The Nerve: How your nervous system works and why that matters

Kristie: When our oldest son turned seven, um, he just started to really struggle and we started struggling right along with him. 

Kendra: Kristie and her husband have two adopted sons. 

Kristie: Anytime we would be disciplining a kid and especially our oldest, it would turn into just a massive blowout, you know, with screaming and kicking and, um, throwing things, just like lots of physical aggression.

Kendra: As so many of us do, she was using rewards and punishments as a way to try to get her kids to behave.

Kristie: Our close friends that we would look to whose kids were older and be asking them for parenting advice, it just seemed like the advice that they were giving us was working wonderfully in their family and, um, was just causing massive meltdowns and just seemed like so much pain in our kids.

Kendra: So she thought maybe she wasn’t trying hard enough.

Kristie: You know, like part of that, I guess, style of parenting too, is, you know, that if it’s not working, you’re just not being consistent enough. And I actually felt like I was being very consistent, but I was like, “well, I guess I need to use more punishments if this isn’t working.” It was terrible just feeling like we had no alternatives, really. Didn’t know what else to do. Everywhere we turned, people were telling us the same, “You just need to be more consistent.”

Kendra: In Kristie’s house it was a recipe for chaos. 

Kristie: And we were beyond worn out. I mean, really just to the point where we, felt like we couldn’t take it anymore.

Kendra: This is A Little Easier. I’m Kendra Wilde. I said this podcast would focus on us, the parents. There are plenty of places out there where you can get great advice about your kids, advice about parenting, but that’s not what this is about. We’re gonna delve into the science of the brain, your brain and your child’s brain, so that we can get a better understanding of why they sometimes act in incredibly frustrating ways.

Dr. Mona Delahooke: As cultures around the world we are fairly obsessed with behaviors. 

Kendra: Mona Delahooke says, we’re seeing those behaviors all wrong. 

Dr. Mona Delahooke: The behavior for a teacher or a parent or a pediatrician is the signal to like, okay, let’s do something about this behavior. Is it a bad behavior or is it a good behavior? And if it’s not a good behavior, then uh-oh, we better, uh, teach the child really quick or do reinforcement or consequences so that the child gets in line and that we can help raise them up “correctly.”

Kendra: Mona is an internationally known pediatric psychologist with more than 30 years of experience caring for children and their families. She’s also the award-winning author of Beyond Behaviors and Brain-Body Parenting. She knows how desperately we wish we could control our children’s challenging behaviors.

Dr. Mona Delahooke: I felt that way. Let me just say, when my children misbehaved, before I had my retraining, I was very active, very authoritative, and loving and let them know what was right and what was wrong. But, what I found out is that behaviors truly are just the tip of the iceberg. So if you think about an iceberg, what you see is that very small tip. The underlying causes, the triggers, the fuel for behaviors are invisible.

Kendra: So the behaviors are what we see and naturally what we focus on. But Mona says we’re missing all of that stuff under the water. 

Dr. Mona Delahooke: When we analyzed behavioral challenges for struggling children in my practice, we found that when we properly understood the individual differences, which is what a fancy way of saying under the tip of the iceberg, every human being has their own individual differences. There are millions of them. Once we compassionately understood those and then used relationships of acceptance, nurturance and love embedded with this lens on individual differences, everything changed. The challenging behaviors started to fall away on their own. There was no longer a need for reinforcement schedules for timeout rooms, for sticker charts. There was no longer a need because the root cause was addressed. 

Kendra: So no more timeouts or sticker charts? How about no more restraint and seclusion? Doesn’t that sound amazing? Mona says making this shift is transformational – for kids and adults – and the science behind it is what this episode is all about.

Dr. Mona Delahooke: This nervous system that we have has three main pathways and combinations of the pathways. If you learn how to read what pathway the child is on, or the teenager is on, or even ourselves, you can know if you are functioning from an ability to control your emotions or your behaviors, or if you’re at the mercy of your fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system or of your very slowed down and immobilized nervous system, your dorsal vagal system. 

Kendra: This is Polyvagal Theory, a brain-body framework with safety at its foundation. 

