EPISODE 03
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:00:0] RA: On today's episode, I am super excited to have one of the very first people who I ever found and followed on TikTok. Kayla O'Neil is a developmental therapist. Through her content, she gives a wide range of advice, helping parents with things such as talking and walking, all the way to potty training. Her advice and suggestions have helped me with my own little one, and I am very excited to introduce her to all of you.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:27:2] RA: All right. Kayla, thanks so much for joining the episode. So happy to have you here.
[0:00:34.5] KO: Awesome. I’m so happy to be here.
[0:00:37.4] RA: For people who don't know, you are a developmental therapist, yes?
[0:00:41.4] KO: Yes.
[0:00:42.3] RA: Could you fill in, what does that mean? What is that title?
[0:00:46:2] KO: Yeah, sure. In the state of Indiana, I'm called a developmental therapist. It's called something different in every state. This is the third state I've worked in. People get really confused when I say developmental therapist, or when I worked in Minnesota, I was just called an early childhood special ed teacher. When I worked in North Dakota, I was called a early interventionist, but it's all the same job.
I work with kids from birth to age three, that I qualify for early intervention. That's the part C federal state program. What I do is typically, I go into the home and work with parents. Right now, during COVID, now I've been doing business all virtually. Yeah, that's what I've been doing for about 10 years now, is it's almost more of a parent coaching model.
[0:01:34:] RA: Yeah. You go into homes and you help parents. I guess, help them with what? I've watched your TikToks and I've read your Instagram stuff. Also, you have a big blog, which has tons and tons and tons of information that I dug through before we even started this. It looks like you cover a lot of different subjects.
[0:01:58:0] KO: Yeah. My background is actually early childhood special education. That's what I've got my degree in and education as well. What I do as a therapist, or what I help kids with is we create a plan called an IFSP to begin with. That's an Individual Family Service Plan. Once again, that's part of the special education program. How we get that is we do a evaluation or assessment first on the child, and then that's where we're able to see where they need that extra help. Different areas that we work with would be motor development, language development, social-emotional development, cognitive development and adaptive and self-help skills as well. Wherever there's a need, that's where we come in and support the parent.
A great part of that assessment or evaluation, which is all very play-based. We get to find out what the children are really good at and what their interests are and things like that. That's a really important part of it too, is figuring out what kids are interested in, what's important to the family. It's different from in the school system, where when we look at that part B and it's an IEP, the IFSP is a family-focused plan. We work with what's helpful for the family.
[0:03:10:2] RA: Right. I love something that you said there, which is we can look at the strengths, too, because I think historically, we've always had this medical model, where it's, let's find the problems, let's fix the problems and let's just focus on that. As we, even our learning and parenting work, it's we need to start focusing on the things that we want to see, not just the things that we don't want to see. How do you feel that, like parents receive that? Does that feel like, it feels better as you start to focus on that and you're able to build those strengths?
[0:03:42:1] KO: Yeah, I think so. I think, even coming in, when we're looking at the kids, I'm working with birth to age three, so I get a lot of babies. Sometimes we're referred medically. Sometimes we have kids that are born with different conditions. A lot of times, there's a lot going on to begin with. Being able to pull out the things that the kids are doing that are really great, because every kid has some stuff that they're good at, or things that they're interested at. I do. I think that's really helpful.
With the more parent coaching model that I do, it's also finding what the parents are really good at too, because sometimes parents, and especially, this is what I love about TikTok is these parents, these wonderful parents put videos up of things that they're doing with their child and they don't realize how great of things that they're doing. They didn't realize, oh, I just posted one yesterday of a dad who, he was staying Old Macdonald with the son, and he paused and the child filled in the blank. It's like, “Whoa, that's a strategy that I use all the time. I teach parents.” Because sometimes it's the little things that we're doing that actually support development, even more than those really big things that sometimes people are searching for. It’s these little things.
It's like, I love TikTok, as just somebody to observe and that's part of my job is observing parents in their natural state. I'm like, “This is amazing.” I can point out the great things these parents are doing, and then other parents chime in. They go, “Oh, I do that.” My kid loves it when I do that. I didn't know that this was a way to encourage that social-emotional connection, to encourage language development. It's just so cool.
[0:05:14:2] RA: Right. Yeah, absolutely. I didn't see that you did a duet on that video. I saw the original and I loved it, because I got tagged a couple of times in it. As parents, I think sometimes we forget that sometimes these super simple things can have such great results. Even in my therapy office, I play games and parents look at them and they're like, “Yeah, I played that when I was three.” It’s like, pick up sticks and connect four, and my mind blanked on another old school game that I play. These games just develop so many great skills. Just that singing and that song that – because I think it was E-I-E-I-O is what they ended up singing, it really helps build these skills that just can really just translate later on in their life.
[0:06:03:1] KO: Yeah. I think, parenting gets overcomplicated a lot, because we want something to do with our kids. We want them to be entertained all the time, and we want quick fix for things too. I'm sure you get that, too. It's like, “Well, what can I do to –” It's like, okay, well, it's not necessarily a big thing. Sometimes it's really little things. I think, yeah, that's one of the great parts of my job is a lot of time, it's just observing and pulling out what the parents are doing. A great way and saying, “Hey, do more this. This is awesome.” That's really, really fun.
[0:06:35:0] RA: Absolutely. I think it's great just seeing these strengths and helping parents sometimes even realize, “Hey, what you're doing is working. It's wonderful. Keep that up.” I think, again, when we get stuck in that medical model, we lose that. It was something I was really wanting to cover today. I'm glad you said that, that over-complication of parenting. Again, I was doing lots of research as I was getting ready to do this. I went to answer the public and then I started looking at a bunch of questions parents have around toddlers. Then, I have my own on the way, and I've been doing a lot of my own research. I start seeing how there's just so much information out there, and some of it is just very different. Not just slightly different, like opposite sides of the spectrum different. How do you help parents see that and find what works and what doesn't, when there are just so many wide ranges of opinions out there?
