Side effects can vary from anxiety and depression to increased risk for stroke, heart attack, thyroid and adrenal disorders. Dr. Brighten provides us with a careful approach to the pill and how to monitor and maintain one's health while on the pill. Teenage girls specifically are 80% percent more likely to develop depression when taking the combination pill of estrogen and progestin. Those who are on "the pill" have a double risk of suicide after one year of taking it. Learn more about Dr. Brighten .
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

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Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Hi everyone, welcome to the show, I'm Dr. Nicole and today's show is for those of you who are parenting or working with girls or young women, specifically the pre-teen, teen, young adult years.

I have seen a major trend in the last decade or so, I would say of more and more girls and young women being prescribed hormonal birth control, whether it's birth control pills or hormonal IUDs - for everything from regulating periods to managing PMS symptoms, to dealing with mood issues, anxiety - kind of all over the board, and I am a big proponent of women having options when it comes to birth control and medication, but my concern is that most parents and teens are not really being educated about what these medications are, how they work, and potential problems that can come up.

And I have seen many patients here at the clinic over the past decade or so who had had major side effects and issues, particularly in the realm of mental health that have stemmed from hormonal birth control. So I think that these are things that are not being talked about enough, and that's why I am thrilled that my guest today is my good friend and colleague, Dr. Jolene Brighten. She is an expert on all the issues surrounding hormonal birth control, and I can't think of anybody better to delve into this topic with. Let me tell you a little bit about Jolene.

She is a functional naturopathic medical doctor, a nutritional biochemist with a focus on women's endocrine health. She is recognized as a leading expert in post-birth control symptoms and the long-term side effects associated with hormonal contraceptives. Dr. Brighten is the author of 'Beyond the Pill', a 30-Day plan to support women on birth control, help them transition off and eliminate symptoms of post birth control syndrome. She is a speaker, women's health advocate and a medical advisor for one of the first data-driven apps to offer women personalized birth-control recommendations. Jolene, welcome to the show.

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
Hey there! Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited for this conversation today!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
It's going to be awesome and this is something that so many parents, when I see them at the clinic, if they've got girls or young women that they're parenting - we start talking about things like what kinds of birth control their daughter might be on, or what options have been presented and really - they don't have any awareness or aren't being given any knowledge of what these things really are, what's even going on with their period? What are these medications? How can they be helpful? But also, what are some of the side-effects and the problems that come up? So I'm excited for us to delve into that.

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
Yeah, exactly! And that's why I set out to write 'Beyond the Pill'. You know, I did the pill for a decade. Absolutely a tool that I used to make my period problems go away, and also become a doctor. It's a great tool for women to be able to have access to, but really what I saw was missing in my own health journey and with so many of my patients was that true informed consent of understanding, what happens when you take this pill? What can you do to monitor these symptoms, to stay safe on it and what are the individual recommendations that we could be making?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Let's jump in, I want to set the stage for this conversation a bit by having you talk briefly about how the menstrual cycle works and what's the benefit of having a menstrual cycle, of getting a period. Because I think one of the things that's really appealing, especially to girls now, is this idea that: Oh, I can go on this pill and then I don't need to deal with the period at all. So let's just talk about some of the basics of that.

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
Yeah, and I love that you bring this up because really, the question of whether or not to have a period really didn't enter until we had new iterations of birth control where we could be on them continuously. And it's something where, in medicine, doctors would say there is this story where you don't need a period, you don't need to have a menstrual cycle, it's not necessary - while at the same time, The American College for Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2015, deemed the menstrual cycle and your period and the signs and symptoms that come with that the 5th vital sign, which is up there with blood pressure and temperature, like how we know if you're sick or going to die - like these kinds of things!

So it is something that is very interesting and I definitely don't judge anybody for this. I thought I was pretty clever for two years of just skipping periods whenever I wanted, until that little voice was like, "Wait a minute! This isn't what your body is designed to do!" Now, with a menstrual cycle, I would say - this is something that I set out to write my book and really help women understand is: How does your menstrual cycle work?

What's up with your hormones? What do they do for you? Because I didn't know this until I got into my first year of medical school, and that's ridiculous! You shouldn't have to go to medical school to understand how your menstrual cycle works. And sadly, that was also after college physiology classes.

So here's the thing: Day 1 is the first day that we see blood, where we experience a flow. And we measure the menstrual cycle, we start on day 1. On day 1, what has happened is your hormones have dropped. So your progesterone, estrogen have dropped - that way you shed the endometrial lining.

So that's the lining of your uterus. Now - if you're seeing clots, if it's heavy, if it's brown discharge, these can all mean different things in terms of your health. Like it can be a sign of iron deficiency anemia, hypothyroidism, poor liver detoxification and making the wrong metabolites - which those metabolites over a lifetime can stimulate and may very well contribute to cancer progression. So this is pretty valuable information to have.

Now around day 3, your brain starts talking to your ovaries and says let's get a follicle ready so we can ovulate. That's FSH picks up. Follicle-Stimulating Hormone, and it stimulates the ovaries to get an egg ready, which is going to be ovulated approximately somewhere in the middle of the cycle.

Maybe it's day 10, maybe it's day 14 for you. Understand women, that a 28-day cycle is an average and it looks different for every woman. It's also why the method of, oh just split your cycle in half and that's when you ovulate, avoid sex then - that doesn't work. You're hearing it here first - no you've probably heard it somewhere else too. So right you ovulate though you're going to see an optic.

Estrogen is going to rise, and as is testosterone. And testosterone is going to cause a libido increase, and then what you will see is that the fertile cervical mucus gets started. And so that is totally normal. I would say I have had women in my practice that were put on the pill at like 14 and then they're in their 40s and they come off them, and for the first time in their lives, they are like what is this goop in my underwear? That is fertile cervical mucus, 100% normal, 100% should not be anything you're ashamed of.

Now, once you are getting to that 'I'm about to ovulate' phase, that's when you're going to notice there is going to a surge of LH - Luteinizing Hormone, Estrogen will peak, you will ovulate. Ovulation is so very important, because when you ovulate, what is left behind is the corpus luteum. So in the first half of what I just described, that's the follicular phase. Some people you'll see will divide the menstrual cycle into 4 phases, saying your period is separate, but understand that even while you are bleeding, you are getting a follicle ready. So that's why in medicine, we call it all the follicular phase, because what is the point of that? The point of it isn't the period, get that egg ready - come into ovulation. Following the ovulation, that's when we come into the luteal phase.

Now, the luteal phase is where progesterone is the main player - it makes you feel chilled out and calm, you get better sleep at night. I love - I think estrogen and progesterone are wonderful hormones, but when they are out of balance, they are an absolute nightmare to deal with. So at the end of this, if there is no pregnancy, those hormones drop again, your period comes back.

Now even at luteal phase, let's say you want to scream at people, you're having anxiety, I mean you've seen this where women get put on anti-anxiety medication and some of them are even told, "Just take this anxiety medication a week before your period." Because that's when it's an issue. And the issue is not that you have a deficiency in this medication, although it can help - the root cause of it is really that you don't have enough progesterone. Is that because you're stressed? Is that because you have an infection going on?

Do you have a luteal phase defect where that corpus luteum can't do its job? Are you deficient in vitamin C? Are you not getting enough time with your girlfriends? All of these things can impact what's going on. And I say all of this because I think the biggest misconception in women's medicine, and there's a lot actually, is that your symptoms are your body's way of betraying you.

And the story of being a woman is inherently awful - so just suppress your hormones, suppress your period and go on your merry way. When in reality, your symptoms are your body's way of communicating to you - it's an opportunity to unearth that root cause and in our young girls, this is the time to act now, not when it really comes to a head in our 30s and our 40s. So I had a period that was 7+ days, incredibly painful. So if you are a woman who is hearing that and is like, but I really don't want these symptoms - I feel you. And if you do choose to use birth control, that doesn't mean you don't keep investigating.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
I think that that's such a great point, that these are signs, like red flags that our body waves at us. That something that might be out of whack here, so if you're seeing in your daughters or in yourself that wow - really, really terrible PMS symptoms, really huge mood shifts, can't sleep.

If your daughter is really thrown off by different cycles throughout the month, different phases throughout the month, that's an indication that there's probably some actionable things there that we should be looking at, right? So what you're saying is, instead of just sort of putting a bandaid on it and making those go away by using hormonal birth control, that really - we can start digging into what some of those underlying issues are.

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
Yeah, and you know - it's 100% your right to use birth control for symptom management, but it's also 100% your right to have that root cause investigation. And this is something that becomes problematic for... so young girls, it's not uncommon to have irregular periods when you are getting started here, like your brain and ovaries are figuring out how to dance together.

You ever see anybody figuring out how to dance the first time and they nail it? No, that never happens. So it's not uncommon to see that. And there's a researcher, Jerilynn Prior who has talked about how it's really a 10 year maturation process of that brain-ovarian connection being solidified. But often, young girls will be given birth control for that. Or sometimes that actually can be cause of hypothyroidism for instance, so I'll have patients in my clinic, I go through a timeline with them, they are like yeah - my period was irregular and then I was like, I always have had dry skin, my weight has always been an issue.

I am someone who just needs to sleep 10-12 hours. And you go through that and things are getting worse and worse in that whole time you are like wow, it sure sounds like you had hypothyroidism, and your period was the first place that presented - and yet you were given birth control, and everybody said, well that's irregular period, so go on your merry way, except that it's medication withdrawal bleed - it's not actually a menstrual cycle.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
So you mentioned the irregular cycles and I think that's one of the reasons that I see of why a lot of girls, young teenagers, teens, young adults are put on the pill. What are some of the other reasons that you see younger girls or even at younger and younger ages now that they're being put on the pill?

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
Well, menstrual cramps and pain - pain in general. It's estimated that over 30% of women who are taking the pill, that's one of their primary reasons. Now to frame that, we used to use birth control to space pregnancies, and then this thing happened when I was about in my early 20s, where it started being marketed as 'The pill for every female ill'. And so now we see, like you were saying, in the last decade we are seeing that birth control pills are being prescribed more and more.

Now, from the research we have come to understand that almost 60% of women state that their primary reason for going on the pill or using any kind of hormonal contraceptive is for symptom management. So menstrual cramps and pain is #1.
And definitely, nobody wants to be in pain, and so I can understand that, but what is that pain? That pain is often an issue with inflammation, prostaglandins, estrogen, it also can be related to the gut. So again - there is a root cause to all of this.

And for women who are listening who are like - what about endometriosis? It's interesting because endometriosis is cited as about 4% - so I think that number, the reason that it sounds so low and it's like - wow, no wait a minute. If you're saying it's pain, it should be higher - it's because when you use the pill to treat symptoms, you often delay diagnosis.... And the longer she stayed on it, you know when she's put on the pill for pain, the higher the probability that she has endometriosis.

And so I don't think that's because - you know there are people out there that are like, 'That's because the pill causes endometriosis'. I don't think we have enough research and evidence to say that, I think it's more that this girl presented with these painful periods, she was then put on birth control and when she decided to have a baby, that's when it was uncovered.

Now, why is it uncovered then? Because endometriosis is responsible for about 12% of infertility cases. Now regular periods, that's also up there with the painful periods. Acne is another one and this is the one that gets me, where - you're treating her for acne and sometimes, this is for women with polycystic ovarian syndrome. Like irregular periods and acne - but hormonal birth control puts her at a higher risk for stroke, heart attack, having a clot, something that PCOS women are already at a higher risk for.

But in addition to that, when you are treating her for acne, something that nobody dies of, with a medication that people do die of - are you having that discussion? Are you helping her really make that decision and understand what to look out for? So those are some of the top reasons.

Over 10% are unspecified reasons that are related to hormones. So that might be that you are having hair loss, you're having hair growth on your chin, chest, abdomen, it also can be an issue with headaches, which is very concerning. I actually was having a discussion with a mutual friend of our, Dr. Maya Shetreat about how often we see doctors prescribing the pill for migraines, although we've known for a very long time that a migraine with an aura is a contraindication she's at higher stroke risk, and yet this is still a treatment that is being offered.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
That's a great point and I've seen that more often than I should in practice too, or even teenagers who aren't having any problem - young women who aren't having any problems around their periods but being put on hormonal birth control because of migraine issues, mood issues are another one that I see often, where it's like well we've had this young woman on SSRI medication for depression and these kinds of things, it's just not getting better so let's throw a birth control pill at it and see if that will help manage the mood.

And what I see is a lot of young women who have been on hormonal birth control for various symptoms for a while, and they're coming in because those problems still aren't solved. It's like I'm taking all these medications including birth control, and still I'm having all these issues.

And you made a great point about how the pill can mask important physical symptoms and things, and I look at that too that it can mask important emotional things and traumas and things that people are experiencing, that young girls and young adult women are experiencing that need to be dealt with and not just shoved under the rug and said well, you're having hormone issues, you're feeling down or anxious or whatever because of this, let's put you on the pill.

Sometimes what I find then is that this makes it so that these young women are not getting the help that they need for maybe things that are going on in their life that somebody needs to look at and address or learning coping skills, things like that - so I think these are red flags both for physical and emotional issues and we can use the pill as a bandaid, but really what we want to do is get to the root issues that are causing these things.

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
Yeah, and like you were saying, I think hypothyroidism is... we're seeing this more and more in young women. Do you remember the time where it was hypothyroidism - it was something that women in the 40s get, not women in their 30s.

Now we're seeing 8 year olds with hypothyroidism. What is going on? The canary in the coal mine is what's going on. That alone is something that can present with anxiety or depression or alternating. And it's interesting to me that you talk to psychologists and psychiatrists and they will say, "Well if that medication didn't work, you should definitely be looking at thyroid." And then we'll hear from primary care physicians who are just prescribing mood-altering medications over and over, and not investigating that.

I think it's really interesting that people who have the training in mental health recognize thyroid and then there is this disconnect within the conventional medicine paradigm on that.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Yeah, excellent point. I want to delve into mental health risks for our preteen girls, our teen girls, our young adult girls because I have yet to have a patient come in who has received any information from their prescriber around this, and I really think that it's important that you are talking about it. So what do we know about mental health risks for teenage or younger girls who are on hormonal birth control?

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
Yeah, let me say this too, for every woman listening - odds are, you've been dismissed at some point with something that you've brought to the doctor, because medical gender bias is well recognized and documented. And what's interesting to me, like you were saying, doctors will say okay, you are having your hormones fluctuating and your menstrual cycle are causing your mood symptoms, so I will put you on hormonal birth control.

Then when you say they're worse, they'll say well that could never have an effect because there is no study on that - but just use a little bit of logic there, you just used this medication, these synthetic hormones, which by the way, your gut has never seen before, your brain doesn't know, we didn't evolve with synthetic progestin. That's just not the reality of the human body.

So I think it is something that is important for women to recognize, it's on the package insert, it's something women have complained about since the introduction of the pill and yet, it is one of the most commonly dismissed side effects. And even when we say a study come out of over a million women in 2016 - think - hey, if you get prescribed birth control, you are also 23% more likely to also get prescribed an antidepressant because you go on to develop depression.

And yet, scientists and doctors lined up to dismiss this. And I'm like, when you dismiss that - you are dismissing a woman's story, okay? And I get that maybe the research wasn't done exactly the way that you want to see it and we're not in a place where we can say causation.

We can only say correlation based on a relatively new scientific method of researching the human body and in medicine, and that's the other thing that we can come to understand - is that all this evidence-based medicine, it's fairly new on the scene as well, and I don't think it's out of place to really understand the complex nature of being a woman. We are not as biologically simple as men.

And why would we be? We make humans, we grow them in our body. So for our teen girls, what was really the most concerning coming out of that is that they were 80% more likely to develop depression when taking the combination pill, so that's estrogen and progestin - and let me just say: Progestin is made in a lab, progesterone is made in nature, they are not the same thing.

If you understand that, you are way ahead of most experts in this arena. Now, there are people who were then like oh, well - it's probably the estrogen. And then when we came to find out it's not, if you are on the progestin-only pill, you're 34% more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant. That was higher than the combination pill which was 23%. Teens taking progestin only, which is commonly called the mini pill, had two-fold increased risk of depression.

And it only gets scarier, because if you are using hormonal birth control as a teenager you have 3 times the risk of committing suicide, which really peaks in the - and let me say, no that was young women. Teens are actually at double the risk of suicide after one year on the pill and they were 30% at a higher risk for 7 years on hormonal birth control. Now, the suicide risk peaks in the first few months. And I really want to highlight this and spend a little time here because we are in an age where a girl can go get the pill and her mom never knows about it, her family never knows about it. I would never advocate for women not to have access to that, I was in a super religious family, there is no way I would have been able to ever be given permission to start birth control.

However, if you notice your child is not motivated, they don't want to talk to their friends, they're starting to cry all the time, they are raging out like the hulk - because everybody always thinks depression is like you're just sad - and like no, it shows in a lot of way, but if you as a parent notice anything is not normal, and you have a teen that possibly did go start the pill, like this is something to give pause and pay attention to and something that I am really concerned about, because I think that if a doctor going to pass a girl the pill - and when I say girl, I mean any woman, there should be this conversation of what could be the impact on your mood.

But especially with these teenage girls, if they are going and their parents are not aware of their contraceptive choices - that should really be a dialogue that the doctor has, and should say - your bestie should keep an eye on you for the next 6 months and I actually want to check in with you in 6 weeks.

I want to check in with you again in 12 weeks and see how you're doing, and do a mini mental health screening because these girls are really, really high risk. Being a teenage gal, I mean you cry enough as it is. I think back to my teenage self, I went through a pill that I remember when I started it with my doctor, I remember I would get in the shower and I would just cry and I would be immobilized, like I couldn't get out of the shower, and I remember when I went to him and said the only thing that's changed is birth control, maybe it's this - he was like "No. But I'll put you on a different pill." And then everything changed.

And how many women have you talked to that that's happened? If your daughter.. if something is going on, don't assume it's a bad breakup with a boyfriend, don't do what most of society has done, which is like brush it off and say it's something else. Definitely take a moment to pause and say, could this possibly be involved?

Because this is a real risk. To think that these days you can get it in the mail and never talk to a doctor. To think that you can get this medication, you can start this and no one ever told you, "Hey, this could be impacting your mood." And then the next thing you know, you could be having suicidal ideation, you're thinking about taking your own life.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
So important. The statistic are really staggering, actually. And just so vital for us as parents to understand, and I've had several moms over the years come into clinic who have raised with their child's prescriber - like, "Gosh, things seem to be worse", and they were told exactly what you were saying - no, it's not the pill.

Or - we can change the type of pill. And I think where it becomes even more complicated, and for those of you who are listening who have daughters who already have a history of things like depressions or things like mood disorders or anxiety, those types of things and they've been put on the pill - either for contraception or to manage cycles or as part of their treatment for those mental health issues, the picture gets really complicated, right?

Because it's like my kid already had some of these issues, now what's causing an increase in it? But I think any time you start your daughter on something, even birth control. Even an antibiotic, anything - and we tend to think, oh that's not related to their mental health stuff: it's all related.

And what I hear you saying is, this is all interconnected and absolutely hormonal birth control can have an impact on either initiating mental health problems that weren't there before or worsening them, and that we need to really be aware of that, we need to be watching for ourselves and our daughters and advocating that for them with their prescribers that something doesn't seem right there.

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
Yeah. And as I go into... I have a whole mood chapter in my book. So at this point, I think we need to stop debating: Does hormonal birth control impact women's mood? There are enough women who have said this, they've said yes and raised their hand - I don't care if we can say causation, correlation, whatever.

Can we just start believing women's stories and instead take the approach of 'Why her and not her'? Why has it happened to this person but not this other person? Because we all have somebody in our lives that has been impacted - you'll hear women say, "I can't do hormonal birth control, it makes me a crazy person." Why? Why did it affect her in that way? And I really respect that a study came out and researchers were like, we're not going to sit here and debated causation.

We just want to understand what's the possible mechanism of action to this. And one thing they found is that the inflammatory effects of hormonal birth control, the way it affects the female brain led to an increase in neurotoxins being produced in the brain.

So when you're on it you actually make toxins in your brain. So I've had doctors who kind of push back on this, and ask them - if you subscribe to the serotonin theory of depression and you believe that it's a deficiency in serotonin, then can you understand that if you are on a medication that depletes the nutrients you need to synthesize serotonin how that might play a role?

It's usually a moment where a light bulb goes off for them, because this is something we've been taught in school - that is: If you are deficient in serotonin, then you are going to have depression. And so research has been showing for decades, you need more tryptophan if you're on hormonal birth control. Well, that's a precursor to serotonin! Problem is if you look at the cytokine theory of depression, what you do with that tryptophan is what becomes problematic. And so no matter what you subscribe to - there is logic.

There is basic physiology that you can look to and have the answers, that we don't have to wait decades for a study to come out, for someone to fund the study, and then for doctors to hear the study and then believe the study for us to start believing women.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
So true. Absolutely. So we've talked some, you talked about getting to the root cause issues. So that may be a reason that some parents opt to not use hormonal birth control for their daughters, because they want to delve into root causes and investigating that with appropriate medical professionals who can help them do that. Let's talk here before we have to end, what about for parents and young women and teens who do choose to use the pill for whatever reason, whether it's regulating cycles or for mood issues or whatever - what can they do, what should they know about how they can better maintain their health while using hormonal birth control?

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
That's a great question because it's not up for us to decide what a woman does with her body and I have a boy, and I still have fear of teenage pregnancy. That fear is real, and so definitely parents reach out to me - they're like I feel like the pill is the thing my daughter is going to be most successful with. Well, somebody needs to talk to her about how she uses it, because it's not perfect to use - it's only 91% effective. And so keep that in mind as well.

Now, if you choose to go that route, then the first thing I recommend is to at least spend one - more is even better, but at least one menstrual cycle documenting all your symptoms. Going through, just as we explained in the very beginning, so go back listen to the beginning of this again and go through what's day 1 like for you? What's day 2? Go through both the physical and emotional symptoms - everything you go through so you know your baseline. I also think it's important to get lab testing.

There are doctors out there who are like - we just test if there's something wrong. Why are you waiting so long to get someone's baseline. How would you know they're normal if you are only basing it on when they get sick. And so getting a thyroid panel, getting a CBC, looking at a homocysteine so you know right now what are you doing with your B vitamins? And I go through all kinds of labs in my book. They can get those baseline labs.

Then when you start hormonal birth control, you need to be on a prenatal or a multivitamin because it's very hard to out diet these nutrient depletions. You still need to eat a whole foods diet, but you know - when I was a teenager, I thought crumb doughnuts were an acceptable lunch.

So I'm like let's be realistic of what might go down, because I think we all have to do these moments of what I call the metabolic obscenities, cursing at your body with your food. So with that, getting a good prenatal or multivitamin onboard, so that way you can safeguard against nutrient depletions.

As much as we can get our teens eating fibers and nourishing their microbiome, awesome. But probiotic is going to be a good idea as well. Hormonal birth control really hits the microbiome about as hard as an antibiotic does. When I read the paper that was like, 'The effects of hormonal birth control, the pill specifically, is similar to that of an antibiotic', I was like whoa - well who spends ten years on an antibiotic! So that's what it's been liken to it causes intestinal hyperpermeability as well, which is leaky gut and sets the stage for potential autoimmunity.

So the other thing you should know is, if you have a family history of inflammatory bowel disease or Crohn's disease, you're going to want to give pause before you start that. Because a Harvard study found that 5 years on the pill and a family history of Crohn's, you were 300% more likely to develop it.

That is really something to give pause. So going through your family history before you start it and then continuing to monitor your symptoms through the lens of your personal and family history. And I will say this, especially with mood - you start to get a little anxious, you start to get a little weepy, you feel a little bit angry. If it's even a little bit, you need to talk to your doctor because what happens is that it starts out subtle, because your body is so adaptable and super, super smart, keeping you safe. But then what happens is a year later, you can't handle it anymore. Adaptation is failing and at that point, your doctor say, well if it was birth control, it would have happened by now. But it's been too long, so it's something else.
And really, the reality is that the female body, in particular, is really amazing at pushing through pain and discomfort and dealing with a lot of it - it's why there are humans here. There wouldn't be humans if we didn't have that capacity. So getting your diet dialed in as best as possible, trying to get all the broccoli and cruciferous vegetables to support liver or liver detoxification, bringing on probiotic-rich foods or even taking probiotics and then getting that prenatal and multivitamin.

That is all really helpful, but one of the best things you can do is continue to ask: What is true for you? And monitor your symptoms throughout. And you know, I'm sure that you are aware of this as most female medical professionals are, that women have been dying of heart attacks at a higher rate than men. We are more likely to be dismissed with chronic pain and significant conditions than men are. And it is something that has hurt us.

So in 'Beyond the Pill', I go through - what does it look like to have a heart attack for a woman? What should you be aware of? And I have heard from so many doctors who were like, "Oh the stroke risk is so low, clots are so low - why would you even worry about it?" And I go through specific lab testing that you can have done to know, is that true for you and to understand that.

And I've also had 19 year olds - I've had 20-somethings come into my office after having a stroke on the pill and then being told, "Well just do the NuvaRing, or just do the patch or do something else." And some of them, the doctors are like, "Nope - this is a deal breaker." There are really, really great doctors, but it may not be within their wheelhouse with what you're dealing with to be able to hear and understand that. So those are the big things, and I can not iterate enough that you live in your body and so you know what normal is, and if you feel like it's not normal for you, it doesn't matter what your doctor says. Doctors will say, "This is your new normal." I'm on a medication that created this new normal - maybe we should pause and question it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Awesome. Such great practical things that parents and girls can be thinking about in terms of what they can do. And I love that message about being in touch with what is true for you and lot just letting people dismiss. And for parents and for young girls and young women to feel empowered to advocate for themselves and to keep searching if you need to, to find the provider that is going to listen and going to look at what's really going on for you and not just dismiss that. I think that's such a powerful message. The book is 'Beyond the Pill', it's out now. Tell us, where can people go to get the book, where can they go to find out more about you and what you're doing in the world?

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
Yeah, so you can find me at drbrighten.com, that's my main hub. I also play on Instagram - @drjolenebrighten and I have a YouTube channel where I seek to educate people in a different way, because not everybody wants to read big articles like you and I do. We all learn differently, right?

And you can pick up 'Beyond the Pill' anywhere they sell books. If you grab it, I've got some gratitude gifts for you at beyondthepillbook.com. You can go over, grab some exclusive interviews, some recipes, lab guide that you can check out. So you can start supporting yourself now, whether you're on birth control or off of it.

And the book is called Beyond the Pill because I knew from my years of practice that you can go to your doctor with any lady parts problem and they will offer you the pill, I wanted to give women a solution beyond birth control, but also provide them support if they decide to do it and when they're ready to transition off.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Awesome. Such an important book, and we've been recommending it so much here at the clinic. For us to use as moms for ourselves, for our girls, our daughters, our friends - all of that. Just an amazing book, so I highly encourage people to check that out and certainly to follow you on Instagram and everywhere else. So thank you so much. Really important, really informative interview - I learned a ton, so thank you for that! And we appreciate you spending time with us.

Dr. Jolene Brighten:
Thanks so much for having me and for all the work you do. We need a lot more docs like you.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Thank you! Alright, everybody, that's it for this episode, we will see you next time for the next episode of The Better Behavior Show!

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Mental & Physical Health Risks of Birth Control for Girls

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My guest this week is Dr. Jolene Brighten, a functional naturopathic medical doctor and nutritional biochemist with a focus in women's endocrine health. She is recognized as a leading expert in Post-Birth Control Syndrome and the long-term side effects associated with hormonal contraceptives.

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Essential Oils For Kids With Behavioral, Mental, and Developmental Challenges

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Essential Oils For Kids With Behavioral, Mental, and Developmental Challenges

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My guest this week is Jodi Cohen, a bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and founder of Vibrant Blue Oils , where she has combined her training in nutritional therapy and aromatherapy to create unique proprietary blends of organic and wildcrafted essential oils that help her clients heal from brain-related challenges, including anxiety, insomnia, and autoimmunity.

In this episode, Jodi and I discuss the important role essential oils can play in our children's lives, especially those struggling with behavioral, mental health, and developmental challenges. Introducing organic essential oils into your child's routine and teaching them how and when to use them can empower them to take control of their symptoms in times of anxiety, stress, restlessness, or when experiencing digestive issues. Learn more about Jodi Cohen and Vibrant Blue Oils .
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everyone, welcome to the show - I am Dr. Nicole, and today I have the pleasure of having Jodi Cohen as my guest. Jodi is an expert in using essential oils to support health and wellness, particularly for families and makes some of the best oils out there, in my opinion.

I've had the opportunity to try them and I've used them and loved them. I've known Jodi for a few years now and I'm just always blown away by the knowledge that she has about oils, about how to use them - particularly for what we are going to be talking about today, which is using them for kids who may have behavioral, emotional, mental health, developmental kinds of challenges, and as a mom herself, she gets that. Jodi is a best-selling author, award-winning journalist, and founder of Vibrant Blue Oils, where she has combined her training in nutritional therapy and aromatherapy to create unique proprietary blends of organic and wildcrafted essential oils that help her clients heal from brain-related challenges, including anxiety, insomnia and autoimmunity. Welcome to the show, Jodi!

Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I'm excited to dive into this because essential oils, it seems, are all the rage right now. They're everywhere on social media, everywhere when you go to the stores. People are talking about essential oils, but I think that really parents by and large and confused about - what do I really do with these? How can I use them, how can they benefit my kids, particularly when we are talking about some of the brain-based kinds of things that a lot of families that listen to this show are dealing with. So I want to dive in by having you share some of the basics, what are essential oils? What's the history behind them and what are they?

Yeah, so they're the highly concentrated essences of plants. So basically, they're distilled plants. So we know plants have been used throughout the centuries for medicine, they're actually the basis for most pharmaceutical drugs. And if you concentrate them, it's like a double-whammy dose. Like one cup of peppermint tea, a drop of essential oil is probably like 7 of them.

So the more you concentrate things, the more they can... certain challenges that we face, it's almost like you're so far out of balance that you need to knock yourself into balance and sometimes, really concentrated doses can do that. And especially if they're combined and created to put something back in balance in a very specific way.

You know, if you're zinc deficient, you're going to megadose on zinc until you're back up at normal, and then you'll kind of go back into maintenance. So oils can be used - I hate to say like medicine, I think that what it is, is that when your body is in balance, it functions properly. When you're able to eliminate the toxins you accumulate, when you're able to sleep and nourish yourself with healthy foods, you can return to balance and heal. And when you are far out of balance, oils are a more powerful, concentrated way to help you get back into balance again.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I really like that visual, that idea of getting into balance. And there are probably a lot of people listening who are going, "I can use that, my kids can use that." That idea of getting back into balance. And I think what you said is really important about the power of plants. And I think that goes unrecognized. Many people are unaware, you touched on that most pharmaceuticals, most drugs that we use are based on the compounds in plants. So when we're talking about these essences of plants, these essential oils, I think a lot of people assume, oh that's fluffy and nice and it smells nice, but actually - there's real power behind that, right?

Yeah. Well, if you think about it - our whole ecosystem works together. If you ever read those books on how trees communicate and sometimes one tree will share water with another tree, it's like a community, we all work together. And humans are bio-familiar with plants, we are part of that community. That's why when we eat plants or the ethically-raised animals that feed on plants, it helps us to return to balance. So there's a symmetry in nature, that I think working with plants - we're naturally connected. And so our body can process plants in a very easy way and it doesn't cause weird side effects because we're familiar with that.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Makes me think of - I was just looking at a brand new research study published this week about the connection between time spent in nature and around plants, and problems that kids have. And what this study looked at was, that as the amount of time increased that kids were spending out with trees, grass, plants and nature - the number of problems that parents are reporting in terms of things like attention issues, behavior issues, anxieties, those kinds of things went down and it's something that I've just inherently known and observed from working with kids, but that's really fascinating and something that I don't think we think about enough, that connection to nature, and that really ties in with what you're saying about that community and being around plants and that being something that can just be so healing for us.

What else has to do with it is, there are rhythms of the earth, right? There's night and day, there's the moon cycles and we have these natural rhythms: The rhythms of when we're supposed to sleep, the rhythms of when we're supposed to get hungry. And our rhythms are connected to the rhythms, obviously, of nature and the planet. So spending time in nature kind of resets our rhythms.

And when our rhythms are functioning correctly, especially with children, if their sleep cycle is off, that can really throw them off. If their eating cycle is off, if they have a bunch of snack before dinner and they're not hungry for dinner, and then they're starving before bedtime - the more you are on cue and on rhythm... and then babies, if they don't nap and they get overtired - it's really about keeping us in the flow and keeping us in the rhythms. And oils can do that, food can do that, there are a lot of things, light and darkness patterns.

The more we kind of align with the way our bodies are supposed to work, the easier it is for them to work properly. Like when we bike with the wind at our back, it's a lot easier to go faster than when we're biking into the wind. So what we're really trying to do with oils is help everyone kind of line up so things just flow easier. Being a parent is so hard to begin with and when your kid is challenging, it's even harder. So what I love about oils is it's an easy way to make your life easier.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And it sounds like it's a great tool, not only for the kids - which we're going to delve into, but for ourselves as parents, right? To support ourselves and all of us as family in addition to maybe the specific needs of our children.

Yeah, especially, I mean maybe there are perfect parents listening who have never had their child irritate them - but when your child irritates you, if you're already irritated, maybe sometimes you overreact in ways that you regret later. But if you are in a more resilient place where you are able to recognize - like oh, I'm finding that irritating and I am going to handle it in a way that the best me shows up as. When you are in balance, it allows you to show up as your best self and your best parent, your best partner and your best friend - it just makes things easier because you are more grounded and stable, so you don't get thrown off as easily.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I think all of us, if we're being honest with ourselves as parents, can use more of that. Right?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So let's dive into why essential oils are a good choice to use with kids who have these kinds of challenges, whether it's developmental disabilities, mental health issues, just more intense strong-willed kind behavioral issues. Why are oils a great thing to use?

Well, I think there are two big reasons. One thing is that the brain plays such an important role in how signals and chemicals are sent to the rest of the body, and it's really hard to get the right remedy to the right area of the brain, because the brain is protected, there is this blood-brain barrier that keeps things out, and our sense of smell, our olfactory channel is the fastest way into the brain.

So unlike other remedies - like you can't do chemotherapy in the brain because the brain can't get the molecules in there. People who have taken melatonin supplements, melatonin doesn't necessarily get into the brain. It is easier if you use a sublingual formula under the tongue. Similarly, oils have kind of the perfect chemical composition. They're super, super small and they're fat soluble - and the brain is mostly fat. So it's kind of like nature created this perfect formula to get things into the brain. And when you get things to the brain, you can help to reset some of those cycles.

So the sleep cycle or the hunger cycle or the kind of nervous system cycle where they're either be able to be calm and focus and heal, or they're so agitated and wound up that it's kind of impossible to get them to make eye-contact. So that's the first reason, that they are naturally chemically organized to be ideal to get into the brain, and the second challenge is that so many people, especially children with challenges have digestive impairment.

They might have leaky gut, they might have toxic overload - there's so much going on in their system, that it's challenging for them to assimilate remedies through the digestive channel. And so the fact that you can topically apply something through the skin and it gets through the system or smell it, that's a really nice back door for parents - especially that I remember when my kids were little and I would try to get them to take supplements. I would grind them up and add them to apple sauce or mix them in smoothies, or add them to muffins and it felt like such a battle to actually get the remedy into their system, so the idea that I could rub something on their feet while they were sleeping, that felt a lot easier.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I think that that right there, I'm sure, is resonating with so many of the parents who are listening who feel like - yeah, I know all those great things that I could be giving my kid or should be giving my kid, but getting the compliance, getting them to take it is a challenge. So what you're saying is that this is really low-barrier to entry. This is something that we can accomplish with virtually any kid, even doing it while they are sleeping and have some benefit. And I think that really is reassuring for all the parents that want to be using different kinds of remedies and approaches, but are struggling with how to do that. So this is a relatively simple way without a lot of head butting and that kind of thing to be able to use these with kids.

Well, it's a nice ritual too. My kids always loved it when I rubbed it on their feet, and my daughter went through a period where she would have anxiety at school, and we have one blend called CALM that she used to carry in her backpack, she would just put a little bit on her heart when she felt anxious and then she'd feel better. It was usually social situations like recess or lunch. And the teacher noticed right away, and how empowering for a child? Because anxiety can be scary and alienating, and to know like - oh I have a tool that I can use and I can feel better.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I've seen that with kids at the clinic too, whether it's kids with chronic headache issues, or kids with the anxiety, or they feel themselves just getting worked up and overwhelmed or they're having trouble focusing. Having that oil that they can use themselves, that they can start to recognize: When am I feeling this way, what's going on - and then they can have the power to apply that and to do something for themselves that helps them at that moment. I think that's very empowering and very helpful for them.

With also things like constipation, that can be such a big issue and it can get so stressful. And we have an oil for it too, we have one you can apply right behind the earlobe on the mastoid bone, on the vagus nerve and that helps the whole motility cascade in the digestive tract, but then also that CALM oil, when you put it on your tummy, constipation can be anxiety-related and instead of it becoming a whole conundrum, you can send your child in the bathroom by themselves with oils and empower them, and it kind of takes the edge off of something that is already stressful, and that's such an important part of healing, is eliminating your waste and your toxins.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely. So you touched on some of the reasons why these can be so helpful to use. I'm wondering too, it strikes me that so many of the things that are recommended for kids with these issues center around medications and medications that can have very, very scary and negative side effect profiles. Can you talk about that a little bit with essential oils? Because it strikes me that one of the great things about using essential oils is that we have the possibility of getting benefits in these areas without all of the potentially dangerous side effects that we might get from some other kinds of treatments.

Yeah, and I really try not to go negative on anything, the ones thing I will say is that the valerian root was kind of the formulation for Valium, white willow bark became Aspirin - but in order to patent the drug you have to make some changes. It can't be found in nature. Which is why Vitamin D has never been patented, because somebody would make a million on it. But when you change it, you have to modify it ever so slightly.

So the way someone described it is, if you hold your hand up in the mirror and you see the mirror reflection of your hand, it's kind of your hand but it's backwards. So when they make these drugs, not everything is kind of in alignment with nature, so there might be some mild changes that can trigger different side effects. And since oils come from nature, it's unlikely that they will have side effects. With that said, I think there are certain ways that you can use them that I think are more effect.

The analogy that I use is - our 90 year old neighbor has a cellphone that his grandchildren gave him. And he uses it to make phone calls and to receive phone calls. And my children are always trying to teach him - you can take photos with it, you can send email, you can get directions - and that's not really of interest to him. He just wants it to be his phone, and that's not wrong but it's just scratching the surface of the potential. And I think with oils, you can certainly put lavender in your bath and it's amazing and it smells good - and there's nothing wrong with that. Or you can use oils and combine them into blends that are able to help you heal in even more powerful ways.

And I think that what's nice about the oils is that they are pretty natural they don't usually cause side effects and you can combine them in a way where your body is very familiar to them. And so it allows the body to return to balance, and it makes it easier for you to heal.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Love it. So let's get into some specific types of oils, because I know parents listening are probably having lots of questions about - which oils should I use for different things? So one of the really common ones that comes up with kids for this whole range of issues is anxiety. That is such a driving force for a lot of the behavioral kinds of challenges and issues that kids are dealing with, so what are your suggestions around oils for anxiety?

The first thing, I mean - there are so many things that are happening in the body, in the brain when you're anxious. We're really designed for survival, right? So when we see any kind of danger, be it a real danger, a thought of danger, our nervous system switches into that fight/flight/freeze zone called the sympathetic state of the nervous system, and that gets turned on and I remember when my kids were little, they used to always say connect before you correct.

If your kid did something wrong and you're upset and they're upset and you start to scream at them, they're not going to hear you because they're in that dangerous sympathetic state where the whole body is mobilized to either fight or flee, so anything that doesn't help you fight or flee, like your ability to digest food, detoxify or even focus on your mom is kind of turned off. Like with my son, I used to point at my nose and say look at my nose, and he couldn't - he was all over that place, because he was in that sympathetic state.

The easiest way to get your child back into that rest, digest and heal parasympathetic state - which is the first state to kind of getting them out of that danger zone, so that they can start to deal with the anxiety - is to help them drop into this parasympathetic state. And this is a little complicated but I am going to try and make it as simple as possible. The off/on switch between this fight or flight sympathetic state and rest and digest parasympathetic state is this vagus nerve.

This very important cranial nerve that starts at the very back of the head and winds around on both sides, right behind the ear, and it's most accessible to the surface right there, so we have an oil that you can put right behind the earlobe, kind of on that bone if you feel it. And that is kind of the on/off switch. So they're agitated, they're all over the place, you can put that oil right there and it helps them just drop into that rest, digest and heal.

You can even try this at home, say you're like, "Hey, look at my nose!" - they can't do it, put the oil on and try it again and you'll notice. Their pupils will kind of constrict a little, they'll be able to focus, it's good for you too, you'll have a much better connection and a much better experience. And so that's kind of the first step, telling the brain to calm down, it's okay - we're safe, there's no danger, you don't need to be anxious and on high alert, it's safe. So that's a really good one to start with.

And then another one, the next step - the brain then sends these chemical signals, it starts at the hypothalamus and goes to the pituitary and winds up at the adrenal glands which release the streets hormones, so sometimes that message kind of - they're so prepared for emergencies, that they're constantly releasing the stress hormones. So if you can tell them the emergency is over, it's safe, it's kind of like the fire drill in the school - you can kind of go back in the classroom now, you're good.

And you can do that with an adrenal oil which is also great for moms, which you can also put over your adrenals on your lower back. And another trick that I learned from our colleague Titus Chew, sometimes anxiety is related to an overactive right frontal lobe and so one way to calm that down is to smell something through your left nostril because then that turns on the left frontal lobe and it puts you into balance, so it could be lavender, it could be the parasympathetic blend, the adrenal blend - it's just an easy trick and for anyone who is prone to anxiety attacks, that works really quickly.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Great, so you mentioned the parasympathetic blend and the adrenal blend. What types of plant oils are in those blends? What kinds of oils are especially good for getting into the parasympathetic state or the sort of relaxing and managing anxiety?

There are definitely single oils that are good for that, I tend to work with blends because I think when you combine things, it makes them more powerful - for example, the parasympathetic blend is two oils, it's clove and lime. Clove is super stimulatory and lime has the smallest molecules, so it gets it - the nerve is accessible here, it's kind of the fastest way to get into the system and calm it down.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And the smells amazing, it's one of my favorites - it sounds like such a weird combination if people are like "Hmm! Clove and lime!" But it smells amazing.

Yeah, and one of the other interesting things: Clove has actually been used in dentistry through the years, so sometimes, not so much for little kids but for us moms who might have any kind of germs in the mouth, the trigeminal nerves in the mouth, kind of drains at the point behind the ear as well, so that can cause a bit of a bottleneck just in terms of signaling and so cloves kind of goes and cleans up the bottleneck, a little bit. So think of a traffic jam and suddenly the traffic starts moving, it just allows the signal to go through a little bit better. And the adrenal blend is a combination.

It's thyme, rosemary, manuka, frankincense and galbanum and it seems like a weird combination, but there's something about - what we're really trying to do is create a similar balance to what healthy adrenals looks like. Like if you are ever playing tennis with a better player or running - I used to run a 9-minute mile, sometimes I'd run with 8-minute mile people and you find yourself keeping the pace, you kind of match what your put up with. So if you overlay kind of what healthy adrenal tissue - that resonance, it sometimes rises to that occasion and puts the organ back in balance.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Nice. You mentioned lavender too, and I think that's one that many people are familiar with.

Lavender's amazing, it's like the all-round player on the soccer team - it can do everything and it's great for kids, it's really balancing - what's nice about it is that it kind of matches where you're at. So if you need to calm down, it can calm you down. If you have a headache and you need to focus, it can be used for that. Lavender across the board, I think, works nicely for most people, for most conditions.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So it's like an MVP kind of oil for sure.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

How about sleep? Because you mentioned sleep, and a lot of kids with developmental disabilities, with mental health issues, sleep is a major issue for them. Either not being able to settle down, to fall asleep, not being able to sleep through the night - what are some of the essential oils that you find can be useful for that?

Definitely lavender. It's kind of different levels. And I think there are different issues with falling asleep and then also staying asleep. So if it's just a little bit, you just want to calm your kid, they're a little restless, lavender on the feet, or I love Mark Hyman's epsom salt bath. 2 cups of epsom salt, 1 cup of baking soda, a couple of drops of lavender, mix the lavender with the epsom salt before you add water, and you can just cut that in half for kids - so 1 cup epsom salt, 1/2 a cup baking soda and lavender and just the combination of the magnesium in the epsom salt and the lavender and the oil is very calming - so if you just kind of have a kid that needs a little bit of calming at night, that's a good one - we also have a calm blend and a sleep blend that are good.

If it's slightly more complicated, we kind of talked about being in balance with the right rhythms - sometimes our sleep rhythm, which we call our circadian rhythm, gets a little thrown off and that can happen when our sleep cycle, the sleep hormone melatonin works in tandem with the stress hormone, cortisol. They have kind of an antagonistic relationship. So if you're anxious or wired and your body is releasing all of this cortisol, it's a little bit like a teeter totter. Cortisol's high, that forces melatonin to be low, which makes sense because if there was an actual emergency, you wouldn't want to fall asleep. You'd want the energy to survive.

So we have one oil that we call circadian rhythm, and what it does is it triggers the part of your brain that releases melatonin, the pineal gland to naturally release melatonin, and this works really well for kids that are kind of okay through the day, and then they just have this huge anxiety at night, they get really anxious, they start getting OCD, they need one more glass of water, one more book, they can't settle down, so this blend - circadian rhythm, helps them really settle down and calm down, and it's also a great back door to helping manage anxiety because it releases that sleep hormone, which is a bit of an anti-anxiety hormone and it kind of puts them back in balance. So that's for challenges in falling asleep.

When you wake up in the middle of the night, it can be different things. You know, a lot of moms after their babies have blood sugar wake ups. So it's 1 AM, we are wide awake, we can go clean the kitchen, nothing is getting us back to sleep. So what's happening is the blood sugar dipped a little low and the adrenals released kind of the emergency blood sugar hormone, and then we're wide awake.

So if you think how the body naturally handles that, the pancreas is kind of what helps move the blood sugar out of the blood and into the cells, so we have an oil that supports the pancreas, and so in doing that and helping to get all that high alert energy out of the system, it helps you fall back asleep. And then the other time that people wake up is kind of around 3 A.M and that's usually when your liver and your detoxification organs are just working a little bit too hard, so anything you can do to support the liver, be it taking some kind of binder before you go to bed, or we have an oil for the liver and gallbladder, that just helps give them a little extra support so that the liver can relax and let us sleep.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome. You've mentioned a couple of different ways of using them. I want to just highlight for parents who may be have had no exposure to essential oils - what do I do with them? Do I just dump the bottle on them? You mentioned getting it on their feet - what are some of the best ways to actually use or apply with oils with children.

First of all, less is more - don't ever dump the bottle, maybe take one drop and if you've never put it on your child before, dilute it. You can just use olive oil or coconut oil from your kitchen, but people may get incredibly complicated, you can just use your hand. Put a teeny bit of coconut oil in your hand and one drop of say lavender and just mix it with your finger, and then put it on the bottom of their feet. You don't ever want to put it like, if someone is having an eczema eruption or something, don't put essential oils on damaged skin, don't put it on cuts because if it's damaged, that means that it's going to get into your system faster, so the bottom of the feet is the safest place to apply it because the skin is pretty thick and also, there are a lot of reflex points that affect other areas of the body.

So if you're an essential oil newbie: Dilute it, put it on bottom of the skin and go slow. It's kind of like a haircut, right? If you cut too much, you can't grow back - you can always cut more. Start with less and you can always layer on more if you want to. And then the way we use oils is we find that there are certain reflex points and organ points that if you put the oils directly on top of the organ, they seem to assimilate into the system more quickly.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Okay. So that's what you were talking about with the liver and the gallbladder, or even kids sometimes when they're having a tummy ache, I know that putting right on the spot where they have the tummy ache or a tension headache or those kind of things?

Exactly. And for the tummy, I always tell them to kind of rub it around the belly button clockwise, that seems to work. We've tested clockwise, counterclockwise - for some reason clockwise seems to work better.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome. And I know a lot of kids who do really well with a massage on their feet before bed, throw some socks on over it and that's part of the bedtime ritual or after school ritual, whatever. It's a nice time of connection with your kids too and that in and of itself helps to calm and regroup and all of that.

Yeah, and actually, my son used to have some sensory things, so one of the things we learned was if you pull, push, twist, twist with fingers or toes, you can teach them to do that - it's really calming. My kids used to love that so I would integrate that in with the foot massage.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Great. Talk just briefly, because we could go on and on - there are so many other questions I have but we're going to have to wrap up here shortly, but I do want to make sure that we touch on the issue of quality with oils because they're so popular right now, they're everywhere - I have parents can come into the clinic and say, you know I found this on the shelf at the local chain dollar store or whatever, and I know there's a big difference quality-wise. So can you speak to that for a moment?

Yeah, absolutely. And first of all, again, I don't want to get too much into scare tactics, it's kind of like if you find an apple at a 7/11 - it's probably not organic, but it's an apple. What I like about organics, they're so concentrated - oils are so concentrated, so if they're grown with a lot of pesticides or chemicals, your kind of concentrating all of those pesticides and chemicals and that's my concern, especially that so many of us who have health challenges, it's a little bit like toxic overload - you really want to make sure you're not layering that into it. I also think, trust your sense of smell. I think that the toxic ones, if you go into the mall into some of those candle stores - you're like, oh my God!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Instant migraine for me.

I know, but I think a lot of people have a good sense and there are a lot of good, trusted brands.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

For sure, this has been so helpful to give people a good introductory understanding of what these are and how to use them. I want to make sure they know where to find more information from you, because not only do you have your awesome products online, but you've got great information available, so what do you have to share with people? How can they find you?

They can find me at www.vibrantblueoils.com and if they have any questions, they can email us at info@vibrantblueoils.com and I was telling you, I made an essential oil guide for families that was mostly made for myself and my friends, because I couldn't really find just a beginner's guide that gave a good overview of all the things that I was interested in for my kids. And it's got some great tips like what we use, I have a spray bottle to prevent lice - it's just essential oils. So we got lice ones. That's kind of my thing, we make a mistake once, we don't do it again. And we went to that expensive lice place and realized - oh my gosh they're just using essential oils! And you know you get those scary emails and you're like, no we're good. We haven't had it since. So those kinds of things, just really quick and dirty, easy tools to use.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Practical tips, which we can all use. So people can go to vibrantblueoils.com then and download that, and we'll have a specific link for that along with the show notes so that you can easily find that. Jodi also has an amazing book called 'Healing with Essential Oils' that has tons of great information if you want to delve more into that. And they can find that probably on amazon or on your website as well, right?

Yeah, Amazon.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Wonderful. Jodi, thank you so much for being with us on the show today. I know this information was super helpful for people, so thank you.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Alright, everybody - thanks for listening and we will see you next time on our next episode of the Better Behavior Show!

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Essential oils for kids with anxiety and other health issues

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My guest this week is Jodi Cohen, a bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and founder of Vibrant Blue Oils , where she has combined her training in nutritional therapy and aromatherapy to create unique proprietary blends of organic and wildcrafted essential oils that help her clients heal from brain-related challenges, including anxiety, insomnia, and autoimmunity.

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Kids Need To Get Dirty … Their Health Depends On It

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Kids Need To Get Dirty … Their Health Depends On It

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My guest this week is , where she teaches Terrain Medicine™, Dr. Maya Shetreat, a neurologist, herbalist, urban farmer, and author of 'The Dirt Cure: Healthy Food, Healthy Gut, Happy Child' (Simon and Schuster, 2016), which has been translated into ten languages. She has been featured in the New York Times, The Telegraph, NPR, Sky News, The Dr. Oz Show and more. Dr. Maya is the founder of the Terrain Institute earth-based programs for transformational healing. She works and studies with indigenous communities and healers in Ecuador, and is a lifelong student of ethnobotany, plant healing, and the sacred.

In this episode, Dr. Maya and I discuss the importance of children spending time in nature and how that exposes them to a diversity of essential germs needed in order to build a stronger immune system and a healthier gut and brain. All children can greatly benefit from time outdoors including those with simple to severe learning and behavioral disorders such as autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and nonverbal or degenerative issues. Learn more about Dr. Maya Shetreat .
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everyone and welcome to the show, I'm Dr. Nicole and today I have the great pleasure of having my friend and colleague Dr. Maya Shetreat as my guest. Maya and I have known each other for several years, and could probably talk for hours about root causes of neurodevelopmental and mental health issues, and kids being put on too many medications and all kinds of topics.

I promise we will keep it to around 30 minutes today. Dr. Maya is an integrative pediatric neurologist, herbalist, urban farmer and author of The Dirt Cure - Healthy food, Healthy Gut, Happy Child, which has been translated into 10 languages, that's amazing. She's been featured in The New York Times, The Telegraph, NPR, Sky News, The Dr. Oz Show and more. She's also the founder of the Terrain Institute, where she teaches terrain medicine - earth based programs for transformational healing.

She works and studies with indigenous communities and healers in Ecuador and is a lifelong student of ethnobotany plant healing and the sacred. And I want to add that Maya is also a parent who has supported her own child through health concerns, so she understands the many issues involved when you have a child with challenges, and I'm excited to have you on the show today. Welcome, Dr. Maya.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So when I first met you and first found your book several years ago, I loved the title of it, I was like - the dirt cure? It just evoked curiosity in me, I was like - I think I get what that's about. But this is really exciting and I want to dive into this, because I think this is a way of thinking about things that are going on with our kids that a lot of parents haven't been exposed to, and certainly aren't being exposed to through the more conventional medical practitioners that they may be working with. So let's dive in and talk about what is the dirt cure?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

So you know it's funny because this idea of dirt, everyone has a kind of different angle on what it must be, and it's really all of those things, so some people would say, oh it must mean getting more germs or getting outside more or getting actually dirty and gardening - so yes, it's all of those things, so basically for me, it's being exposed to germs and microbes, eating fresh food from healthy soil and getting out into nature. Those are the 3 foundations of children's health, children's neurologic health, but also everybody's health.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And those are certainly 3 things that most people are not exposed to learning about when their kid is having some challenges and they go in and talk to their healthcare providers. So I'm excited to delve into that. If you don't mind, I'd love to have you just share a little bit of how you got into thinking about these kinds of things because you are a conventionally trained pediatric neurologist. So I'm curious for you to share your story of how you go interested in some of these other types of things.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Well I think I actually came to medical school with the idea I was going to be doing this kind of work. And I had seen a Bill Moyers special called 'Healing and the Mind', and I think I was in, maybe, college at the time. And there was this segment on a little girl who had lupus and she was having renal failure, kidney failure with her meds. But if they stopped the meds, she would have a flare.

So they started to give her castor oil with each dose of her meds, because castor oil has a very strong flavor, which was - I think, a little mean. But they wanted to have a very strong association. And then they stopped giving her her meds but continued to give her castor oil and she actually continued to respond just as if she was getting her meds. And I thought, wow - this is fantastic, I'm completely interested in this and this is what I want to do.

And they said this was a field called psychoneuroimmunology, and I thought great - that's what I am going to do, and I wrote my essay about it, somehow I got into med school and that was what I thought I was going to do, and I did all my training and towards the end, actually, I realized there was no psychoneuroimmunology that was really available.

Simultaneously though, my son got sick. And so I had 3 children over the course of my medical training like kind of a lunatic, and number 3 was born during my neurology fellowship. And at about a year of age, he started to have these asthma-like symptoms, and initially, I took him to the pediatrician, you know, we gave him the inhalers, he ended up on steroids, he ended up on antibiotics - this kind of amalgam of ways we treat babies that have breathing issues. And he just got worse and worse and worse.

And for about 10 months, it was just chaos of constantly having a sick kid. Every other week he was sick and it was breathing. So it was kind of terrifying all the time. And my husband and I were both at the time in medical training and we both were missing work - it was just chaos. And finally, I was like - why is this happening? And no one could really answer it.

And they just said, well - he's a reactive kid. And he started to also have neurologic plateau, and really almost like a regression in a sense because he started to fall, he wouldn't catch himself using his reflexes, so he'd just fall and smash his face. He stopped gaining new words, and again, here I am - this pediatric neurologist in training and I'm terrified watching my child lose neurologic milestones. So finally, I thought - you know what, I'm just going to think about how this could be related to food.

Maybe he's allergic to something. I took him to an allergist, I had already taken him to the top allergist, one of the top pediatric allergists in the world. And basically, he patted my head like I was a little girl and sent me on my way, which I think a lot of women encounter in the medical system.

And I finally found a community allergist who didn't have a big reputation, and he tested him and found that he was severely allergic to soy, and he was drinking soy milk because we thought he has a sensitivity to dairy. And so I took him off soy and within one week's time, he had no more breathing issues unless he was exposed to soy.

So that was this huge lesson of wow - not only did this food allergy interfere with his breathing, but it also caused systemic issues and it caused a real neurologic regression in a sense, because his immune system was so severely activated inappropriately and so the process of healing him really involved - because his gut after all those steroids and all those meds and all those antibiotics, it was totally disrupted and to heal him, it required a lot of attention to his microbiome - and this time, no one was really talking about that in the mainstream.

