Five Key Takeaways from the First One Hundred Episodes

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Hi everyone, welcome to the show, I am Dr. Nicole, and on today’s episode, we are celebrating 100 episodes of The Better Behavior Show podcast. I am so thrilled to reach this exciting mark of 100 episodes when I started this show about two years ago, I really had no idea how it would grow, how it would evolve, where we would end up. But I am so proud that here we are, 100 episodes later, still bringing you amazing guests, great information, lots of support, week in and week out. I am so grateful to all of you who are loyal listeners and part of our community, all of you parents out there who are doing an incredible job raising your children, many of whom have a wide variety of developmental and mental health kinds of challenges. And to those of you who are professionals in our audience as well, in the work that you are doing with kids as teachers, as social workers, as therapists, as occupational therapists, as people in the medical profession. So thrilled to have all of you with us on this journey! 

I thought for this 100th episode that it might be fun to take a look back in time over all of the episodes that we have done so far and to highlight what I think are 5 key takeaways from these episodes because there have been so many topics covered and so many great people that I’ve had the opportunity to talk with, and as I was reflecting on it and looking back over all of the guests and all of the conversations over these last couple of years, there really were some themes that jumped out at me. So I thought we’d spend a bit of time together today, taking a look back, looking at these themes, and hopefully that will be helpful to you, especially as we are near the start of this new year and then heading into our next 100 episodes, let’s take a look back. 

So 5 key takeaways that I think are prevalent from the first 100 episodes: The first, and this is a big one is that the brain and body are totally interconnected. You can’t have a healthy well-functioning brain without a healthy well-functioning body. We’ve had so many guests on the show speak to various aspects of this issue, that we need to look beyond the behaviors that our kids are exhibiting, beyond the challenges that they may be having in school, beyond even their diagnosis and we need to look at all the components that are impacting their brain health and function. And that often requires looking at a whole lot of things that are going on in their bodies. So some things that fall underneath this big key point that the brain and body are interconnected and that we need to look at physical health when we’re talking about mental health.

The first is nutrition, this is a big one, we’ve had lots of guests on the show talking about this, the importance of nutrition in how our kids’ brains function and in how they learn and behave and communicate and all of those things. So we’ve had several guests, many guests on the show about this. I’m thinking about Judy Converse early on in the first few episodes of the show, who talked about the foundational importance of what we feed our children and how their brain is able to develop and function. We’ve had nutritionist Trudy Scott on the show talking about amino acids and how those in particular, whether it’s through food or targeted nutritional supplements, how those can really support kids who are having anxiety issues, sleeping issues, mood kinds of issues. We’ve talked with Julie Matthews who specializes in autism and ADHD and specific diets that are helpful and that the research shows can benefit kids with those kinds of conditions. More recently we’ve had Dr. Emily Ventura and Dr. Michael Goran on the show from Sugarproof Kids talking about the extensive evidence that we have around how added sugars in our kids’ diets are negatively impacting not only their physical health, but also their mental health.

So many great episodes around nutrition and really honing in on the importance of understanding that what we feed our kids makes a big difference in how not only their bodies are able to function, but how their brains are able to function. And in so many episodes around not only food and certain diets and things, but also looking at specific aspects of nutritional supplementation and targeted nutrients. 

Then in this realm of brain-body connection, we’ve had several episodes on the gut-brain connection and the importance of gut health, and specifically the microbiome and how that impacts the development of neurodevelopmental and mental health conditions, how it impacts symptoms that our children may exhibit, everything from the physical symptoms of things like constipation and diarrhea and bloating and digestive issues, to the mental health symptoms of anxiety and irritability and reactive behavior and all of those kinds of things. We need to really be looking at gut health and the microbiome. In the early days of the show, we had microbiologist Kiran Krishnan from Microbiome Labs who came on to talk with us specifically about the gut microbiome and that balance of healthy and pathogenic bacteria and viruses and parasites and all of those things, and how that impacts our kids. We’ve had Dr. Maya Shetreat on the show, a pediatric neurologist who talked with us about the importance of kids getting dirty, literally getting in the dirt, playing outside, spending time in nature as a way to boost their gut microbiome.