Dr. Mona Delahooke: So the green is the calm and connected learning, awake, aware, feeling safe. The red is the fight or flight. And then the blue is the shutdown, the immobilization of the dorsal vagal. So this neuroceptive system protects us and it moves us from feeling calm in the green, to what we need to do to survive, moving to the red, which is the fight or flight system. It’s like this computer program in the back of your, of your, uh, mind and body that can make you jump out of the way of a car that’s coming too close to you on the sidewalk. It’s an amazing system. And you’re not thinking. Your behaviors are not intentional. They are automatic and instinctual. So many of our children who get put into timeout rooms, so are publicly shamed, teachers are trained that, um, you have to focus on the behavior and give a child an immediate feedback when they’re in the fight or flight. But it’s, the opposite is true. To understand this is an individual in distress, not an individual who needs discipline. So understanding the nervous system allows us a new roadmap to figure out how we help children based on their body and brain connection. 

Kendra Wilde: So let’s talk about, um, the way that we can respond to different behaviors. Like how, how does this look in action when you’re trying to judge, is this behavior deliberate or is this driven by the nervous system response? And how can we respond in a productive way? 

Dr. Mona Delahooke: Yeah. So what we wanna do is we wanna ask is the behavior top-down or bottom-up? Top-down behaviors are behaviors that are intentional. They’re well thought out and they are done with the purpose of, you know, could be anything maybe, um, trying to test out cause and effect. Here’s an example, a five year-old, realizes that mommy’s on the phone and walks into the kitchen and takes a bunch of cookies and brings them up to his bedroom and has, you know, eats those cookies and doesn’t say anything. Right? And so that was a very good attempt at testing limits, being a little adventuresome, right. And then mommy can do whatever you wanna do when you find out that all the cookies were eaten and there’s no dessert. So that’s an example of, uh, a top-down behavior that would also be very developmentally expected, right? Because of course children are going to be little scientists and test out rules and limits.

Kendra: I think kids of all ages test out limits. So with top-down behavior, your thinking brain is in control, but what about bottom-up? 

Dr. Mona Delahooke: Let’s take that same child who, um, whose mom picks him up from school. And what she didn’t know was that there was some bullying that went on that day and they were making fun of him. And it was very stressful for him. In addition, he was incubating a cold. Sohhis body was starting to get sick and he had a bad day at school. Mom puts him in the car and his little brother, his three year-old little brother grabs something from him. And then he just kind of whacks him. He hits him and he starts to cry. That is a bottom-up of behavior. Because it wasn’t premeditated. The system moved from green to red when the little brother took something from him. So his threshold was so low. And so bottom-up behaviors are really those behaviors that happen fast. That seem to be, um, aggressive. And unfortunately they’re the ones that can involve hitting, kicking, saying bad words. You know, those, those ones that are difficult for parents and teachers. But they’re often bottom-up behaviors that require an adult to help calm the nervous system of the child. And you can do that while setting a nice loving boundary at the same time.

Kendra: So understanding the nervous system can help with interpreting behavior in all kids. And for kids who struggle, viewing their behaviors through this brain-body lens is even more important. 

Dr. Bruce Perry: An example might be a child with autism, who has a really hard time with sensory transition

Kendra Here’s childhood trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry.

Dr. Bruce Perry: Let’s say that the school decides to take him on a field trip. They wanna include him, you know, they wanna be nice. 

Kendra: It just seems mean to leave a kid out of a fun field trip that everyone else gets to go on. Right? 

Dr. Bruce Perry: It’s well-intended. But the truth is they’re traumatizing that kid. Inclusiveness is great. It’s a wonderful thing. Why exclude poor Billy? Poor Billy wants to go to the zoo. They put him on a bus. He doesn’t know what the hell’s going on. They tell him we’re going to the zoo. And, but because his cortex is shut down ‘cause he’s so anxious, he doesn’t even process that. He doesn’t know what the hell’s going on. And for four hours that whole afternoon, he’s in a state of terror. The entire experience, his stress response is gonna be going crazy. And he’s gonna be handling it by rocking and self-stimming and doing all kinds of stuff. Because that’s like completely overwhelming. He wants, his day has been established. It’s predictable. I know at this time I do this, at this time I do this. And if you get outta that routine, he gets upset. That’s a traumatic experience for that kid. Whereas everybody else is laughing and having fun, it’s a whole different experience.

Dr. Chris Willard: I will just say a little bit about self-regulation and something that happened this morning. This morning, I woke up early with my son and, um, the cabinets were open and he was climbing up to get a box of cereal. 