Now everybody knows what probiotics were, at that time - that wasn't the case. And so it was really about getting him outside, about finding foods that were going to heal his gut. And not treating him with antibiotics if I didn't absolutely have to, because I actually disrupted his microbiome. So it was a real journey and I ended up applying also this very much to the kids and adults in my practice and saw amazing results.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think so many parents listening can relate to the story that you just shared about your son, because so often, kids who end up being diagnosed or having symptoms of various kinds of developmental or behavioral or mental health issues, have in their health history things like asthma, allergies, all of that stuff that often get looked at as completely separate, unrelated things - and yet, as you've found in your experience, and I think many parents can relate to, there's such a connection there. And when we get to the root and heal the underlying physical things that are going on, then the brain can function better. So I know that speaks to so many people. So let's talk about, in the book - you talk a lot about why getting dirty is important for body and for brain health. So share why that is. Why does that matter?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

So I think a lot of people think of the immune system as being kind of like an army filled with warriors that are ready to fight things. But really, the immune system is actually incredibly social. It wants to meet and greet all the different kinds of compounds, foods, organisms, anything that's kind of coming through, the immune system wants to see, sample, have contact with, say okay - I see you're cool and kind of let it go on it's way.

And the more the immune system has that opportunity, the healthier it is. It's just comfortable with lots of different kinds of things. So when a real problematic organism or compound comes its way, it knows - I need to do something about this. I'm going to let everybody know there's an intruder. But if it's only seeing a few different things and it's really restricted, then it's going to think so many things are dangerous than really are dangerous.

And so, what ends up happening - if we think about developmentally, how babies start to be mobile, their hands are on the floor, they're crawling, they're walking and they're putting everything in their mouths. We are evolutionarily designed to be exposed to dirt, right? I mean we didn't have bleach on floors until pretty recently in the scheme of evolution. So getting dirty was the first thing that we did to actually basically educate the immune system.

And that's a critical part of immune health and immune health, it turns out, so gut health, right - putting all the things in the mouth is a foundation for immune health. And immune health is a foundation for brain health. So what we know now is it's a gut-immune-brain connection. It's not just the brain kind of in it's own little inner sanctum. It's actually a whole system, a whole organism, right?

It makes sense that we're not just these - we're not a bunch of parts all stuck together, we're an organism where everything is working in concert. So, when the immune system is balanced and healthy, then the brain can be balanced and healthy, but when the immune system is feeling activated all the time, then it actually sends messages through something called cytokines, which is the way that immune cells talk to one another, and they cross the blood-brain barrier, go straight to the brain and actually activate immune-like cells in the brain that then start trying to protect the neurons, but actually kind of can wreak havoc for the neurons at the same time if they are releasing all these inflammatory compounds.

So it turns out that having a healthy immune system means getting out, getting dirty, eating lots of diverse kinds of foods and not shutting down exposure to germs. So all that sanitizing that we do, that we thought to be synonymous with healthy, being sanitized. But it turns out - sure, if you're getting surgery, you want it to be totally sanitary. But in the scheme of normal life, it's actually almost the opposite of what you want.

You want to be exposed to germs and it turns out there is all this counterintuitive, based on how we live now, scientific literature that shows that for example, using a sponge when you wash dishes is better for the immune system and is more likely to decrease the chance of allergies than using the dishwasher. The sponges have bacteria in them, right? So they're germy and that sounds gross, but it's really important, and having a pet during the early years of life in particular, lower the risk of having allergies or asthma.

Why? Because you are sharing a microbiome with your pet, so it's exposing your immune system to all different kinds of organisms. And actually, even things like bleach. So children who go to school or live in homes where bleach is used frequently are more likely to have things like bronchitis, chronic bronchitis and respiratory infections over the course of let's say, the winter. And we think oh, that couldn't be true because we're getting rid of the germs - but it's actually in a certain way the germs that keep us healthy and it's having diverse, different kinds of organisms that prevent any one kind of organism from growing out of control and causing real infection that could be a problem.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So you're right, it is kind of counterintuitive to at least this generation of parents, right? Of, you know, keep everything super clean. If your pacifier falls on the floor, make sure you spray it with sanitizing solution or throw it in the dishwasher. I used to feel like kind of a bad mom sometimes, my kid's pacifier would fall and I would just sort of wipe it off in my own mouth, or wipe it on my shirt and stick it back in, but what you're saying is that really is an okay thing.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

No! Good parenting! It's actually good parenting.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Right. And I know, I think and I see it so much even as I'm out and about now, all of the sanitizing wipes in the stores to wipe down all the handles of the shopping carts - and while certainly there are some common sense things that we should be doing as far as basic sanitation, what you're saying is that sometimes we become so hyper vigilant about over-sanitizing everything in our kids' environment, not letting them on the floor, not letting them be outside in "dirty" places or those kinds of things, that we're actually doing a disservice to their immune system, and therefore to their brain function too.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Absolutely.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So you introduced me to a word that I know is important to this, and I want to introduce that to other people. The word hormesis. Which is an important concept for all of this, so I want you to talk about how hormesis contributes to our health, how it ties into this discussion.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Sure. Hormesis is basically a concept where something that would be toxic in large amounts can be beneficial in tiny amounts. So a very extreme example would be like fasting. We're heating a lot about the health benefits of fasting these days. So if you fast for, let's say a month - that can be very weakening to you, but fasting maybe for 12 hours or maybe 24 hours, it turns out that there's great benefit. That can go for cold, right?

So going outside in the cold for half an hour for recess is okay, where putting people outside in frigid temperatures for 24-48 hours could be really, really detrimental. So this idea of hormesis is that these small challenges that might make us a little uncomfortable in our bodies, cause our mitochondria, the kind of powerhouses of the cell to step up and function more optimally.

So it's little challenges, it's even like one example that we do everyday is - we hear how important phytonutrients are, which are the things that make cranberries red, or grapes purple, or blueberries blue - and we think of them as, oh they're so nutritious for us, well what they're really doing is they're the immune system of the plant, so what happens is, let's say you have an apple and it's sitting out at the top of the tree where the reddest, shiniest apple is - that's because UV radiation causes the immune system of the apple to basically up regulate, to produce more of these compounds.

And what ends up happening is we then eat that delicious, red, juicy apple and we get those little immune compounds, those phytonutrients. And they're actually like little toxins. But what they do is they inspire and instigate our mitochondria and our cells to function better.

And that goes for our brain cells too. It's every cell in our body, it makes us healthier. So some of that is getting out in the dirt because we don't think of... we think of dirt as bad or germy but actually, it's all those organisms and all those compounds that we find in nature, including in soil, because in soil we actually have as many organisms in one teaspoon of soil as we do people on the entire planet. It's the ultimate probiotic. And so this is something that when our body is experiencing this kind of small but not small, but small dose of organisms, it actually inspires every cell in our body to do better and function more optimally.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So that really ties into the importance, then, of getting kids out into nature, I would think. And I was actually reading a very interesting article just this past weekend about how deficient kids now are in just time outdoors and how problematic that is for many aspects of their development. You've got a specific take on why that's problematic from what we're talking about but how does getting out into nature then help us with these things.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Well, I think it's like on many levels. So we're talking about this issue of hormesis and that kind of exposure, and I think that's a tremendous part of it. I think it's also things like freedom and problem solving without necessarily the watchful eye of parents, it's about connecting with this kind of... the wisdom that people have connected with from nature over millennia that kids really do have a deficit of outdoor time as well as time. And even having time, that space to think about things and process, so nature really offers, especially unstructured time in nature, really offers something unusual and something unique.

And what's fascinating about it is there's a lot of science that shows we benefit in every way from being outside in nature. So there are all these studies from Japan and Asia on forest bathing, something called Shinrin-yoku and it's very much a part of the culture there, it's not like a special thing. But basically, all it is is immersing yourself in the beauty of the forest regularly. And so there have been all these studies on what happens when people do that - and what happens is, they sleep better, they focus better and by focusing, it's the focus that we think of but also organizing better, having better executive function, accomplishing more when they sit down to do work, having better test scores, even from just being in a highly natural playground setting.

Their standardized test scores will increase. Feeling happier, and then all these other kinds of benefits that we wouldn't necessarily have imagined like increased production of anti-cancer proteins and a boost in natural killer cells, which sound scary but are actually a really important part of the nonspecific immune system.

So all of these different things, I mean we're fighting cancer, we're basically helping children to fight cancer by simply letting them play in the woods, or helping them focus better and think better and be more creative and happier and sleep better, and there is virtually no other treatment of any kind, pharmaceutical or otherwise that does all of these things, barring perhaps a great diet. I think that is also foundational, but other than that, I can't think of any other thing that does all those things. Plus, it's fun. It is fun to do that, so what could be more of a win-win?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, it's great and you're right, there are so many studies now. And sometimes it is funny to me thinking, we need studies to tell us what inherently, human beings have known for all the generations before that being outside is a good thing for us.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

It's funny, but it's actually totally by design. This separation that we have from nature, and this is part of what I teach about in my school in the terrain institute, this has been very intentional, this division between us and nature. And nature makes us so happy in many ways and offers so much to us. And we offer things to nature when we create this relationship. So children really inherently know this.

I don't know about you but I was an only child for one thing, so I did not have a lot of stimulation from other kids unless I had time to play with them, but I actually used to go ride my little bike to a creek in my neighborhood and I'd sit by that creek for hours. I don't know what I was doing, I was talking to trees, I was splashing my feet in the water, I was looking for muskrats, whatever I was doing, I was totally occupied, no cellphone, that was not a thing. They knew when I was going to come home, but it would be before dark, and that's how I spent my time. And I think children just know what to do in nature if we let them go and be there.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah. It was the same for me. I mean I had 3 siblings, but we were outside all the time. My mom was like get out of the house, go do things - and so we played outside in the cold, in the rain. We were outside and being exposed to all the things that you're talking about and so I think as you're saying, there are so many important and valuable elements to that for kids' development - for their physical development, for their brain development, for their immune development, all of that.

For parents who are listening and thinking about, maybe some of the practicalities of how to do that. So when you talk about getting kids out into nature and the value of like playing in the dirt, and the microbes in the dirt. Kids don't actually have to be just playing in the dirt, right? They can be climbing trees, there's immune benefit, there's benefit to exposure to all of these microorganisms, lots of ways outside, correct?

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Absolutely. And the one thing I would say - I think there are unlimited... hundreds, unlimited ways to gain these kinds of benefits and experiences and to build this relationship with nature, which I think is a real relationship. The one caveat, I would say - because even sports can be this unless you're playing on artificial turf, so I'm really opposed for many reasons to that, but for one thing, it just is actually potentially made from a lot of really toxic components, but more than that, you're actually not getting this kind of exposure in the same way you would be if you're playing on grass.

Other than that though, playing a game of frisbee, having a picnic outside, climbing a tree, there are all kinds of... like geocaching, right? These things where you do these digital scavenger hunts, then go into nature to find little gift-y things, there are all kinds of ways to engage with nature without having to literally dig in dirt, but kids do love making mud pies, gardening, all the things are the fun things that kids do.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I love that that is a simple thing that parents can focus on and do. Sometimes, when you think about all of the problems that kids have and all these things that I have to do to address my child's behavioral issues or learning challenges or developmental needs. And what we are talking about here is so simple but such a powerful foundational thing that parents can do. Go outside and have your kids do things outdoors and that you're doing great things not only for their physical health but for their brain health and their mental health as well.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's really important to note that I have all kinds of kids in my practice, from kids who might have ADHD or dyslexia or behavioral issues all the way to children who are non-verbal or who have degenerative issues or who have serious, significant developmental issues from birth trauma.

And every single one of those kids, wherever they are on that spectrum of development benefits from being outdoors. Every single child. So it's not like, oh that's not my kid, my kid is in a wheelchair, my kid's not verbal - the whole spectrum. It's in our DNA and I believe that every child, no matter where they are can always function more optimally. And actually, it's a great - to me.. it's OT, it's PT - it's speech therapy, you're hearing different kinds of sounds, and getting stimulated to songs of birds, I mean everything is stimulating our nervous systems in the ways that we were evolutionarily designed to be stimulated. And there's no comparable thing, we can do a lot of wonderful things for kids but nature is unique.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Love it. We're running low on time, this time always goes so fast. We can talk about these things forever, but I do want to make sure that we talk about your thoughts on what our kids illnesses or challenges can teach us, because I think that you have a really wonderful perspective on this, so I'd like you to share that.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Well, I think the main thing, a lot of times, what I see is that parents come to me and they're thinking, I need to fix my kid. There's something wrong with my kid and we need to fix them. And that's an attitude that is promoted by our society and our cultures. The teachers are like, "There's something wrong." We have to fix it and parents really have a lot of pressure put on them.

Not just from teachers but from physicians and psychologists, all different people in the kind of conventional communities can put this, on us on parents, and what I want to tell parents is there's nothing wrong with your child. Your child is actually your teacher. And one of the really important thing is I think these symptoms, these things that are coming up are their way of teaching you how to take care of them better. And it can be that they need to be in a different school, you know? It could be that they need a different diet, but it doesn't have to be something wrong with them or them needing to be fixed.

And I think really that the parents' job - because there are only 3 things we can do for children: We can love them, we can advocate for them, we can offer them resources. And the rest of it is up to the kid. And so our job is to do those 3 things, which means actually, it's not to fix them. Actually that's not one of the things we can do for our kids, and actually we're not intended to do that. So I think educating ourselves so we can advocate for them well and offer them the best resources is incredible - but also being open to the fact that they are here to teach us things and this process of even having a child who might be chronically ill and have something going on is really an opportunity to learn more about them and what they need, and also more about yourself and what you can be doing differently in your life.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I love that and can certainly say I agree wholeheartedly. From a professional standpoint, but even from a personal standpoint, as a parent as well, as I think back on challenges with my own children and even current challenges. Every one of those is an opportunity for me to learn more about my kids and learn how to be a better parent to them, how to cultivate better resources for them or advocate for them in better ways, so I really appreciate you sharing that sort of reframe on that, I think that's really important. I want to make sure that you have a chance to let people know where they can find out more information about you, your book, all the great resources that you have available.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Yeah, absolutely. I'm on social media and Instagram and Facebook and things, but the best place is at my website where I have all kinds of great stuff including free gifts for people to start, how to dive into nature, how to ground and things like that and courses - a lot of things I have actually available for parents, for their own kind of benefit and growth as well.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I love that you provide some starting resources to people on the website and for people who are interested in delving more into the nitty gritty of what we talked about today. The book is just a fabulous resource as well that I think people will find helpful, so Dr. Maya - thank you so much for spending time with us today. It was an incredible conversation, one that I know people will find very helpful, so thank you.

Dr. Maya Shetreat:

Thank you, it was a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Alright, everybody, we will see you next time for our next episode of The Better Behavior Show!

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Kids Need To Get Dirty. Their Health Depends On It!

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My guest this week is , where she teaches Terrain Medicine™, Dr. Maya Shetreat, a neurologist, herbalist, urban farmer, and author of 'The Dirt Cure: Healthy Food, Healthy Gut, Happy Child' (Simon and Schuster, 2016), which has been translated into ten languages.

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The Benefits Of A Daily Green Smoothie For Kids

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The Benefits Of A Daily Green Smoothie For Kids

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My guest this week is has changed the lives of over 1 million people and has become the Jen Hansard, whose "healthy obsession" with green smoothies has taken her into classrooms, entrepreneur workshops, and featured on 'The Doctors' to spread the green smoothie love far and wide. Her wildly popular website, simplegreensmoothies.com #1 green smoothie online resource. Through the power of green smoothies, she's seen the amazing health benefits firsthand - including more energy, which has been the catalyst to healthy living for Jen and her family. The Simple Green Smoothies ' lifestyle encourages you to make one simple change: drink one green smoothie a day.

In this episode, Jen and I discuss the incredible health benefits of adding a green smoothie into your child's diet and routine. Children and adults can see lasting results such as increased energy, improved mental clarity, better bowel movements, and a stronger immune system. Learn more about Jen Hansard .
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Episode Transcript

But it's so important for building healthy brains and bodies, particularly if you've got a child who's got some behavior challenges going on, some neurodevelopmental issues, mental health kinds of things. This is a very simple food-related change that can be the start of lots of positive improvement for your kids. So I'm excited for her to share her info with us. Let me tell you a little bit more about Jen. Jen Hansard is on a fresh path to health and happiness - deprivation not included. I love that!

Her healthy obsession with green smoothies has taken her into classrooms to do green smoothie demos, lead entrepreneur workshops, speak on stage and she's been featured on The Doctors to spread the green smoothie love far and wide. Through the power of green smoothies, she has seen the amazing health benefits firsthand, including more energy - which has been the catalyst to healthy living for Jen and her family.

Her wildly popular website has changed the lives of over 1 million people, and made them the #1 online green smoothie resource, I would say if you haven't been to her website, you definitely will do that after the show. It's amazing. The simple green smoothies lifestyle does not involve counting calories or eliminating an entire food group, instead it encourages you to make one simple change - drink one green smoothie a day. Jen lives in a small country town in central Florida with her husband and their two little rockstars, Jackson and Claire and their chickens Duck and Doug, welcome to the show, Jen!

But what really started this catalyst for a whole new way of looking, pretty much going from lucky charms to green smoothies was when my son was 2 years old - and his name is Jackson and he was 2, I had a newborn daughter, Claire, and I was in the thick of it and we thought it was a great idea to have them 18 months apart. At moments, I definitely regretted it because Jackson was always sick with the cold, he always had an ear infection, I was going to the doctor between the newborn visits and then his checkups or what was going on with him it was like every week, every 2 weeks, and they were always saying, oh he just caught another cold, let's put him on antibiotics.

And that's what we were doing, and I kept doing the cycle and it kept saying he just caught another cold, like that was their solution, it was antibiotics. And eventually his stomach started hurting, he wasn't eating, he was super sick and I just said there has to be a different way, this was not working for my son and I've got to figure this out. And thank goodness, a friend came into my life who we'd do a lot of park dates together and she just said one day, when she could tell I was out of my wits end - because I've done everything they've told me to do and he's still sick.

And as a mom, that's the hardest thing, all you want to do is help your kids feel their best and I was doing everything I thought would do that and it was not working, it was making him feel worse. And he's only 2 years old. He's too little to be like that.

And she said, "Look, this may sound weird but I have a chiropractor friend who I think you should go talk to." And I was like, well that doesn't make any sense, but I was desperate. And when you get desperate, you'll try weird things - so I did. I went and I made an appointment for a chiropractor visit with my friend's chiropractor and during that visit, instead of just getting the adjustment that I thought was going to happen to my son, he sat down and did a whole food intake on us first.

That was the number one thing he did, and I was like - this is strange... why do you want to know what we're eating? And I'm breaking it down, I'm like, well we have goldfish for snacks, we're doing French toast sticks - like normal things that I just thought were acceptable and we're putting Aunt Jemima syrup on it, that's what we would dip it in - and after that he said well, we're not going to do an adjustment today, but we're going to do muscle testing and this was a way to figure out food sensitivities.

And through that process which was very foreign to me and very just scary - because he was using a whole new approach to healing that I never heard of and didn't understand.

But within one hour of being in that office, we left there with him telling us that my son was sensitive to corn. And that if we removed every kind of corn from his diet that he would probably get better really quickly. And I was like okay, that's easy! Just corn on the cob, frozen corn, take it out!

And then he would share with me that corn is pretty much in everything you've been feeding your son. And that's when I learned about corn syrup and corn starch and maltodextrin and all of these things that I've never even looked at before. And so for the next week, I was willing to do it. I said, "Whatever it takes, let's try this."

And so we totally went on a really strict diet where we removed all gluten, dairy, processed sugars, everything - even peanut butter, and I remember being like, "Peanut butter! I can't live without peanut butter!" And so he was literally eating rice cakes with almond butter on it and a little maple syrup on top. And it was really hard, he was crying - he didn't want the food.

It didn't taste good. But I didn't give him any other options and as hard as it was, how much he was begging for other foods - I just said no this is the choice, that's it right now and after a few days of this he started to eat it and he started to give in to it and be okay with it. And within a week, he was completely better.

All his allergies went away, he had so much more energy, his stomach was feeling better and that was the moment for me when I realized how much food affects our bodies, and this lightbulb went on and I just kind of dove in deep to this world and trying to really understand the food industry which I thought was helping us and giving us foods that would make us live a great life, and what was actually happening to people like my son.

And so that is how the switch started, but I've got to fast forward a little bit to how green smoothies came into the picture, which was in 2011 and my son was 4 then, so Jackson had just turned 4, he was going into pre-school - we had moved from Los Angeles to Florida, so my husband who was a new pastor he could start a church there and we were struggling financially - starting a church is no financial gain - and so we found ourselves on WIC which is a government subsidy program to help us just get groceries for our kids and we didn't have any health insurance and that stressed me out so much. Just, I felt like the safety net had been pulled from us.

Because health insurance was that thing we always relied on. And we didn't have it anymore. So I began thinking, how can we not get sick? Because I would go to bed at night, thinking when the next sickness would come. And thank goodness we weren't dealing with ear infections and cold anymore because we had figured out, if you stay away from corn, this child was good to go - but what if he breaks his arm? What if they catch the flu from all the viruses going around? Or what if he does get a normal seasonal cold from a friend at school? And so I did research into how do you boost your immune system - because I didn't want to be, I guess... what is the word? On the defense anymore.

I didn't want to wait for the next sickness, I wanted to be the one that prevents it in the first place, and so I learned about green smoothies. And that was something that came up on google back then and a friend was also drinking them as a way for her to lose weight, so I heard two good things about green smoothies in the same week and that's when you know, sometimes things just align a little bit like that and you're like - there might be something to this.

And so we went to the grocery store, we bought our spinach, our strawberries, bananas, blueberries and some orange juice and we did it all through our WIC truck, so we were able to afford it with WIC and we blended our first green smoothie as a family. I remember putting it in the colored sippy cups just so my kids wouldn't be like "What are you giving me?" And I gave it to them with a little plastic straw and they gulped it down so fast that I couldn't even believe it. Because I just gave them a whole handful of spinach in a cup and they were happy to drink it and that never happened before. So I knew this was really one of those huge wins as a mom where I could feel really good about something I gave them and they felt really good about it too.

I just want to say, if you're a parent out there thinking oh my gosh that's kind of my kid except now my kid is 6 or 10 or 12 or whatever, so worth looking into that stuff and making those changes now at whatever age: You're an adult listening and you're like I've always the chronic illnesses and the chronic congestion and catching everything that goes around - what I love about this approach is we can all implement this. At any age, at any circumstances, this is such a great, simple tool for starting to make changes.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely, and even for people who are like, I don't want to do an elimination diet, I'm not ready to do that - well, we start with the power of something simple like a green smoothie, right?

And also, it boosts your immune system, so you're not going to get sick. And what happens just by doing that, is your taste buds begin to change on their own and so you're not forcing them to like foods that they normally don't like - they're actually telling you that I would actually prefer if you didn't give me this French toast today, like I want a fresh apple. Something like that. It's so crazy but your body adjusts really quickly once you give it the good stuff and it begins to communicate and tell you that it wants more of that.

I mean if we're going be able to get things like spinach and different kinds of greens and vegetables and fruits in more easily and efficiently in a smoothie, I think, than sitting down and saying here's this whole plate of all of these greens and all these things you need to eat.

I mean, we get overwhelmed with that as adults, kids do too, and that's why I think this is a really efficient strategy. And for people who say, I'm so busy - I can't figure out how to feed my kids well, because we're so busy. To me, this is one of the keys for families who are super busy, because this is such a simple, time-effective way to work that in and then you know, they have this smoothie, they have all these different great produce items in it and now whatever happens during the rest of the day, okay - but I got this in and I think it's a great starting point.

And then we start eating or making choices for other things. And I want to talk to you a little bit about that because you've shared a little bit already about how drinking the smoothies has impacted your kids, but I know that it also was a springboard for you and your family to just eating a lot more plants in general, right? So can you talk about that? How drinking the smoothies, eating the plant-based foods has impacted your kids, how that sort of has evolved, how you as a family eat and look at food?

And for me knowing that this was part of their lives now and they enjoyed it because we immersed them in it in such a fun way, it wasn't something that they were dreading, it was something that they were looking forward to. And so that worked really well and we built upon that because we all started craving more fruits, more vegetables. It was easy to get them to have a side of carrot sticks at lunch or whatever, because this was kind of what they naturally craved now.

And so we have expanded it into doing snacks and meals, I'll make granola, we'll do trail mix - even meals for dinner, we do a lot of veggie bowls and it's up to them. My husband loves his meat still, and sometimes I do. And so we'll throw some chicken on top or salmon, but it's really just the kids know this is their new normal and they're happy with it.

They enjoy it. And yeah, sometimes we'll go through Taco Bell and get our fast food when we're running around town, and we're okay with that too. But because of eating like this, I would say the two biggest side effects for us are more energy and we're not getting sick. And because of that, we really feel like we have gotten our life back. We are not stuck at home, we're not sitting in front of the TV, trying to nurse ourselves back to health or just too tired to get out of bed.

And now we do a lot of traveling, I do ultrarunning and my kids get to see that - they get to see their mom who is so full of energy and just happy to go after the day and really just to dream bigger than I ever thought before. So I've been to Morocco recently and rode motorcycles with the girlfriends and these are things that I never imagine being able to do. But because I'm taking care of my body and have the energy and I'm not getting sick, I can do these things more easily.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yes, I love following your adventures - I'm like oh, where is Jen this week! Oh she's on motorcycles in Morocco and I forget, you were somewhere else just last week, right?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
Oh she's in Cambodia! It's sort of like where is Waldo? Where is Jen? But I want to just speak to that a little bit, the energy peeve for kids, because we tend to think of that for ourselves as adults, right? Like Uh, I don't have any energy, I'm so stressed, so busy, not sleeping, whatever, we think about every a lot for ourselves - but we don't often think about that for kids, and kids need a lot of fuel to have the energy, not only to do the things that kids do, but also energy to fuel optimal growth and development too.

Kids really do need a significant amount of energy to do that. Now some parents might be thinking, oh my gosh, my kids have got too much energy, they're bouncing off the wall. That's a different type of thing.

What we're talking about is energy, having the right fuel in your body to help, literally on a cellular level, your body be able to do the things that it needs to do so that brains can function well. Bodies that are deprived of enough of the right kinds of fuel to build and produce energy, our brains don't work as well.

So if you've got a kid who is hyperactive and bouncing off the wall and can't regulate themselves, actually that kind of hyperactivity is an indication that the body is not working the way that it should, the brain is not working the way that it should. It's not that they have too much energy, it's that their body's not working in a way that's properly supporting their brain to function, so energy - this fuel, is so important in giving our kids the right kind of fuel, to have the right kind of good, regulated, sustained energy.

Not the kind of energy that comes from Lucky Charms first thing in the morning, woo woo, off-the-wall for 90 minutes and then I crash and burn, right? Which a lot of kids are doing all day long: That up and down energy spike from sugar and then the crash. What we want is good, clear, stables sustained energy throughout the day.

And that is super important for kids just as much s it is for adults, and I'll say too - helps them sleep better. When they've got good consistent sustained energy levels during the day, that helps relegate those wake and sleep cycles and it helps them be able to settle down and have a good night's sleep, which is so important too.

And we're walking to the parking lot with the kids and Ryan and I are dragging them and they're running around and they're so crazy, and I'm just like who are these kids? I don't even recognize them and my brain was racking - I was like there was something that happened today that affected them.

And so the whole drive home, I was looking into all the foods that we ate at the park - and it came down to the Dole Whip, which had food coloring in it and so one of the beautiful things with eating more plants is you learn - your kids learn to have this as their new, healthy normal. And then when you bring in ingredients or foods that aren't on that same level, they react so strongly that you know and you can start looking into it and really figure out what to stay away from.

So for us, we stay away from food coloring and chocolate. Those are the two things where my kids go crazy and I don't even - they can't control themselves, they can't think clearly, they're emotional, they act up - so that's for us, we know now because of the way we live and eat.

So I want to give people some tips and starting points, but I think it would be helpful for you to just talk about what would a typical eating day look like? I mean you talk and about starting with the green smoothies, I think it would be helpful to map that out and maybe share just a couple of simple tips that you have found for how can people make this easier for themselves? So I think we've got people convinced that this is a simple great starting point, and now they might be like oh my gosh, what do I do, how do I do this - so share something about that.

I do 2 cups of spinach, throw in some frozen mango, frozen pineapple, a banana and water and just blend it up, and it's this tropical green drink. And they will either drink it on their way out the door, or if they only get half of it down, I'll pour it into a popsicle mold, freeze it so they can have it after school, and then I put mine in the fridge until I'm ready for a snack. And so coffee, green smoothies, I always keep granola on hand, that is a super affordable thing to make in bulk and it's really tasty too.

And I'll have a snack with some almond milk with it or some fruit. Also do a lot of trail mix where I just take a bunch of almonds, cashews, put some olive oil, rosemary, salt - season it up, bake it on trays. I'm all about tray cooking because it's one dish for as many things as possible.

We train our palettes in a certain direction, so keep up with this - it takes the brain a minimum of 10 exposures to something to be able to determine what our opinion really is about that. So for kids to say, "Ugh, that looks gross! I don't like it!" Or they try the teeniest sip and they go, "I don't like it."

We say well, we keep at it, we keep exposing them to it, keep trying different things - what's great about the smoothies is that you can change the blends up all the time, right?

Start with one that you think they're going to enjoy with things that they like in it and then you can slowly start adding more of the greens or slowly start adding some new ingredients, you can really tailor this to help bring your child along to really start to, not really just tolerate these, but to actually start to enjoy them, and I just think that's so important because a lot of time parents just go, oh my kid's picky - won't ever drink it. Well, look: You've got to start, and you start with it and you continue to expose them to it.