More recently, we’ve had Dr. Liz Lipski, who is a digestive specialist, on the show and she talked a lot about how we need to really be cognizant of how our kids’ bodies are making use of the food and the nutrients that we’re giving them in order to support their mental and physical health, and lots of other specific topics around this too, I’m thinking back to an episode we did with Dr. Jim Adams who has done some of the seminal research on fecal microbiota transplants in kids with autism spectrum disorder and the amazing results they’re getting with that. So just that focus on gut health and the microbiome.

Then we’ve also covered, in this arena of brain-body connection,  issues of infections. We’ve had Dr. Elisa Song who talked with us about PANS and PANDAS and how infections can trigger all kinds of emotional and behavioral and learning disorders and symptoms in our kids. We had nurse practitioner Stephanie Belseth on, also talking about the role of infections and how we can use holistic methods to really support our kids who are dealing with the impact of those kinds of infections. More recently, I had Dr. Tom Moorcroft on the show who talked about similar types of things, why it is that our kids are so much more susceptible to infections, especially at we look at this era that we’re in right now of COVID – why those are bigger issues now for our kids and they maybe were a couple of generations ago, and what we can do around that.

We’ve also touched on things related to the physical environment and how that impacts the body, and therefore, the brain. I’m thinking back to an episode with Melissa Gallico where she explained to us the connection between fluoride in the environment, in water, in products that our kids are using, and how fluoride is actually a neurotoxin and can be negatively impacting the brains and the bodies of some kids. An episode that we did with Dr. Stephanie Seneff, who really — that was just a mind-blowing episode about her research on glyphosate and genetically-modified organisms and chemicals that are in our environment, getting into our food source, and her research on how that’s impacting the brains of our children. More recently, we’ve had Dr. Aly Cohen on the show to talk about the impact of toxins and things in the physical environment, in things that we use in our homes, cleaning products, food storage containers, chemicals that are on our clothing and in furniture and things like that and how those impact our kids and can be an instigator into the problems that our kids may be having. We’ve covered the role of electronics, kind of a wide range of things related to electronics and how they impact brain and body function. Georgie Powell talked with us on a fairly recent episode about digital wellness, especially during this era of the pandemic and how we find balance there and try to help our kids develop a healthy relationship with technology.

We had Peter Sullivan on an episode of the show to talk about the EMF exposure risks from these devices and how those can negatively impact our kids’ brains and bodies. We’ve also covered issues related to sleep, linking back to the very first episode of the show we did with Dr. Michael Bruce, sleep specialist who talked with us about the critical role of sleep in how our kids’ brains are able to develop and function. We also had an episode with Jodi Cohen who specializes in essential oils and she gave us some really helpful information on how we can use essential oils to support anxiety reduction and sleep for kids who are really challenged by that, because when our kids are not sleeping well, it makes all of their symptoms much, much worse. And actually, the lack of sleep can cause symptoms that we see in kids, related to focus and attention and mood and anxiety and all those things. 

Then, we look at the connection of movement to brain and body health. Episodes that we’ve done with Julie Pate from YogaKids and the role that yoga can play in supporting healthy movement for our kids. Daniel Stein from Special Strong, who gave us some really awesome tips and information about how we can do fitness and physical activity, even for our kids who have the most severe neurological or medical or physical kinds of disabilities and needs, and how we can break those things down and get even more significantly impaired kids and young adults involved in physical fitness and activity because it makes such a big difference, not only from a physical perspective as they age, but also from the brain function perspective. And then, quite recently, my friend, Dr. Suzanne Bartlett Hackenmiller was on the show talking about the role of nature, movement in nature. She specifically talked about Forest Bathing.

If you missed that episode and don’t know what I’m talking about with Forest Bathing, go back and check it out, the importance of getting out into nature, and she gave lots of great ideas for those of you who have children or students who are on the autism spectrum or with more significant neurodevelopmental issues, how to get them outside and moving and I loved about that episode too, she lives in Iowa, where it gets really cold and snowy, and she gave some great tips on how we can continue to get movement for ourselves and our kids, even in the cold winter months. 