[0:07:30:1] KO: Yeah. You're exactly right. There's so many things. That's why in my personal, as a parent and helping parents, I'm not do everything one way kind of person. I'm very much a person that if I see something I like, I pull that and use it and I try it. You'll see a lot of different people. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just, maybe that's my personal style. There's just not a one size fits all the parenting. If there was, somebody would have written that perfect book and it would be out, and that's the one we recommend. Instead, there's about five to 10 books. Maybe I don't agree with everything in the book, but I'll pull things from different places, because parenting is not only about strategies. It’s also about how we are as a parent, our own temperament and the child's temperament, too.
I think, being that I've been doing this for 10 years and I go into the home, and so I get to know parents, really on a very personal basis. I get to see different home environments. I get to see all different types of kids. It becomes so clear that we can only do so much, but that temperament is going to be part of it. Our personal history is going to be part of it. Finding something, between my two kids, some strategies will work well for my daughter, some that don't work with my son. There are things my son does that my daughter would never do. It's interesting when you take that temperament part. That's why, I'm very much somebody that I don't recommend just one book, or I would love to do that. It would make life easier. I think, pulling from the different things out there and there's so many great resources, instead of just getting stuck, like I'm only going to do something one way.
[0:09:10:0] RA: I hear you, and I love that you said that, because I think that's one of the things that parents need to hear is it's not a one size fits all. Because, I think, if there was, we'd all be out of jobs. We just wouldn't work, which would honestly be a good thing. I would be okay if kids didn’t have any of these issues anymore and we could just all move on and find out something else.
It's not that way, because people are really complicated and kids are complicated, and there's so many different issues. I was reading one of your blogs about toddlers and biting. One of them said, “Is it sensory based? Are they teething? Is it behavioral? Is it anger, and they don't have a better way to express?” It's like, all these little things, each one could be true, or just one of them. It's just really hard for –
[0:09:56:2] KO: It’s just hard, because it can change every time they bite, too. It doesn't mean, just because they bit once because of sensory reason, or they don't get – It's interesting to me, one of the most asked questions I get is, “My baby is pulling my hair. What should I do?” It’s plenty, because I think sometimes, we don't realize that a lot of it is just them interacting and trying to figure out their world. A baby is not going to pull your hair, because they're trying to – because like, “How do I get my baby to stop doing this?” It's like, you just got to wear a ponytail. I’m sorry. I wear a ponytail pretty much the first 18 months with both my kids and doing my work too, when I'm doing home visits, my hair is back. I don't wear earrings, because sometimes we need to just prevent things, that are too little to understand that falling hair hurts.
Pulling hair, it's interesting. They want to use their fine motor skills. With the eight-month-old baby that's pulling your hair, we just have to be preventive in that case. They're not doing it in any bad way. It's just out of interest. Yeah. Figuring out the core to those different behaviors. Then, we so too want to label things as negative, or positive. Even things like hitting. I did a post a while back with my kids playing in the forest. The thing that they love to do the most is to hit sticks onto trees. Hit sticks on the ground.
I talked about how sometimes when we're hitting it other ways, it's actually, because they just want to get this energy out. It can really be sensory, or play-based, or discovery, but people automatically think, okay, if somebody hits, that’s bad. They're doing something bad. It's like, well, we got to figure out why they're doing that. We really got to figure out what caused that trigger. Could it just be play? Do they have extra energy? Do they need to get outside and run in the forest? If you don't have a forest, you don't do something activity where we can get that physical movement in.
[0:11:49:0] RA: Yeah, I love that. Because yes, there's so many things and we think, “Oh, that's automatically bad,” and we need to get in there and swoop in and stop that behavior. That's just kids learning how to be in their environment and explore. I see some posts about kids who are eating, and they get their hands in the food. Parents are like, “No, they've got to use a spoon.” I’m like, “No. They don't even have that developmental ability yet, and they're exploring this food.” That's how they learn about it. That's one of the ways we can get them to start eating in the future is playing with their food and letting them do that. When you go and you talk to parents, if you see them and their child is hitting, or biting, or whatnot, where do you start with that?
[0:12:38.1] KO: Oh, I’ve definitely got a very much special education background. A lot of that is figuring out that data. We've got to find the data. It’s what we do it in special education, is we find that the data. I don't know.
[0:12:49.8] RA: Right. Yeah. I got you.
[0:12:50:2] KO: I think, if you have a kid doing one of these behaviors, we really need to stop and pay attention to what happened right before it, what happened during it, what happened right afterwards, what time of day is it? Could they be hungry? Could they be tired? Keep track of it. Keep that log sheet, or notebook. Write it down somewhere if you're seeing something really repetitive.
It's really looking at that behavior and figuring out, what's the reason behind it, when I'm working with behaviors like that? Usually, we'll figure out what it was. Sometimes it's something we didn't expect, which is most of the time. I think, people automatically, like you said, with the hitting and biting and stuff, we automatically label out as aggressive. We get really scared of parents, because we’re like, “Oh, my goodness. My kid's aggressive. They're aggressive. What do I do?” That's scary for parents. Then when we say, okay, detach that aggressiveness. It’s not necessarily aggressive. I can hit a baseball with a baseball bat and no one's going to tell me I'm aggressive. I'm skilled. Change your way of thinking, and just look at it as a basic behavior, versus good or bad. I think that's really helpful place to start, because I think it causes a lot of worry in parents, when our kids do stuff that we label as good and bad. Not to say, there maybe isn't a place or time to label things, or I don't know. I don’t know anything like that.
[0:14:10:0] RA: No. I mean, there's so many gems there. It's like, I want to cover all of them. I'm like, “Where do we start?” I just noticed in myself that as I heard you talking about that, I know this, sometimes parents are like, “My child is doing this. Does that mean that they're going to be a serial killer, or are they going to be – is this pathological?” There's this just fear that what's going to happen to my child, or what are they going to become? Then they see, they're hitting a tree, or they're acting out something with their little toys and they're like, “Uh-oh. This isn't good.” What do you say to these parents?