And I love what you said, you give them some in the morning - if they don't drink all of it, you put it back in the fridge, or you make it into a popsicle for later, like continue to work at it and you will start to move their palette in this direction to be able to incorporate more of these things. I think that's so important.

And that's okay. So what you're do if you're just using the basic blender that I started with, something you get at Target, you're going to need to first blend your leafy greens and your liquid base. So if you're using spinach and water, put those in the blender, blend them first and wait until it's totally gone - no more leafy chunks. And then add in the fruit and blend it a second time. And that's going to drastically help with the leafy chunks.

And if you are able to afford it, I recommend getting a high-speed blender, it is the biggest game changer for me. So my first one was the Vitamix refurbished and you save hundreds of dollars immediately and it works just as good - and that blender takes 45 seconds, 30 seconds to blend a green smoothie, vs. 3-4 minutes using a standard blender and it's so much better. So if there's any issues with texture, those are some great tips to help with that. And then also freezing it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That totally works, I've had so many families who have gone to your sight and downloaded your material and that's total game changer, they were like, "Ugh! That's the secret! Blend it in stages like that!" Because really, a lot of kids do have pickiness around texture and things like that, and that's a great tip. The other one that I think several families have commented to me on is your tip about removing the stems too.

My website is simplegreensmoothies.com - and we have hundreds of green smoothie recipes for all different personalities, like we've got you covered, I promise!

Yeah, so two years ago, I really felt called to find a way to help as many people as possible fall in love with green smoothies and that is through our free 7-day green smoothie challenge. And we made it where it's affordable, it's easy to do - we give you a shopping list, you're only going to have to buy 7 ingredients, which I've price shopped at various stores, it can range from $15 to $25 to make 7 green smoothies. So that is so affordable, you can do this. And you can go over to simplegreensmoothies.com/simple7 and that's where you can sign up for it.

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My guest this week is has changed the lives of over 1 million people and has become the Jen Hansard, whose "healthy obsession" with green smoothies has taken her into classrooms, entrepreneur workshops, and featured on 'The Doctors' to spread the green smoothie love far and wide.

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The Benefits Of Neurodevelopmental Movement Training for Kids

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The Benefits Of Neurodevelopmental Movement Training for Kids

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My guest this week is powerful movements for transforming brain, body and sensory challenges. Sonia Story has studied with many of the world's finest experts in Sonia Story, developer, and teacher of the Brain and Sensory Foundations curriculum that shares Neurodevelopmental Movement programs and has completed training in Rhythmic Movement Training, Brain Gym, Neuro-Sensory-Motor & Reflex Integration, and more. She teaches live and online courses for parents, OTs, PTs, SLPs, VTs, educators, counselors, health practitioners, and caregivers, and continues to learn from her clients of all ages.

In this episode, Sonia and I discuss what neurodevelopmental movements are and how they impact children and adults to significantly improve and mature brain and sensory systems. Children on the spectrum, with ADD, ADHD, anxiety, or sensory, behavioral, or developmental disorders can greatly benefit from incorporating movement practices and techniques into their daily routine. To learn more about Sonia and her life-changing Brain and Sensory Foundations curriculum, visit moveplaythrive.com .
Need help improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Transcript

And so we're going to be talking today about how neurodevelopmental movements - things like innate rhythmic and reflex integration kinds of movements help mature the brain and the sensory systems and then can allow for huge behavioral changes, and this is going to really be helpful for many of you as parents to start to put more of the pieces together of some of the things that are going on at the root of your kids issues. So my guest today is Sonia Story and she specializes in using these types of movements to address challenges in kids. She's studied with many of the world's finest experts in neurodevelopmental movement programs, completing training in rhythmic movement training, brain gym, neuro-sensory motor and reflex integration and more.

She developed The Brain and Sensory Foundation curriculum to share power movements for transforming brain, body and sensory challenges, she teaches live and online courses for parents, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech therapists, educators, counselors, health practitioners and more and continues to learn from her clients of all ages. Welcome to the show, Sonia.

And so it's a whole series of movements and activities that every infant will engage in that really grow the brain and the sensory system, so they're foundational movements for setting us up for proper brain maturity, for proper body maturity, for proper sensory maturity. So they're quite fascinating and the one thing that I find that's such a gift about the movements is that they can be used at any age.

So if for some reason the infant did not get these movements in the womb and early infancy, we can give them at any age, and they have a profound effect on our functioning. And that is really something so important for parents and educators and professionals to know that we can impact our functioning hugely with these innate movements that our brain and body already recognize.

And they are in fact the most critical thing for brain growth, they fuel brain growth in early infancy. These movements are why infant's brains grow as fast as they do, and they really impact the functioning of the sensory system. And the problem in today's world is that so many children are not getting these movements or they're not getting the full measure of these movements the way they should be, and that's leaving gaps in their functioning.

So there are many, many of these movement patterns, they all have sensory stimuli and they all have jobs. So they do so much, they set up our brain networks, they mature the brainstem, they help us feed and they help us learn and they help us with all our sensory systems and they're also our survival and protection mechanism and that's critically important because when there are gaps in these movements from the womb or infancy, then that child can be left in a state of anxiety, fight or flight, as if their brain was still back in some essence of infancy where they are just irritable - not that infants are always irritable, but they are vulnerable.

And they can be irritable and they can go into high anxiety if their needs aren't met. So that state can stay in the body if these movements are left incomplete and it's a state where the brain isn't as mature and the brain has a harder time to function if that fight or flight anxious state is left from infancy. It's a less mature brain state, that's what it is.

And I would keep going back to the developmental pyramid to say if we are working on some of these things at higher levels of the developmental pyramid and they're not sticking or we're not making progress, there must be something further down in the foundation of the kids' development that is missing. And that just inherently made sense to me as I started learning from you and others about these early innate movements and the reflexes, and integrating those - I thought, "Aha!" Here is where some of these gaps are and I thought this is why kids are getting stuck in various phases, even though they may have higher level skills in other areas.

And I think one of the misconceptions even when I talk with parents or practitioners about just movement and the importance of that in general, people will say, "Oh, well my kids' fine and motor skills are fine." Like, he writes fun or he runs fine - it's like no, no it's about so much more than that and what you're saying is that movement is really at the foundation and so essential for all parts of brain development, even emotional and behavioral regulation.

We can do it in the context of play and connection and I always encourage parents to do the movements with their children and not just give them to the child, but if the whole family is doing them, the results are phenomenal because the movements not only are great for out brain maturity and sensory maturity - they're super-calming, they help us sleep better and they take us out of fight or flight and they help us relieve stress. So it's so funny, I've had so many adults take my courses for the purpose of giving these to the children that are either their children or ones they work with - and they come back and say, "I can't believe how much these movements have helped me!" So they're a tremendous gift.

And so if you look back 50 years ago, what was different? So now in our environment, we have a lot of toxic heavy metals and those keep accumulating in our bodies, we have so much more exposure to electromagnetic radiation, we have cultural practices in place that aren't helping our development, like putting babies to sleep on their backs, they're not getting enough time in prone. Many children are born by c-section and that doesn't help our neurodevelopmental movement system. In fact, it's a huge stress for the whole neurodevelopmental movement system. So that right there, I think rates are as high as 30%. And that right there will cause a child to not get what they need.

So like, it leaves us in a state where our brainstem and our survival systems are really active and it makes it harder for us to have emotional regulation, impulse control and then all the executive functions like learning and communication and making good judgments and solving problems and that kind of thing. Those are emotional maturity and all those cognitive pieces come in only when we have the networks established to get to them and then we have access to them, and we need to be relaxed and we need these movements to give us the ability to be relaxed and exploring our environment as opposed to being withdrawn and pulling away from our environment. So I hope that makes sense.

And it's kind of a sad thing for parents to hear, and I really hope parents don't feel guilty at all because it's just the way our culture is set up right now and there are so many loving parents doing so much for their children right now and it's exhausting. And it's not the fault of anyone thing or any one decision, it's a whole combination of things that are in place right now that make our children unhealthy right from the beginning. There are so many things, I could go on and on, like the soils are depleted, nobody is getting enough minerals - it's just on and on.

Parents are doing absolutely the best that they can, where I think there is empowerment in this is understanding - okay, all of these factors can play a role and there are things that we can do, right? If these were the circumstances for your child and you look back and you realize, okay - there were these things in place and maybe my child didn't move through the integration of these reflexes well, or these neurodevelopmental movements didn't happen the way they needed to, channel that into empowerment, of okay - now I understand this, and now there are some things that I can do about this.

And because I had really low-grade anxiety that I didn't even really recognize was there until I got rid of it. It was so deeply buried and when my system got these movements, it was like superfood, green drinks and vitamins for the brain and body. And it just made me feel so much better and helped me be so much more functional and we see it all the time working for parents and families and children with all kinds of challenges.

Emotional and behavioral challenges, learning challenges, things like core strength and physical stamina, their ability to think and focus and attend and their ability to learn - it just opens up and kids start blossoming, they are able to come out of anxiety and it's because the movements are doing their work to create the brain pathways that are needed to mature the part of the brain that is for our emotional regulation and the part of our brain that is for thinking and communicating. So it is really important for our parents to know that their children aren't willfully trying to be manipulative or lazy - they're not bad kids.

It's that they are being asked to do so much beyond what they can actually physically or neurologically do in a comfortable way. So there are lots of children who can't even sit in a chair comfortably. They can't even sit still comfortably because sitting still is a brain maturity function. You have to have enough brain maturity to be able to even produce stillness. And so a lot of kids are still functioning well because they are very smart and capable and they really want to do well, but they are exhausted. So that happens sometimes also.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:
I would agree with that and I think some parents who are listening can see their child in this. I call those kids the upside down developmental pyramid, because what they are doing is that they somehow developed these higher-level cognitive functions and they use that - they use their higher level thinking and their language to compensate for all the foundations that aren't there, so it's sort of like they've built their pyramid of their development upside down, but that is exhausting. And those kids, while they can function and do things, tend to be the ones that are irritable, frustrated, low frustration tolerance, highly reactive, because it is so exhausting for them to hold it together and to manage the world in that way, because really, their development needs to be flipped around and those higher-level cognitive and language skills should be resting on these foundations of these brain-body connections, and it is a very, very challenging way to have to live, compensating in that way.

Yeah, and I would just tell every parent that there is a beautiful child there that wants to do well and they just need the foundation. I've had parents write me letters that bring me to tears because their children were excessively violent and angry and it was horrific for the family to deal with that and parents were afraid for the younger siblings and it's a nightmare. And these children were able, once they've had their foundation, to get out of that reactive fight or flight angry, violent behavior and function. And it's a beautiful thing to see and it's such a important thing for parents to know that you can't just - you want to get the whole movement system in there.

You can't just maybe do a sensory diet. Because a sensory diet is... it can be life-changing for some kids and there's nothing wrong with it except that if that's the only thing you do, then you are missing a foundational piece. And usually what we find is that when we put this foundation in place first, then the sensory diet can have more impact or the vision therapy can have more impact - there's actually research about that, that when you work with the reflexes first, then often times - what they found is that half the children no longer needed vision therapy and the other half could go through their vision therapy in half the time once their reflexes were integrated.

So it's really worth learning about this, it's worth taking the time to do it. Just like I would encourage any parent to give their child good nutrition, this is nutrition for the brain, the body and the sensory system and the whole ability for somebody to function and it will serve a child their entire life to have this foundation in place.

He was depressed, he was angry, he had behaviors like stealing and they were attempting to homeschool and that was not going well because he just was not motivated to do anything. And so they started in on these movements. And the family, by the way, had also tried many things. They had tried counseling, they had tried changing the diet, lots of different things. The did not try medication.

So they started the movements and he started blossoming. He started to feel happy and he started to share his happiness. His angry outbursts got less and less and less. His homeschool sessions were easier, they could do the work and get it done and he was more positive and he could go through his work and actually complete it free of any complaining.

His mom said he started to get involved in building some kind of motors or something. He took a lawnmower motor apart and was all excited because he put it back together and fixed it, he started baking bread and things like that - so he just came completely out of his challenges and that's the kind of story that I just really love.

Another mom - she was told when her boy was really, really young that she should start saving her money and really put this boy in an institution. And they had some challenges, they got an autism diagnosis but she said she just knew there was something else going on, she just knew there were ways to help him and they eventually got a central auditory processing diagnosis, but when they started these movements, he kept saying things like 'what?'

And he started asking questions and he started talking a lot more and he was able to regulate himself, to participate. He was able to do handwriting. One of the first things they noticed is he was able to sit still and focus in school. And he just kept improving and getting better and better.

Of course, they were doing other things. They were working on nutrition, they were working with supplements, they got a genetic test. But they saw huge changes. One of the very first changes they saw was that their child could sleep better. Both he and his brother. And his mom was so happy about that because they struggled to have the children sleep. But he is now an honor student. His mom told me recently. I am writing a letter to that woman who told me that. She said it was the worst day of her life.

Sure. The website is moveplaythrive.com and there's a case studies tab right on there. And you know what you were saying earlier Nicole, about how you were seeing these kids had been through years of a sensory diet and it wasn't sticking? Well the training program that I have, the Brain and Sensory Foundations course, it's often taken by OTs and PTs. And the OTs have reported back that they see results in two months that they used to be happy to get in a year.

And that's why I just have fallen in love with these movements and I just wish that everybody knew about them. That's my bigger goal is that we get this big giant megaphone and everybody hears about it and starts doing them. That would be my dream come true. So I appreciate the podcast and any way to reach parents and children.

There is always a way to start to work in these movements. And they really are simple and powerful. And I love that you are making them accessible to people through your website, through your training programs, because they really are things that parents can learn how to do and then implement.

Yeah, it's great if you have someone like you or our clinic nearby where you can work with us and we can guide you and take you through and incorporate that through the treatment plan, but the reality is parents can learn to do these things and start to implement them even if you don't have a professional nearby that can do this with you, you can learn these and at least start implementing the basics and seeing the results of them which I think is just wonderful.

I have reports back from parents and professionals consistently because it's a requirement when you take the course to do assignments if you are going to get CEUs and so I do have a lot of feedback that it's working and I am so happy. And it's a testament to how well the human body is really put together. These movements are just so awe-inspiring for me and the fact that our brains can recognize them even past the years of development when we are infants is like I said, it's an amazing gift. So I'm thrilled to share it.

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The Benefits Of Neurodevelopmental Movement Training for Kids

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My guest this week is powerful movements for transforming brain, body and sensory challenges. Sonia Story has studied with many of the world's finest experts in Sonia Story, developer, and teacher of the Brain and Sensory Foundations curriculum that shares Neurodevelopmental Movement programs and has completed training in Rhythmic Movement Training, Brain Gym, Neuro-Sensory-Motor & Reflex Integration, and more.

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How To Help Your Child Create Mindful Eating Habits

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How To Help Your Child Create Mindful Eating Habits

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Strategies To Help Parents Manage Emotions

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Strategies To Help Parents Manage Emotions

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My guest this week is Dr. Joan Rosenberg, best-selling author, consultant, master clinician, and media host. Dr. Joan Rosenberg is a cutting-edge psychologist who is known as an innovative thinker, acclaimed speaker, and trainer. As a two-time TEDx speaker and member of the Association of Transformational Leaders, she has been recognized for her thought leadership and influence in personal development.

Dr. Rosenberg speaks on how to build confidence, emotional strength, resilience; achieving emotional, conversational and relationship mastery; integrating neuroscience and psychotherapy and suicide prevention. She is a professor of graduate psychology at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, CA. Her latest book, 90 Seconds to a Life you Love : How to Master Your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience and Authenticity , has just released at the beginning of this year.

In this episode, Dr. Rosenberg and I discuss the "top 8 unpleasant feelings" that parents encounter. She provides parents with practical strategies that teach enhanced emotional self-insight and lead to better parent-child relationships. These strategies empower parents to manage their feelings, control their reactions and become better emotional role models for their children. Learn more about Dr. Joan Rosenberg .
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

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Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everyone, welcome to the show - I am Dr. Nicole, and today's show is going to be focused more on the emotional experiences of us as parents, specifically difficult or uncomfortable emotions that we may experience in relation to our children or just the parenting process, and strategies to help manage those emotions better. I talk often about how a prerequisite for helping our kids to manage their emotions is for us, the adults, to be doing a good job of being aware of and managing our own because that allows their children to manage their emotions better. And I think that this is something that even if we're experienced as parents - we're always working on and always getting better with as we go along on our parenting journey.

So my guest today is a good friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Joan Rosenberg. She's a psychologist who specializes in helping people identify and manage unpleasant feelings more effectively. So let me tell you a little bit more about her - Dr. Rosenberg is a best-selling author, consultant, master clinician, media host and a cutting edge psychologist who is known as an innovative thinker, speaker and trainer. She's a two-time TEDx speaker and member of the Association of Transformational Leaders. She's been recognized for her thought leadership and influence in personal development.

Dr. Rosenberg has been featured in the documentaries 'I AM', 'The Miracle Mindset', 'Pursuing Happiness' and 'The Hidden Epidemic'. She's been seen on CNN's American Morning, The OWN Network and PBS, as well as appearances in radio interviews in many major markets. She's a licensed psychologist in California and speaks often on how to develop confidence, emotional strength, resilience, achieving emotional, conversational and relationship mastery and integrating neuroscience and psychotherapy in suicide prevention. Joan is also an air force veteran and a professor of graduate psychology at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, California. Her latest book, '90 Seconds to a Life You Love: How to Master your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience and Authenticity comes out February 12 and I'm excited to have her on the show today to talk about the book. Welcome to the show Dr. Rosenberg.

Dr. Rosenberg:

Thank you so much, Dr. Beurkens. Thank you so much, it's a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I'm so excited, your new book is coming out like right now - tomorrow. And I'm excited to be able to share what you focus on in this book with my community and my listeners. While you didn't write the book specifically for parents, the reality is - as parents, we experience such a wide range of both great and joyful emotions in parenting and also the stuff that we don't often like to talk about, are the more unpleasant and challenging emotions that go along with parenting any child - especially when we've got a child that maybe has some disabilities, some behavioral challenges, you know those kinds of things. So I'm really excited to dive in and have you share the information, the strategy because I think this is going to be really helpful to our listeners. So I want to start out with this idea that you talk about in your book that there are 8 specific unpleasant feelings that all of us experience. And when we learn to be aware of those, we can manage them better, is that right?

Dr. Rosenberg:

Yes. I definitely agree with that. So let's dive into that right away. And it's not that we just have 8 unpleasant feelings, we have far more than that. I have chosen the 8 that I will touch on in a moment because they're the most common feeling reaction to things not turning out the way we need or turning out the way we want. So the 8 feelings are: Sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment and frustration. So those 8 are common to almost all of our experiences.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And even as you're saying those, there's such a - there's a feeling that even comes over me listening to you list off those 8 emotions. I think those are things we all can really say - Yup, I experience those. It's kind of a visceral reaction we have to even hearing you mention those 8.

Dr. Rosenberg:

I believe that. And sometimes what it does is it calls up memories and so obviously we get a little bit flooded, bodywise with the reaction. Makes sense to me.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So I think I'm putting my parent hat on now, and thinking - yeah, I've experienced all 8 of those in relation to myself as a parent. Either feeling those things about myself as a parent or my skills and things I've done as a parent and also feeling those things in relation to my children and things that are going on with them or ways that they are interacting with me. So I think that parents can definitely relate to those. Why is it important to kind of hone in on those and be aware of those? You mentioned that these can be sort of the underlying feelings that we're experiencing that maybe can lead to some of our behavior. Why is it important to be aware of some of those as they come up?

Dr. Rosenberg:

You know there are so many answers to that question, let me see if I can touch on a couple, especially as it relates to parenting. Think of your children as developing to your emotional range. So if there's an angry parent in the home, or a rageful parent in the home - at some point, the children growing up in that home are going to learn that they too can go to that range. Or if you have a parent that is more depressed or sad or withdrawn, then they learn that and they kind of learn the constricted nature of expressing oneself.

And so what becomes really important for kids in relation to their parents and parents in relation to their children is to have that broad range of feelings that doesn't go to either extreme where somebody is shutdown and withdrawn - because then the children will learn that strategy as a way to manage their experience, nor to go to this other extreme of raging and explosive anger. And so it's super important for parents to modulate that so that children can develop, if you will, a nice, healthy range - the pleasant and the unpleasant. That would be one big answer for that. A second has to do with that it's also important for parents to model that. We also want parents to regulate well because we want them to be able to create a safe space for their children to grow up.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think that there are several things that you touched on there that I want to unpack a little bit. One is that when we as adults allow ourselves to experience the range of emotions, that gives kids the space to feel like that's okay, and for them to experience their emotions. And I think that's really critical. A lot of times, as parents or just adults - our kids expressing or expressing unpleasant feelings makes us uncomfortable, right?

And I liked what you said there - you said kids need to be able to experience the range of both pleasant and unpleasant emotions because that's a part of life, and sometimes I think as parents we get sort of confused or overly invested in the idea that our kids need to be in this pleasant range all the time. And if they're not, if they're experiencing unpleasant things - it makes us really uncomfortable. And what you're saying is no - we all actually need to be able to recognize and embrace the full range of emotions, right?

Dr. Rosenberg:

Absolutely true, yes. So let me take that one step further with you. So not only do I want a parent to be able to, in the moment, be able to handle their unpleasant feelings. I also want the parent to have access to the things that caused them pain when they were younger. And the reason for that - It's not so they're overwhelmed and blown over by it. But the reason for that is so that they actually can develop a greater empathy for where their child is. So again, it allows them to model tolerating pain and it helps them develop a capacity to empathize more deeply. And to your point of not wanting to shut down on a child's feelings, or they should just be always in a pleasant state - I will tell you that I see the kids in adulthood that didn't learn to manage their feelings well as kids.

There is an experience that psychologists like to call frustration tolerance. So think, it's the ability to go through things that leave someone feeling sad or angry or disappointed. Some of the feelings I've already named. And if a child doesn't learn how to handle those feelings when they're young - then there's a carry-over effect into adulthood. Then they don't handle relationship breakups well, they don't handle things happening in employment settings well. You can imagine all the different ways this plays out where a child who didn't learn this stuff with their parents in childhood now has the carryover effect into adulthood. So now this becomes a very important thing for parents then to be able to tolerate someone else's emotional discomfort.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yes, so it's sort of a double challenge for us as parents, right? We need to be able to recognize and learn to tolerate our own uncomfortable or unpleasant feelings and we need to be able to recognize and tolerate and actually embrace our kids' unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings. And some parents might be listening and going, "Oh my gosh, I'm not good at that for myself - I'm definitely not good at that for my kid." And I know you have lots of strategies that you teach people and work on with people for how to do that, right?

So let's get into that a little bit because I want to give people some practical things. And you talk in the book about anxiety and ways to manage that because if there's one thing that I hear a lot of parents in my work talk about, it is this sense of feeling really anxious around their role or their job as parents - Am I doing this right? Am I screwing my kid up? Am I cut out for this, is my kid ever going to be okay? On and on and on, there are so many uncertainties with parenting and it creates a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear in people, especially if parents already were more prone to that before they became parents, right? There's nothing like having a kid that will take a higher anxiety level that you already have and exponentially ratchet that up. So share some ideas or some strategies about how parents can be thinking about or handling their anxiety better - or maybe even how that can work on experiencing less of it.

Dr. Rosenberg:

I want to back us up one step and then take us to the anxiety question. And that has to do with how do you manage the feelings in the first place? So I'll try to do this super quick so I can get us to the anxiety question. I think of using a formula to be able to manage your emotional state. And the formula is one choice, 8 feelings, 90 seconds. So the one choice is an openness and a willingness to be aware of and in touch with as much of your feeling experience as you can bear or is possible. So the whole idea here is you're leaning into awareness and you're moving away from avoidance. Awareness over avoidance. That's the one choice.

The second is the 8 feelings. Now I've mentioned the 8 feelings, so I don't think I have to go back over those. And then the 90 seconds piece is to understand that basically we know what we're feeling emotionally through bodily sensation in our bodies. So think of face flush and feeling the redness or the heat that comes with embarrassment. Or think of sadness. And with sadness maybe there's a dropdown feeling in the chest or a heaviness in the chest. Or disappointments, heaviness plus the dropdown. Or something else. It's different for every person, but if you think of when you feel something pleasant or unpleasant, it shows up in your body first. We get this kind of experience here and then a nano-second till we give a name to it, and then we know because of that heat in our face - we feel embarrassed.

So the whole key here then is to ride the waves of these feelings, these bodily sensations that are being activated by a rush of biochemicals into our bloodstreams. And what I want parents to understand or everyone who is listening to understand, is that this rush and then flush out of the bloodstream of these biochemicals lasts roughly around 90 seconds, or an upper range of around 90 seconds. Most times, it doesn't even last that long. Now, trauma and tragedy - separate from that. But everyday common reactions, think 60-90 seconds at best and then a strategy you can use is just stay present to the feeling, notice you are having reaction and then just notice what you are experiencing in your body and the key here is you're really tolerating the bodily sensation - and it's the bodily sensation that typically is hard for people and that's why we want to move away from feeling. So that's the switch I want people to understand: If you can handle your bodily sensations, you can handle the feeling.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I love that, that's such a powerful framework for thinking about that, because it makes it feel doable. You know in the moment - when we're experiencing unpleasant or uncomfortable feelings, you're right, that our first knee-jerk reaction is: Avoid this, make this go away! And you're saying no, be aware with it, sit with it and know that it's not going to last forever, because in our minds we tell ourselves a story that how I'm feeling right now in this moment, this uncomfortable bodily sensation or whatever feeling I'm experiencing - that that's never going to go away, and what you're saying is that no, it's really 60-90 seconds and if we can just ride that out, we can see that through and come out on the other side.

Dr. Rosenberg:

Absolutely true and the benefits are many. You're more congruent, you feel more authentically yourself, it actually leads you to feeling stronger and you gain insights. So sometimes if you allow yourself just that pause and stay present to what you're experiencing and the bodily sensations that you want to move away from, stay present to that and you actually start to gain insight - sometimes on what a decision you need to make, on something you want to express or an action you want to take. So That's the important thing there. So I just want people to start out with the strategy.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

What I'm thinking about is how important this is as parents when we are in a situation with our kids, where whatever it is that's going on is eliciting one of these unpleasant feelings in us and how when we react in the midst of that bodily sensation, that's when we tend to say and do things that later on we recognize, that really wasn't how I wanted to handle that with my kid - and it's occurring to me as you're talking that one of the really great practical outcomes with our kids of being able to ride these 60-90 seconds waves, to do what you said - to pause there, let ourselves come through that and then respond or engage or whatever needs to happen with our kids, and that we're much less likely then to regret how we handled that. Does that sound right?

Dr. Rosenberg:

Oh, a 100%, spot on, Nicole. And the key here is, in fact I talk about this in the book, that you don't - especially if you're angry, you don't respond until... as opposed to... most parents are responding up here (hand motion to high range wave) when they're in the intensity of the anger. And my view is hang tight, you don't open your mouth until you get here. (hand motion of low range wave) So yes, if a parent can pause long enough, and again most of the time it's not even in the 60-90 seconds - it's brief. You move through it but you don't open your mouth until you're on the other side of the wave.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Dr. Rosenberg:

Yup. Mouth closed, 90 seconds - 60-90 seconds, talk when you're at the bottom of the wave. And it's understanding that it's one or more feelings, it's not all eight at once. Maybe it's one or more, it could be sadness and anger, disappointment and anger or whatever it might be, but it's not going to be every one of the 8 feelings, every time. But let me go back to your anxiety question. I have 8 different ways of looking at anxiety. And most of the time, I consider anxiety not anxiety. So that's the first thing for a parent to understand.

And I would actually encourage people to start using more accurate language because if we use better language for our feelings, then we actually feel differently. It gives a different meaning and the meaning elicits something different for each of us. So fear is danger in the moment right now. So if somebody isn't facing that lion or that tiger in front of them and they're not really in danger, I would rather a parent not use the word fear, and not teach the child fear. If we're truly in the face of danger or life-threat, then of course we're going to feel fearful. And it's a natural reaction, it's nothing I'm going to take away, it's normal for every one of us, it's part of how we survive.

Anxiety - psychology likes to talk about diffused apprehension of the future. But most of the time, when we talk about - it's an uncertain future, I don't know what's going to happen. Most of that time, we're actually feeling vulnerable, which means I could get hurt. And so I would rather a parent use the word vulnerable, especially when they're parenting children. That the child's not fearful - again it's common to use the words fearful or anxious, but they might be feeling vulnerable, they might be feeling like they could get hurt. And the beauty of understanding - kind of the way I laid out this 90 seconds approach is: If someone can handle the other 7 feelings that I named, then they can handle vulnerability, which is the 8th - and that's in circumstances which we don't have control over and it's in circumstances which we choose in to.