And then the last part of this brain-body connectivity piece is around stress. This was another theme as I looked back through the episodes, the importance of helping kids manage their stress. So I’m thinking back to the episode with Emily Fletcher from Ziva Meditation and the upcoming Ziva Kids program where she really walked us through some simple mindfulness and breathing and meditation kinds of strategies that we can use with kids of all ages and ability levels to help bring that stress level down. My friend and colleague, Dr. Joan Rosenberg who came on the show to talk about how we can help kids learn to manage stress and other uncomfortable emotions, and strategies for that. And then Alex Ortner from The Tapping Solution, who shared with us their strategies and really simple but effective tapping techniques that we can teach to kids again, even developmentally young kids through our adult children for managing stress and anxiety and just supporting brain function. So that’s kind of a recap of a lot of the episodes and topics that we’ve covered together in this first key takeaway area of the brain and body are interconnected. If we’re going to support our kids’ mental health and brain functioning at home and at school and in the world, then we need to be paying attention to the physical connection there and making sure that we’re addressing all of those areas.  

Okay, so key takeaway number two is that what we as parents and adults bring to the table with our kids is really important. The ways that we communicate, the ways that we initiate interaction, that we engage with them, the ways that we manage ourselves are just key to helping our children learn and grow and function better. So often, we put the focus on the kids, right? On their challenges, on what therapies they need, on the skills they need to develop, and those things are important, but really, what is even more important is what we bring in ourselves to our relationship and interaction with them. And the beautiful thing about that, as we’ve talked on the show so many times previously, is that it’s really hard to get kids or anybody else to do anything, right? We can’t control what other people do, but we can control ourselves and what we do. So the beautiful thing about this piece of being really focused on what we as the parent or the teacher or the therapist bring to our interactions with these kids, we can control that. We have control over how we engage with them.

So whether it’s focusing on the communication that we’re using, and I’m thinking back to the second episode way back a couple of years ago with supportiveLori Petro from Conscious Communication, where she talked about ways that we can really be intentional about phrasing things and about communicating in supportive ways, in ways that reduce power struggles, in ways that feel meaningful and understandable to our kids that support our relationships with them. Another thing in the realm of communication, the episode with Dr. Ross Greene, who wrote several really key books, one well-known one being The Explosive Child, which a lot of you, I know, had heard of probably before you tuned into that episode. But he focuses on collaborative problem-solving and giving some really specific ways that we think about problem-solving communication with our kids, especially when they are really struggling with their own emotions, with their behaviors and that’s so applicable, both in-home and at school.

Thinking about our parent-child relationship, or if you are a professional, that professional-child relationship and how central that relationship is to everything else that we want to accomplish with kids. That we need to focus first and foremost on having a positive, well-attached, safe relationship with these kids where they can trust us. So we talked on an episode with Brian Post about attachment and how we can parent and work with kids in a way that feels safe and supportive to them, particularly kids who come from backgrounds of trauma, of being in foster care, of being in adoption kids of situations. A favorite episode of mine with Kim John Payne from Simplicity Parenting, where he really broke down for us how we can use really key strategies to emphasize the relationship that we have with our kids and to bring safety and trust and consistency there.

It was such an honor to interview Dr. Mark Durand, who has done research on optimistic parenting and written a book on that, and that episode was so great because he really helped us to see how research shows that our optimism, the amount of optimism, the optimistic outlook that we bring as parents, as key adults in these kids’ lives makes a tremendous difference in reducing behaviors and improving functioning in kids, even with the most severe neurological and behavioral disorders, that even when parents don’t have a lot of opportunity to access therapists or specific kinds of therapies, just by helping you focus on your level of optimism, of taking care of yourself, of retaining hope that your kids can get better. That makes a tremendous difference, it makes me think too about the episode more recently with Julie Lythcott-Haims, where we talked about how we as parents and as adults can help kids to develop more independence, can help them feel more capable and competent, can utilize our interactions with them in a way that helps them grown into the best versions of themselves. So that parent-child relationship is so critical. And then the other piece that I’m thinking about this key takeaway of us as parents and adults bringing really important things to the table is this idea of staying calm and regulated ourselves.

