WEBVTT 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:17.000 Sorry, we have to be aware where they're coming from. So I actually wrote, it's been 8 weeks of late bedtimes, but this year, because of the way Memorial Day and Labor Day fall out, it's actually, like, more like 10 weeks of the late bedtimes, very loose meals 00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:37.000 Green time is like a mess. There hasn't been as many deadlines. And then you turn to your kid, and it's the night before school, and you're like, guess what? New process. This is what we're gonna do. You are gonna have lights out by 8 p.m, and you're gonna wake up at 6.45, and it's gonna be amazing, and you're gonna be all dressed, and it's gonna be perfect 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:52.000 You can't go from unstructured summer to structured overnight and call it a plan. It's just not gonna work, because it's a cliff. It's not a routine. We need to ramp things up, and then kind of, like, and 00:11:52.000 --> 00:12:12.000 and set out from there. So that that's one thing I'm going to keep coming back to. Like, as much as, you know, I don't know, I see adults do this all the time, like, I'm gonna start a new workout routine. I am going to, you know, change my eating overnight. And then you do it for a week, and if you do it for a week, great 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:28.000 But a lot of times it doesn't work out so well. So we can't take those same strategies that don't work for us and expect it to work for our kids. It's way too much of a, like, shock to their system. So one message I want to emphasize is that we need to teach 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:45.000 kids the skills they need before we expect them to use that skill. And one of those skills is like, let's figure out how to make this transition a slow ramp up, not like a drop off a cliff. So again, we'll go back to it. We're going to talk about how 00:12:45.000 --> 00:13:00.000 But just this is not going to be a one day plan. This is not like, okay, today things are a mess, tomorrow they're going to be all set in. Like, it's going to be a little bit rough and buggy at the beginning, because all transitions are. Don't expect it not to be bumpy 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:16.000 So this year specifically, I'm going to mention this because if you look at the calendar, which I'm sure everybody has because we're next week somehow, you have to pay attention to the fact that our ramp is even 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:32.000 nuttier than usual. The kids do not get a regular week until 5 weeks from now, so that's a big deal. Especially if you have younger kids. What we're doing is there's a lot of stop, start, stop, start, stop, start, stop, start 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:35.000 Every time you have a stop start, the kids 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:45.000 lose where they're at. They don't necessarily know what to expect. So we're going to have to find a way to create that 00:13:45.000 --> 00:14:02.000 On-ramp and that transition to school with a month of ridiculous lack of transitions, for lack of a better way to say it. So things you should expect from little kids, regression. So, like, things that kids that are fine the first week 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:17.000 falling apart the second week. That might happen. Things that you might expect from an older kid is you have to realize that older kids, like the high school age, they don't have weekends. So that's going to be really rough for them, because they don't have any catch-up time. There's no Sundays 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:38.000 There's no day to sleep late. So that's going to do a number on there, September and their ability to transition to. So it's just something we have to keep in mind. We might think, oh, it's only a few days off. I don't know really any adults who would say that, because you know how disruptive it is to not have weekends in this month, and, like, to have to go from 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:58.000 Cooking to shopping to cooking again and then in between trying to do your job. It's rough. So don't expect it is not rough on your kids too. The ways that I like to think of managing that is figure out what your anchors are. So I know I already said we're not going to build like a super solid structure in a day 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:14.000 But one way to do that is think about like what anchors my kids stay? Is it what time they wake up? Is it what time they go to bed? Is it their goodbye routine? And try to keep that as consistent as you can throughout the break times, even though, like I said, I know it's hard 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:30.000 But, and then the other thing I like to do is, every time there's a break, pretend it's the first day of school again. So anything you would tell your kid before the first day of school, tell them again. I'm gonna go through this in a little more detail later, but 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:47.000 I think of this as who the answer the questions of who, what, where and when every time. So like, give them the information. This is when the bus is coming. This is who's going to be on the bus. And ideally. 00:15:47.000 --> 00:16:03.000 Like you need a restart day. That's not always going to be possible, but don't expect them to succeed the first day back. So I hold that expectation in my head to know, like, if my kid succeeds on the first day back, great. If they don't, that's also okay, because it's a restart day 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:11.000 They were too tired. They were, I don't know, used to eating all the candy on that day, and now they have to go back to 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:17.000 So, you know, eating regular meals, they're not used to it. So building a day in your brain to know this is a transition day 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:34.000 We're going to go back to specific skills. But to back up for a minute, I like to talk to parents about expectations for your kids like I've been talking about with transitions, but also expectations in terms of what can I expect from my kid 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:49.000 In general, as a human in terms of their development. I've noticed that many parents are not kid people, which is fair. You know, if you have the job that you're working with adults all day, you might not be so familiar 00:16:49.000 --> 00:17:01.000 with child development. And if you're not familiar with child development, it makes it hard to know what is fair to say, hey, my 4-year-old should be doing X, or I want 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:16.000 Someone in my office was saying the other day that they, like, all they wanted from their, like, very young child was to pack up their backpack from the night before and recognize when something is missing. One thing I said was like, that's not a developmentally appropriate skill 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:33.000 You cannot like regular 5-year-olds cannot be expected to do that without a lot of help. But if you don't know that you don't know that. So in my office, I often hear 2 different stories. One is like, yeah, we saw it early, but we figured my kid will grow out of it, because but now, like. 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:51.000 Like, it's 5 years later and they still don't have this skill. So we want to be aware of things that like are concerning to us to say, wait, does my kid, let's say, have too much anxiety? Should they be able to separate from me in an easier way? So that's one thing we want to keep in mind, but on the other end 00:17:51.000 --> 00:18:04.000 I also find that some parents are minimizing parents. They're like, when I was my kid's age, I had to do all this and I was able to do it so much easier than that. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:22.000 So that's a tricky one, too. So we don't want to expect too much from our kids, but we also don't want to expect too little. And I think both those expectations come from the same place. It's not knowing what's normal and what's not. So actually, in my book, Parenting Anxious Kids, it's not a plug for my book, but one thing I noticed when I was researching my book 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:39.000 is that it's really hard to find those developmental checklists like the pediatrician gives you about, like, how old your kid should be when they roll over, or when they take their first steps. And with that would be super helpful for emotions and social-emotional stuff, too 00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:55.000 So, I put that actually in every chapter of my book to say, this is what you can expect emotionally from your child. But the other thing you can do is Google it and say, like, what is normal for separation for a 5-year-old or a 7-year-old 00:18:55.000 --> 00:19:18.000 And you can get the information that way. I guess Google is probably old. I should probably start start updating to say, just ask ChatGPT or something. That would be the more modern way to say it. But things or ask people, your pediatrician is probably a good resource for knowing, like, is this normal? Is this not? But the reason why I bring this up is because it is normal to be anxious on the first day of school 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:28.000 That means you have a healthy child. If your kid is still anxious on the 100th day of school, that is a big concern. So there are some red flags that 00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:42.000 Pediatrician, a psychologist, a therapist will know. Again, doctor, Google, Dr. Chat will also know. There are some things you, and you should know when you're looking at something that could be a problem or could be not. 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:46.000 So something to pay attention to. 00:19:46.000 --> 00:20:02.000 Zooming back… back into the micro idea of transitions, you should also note that it is normal to feel all feelings during transition, not just anxiety. It's normal to be sad that the summer is over. I am sad that the summer is over. I am 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:08.000 you know, holding on to every blessed day that the sun is up. 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:27.000 You can be angry that your schedule has changed. You can worry about who you're gonna sit with. You can be embarrassed about having to take a certain class that's not with your friends. You could be excite… excited, which could be good, but for some kids, they get so excited that they almost, like, can't contain it, and it gets into anxiety. I've seen that too. 00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:43.000 But I think what I'm saying does pertain to a three-year-old knowing what's developmentally appropriate. I just see a question in the chat. But the thing to know about feelings is feelings give us a wealth of information. They don't necessarily 00:20:43.000 --> 00:21:01.000 make our decisions for us, or we don't necessarily want them as decision makers. So, let's say I'm anxious about a first day of school that's giving me information. It's giving me information that I don't know who's going to be in my class. I don't know who my teacher is. And that's allowed to make me a little bit nervous 00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:16.000 If I then say, you know what, I'm feeling nervous about that, I just won't go to school tomorrow or I'll push back, then that becomes a problem. So the problem is not with the feeling. The feeling is giving me information. The problem with is with the decision 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:27.000 And when I'm talking to adults, what I'll say is, adults make these decisions for themselves. If I choose to not go to work because I'm feeling anxious, that's on me and my boss, and me possibly losing my job 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:44.000 For kids, they don't necessarily get to make those decisions that hurt them without their parents being accidentally complicit. So, your role is to help your kids make smarter decisions when they're feeling their feelings, which is a rough balance 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:54.000 to strike, and we'll talk about that in a few slides, I promise, how to do that. The other thing you should know, feelings don't always come up as feelings. It's nice if 00:21:54.000 --> 00:22:12.000 7-year-old walks up to you and says, I feel sad that the summer is over. That is a really, really, really hard skill. Many adults can't do that skill. Right, that's why I have a job. It's good, I guess, for me that people haven't learned how to name and describe all their feelings yet 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:19.000 But God willing, I should have no more job, and that would be great. So 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:29.000 What happens with kids is often it's coming out in different ways. So let's talk a little bit how feelings work and how they do come up. Like, it's not going to just walk over and name it 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:45.000 One thing I talk about in almost every lecture I do is the way feelings work. So, I think of this triangle, as, this is the emotions triangle. So, every emotion that you can name, I'm gonna use anxiety because it's my easy one 00:22:45.000 --> 00:23:03.000 And anxiety is my favorite thing to talk about. But it has three different parts. It has thoughts, it has a physical reaction, and it has behaviors. So when we say feelings, if we say I'm feeling anxious, there's going to be some thought typically for anxiety, that's a thought about danger. Maybe 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:14.000 You know, there's a bear at my door, or maybe I'm not going to have any friends in my class, which is a social danger, right? Because then who am I going to hang out with? They both feel dangerous 00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:36.000 And what that is going to lead to is a physical reaction. The physical reaction is always the same. It's fight or flight in some version. So your fight or flight reaction is going to mean your breathing is going to speed up, your heartbeat is going to… your heart's gonna beat faster, you're gonna… you might feel dizzy, you might feel nauseous. One of my kids throws up when she's anxious, which is super annoying because 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:57.000 Then she goes to the nurse in school, and the nurse is like, she's sick, pick her up. And I'm like, I can't pick her up if I pick her up, I'm gonna teach her that she can… that it's okay for her to keep doing this, and she's never going to go to school. So I felt like the worst parent ever one year when I sent my kid to school knowing she was going to throw up, but she did that for two days, and then she stopped throwing up because it was okay to be in school. So that's 00:23:57.000 --> 00:24:12.000 Hopefully, you don't have a vomitor when they're anxious, but it's normal to vomit when you are anxious. So, like, that's tricky, because then nurses want to send kids home. But so you have thoughts, you have the physical reaction, and then you have the behavior I already mentioned 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:29.000 that feelings lead to behavior. So with anxiety, if I'm in a… if I'm having a thought that a situation's dangerous, my body is reacting as if something's dangerous by speeding up my breathing, speeding up my heart rate, making me feel tense. What I'm going to want to do is avoid that situation or get out of it. 00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:46.000 I'm going to want to run, which makes sense if there's danger. It doesn't make sense if like I don't necessarily have friends in my class, right? If I'm supposed to give a speech in school and then I run out of the room, it doesn't help anybody. That definitely doesn't help me because then I have to go back in front of 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:51.000 all my teenage classmates and do the speech again, knowing that