[0:14:44:0] KO: Okay, so I'm just going to tell you about something that happened yesterday at my house. It's finally the weather's getting nice. Both of my kids are very much into sensory play and water. They are obsessed with water in all forms. They want to play with ice. They want to play water. They want to play with mud. We had the hose on. They wanted to have the hose on. They were going to water some plants. We pretend to plant stuff. Then it's like, I went inside to grab something, or do something. I came out, and my son, his arms and legs were completely covered in mud, had so – he had smeared mud all over the glass patio door. It's like, I come out, I’m like, “What are you doing?” My response, just completely alarmed. Just like, “What are you doing?” It's like, “Why did I even say that?”
I know what he was doing. I know that if I leave my kids with hoses and mud, this is probably going to be the outcome. That was on me. I didn't set any rules, any boundaries. I didn't say, the mud needs to stay on the garden. We had our rain boots on, but we also have little suits that you can put on that you can just throw in the washer, which I didn't do. I didn't do any of this stuff, but yet, I reacted in this way is like, “What are you doing? What happened?” That I was like, I took them at the back and it’s like, “Okay. We're going to clean this up together. We can do this together, and we're going to have to wash up with the hose.” We problem solve through how can we get into the house? How can we get cleaned up? How can we decide what to do and what's acceptable for next time?” We problem-solved through it a little bit together.
Okay, we actually have a lock on our house. I'm like, “Okay, we need to just be supervised out there. I'm learning about this too.” I let them know, it's not a good idea to put mud all over the glass, unless you want to clean it. It was funny, because right away, he's like, “I put the mud on so fast. I can clean it up that fast, too.”
[0:16:34.2] RA: Oh, cool. I love it.
[0:16:36:1] KO: Yeah. It's like, okay. When you walk out of the parent and you're trying to get dinner and stuff, it's hard to stop and think like, okay, he's just playing. He’s not trying to make anyone angry. He's not trying to do things properly. He's exploring. He's a sensory kid. I know that about him. He's playing in the mud. It's easy as a parent to – it's been a long day, or you're hungry or whatever, and to just stop and react in the wrong way.
You had just talked about this yesterday on TikTok about how we're going to make mistakes and to stop. That's what we did. I realized, okay. I shouldn't have, “What happened out here?” I should have just calmly said, “Hey, what's going on out here?” Get some information and then problem solve the situation together. How can we clean this up together? What should we do next time? Figure it out, versus just reacting and taking that moment to not just react, but think through things a little bit.
[0:17:32.7] RA: Yeah. I love that story so much. That's awesome. I don't know, you commented on that post, and I'm wondering, was that the story that you were talking about?
[0:17:39.3] KO: Yes. That’s the exact story. Yes. I’m like, wow, I literally just did this an hour ago. I do this multiple times a day, where it's like, where parents were making mistakes all of the time. Nobody's perfect.
[0:17:52:1] RA: We're supposed to make mistakes, because we're all still learning this. Parenting is really hard.
[0:17:58.5] KO: It's really hard.
[0:18:00.1] RA: Yeah. Because you're constantly be putting in these little situations, where you have to check your own feelings and be like, “All right. Look at what I'm experiencing here. Then, how much do I need to put on this little, who in this case is like, I'm just playing with this mud.”
[0:18:16.5] KO: Just playing. There’s no bad intentions behind it. Yeah.
[0:18:20:1] RA: It sounds like a really cool idea, unless you think about having to clean it up.
[0:18:24.6] KO: Yeah. It was fine. We got it cleaned up. It was all good.
[0:18:28:] RA: Yeah. I think, circling that back a little bit, you were talking about when we talk to parents, we say the antecedent which is that what happened right before the behavior and then what's going on in that moment and then what happens after. Even going further back is how did I play a role? Could I have done something differently here? Should I have been watching them as they're cleaning up this mud, or playing with the mud? Looking at that and understanding, it’s not personal, which is one of the things I heard you there would say. Because I don't think it is. It's just kids exploring their environment and seeing what it's like.
[0:19:05.6] KO: It's fun. It looks like fun. They were just having fun. A lot of the time, that is. I think, that's the important part of learning about child development, or just having a little bit of understanding is, I think – and I don't know where this came from, but our expectations of kids are really high. Mine too. Sometimes I really have to check my own expectations. Am I expecting too much? Is this developmentally appropriate for me to let my kids have a hose and then not expect them to get mud over? No, that was really not on my part. I didn't do a good job with my expectations of them. checking, is this a developmentally appropriate thing for them to be doing, or is my expecting too much? Am I expecting them to refrain themselves from having a mud party?
It's interesting, because my daughter is out there too, and she’s perfectly clean. She didn’t barely touch it. But my son is just – that’s the difference between the two. He's covered head to toe. She's just off doing her own thing. Yeah.
[0:20:07:1] RA: Yeah. It just goes more into that. Some some kids, you can leave out there with the hose, and some, it's absolutely not.
[0:20:14.6] KO: I know that about him. My daughter is – she's not into the messy play, like he has always been. He's always loved it. He's always loved all things sensory. Sensory-seeking child.
[0:20:26.1] RA: Yes. How do you think expectations? I hear that a lot. I think, it ties into something else I was wanting to bring up is that those should statements about ourselves as parents like, “I should have done this, or I should have done that.” Or putting those shoulds onto our kids. They should be here. They should be there. For example, in preschool world, it's, “My child isn't writing their name yet. Oh, no. What are we going to do?” Or, “They can't count to 10 yet. Uh-oh.” For those parents, I usually say, let's focus on play and social skills and that stuff will come. How do we manage that expectation? The same thing happens with babies. I'm like, “Yeah, they should be walking by what? Nine to 15 months? What happens if it's 16 months?”