Kendra: It was a typical morning at Chris Willard’s house. He was up early with his son while his wife and daughter were still asleep. A little difference with the rest of us though, is that Chris is a Harvard-trained psychologist and psychotherapist. He specializes in mindfulness-based treatment of adolescents and young adults. So back to that morning in the kitchen with his son. 

Dr. Chris Willard: And he climbed onto the trash can like he always does cuz he’s small and he’s talking to me and he’s not looking and he bangs his head on the corner of the cabinet. Right. And you know, and it’s like the most painful thing, right, when you hit your head on the corner of the cabinet. And he’s just screaming. And I, he’s at you know, like my height cuz he’s on the trashcan, I just pick him up and give him a hug. And I’m just, “Shhh… Oh, it hurt so much. Oh, it hurt so much.” And I was actually thinking, cause I’m doing some other talks and doing some other writing about co-regulation – and you know, I’m also trying to pay attention to my son and soothe him. Right? – But part of my brain is also like “what’s actually happening here? Like what is calming him?”

Kendra: So because Chris’s son banged his head on the cabinet door, we get a masterclass in co-regulation.

Dr. Chris Willard: and I was realizing a few things were going on. One is right. I was, I was sharing with him my own experience. Right. So I was really validating. I was like, “oh yes, it hurts so much. That’s so painful.” 

Kendra: To figure out why this sort of validation works we need to know a little bit about the structure of the brain, specifically this part called the amygdala.

Dr. Chris Willard: The amygdala is like the brain’s alarm system. And one of the things that we know is when the amygdala is activated basically, the blood is flowing into there. Like the electricity is, you know, going into the smoke alarm in the house. And one of the things that that means is, when you put people into an MRI machine, is you can watch it flowing out of other parts of the brain. It’s not like a house where if it’s flowing into the smoke alarm, it’s also flowing into the, the light switches. We only have so much energy in our brain. So it’s flowing out of what’s called the prefrontal cortex, which is where we think things through, and manage our impulses, and think in complex ways. And it’s flowing out also of our insular cortex, which is where we take perspective and have empathy. 

Kendra: When Chris’s kid hits his head on the cabinet door, blood is flowing to his amygdala, setting off this rush of emotion and dysregulation and putting him into the fight-or-flight. That’s the red pathway that Mona described. Chris is comforting him by validating his experience. 

Dr. Chris Willard: One of the things that we know happens actually when someone’s experiencing emotion, is that when they’re able to name and label that emotion, again in an MRI machine, you can watch actually the blood flowing back out, flowing into those other parts of the brain when we name something. And as parents, what do we do all the time with our kids? We say, “use your words, use your word,s” right? When we actually ask kids to use their words, what you’re actually doing is saying, take that out of your amygdala and put it into your prefrontal cortex, because then you’re actually kind of pulling the blood out.

And what I realized that I was doing was that just as me validating and naming it for him, because he’s kind of too young to name much beyond that, right, cuz kids struggle with this. Right. I’m doing that for him and helping him do that. 

And then I was also noticing when I’m kind of saying, “sshhhh,” and kind of shushing and, you know, making these kind of empathic sounds – and I’ve been reading more recently about our breath and breath work and the way that our, our breath is like a remote control. So that when we’re, when we’re dysregulated, we all know when a child or we’re dysregulated, it’s like [breathing gasping] 

Kendra: Yeah hyperventilate 

Dr. Chris Willard: All over the place, right? When we’re calmer. Where we want our breath to be actually, to have our brain at its optimal state is about five breaths in a minute, which is not a lot.

So very slow and even. And I realized actually that the sounds that I was making, the hushing, that was actually imitating, modeling, co-regulating right my breath in a sort of exaggerated way that was calming down my own – like, oh my God, my son is like, you know, crying and screaming and also waking up his sister and his mother. Right. And, and it’s painful to watch this and to experience what he’s experiencing. But, that it was soothing me, but it was also kind of teaching him, showing him how to regulate his breath. Right. And, and soothe himself a little bit. And so all of these things were actually happening just in this kind of spontaneous moment of just my son is screaming. I pick him up, give him a hug and, and, and say a few words and make a few sounds and just being aware of all of this that’s happening and that’s an act of co-regulation, that’s hopefully natural to most of us. 