I was the person who ran out of the room 00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:53.000 So 00:24:53.000 --> 00:25:09.000 This triangle can also start. It doesn't always have to start at a thought. If my heart beats fast, it can give me a thought like, oh, maybe something's wrong, which will again trigger the escape or avoid. Sometimes even you run away first before you feel anything, and then you're like, oh, thank God, I'm safe 00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:25.000 Look, it's okay. So it means the important part to highlight here is often when you're seeing a physical reaction to an emotion, you're seeing the emotion, but it's coming out in a physical way. It is normal to experience emotions physically 00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:28.000 That's why if you turn to your kid and you say, don't be anxious, they 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:38.000 Just say, okay, no problem, I'm not anxious anymore. Why don't you just say so? Because there's a body reaction that goes along with it, that I can't just say, let's turn this off 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:47.000 So, and again, there's always some kind of trigger. The trigger is easiest to detect when it's something like in the world, like the first day of school that's on the calendar 00:25:47.000 --> 00:26:03.000 It's harder when it's a memory or a thought to figure out what they did. But you can have a trigger, then you're gonna have some kind of thought. What if I don't have anyone to sit with that one lunch? By the way, parents love to talk about thoughts with their kids. Thoughts are the hardest part to access from this triangle 00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:19.000 So just heads up, I have a hard time getting, again, adults to access their thoughts in my office. If you don't have any luck having your kid tell you what's making them anxious, they might not know. It's a developmental skill to be able to think about your thinking 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:30.000 So it's hard and it doesn't come out until like 10 ish. So if you're trying to ask your seven-year-old what they're thinking about, you're really… it's really hard for them. 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:48.000 So then we're gonna put the physical feelings, those are normally the ones that you can tell as a parent. You're watching your kid, let's say, shake. I was at a bar mitzvah this morning, and I was watching this little kid who clearly did not like all the people, but he was having a reaction of, like, anytime he saw someone, he just smiled, like. 00:26:48.000 --> 00:27:06.000 so wide that it was almost like… like, he was like, I don't know what to do, I'm just gonna give you the biggest smile ever, and then someone would come up to him, and then he'd burst into tears. It was just, like, a frozen smile, which was adorable, but also, like, the kid was clearly anxious. The mom was like, I don't know what to do, he's just so cute. I'm like, I know. 00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:20.000 We should all have that problem of having a kid that's too cute when they're anxious. And then the behavior part is the like, okay, let me ask to stay home because what if I don't have anyone to sit with? 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:36.000 And that's… I am a behavioral psychologist, so I really focus on helping kids do something different when you're feeling a strong reaction. So if you're feeling sad and you want to stay home, probably go out and, you know. 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:48.000 And do something fun. If you're feeling anxious and you want to avoid a scary thing, how do we do the scary thing that's not dangerous? If it is dangerous, we don't encourage kids to do dangerous things. 00:27:48.000 --> 00:28:04.000 So I already mentioned this, but I'm going to reiterate it because I think it's important, just as parents to know, and as people to know, emotions are never the problem. The reactions to them is generally the problem. So, emotions, again, are just information 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:19.000 All emotions are valid. You don't have to. You might say you have no reason to experience this, like there's no like, and I would never tell a kid this, but, like, if you don't agree that they should be sad, that's one thing 00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:25.000 But in the end of the day, they are sad, and therefore it is valid for them to feel sad 00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:40.000 about the situation they're sad for. I hope that makes sense. If it doesn't make sense, someone just call me out on it. The behaviors are the things that we're targeting here. And with anxiety, I sometimes think of this as a false smoke alarm. If a smoke alarm 00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:55.000 goes off in your house, it's giving you information. You can't just disable it and say the smoke alarm should never go off, because if it… the smoke alarm never goes off, you're risking the chance of missing a real fire, which is not something that we want to do. But 00:28:55.000 --> 00:29:09.000 Sometimes, though, when the smoke alarm is super sensitive and it's going off for no reason, you have to learn to say, okay, I have to recalibrate it, or I have to not respond as if this is a real fire, I just have to, I don't know, I'm short, so grab a broom and be able to turn it off. 00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:13.000 So 00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:22.000 The question is never should my child feel this? It's how am I going to help them through this and process it? So that's what we're going to talk about. 00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:38.000 I already mentioned this, but thoughts, physical cues, behaviors, all normal ways to experience feelings. When kids are younger, a lot of times the easiest way to tell how they're feeling is by looking at their bodies 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:55.000 Just because as you grow up, you learn to hide how you're feeling your emotions and your bodies. It might not be as obvious. But I look for the stomach aches, the clinginess, the meltdowns. Stomach aches are typical anxiety responses 00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:14.000 So headaches, too. So I can't tell you how many patients I've had in my office who, like the parents have been through so much blood work and so much, like, so many specialists to find out that their kid is dealing with anxiety. But like emotions are in your body, so it makes sense that you will show them in your body 00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:22.000 It's just the normal way that humans experience emotions. It's with body cues. 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:27.000 Teens are generally more in touch with their thoughts as you get to that teenage like 00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:45.000 portion of their lives, I guess and a lot of times that might mean that they're stuck in there. So with rumination or worst case scenarios, or what if my like? What if this happens in school? Or what if that happens in school? Which often makes parents feel like, Oh, I need to address all their concerns 00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:56.000 Which also isn't helpful, because if you're going to sit there and go through every what if, you're not going to be able to move on with your day, much less help them move on with theirs. 00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:12.000 So one line that I stole, I think, from the internet is that feelings are kind of like children. You don't want them driving the car, but you also don't want them shoved in the backseat. Or shoved in the trunk, that's what the… either I mess up my punchline, I'm sorry. 