[0:21:12:2] KO: Yeah. No, definitely great point. I feel like, there again, there is so much comparing. People comparing their own kids, and that's a dangerous thing, especially when you're parenting siblings, because they're usually two completely different kids. I always tell parents, if you feel something's not right, just talk to early intervention. It's available in all 50 states. Evaluation is completely free in all 50 states, or screening. Because if you call us and you say, “Hey they're 16-months-old and they're not walking yet. I'm a little concerned.” We can't just go off of that one thing of not walking, because we have to look at the whole picture of the kid. There's lots of things that go into walking. There's lots of things that happen before walking. There's lots of things that go into balance and coordination. Just that one milestone, we can't look at just one milestone. We need more information. That's where things like early childhood screenings and evaluations are super, super important, because I've also had parents that have been really concerned and have had their concerns ignored too by certain professionals.
They've had significant conditions, and they'll come to us and it's like, “Wait. We were telling them and nobody listened to you.” I feel like, connecting with early intervention, if you have a gut feeling, if you just have a question. It's not going to hurt. Screening a child takes 15 minutes for a baby or toddler. It really doesn't take long. Evaluation maybe takes an hour, spread across two days or an hour, depending on what you're doing. It's a couple of hours of your life.
That will answer that question, that should. Because milestones, there is a huge range of normal and each area of development and we know we break that down and we look at it and it's the same thing with language development. That's when I get asked about the most is my child has X many words. Is that okay? I can't answer that question. Because I don't know. I need more information. I need to know what sounds they're making. I need to know, can they imitate actions? It's a huge picture. I always tell parents – I mean, you want to be aware of milestones.
I think you should be aware. We can't diagnose, until we have a whole picture diagnosed. That's tricky, because I don't want the parents to ignore red flags, or development. I also want to become so obsessed that, okay, my baby is – A lot of times, the milestones that people, they’re not getting great information of when children should be doing things. I'll have parents that will be like, “My child is six-months-old and they're not crawling yet.” I'm like, “Yeah, that's okay. They're not supposed to crawl until seven to nine months.”
I think, it's good to be aware, because that will ease your anxiety. There's some really good websites out there, like pathways.org, where it's really great information. They have videos on different things. Using resources like that as something to educate yourself about them, but not to become too obsessed, if that makes sense.
[0:24:06:1] RA: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I was going to ask you, if a parent has a one or two-year-old and they're concerned, is it the same website that they would go sign up for that, or is it different by state?
[0:24:18:1] KO: Yes. Well, it's called something different in every state. If parents have concerns from that birth to three age, you would type in part C, early intervention, the name your state, and then that will get you to the program, because that gets confusing, too. It's different. In Indiana, we call it first steps. In Minnesota, we call it healthy grow.
[0:24:37.2] RA: Here, it’s early head start.
[0:24:39.8] KO: Yeah. Well, and early head start is actually a different program. Yeah. It gets really confusing. I just tell people, part C is the big indicator. Because you can also fall into different private companies doing pre-screenings and stuff. If you want the state program, it's going to be under part C, because nobody can do that, except for agencies that are aligned with the state. Yeah.
[0:24:59:0] RA: Yeah. Just more that confusion stuff. I think that helps. If you just Google Part C early intervention and your state, Ohio, then hopefully, you'll start getting some resources. Because I think, it's really important that if you have that concern and it's there, go talk to a professional who can help give you that answer and let you know if, hey, yeah, maybe there's something we need to do here. Or no, it's perfectly okay.
[0:25:25:1] KO: The majority of the kids that I see are exited by the time they turn three. They don't need any services. Not all. A lot of times, that's the goal of early intervention is to actually prevent that need for services starting at age three to five, and then we go into school services. Sometimes helping early can really make a difference in the long run.
[0:25:45.6] RA: Yeah. When I worked in a preschool, a lot of times, we would know some of these kids who may need some services outside of that. A lot of the people in to help me grow and whatnot would start making some referrals and start making sure that there are services linked for after that, which I also think is really helpful for parents.
[0:26:04:0] KO: Yeah.
[0:26:05:0] RA: Yeah, especially in preschool, there's a lot of this weighing of how much of this is a stage, versus how much of this is something I need to worry about. I see that so much. I'm wondering if you see that a lot with babies and toddlers, too.
[0:26:23.4] KO: The other part of it is development changes really quickly. It was funny, I had done a post, because somebody said, “My daughter is 33 months and they're not using sentences, or how can I encourage sentences?” Then somebody in the comments was like, “Wait. Why are they using the label of 33 months? Why not say this kid is two-years-old and three-years-old? Why are you labeling them by months?” I meant to do a follow up saying, “Well, months are important, because development can change so fast, that if you look at a child that has just turned one to a child, that's at the end of year one, it's completely different things that we would expect.” Talking about months is important, because yeah, that development can turn so fast.
Especially with language development, I've had kids too before where it's like, we start seeing them and because they qualify. There have been times where I've actually spent a month or two, because you know what? It just happened. They started talking. Sometimes it's really hard to tell whether something is just developmentally and that it's that only child road, or if they actually need that extra support.
With me starting services once a week, was that what made the difference? Probably not. If a kid's exiting a month or two. It was probably they just weren't ready. We have a lot of good information that we can get with evaluations and tools and things like that. Ultimately, some of it does just come down to when that child is on their path to meet whatever milestone. We can do things to support, but there's also that other portion of it too, I think.
[0:27:51:1] RA: Yeah. There's so much development going on in these young kids that just the change is like that sometimes, right? You turn around and you're like, “Why aren't they walking?” I have a friend and their daughter, she does not want to crawl. She refused to crawl. Then, they turn around and all of a sudden, she's running everywhere. If we just focused on this crawling milestone, then we'd be like, “Oh, something's wrong.” Then we look at a few months later and she's walking around everywhere. The same thing happens in preschool intervention. Sometimes, you're working with this child and they're having problems with these emotions and these tantrums. Then, you do a few interventions for a few weeks and all of a sudden, they're a different kid. It's just amazing how fast that change happens. I think that just shows how important that early intervention really can be.
[0:28:43:] KO: Definitely.
[0:28:44:1] RA: You mentioned earlier, you have five to 10 books maybe that you highly like. If you had to name a couple of those, what would be the ones that you would name?