We’ve had several guests who have talked to us in various ways about the importance of that, that we need to be able to stay in the role of being the captain of the ship, that we need to be able to stay confidently in control and calm, especially when our kids are not, especially when we are dealing with big storms, whether that is behavior issues or big reactions or just ongoing major struggles with our kids, that we need to stay calm and firm in ourselves, in how we’re approaching the situation, and in relationship with them so they know that they can trust us and that no matter what they throw at us, we’ve got it. And I’m thinking about the recent episode with Janet Lansbury, where she touched on that. She talked about it particularly for our developmentally young kids, but it applies to all kids across the board about how we can stay confident in our role, how we can help ourselves be able to manage whatever our kids might throw at us.

And then a favorite episode of mine with my good friend and colleague, Dr. Mona Delahooke who has written a book, Beyond Behaviors, where she talked about nervous system regulation for these kids, and how much they struggle with being able to regulate their emotions and behaviors, and the key role that we as adults play in modeling that and in reacting to them and interacting with them in a way that helps their nervous system settle and mature into being able to regulate themselves better. This idea that they need to be able to co-regulate with us in calm, structured, effective ways first and then they become able to self-regulate in those challenging kinds of situations. So if you haven’t checked out those episodes yet, I highly recommend you give those a listen, and for those of you that did listen to them, if you are in a season of your life dealing with some of these things, it’s like, “Oh right, that’s a resource, I can go back and listen to that episode.” So that key takeaway number two: What we as parents and adults bring to the table with these kids is really important.

Take away number three is that there is no one path to progress. I’ve known this to be true as a parent and as a professional now for almost 25 years. Kids may have the same diagnosis or they may be in the same type of classroom, or they may see similar types of therapists, but the reality is that each child is unique, and despite their diagnosis or needs, there is no one prescribed path for these kids to make progress. First of all, the root issues that are creating their challenges may all be different. I’ve said many times in the show, you can line up 10 kids with a diagnosis of ADHD or autism, for example, and you may find 10 different underlying causes or reasons why they’re having those symptoms. Same goes for anxiety or bipolar or learning disabilities, whatever it might be. So it becomes our job then to really figure out what works for each child. What makes your child tick? What’s their unique combination of strengths and challenges? And then that helps us to figure out what’s going to work best for them. Because I think a lot of parents spend a lot of time and energy and money doing prescribed therapies or interventions that they’re told to do on the basis of a particular diagnosis or whatever that their child has gotten. But the reality is that each kid is unique. So we need to figure out what’s going to work for them with a particular emphasis on what are their strengths, because that’s where we want to really build from. Yes, we want to do skill development and things to support their weaker areas, their challenges, to help them grow and develop, but we want to do it through the lens of making sure that we are encouraging and building on their strengths.

So some of the episodes that come to mind that can be really important areas for parents to consider are things like auditory processing. We did a great episode with speech-language pathologist Lois Kam Heymann where she really deviled into what auditory processing is, how it is so often overlooked for kids who are having learning and behavior challenges, and strategies and approaches for that. We’ve had a couple of episodes related to anxiety, and specifically the SPACE parenting approach to anxiety. We talked with Dr. Yara Shimshoni, and then very recently Dr. Eli Lebowitz about their research and approach to anxiety and how it really focuses on parents and not directly working with kids. We had an episode with Dr. Dan Fortenbacher about visual processing, again, another really under-recognized, under-treated area for a lot of kids who are having neurodevelopmental disorder issues or learning challenges and behavioral issues, particularly in the classroom, the importance of looking at that visual processing issue. Sonia Story who did an episode with us early on about reflex integration and how that connects to sensory integration and higher cognition and learning functions and why it is that a kiddo who doesn’t have some of those early developmental reflex integration pieces in place is going to struggle later on with things like reading and writing and attention and regulating their emotions and behavior.

A fabulous episode with Sarah Ward talking about executive function skills and how these are key for kids who are struggling with both learning and focus and attention, as well as their emotional and behavioral regulation. These are key skills that we can use, techniques to help them learn: Time management, time awareness, how to structure and manage their belonging, how to prioritize tasks, how to see things through to completion, so many kids struggle with those areas. So working on those executive function skills can be helpful. We had Dr. Kay Toomey from the SOS Feeding Program on the show to talk about feeding treatment. And that was such a help to those of you who have kids with picky eating issues, but also way beyond picky eating and really problematic feeding patterns, those of you who maybe have been in various kinds of behavioral therapies for feeding for a long time and haven’t been making progress, that episode with Dr. Toomey really showed us some of the things that are often overlooked that need to be assessed there and what effective treatment looks like.