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:26.000 But we need to find a way to validate a feeling, but also not necessarily let it take over. And I think that's a big lesson that I give that I want to give parents for starting the first day of school 00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:31.000 Okay, so let's talk about what you shouldn't do as parents. Those are things that 00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:38.000 Loving, well-meaning parents do that accidentally make things worse. This is like my anti-advice 00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:54.000 So, I'll start off by saying it is normal and healthy to want to protect your child. It's great. That's what we all want to do. When you protect your kids from their feelings, they don't know what to do with their feelings and they learn that their feelings are scary 00:31:54.000 --> 00:32:09.000 So you want to be able to help a kid experience their emotions in a healthy way. So ways that you can try and save your kid from their feelings. You could swoop in and fix it. So like, oh, you're okay. Don't worry. There's nothing to worry about. This is why 00:32:09.000 --> 00:32:28.000 like, you'll never have anything to worry about. I will always be the first person on the carpool line. You do not have to worry about it. So when you stop a kid from feeling a failing, they don't learn how to feel that feeling, and eventually they're going to have to learn how to feel that feeling because there will be a time that you're running late despite your best efforts, or there's some like 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:33.000 some traffic on your way, and then you're the second person in the carpal line, and they don't see you, and they pass 00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:48.000 So you want them to be able to inoculate themselves against the panic, which means they have to feel it in low doses. The other things parents do is sometimes they wave it off, right? This is not a big deal. You're fine. There's nothing to be anxious about here 00:32:48.000 --> 00:33:04.000 Like, just nothing to think here. You know, and when you minimize your kids' feelings like that, they stop talking to you about it. So we don't want to minimize. And we also don't want to swoop and then fix. Those are the two things I definitely don't want you to 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:20.000 So one way I already mentioned this, but the way we swoop in and fix is to take away the hard thing. Oh, you know, my kid's homework is too hard. Let me just email the teacher. I'm going to tell the teacher they're not doing it. 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:25.000 Or they're afraid of going on the bus, I'm going to drive them instead. That 00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:36.000 By the way, it might be a normal help on a first day of school, maybe a second day of school, but like you don't want to create a situation where your kid doesn't know how to go on the bus and you need them to go on the bus. 00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:37.000 So 00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:52.000 Yeah, not letting your kids fight their own battles at the beginning. If they're… if it's developmentally appropriate, you… instead of, you emailing the teacher to change their seat, that you want them to be able to email to change their seat 00:33:52.000 --> 00:34:11.000 Skipping days or picking up your kid early constantly, that's a way to build a super unhealthy pattern. That's something I see in my office a lot, that we know that even small amounts of school avoidance leads to bigger amounts of school avoidance, so that's something that you really should pay attention to 00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:23.000 And then this one is not going to sound like we're moving the hard thing, but it really is. Some kids will ask worried questions way more than 00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:27.000 Like wait, they'll ask it 20 times when they heard you the first time. 00:34:27.000 --> 00:34:44.000 So this depends on how old your kid is and what developmental stage they're up to. Some kids need to actually hear information more than once to be able to get the information, right? If you're teaching them how, you know, what's one plus one, you show them and they get it, and then 00:34:44.000 --> 00:35:05.000 you know, a few minutes later, they're like, wait, what? How does this work? And you need to explain them the skill again. That's fine. But once they know how to add, it would be like starting again. So when a kid says, who's going to pick me up? And you say, Dad's going to pick you up. And then a few minutes later, they say, do they say, wait, but who's gonna pick me up? Like, okay, maybe you do that three times 00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:24.000 Now you're sure they know, and then the next day, they're like, wait, but who is going to pick me up? So now we're in answering the same worried question for the 14th time. It's not helping anymore. So you're accidentally creating a situation where you're trying to remove their worry instead of saying, wait, something else is going on here, and I'm gonna have to approach this differently 00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:42.000 And the reason why I want you to think about approaching this differently is because removing the hard thing works until you can't remove the hard thing, and their life keeps getting harder until you're not going to be able to take away the hard things. So even if you can for your 3-year-old, your 5-year-old, your 7-year-old. 00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:49.000 Eventually, you're not going to be able to, like, I don't know, call your 15-year-old's friends and walk them through the social situation for them. 00:35:49.000 --> 00:36:00.000 You want them to be able to say that was hard and I did it. So you want to give them the skill, the skills to do that, not, oh, I did it for you. 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:15.000 Okay, second unhealthy way that I don't want you to do is arguing with their feelings a lot. There's nothing to be nervous about. You love school last year. Your sister never had a problem with this. You think you're giving them reassurance. 00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:27.000 But you're also telling them they're wrong about the way they feel. So validating a feeling by just saying you're feeling X is a super helpful way to help kids approach a situation 00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:42.000 You don't want to say you don't feel that way when they do. You don't necessarily need to go down the rabbit hole of all the ways they're feeling exists, but if your kid's feeling anxious, being able to say, it looks like you're feeling anxious. And sometimes kids will be like, no, I don't 00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:47.000 If that happens, then fine. But I like to say it out loud 00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:52.000 I'm going to skip this slide because I have no time and we talked 00:36:52.000 --> 00:37:07.000 with all this stuff, and I'm trying to manage my time more effectively. So instead of protecting a kid, what I want you to do instead is support your kid through, which is basically like, hey, hold my hand, you're feeling this feeling, let's go do this. I can do hard things 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:20.000 I can do hard things, is the thing we say in my family all the time, or you can do hard things. We want to create support, not protect. Support means, hey, we're doing… we're doing the hard thing together, and so you can do it on your own. 00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:37.000 The way to do that, the what to do instead piece is I'm going to go back to this is this fits in better to what we're talking about right now. Validate the feeling feeling and hold the expectation. Both those 2 parts are are really important, and that 00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:47.000 Two of the problems that we were just talking about. It's okay to feel worried, and I know that you got this. I know you can go on the bus. It's okay to feel… yeah 00:37:47.000 --> 00:38:03.000 And it's okay to feel angry, and you still need to do the expectation. You can do this with any feeling. I know I'm talking