So let's say for instance I'm parenting a young child who is going out for a team sport and the child has to perform at a certain level, but they haven't quite hit that level yet and they're angry and they're sad and they're not sure if they're going to make it - well now you're helping the child handle, in this case, the vulnerability - I could get hurt, it might not work out, which means I might get disappointed, or I might feel sad, or I might be angry or embarrassed. And if you know that that child can handle those other feelings, then the child can go pursue what they want. So think of anxiety, I'm circling all the way back, think of anxiety as a cover for unpleasant feelings. The first unpleasant feeling it covers is vulnerability. But sometimes if people are expressing themselves, then it's covering maybe disappointment or anger or sadness. So let me stop there and see if there's something you want to add to this.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's such a great and helpful way of thinking about that, that really, we put a lot of things in this overarching term of anxiety, and what you're saying is let's dig down and get to the root of what that really is. And that vulnerability and that sense of being able to be vulnerable, and to open ourselves up to feeling some of those unpleasant feelings.

And I know, I can relate to that personally, professionally, as a parent - and I think everybody can, that even a lot of times with our kids, there is that sense of immense vulnerability in a lot of ways, because we can only control ourselves, we can't control our child so the whole thing feels like an exercise in vulnerability and putting ourselves out there and not knowing exactly what's going to happen.

Especially those of us who are parenting kids who have challenges, and that vulnerability on "What are people going to think of me?" Or "How is it going to go if I take my kid to the store and maybe they have a meltdown or a temper tantrum?" Or "My child is getting in trouble at school, and now I've got the school calling me." It's just that sense of what you are talking about with that vulnerability being at the root of that, that really does resonate.

Dr. Rosenberg:

And it's understanding, yes. And I also hear another piece in what you're talking about. So vulnerability is one big aspect of that. And in certain cases, when your child isn't who you want your child to be, in whatever moments those are, then I think it activates some grief. So yes, I think of parenting as an experience in vulnerability, period. End of story, right? It just intensifies our own vulnerability and it's just considered exponential when you have one or more children, right?

So we have the vulnerability, and if the child doesn't then behave the way we want them to, the way we think they ought to be - again, they're going to be embarrassing, I think parents go through a little bit of grief. And here I think of sadness, helplessness, anger and disappointment, one or more of those four when things aren't working out well. The parents actually wrestling with those feelings as an undercurrent underneath whatever is going on.

So there are a couple of points there. The other is something that you mentioned - parents question themselves, like am I really doing a good job? What if? And one of the things I talk about also in the book around this, on the chapter on anxiety is I would like parents to switch up their language. So we get embedded into what I call the Am I, Can I, Will I, Do I questions. Am I good enough at this? Will I be able to handle the change? Can I do this well enough? And whatever combination - what I'd like parents to do is to switch their language and switch the order of the words. So those questions, Am I, Can I, Will I, Do I - foster doubt. If we just switch the order to I can, I will, I am, I do, it actually fosters more of an experience of confidence.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I love that, such a simple but powerful shift in just moving those words around, and I think that that gets at something else that I wanted to ask about that you talk about in the book, which is resilience because I think that plays into that, right? That we need to learn how to be resilient. I talk about this a lot in my work and a lot with families at the clinic - that look, challenges are going to be there in life. There's never going to be a time where we're not going to have challenges, where we're not going to experience unpleasantness, especially if you have a child who experiences a lot of challenges or has some pretty significant disabilities - those things are going to be there.

And then the question becomes how do we become more resilient around that? Because we can't wave a magic wand and change everything about our circumstances and make life perfect - there's no such thing, so we need to get better at riding those waves, at bouncing back and being more resilient. So what are some thoughts that you have around that for parents, about what it takes to develop resilience or how parents can use these ideas to become more resilient?

Dr. Rosenberg:

The first thing is to understand that I think that the base is to be able to manage these 8 unpleasant feelings, to be able to experience and go through and be able to express unpleasant feelings as a key part of feeling capable. And I see that as one key aspect of resilience. A second is to understand that resilience is actually quite learnable - if learnable is a word here. It's teachable. And think of much of resilience as being tied to attitude. So one attitude is: I'm open to change. And change is the constant in life. So having an openness and willingness to face change is a key aspect. Understanding that failure is a key aspect. And look at failure as a learning opportunity, that's it - and then understand that most of us fail our way to success. So that we build in this idea that things are not going to go well for us and we build that into knowing that that's just part of how life works, so we don't get knocked over each time we are thwarted by an obstacle.

A third would be reaching out for help. What I call resourcefulness is another part of emotional strength and so a willingness to actually acknowledge our needs and limitations and to ask for help is another crucial aspect of resilience. And then we can go on to faith, we can go on to an attitude of I'm going to persist no matter what. Another attitude is I see every experience I go through as a learning opportunity. So that so much of resilience comes down to key attitudes or beliefs that we hold and then aspects of what we're willing to do. Like one is to tolerate unpleasant feelings, two is to ask for help.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Two great takeaways for people that just being able and willing to acknowledge, experience and ride the waves of those unpleasant feelings is one piece of it and then asking for help - and boy, there are a lot of people listening who I'm sure can really latch onto those two things. Okay, those are two things that I can get better with and that I can focus on. And you said that resilience is a learnable skill - so if people are thinking, well I've never been resilient, I'm not good at bouncing back, I'm not good at doing that - what you're saying is wait a second, we can all get better with that.

Dr. Rosenberg:

Totally, once you change your belief system and you change your attitude, the whole game changes. The whole game changes. There are a couple of things that I wrestled with in terms of my own professional career. And one was how to understand that asking for help is part of emotional strength. So again, in the book - I've redefined emotional strength as being capable, which means you can experience and live through those unpleasant feelings and being resourceful.

So one is internal, the 8 unpleasant feelings - that's capable, and the other is resourceful which is external and it is acknowledging our needs and limitations so we can be more comfortable with the dependent side of our nature. And it's not one or the other in life, it's both. We need to be both independent and we need to be dependent. And so that forms the beauty of our life experience and so in the same way - we have kids that are dependent on us and then we're fostering their independence, but we also want to foster our ability and their ability to be able to ask for help and understanding that asking for help is part of emotional strength and a key part of resilience.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Such a powerful concept and there are so many more things that I want to ask you about this and get into, that our time went so fast - I would love to have you back to expand on some of this and to talk more about how we can apply these concepts specifically with our kids, because I think this conversation was around how we can work at this as parents, which is the foundation - and then I think it's helpful for parents to know how we can work on that with our kids too, so hopefully you'll come back and share a few tricks with us.

Dr. Rosenberg: I would absolutely love that. Yes, thank you.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome. So I want to make sure that we have a chance for you to tell people where they can find more information from you online, and specifically where they can find your book because it's an amazing book. I've had a chance to read it ahead of it coming out in print, and I'm really excited about it - and so please share with everybody where they can find that.

Dr. Rosenberg:

Well, thank you so much for your kind words. The first place to look would be 90secondsbook.com . Not only that - there a number of different places you can go, there are links embedded in that site that can take you to many different booksellers. There are also bonuses on that page. If you don't go there, you can go to drjoanrosenberg.com and that's the second place. There are a lot of resources on my website itself and the people, if they choose, they can go directly to the booksellers. So whatever bookseller they prefer and it launches at midnight tonight, so people should have access to it right away. And then there are lots of other places to find me. So I'm on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, etc. most of the handles are @drjoanrosenberg, so I can be found pretty easily.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And we'll make sure to put all those links in the show notes - awesome. Easy for people to remember. Go there check the book out, it's super exciting. Joan thank you so much for being here with us today, this was a wonderful interview, thank you.

Dr. Rosenberg:

Thank you, Nicole. I'm honored.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Alright, everybody, that's it for this episode - I look forward to seeing you next time for our next episode of The Better Behavior Show.

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Strategies To Help Parents Manage Emotions and Their Behavior

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My guest this week is Dr. Joan Rosenberg, best-selling author, consultant, master clinician, and media host. Dr. Joan Rosenberg is a cutting-edge psychologist who is known as an innovative thinker, acclaimed speaker, and trainer. As a two-time TEDx speaker and member of the Association of Transformational Leaders, she has been recognized for her thought leadership and influence in personal development.

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How The Gut Affects Behavior In Children

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How The Gut Affects Behavior In Children

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My guest this week is Kiran Krishnan, a Research Microbiologist who has been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition field for the past 18 years. He comes from a strict research background and established a clinical research organization where he designed and conducted dozens of human clinical trials in human nutrition. Kiran is a Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Microbiome Labs . He is on the Scientific Advisory Board and a Science Advisor for 7 other companies in the industry.

In his career, he has developed over 50 private label nutritional products. He is a frequent lecturer on the human microbiome at several health summits, medical and nutrition conferences, radio shows and has appeared in several international documentaries.

In this episode, Kiran and I talk about the important role bacteria plays in our gut microbiome, its connection to the brain and how it can directly affect children's behavior. Children suffering from anxiety and stress, or who are on the spectrum can benefit in different ways by looking into and addressing their gut health. Experiencing a disruption or imbalance in the gut microbiome does not always manifest in gastrointestinal symptoms, it is also common for children to experience behavioral alterations without any GI symptoms present. Learn more about Kiran and ways to treat and manage gut health .
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everyone, welcome to the show - I am Dr. Nicole, and on today's episode we are talking about the gut-behavior connection. Specifically, we are going to talk about the gut microbiome, the colonies of bacteria and other organisms in our gut and how this impacts our brain and behavior. Now, I know that this is a topic that some of you may have looked into already. You may be using gut kinds of treatments with your child, and for some of you this may be new information and you've maybe not considered before or learned about how what's going on in your child's gut and specifically in their gut microbiome is impacting their brain function and behavior.

So it's a huge issue that I see in my clinical practice with kids and adults. And the cool thing is, when you understand what's going in terms of that gut-brain connection and that gut microbiome connection, there are some really great solutions that we can use that can have a really positive impact on symptoms like behaviors, mood, anxiety, learning - those kinds of things.

So I'm excited to have Kiran Krishnan as my guest today to talk about this. He is one of the most knowledgeable people I know in this field when it comes to talking about the gut microbiome. Kiran is a research microbiologist and has been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition industry for the past 18 years. He comes from a strict research background, having spent several years with hands-on research and development in the fields of molecular medicine and microbiology. He's established a clinical research organization where he has designed and conducted dozens of human clinical trials in human nutrition, is a co-founder and chief scientific officer at Microbiome Labs and he has developed over 50 private label nutrition products throughout his career.

Kiran lectures frequently on topics like the human microbiome at medical and nutrition conferences, he has a popular microbiome series educational webinar and is a guest expert on radio and all kinds of media. He is currently involved in 10 novel human clinical trials on probiotics and the human microbiome. Kiran, you got your hand in everything related to the human gut microbiome in this field. Welcome to the show, I'm so excited to have you here.

Thank you so much for having me, it's a pleasure. Yes - so we do find our ways to stay busy and I have a microbiome constitution that makes me want to keep going out there and doing stuff. But you know what's so important about it is that all of this stuff is so relevant and so new. We're just now started to understand how the human body works, which is so amazing. When you think about the thousands of years of evolution that we've had and millions of years of evolution - hundreds of years of medical research and science, you know all the way from the days of Hippocrates and now we come back full circle to understand that it's this ecology that we have in us that really controls everything. It's really fascinating and we now understand disease process much better.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

It's so true and this is such an emerging field you know - 10 years ago there was some talk about the gut microbiome when I first started working with kids and doing this kind of work more than 20 years ago, nobody was talking about this stuff and the people who were, it was considered kind of fringy, right? And now we fast forward to today and this is just a booming era of research on this and so much more that we're understanding about specifically this gut-brain connection.

How much gut health and the gut microbiome influences our health overall but specifically how it impacts our brains. And many times when I introduce this idea to parents, they're like, "Well, I don't get it. You're talking about things going on about how my child is digesting food and what's going on with their allergies and their bowel movements and all of that but I'm here because my kid has anxiety." Or "My kid is melting down and throwing tantrums all the time. How are these connected?" And really educating people about how much, as you said, there are these control mechanisms between the gut and the brain and how impactful they are on one another. So I'd love to start out by having you give some sort of introduction to that. Why are we talking about gut bacteria in relation to behavior? What's the connection and the linkage there?

Yeah, so it's important to understand for your audience, what role the bacteria play in our overall day-to-day function to begin with, right? So we've got somewhere around 10 Trillion cells that make up the human body. We've got over 100 Trillion bacteria cells in our system. So we're outnumbered 10 to 1 just on cell count alone. And then the even more profound side of it is our DNA. We think we're really cool, right? We're at the top of the food chain, we're at the top of the evolutionary ladder and yet we've only got about 22,000 functional genes.

And that sounds like a lot but then when you compare it to a rice plant or an earthworm, these really primitive things that we think of - they have twice as many functional genes as the human system does. So imagine a rice plant has 38,000 functional genes and we only have 22,000 - so then the question is: How is it that we are at the top of the food chain, top of the evolutionary ladder? Well, it's because have about 3 and a half million bacterial genes in our system that we use every day for normal human function. We would cease to exist if we didn't have all of that code, all of that information - all of the things that they produce and in fact to a point where the best estimates are that 90% of all our day-to-day metabolic biochemical functions, just to be a human come from bacteria.

So that's how impactful they are. Now they also have a direct connection to our brain. Something called the Vagus Nerve which connects the gut directly to the brain and it allows bacteria in your gut, which is where the vast majority of bacteria that live in and on your body are - it allows those bacteria to actually send signals, like neurotransmitters and peptides and all these things, they can affect how the human host is behaving, how the human host perceives the world around them, how the human host deals with stress - all of those things are intimately affected by those bacteria sitting in your gut and sending these signals up and down. It's also really important to note that we know and have known for a while that neurotransmitters in humans affect our behavior, right? The happy hormones like serotonin and dopamine and then the stress hormones like cortisol and so on, all of these things affect our behavior, our mood, our function.

With that in mind, it's important to note that to the microbiome - so the collection of organisms in our gut, they produce all of those hormones. And in fact, there is evidence that shows that in fact, our cells learn how to produce those hormones from the bacteria, right? So they were making them first and then, as a host, we started incorporating those hormones into our own communication systems and then we started taking from the bacteria the codes to produce those hormones in our own organs. But there are good studies that show that still, we depend on microbially derived hormones for a lot of our function. And so they control everything, we're really kind of a walking, talking rainforest. They are the puppet masters in many ways, we are the puppet. And we need to understand them to figure out how to fix this broken puppet.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's a great way of thinking about it. We tend to think that we're at the top of the evolutionary chain, we're in control of all these - and what you're saying, from the researches, all of these lower level organisms really play such a big role. And I think that it's easy for us to take it for granted when that whole system is working well, right?

And this is why we tend not to recognize the connection between these things because we were functioning well and when we're feeling good we don't think about our microbiome, we just take for granted that all that works. And then when we start to have issues or our kids start to have issues and we start to peel back the layers and look at that - suddenly we become so aware of the role that that microbiome is playing and more specifically what can happen for us symptom wise when there are problems with that gut microbiome.

And many of the kids that I see have both physical symptoms - even gut-levels symptoms: constipation, diarrhea, bloating, food allergies, that kind of stuff. And they are having what we would consider more brain types of symptoms, right? Like maybe depression, anxiety, behavior issues - those types of things. But I also see kids and young adults who don't report any GI types of symptoms. They're not having any issues with bowel movements, they're not having any issues with food - none of that. They're having those mental health symptoms but still what you're saying is the gut is still an important area to look at and that microbiome is still part of that picture, even when a person isn't having those GI kinds of symptoms.

Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, in the microbiome, in terms of it can impact your mood or your behavior - this finite balance is within there. So there are organisms within your microbiome itself that can heighten anxiety and increase stress levels and organisms that can make your calmer. They both exist and coexist in the microbiome. And really what you experience depends on their balance in the moment, right? So a single course of antibiotics, for example, can throw off the balance and in fact cause a heightened sense of anxiety. Like one of the side effects of the Fluoroquinolone antibiotics, one of the common side effects is heightened anxiety.

And so people wonder, well how is it that an antibiotic can give you anxiety? People can associate an antibiotic with diarrhea and things like that. But the reason they can give you anxiety is because they increase the growth of that particular strains that cause that anxious response and it can significantly decrease the growth of the strains that cause more calming responses. And the reason why these bacteria even have these effects in the body are mixed. Some of them are a side effect of what they're producing. So there are certain organisms that produce lots of serotonin. In fact, 95% of the serotonin in the body is produced in the gut itself. There are lots of organisms that produce high levels of dopamine.

Now they're not necessarily producing it for the host. They're not going, "I know you need this host, so I'm producing it for you." They are producing it for their own benefit and then we happen to be able to use some of it as well because it is within our system. Now if that bacteria's metabolism is low, if they're harmed in some way - then serotonin production goes down. And the same way with the bacteria that produce more stress hormones. They can do that if their levels go up. So it's really an ecology, it's about balancing that ecology. And a lot of times, a sign of the imbalance would be the GI symptoms.

But again, the imbalance of the ecology might not necessarily lead to GI symptoms - it might lead to behavioral issues but then other things like seasonal allergies, or it might lead to rapid hair loss. It might lead to sleep issues. Those are other things that can also manifest themselves outside of the specific GI issues, but at the end of the day, one of the things we know of, we have good certainty these days is that the microbiome is playing a significant role in all of these things. And if you're continuously trying to treat behavioral issues with focusing on the brain and you're not thinking about the gut that's controlling a lot of how the brain functions, then we're missing a big part of success.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So I think that's so true, and even that mirrors my clinical journey too of going through all of my education in the realm of psychology, special education and all of those kinds of thing - it was all brain oriented, right? These are the things that we do, and it was really in doing that with kids and realizing - wait a second! Lots of kids aren't consistently getting better. Things aren't sticking. There's got to be more layers. That's really what got me interested in the whole realm of nutrition and functional medicine and gut microbiome and all of that because I just saw that just addressing this problem from a brain level perspective just wasn't getting to where we needed to get for many kids.

Yeah, and we see for example - the use of SSRIs ( Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) . Success rate of SSRIs is really poor. The success rate of antianxiety medication is really poor. So number one, why is it that these medications don't work as well as you think they should? And number two, why is it that we're having so much anxiety and stress and depression in society today? I mean, of course, any time you watch the news, it can be depressing - we all know that. But why is it that we haven't been able to deal with the stresses of life the same way that people of a few generations ago did? Arguably, they had it even worse when it comes to economics and politics and world wars and all of that stuff going on? A lot of it can be tied back to a pattern of destruction of our gut microbiome.

So what we've done is we've evolved as this really intricate ecology of a species. We are a walking, talking rainforest. We are predominated by bacteria. We also require them to function on a day-to-day basis. So we've taken this construct that is an intimate ecology made up of a lot of bacteria that have to work in harmony, and we've put that construct in an antibacterial world. Everything around is us antibacterial. More than 50% of antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessary, even according to the CDC. We've got fluoride in our drinking water, chlorine in our drinking water, we've got pesticides and herbicides all over our food products - everything around us kills bacteria.

And as we go down this road, as we keep killing our own ecology, we're going to see more and more of these problems pop up. A lot of people always ask me, "How come we didn't have as much autism 40 years ago? How come we didn't have gluten sensitivity at the same rate? How come we didn't have allergies?" Now every school has severe peanut allergy in some of the students in there, so all of this stuff ties back to the same issue of disrupting our ecology. So what we can do as individuals is understand what the issue is and then empower ourselves to fix those for ourselves and our family.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I think that you're touching on something that I think is good for people to understand, which is how is it that our gut microbiomes can get out of balance in the first place? You talked about how that balance of organisms and the balance of them working together is so important. And what you're saying is: Historically as things have changed in the environment, our exposure to toxins, all of the things that kill bacteria - I know antibiotics use is a big one for a lot of the kids in the family that I see when I look back and I start asking questions about their early health history.

Many of these kids were kids who had a history of chronic ear infections or chronic some type of infectious process that was treated repeatedly with antibiotics at a very early age. Or even kids who were given antibiotics - newborns, during the birth process, right after birth, so what you're saying is all of those kinds of exposures really play a role in disruption this microbiome. And it can happen really quickly, right? I mean I even see really young kids with all the evidence that points to a really disrupted microbiome. We're not talking about something that necessarily happens over the course of years, right? I mean gut microbiome can get disrupted quickly.

Yeah, absolutely. It is an ecology like your garden would be. If you had a nice garden teeming with a bunch of good plants - imagine all of a sudden you went in there and threw a huge bucket of anti-plant toxin in there. Those plants would die, literally, overnight. Studies show that a single dose of Augmentin - 600 mg single dose of Augmentin knocks down all the bacteria in your gut by 99% percent. And they start to bounce back after about 8-12 hours, but they come back in different ratios than they were in before. And then multiple rounds of that really end up skewing your ecology quite a bit.

The Z-Pak, which is very popular for sinus infections and all of that - it takes your gut almost a year to recover from a Z-Pak. To a 10-day course of Clindamycin, which is very commonly used for upper respiratory infections and so on - it takes your body up to 2 years to recover from it. And imagine if you have multiple courses of that over a relatively short amount of time - you're really devastating that ecology. On top of that, our foods contain... are full of roundup and all these herbicides that have been shown to kill good bacteria. So yeah, we have built ourselves through the process of evolution in a particular way, and we've put ourselves and what could possibly be the worst possible environment for how we're built. It's not surprising that all of these conditions continue to escalate and continue to increase in prevalence.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I think where that shows up so acutely is in kids, especially younger kids, right? Because we talk about kids a lot as being the canary in the coal mine right now with a lot of what we created in the world and how that's impacting our bodies and our brains, but I think you're talking about some of these medications - it takes months or a year or 2 years for the gut microbiome to be able to bounce back.

We're talking about 1 and 2 a 3-year-old kids who now have been - their whole gut microbiome has been devastated by these things and then if you think about the bounce back period for that, and all the important development that's going to happen along that timeline where the gut microbiome is not operating the way that it should, and therefore the brain can't function as well as it should, you really see it. It becomes a domino effect in a way.

Absolutely, and you know in fact there was a study that was published in 2017 that was quite interesting. When they looked at people in their late teens/early twenties that had significant health issues, they could trace back most of the onset of those health issues to some sort of trauma then that disrupted their microbiome. And that disruption in the microbiome at that time caused a neurological change in their brain and that cause a permanent trauma in the brain that now is manifesting itself a decade later in other forms - whether it's social anxiety disorder or eating disorders, or even physical illnesses - autoimmune diseases and so on.

So absolutely. And you see the progression in kids so clearly. The science shows that the child's microbiome becomes more like an adult microbiome right around 838 days after birth, so around 2 and a half years. And that's why it's no surprise that you start to see a lot of the behavioral effects of a damaged microbiome, including ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) showing up between 2 and a half and 3 years of age. You don't see it as much in younger children in 1, 1 and half-year-olds, or even 2-year-olds - you start to see it between 2 and a half and 3 years of age.

That's the important time when those microbes are supposed to be doing their job helping our brain develop, helping us develop the right type of social skills and so on and that's lacking. In fact, it's interesting, people often ask me why is - we always want to know the whys. Why is it that microbes would have an impact on our social skills and our social behavior? Well as it turns out, there is good evidence to support that that's beneficial for the microbes, right? They don't do things altruistically for us. They're doing things to help themselves that inevitably help us. So when microbes increase social behavior in their host, it actually helps spread them because hosts end up becoming in closer physical contact with other people in the community, you end up having higher oxytocin levels, those oxytocin levels actually help support the metabolism of the bacteria. So they're doing all of these things to help themselves, which indirectly helps the host as well.

So yeah, all those things - kids are the canary in the coal mine, that's a great way to state it. Because a lot of us grew up in a time where our microbiomes were a little bit better and stronger and more robust. Kids now - you look at the prevalence rate of allergies and asthma and psoriasis and eczema and then of course mood and behavioral disorders. It is alarming. And that's screaming to us, hey there's something really going wrong here - and it's really the microbiome.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So that all paints a helpful, if not a little bit depressing picture of how we've got into these kinds of problems. Let's shift gears and talk about the really amazing, hopeful, encouraging part of all of this. Which is now that we understand that the gut microbiome and this balance of organisms plays such an important role, there are things we can do about it, right?

Yeah, and that's the most important message. You and I were just talking about a wonderful conference that goes on every year, called AutismOne. I've had the opportunity to speak there in the last few years. And my big message every time, I show all this science and all this important stuff, but the biggest message to the parents and everyone else in the audience is that the issues that are causing the problems that you're dealing with in your children or yourself are all based on an ecological dysfunction. And because it's an ecological dysfunction, we can change it. It's not based on "You just have bad luck with the wrong genes", right? And so genetic dysfunctions, we can't change. But ecological dysfunctions, we can change. So that's the hope, is that the vast majority of issues we are dealing with can be reversed by fixing the ecology. So yes, there are a lot of things we can do, that's a great thing to talk about.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Good. So let's focus on the realm of what people have probably heard of at some point, which is this idea of probiotics or macrobiotics. Taking things in supplement or food form that can help really restore this balance or strengthen the health and function of the gut microbiome. So let's dive into that because you talk about it in such a helpful way.

Yeah, so probiotics are a very interesting construct. Now what's important to know about probiotics is, the original probiotics, including the vast majority of ones that people have access to in-store shelves and online and all that were all developed well before we knew anything about the gut, right? So all of this stuff that we are talking about what we've learned about the gut - we've only really learned it in the last 9 or 10 years.

And the vast majority of probiotics in yogurts and all of that were developed decades ago. In fact, the first probiotic was developed back in 1902 by Élie Metchnikoff, a Russian scientist. And so probiotics have been around for a long time. The original idea behind probiotics was: Here's a set of good, friendly bacteria that are beneficial. Let's take them in at really high doses. They'll go and live in your gut, and because they're there - they'll connect all of these functions that are good for you.

Now as we start to learn about the microbiome, that becomes a bit of a problem, that whole thinking. The reason for that is every individual has a completely different microbiome, right? If you and I did a genetic test on our chromosomes and DNA, we would show 99% or 99.5% similarity in our DNA. We're both humans. The few differences in our genetics are the stuff that makes you a woman, makes me a man, gives you light colored hair, gives me dark colored hair and so on. But if we were to take a look at our microbiome we would be as little as 25% or 30% similar. We'd be 70%-80% different, right? The most unique thing about us is our microbiome.

I did studies on identical twins who have 100% the same genetics, came from the same mom - they can have up to 50% differences in their microbiomes. Especially on genetic twins, identical where there is one twin that's obese and the other twin that's lean. They've done a significant amount of studies on those types of twins to see that the only difference between the two is the types of bacteria that have in their gut. Ones have the type of bacteria that makes them more obese, the other one makes them more lean.

So at the end of the day, the idea is that everyone's microbiome is different. And so how do we know what type of probiotic to use that is right for you or right for me? What am I missing in my microbiome that's causing me to have these issues? What are you missing that's causing you to have issues, or what do you have that's causing you to have all these benefits, right? But those things, we can't know. We don't have the technology to know that right now.

And so when you look at the decades worth of microbiome research, there really are a couple of themes that come out that are uniform across most studies, and that is that diversity in the microbiome is really important. Your diversity might look differently than my diversity, but nonetheless, there's a measure of diversity for both of us within the microbiome. And the way you measure diversity is the richness of the microbiome, meaning how many different types of organisms.

The second part is the uniformity of those organisms. How uniform are they? Because you can have a lot of different organisms, but four or five of them are predominant - they are the main growers. And so the other ones at such low levels are not really adding to the foray. And then the richness in the diversity - now the second part is the presence of certain Keystone strains. These are really important strains that most of us have in our microbiome that are baseline strains that are protective to the host, like Akkermansia and Faecalibacterium, Bifido longum, these are really important Keystone strains.

So if we all have high diversity and high keystone strains, we typically have a healthy microbiome - now the old idea of probiotics, the products that have a whole bunch of Lacto and Bifido strains in them in a capsule or a yogurt, they don't affect the diversity and they don't affect the keystone strains. In fact, most of them die through the stomach. Those strains aren't designed to survive through the gastric system. So what we were looking at for probiotics is: How did our ancestors maintain high diversity, how did they maintain high keystone - of course, they didn't have all of the stuff that kills bacteria, but we figure that there were microbes in the environment that they came in contact with that helped orchestrate this balance within the microbiome.

Someone is in there with the checks and balances so that one microbe just doesn't take over and start to proliferate. And so as we dug into it more, we found that there are certain types of environmental bacteria that humans have been exposed to for long periods of time, for millions of years, over the course of human evolution, but we stopped getting exposure to them over the last 30-40 years because we live in concrete, sterile environments. We're no longer in the environment like we evolved to be. So that's what we focused on in probiotics, it's these Bacillus endospores that are outside in the natural environment, they're also a natural part of your gut bacteria, and their whole job is to come in and orchestrate that balance.

We just submitted a paper for publication that shows that in as low as 3 weeks, adding in these spores can almost double the diversity of your microbiome, which is mind-boggling, nothing has been shown to be able to do that! Imagine a couple of strains can go in and increase the diversity of your microbiome by 600-700 other species. Then the question is: Where do these species come from?