[0:28:54:1] KO: Okay. This is what I'm obsessed with. It's actually sitting right next to me. I'm not even done reading it.
[0:28:59.1] RA: That's a good sign.
[0:29:00:2] KO: I think, this is one you've actually read. I think, you had read it probably around the same time. I just haven't finished yet. This one, How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen. Absolutely love it. This goes right along with that expectation of kids. We expect them to be little adults, but they're not little adults. They are kids. Their brains work differently. I was just thinking, I was like, “Oh, I got to make a TikTok, because this morning, we need to get ready and getting dressed, asking your children to get dressed doesn't always go great.
Sometimes they don't want to get dressed. They want to do other things. Like, “No, we're not going to get dressed,” and start running around. It's more along those lines where it's like, “Okay, we need to get dressed. What can I do?” I actually said, “You guys, we want to get dressed for the parade.” They're like, “Oh, the parade.” They went and got dressed. All I did was we down the stairs and I looked up parade circus music. I turned on a two-minute song and we marched around, like we were pretending that we were like animals or something.
You know what? It got them dressed. There was no fight. They had a great time doing it. They will probably ask for more parades, and we avoided that confrontation of, it's time to get dressed right now. Because kids will learn to do that stuff. I don't always have to do that stuff. A lot of times, they get dressed just fine. Every now and then – and it makes it fun for them. I had a good time. It was fun watching them. It goes to that expectation. We expect them to say something and for them to do it right now. They’re kids. They have so much going on in their mind. They're exploring, they're doing stuff.
If we can twist it a little bit, and that's one of the big things from this book is you just learn about looking at things through their eyes a little bit more, I feel like. Instead of getting angry about things, how can we problem solve? How can we make things a little bit more fun? Yeah, this and I'm not through yet. Has been, I think, it's a wonderful book.
[0:30:50:0] RA: Yes. I don't know if you read the original too, but there's a –
[0:30:53.3] KO: No, I didn’t.
[0:30:54.0] RA: - version of that. Which is, I think she's the daughter of the original author. For those who are not seeing this video, that would be How to Talk So Little Kids Listen.
[0:31:05.2] KO: Yes. How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen.
[0:31:07.0] RA: Yes. It is a fantastic book. I haven't finished mine yet either. I'm probably about halfway through, but I think it's great. It gives a lot of examples, like you're talking about, these fun ways to try and roll with that resistance, rather than hitting that power struggle head on.
[0:31:22.1] KO: Yeah. It's just super actionable, too. That's what I've loved about this book. That's where it's like, I haven't felt I needed to just sit down and read cover to cover. I'm slowly working my way through it, trying things out, what works and seeking it out for strategies. That one's at the top of my list. Now if I can remember any of the names of anything else, like my brain is just full. I also just finished a really good one. There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather, I think it's called.
[0:31:47:0] RA: I haven't heard of that one.
[0:31:48:0] KO: It's really good. It's basically a Swedish mom, who she grew up in Sweden and she moved to Indiana, actually. She noticed a very big difference in how kids, the outdoor time. Anyways, I mean she talks about – and I grew up in North Dakota, so I relate to this, because I see this in Indiana where it's like, if it's 30 degrees, people are like, “I'm not going outside.” I grew up in North Dakota and it's negative 30 and blizzards and we're still outside playing, because that's just life. Nothing stops for snow.
Schools don’t shut down, and so I relate to this mom and I'm like, “Yeah, I need to get back into my North Dakota childhood and get my kids outside, because they need it.” That book, I just love, because it really talks about getting kids outside and the benefits of that, especially from a sensory standpoint. Again, knowing about that physical development and how much they need to move and explore to get our expectations of what we should be expecting inside, indoors. Kids need to get outside, and they need to move. It was just a really cool book. It was a fun read. That one, I just finished recently, too.
[0:32:52.3] RA: I love it. I wrote that down, because I'm going to have to look into that one.
[0:32:54:2] KO: I think, that's what it's called. I can't even think of the author's name. That was another one that I was like, “Oh.”
[0:32:59.0] RA: I'm sure if I Google it, we'll find it. Yeah. Great. Because I'm always looking for new books that are great. I think, again, it helps to know different resources from people who are educated in the field, who know, hey, this is coming from a pretty good place, right? Because all of my training is in preschool kids. As I'm entering into the world of babyhood, that for me, it's finding different people who can help me understand better what should be going on and all of that, which is why, again, I love your TikToks, because they help me with that. I don't know if you've read this one. Tina Payne Bryson just put out a book. She's written a lot of books with Dan Siegel. I don't know if you've heard of No Drama Discipline, or –
[0:33:43.5] KO: I haven’t.
[0:33:44.5] RA: - The Whole Brain Child. Fantastic books.
[0:33:45.9] KO: That one I have heard of. That has been on my list forever, and I still have not read it. I need to read that one.
[0:33:49.9] RA: It is a great book.
[0:33:51.9] KO: I want to. Yes.
[0:33:53.1] RA: I think, I read that one through Audible. Yeah. Great book. Tina Payne Bryson then did her own book, and it's about child development, or baby development. It talks about things, like co-sleeping and feeding and all of that stuff, and it digs into the research to help people say, all right, so this is what the public opinion is and this is what the research really says about that.
[0:34:18:0] KO: Interesting.
[0:34:19:0] RA: So that people can understand. Some of this stuff has valid reasons that we should not do this. A lot of this stuff is it's up to your parent preference and your family preference. Yeah.
[0:34:31.8] KO: That's why I don't do a lot of sleep stuff on my TikToks. I do some feeding, but have you ever read Brene Brown Dare to Lead, I think it's called. She talks about that exact same thing, where there are certain things in parenting where it's really up to that family preference and personal preference and yeah, exactly.
[0:34:54.7] RA: Absolutely. Yeah, I dug into the sleeping last week. I posted a video and you can see just the comments are here or here. It can become a pretty toxic place if you're not careful.