about anxiety, because that's someone that comes up the most with transition. It's okay to worry about who's in your class, and I know 00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:06.000 that you're gonna manage tomorrow, no matter what. 00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:28.000 So you notice and name the feeling, and then what you want to communicate is your confidence in their ability to do the hard thing. Even if you're not so confident, they're going to be successful. I still want you to communicate the confidence, because you have no choice, because if you've decided they have to do this, they have to go to school, and they're scared about this, let them borrow some of your ego to be able to take with them to say like, Okay. 00:38:28.000 --> 00:38:43.000 Mom, Dad thinks I can do this, so I'm gonna go, and I'm gonna do this. So instead of saying you have nothing to worry about, you're fine. Nobody had a problem with this, right? You can validate by saying things like it's okay to feel worried 00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:57.000 I see you're stressed out about this. Even model it. Oh, I remember the night before I started school, I hardly ever slept. It made me so nervous. And look, I kept going to school, so I guess I got through it somehow 00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:06.000 So you want to find all different ways to really just, like, name the feeling that they're feeling and saying, I have confidence, you can do this. 00:39:06.000 --> 00:39:22.000 Other things that help, give them information. Don't expect your kid to just have the information. That's our adult brains talking. We just expect that kids will know what happened because they've done it, right? A fifth grader five times before seven times before. That's 00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:37.000 So much life. So giving them information, the who, what, when, where takes the uncertainty for them off the table. So that's what time the bus is coming, who's picking them up, what lunch looks like, what to do if they need the bathroom. 00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:56.000 And the other thing I want you to do is don't dump all the information at once because that's too much for them. I want you to drip it. So right like just over dinner, over the course of a week, or like, don't make it like a sit-down, like, hey, you have to take notes on this, unless you have a teenager who wants all the information all at once 00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:14.000 They develop mentally can handle all that information. But for younger kids, you really want to slow roll this… this process as much as you can, so that when it's the night before school, you're not giving them all the information at once. Remember that backpack with the foxes? We're packing it up on Tuesday. 00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:28.000 Oh, it's Monday, so tomorrow's Tuesday. We're gonna pack it up. Oh, remember that notebook we bought from Walmart? We're gonna… that's your… that's… that's your spelling notebook. We're gonna label that today. So it's not giant process all at once. 00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:46.000 Do it now, and again, every re-entry is a fresh start. So, like, don't expect that they remember what goes in their backpack. Don't expect that they remember what time the bus comes, just because you remember. Oh, tomorrow we're starting school again, it's a… I think we're all Mondays except for after Yom Kippur, that's a Tuesday 00:40:46.000 --> 00:41:02.000 Right? So it's like, at least we have the that scheduled in. But let's say it's the day after Yom Kippur, and right? It's like, okay, you have school tomorrow, but it's not a Monday. So on Tuesday, your first class is science. So you're gonna go in, and you're gonna be ready for science. 00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:18.000 And just walk them through the schedule in a chill way, if that makes… if that is possible. I know that is hard because you're keeping so much on your plate, but that's the goal. Give information, validate the feeling. Those are really my big, big, big takeaways 00:41:18.000 --> 00:41:29.000 I'm also going to mention, I love this skill always, like, pay attention to what you want to see. So when your kid is doing the thing that you want. 00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:46.000 After they, like, I don't know, they cried it out, they were super stressed about something, and then they picked up themselves, and they picked themselves up, and they said, okay, I'm ready to get ready for school. I'm so proud of your change in attitude. I'm really happy about the way you're coming around to talk about school 00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:59.000 You can use your attention to focus on the things you want to see in your kid. So I love focusing on brave behaviors. So I love the way you went to the bus 00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:14.000 Yeah, you got on the bus this morning. And I also… my patients are always surprised when they say this, messy coping is also coping, so if they get on the bus but they're crying, then when they get off the bus, that's the first thing I say is, you did amazing getting on the bus this morning, because they got on the bus 00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:16.000 The crying is going to 00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:38.000 I don't know, taper off at some point. The behavior is the thing we focus on first. The first time you do things, it's typically bad, right? I don't know. One of my kids learned how to surf this week. They didn't get off the surfboard. It's fine. They still went. They did a hard thing like they tried it. They liked it. So now they'll probably try again. They'll probably do better next time. But if you looked at them and I said 00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:46.000 They're a bad surfer. Yeah, of course they were. They didn't for the first time. That's okay. Getting on the bus, same thing. 00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:48.000 Okay, I mentioned this already. I want you to set up anchors. Yeah. 00:42:48.000 --> 00:43:05.000 Regin, before you go on, I just want to mention one thing like you know I love everything that you're saying about just the perspective in terms of dealing with seeing your child in distress and what do you do 00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:10.000 I wanted to just share like 00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:28.000 That normalizing piece that when, you know, it's one thing to, you know, have these have these feelings and kind of connect with your own personal experiences. One thing that kids don't really think about or consider from little kids 00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:42.000 to older kids is that their teacher and their classmates are also having their first days of school. And they also don't know some of the things that you can't you won't be able to give the answers to 00:43:42.000 --> 00:44:01.000 you know, what time am I going to have lunch? When am I going to be able to go to the bathroom? Where is the bathroom? You know, those kinds of questions. And often, you know, I would say to kids, whatever you don't know before you go to school, you're gonna come home, and you're gonna tell me that day. You're gonna find out the first day a lot of this stuff 00:44:01.000 --> 00:44:03.000 That I don't know the answers to 00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:21.000 So being able to sit with that discomfort and say, yeah, I get it. And guess what? Everybody else in the class wants to know that answer also. And the teacher is also probably feeling nervous, because she doesn't know you or any of your classmates. At least you know some of the kids in your class already. 00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:32.000 So just to kind of give perspective of what they're walking into, that it's not just what they're experiencing, but it's a shared experience for everyone in the class. 00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:33.000 Right. 