Well, they were always there but their numbers were so low that we couldn't even detect them. These strains come in, they suppress the overgrown strains and they produce compounds and nutrients to regrow the strains that are really suffering. Now the other thing we also saw as a significant increase in those protective keystone strains. The Akkermansia and the Faecalibacterium - we're seeing a ten to a hundredfold increase in those particular strains. And when you have all of that type of modulation going on in the microbiome, you start to resolve the baseline defect that most people have in the western world because of the toxicity we live in.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Such powerful stuff and such a really amazing way of looking at it. When we think about using just the regular probiotics, which as you noted - some people do have improvements with those and some people don't, and it's sort of like - I think about what you're talking about here as really a bandaid vs. a root-level approach to rebalancing the microbiome. Typical probiotics we're putting them in and hoping that by just continuing to put bigger numbers than a few strains in, it will help - which may, for some people, but what you're talking about with the spore-based approach is really reconstructing the environment in the gut, like creating this environment where the good bacteria can thrive, or the balance, the ecology of it can come back to where it needs to be. It's really a very different approach or way of thinking about treating the gut microbiome issues.

Yeah, and you know it was really... when we looked at it, we really took a simplistic approach to it. I always joked that we are just smart enough to understand that nature has already done all the work for us. We just have to be smart enough to look for it in nature. So a lot of the probiotics in the market today are trying to reen with the wheel, so, the Lacto and Bifido strains that are used in probiotics - the whole idea of them was to try to mimic the initial seeding process that occurred when we were first born, but we can't be reborn that way.

You can't reseed the gut that way. And so when we looked at it, we said okay - where did our ancestors get their probiotics? They didn't have these special refrigerated products in a store, and they didn't put stuff in special capsules and all that stuff. They got it from the environment. Our ancestors for the vast majority of human existence ate dirt, and they accidentally ate dirt, but they didn't sterilize the environment, and as it turns out, there are some organisms in the environment that play this really important policing role in our microbiome.

And here's what's really interesting about it: We can't do that for ourselves. We can not police our own microbiome. It's a completely separate entity that is on its own. We don't have a system in place in our own body to go "This bacteria is too high, let's bring it down. This one's too low, let's bring it up." We don't have a mechanism in our body to seal up our leakiness in our gut. We don't have a mechanism in our body to regrow those really important keystone strains. We have outsourced all of those organisms that we are supposed to encounter in the environment - because again, we are a walking, talking rainforest. We are in constant osmosis with the outside world, and we're supposed to be that way.

So it was a different approach, and what we were looking at is exactly as you said, it's a fundamental restructuring of the microbiome. That's the only way you're going to get real sustainable results. Because even for some of those few people that get benefits from some of those products in the market, the problem is the moment you stop taking those products, the benefits go away, you know? And you don't really have any big global changes and our whole goal was how do we make those big global changes so that you're not only affecting the behavior but then you're affecting the allergies in some positive way, you're affecting the food sensitivities, you're improving the digestion, the growth levels - all of that stuff improves when you just start fixing those fundamental issues in the gut.

I'll tell you, what you mentioned as part of my bio, we're doing a lot of studies, we're up to 13 clinical trials now. We finished a study recently on triglycerides, on reducing elevated triglycerides using probiotics, we finished a study in dermatology on reducing acne lesions on using an oral probiotic and reducing wrinkle appearance, reducing inflammatory markers the skin, we're doing a gingivitis study on reducing gingivitis in the gums, we finished a study on leaky gut, we're doing one on rheumatoid arthritis - all these things that are seemingly unconnected: Gingivitis, rheumatoid arthritis, acne, all these things with the same product, right? Why is it that we can do all of those different studies with all of those different conditions with the same product? It's because we're fixing the fundamental problem that's driving most of those things. So that's what's really exciting about all the work that's going on right now - is we're seeing that you can fundamentally fix the messed up gut environment.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And I think that's such a powerful thing to think about - most people are used to it, even clinically I would use typical, regular probiotics. Typically I would keep doing that, which is fine if the person is continuing to experience benefit - but at a certain point, you look at okay, how do we need to get to more root level here, how can we make it so that this system is working well and moving in the right direction on its own and we're not constantly having to put organisms in order to keep it balanced, and so clinically we've seen such great results with using this spore-based product.

I wanted to just let people know where they can find out more information about that. I know you have the products that we use in clinical practice, I know you have some that are available for people to go and purchase to try this - where can people find more information on this?

So one of the easiest places where they can go and research and do their own work on it is to come to our website at microbiomelabs.com - on there we sell these particular products only through health practitioners like yourself and those with standard brick and mortar practices. So they can come in and there's a 'find a practitioner' tab, they can put in their zip code and you'll find practitioners and doctors all in your area that carry the products and you then you can talk to your doctors about getting it. There is a retail version of it as well, which has a lower dose. It's a great product for maintenance, we use it a lot in kids with behavioral disorders, it's called Just Thrive Probiotic , both of those are available for access to people.

And on our website, we also have a lot of information on the product and understanding what these strains are, where they come from and so on. And then if they ever want to go and learn a little bit more about some of these connections, if they put my name into YouTube, apparently there are lots and lots of videos that show up. I've been fortunate enough to lots of these great interviews and the hosts are always nice about putting them up on there and so there's a lot of information about how the spores work and so on. It's important to know that these particular types of probiotics have been in the prescription drug industry since 1952. They're not new in that sense, so we didn't invent them.

As we were looking at what type of bacteria would be impactful and made sense from an evolutionary standpoint, we found these bacterial endospores and then we said okay - we're selling them and then as it turns out, in 2/3rds of the world, they've been using them for over 60 years to treat gut infections, upper respiratory tract infections and whole bunch of other stuff - we've just haven't utilized them in the U.S. And so that was our role in bringing them to the U.S. and then doing the clinical research with those. So yeah, it's really quite exciting to see all of the different impacts that these, that making the fundamental change in the microbiome can have. And at the end of the day, what we want to do is kind of have a global benefit. Once you start fixing that gut, the baseline deficiencies in the gut - you start to see changes in all types of issues. You're not just looking at the one issue that you're dealing with, we're looking and making a global change.

And here's the important part, you're also preventing the onset and the progression of other issues that you don't have yet because these typical dysfunctions in the gut are responsible for the vast majority of chronic illnesses - at least driving them if not being the primary cause of them and so even though right now you're more focused on certain behavioral issues or maybe some allergies, know that those same dysfunctions down the road could manifest into autoimmune conditions and acne and all kinds other stuff. So it's important to address this fundamental - the baseline.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, it's laying the best foundation to support health and function, not just for right now, but also into the future for ourselves and our kids - that really important foundation. This has been such an important and valuable discussion. I know that it's got people's wheels turnings and thinking about what they need to do and want to do to address this, so thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about this. Really, really helpful. Thank you.

It's my pleasure and I'm always happy to come on, getting this kind of information to people is absolutely imperative to health and wellness and just kind of improving the health of society in general. You know, we're all kind of going through this together, so thank you so much for the opportunity to talk.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely. Okay everybody, thanks for being here and we'll see you for our next episode of The Better Behavior Show.

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How The Gut Microbiome Affects Behavior In Children

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My guest this week is Kiran Krishnan, a Research Microbiologist who has been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition field for the past 18 years. He comes from a strict research background and established a clinical research organization where he designed and conducted dozens of human clinical trials in human nutrition.

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My guest this week is Dr. Joan Rosenberg, best-selling author, consultant, master clinician, and media host. Dr. Joan Rosenberg is a cutting-edge psychologist who is known as an innovative thinker, acclaimed speaker, and trainer. As a two-time TEDx speaker and member of the Association of Transformational Leaders, she has been recognized for her thought leadership and influence in personal development.

Dr. Rosenberg speaks on how to build confidence, emotional strength, resilience; achieving emotional, conversational and relationship mastery; integrating neuroscience and psychotherapy and suicide prevention. She is a professor of graduate psychology at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, CA. Her latest book, 90 Seconds to a Life you Love : How to Master Your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience and Authenticity , has just released at the beginning of this year.

In this episode, Dr. Rosenberg and I discuss the "top 8 unpleasant feelings" that parents encounter. She provides parents with practical strategies that teach enhanced emotional self-insight and lead to better parent-child relationships. These strategies empower parents to manage their feelings, control their reactions and become better emotional role models for their children. Learn more about Dr. Joan Rosenberg .
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everyone, welcome to the show - I am Dr. Nicole, and today's show is going to be focused more on the emotional experiences of us as parents, specifically difficult or uncomfortable emotions that we may experience in relation to our children or just the parenting process, and strategies to help manage those emotions better. I talk often about how a prerequisite for helping our kids to manage their emotions is for us, the adults, to be doing a good job of being aware of and managing our own because that allows their children to manage their emotions better. And I think that this is something that even if we're experienced as parents - we're always working on and always getting better with as we go along on our parenting journey.

So my guest today is a good friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Joan Rosenberg. She's a psychologist who specializes in helping people identify and manage unpleasant feelings more effectively. So let me tell you a little bit more about her - Dr. Rosenberg is a best-selling author, consultant, master clinician, media host and a cutting edge psychologist who is known as an innovative thinker, speaker and trainer. She's a two-time TEDx speaker and member of the Association of Transformational Leaders. She's been recognized for her thought leadership and influence in personal development.

Dr. Rosenberg has been featured in the documentaries 'I AM', 'The Miracle Mindset', 'Pursuing Happiness' and 'The Hidden Epidemic'. She's been seen on CNN's American Morning, The OWN Network and PBS, as well as appearances in radio interviews in many major markets. She's a licensed psychologist in California and speaks often on how to develop confidence, emotional strength, resilience, achieving emotional, conversational and relationship mastery and integrating neuroscience and psychotherapy in suicide prevention. Joan is also an air force veteran and a professor of graduate psychology at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, California. Her latest book, '90 Seconds to a Life You Love: How to Master your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience and Authenticity comes out February 12 and I'm excited to have her on the show today to talk about the book. Welcome to the show Dr. Rosenberg.

Dr. Rosenberg:

Thank you so much, Dr. Beurkens. Thank you so much, it's a pleasure to be here.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I'm so excited, your new book is coming out like right now - tomorrow. And I'm excited to be able to share what you focus on in this book with my community and my listeners. While you didn't write the book specifically for parents, the reality is - as parents, we experience such a wide range of both great and joyful emotions in parenting and also the stuff that we don't often like to talk about, are the more unpleasant and challenging emotions that go along with parenting any child - especially when we've got a child that maybe has some disabilities, some behavioral challenges, you know those kinds of things. So I'm really excited to dive in and have you share the information, the strategy because I think this is going to be really helpful to our listeners. So I want to start out with this idea that you talk about in your book that there are 8 specific unpleasant feelings that all of us experience. And when we learn to be aware of those, we can manage them better, is that right?

Dr. Rosenberg:

Yes. I definitely agree with that. So let's dive into that right away. And it's not that we just have 8 unpleasant feelings, we have far more than that. I have chosen the 8 that I will touch on in a moment because they're the most common feeling reaction to things not turning out the way we need or turning out the way we want. So the 8 feelings are: Sadness, shame, helplessness, anger, vulnerability, embarrassment, disappointment and frustration. So those 8 are common to almost all of our experiences.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And even as you're saying those, there's such a - there's a feeling that even comes over me listening to you list off those 8 emotions. I think those are things we all can really say - Yup, I experience those. It's kind of a visceral reaction we have to even hearing you mention those 8.

Dr. Rosenberg:

I believe that. And sometimes what it does is it calls up memories and so obviously we get a little bit flooded, bodywise with the reaction. Makes sense to me.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So I think I'm putting my parent hat on now, and thinking - yeah, I've experienced all 8 of those in relation to myself as a parent. Either feeling those things about myself as a parent or my skills and things I've done as a parent and also feeling those things in relation to my children and things that are going on with them or ways that they are interacting with me. So I think that parents can definitely relate to those. Why is it important to kind of hone in on those and be aware of those? You mentioned that these can be sort of the underlying feelings that we're experiencing that maybe can lead to some of our behavior. Why is it important to be aware of some of those as they come up?

Dr. Rosenberg:

You know there are so many answers to that question, let me see if I can touch on a couple, especially as it relates to parenting. Think of your children as developing to your emotional range. So if there's an angry parent in the home, or a rageful parent in the home - at some point, the children growing up in that home are going to learn that they too can go to that range. Or if you have a parent that is more depressed or sad or withdrawn, then they learn that and they kind of learn the constricted nature of expressing oneself.

And so what becomes really important for kids in relation to their parents and parents in relation to their children is to have that broad range of feelings that doesn't go to either extreme where somebody is shutdown and withdrawn - because then the children will learn that strategy as a way to manage their experience, nor to go to this other extreme of raging and explosive anger. And so it's super important for parents to modulate that so that children can develop, if you will, a nice, healthy range - the pleasant and the unpleasant. That would be one big answer for that. A second has to do with that it's also important for parents to model that. We also want parents to regulate well because we want them to be able to create a safe space for their children to grow up.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think that there are several things that you touched on there that I want to unpack a little bit. One is that when we as adults allow ourselves to experience the range of emotions, that gives kids the space to feel like that's okay, and for them to experience their emotions. And I think that's really critical. A lot of times, as parents or just adults - our kids expressing or expressing unpleasant feelings makes us uncomfortable, right?

And I liked what you said there - you said kids need to be able to experience the range of both pleasant and unpleasant emotions because that's a part of life, and sometimes I think as parents we get sort of confused or overly invested in the idea that our kids need to be in this pleasant range all the time. And if they're not, if they're experiencing unpleasant things - it makes us really uncomfortable. And what you're saying is no - we all actually need to be able to recognize and embrace the full range of emotions, right?

Dr. Rosenberg:

Absolutely true, yes. So let me take that one step further with you. So not only do I want a parent to be able to, in the moment, be able to handle their unpleasant feelings. I also want the parent to have access to the things that caused them pain when they were younger. And the reason for that - It's not so they're overwhelmed and blown over by it. But the reason for that is so that they actually can develop a greater empathy for where their child is. So again, it allows them to model tolerating pain and it helps them develop a capacity to empathize more deeply. And to your point of not wanting to shut down on a child's feelings, or they should just be always in a pleasant state - I will tell you that I see the kids in adulthood that didn't learn to manage their feelings well as kids.

There is an experience that psychologists like to call frustration tolerance. So think, it's the ability to go through things that leave someone feeling sad or angry or disappointed. Some of the feelings I've already named. And if a child doesn't learn how to handle those feelings when they're young - then there's a carry-over effect into adulthood. Then they don't handle relationship breakups well, they don't handle things happening in employment settings well. You can imagine all the different ways this plays out where a child who didn't learn this stuff with their parents in childhood now has the carryover effect into adulthood. So now this becomes a very important thing for parents then to be able to tolerate someone else's emotional discomfort.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yes, so it's sort of a double challenge for us as parents, right? We need to be able to recognize and learn to tolerate our own uncomfortable or unpleasant feelings and we need to be able to recognize and tolerate and actually embrace our kids' unpleasant and uncomfortable feelings. And some parents might be listening and going, "Oh my gosh, I'm not good at that for myself - I'm definitely not good at that for my kid." And I know you have lots of strategies that you teach people and work on with people for how to do that, right?

So let's get into that a little bit because I want to give people some practical things. And you talk in the book about anxiety and ways to manage that because if there's one thing that I hear a lot of parents in my work talk about, it is this sense of feeling really anxious around their role or their job as parents - Am I doing this right? Am I screwing my kid up? Am I cut out for this, is my kid ever going to be okay? On and on and on, there are so many uncertainties with parenting and it creates a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear in people, especially if parents already were more prone to that before they became parents, right? There's nothing like having a kid that will take a higher anxiety level that you already have and exponentially ratchet that up. So share some ideas or some strategies about how parents can be thinking about or handling their anxiety better - or maybe even how that can work on experiencing less of it.

Dr. Rosenberg:

I want to back us up one step and then take us to the anxiety question. And that has to do with how do you manage the feelings in the first place? So I'll try to do this super quick so I can get us to the anxiety question. I think of using a formula to be able to manage your emotional state. And the formula is one choice, 8 feelings, 90 seconds. So the one choice is an openness and a willingness to be aware of and in touch with as much of your feeling experience as you can bear or is possible. So the whole idea here is you're leaning into awareness and you're moving away from avoidance. Awareness over avoidance. That's the one choice.

The second is the 8 feelings. Now I've mentioned the 8 feelings, so I don't think I have to go back over those. And then the 90 seconds piece is to understand that basically we know what we're feeling emotionally through bodily sensation in our bodies. So think of face flush and feeling the redness or the heat that comes with embarrassment. Or think of sadness. And with sadness maybe there's a dropdown feeling in the chest or a heaviness in the chest. Or disappointments, heaviness plus the dropdown. Or something else. It's different for every person, but if you think of when you feel something pleasant or unpleasant, it shows up in your body first. We get this kind of experience here and then a nano-second till we give a name to it, and then we know because of that heat in our face - we feel embarrassed.

So the whole key here then is to ride the waves of these feelings, these bodily sensations that are being activated by a rush of biochemicals into our bloodstreams. And what I want parents to understand or everyone who is listening to understand, is that this rush and then flush out of the bloodstream of these biochemicals lasts roughly around 90 seconds, or an upper range of around 90 seconds. Most times, it doesn't even last that long. Now, trauma and tragedy - separate from that. But everyday common reactions, think 60-90 seconds at best and then a strategy you can use is just stay present to the feeling, notice you are having reaction and then just notice what you are experiencing in your body and the key here is you're really tolerating the bodily sensation - and it's the bodily sensation that typically is hard for people and that's why we want to move away from feeling. So that's the switch I want people to understand: If you can handle your bodily sensations, you can handle the feeling.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I love that, that's such a powerful framework for thinking about that, because it makes it feel doable. You know in the moment - when we're experiencing unpleasant or uncomfortable feelings, you're right, that our first knee-jerk reaction is: Avoid this, make this go away! And you're saying no, be aware with it, sit with it and know that it's not going to last forever, because in our minds we tell ourselves a story that how I'm feeling right now in this moment, this uncomfortable bodily sensation or whatever feeling I'm experiencing - that that's never going to go away, and what you're saying is that no, it's really 60-90 seconds and if we can just ride that out, we can see that through and come out on the other side.

Dr. Rosenberg:

Absolutely true and the benefits are many. You're more congruent, you feel more authentically yourself, it actually leads you to feeling stronger and you gain insights. So sometimes if you allow yourself just that pause and stay present to what you're experiencing and the bodily sensations that you want to move away from, stay present to that and you actually start to gain insight - sometimes on what a decision you need to make, on something you want to express or an action you want to take. So That's the important thing there. So I just want people to start out with the strategy.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

What I'm thinking about is how important this is as parents when we are in a situation with our kids, where whatever it is that's going on is eliciting one of these unpleasant feelings in us and how when we react in the midst of that bodily sensation, that's when we tend to say and do things that later on we recognize, that really wasn't how I wanted to handle that with my kid - and it's occurring to me as you're talking that one of the really great practical outcomes with our kids of being able to ride these 60-90 seconds waves, to do what you said - to pause there, let ourselves come through that and then respond or engage or whatever needs to happen with our kids, and that we're much less likely then to regret how we handled that. Does that sound right?

Dr. Rosenberg:

Oh, a 100%, spot on, Nicole. And the key here is, in fact I talk about this in the book, that you don't - especially if you're angry, you don't respond until... as opposed to... most parents are responding up here (hand motion to high range wave) when they're in the intensity of the anger. And my view is hang tight, you don't open your mouth until you get here. (hand motion of low range wave) So yes, if a parent can pause long enough, and again most of the time it's not even in the 60-90 seconds - it's brief. You move through it but you don't open your mouth until you're on the other side of the wave.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Dr. Rosenberg:

Yup. Mouth closed, 90 seconds - 60-90 seconds, talk when you're at the bottom of the wave. And it's understanding that it's one or more feelings, it's not all eight at once. Maybe it's one or more, it could be sadness and anger, disappointment and anger or whatever it might be, but it's not going to be every one of the 8 feelings, every time. But let me go back to your anxiety question. I have 8 different ways of looking at anxiety. And most of the time, I consider anxiety not anxiety. So that's the first thing for a parent to understand.

And I would actually encourage people to start using more accurate language because if we use better language for our feelings, then we actually feel differently. It gives a different meaning and the meaning elicits something different for each of us. So fear is danger in the moment right now. So if somebody isn't facing that lion or that tiger in front of them and they're not really in danger, I would rather a parent not use the word fear, and not teach the child fear. If we're truly in the face of danger or life-threat, then of course we're going to feel fearful. And it's a natural reaction, it's nothing I'm going to take away, it's normal for every one of us, it's part of how we survive.

Anxiety - psychology likes to talk about diffused apprehension of the future. But most of the time, when we talk about - it's an uncertain future, I don't know what's going to happen. Most of that time, we're actually feeling vulnerable, which means I could get hurt. And so I would rather a parent use the word vulnerable, especially when they're parenting children. That the child's not fearful - again it's common to use the words fearful or anxious, but they might be feeling vulnerable, they might be feeling like they could get hurt. And the beauty of understanding - kind of the way I laid out this 90 seconds approach is: If someone can handle the other 7 feelings that I named, then they can handle vulnerability, which is the 8th - and that's in circumstances which we don't have control over and it's in circumstances which we choose in to.

So let's say for instance I'm parenting a young child who is going out for a team sport and the child has to perform at a certain level, but they haven't quite hit that level yet and they're angry and they're sad and they're not sure if they're going to make it - well now you're helping the child handle, in this case, the vulnerability - I could get hurt, it might not work out, which means I might get disappointed, or I might feel sad, or I might be angry or embarrassed. And if you know that that child can handle those other feelings, then the child can go pursue what they want. So think of anxiety, I'm circling all the way back, think of anxiety as a cover for unpleasant feelings. The first unpleasant feeling it covers is vulnerability. But sometimes if people are expressing themselves, then it's covering maybe disappointment or anger or sadness. So let me stop there and see if there's something you want to add to this.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's such a great and helpful way of thinking about that, that really, we put a lot of things in this overarching term of anxiety, and what you're saying is let's dig down and get to the root of what that really is. And that vulnerability and that sense of being able to be vulnerable, and to open ourselves up to feeling some of those unpleasant feelings.

And I know, I can relate to that personally, professionally, as a parent - and I think everybody can, that even a lot of times with our kids, there is that sense of immense vulnerability in a lot of ways, because we can only control ourselves, we can't control our child so the whole thing feels like an exercise in vulnerability and putting ourselves out there and not knowing exactly what's going to happen.

Especially those of us who are parenting kids who have challenges, and that vulnerability on "What are people going to think of me?" Or "How is it going to go if I take my kid to the store and maybe they have a meltdown or a temper tantrum?" Or "My child is getting in trouble at school, and now I've got the school calling me." It's just that sense of what you are talking about with that vulnerability being at the root of that, that really does resonate.

Dr. Rosenberg:

And it's understanding, yes. And I also hear another piece in what you're talking about. So vulnerability is one big aspect of that. And in certain cases, when your child isn't who you want your child to be, in whatever moments those are, then I think it activates some grief. So yes, I think of parenting as an experience in vulnerability, period. End of story, right? It just intensifies our own vulnerability and it's just considered exponential when you have one or more children, right?

So we have the vulnerability, and if the child doesn't then behave the way we want them to, the way we think they ought to be - again, they're going to be embarrassing, I think parents go through a little bit of grief. And here I think of sadness, helplessness, anger and disappointment, one or more of those four when things aren't working out well. The parents actually wrestling with those feelings as an undercurrent underneath whatever is going on.

So there are a couple of points there. The other is something that you mentioned - parents question themselves, like am I really doing a good job? What if? And one of the things I talk about also in the book around this, on the chapter on anxiety is I would like parents to switch up their language. So we get embedded into what I call the Am I, Can I, Will I, Do I questions. Am I good enough at this? Will I be able to handle the change? Can I do this well enough? And whatever combination - what I'd like parents to do is to switch their language and switch the order of the words. So those questions, Am I, Can I, Will I, Do I - foster doubt. If we just switch the order to I can, I will, I am, I do, it actually fosters more of an experience of confidence.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I love that, such a simple but powerful shift in just moving those words around, and I think that that gets at something else that I wanted to ask about that you talk about in the book, which is resilience because I think that plays into that, right? That we need to learn how to be resilient. I talk about this a lot in my work and a lot with families at the clinic - that look, challenges are going to be there in life. There's never going to be a time where we're not going to have challenges, where we're not going to experience unpleasantness, especially if you have a child who experiences a lot of challenges or has some pretty significant disabilities - those things are going to be there.

And then the question becomes how do we become more resilient around that? Because we can't wave a magic wand and change everything about our circumstances and make life perfect - there's no such thing, so we need to get better at riding those waves, at bouncing back and being more resilient. So what are some thoughts that you have around that for parents, about what it takes to develop resilience or how parents can use these ideas to become more resilient?

Dr. Rosenberg:

The first thing is to understand that I think that the base is to be able to manage these 8 unpleasant feelings, to be able to experience and go through and be able to express unpleasant feelings as a key part of feeling capable. And I see that as one key aspect of resilience. A second is to understand that resilience is actually quite learnable - if learnable is a word here. It's teachable. And think of much of resilience as being tied to attitude. So one attitude is: I'm open to change. And change is the constant in life. So having an openness and willingness to face change is a key aspect. Understanding that failure is a key aspect. And look at failure as a learning opportunity, that's it - and then understand that most of us fail our way to success. So that we build in this idea that things are not going to go well for us and we build that into knowing that that's just part of how life works, so we don't get knocked over each time we are thwarted by an obstacle.

A third would be reaching out for help. What I call resourcefulness is another part of emotional strength and so a willingness to actually acknowledge our needs and limitations and to ask for help is another crucial aspect of resilience. And then we can go on to faith, we can go on to an attitude of I'm going to persist no matter what. Another attitude is I see every experience I go through as a learning opportunity. So that so much of resilience comes down to key attitudes or beliefs that we hold and then aspects of what we're willing to do. Like one is to tolerate unpleasant feelings, two is to ask for help.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Two great takeaways for people that just being able and willing to acknowledge, experience and ride the waves of those unpleasant feelings is one piece of it and then asking for help - and boy, there are a lot of people listening who I'm sure can really latch onto those two things. Okay, those are two things that I can get better with and that I can focus on. And you said that resilience is a learnable skill - so if people are thinking, well I've never been resilient, I'm not good at bouncing back, I'm not good at doing that - what you're saying is wait a second, we can all get better with that.

Dr. Rosenberg:

Totally, once you change your belief system and you change your attitude, the whole game changes. The whole game changes. There are a couple of things that I wrestled with in terms of my own professional career. And one was how to understand that asking for help is part of emotional strength. So again, in the book - I've redefined emotional strength as being capable, which means you can experience and live through those unpleasant feelings and being resourceful.

So one is internal, the 8 unpleasant feelings - that's capable, and the other is resourceful which is external and it is acknowledging our needs and limitations so we can be more comfortable with the dependent side of our nature. And it's not one or the other in life, it's both. We need to be both independent and we need to be dependent. And so that forms the beauty of our life experience and so in the same way - we have kids that are dependent on us and then we're fostering their independence, but we also want to foster our ability and their ability to be able to ask for help and understanding that asking for help is part of emotional strength and a key part of resilience.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Such a powerful concept and there are so many more things that I want to ask you about this and get into, that our time went so fast - I would love to have you back to expand on some of this and to talk more about how we can apply these concepts specifically with our kids, because I think this conversation was around how we can work at this as parents, which is the foundation - and then I think it's helpful for parents to know how we can work on that with our kids too, so hopefully you'll come back and share a few tricks with us.

Dr. Rosenberg: I would absolutely love that. Yes, thank you.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome. So I want to make sure that we have a chance for you to tell people where they can find more information from you online, and specifically where they can find your book because it's an amazing book. I've had a chance to read it ahead of it coming out in print, and I'm really excited about it - and so please share with everybody where they can find that.

Dr. Rosenberg:

Well, thank you so much for your kind words. The first place to look would be 90secondsbook.com . Not only that - there a number of different places you can go, there are links embedded in that site that can take you to many different booksellers. There are also bonuses on that page. If you don't go there, you can go to drjoanrosenberg.com and that's the second place. There are a lot of resources on my website itself and the people, if they choose, they can go directly to the booksellers. So whatever bookseller they prefer and it launches at midnight tonight, so people should have access to it right away. And then there are lots of other places to find me. So I'm on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook, etc. most of the handles are @drjoanrosenberg, so I can be found pretty easily.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And we'll make sure to put all those links in the show notes - awesome. Easy for people to remember. Go there check the book out, it's super exciting. Joan thank you so much for being here with us today, this was a wonderful interview, thank you.

Dr. Rosenberg:

Thank you, Nicole. I'm honored.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Alright, everybody, that's it for this episode - I look forward to seeing you next time for our next episode of The Better Behavior Show.

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Strategies To Help Parents Manage Emotions and Their Behavior

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My guest this week is Dr. Joan Rosenberg, best-selling author, consultant, master clinician, and media host. Dr. Joan Rosenberg is a cutting-edge psychologist who is known as an innovative thinker, acclaimed speaker, and trainer. As a two-time TEDx speaker and member of the Association of Transformational Leaders, she has been recognized for her thought leadership and influence in personal development.