Kendra: Finding that space and having that meta-level awareness of what was happening in the moment, and knowing how to regulate himself gave Chris the ability to share his calm in the chaos. Knowledge about how our brain works doesn’t just help when we’re comforting our kids. It’s also helpful when we need to regulate our own emotions. And this is where Chris’s expertise in mindfulness comes into play. 

Dr. Chris Willard: When we practice mindfulness, we’re actually activating – or self-compassion – we start to activate that prefrontal cortex and you can actually watch the blood then flowing back out of the alarm system. It’s like it’s draining out of the smoke alarm and going back into turning the lights on in the house. Right. And that’s so empowering. So relieving. It’s flowing into the insular cortex where we take perspective and we have our empathy back. And so just practicing mindfulness in this way is really helpful. 

Kendra: The even better news is that we can improve with practice. 

Dr. Chris Willard: We have what’s called neuroplasticity, which is that your brain is like a muscle. You work out a muscle, you know, it’s activated, right. You know, it gets bigger. You work out parts of your brain with mindfulness, you activate that prefrontal cortex, that insular cortex. And then they also start to grow new connections. Our brains actually really can start to change over time and overcome that anxiety, that depression, that avoidance, that aggression, right? The fight-flight-freeze-‘f it’ response that we kind of fall into. And we can turn on the mindfulness and compassion response, or we might call this the “tend and befriend” response. 

Kendra: It’s so cool cuz we all, everyone seems to accept the idea that working out builds muscles and to think of it just as that, in your brain. And I love the house analogy. 

Dr. Chris Willard: Ha! Haven’t completed it yet. It’s a little bit of an incomplete analogy. Not an entirely built house, but it’s getting there. 

Kendra: I get it. Chris has given us a great picture of how being aware of brain science can help us understand little day to day interactions we have with our kids. Here’s another example. I was interviewing one of our parents, Michelle, when this happened: 

Michelle: That’s why I wanted to have a blog, so I like take pictures of all my crazy stuff. [child yelling, “mom”]

Kendra: That’s Michelle’s middle child, Curran, budding in on our zoom. 

Michelle’s child: Why did you not get my Apple pad? 

Michelle: You can go ask an adult for, for them. Okay. Curran, can you please go ask an adult? No, thank you. No, thank you. Please. Your, your grandma can get them for you. Thank you. [yells, No!!] Okay. So that’s actually part of the, my middle son, his rigidity, and he calls everyone stupid and that’s something that’s perfect. That’s a perfect example. It’s so frustrating though. Cuz it’s like he doesn’t care if he’s disciplined, he keeps doing it. He calls people stupid.

Kendra: Just being on the other end of the Zoom call, I could feel the stress and I was so impressed. Michelle’s kids are still young, but she’s already learned that just reacting to that offensive behavior won’t help. She’s able to have empathy for the way her son’s brain works and all the different things that might be behind his behavior. She could have poured fuel on the fire, but instead she sets a boundary and corrects him without overreacting. That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard for her. 

Michelle: I’m human. Just not that, that is also not a human thought, but like a lot of times my brain is just going to, “I hate this. I can’t stand you, what you’re doing right now.” Like it’s, it’s in that problem space. And again, it’s the training of like, here’s the antecedent. Why is he upset? He’s upset because he has to do X, Y, and Z. And that’s why he is, you know, mad. So again, it’s getting to the place where you understand that and you realize he needs sensory input, or he hasn’t been outside today, or he hasn’t gotten to do a preferred activity.

Kendra: This isn’t something that comes naturally as a parent. It’s something she’s had to work at. 

Michelle: It’s taken time to understand that. And to, you know, when you’re in the moment of being angry, it can be, it’s like a learned behavior, right? Because to, and to the outside person, they’re like, “your kid’s an asshole,” right? It’s really, “why? Your kid just come in and yelled at you about his elbow pads and called you stupid.” 

Kendra: Here’s the other thing about Michelle’s family, her eldest child, her daughter, is what you call neurotypical. 

Michelle: And like that would not fly if my daughter did that. Oh, I’d take like all of her Barbie’s away. I’d be like so pissed. But for Curran – and I think that’s the problem is that I have a neurodiverse child and a neurotypical child. And I don’t let her get away with that, but yet there has to be some level of understanding for why he does. And it’s, that is challenging.