00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:38.000 So I just want to share that. 00:44:38.000 --> 00:44:39.000 Right. 00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:43.000 I love that. So yeah, nobody knows. Nobody knows. We're going to figure this out together. One thing I like, I tell my patients is 00:44:43.000 --> 00:45:00.000 Actually, the teenagers is like that when you're… I'll say things like, when you're driving somewhere new for the first time, you don't know where to turn, and you have to be, like, hyper-alert, because you have no idea what the turn looks like. And you know, at least me in my adult brain, I know that eventually 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:16.000 Like, once I get there, I'm gonna be like, oh, of course, it's the… it has the giant sign in front of it that says, park here. And I should have known, but I didn't know it would have a giant park here sign. So how would I know that that would be it? So I tell them, like, the first time you do something, it's okay to 00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:33.000 like, be a little extra reassurance-seeking to, like, you know, like, I look at the GPS 27 times to be like, wait, where am I turning? Oh, it's still half a mile. Oh, now it's 0.4. Oh, now it's 0.3. I don't know where I'm going, so I'm gonna pay attention. But I'm still doing that the 10th time I'm driving to the same place, we have a problem, but the first time 00:45:33.000 --> 00:45:40.000 nothing to worry about. I know, I'm not going to be calm. Don't expect your kids to be calm the first day. 00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:46.000 Right? Because of that, because we have to normalize the fact that it's okay to just not know where things are. 00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:55.000 And what they're going to do, and how nobody knows all the first graders are all first graders. They all are new to the building. They don't know 00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:03.000 Right? So what you can do to help is you set up your anchors. You make yourself as consistent as you can be. 00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:18.000 Right? Make sure they have some kind of routine. It doesn't have to be your finished routine, but know what your thing that isn't going to move is. Like, in my house, the bedtime routine is always the same, even if the time is not the same. Ideally, even in the summer, that's true 00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:22.000 So that way I can move the time and things feel the same 00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:41.000 You know, I know I wrote wake up also protecting the morning, even on days off. I know that that's a ridiculous thing to say, but the sleep research says it's a really big deal, so if you have kids that are waking up early anyway, like, then I would say this is more important as your kids get older, like, great teenagers are going to catch up on sleep, no matter what you 00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:44.000 tell them to do. That's okay, too. 00:46:44.000 --> 00:46:55.000 Also, be said about goodbyes. If you have a little one, like if a preschool age kid, like, you don't want to do the 17 goodbyes that that tends to make things messier. 00:46:55.000 --> 00:47:10.000 Fuzzy boundaries make things worse. It's much easier for kids if there are clear boundaries. Not like, oh, if you call me 7 times from school, I'll pick you up early. Like, just, I don't pick up the phone when school calls. That tends to be more what happens in 00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:25.000 And therapy. You can't prioritize everything all at once, though. So again, focus on like ramping up your priorities as the month goes on. It's okay to say bedtime, let's say, goes first. That's my first priority. 00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:35.000 I want you to also think about just what skills your kid needs to learn this year. Like 00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:49.000 That might be skills related to schoolwork, skills related to their social lives, skills related to home. And the reason why I want you to think about this for a minute is because 00:47:49.000 --> 00:48:03.000 I always ask parents if your child has the skills that they need to manage this transition, because sometimes we expect a kid, I know I mentioned pack your own bag, but they don't know how, and they're capable, but you need to teach them how first 00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:20.000 So I always lean on first teach a kid how to do something, even if you think they already know. I have two teenagers now, and I've learned I have to teach them how to make phone calls, and I didn't realize I had to teach them how to make phone calls, but they don't know how to call people 00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:37.000 So like when you call people, you have to say who you are, you have to pick up the phone, right? Like, you have to hold it on your ear. Like, these are things I never would have thought you have to teach. But okay, so if you end up teaching your kids something they already know, like, that is much 00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:42.000 of a better option than not teaching something that you expect that they know. 00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:57.000 And sometimes you have to break up a skill into different pieces before you do that. Oh, teach the skill. Don't just expect it. I'm good. So breaking up the skill might mean like if I'm teaching a kid how to do laundry, like I have to make a ladder 00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:14.000 Of, like, what the steps are. This is useful for when a kid is anxious, breaking up anxiety steps into smaller and smaller pieces, but it's also useful in terms of, I call these independent steps, of, like, making your own lunch, right? So maybe it starts with a very little kid in terms of, like. 00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:29.000 They get to pick their snacks, so they… you have to remind them, and it's okay if your kid is 3, 4, 5. They have to remind them every day. And once your kid probably hits 6, like, I would say 7, and 8, 9 00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:34.000 when you're doing it every day, like you have, you can have it on the fridge 00:49:34.000 --> 00:49:50.000 If you're willing to let them miss a snack if it's not so important to you and they'll learn from their experience that if they forget the snack, they won't get it. But it's also important to know, like, okay, how much do I have to remind kids? Sometimes I need a reminder for something than I do all the time 00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:53.000 It's okay to remind them to 00:49:53.000 --> 00:50:13.000 And I am a big fan of rewarding kids for doing even what they need to do. So know that small and frequent rewards trump giant rewards, and rewards don't work if you give them before a kid did the thing. So if you pre-reward reward a kid for getting on the bus 00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:17.000 It's not necessarily going to help them go in the bus. 00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:33.000 Right, so the way I think of rewards is needs are needs. We don't reward kids with needs, but any of your kids wants are the currency that you want to use. So don't hand out those for free. That includes screen time. Most parents 00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:47.000 give their kids screen time, even if they don't want to be a parent who does. Making it a reward for whatever it is you need your kid to do as school starts. That could even be showering earlier to get them in bed earlier. 