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How Toxins In The Home Can Impact Your Child’s Mood and Behavior

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How Toxins In The Home Can Impact Your Child’s Mood and Behavior

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My guest this week is Beth Greer, a sustainable and toxin-free living expert and award-winning journalist who eliminated a sizable tumor in her chest without drugs or surgery by detoxing her body and home. Known as the Super Natural Mom®, Beth is also the author of the bestseller "Super Natural Home" and named a Top 50 Health & Environmental Journalist to follow. Beth offers personalized in-home detox audits to identify and eliminate toxins. Her work has been endorsed by Deepak Chopra & Dr. Joseph Mercola, who recognize that toxin elimination equals better health. She offers Detox Your Home webinar courses, and 5 Day Group Detox Cleanses.

In this episode, Beth and I discuss different toxic household items and food products that can negatively impact children's behavior and overall well-being. All families can benefit from learning more about the vast amount of toxic ingredients found in their daily household, personal care, cosmetic and food products. Beth shares simple practices to help eliminate these toxins and provides resources on how to take the first steps to create your toxin-free home. Learn more about Beth
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

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Episode Transcription

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everyone, welcome to the show. I am Dr.Nicole and today we are going to talk about environmental toxins and how they impact our brain and bodies. Now, this is an issue that I think a lot of parents don't really consider in relation to their child's developmental kinds of issues or mental health symptoms but it's a really important link to understand. Because the things we are exposed to in our environment, in our homes, and for our kids at school and the environment in our communities can have a major impact on brain development and also just out functioning in general. So I am excited to have as my guest today, Beth Greer, and she is going to talk with us about how toxins in our home can impact mood and behavior.

Let me tell you a little bit about Beth, she is the supernatural mom and she is a sustainable and toxin-free living expert, and award-winning journalist, who eliminated a sizable tumor in her chest without drugs or surgery by detoxing her body at home. She is the author of the best-seller "Supernatural Home", endorsed by Deepak Chopra and Dr. Joseph Mercola and named a top 50 environmental journalists to follow. Beth offers personalized in-home detoxed audits to identify and eliminate toxins. Her work is endorsed by several doctors who recognize that toxin elimination equals better health. She offers 'Detox your Home' webinar courses and five-day detox group cleanses. I am so excited to have her on the show today to talk with us about this important topic. Welcome to the show, Beth!

Thank you! So great to be here.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So you've got a really fascinating personal story about how you got into this whole realm of understanding the role of toxins in health and neurological functioning, all of those kinds of things. Tell us a little about that.

Yeah so it's been about 17 years now, but I thought I was leading a really healthy lifestyle. I exercised, watched my weight, I even had a meditation practice, I didn't smoke and so I developed this pain in my shoulder and it turned out through an MRI discovered I had a mass in my chest. It was the size of a tennis ball, it was pretty big and very painful and I got a biopsy and they said it benign and that it needed to come out and I went to 3 top surgeons and they couldn't agree on how to access this thing.

One wanted to cut me under my collarbone in the front. The second one wanted to go under my armpit and the third one wanted to remove one of my ribs from the back and I just thought this is insane, let me just, you know, slow down here for a minute and figure out what I can do and why this occurred in my body. It was so strange like it came out of nowhere, it felt like. So it was like I started looking at first what i was putting into my body and I realized that I was eating out a lot and not really paying that much attention to myself. You know, I thought I was eating healthy but healthy is different for everybody and everybody is different, everybody's body is different.

So I went on a cleanse, I went on down to a place called the Optional Health Institute down in San Diego and they put us on raw juices, raw vegetable juices, organic and in just 3 days, I started noticing that the pain started diminishing. I thought, "Well this is really interesting, wow what's going on here?" I noticed that my body started feeling better and I continued there, I was there a week. Then I went home and decided to continue this cleansing of my body by using just organic vegetables mostly, a little bit of fruit. And while I was doing that, so I thought - okay, what's happening here? And the word came to me to 'simplify', I was simplifying what I was eating and I was taking out all of the foods that are inflammatory. I had been eating wheat and processed food, things like that. And then I remember thinking, well what else can I simplify?

And I was putting some lotion on my skin and I looked at the bottle and on the label there was a paragraph's worth of ingredients, and I just thought, whoa! And I couldn't read half of them. And my background is a journalist, I went and got my masters in journalism at NYU. And I put my research hat on, I started researching all these chemicals and their impact on body and brain and how fast they get into the body, which is so interesting for our skin, you know, it absorbs very quickly into our bloodstream, everything we put on there. So I switched out to all natural, so I put like coconut oil and I'm using baking soda as a deodorant for example. And then I thought, well what else can I simplify? And I was cleaning, I was spraying with Windex - I was spraying some countertops and I looked at the label on the back, most people don't read their labels on household cleaners, they may be good at reading food labels but household cleaners? So I look at it, it says precautionary statement: Hazardous to humans and domestic animals. And I thought like "Whoa! This is interesting, okay!" These things are toxins over here that I don't want in my body and so I switched that to using hydrogen peroxide and white vinegar and baking soda to clean with.

And so it took about 9 months of this sort of cleansing and clearing away of all the toxins that the pain went away and then I had the tumor scanned and it had disappeared. So about 6 months later I had it scanned. Yeah, it disappeared, it was a huge wakeup call to me that our bodies are self-healing and if we don't gunk them up with all the stuff we're being exposed to on a daily basis - so this was my message and so I started writing, I started writing articles for The San Francisco Chronicle, I had a column there for a while and then turned it into my book, Super Natural Home and it's broken up into 3 parts: What goes in us, what goes on us and what surrounds us. It's pretty simple and it's all filled with solutions. And that's the takeaway message, that start to take a look at these 3 areas and pay attention to some of the nasty chemicals that we're exposed to.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Such a remarkable story, I mean amazing, really to think about the health condition that you had and then your journey of figuring out, kind of unraveling the pieces that we're connected to that. And I think what strikes me in listening to you talk about that experience is how much we just take for granted that the things that we are buying, the things that we're using - you know that these are safe and don't pose health problems. That really struck me in listening to that. I mean - so let's talk a little bit about that because most people think, "Hey! If this stuff is available on store shelves, if these cleaning products, these personal care products, ingredients in our food - then that means somebody has determined that they're safe, right?"

Yeah, well that's true - that's the big misnomer, that everybody thinks that they have been tested for safety, and they have not - and that was a really eye-opening thing. So for example, the cosmetics industry is self-regulated. They can throw whatever they want in there, and they do! And so the makeup that we buy at the department store, for example, has a lot of awful things including mercury in mascara, you know? This is a heavy metal that we don't want in our bodies, so it's really important to buy clean, safe products. So for example, I like Beauty Counter as makeup and on my website, bethgreer.com , you can find a link to it and you can see. It's not like just putting smashed avocados on your face but it's makeup that works but it doesn't have the nasty chemicals.

They have something called The Never List, and there's probably 20 chemicals that most - you know Revlon, Estee Lauder, all of these are using, but Beautycounter is not using it, so that's my go-to makeup and again, you start looking at your deodorant for example, I go into people's homes and help them figure out what's going on. Sometimes they have mystery illnesses, especially children who are hyperactive and all that. I remember going into a store with a client and looking at - they wanted a stick deodorant and we looked at Tom's thinking it was natural, well the number 2 ingredient on it was propylene glycol, which is found in anti-crease, believe it or not.

So something like baking soda, which is what I do - I put it in a salt shaker and sprinkle it on my palm and put it under my armpits after shower, you're good for the whole day. Some people like to put it in the little container and then they take a makeup brush and they can dip it in and put it into their armpit. You know what? It totally works. And it's the simplest thing, and so inexpensive. You don't have to spend a lot of money on expensive deodorants, for example.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Right. So, so many simple swaps we can make once we understand that we need to start looking at ingredients and things. And I love how you separated that out and you said you talked about this in your book. The things that go in us, the things that go on us and then the things that are around us - and I want to have us talk about maybe some things in each of those categories because while many people are more aware now of the impact of food on health, behavior and their kids - those kinds of things, I think these other areas of the things that we're surrounded by in terms of cleaning products or personal care products - it's a big one.

And I've really seen in the clinic over the last 20 years, kids who are outwardly extremely sensitive to some of those things and then kids who maybe it doesn't like things like perfumes or cleaning products or things bother them - but when we move those away and get some safer, better options, they do better. But I can think of several kids just off the top of my head who outwardly were having very, very negative reactions emotionally and behaviorally to things like - I'm thinking about one young man, his mom's hairspray! It was very, very, very perfume-y, very heavy and that was a huge trigger for him in terms of the smell, the toxicity. So, important for parents to recognize that sometimes it's as simple as looking at some of the things that we're surrounding our kids with and making switches in things like hairspray or things like that.

Right, and scent - I'm really glad you brought that up, because when you see the word 'scent' or 'fragrance' on the label, it can mean there's at least a hundred synthetic chemicals. I met a chemist recently that told me he did some research. He found over 400 chemicals in that one fragrance. It's unbelievable. So you think about - you're putting hairspray on, then you're using scented deodorant. Then you're using maybe some perfume. And then you're spraying with an aerosol scent or cleaning with scent. Imagine all those chemicals in these little bodies - They're really affected deeply.

So household cleaners, surface sprays, in particular surface wipes - you want to make sure it's unscented. And I know some kids like teenage boys, for example, love to use Axe deodorants, Axe body spray? So toxic. And it impacts their hormones. I spoke in school to a group of 8th graders and I told them about - I told them about scent and I said, "Well how many of you here use Axe?" And a bunch of their hands went up. And I said, "Well you know those can really mess with your hormones. Hormones can make you short and fat." The next morning I got a call from one of the moms at the school - she was like, "What did you say to my son? He threw out his Axe spray!" So sometimes you just have to talk to the heart, right? What's important to him! I think It's huge.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's right. It's a big deal. And let's talk about some things that go in us. So let's talk about a couple of things really into food because I know you're big on advocating for parents, for families to look at reading labels for lots of chemicals and things that maybe in foods, but particularly food additives. Talk about what food additives are, why parents should be aware of those in their kids' food.

Okay, so food dyes in particular - scientists have done studies and given children artificial food dyes and notice that they have temper tantrums, even in normal children. So if you're kid is suffering from ADHD or Autism or whatever and then you are adding the food dye, it's really exacerbating it. And so food dyes can be found in children's medications like in children's cough syrup, vitamins like Flintstone vitamins have food dyes in them. The blue yogurt tubes, you know - when you just start to look at the labels and not buy those colored items...

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Well it's interesting and I know, I'm sure in the research that you've done, you'd know a lot more about this than I do - but I'm aware that even in other countries, like in Europe, they ban some of these ingredients. Like the foods that we are allowed to sell and purchase here in the US, the same brand of the same item over in Europe, for example, has very different ingredients because they recognized the connection of this and they don't allow those dyes.

They have banned it for a while, but now what they're doing is - I'm not quite sure why the change, but they are labeling it. So they do so on a product that has artificial food dyes, they can say it can cause emotional distress or whatever in children. But I do know when I was in the UK, I looked at Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, they colored it with Annatto, which is a natural substance. Where here it's red dye #x and yellow dye #43. I want people to really become aware of glyphosate. It's an additive. So glyphosate is a chemical that is found in roundup. It's a weed killer and it's very toxic. It's one of the most popular weed killers in the world, basically.

And scientists - there are over a hundred studies that have shown that it is very, very damaging to us. And so what parents need to know is glyphosate will be in non-organic food, but also, they're spraying it on wheat, on non-organic wheat as a drying agent, a desiccant. So if you're buying your kids, like I used to with my daughter, a little Goldfish or anything that 's not organic, they're getting a big dose of glyphosate and it's something to really pay attention to because it really does impact the brain and the whole nervous system. So it's something that you really want to avoid.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And that's been linked to cancer and things, I'm aware of a large lawsuit recently over particularly workers who are out spraying those things and cancers, and so we're not talking about a theoretical concern here. We're talking about people really getting sick from this stuff.

Absolutely and there is a bunch of doctors who are getting behind it and so there are ways to help remove glyphosate from the body. There is a urine test to kind of measure your levels of glyphosate. If people are interested, they can contact me and I can direct them to that. It's not that expensive, the test is not that invasive and then there are ways to get it out. So there's that and then - so yeah, the food diets and then preservatives are another one that can be problematic, and those also are banned in Europe. So BH2, BHT, BHA. Yeah, if you see mold retardant, things like that on the label - you just want to avoid it. I remember I used to do show and tell kind of talks where I would bring food items to show people what's in this box of cereal or what's on this loaf of bread. I remember I had this loaf of bread with me. It was not in a refrigerator or freezer, it was in my pantry. It was there for 8 months and there wasn't a spec of mold on it. I was like, "What is...." I looked at the label and it said calcium propionate and then I looked that up online and it said causes ADHD behavior in rats. So if you're buying bread, and the bread is like - Pepperidge Farm has it, Safeway Bread and all these common breads that people think are okay, but you really want to avoid calcium propionate as an additive or a preservative. Very toxic.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So people should be reading labels. One of the things that I say to parents is: If you're reading things that are hard for you to read, these are not things that you would cook with or you have no idea what it is, then it's probably some sort of toxin or ingredient that is not necessary for the body and may actually cause problems.

Right. That's good advice. I know people don't like to read labels, it's a hassle but I think you have to start to get used to that idea. And it's time-consuming but your health is important and if you can find some things that are possibly triggering your child's behavior or skin conditions, you know - children will breakout, very often it's some of these additives that are the culprit.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Right, right. Let's talk a little bit about farm-raised fish because I know this is also something that you educate people on and make recommendations for. So people might be thinking, oh, fish? That's a great, healthy thing. Trying to get more fish in my family's diet, in my kids, I know there are benefits to that. What should they watch out for with that?

So people should know that farm-raised fish are fed - they're not in the wild, they're not out in nature, they're not foraging for themselves, so they're fed fish food and it's generally not organic. So the farmers are feeding them soy and corn, which is genetically modified because about 90% of the soy and corn in this country are genetically modified.

So you got those two elements and if your child does have a soy allergy, they will pick it up from the flesh of that fish. So you think that you're avoiding soy, but meanwhile, you're really exposing them to it through the fish because we are what our animals eat basically, so we need to understand that. And the other thing that the farmed fish are fed are growth hormones to fatten them up quicker and also antibiotic because these containers can breed diseases, so they're given anti-parasitic drugs and they're also given food dyes, food coloring. So especially if you're buying salmon - if they're just feeding salmon the corn and soy, they're not going to turn that beautiful orange color that we all like. So what do they do? They give them food dye. Isn't that amazing? So that's what we're ingesting, they may taste good but there are secret ingredients going on in that fish that people need to be aware of.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So from a health state or a nutrient density standpoint, fish that are farm-raised like that don't have nearly the health benefits for us as fish who are in the wild the way that they are supposed to be, but also there is the toxic element of what they're putting in this fish, and the feed - all of that. And assuming that this same argument goes then for any of the kinds of animals that we might consume whether it's beef, chicken, pork, those kinds of things.

Same thing, same thing. They're all fed antibiotics, growth hormones, all of that stuff - yes. And they're also fed - most cattle that are raised in these confined environments are fed corn and soy. They're not fed grass. And then if they're not raised organically - are the farmers spraying the grass? Let's say, are they spraying the grass with weed killer? Are we getting the glyphosate through that? Same with dairy. So you want to look for organic, it's really important.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So organic is something important that parents can look for on a label. Are there things that can simplify this for parents, if they're thinking - oh my gosh, I have to be in the grocery store like, how do I know what's good, what's not good? Are there certain things on labels or some things that parents can watch for to know - okay, this is going to be a better choice? Okay, so if it's labeled organic, for example. Is that a good Indicator that there is a reduced amount of toxins in it?

Yeah, there won't be glyphosate for the most part on organic produce. I would shop at farmer's markets, places like Trader Joe's and Walmart and Costco have organic food now, you can look for that. So there's no excuse, basically. You can grow some of your own herbs in a little window box, there are little planters - you don't really need a big garden to do it. But yeah, organic will guarantee you that there are no genetically modified organisms and it's not going to have glyphosate, it's not going to have pesticides, that sort of thing. So you're pretty safe there. So yeah - I would say that and at a farmer's market, sometimes they are not certified organic, but if you talk to them and get to know them - they'll tell you we don't use sprays, they just haven't bothered to go through the process of getting certified, which can be expensive.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, and I like what you said - there's not really an excuse anymore. I mean this has gotten markedly easier in the past several years, especially with more and more companies and consumers becoming aware of these issues. I have found that there is a lot more available now, even in some of those mass-market grocery stores that you mentioned, interns of organic things than there used to be. So certainly consumer demand, it seems, is driving for more of these food companies to produce things that at least there are options for organic.

Right, and I was blown away - I went to Costco recently, and they're just... No, they had so much organic produce, so it was lovely to see.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome. So that covers some things for parents to be aware of in terms of toxins and the things that we put into ourselves and our kids. You touched on some personal care product issues. Things that we might put on our bodies. You talked a bit about deodorants, cosmetics, what are some things that parents should be aware of there? Because as I think about kids, you know - we've got stuff that we're bathing them with, maybe things in clothing, in toothpaste. There's actually a lot of things that we put on kid's bodies even though they're not wearing maybe cosmetics and stuff like that yet. So what are your thoughts on that?

Well, okay - sunscreen. I know a lot of parents are slathering their kids with sunscreen, so you want to make sure you buy the safest type of sunscreen. I have those listed in my book. I even have a recipe for making your own sunscreen with vitamin C powder and it totally works, even on fair skin, it doesn't allow you to burn. And then anything that's like - I know most children love getting into a bath, but I remember I went into one woman's home and she said, "My kid screams, hates the bath." And I said, "Well let me see what kind of soap you are using." And she had this bubble bath that she thought was great, the child was allergic to it and that's why he was screaming, his skin was burning. It's awful, so pay attention to the things that you use most frequently, like if you're putting lotions on or if your child is still in diapers and you're using wipes - you want to make sure it's the most gentle, without fragrance for example, without preservatives and all that stuff.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

It's a really important - it's just when you were talking, it was reminding me of a little 7-year-old girl that I worked with a couple of years ago who had pretty profound ticks, and parents had done a lot with cleaning up the diet and things like that, but as I got to know them and talking about different things that could be impacting or exacerbating the ticks - one of the things that I discovered is that she was doing a ton of sunscreen, and these ticks were getting a lot worse in the summer too, that was another clue of what might be going on. Tons of sunscreen all day long at the day program, the summer camp that she was at, she was going in the chlorinated pool multiple times a day and then putting lotion on after because her skin would get so dry.

And what we found that her toxic burden just from personal care products during those summer months was huge, much more increase than the rest of the year. And then washing the hair more frequently because of the chlorine and even the things that they were putting on to try to mitigate the dry skin, it was all making it worse. And when we cleaned all of that up, her ticks dramatically went down then in those summer months. It's like that buildup effect. Maybe lotion by itself isn't that big of a deal for a kid but when you've got all these different things going on, it can really build up.

That's true and there's something called the body burden. This is what doctors talk about, that with what you're saying - you have so much input with all these chemicals from everywhere. It creates a huge burden on the liver. The liver is a detoxifier, so if it stops detoxifying, we are just going to become a toxic suit. So yes, it's sad but I think once people understand that toxins are the source and the real cause of many of this, then they can take steps to clean things up and have a healthy life.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, and again, I think there are so many products available in the personal care arena than there used to be. It's not difficult now to even go to a Target or a Walmart or some of the mass stores and find at least a few options for things like bath soaps and shampoos and toothpaste and deodorant and things that do have safe ingredients in them - and I know it's a big deal for us personally as a family. I have a son who has really, really bad eczema and we have to be very mindful of not only what goes in his body, but what goes on it. And so over the years, I have found that it's getting easier and easier to find options and certainly that online there are lots of options too. So are there things on the labels that people should be watching for? Like free of certain ingredients, free of dyes? Or what kinds of things can people look for that might be...

So parabens are a big one, but here is my caution. Is that sometimes you'll see paraben-free but then they're putting in something else. And just like BPA free water bottles, Bisphenol A has been found to be an endocrine disruptor and so manufacturers - I have kind of been hearing from people: We don't want this in our products, so now they're putting labels that say BPA free but what people don't know is that the manufacturer has been substituting BPA for BPS, which is just as toxic, but they're not talking about it. Nobody is really explaining to them what the problem is. So use glass containers for example or metal. But in terms of the things on the personal care products, again - look for fragrances. You don't want that. You don't want nanoparticles, that could be problematic.

Things like propylene glycol - sometimes it's just called PG or something called PEG, polyethylene glycol - anytime you see these letters like DEA or MEA, those are definitely things you want to stay from. And petroleum byproducts, those are [inaudible 0:30:09] those come from gasoline, basically and then triclosan, I just want to mention, is found in antibacterial soap - and doctors say it's just best to use plain soap and water, it works just as well and you just want to stay away from the antibacterial products because they can be skin irritants and cause problems as well. It's just unnecessary.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, it's a great point - we could do a whole episode on just how over sanitized we've become and how that's a big problem for our gut and everything else, but yeah - I think avoiding that triclosan and any of those antibacterial kinds of products, it's great. Let's touch just briefly, because you alluded to this in your story in the beginning about household cleaning products, you talked about Windex and realizing like - Oh my gosh, this has a warning on it that it's not safe for people or animals. So obviously reading labels on these things. What are some simple things that parents can use or should be looking at on labels or maybe things that they can use that are safer to coal with so that our kids and our families aren't exposed to all these chemicals through cleaning?

Right. Yeah, so when I go into homes, I look - so I went into one woman's home who they eat all-organic, 100% organically while she was cleaning with Clorox wipes and a Swiffer, which are highly fragranced and the whole family were on antihistamines. So we got rid of the scented products and you know - I got her to use baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, white vinegar. Simple things, they clean just as well and I have some personal recipes in the book - it just cleans, they say 99.9% on Windex, but this is the same thing. You have the same amount of cleaning power and you're not going to be poisoning yourself.

So yeah. That - and I wanted to touch on mold a little bit. That many of my clients have been exposed to mold in their homes and that can be a huge trigger for many things. It can exacerbate all kinds of illnesses. So if you've had a leak in your home - you don't disregard it and think it's not important. One woman who is very intelligent and very aware but she said she saw this sort of black area in the corner of her carpeting and she would just cover it up with the drapes until it got to the point where it started to smell. And that smell is a true giveaway that you've got mold. She just didn't want to deal with it. We get busy, it's overwhelming - I don't want to look at it. But if you see black stuff in your carpeting or on your ceilings, you really need to deal with it quickly.

Get it measured, there are tests that you can do on your own - you don't have to hire expensive firms to come out. People can contact me and I can tell them how to get these little test kits - the lab will send them to you for free and then you can test and then I think they charge you around $130 to get a report. And one woman's home I went into, I smelled the mold as soon as I walked in and she said she doesn't smell anything. That's what happens after a while, you get acclimated. And I thought it was bad enough and she got the test results back and sure enough - very high levels and she wound up moving. So there's that. And the last thing I wanted to mention was electromagnetic fields. You have to pay attention to that and unplug your wi-fi router at night when you go to sleep. And what I've been doing is actually unplugging everything in my bedroom when I go to bed now. Lamps, everything. It just creates a very peaceful environment. So often we have so many things plugged in. I didn't even realize I had 2 lamps, air purifier, a diffuser, charger for my cellphones - like whoa! And then when you unplug it all, everything sort of gets very quiet. Because even though it's turned off, there's still a field there when that plug is in the wall.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, and that can create toxic effects in the brain and the body and I think kids are especially sensitive to this stuff, whether we're talking about the EMFs from devices, which is why I tell parents "No devices in the bedrooms." Or if a kid does need one in there - airplane mode at night, and susceptible to mold, you know you're talking about that and I'm thinking about a little guy I was consulting on recently who parents had seen all kinds of practitioners, they were doing everything right and this kid's behavior was getting worse, his respiratory problems were getting worse and it turned out the building they had moved into had had a leak and it wasn't until they started seeing the black specs show up on the ceiling above the kid's bed...

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

...that they realized something was there! And that was really key for him. Getting that remediated and getting him out of that bedroom just made a world of difference. So it's all these things that we don't necessarily think about or realize but they are a big deal. I think especially for kids because their bodies are just smaller and they're more susceptible to the buildup of this stuff and it really does impact them - not just physically, but also neurologically and in terms of their mental status and behavior.

Right, and I just want to add one other thing about that - yeah, it's important to get all of the things out of the bedroom, the devices and all of that but I want people to start thinking about what's on the other side of the wall of where they're sleeping because I can't tell you how many homes I go into - and the crib is next to the wall and I have a meter and it measures a very high field and the other side of the wall is a refrigerator. Or another home, on the other side of the wall, they had their wi-fi router right next to the kid's head. And it goes through the wall. It's not like it's going to blocked right there. So something to think about there. It's an important, easy thing to start to pay attention to.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So many helpful things that you have brought our awareness to and given for people to be able to just take a look around their home and the things that they are using and start to think about what their putting in, on and around their kids and then some simple changes they can make. So super helpful. I want to make sure that people know where they can find you online because you've got a ton of resources and things available there.

Great, just go to bethgreer.com . If you get on my mailing list, I won't bombard you with things but I do have some great information and I teach a course every quarter or so on how to detox your home, it's a 4-session course, it goes into detail on all the areas: In, on and surrounds. And I also do group cleanses for adults on just 5 days of eating real food. There's no potions or powders. It's just eating unprocessed food. No dairy, gluten, sugar - and people have had remarkable transformations, they've given up their sugar cravings. I'm surprised even that only 5 days can make such a big difference. But it does and it's fun to be in a group. So I have one in the spring and then I'll do one fall and winter again.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome, and your website has such a great wealth of resources and things for people, so I really encourage our listeners to check that out. Beth, thank you so much for being here with us today and sharing your expertise and practical suggestions. We really appreciate it.

Thanks, great to be with you!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Okay, everybody - that's it for this episode, we'll see you next time on The Better Behavior Show!

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How Toxins In The Home Can Impact Your Child's Mood and Behavior

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My guest this week is Beth Greer, a sustainable and toxin-free living expert and award-winning journalist who eliminated a sizable tumor in her chest without drugs or surgery by detoxing her body and home. Known as the Super Natural Mom®, Beth is also the author of the bestseller "Super Natural Home" and named a Top 50 Health & Environmental Journalist to follow.

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Integrative Treatment For Mood Disorders In Kids and Teens

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Integrative Treatment For Mood Disorders In Kids and Teens

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My guest this week is Dr. James Greenblatt, chief medical officer and vice president of medical services at Walden Behavioral Care where he provides medical management, leadership, and oversight of eating disorder and psychiatric programs in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia. Dr. Greenblatt also provides eating disorder training for psychiatric residents and child fellows throughout all major universities in New England including Tufts, Dartmouth, Harvard, University of Connecticut and the University of Massachusetts.

Dr. Greenblatt has educated professionals throughout the United States and Canada on the scientific evidence for integrative medicine in mental health and is the author of six books including two books on eating disorders, "Answers to Anorexia' and "Answers to Binge Eating Disorder" .

In this episode, Dr. Greenblatt and I discuss the importance of an integrative treatment approach for kids and teens struggling with mood disorders and symptoms such as anxiety, depression, rage, irritability, and bipolar. Dr. Greenblatt shares with us vital information on the types of common vitamin deficiencies that many of these patients have and what kinds of tests can be run to ensure they are properly evaluated. Kids and teens lacking Vitamin D, B12, magnesium, zinc, and nutritional Lithium often have a variety of mood disorder symptoms present. Learn more about Dr. Greenblatt
Need help with improving your child's behavior naturally?

Looking for more? Check out my Blog and the Better Behavior Naturally Parent Program - a resource guide for parents who want to be more effective with improving their child's behavior.

Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Hi everyone, welcome to the show. I am Dr.Nicole and today we are going to be talking about mood disorders in children and teens. An increasing number of kids and young adults are being diagnosed with things like bipolar disorder, depression, dysthymia, Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder which is a newer diagnosis in the last several years - and the standard treatment for these kinds of issues in kids and teens tend to be counseling and medication, but the challenge is that many kids don't get fully better, their symptoms don't really improve with those approaches alone. And there are many integrative treatment options that can support symptom reduction for these types of issues.

I'm thrilled today to have Dr. James Greenblatt as my guest to talk about some of those options. I have been learning from him for years through his seminars and books and find that he just has a wealth of knowledge and experience related to integrative and innovative treatment approaches for these issues. So let me tell you a little bit more about him. Dr. Greenblatt is an integrative psychiatrist with over 25 years of experience treating patients with mood disorders and complex eating disorders. An acknowledged integrative medicine expert, Dr. Greenblatt has published several books discussing the scientific evidence supporting the use of nutritional interventions in psychiatry.