Kendra: Seeing those differences that Michelle has learned to appreciate is really hard. 

Eileen Devine: Our society is so deeply entrenched in a behavioral lens, that it’s not the parents’ fault that that’s how they see their child’s challenging behaviors. 

Kendra: This is Eileen Devine. She’s a clinical social worker and neuro behavioral support coach for parents, but she’s also an adoptive mom to two kids with significant neuro-behavioral challenges. So she really ‘gets it’ from both sides. 

Eileen Devine: That’s how many of us were raised. That’s how our society works. That’s how our education system works for the most part. Rewards and consequences. I, the adult, I say it, so you shall do it. That kind of thing. And so I’ve worked with parents who for years have been exerting their power and control. However, that might look. Having a decreasing range of options, because they’ve tried everything and nothing’s working. And once they’re able to shift their lens to this brain-based lens, then they start to see like, “My child’s having a hard time. They’re not giving me a hard time every single day, like they’re in distress,” but that values piece and the values clashes that comes when you start to get away from the behavioral lens. That’s where so much of the heavy work is for parents, right? It’s not, it’s not easy work. 

Kendra: Eileen has a rigorous process that she goes through with the parents she works with. 

Eileen Devine: Do you understand the specific cognitive tasks your child struggles with? And the answer’s always no, cuz nobody teaches us that. So I do have a screening tool that I walk them through where we really get very, very clear on that. And then once they see that like, Oh, my child gets stuck in behavior loops. My child is cognitively inflexible. Like all of these, like executive functioning, learning memory, whatever it might be. They’re like, oh, that’s why we always have a meltdown. When I ask them to do A, B or C, it’s not about their defiance. It’s about, I had an expectation that they did not have the skills to meet, and I just didn’t. I just didn’t see it. 

Kendra: And then once you understand, it’s not about ignoring behavior or letting a child simply do whatever they want. 

Eileen Devine: And, and so this model doesn’t say, well, then what your kids don’t have to listen to you. No, it means that maybe there’s something going on with their brain-based difference, like slow processing speed or learning and memory where they can’t hold onto those instructions or they can’t, they literally can’t meet that expectation because they don’t have the skills to do that where we just need to go about it a different way.

Kendra: Once we understand the brain based lens for our kids, Eileen says it can be really helpful if we start to apply it to ourselves as well. That means paying attention to self-care.

Eileen Devine: We’re not talking about self-care in like the superficial sense. We’re really talking about nervous system health. And when they start to then be able to understand what your nervous system does for you and what it actually means to have a strong nervous system, then it starts to make more sense. And it actually seems more credible to them and worth the time and the investment. 

Kendra: I just love how she frames this about nervous system health, because a lot of us are allergic to the term “self-care,” but when you understand it from this angle, it makes such a difference. And one of the biggest reasons that it’s worth the time is because of how investing in your own nervous system health willhelp your child, 

Eileen Devine: Our children that have neuro behavioral conditions, I talk about them as having very fragile, nervous systems because of the way that their brain works.That’s a big part of our nervous system, their regulatory system, the ability to manage emotions, all of that kind of stuff is very, very fragile compared to most kids.

What that means is they’re going to be tapping into their parents’ nervous system health more frequently that co-regulation. They need more co-regulation from the adults than your typical child. That’s draining in order for a parent to be able to provide that in the amounts that their kids need. They have to have a stable, healthy, nervous system.

So things like having that quiet restorative time, right. And parents say, “Well, I don’t have any quiet.” I say, do you have two minutes where you could lay in your bedroom in the dark and listen to some soft music? Two minutes. Right, start there. That absolutely starts to heal that nervous system and build that strength.

Kendra: Remember Kristie, we started with her story. Her adopted son was really struggling. She ended up working with Eileen. 

Kristie: It’s really focusing on the connection, um, the parent child connection and that relationship and bond, um, as the way through all the difficulties. I guess that’s kind of how I see it’s like the parent and the child are together working against a problem, instead of the parent working against the child, which is how I felt like we were doing before, 

Kendra: When she stopped looking at bad behaviors, as something to punish and control and started looking at them as something to understand, she found some really simple fixes.