[0:35:09:] KO: For me, sleep – I have the background I did. Sleep has been the biggest struggle with both of my kids. That's a pain point for me. It didn't go at all how I thought. Actually, both of my kids had their tonsils and adenoids removed in August, because they were having sleep apnea. I mean, we're talking they were up every two hours well past the first year. I mean, that's how bad. I remember having doctors tell me, doctors say with my daughter when she was eight-months-old and she's up all night long and I bring her in, I’d be like, “Something's wrong. I need help.” She'd be this happy little bubbly baby. He's like, “You just need to give her tough love. There's nothing wrong with her. You need to give her tough love.”
Then, he will look into her ears and say, “Oh, she has a raging double ear infection and teeth coming in.” Then he changed, “Okay, okay. Maybe.” You know what it’s like? Sleep is hard too, because there's so much they can't communicate. My daughter would had never have a fever. Never was really cranky during the day. The only thing is, we could not lay her down at night. We literally had to hold her elevated, because she would scream in pain when we would lay her in her crib. She had nonstop ear infections from five-months-old, until she got tubes at 15 months.
Then we still struggled after that. This was a story thing I'm telling, but my son, too. Horrible sleeping. It’s just awful, awful, awful, awful. Then, yeah, we ended up taking on bulk to an ENT, because of the sleep. They said, “Well we can't tell you a 100% sure if this will help or not, but their tonsils look mildly inflamed. They never have histories of being sick a lot or anything, but they're like, but because of the symptoms that you're describing, they're both waking up frequently with lots of night terrors. My son's now sleepwalking so we got to look at that. Yeah, that's getting – sorry, it’s another story.
These are based on symptoms, I would recommend doing it. We did it. They took off the tonsils on both of them and adenoids on the same day. He said, “Yes, those tonsils were huge. You couldn't see it by just looking,” because you can't actually see it until you get them out. They were infected and nasty-looking tonsils. My daughter, she sleeps so much better now. So much better. My son, like I said, we're still figuring that out. It's one of those things where it's hard. That was my experience. Not everybody is going to have that traumatic of an experience, where you’re literally not sleeping for five years. It’s that bad. I mean, I'm just now starting to get sleep, probably since about October. My kids are five and three. I'm just starting to get a full night's sleep again.
[0:37:52:1] RA: Five years and no sleep.
[0:37:54.2] KO: Five years.
[0:37:54.6] RA: Oh, my goodness.
[0:37:55.1] KO: You don't expect that when you're going into parenthood and you say, “Oh, six months. I can do that. Or a year even.”
[0:38:00:0] RA: I'm thinking like a year, right?
[0:38:02:1] KO: Yeah. When my daughter, when we had my daughter, I thought, she won't be as bad as my son. There's no way she’s going to be as bad as a sleeper. Then it was even worse. It was just like, “Oh, my gosh.” Yeah. Then they ended up both – My daughter, we saw a huge difference in her altogether when she got those removed. My son, too, he started sleeping better. Now just recently, we're having some new issues. Anyways, I didn't plan to – Sorry, it just follows.
[0:38:30.4] RA: I think it's a great story. Again, there's a lot of nuggets in there. I'm curious, did you have to go to the doctor a couple of times before you got them to say, “Oh, hey. There is actually something going on here?”
[0:38:41:1] KO: For my daughter, it was really frustrating because I think she started getting ear infections about five-months-old, and I’d bring her in. I think round three and she's a year and I was like, “Hey, I’d really like this an ENT.” I'm scared that this is going to affect your hearing, because my background – I've done hearing tests. I know everything there is about that. The doctor brushed me off and he's like, “Well, it's not going to affect your hearing. She's fine.” I said, “No, no, no. I really want that referral. Please, give me a referral to a ENT.” Sure enough, she kept having the ear infections, brought her to the ENT. Yes, let's put tubes on her.
It's not always a magic cure for everybody, but she was also having hearing loss. They did a hearing test on her. At 15-months-old, it’s even funny, because sometimes doctors won’t think that the fluid being in the ears at 15-months-old make a difference, but it makes a huge difference. I have clients at NCT where it's like, we really have to push sometimes to get those referrals to an ENT. Which surprises me, because hearing tests are easy to do in kids, and even putting tubes in was easy. We did that.
Then, she starts getting ear infections, but the sleeping stuff continued with her, until she got her tonsils and adenoids out. She was also a chronic thumb-sucker. It's like, she would just sit in your lap and suck all day. That was the other thing. I was like, she just doesn't seem she's resting. She was actually already in the ENT, so it was easier to get her to look at. My son, he was three or four. He was four. I had to push with doctors with him to get him referred to an ENT. I’m like, he's four-years-old and he’s still waking up all night long. Is that normal? Can we get some help? Well, go ahead. Go check to the ENT. Then we got that referral. The ENT, I was nervous about getting their tonsils out, so I got a second opinion too, because check all the phases, and he saw the exact same thing. We did it, even though I was very nervous about it.
Yeah. I've had families, where getting those referrals from doctors is really hard. When I worked up in North Dakota, Minnesota, I did a lot more of being able to advocate in a doctor's office for families. There's a lot of great doctors out there. I’m not saying anything like, I hope doctors don't listen to this and they're like, “Oh, jeez.” They see a lot of patients a day. I can't imagine how hard that is to only get five to 10 minutes with a person, then make a big decision.
[0:40:56:1] RA: Yeah. I think, you make a great point. I don't know if you know, my wife is a pediatrician.
[0:41:03.8] KO: Didn’t know that. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Cool.
[0:41:06.9] RA: Our poor child, right? A doctor for a mom and then a therapist dad.
[0:41:11.9] KO: Wow. I didn’t know.
[0:41:12.6] RA: Poor, poor kid.
[0:41:14.2] KO: Can I ask you some questions [inaudible 0:41:15.8]?
[0:41:15.8] RA: RA: Absolutely. I'm trying to convince – She is not very in love with the idea of being on video, but I'm hoping to get her at one point to come on here.
[0:41:25:1] KO: That would be amazing.