Expertise in the areas of biology, genetics, psychology, and nutrition as they interact in the treatment of mental illness has lead to numerous interviews by the media on television as well as in written articles for consumer audiences and he does have lots of different things available online, we'll make sure you know where to find his resources. Dr. Greenblatt currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer at Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, Massachusetts, a treatment facility specializing in the treatment of eating and psychiatric disorders. Dr. Greenblatt also serves as an Assistant Clinical Professor at Tufts Medical School Department of Psychiatry and Dartmouth College Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Greenblatt - so thrilled to have you here, welcome to the show.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Great, it's good to be here. Thank you very much.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So I want to dive into this whole realm of mood disorders and exposing our listeners to potentially some treatment options or ideas that they haven't learned before, but I'm curious just for you to be able to take a moment to share with our listeners how it is that you came to be working in this field of more integrative psychiatry - I mean you were trained as a traditional psychiatrist, right? How did you get into looking at these kinds of integrative options for treatment?

Dr. Greenblatt:

Well, I actually went to medical school hoping to cure all of the mankind's ills with brown rice and kale, so I went in a little idealistic thinking that was how we could change medicine and I came out 9 years later as a child psychopharmacologist and going out in practice, it was quite clear that the traditional model for psychiatrists was medications and that model, very quickly, you find out is both limited - kids don't always get better, some kids are getting worse and I kind of went back to my roots and why I went into medicine and started, almost 30 years now, looking at this integrative approach to mental health care.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think that so many of us in the field had a similar experience, I mean I did as well of being trained in a very traditional model of psychology for kids and adults and then getting into the real world of practice and realizing - oh wait, there are other things that are needed here. People aren't necessarily always getting better with these more traditional approaches. So let's talk about mood disorders in kids and teens specifically. How are these diagnosed? What are the common kinds of symptoms that are happening for these kids?

Dr. Greenblatt:

Sure, the problem with all of psychiatry, and I think more tragic with our kids is that all of the diagnoses are based on symptoms, a list of symptoms. So a child might be sad, not sleeping, irritable, have thoughts of wanting to die. Some parents will just ignore it and that's a growing concern now. Parents who are shamed and saying they're just doing this for attention. Other parents that take their kids to providers are given a diagnosis of, let's say, depression based on that list of symptoms. Whereas nobody is looking at what might be contributing. Whether it's bullying or trauma or in my world a nutritional and metabolic problem. There's no concept in traditional psychiatry about what, if anything, might be contributing to those symptoms.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

It's that need to really look at root-cause issues, right? We can have 10 people who exhibit similar types of symptoms but there may be different underlying reasons why those symptoms are happening.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Absolutely. And our system doesn't allow for that individually. So if you're sad and depressed, you take a sad or depressed "anti-sad" pill, you take an antidepressant. If you're anxious, you take an anti-anxiety medication. If you're a therapist, you'll put them in a box of this therapy or that therapy. So really, there's no model for looking at the individual.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And it seems that we have continued to expand the number of labels or names that we give to these types of things, and especially, you know with kids that the new label that we have, the Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder, which really to me - it's well, we see these irritable kids in practice who are struggling with managing their emotions and their behavior and that's become a new sort of box to put them in, but again - it's not entirely helpful because it really doesn't tell us anything about why they're experiencing this chronic irritability or these chronic issues with not being able to regulate themselves well.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Yeah, I think that diagnosis, in particular, is concerning because a group of professionals as we just added it to the new list in the DSM, didn't want to call or label theses kids bipolar, which many kids were labeled 10 years ago. And that particular diagnosis, that DMDD (Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder), I believe is a physiological reflection of something going on and our job is to find out what because most of these kids are not irritable and angry for no reason.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Right, and I think that's a great point that when kids especially are acting out in these ways, that's a red flag that there's something going on beneath that that we need to figure out and I think especially for kids, they are even more sensitive to some of these nutritional issues. Things like sleep disruptions, things that maybe adults can manage a bit better in kids, I find especially with things like sleep and diet and those types of things - even small issues with that can have a snowball effect over time and create really significant symptoms.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Absolutely.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So you take more of this root-cause. Let's dig into what's going on that's causing or perpetuating or contributing to these symptoms. What are some of the common things that you see that are underlying causes or reasons why children and teens are exhibiting these types of mood issues?

Dr. Greenblatt:

Well, the complicated part for many clinicians is that the list is long. And sometimes it takes a lot of effort to kind of sort it out. But some of the major ones would be elevations in heavy metals. Everyone's kind of concerned about lead since the Flint, Michigan crisis. But we check for lead. One of the things we're seeing even more common is elevated copper, creating irritability and anger in kids and young adults. And in Massachusetts where I live, the school systems tested for lead after the Flint, Michigan crisis - they also tested for copper.

And over half of these elementary schools had elevated levels of copper and this is in the drinking water and copper contributes to this. So that's just one of many. Deficiencies in vitamin D can contribute, deficiencies in vitamin B12, gut problems - kids who are taking too many antibiotics can have some disruption in their gut that can cause some behavioral symptoms. So as you said earlier, 10 different kids with mood problems - which one has high copper? Which one has low vitamin D? You need to test to find out.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So testing is a really important component of this, then, to figure out what is underlying this. What kinds of testing do you commonly use or recommend?

Dr. Greenblatt:

It's a lot of testing. I think that the rest of medicine, if you go to your doctor with chest pain or some ailment - they're going to test to find out what it is. And that's our medical model. And I'm trying to bring that back to psychiatry. So we do a blood test, looking at levels of vitamin B12 and D, we do blood tests looking at levels of essential fats and amino acids. We can determine the gut bacteria by doing urine and sometimes stool tests, and with heavy metals, we can look at hair levels, a genetic test. So it's a comprehensive battery of tests but if we have a very aggressive, depressed child - we want to know what's going on, otherwise stuck in the mental health system, it's probably going to be polypharmacy, multiple meds that often have side effects.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Well, I think that's the challenge, it's many parents and children have been sort of what I call that hamster wheel of mental health treatment where it's been identified that there's challenges and then they just get sent from one person to the next and go round and round with adding more medications, trying different types of counseling approaches - it's not at all uncommon in my practice to see even younger children, you know - younger elementary-aged children coming in on cocktails of 3, 4, 5 different medications that have been added over time in an effort to address these behaviors where there is mood-related issues and parents are saying, "Help! My kid is still really symptomatic - I'm doing everything that we're being told to do and things just start really getting better and so I think there's a lot of parents listening who can really see what you're talking about with that and it's really helpful for them to hear that there are tests that exist they can start to look at and sort of peel back the layers of some of these root issues that might be present.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Absolutely, and it doesn't mean that medications might not be necessary, but it does mean that if there is a metabolic problem, it might interfere with the medications and just educated guessing about which medicine and adding medicines on top of medicine barely results in remission of symptoms.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I want to ask because I know that there are parents who have experienced this as well, so I want to ask about lab testing, specifically for things like nutrients. You mentioned things like B12, Vitamin D - those types of things. What about situations where parents have some of that testing done through the primary care, maybe even through their psychiatrist or specialist and the results come back and the physician or the prescriber says everything's within normal limits, none of this to be worried about. Can you speak to that?

Dr. Greenblatt:

Sure, I think there are some lab values where the normal lab reports kind of make sense. There are others that over the years, integrative physicians have found are not clinically relevant. B12 being the most dramatic. So a vitamin B12 range that you would get back from your doctor is very broad, from like 200 to 1100 and we see very significant clinical symptoms in some of those ranges that a primary care doc might say are normal. So I think it's important to find clinicians that do have a knowledge of integrative medicine and can understand interpreting some of these lab tests.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, I think that's really important too. So when we look at some of the nutritional pieces of this, I know that there are many specific nutrients that you talk about that can be helpful for children, teens, young adults with these types of mood issues. Let's dive into that - what types of specific nutrients should parents be aware of that may be contributing factors or that they maybe want to look at as part of a treatment protocol for their child?

Dr. Greenblatt:

Sure - again, the list is long in our depression book - we have something called the ZEEBRA Approach - there are 2 E's in ZEEBRA - So each letter stands for another intervention, but to summarize, I think the simplest ones that parents could do would be looking at vitamin D levels and vitamin B12. It might be normal, but they might be very low, contributing to a depression and would also contribute to poor response to medication. So those are critical. In terms of trace minerals, I think magnesium would be one nutrient that every parent should read about and understand. It's hard to test but it's usually deficient in kids, certainly if there are irritability and anger issues as well. And zinc is another nutrient for lots of reasons, environmental toxins, dietary intake, particularly with vegetarians or vegans not getting adequate zinc. So B12, D, magnesium, zinc and then the trace mineral that's not talked about a lot is a nutrient called lithium. And this is often deficient in our kids with mood disorders, particularly those that are prone to anger and irritability.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I want to go a little bit deeper into that because I spend a lot of time on just furthering my own education about these kinds of things and you're really one of the only ones out there who is really talking about this lithium piece. When I heard you first discuss it many years ago at a conference, I was like - Hmm, that's really interesting and then read your book about that and have explored that further. Most people, when they hear, lithium think about the drug 'lithium' or maybe had that prescribed for themselves or their child. Could you talk about the difference between prescription lithium and what you're talking about with nutritional lithium and just why lithium is important to consider for these types of conditions?

Dr. Greenblatt:

Sure. Well, lithium is an element. It was around in the big bang 13 billion years ago and it settled in the Earth, so it's an element just like potassium and sodium and chloride and all the other elements in the periodic table. So it's a natural element that in the '40s, somebody found very high doses calmed guinea pigs down and then they started using it for bipolar illness. It was approved in this country as a medication many years after the rest of Europe but around 1970. So we've been using it as a medication and the numbers are really important - so as a medication, we might use 1500-1800 mg.

The prescription medicine, and like any medicine - has side effects. But as a medicine, it is very effective for the treatment of bipolar illness and so psychiatrists have to balance side effects with efficacy. My work is focused on sometimes prescribing the medicine, but also the nutrient that you can buy on Amazon, I mean it is a vitamin pill and so I prescribe it in these micro-doses. 500 micrograms. And these low doses have been shown to affect mood.

So I can go on for hours, but let me just give you one quick example of how dramatic these micro-doses are. So we have studies that were done around the world in countries like Greece, Italy, Japan, Lithuania - and in the United States. And the amount of lithium in the soil, tested by the water, so they pick up water, they test of lithium - it predicts a depression and most dramatically suicide-risk. So high lithium in the water, there's a low-suicide risk. So very small amounts of lithium have dramatic effects on the brain and over the past 20 years, researchers have tried to untangle some of those effects.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

What I know from sometimes when you speak about this, there are waters out there that have lithium out there added to them specifically because it just tends to make people feel better, right?

Dr. Greenblatt:

Well, for many years - 7UP, the 7UP drink was labeled as a - 7 is the atomic weight of lithium - or actually, 6.92 so they couldn't do that, so they rounded it up to 7 and UP - lift your mood. So up until 1950 was a lithiated soft drink. So there are companies that have found high lithium in streams and have bottled water - there's one company called happy water with small amounts of lithium.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I didn't know that about 7UP - that makes sense, that's great! So what specific form then - so people are thinking, you know cases, the medication lithium but then there is this nutritional lithium. What type of product are we talking about or what type of formula do you tend to find most helpful?

Dr. Greenblatt:

The prescription lithium is called lithium carbonate - the nutritional lithium is lithium citrate or lithium orotate. The orotate, the smallest pill you can get is like 2.5 or 5 mg. So for children, I typically start with liquid lithium citrate and they can titrate it up from 500 micrograms - a quarter of a dropper, up until 2 mg. I think one of the most important factors to consider besides the symptoms of irritability and anger is a family history. If you have a family history of substance abuse and/or depression or suicide, those are the kids that tend to respond better to nutritional lithium.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Very helpful to give people some guidelines in terms of thinking about whether this might be something to look at for their child. Can you give us an example of maybe a child or a teen that you treated in practice who responded really well to lithium?

Dr. Greenblatt:

Well, I mean over the years, it's almost 30 years now, I think I have hundreds, if not thousands. But again, a lithium kid is pretty typical - has usually a family history, substance abuse is most common. So alcoholism and other drug use - and it might not be the parent. It can be aunts/uncles/grandparents - sometimes a family history of depression, again can be a generation away and the kids are presenting, besides mood disorder, there might be sadness - but there is an irritability. An internal sense of restlessness. Sometimes rage or anger and these kids respond to these lower doses of lithium. We can test with a hair analysis - sometimes we can look at levels of lithium on the hair, there should be a level and these kids often have what is called 'undetectable lithium. So if you and I did a hair test, we would have lithium that could be detected. For some of these kids, they have undetectable lithium and that's one of the indicators of recommending the nutritional supplement.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So what type of timeline do you typically see for kids if they're having these kinds of symptoms - they start on lithium, what - just give us a range of the types of things that parents might see improve, you know more quickly and what the timeline is to expect for something like that.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Sure, I mean the good news about lithium supplements with that clinical picture: family history and symptoms of irritability and undetectable lithium in the hair - You might notice a difference in 2-4 weeks, certainly by 4 weeks as you get up to a couple of milligrams. But what's really worrisome, I'm sure you see a lot as well, is when you learn about a new supplement or a new treatment program you tend to just kind of focus on that and some of these kids might need that lithium but if they were bullied at school or other trauma or they were at vitamin D levels that were very low, or they had abnormal gut the lithium alone is not the answer. So we just have to be careful that we don't take that kind of pharmacological model - that it's one pill for one solution. You have to always look at the big picture.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I couldn't agree more and I think that it's that tendency we all have, right? Looking for that magic bullet, especially when it comes to our kids and the family that's really struggling, it's like what's that one thing that's going to make a difference? And I really appreciate what you're saying is that in a lot of cases, in most cases - there are a variety of things that need to happen and some of them may be in the more integrative medicine realm of things and some of them may be more in the realm of things with family dynamics or as you said, bullying, things going on at school, things like that. And we need to make sure that we're looking at all of those pieces.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Absolutely, yes.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So I think the lithium piece is really interesting for people to consider just because many people have not heard about that. What do you think are some of the most common things that are important to look at for kids who are on medication. Let's say we have a child with one of these mood or behavior disorders and they are on psychiatric medication and that seems to be helping somewhat, but it's not managing the entire symptom picture. What do you think are some important things for parents to consider with that?

Should we look at these nutrient levels then and see? Are there things that can help medication work even better? Some people think it's an all-or-nothing, you know I either need to do more of nutrient or a non-medication approach, or a medication approach - and those of us who are integrative say, well, there is room for all these pieces depending on the child, right? But can you talk a little bit about how medications sometimes are helpful in combination with other things?

Dr. Greenblatt:

Sure, I mean I think both as parents and as professionals - they are either in two camps, right? Medicines are evil or medicines are the answer. And our integrative approach, to me, is the only way to get successful outcomes. So if you do choose to use medications for your child, you still should follow through with some of these nutritional tests because 1 - we can minimize side effects. Side effects of stimulants can almost disappear completely with magnesium supplementation, that's very common. Side effects of the antidepressant can often disappear with nutritional interventions.

So side effects are one reason where nutrients could help. The other piece is there's lots of good research by traditional medicine on what's called augmentation strategies. So someone's on an antidepressant, they're not doing as well as they would hope. Some improvement, but you can add nutrients like folate, like zinc, like Omega 3's to the medication and there's enhanced efficacy. So there are lots of areas where nutrients can, and in my opinion and practice, should be used with medication.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome. From a food perspective, you know we're talking about nutrition and we've touched on several specific nutrients and supplements. I'm curious for you to just share in the big picture - what are some of the things that you think are important or helpful for families to understand around food and what they're feeding their kids and these types of mood and behavior issues.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Well, I think food is both the answer and the problem as we obsess about food and we create problems around eating and disordered eating in our culture. So I think that two big areas that I think are pretty clear as a scientist and as a physician would be limiting the refined sugar. If you restrict it 100%, I can't say how many kids or parents will just overeat when the parents aren't there, so it's kind of just understanding and educating our kids around sugar. And the other really important piece for me to share with parents is understanding a vegetarian or vegan diet. A lot of my time now is working with anorexia nervosa. It's a growing disorder, it is a life-threatening disorder. Kids are dying from this disorder and I believe, and we know for a fact that a vegan/vegetarian diet is part of that kind of pathway and it's not necessarily not eating meat, it's the restricting of certain nutrients. So I would caution any parent about a vegan diet because you need those nutrients. Vegetarian diets are fine as long as people are monitored, but a vegan diet does not have enough B12 or zinc for most adolescents and I believe is a risk factor for both mood disorders and eating disorders.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I'm really glad you raised that because it's something that I see often in practice too, particularly with teens and young adults where the child was maybe doing okay, or was actually doing well and then all of a sudden read something or heard something or decided - came home one day and said I'm going to be a vegetarian or I'm going to be a vegan and then 6 months later, 9 months later, 2 years later - whatever it might be, they're in my office with really significant debilitating mental health problems and there is that connection there for many people, so I think making parents aware of some of the risks of that and that if we are going to have kids do those types of diets, we need to be informed and we need to help them do that in a safe and healthy way that mitigates some of these risks that can come up.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Yes. It's really important. And to me, there is a big distinction clinically between vegan and vegetarian. So a vegetarian might be eating eggs and dairy and probably will be able to get adequate nutrients. A vegan getting through puberty, I believe, is a physiological challenge and a concern.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah. Great. We've touched on so many things, this has been so helpful, I could keep you here another several hours asking questions, but I know that we need to wrap it up here. I want to make sure that people know where they can find more information about you, about what you're doing, about the resources you have available.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Great, thank you - our webpage is my name: jamesgreenblattmd.com where I list some of the books and some of the projects that we're doing. A lot of my focus now is training physicians and clinicians and consumers and that is a new project, and that's called "Psychiatry Redefined". And so I think the webpage is psychiatryredefined.org where we have training courses for professionals.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And your courses are wonderful, I have taken several of them myself - highly recommend them for professionals. And if you are a parent who has a healthcare professional that you are working with around your child who you think would be interested in learning more about the kinds of things that we talked about today or furthering their own education, sending them to Dr. Greenblatt's websites and resources would be a great entry point for them to just get more information about that and be exposed to opportunities for further training. Can't recommend that enough - as well as the many books that he has available too. And your newest one, I think, is specific to ADD/ADHD, right?

Dr. Greenblatt:

Yes, we have a book - going through, very easy to understand for parents called 'Finally Focused'. A plus-minus plan for ADHD that should help many parents.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah. Great. Great practical resource. Many families at our clinic have found that helpful, so I recommend that as well. Dr. Greenblatt - thank you so much for being here today and for sharing your knowledge and expertise with us. We appreciate it.

Dr. Greenblatt:

Great - my pleasure. Appreciate it.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

That's it for this episode, we will see you next time on The Better Behavior Show.

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Integrative Treatment For Mood Disorders In Kids and Teens

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My guest this week is Dr. James Greenblatt, chief medical officer and vice president of medical services at Walden Behavioral Care where he provides medical management, leadership, and oversight of eating disorder and psychiatric programs in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia.

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Dietary Interventions For Tics and Tourette Syndrome

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Dietary Interventions For Tics and Tourette Syndrome

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Tics are a common symptom in children with a wide variety of neurodevelopmental disorders.
What are tics?
They consist of repetitive movements, twitches, and/or sounds, and can vary in frequency and intensity over time. Tourette Syndrome is the diagnosis given when multiple motor and vocal tics have been present for at least a year. Many children with Tourette Syndrome or tics have other neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, learning disabilities, and autism spectrum disorder. In this article, we will detail some dietary interventions for Tics and Tourette Syndrome.
What are some typical treatments for tic disorders?
Typical treatments include psychiatric medication and habit reversal therapy. While some children improve with these treatments, the majority of children continue to struggle with symptoms over time. The medications used for patients with tics, such as Risperdal and Abilify, can cause significant negative side effects including fatigue, depression, anxiety, weight gain, diabetes, and permanent movement disorders.
Could changing the diet help?
There is research on nutrition as treatment for many neurodevelopmental conditions, but few have looked at nutrition (or dietary intervention) as a treatment for tic disorders. The few case studies and papers that have been published show the potential for food and nutrients to positively impact symptoms, and point to the need for larger scale studies to look at these issues. Many parents and patients report improvements in tics and other symptoms with various dietary changes.

Parents are often interested in exploring non-medication options for their children that actually treat the root causes of the disorder without side effects. While we wait for more studies to be conducted in this area, here are several research-supported dietary strategies parents may want to consider for children with tics:
Reduce refined sugars:
Sugar has been shown to worsen many symptoms of neurodevelopmental disorders, as it causes blood sugar instability that can lead to mood swings, inattention, hyperactivity, and more. Research has shown that sugar intake increases dopamine in the brain, which then causes the brain to reduce dopamine production and receptor function. This is an important issue to consider for tic disorders, as they are associated with dysfunction in the dopamine system in the brain. Children who consume more refined sugars in their diets may experience increased tics.

A study looking at the impact of various foods and beverages on adults with tic disorders showed that increased sugar consumption worsened tics. Specifically, the adults in this study noted that drinking Coke and/or ingesting foods made with white sugar significantly worsened tic symptoms. Reducing or eliminating refined sugar intake is a safe and appropriate strategy that parents can implement to assess symptom response in children. This article goes into a bit more depth on the effects of sugar and brain health.
Avoid caffeine:
Caffeine is a stimulant commonly consumed in coffee, tea, and energy drinks. Stimulants, including stimulant medications such as Ritalin, have been found to increase tics in some people. A study of adult-reported responses to foods and drinks found that caffeine significantly worsened tic symptoms. Parents are advised to restrict caffeine intake in children as a general health recommendation. For children with tic disorders, it is wise to avoid caffeine given the negative impact it can have on symptoms.
Eliminate gluten:
Tics are associated with gluten consumption in some children and adults. Tourette Syndrome specifically, and tic symptoms more generally, can be caused or exacerbated by consumption of gluten even when celiac disease is not present. Celiac disease and wheat allergy are connected to many neuropsychiatric conditions and symptoms. However, it is now recognized that non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) is a more common problem. NCGS is the term used to describe the presence of symptoms caused or exacerbated by gluten exposure in people who do not have celiac disease or an allergy to wheat. It is estimated that 5-10% of the population develop gut and neurological symptoms related to gluten without testing positive for celiac disease. Symptoms of NCGS are very similar to celiac and can include abdominal pain, irritable bowel symptoms, bloating, rashes, headaches, and many other neurological issues.

While there are no large-scale studies of gluten-free diets in children or adults with tic disorders, published case study results show that a gluten-free diet can reduce or eliminate symptoms in some children with tics. Based on reports from parents, and published case studies, a gluten-free diet trial makes sense in cases where other approaches have not improved symptoms.
Increase Omega-3 Fatty Acids:
There are many studies showing the benefits of increased Omega-3 fatty acid intake in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. The one study that has been done to date on children with Tourette's Disorder showed an improvement in tic-related symptoms, although not all children experienced a reduction in tics. Given the research evidence that Omega-3 fatty acids support brain health and function in children with a wide range of neurological symptoms, increasing Omega-3 consumption is a logical nutritional approach that parents can try. Dietary sources of Omega-3 fatty acids include foods such as salmon, tuna, sardines, flax seeds, walnuts, and grass-fed beef. Here's a more in-depth article on foods that are high in Omega-3's. Omega-3 supplements with DHA and EPA allow for the higher dosing that many children require for symptom reduction.

Tics can negatively impact a child's ability to function in all areas of life. Since medications and specific counseling approaches generally do not fully resolve symptoms (and may cause significant negative side effects), parents are wise to consider alternative options that are safe and potentially effective. Dietary strategies hold significant promise for addressing not only tics but the other symptoms these children often exhibit.

Have you used any dietary interventions to treat your child's tics? What have you found helpful or unhelpful? Please share your experiences in the comments below so other families can benefit.

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Dietary Interventions For Tics and Tourette Syndrome | Nicole Beurkens

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What are tics? They consist of repetitive movements, twitches, and/or sounds, and can vary in frequency and intensity over time. Tourette Syndrome is the diagnosis given when multiple motor and vocal tics have been present for at least a year.

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Valerian Improves Sleep – in Children with ADHD, Cognitive Impairment and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders

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Valerian Improves Sleep – in Children with ADHD, Cognitive Impairment and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders

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One of the most documented challenges for children with ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disorders is falling and staying asleep at night.

If you are a parent of a child with one of these conditions, chances are this is no surprise to you! You've likely spent years trying to figure out how to get your child to fall asleep at night, stay asleep through the night, and wake up feeling rested in the morning. Valerian can improve sleep in children with ADHD, Cognitive Impairment, and Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Sleep is critical for proper brain function, and children who don't sleep well at night are at risk of problems with attention, hyperactivity, irritability, anxiety, and behavioral regulation during the day. One of the most important things we can do for children with ADHD and related disorders is to make sure they are sleeping well. While this may not resolve all of their challenges, it definitely makes symptoms less intense and easier to manage.
What is Valerian?
Valerian is an herb known for promoting relaxation and sleepiness in children and adults. It also has some anticonvulsant properties, which may be helpful for children prone to seizure activity during sleep. There are no significant side effects associated with valerian, even at higher doses. Valerian can be ingested as a tea, a liquid tincture, or in tablet form. It can be used alone or in combination with other nutrients or herbs, and many sleep supplements incorporate valerian into the formula to support relaxation and sleep.
This study shows valerian improves sleep ...
A study published in the journal Phytomedicine found that valerian used at least one hour before bedtime led to better sleep initiation and maintenance for children with ADHD, cognitive impairments, and/or other neurodevelopmental issues. They used tablets containing only crushed valerian root, at doses of 20mg per kilogram of body weight. All of the children in the study had documented long-standing difficulties with falling asleep and/or staying asleep at night. Parents rated their children's sleep issues as severe and reported that the issues with sleep were causing significant difficulties.

During the study, parents completed a series of questions, rating scales and documented sleep patterns based on frequent sleep checks.
The study measured these outcomes:

The amount of time it took for kids to fall asleep

The amount of time spent awake during the night

The quality of sleep

The researchers designed the study with a baseline period, a period of active treatment with valerian, and a period of placebo treatment. This allowed them to better determine which children were actually benefitting from the valerian, and the effects it was having compared to their baseline or taking a placebo pill.
Results ...
Results showed that valerian led to significant improvements in the length of time it took to fall asleep, reduced the amount of time that kids were awake at night, and improved sleep quality compared to baseline measurements. The improvements were most notable in children who exhibited symptoms of hyperactivity. No significant side effects were noted over the course of the study. The benefits of Valerian were most noticeable after the first week of treatment. Sleep continued to improve through the second week. This study supports the use of valerian as a treatment for sleep issues in children with these types of challenges.

If you found this blog post helpful, you may also like another post I've written about valerian root and lemon balm improving attention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity symptoms in children.
Are you thinking of trying Valerian?
If you would like to try valerian with your child there are a few things to keep in mind. The first is that valerian has a very strong smell, which can be off-putting for many people. You will want to look for tablets or liquids that mask the smell. If your child is not able to swallow pills you can put the liquid or tablets in food, or take tablets with a beverage that helps mask the smell. For children who can swallow tablets or capsules, there are many brands available that do not have a strong odor. The dosing used in this study was 20mg of valerian for every 50kg of body weight. This is a good starting point for determining dose, although you may need to increase or decrease depending on your child's response. It is important to remember that it may take some time to see results. Give it at least two weeks, knowing that sleep may continue to improve over time as you use valerian.
Works best when combined with ...
I have found in my clinical practice that valerian can be a helpful support for improving sleep issues in children with ADHD and other neurodevelopmental issues. Like any supplement, it will work best when used in combination with strategies like improving bedtime routines, reducing overstimulation in the evenings, and other sleep hygiene approaches.

Have you tried valerian for sleep? Share your experience with us below!

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Valerian Improves Sleep - in Children with ADHD, Cognitive Impairment and Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders | Nicole Beurkens

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One of the most documented challenges for children with ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disorders is falling and staying asleep at night. Valerian can improve sleep in children with ADHD, Cognitive Impairment, and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Valerian Improves Sleep - in Children with ADHD

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(Video) How To Get Kids to Drink More Water Instead of Sugary Drinks

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(Video) How To Get Kids to Drink More Water Instead of Sugary Drinks

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Those colored sports drinks are no joke!

If you're a parent you have probably struggled with how to get your kid(s) to drink more water. Check out the video below for some creative options involving real fruit, sparkling water, juice, and more!

The risks involved with overconsumption of sugary drinks are many: poor oral health, weight gain, sugar spike followed by a sugar crash, impaired brain function, exacerbated behavioral problems, the list goes on. I hope you'll pick up some good tips from this short video on how to get kids to drink more water instead of sugary drinks.

If you found this information helpful, here's a recent article on the connection between artificial food coloring and behavior issues.

Here is an interesting study about the effect of food dyes on children.

Subscribe to my Youtube channel and follow me on Instagram to learn more tips for achieving better behavior naturally.

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(Video) How To Get Kids to Drink More Water Instead of Sugary Drinks

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If you're a parent you have probably struggled with how to get your kid(s) to drink more water. The risks involved with allowing children to drink only sugary drinks are many: poor oral health, weight gain, sugar spike followed by a sugar crash, impaired brain function, exacerbated behavioral problems, etc.