00:50:47.000 --> 00:51:06.000 setting up a little reward for that can be helpful. I prefer smaller things that I can just give out daily for smaller kids, like stickers or even some people don't do edible stuff. I don't mind edible food. Something I can give out in the moment, so I don't have to keep track of, like, a chart or something. I find that hard as a parent 00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:17.000 If that doesn't apply to you, then you can use this however you want. But set up a reward in advance for the behavior you want to see 00:51:17.000 --> 00:51:24.000 And just briefly, and then we'll get to questions. I'm sorry, I'm running a little bit late, but 00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:39.000 Don't wait on these behaviors. These are red flags. Anytime a kid is avoiding school, meaning I'm not going and you can't get them to go, that's something that you should call a professional sooner rather than later 00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:54.000 If you see major sleep or appetite changes, again, not having to do with the transition. Once we're a couple weeks into school, like if the kid is not able to sleep, sleeping too much. That's something I want 00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:07.000 see someone in my office for. If they were a really great student, and there's a very big drop in how they're doing academically, that with no explanation, that's something that's often concerning to me 00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:17.000 Physical symptoms with no medical cause. Again, that could be anxiety, depression, feelings are in your body too. So that's something I want parents to be aware of 00:52:17.000 --> 00:52:34.000 social isolation and specifically I'm going to mention it because school didn't start yet. If a kid talks freely at home but is not that is a symptom of selective mutism. It's more than shyness. It's an anxiety problem, but it's very 00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:50.000 treatable. It's way easier to treat at the beginning of the year. If you wait till a kid has 3 months of not speaking to teachers or peers in school, it makes it much harder to treat, so that's something I often like when I'm in front of parents, will say, don't sleep on that 00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:56.000 Pediatricians are normally great resources. Hidden Sparks says 00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:03.000 Support so that can be a person to reach out to. But it 00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:18.000 is hardly ever a bad thing to reach out and just say, is this a concern? Because the worst case scenario will be, nope, not a concern. And that's something I really hardly ever happens to me in my practice. By the time people are getting to me, it's normally, like, they should or can't 00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:33.000 came in when they first said, this is a problem. So I like to point out those. Three things to take home. Give information to your kid, but try to do it as slowly as you can. Validate the feeling, but hold the expectation. 00:53:33.000 --> 00:53:41.000 And don't be complicit in their avoidance. Just because a kid, we want to really support kids through the hard things instead of helping them run away from it. 00:53:41.000 --> 00:53:53.000 And here's some resources if your kid is little. These books specifically have to do with, separation anxiety and kind of starting school 00:53:53.000 --> 00:54:08.000 I think that's all I got… oh, and here are my books. Parenting Anxious kids, and I have a book for little kids called When Harley Has Anxiety and a book for teens Anxiety relief for teens. 00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:23.000 Wow. Wow. Thank you so much for such a kind of comprehensive overview with such specific examples. I can't even tell you how many parents I've spoken to over the last couple of weeks 00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:29.000 with exact… these exact scenarios looking at in terms of 00:54:29.000 --> 00:54:41.000 What do I do? How do I help? How do I address them having all these, you know, wild emotions and even for the parents themselves 00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:48.000 You know, that how do I respond to these things? I mean, you've just really given such a beautiful breadth 00:54:48.000 --> 00:54:56.000 of different strategies to address these challenges that we're all dealing with 00:54:56.000 --> 00:55:07.000 I would just like to offer, if anyone has any questions, if they'd like to post them in the chat. We have a couple of minutes 00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:18.000 To be able to take questions if you have anything that you are curious about or something that you would like some clarification on 00:55:18.000 --> 00:55:22.000 I know I 00:55:22.000 --> 00:55:23.000 Okay. 00:55:23.000 --> 00:55:34.000 I see one question in the Q&A about rewarding kids with screen time. And then they'll expect it. So you need to just think about how you're going to weigh 00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:50.000 What you're willing to reward with, right? If the only way your kids get screen time is by completing their homework, then they'll get used to it. But if they always complete their homework, and you know they're going to complete their homework, and then they're, you know, want to stay up later to use their screen time 00:55:50.000 --> 00:56:10.000 then maybe it's contingent on finishing homework by a certain amount of time, or maybe it's just not using screen time. Or maybe it's other awards that have to do with weekends, like with weekend stuff. But I know in my house there's a rule and I like to blame rules for stuff instead of blaming 00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:25.000 Right, myself, I guess, is like, screen time is not even an option until homework is done. Like, the screens cannot turn on for anybody until, like, homework is done, because it creates chaos in my house, and I can't handle this. 00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:35.000 So it's… I don't view it as a reward. I view that more as, like, that is the requirement for even thinking about turning on the screen. 00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:40.000 So I don't know if that's helpful, but 00:56:40.000 --> 00:56:50.000 Someone else asked about my thoughts on charts for scheduled activities and calendars for young children. 00:56:50.000 --> 00:57:03.000 Is it too much information? Is there a happy medium? So it's interesting because I've been hearing so many people talk about this skylight calendar, which is a fortune. So I don't know. It seems like a lot of money to 00:57:03.000 --> 00:57:18.000 to spend on one calendar to keep everything in line. I like to, for let's say, if a kid is five, I want… I want to be able to teach them how to use a calendar. So it goes back to the skill. I'm just going to forward the slides so I realize that 00:57:18.000 --> 00:57:33.000 at the Hidden Spark information is on the screen for anyone who wants it. What I was saying about, if you want to put activities on a young kid's calendar, what I would do is make a very bare bones calendar, and then teach your kid 00:57:33.000 --> 00:57:49.000 How to use a calendar. So this is Monday, this is Tuesday, this is Wednesday, this is Thursday, this is Friday, this is Shabbat. And then, like, you know, you have art on Tuesdays, and Tuesday, they also have to know that, let's say Tuesday comes after Monday 00:57:49.000 --> 00:58:05.000 So, there's a lot of skills to teach there, so it's definitely possible. I wouldn't use a monthly, and I would keep it very, very basic. Like, if you're using it only for their after-school activities, that might be good, and I would also put visual 00:58:05.000 --> 00:58:24.000 like icons or something on the calendar, because if they can't read, that would probably stress them out. So you put a paintbrush on the day that they have art. That might be helpful. So I do like to give kids cues like that, and I think it's helpful to scaffold them. So if they're too young to know it now, they'll be able to get to it a little bit later as they grow. 00:58:24.000 --> 00:58:39.000 But we use visual calendars or something they use even in preschool, like to go through the day of saying like this comes first, first we do dominating, then we do this, then we do this and then do the other thing. And you just have to be careful to highlight where you are 00:58:39.000 --> 00:58:55.000 So if I was gonna use the calendar with a little kid, I would definitely have a magnet or something that goes on the day of the week so that they know, so they don't have to figure it out, and then figure out what's happening, because that's two steps that might be tricky. 