[0:41:27.1] RA: Yeah. She talks about how in the field of doctoring, it's the same thing in the mental health world. There’s a lot of focus, because there's a business mindset on it. Business CEOs now are running a lot of these companies, and it's a big push on you have to see as many people as you can, right? That goes into your pay. I know when I was in community mental health, it was the same way. You're expected to see this many hours of patients every day, or clients, we call them. If you don't, then it can lead into almost losing your job. It's like a write-up for this, if you don't hit it.
Anyway, doctors, they do it. They have this pressure and they have to try and make these decisions immediately on very little information. I think, that's where being a mom, especially in your case, it's like, “Hey, I know something's wrong here and something is just isn't right. I have to keep bringing this up in order to get them the help they need.”
[0:42:23:2] KO: Yeah, exactly. Well, that's interesting.
[0:42:26:1] RA: Yeah. I don't think that it's bad talking doctors. I think, it's just being realistic on the environment of what it is.
[0:42:34:1] KO: Yeah. They have a lot to do and things get missed. Early intervention, too. Nobody's perfect. None of these systems are perfect. Things get missed. That's why hopefully, we can all help each other and get referrals to different services and get kids the help they need, or adults.
[0:42:51:] RA: Yeah, absolutely. It's the same thing in in the world of mental health and young kids, because it's such a blossoming field that it's still hard for some people to understand that a three-year-old can have anxiety. Some doctors, I think, is becoming more known. Just aren't aware of that.
[0:43:10:] KO: Definitely. Yeah. No, I totally get that too, because birth to three early interventions, that's only been around since the 80s, I think. Don't quote me on that, but I think part C was starting started in the 80s. It's like, it hasn't been that long. People do too think, well, they're just a baby. They'll do it. There's a lot of research behind this stuff. Yeah, definitely.
[0:43:33.0] RA: Yeah, absolutely. I know in 2021, we say that 80s. Well, that's what? 40 years ago. Still, that's early in these fields.
[0:43:42.6] KO: It is. Yeah. That's a long time. When you think about other fields and special education and even special educations and newer fields, when we think about that.
[0:43:52:0] RA: Yeah, absolutely. I have a couple more things I want to cover. One of the big ones is, I get this question a lot, and I'm just curious your thoughts on it. How do you think the pandemic and kids being stuck inside is going to be impacting them in the long run? That’s a big question.
[0:44:11.6] KO: This is interesting. It is a big question. Obviously, anything I say is just an observation. I think as a parent having to go through it too, and as a professional, it's been interesting being on TikTok, because I've connected with a lot of people in different states who are having trouble getting access to service, and maybe you've seen that, too. I think that’s not a great thing. I did, too, recently read a news story on them, talking about how much young children look at the mouth to learn how to speak and to do language development, which I'm very aware of. If the kids at home with their parents, you're probably not going to see much of an impact there, but our kids that are still going to child care centers, where people are wearing masks all day, there might be an impact there.
[0:44:56.5] RA: I hadn't thought of that. That's a really interesting thing.
[0:44:58.5] KO: Yeah. I had thought about it, but it was interesting to read the article, because you see that and I guess, and preschools are already talking, so that's not necessarily.
[0:45:08.9] RA: Daycares. Yeah.
[0:45:09.4] KO: Toddler, childcare settings, most of them are wearing masks. That is a big part of imitation is being able to watch the mouth and to imitate. It's harder to read facial cues. Then you look at that, so babies and infants and toddlers and even preschoolers. It's hard for me to read facial cues without – You wonder about that.
Then when I look at my own parenting, I think it's that the mental health of parents in those states and how many of us, like with me, we don't have any health care. We have no family here. We have no preschool anymore. Now, we could probably just start putting them back in and. When you're with your kids 24/7 and you're just trying to get by, I think it's just – I don't even know how to describe that. Screen time probably has gone up. I think, that is something –
[0:45:57.8] RA: Absolutely. Yes.
[0:45:59.2] KO: I know people hate when you say anything bad about screen time. I follow the AAP guidelines the best I can with screen time. In the pandemic, have my kids gotten maybe more? Possibly, because they're going to have to make that choice like, okay, I'm feeling upset. I have no help. Is it okay to let them watch an extra hour of TV, so I can do X, Y, Z? It's like, you're making those choices, and either of them are great options. That will be interesting. I'm sure, most people, their screen time has gone up. There are studies that link to language development, things like that, being was too much screen time can cause issue. It's because kids aren't doing other activities that they need for development.
[0:46:39:2] RA: Also, it's a lot of receiving information without that interplay between two people.
[0:46:46.7] Yeah. That was something I've thought about too, is a lot of us are using more screen time, because as far as the babies and toddlers, I think, maybe some good things that have come out is maybe they are spending more time with their parents, which can be a really good thing, unless the parents are under a lot of stress where they're working from home, they're doing childcare at the same time, which is really hard. That's what we've been doing. Me and my husband are both working from home, and we have two kids that we're trying to raise and trying to balance all that is really, really stressful.
[0:47:17.1] RA: Yeah. That’s really hard.
[0:47:19.0] KO: As far as the social interaction stuff, I feel like, a lot of people are worried about that. Also, my kids, they haven't been interacting with anybody until recently, and we've started to let other people back into our bubble. I haven't seen my parents, my aunt, or my sister or brother, anyone in almost, it'll be two years in August. I haven't seen any of that. My kids haven't seen their grandparents and stuff. That stuff's all really hard, because we're across the country from each other. How will that impact relationships? There's so much. It will be interesting to see what does all impact, because I don't know.
[0:47:54.2] RA: Yeah. It’s kind of a experiment at this point.
[0:47:57.0] KO: Yes. I think, everybody’s just doing the best they can. Yeah.
[0:48:00:0] RA: Yeah. Which is all we really can do. I think, parents are dealing with the stress of having to be parents and work. I was reading the other day, people at work, or being expected to work even more, because they're working at home. The boundaries are blending now, which makes it harder for them. Then, we have all this stuff going on with kids, who are also, who need that social interaction and can't get it.