Kristie: I was amazed to find how a lot of times, um, just a snack and some water would really turn things around. And so all of a sudden this kid who was like, no, no, no, I can’t do it. I’m not, you know, I’m not coming. Like once he would eat and drink something, um, all of a sudden he’d be ready to work. And, and that really helped, I think, with making the mindset shift. Because I’m like, well, maybe the problem wasn’t that he’s just being disobedient. Maybe his body’s not at a place where he’s ready to learn. And if I can help him get to a place where he’s ready to learn, then that’s what needs to happen. Not more discipline.

Kendra:  maybe not everything was this straightforward. Kristie and her husband had to delve deep into what makes their kids tick. Eileen had given them detailed assessments to fill out. 

Kristie: So you can really look at like, how does my child function in the area of memory? How does he function in the area of, um, impulse control, you know, with executive function and to kind of break it down a little bit more systematically was just incredibly helpful. And so now I have this chart that I can look at and be like, oh, well, this makes complete sense about why he’s having a hard time. 

Kendra: And she says, like anything that lasts, it did not come overnight. 

Kristie: I think in the early days, I really wished that I could just fast-forward the whole process and that I really could just switch over, you know, after a few, like take this seminar and then you’ll now you’ll be a brain-based parent. Um, but man, it has been a long, a long journey and I still feel like we’re learning and growing. And so I guess, just to encourage people not to give up, if you’re trying to make this switch and you feel like maybe it’s not working right away. 

Kendra: I asked Kristie to look back at how far she’s come. And she says she can see a dramatic difference.

Kristie: Things were bad, really, really bad. Just a total like chaos from morning until night. Um, it, I mean, it really affects your heart and – Just the way that I felt towards my son. And I was really starting to find it very difficult to connect with him, um, in any way. And that was just the most heartbreaking thing of all. And I, I wanted to have a close and loving relationship with my kids so much. I mean, that’s the whole reason why we adopted kids in the first place is to create a loving family. And, um, so. There was just a lot of heartbreak in those early days. But I feel like once I started to recognize that his struggles were a result of his brain function, um, not willfulness on his part, it really just started to bring back my compassion towards him. And like, I felt like my love was growing again. Instead of, um, me wondering where it went.

Kendra: We’ve talked a lot this time about brain science and co-regulation. I love it. I hope that nerding out like this has given you some new perspective on how to understand your child, how to grow some more patience and compassion, not just for them, but for yourself.

Dr. Bruce Perry: I think one of the key things that’s really important to remember is that human beings are at our very core interactive, interdependent and relational creatures. 

Kendra: Next on A Little Easier, we’ll find out more about how our nervous systems and our emotions are connected together in our families. 

Dr. Bruce Perry: And so we – all of our apparatus and our sensory apparatus and the way our brains are organized, are honed in, on reading and responding to other people

Kendra: More from Dr. Bruce Perry coming up next episode. But first, here’s your micro action moment.

Dr. Jayne Singer: This is my true hope for parents is like, in those moments when it feels like, oh, I feel like I’m getting out of control as a parent. Why is that? Well, because my child child is out of control. Yes. Like what can you do to go take care of yourself in that moment? Right. Maybe it’s not a timeout for the child. It’s a timeout for you. 

This is Jayne Singer, a clinical psychologist and professor at Harvard Medical School. 

Dr. Jayne Singer: If we feel ourselves getting pulled into the vortex, right, that’s a good sign like to try to pull out and take care of yourself. If a young child sees a parent deep breathing, they are gonna learn from that. The parent doesn’t even have to say anything. If we are [breathing deeply, long exhale] repeatedly in front of the child, guaranteed, that child is gonna learn some deep breathing techniques, cuz they’re gonna learn more from what they see us do than anything that we say.

Kendra: I’m Kendra Wilde. And this has been a little easier. The show that was created to help you find more joy and resilience when parenting is extra challenging. Thank you so much for being. Make sure you’re subscribed to a little easier in your podcast app. So you don’t miss an episode. And while you’re there, please take a moment to rate and review the podcast, share it with family and friends.

We’re an independent show focused on elevating parents because you’re the most important force behind your child’s wellbeing. Visit alittleeasier.org for show notes and discussion questions. Plus resources on parental burnout and resilience building. 

A Little Easier is written by Harriet Jones and co-produced by Harriet and Ray Kantrowitz. Sound design and original music by Rae. This podcast is brought to you by Wild Peace for Parents and me, Kendra Wilde.