00:58:55.000 --> 00:59:00.000 There is a question here. Someone asked what to 00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:10.000 Their daughter sometimes has a tough time with math, and now she's worried about going back to math class. Do you have any suggestions for that? 00:59:10.000 --> 00:59:17.000 It really depends on why you're having a hard time with math, right? Like what kind of support your kid needs if it's 00:59:17.000 --> 00:59:28.000 If it's an academic gap, then the best way to handle that might be helping give her the skills she needs to be successful. One of my kids has a learning disability and 00:59:28.000 --> 00:59:38.000 it would be unfair of her to expect her to just walk into, her reading class and read on grade level. So without her supports 00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:53.000 You know how I said emotions give you information. If she's feeling anxious because she doesn't know what's lying, that is a very fair emotion to have that's giving you real information. I don't want kids missing class, but I also don't want kids to be tracked not at their level. So 00:59:53.000 --> 01:00:09.000 It's… then you have to figure out how you're going to be the advocate for your kid to say, how am I going to give my kid the skills they need, whether that be advocating for them before school starts, talking to the teacher to say we need to like accommodate the curriculum to meet my kids needs 01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:17.000 But my message to my kid is, sorry, you got to go. This is important. This is school. This is not negotiable. 01:00:17.000 --> 01:00:25.000 Okay, just a quick thanks here. Would you be able to post the 01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:41.000 The link before you leave this evening, the one ask that I do have is if you could respond to a questionnaire on how you found this webinar and workshop before you leave, because I see 01:00:41.000 --> 01:00:55.000 You know, people do have a lot of questions, and our time is is running. Thank you, Shara. So you can check the chat, and if you don't mind to fill out that link 01:00:55.000 --> 01:01:00.000 There are 01:01:00.000 --> 01:01:01.000 Yeah 01:01:01.000 --> 01:01:04.000 I see a couple more questions in the Q&A. One is about 01:01:04.000 --> 01:01:16.000 Whether kids become more anxious when kids create their entire schedule versus giving kids freedom to learn how to spend their own free time. I love this question. I actually think I… last year 01:01:16.000 --> 01:01:28.000 I have an 8th grade daughter, so seventh grade trip, they decided they're going to send the kids on a coach bus for like, I don't know, five hours and not allow them to have screens. Sure, great, great decision. Love it. 01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:43.000 They hadn't like they didn't play a movie on the bus. They didn't make any plans. They didn't tell the girls like to bring any activities. So as much as I love the idea of like unstructured activities, they didn't set them up for success 01:01:43.000 --> 01:01:59.000 So if you're going to give your kids free time to spend, you also need to set them up for being successful at it. Like, when I was a kid, and we had to go on long bus rides, you'd bring, like, Mad Libs and paper and pencils and games, and 01:01:59.000 --> 01:02:16.000 That's the way you manage, but we all knew that kids these days don't necessarily know that. So if you're going to give them the freedom, you need to set them up. Like I'll say one thing I do is I always test out the toys that I'm buying from my office at home first to see how they work, but also it's because I've realized that if I have toys out 01:02:16.000 --> 01:02:35.000 My kids are older now, I have a 10-year-old, a 13-year-old, and a 16-year-old. My kids will play with them. But if they're hiding, my kids will not play with them. So, if you're going to give your kids free time, you kind of have to… I'm not going to say structure the free time, but you have… the same way I want you to support your kids through their feelings. 01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:52.000 You have to support your kids through their free time by making giving them an opportunity to be able to access other things. So having art supplies handy, having things handy, having like anchors in their calendar, even if you're not filling the whole calendar, it's unfair to say 01:02:52.000 --> 01:03:06.000 Kids, fill your whole day. It's reasonable when my kids are bored, I give them two options, or I say, do whatever. I don't care if you're sitting backwards on the couch singing for the next hour. Like, you can take my options, or you have to figure it out by yourself. 01:03:06.000 --> 01:03:21.000 But figuring out by yourself is a perfectly acceptable option if you don't like mine too. But I'm not going to be that kind of person who just gives my kid option after option after option until they figure out a good one. I gave you mine too. Do those 01:03:21.000 --> 01:03:23.000 Or something else 01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:29.000 But then they figure out creative ways to do it 01:03:29.000 --> 01:03:30.000 I love it. I love it. 01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:46.000 Someone else asked about the best way to get providers on board during drop off time. When it's not mom or dad. That is really, really, really, really hard. Sometimes I wish I had a good answer for that. Sometimes 01:03:46.000 --> 01:04:02.000 The babysitter is not on board. Sometimes grandma's not on board. And the best way to manage it is to say for week number one, I can't have grandma do drop off. It's just not going to work. And I know that's super annoying and not the answer you want. It really depends on 01:04:02.000 --> 01:04:11.000 How much the provider is getting in the way. You have to weigh that. It's a case by case decision. 01:04:11.000 --> 01:04:28.000 Now, my experience has been with families that have others getting kids on and off. Sometimes the kids won't leave the car and they're holding on to the headrest. Literally the parent is dragging them by one foot out of the car in the morning 01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:42.000 To get them… to get them on their way. If there can be an arrangement where that child that's having more difficulty making the transition out has a job or a task 01:04:42.000 --> 01:04:58.000 that has to be done with the teacher before everybody else gets there. Very often, that's a strong motivator to be able to help a child be able to make that transition. It may not be something you could put in place the first day 01:04:58.000 --> 01:05:14.000 But if many teachers do call parents before school starts, and if there is some kind of transitional activity that the child can be expected to know what to do when they get to school, because it's a known, you know, entity 01:05:14.000 --> 01:05:31.000 That child has difficulty separating. If I'm understanding the question correctly, you know, that might be a pathway to being able to make the movement more smooth. 01:05:31.000 --> 01:05:33.000 Okay 01:05:33.000 --> 01:05:53.000 That looks like that's our questions for this evening. And I just want to thank you again, Dr. Galanti, for your really outstanding presentation. And I want to thank Shira as well for your help. And I want to thank you all for participating this evening and feel free to contact Shira or me if you are a parent 01:05:53.000 --> 01:06:08.000 Yeshiva parent in New York City or Long Island, we'd love to be able to connect with you. I wish each one of you a sweet year filled with good health, prosperity, and happiness. Wish you a Shana Tova. Thank you so much for joining 01:06:08.000 --> 01:06:13.000 And I wish you a good start to the school year. So you have a good night, everyone. 01:06:13.000 --> 01:06:14.000 Thank you. Thank you, Eugene. 01:06:14.000 --> 01:06:16.000 Thank you. Thank you for having me. 01:06:16.000 --> 01:06:32.000 Thank you, thank you.