[0:48:30:2] KO: Yeah. Or services. mean, I'm sure you're aware of that too, of the numbers as far as abuse and addiction. All those numbers are – We know that's going to have an impact on children, too, which is scary and sad. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff.
[0:48:49:0] RA: Yeah. I like that you put that strength spin on it, too, where yes, there's also the benefit that we are getting a little bit more time.
[0:48:57:1] KO: In my own parenting, I was definitely the mom who wants to go places. I don't like to be at home. I'm a stay-at-home mom, but I also work part-time. I was definitely a mom who was, let's go to the museum, let's go to the park, let's go here, let's go there. I didn't like taking out at home with my kids. This was a hard transition for me. I will say over the last year, we pretty much stayed home and it did make me realize as parents, it's like, okay, we don't have to be going 24/7. It's okay to stay home. I'm starting to see my kids play more imaginary.
We're just outside more. We're going to hike more. Yeah, there's definitely that flip side of it too, where there's some real positives. I do feel like, I as a mom, I don't have to be going all the time. Let's slow down life. If anything, I think that's the one thing. Yeah, it's been really hard. I think, parents are just exhausted. If you're a parent and you have no support and you're with your kids 24/7, it's just exhausting. You're just trying to do the best. That's where right now and gosh, there's a really good article and I can't think of who it was. I don't know. I can't remember. They were talking about, we just don't have good options right now. It’s either put your kid in front of the screen, or lose your temper with them. Or put your kid in front of the screen, or get something cleaned. It's hard, because there's no help anymore. There's a lot of not great choices to make.
[0:50:20:1] RA: Right. It's just, I see that breath. I feel that anxiety of it.
[0:50:26.4] KO: Yeah, it's hard. It's been hard.
[0:50:28:2] RA: Another benefit there and I think you – might have been you that made a post on it. I don't remember, but about boredom. Boredom can really help kids. We need kids to be bored a little bit. Tablets are a great way to avoid having to deal with this. It's also a great way to learn how to deal with that feeling. It increases creativity and that imaginary play and curiosity.
[0:50:53:0] KO: Yes. Yes. I did just do. Yeah. Yup.
[0:50:56:1] RA: I thought it was you.
[0:50:58:0] KO: Yeah. We definitely, we think we need to entertain and do certain crafts and activities and stuff all day. I think, that's one thing I've learned from early intervention is it's not necessarily those activities that really teach kids. It's those little things. That's what I'm super passionate about and that's what I learned in my training was looking at the daily routines and embedding interventions that way and ways to learn. Because of that repetitive practice, it doesn't add stress on the parent.
It makes those routines that are sometimes very changing a diaper doesn't seem exciting. If you can make an interaction versus just changing the diaper and being done with it and walking through it. Hey, if we sing a song during it, think of you do that every diaper change, whether you've got a newborn, where you’re doing 12 a day, or even an older baby at six a day, that's a lot of language. That's a lot of bonding. Just by adding a little bit of something that you're already doing, instead of all of the – because there's a huge need for parents that they want activities.
That's the most asked question I get is, “I hate activity ideas.” It's like, I don't have any for you. This is how I do it at my house. This is how I've been doing it very much into the – including them in daily routines, even cooking and stuff like that, laundry. Then, on those caregiving routines, too, adding things that way as well.
[0:52:17:0] RA: Yeah. Going back to your roots can be a great way to help kids. Singing songs, playing those games that we all played when we’re younger. Playing hide and seek with your kids. It doesn't take a lot of preparation and crafts and stuff like that, but think about all the skills they're learning there. They're learning how to count, because they have to count to 10 or whatever. They're learning how to wait and be patient as they have to try and hide. Some kids aren’t very good at that, and they're laughing and whatnot, and give away their hiding spot, because they want to be found. There's also that interplay between two people, that connection and that attachment that they get. There's so many things that come from just these little tiny games that we've all played forever.
[0:52:59:0] KO: Yeah. The best part of that game, which I play with my kids all the time, which gives the parents a break. Just find a good hiding spot and hunker down.
[0:53:08:0] RA: It’s a way to hide.
[0:53:08:2] KO: You do it. It's funny. If you find good hiding space, spots, it takes them a while. They enjoy it and you just get to take a deep breath. Yeah, we do hide and seek at my house a lot. You can even just change the mood. If you're just all in a funk, “Quick, somebody hide.” Then I'll just go run off. I’ll be like, “You can't find me.” They just chase after. There, we're getting that motor play in, too, or burning that energy.
[0:53:35:0] RA: Yeah. Small little things that just make big changes. I think, that's one of the things that I think gravitated towards your content too, is it's these small little things that can make big changes and it's great. Yeah. All right, so last question would be, if you could give parents one piece of advice, what would it be?
[0:53:57:0] KO: Make mistakes. Oh, I'm with you on that. Make mistakes and know that it's okay. That's how we learn. I feel like, that's probably one of the most important things, because I think that's the thing you struggle with as the most as a parent, you want to be a perfect parent. You don't want to mess up your kids with some very big job.
I think, that was something, too. I read about people that work in early childhood, or that work with kids when they become parents, there's extra pressure, because we know all these things, but it's unrealistic to think that we can do them 24/7, and in a perfect way. Make the mistakes and then reflect and show your kids that you make mistakes. Let them be part of that process, I think, too. I think so much of it is how we model things for kids, too.
[0:54:44:1] RA: Which I think is that's why it's so great. I think you shared the story you didn't plan to share about the mud is a mistake. You move forward and learn from it. There was a lot of growth that happened because of that.
[0:54:57.8] KO: Definitely.
[0:54:59.2] RA: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate having you on here.
[0:55:04:0] KO: Yeah, thank you for having me. It was really fun to chat.
[0:55:07:0] RA: Yeah. Just so everybody who isn't already following you could find you, where could they find you?
[0:55:13:1] KO: Yeah. My handle that I use on Instagram and TikTok is @baby.toddler.teacher. You find me there. You can click my bio link and get links to everything else, my blog and everything else.
[0:55:29:0] RA: Great. Thank you so much again.
[END]