So again, this idea that there is no one path to progress, we need to be looking at the uniqueness of each child and then putting together a plan for how we’re going to address that child’s needs. one of my goals for this show has been to expose all of you as listeners to lots of ways of thinking about this, to lots of types of assessment and treatment and issues and underlying root causes that you might now have even been aware of before, because I’m such a big believer that we do the best we can at the time with the information that we have. And then as we learn, it allows us to do better, and I know that’s been true for myself as a parent and definitely as a professional as well. So one of my big goals with this show has been to expose all of us to more information, to newer and better information so that we can all do better for our kids. 

Alright, the fourth key takeaway from the first 100 episodes is the idea that supporting the entire family is critical. Again, we spend so much time focusing on the child with the issues, but we need to remember that that child is part of a family system with parents and grandparents and extended family members, with siblings. They’re part of a family unit and that we need to be considering the needs of everybody in the family system and that that’s a part of helping kids grow and thrive and improve. So some of the episodes that come to mind along that theme early on on the show, we’ve had Reverend Mantu Joshi from Resilient Parenting who talked about his own experience as the dad of children with special needs as well as in his role as a counselor and a pastor and just the importance of supporting the family unit and how we can do that. More recently, we had Emily Holl from The Sibling Support Project on the show, one of my favorite organizations for supporting siblings. Siblings have their own unique needs, challenges, strengths, we need to be supporting them as well. they often get lost in the shuffle when a child has special needs, particularly if they are more significant behavioral or medical kinds of needs.
So how do we support those kiddos? We had Kendra Wilde on fairly recently talking about micro-actions for self-care for parents and other caregivers and I know this is something that can seem trite at this, talking about self-care, especially with the pandemic, and we all kind of roll our eyes and go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” But it really is important, and the research bears that out. We can’t be there for our kids in a way that supports them to be their best selves and to make progress and move forward when we’re totally depleted and not taking care of ourselves. I really have come to believe that what parents do to support themselves, what we do to support ourselves really is even more important than the specific things that we may do with our kids, because when we are filled up, when we are managing our energy, our health, our emotions better, that has this overflow effect on our kids then. It’s so important. I also was just thinking about the episode with Dr. BJ Fogg from Stanford on his Tiny Habits approach. I guess that episode probably fits in with several of these themes that I’m talking about, but it comes to mind with this key takeaway of supporting the entire family because Tiny Habits is such a brilliant way of helping adults and all kids in the family break down challenges and focus on building new skills, building new habits, building routines for things in a way that’s really successful and productive. If you didn’t catch that episode when it aired, and I want to say it was this last April, so April of 2020, I believe because we were just sort of towards the beginning of the pandemic, definitely check that out, such a brilliant way of working with our kids and for ourselves, of really tackling challenging areas and skill development in a way that’s doable and successful. 

Okay! We have come to key takeaway number 5 and that is that you are never out of options. There is always more to learn and discover and there are always reasons to continue to have hope. If there is one thing that you take away from any episode of this show, certainly from the first 100 episodes that we’re celebrating today, I hope it’s that. I hope that you can take away this sense of optimism, this sense of hope that there are always new things to discover and there is always a reason to believe and expect that kids will grow and change and improve, that we as, their parents or their therapists or their teachers, will continue to grow and evolve and change in positive ways. So if something isn’t working, then change it. Stop doing it, do something different. Figure out what is going to work. Just because it’s maybe the way it’s always been done or it’s the thing that the doctor in the white coat told you you needed to do when your child was first diagnosed, or those of you who are professionals, it’s the thing that you were taught in your undergrad or graduate program to do with these kids. If it’s not working, don’t do it. It doesn’t make sense to continue along a path of things that clearly aren’t helping your child to grow and to develop in the ways that you are looking for.

So don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Don’t be afraid to advocate for new and innovative things. As parents, I know that you have so much on your plate already, and unfortunately, one of the things that can fall to you, as you’re learning about new, innovative research and approaches and the kinds of things that we talk about on this podcast, it can fall to you, it can be another thing on your plate to bring that that your child’s physician or to their school team or whoever to try to advocate and get that done, and I know that that can feel stressful, but it is so worth it to do that because that’s how we start to make change, not only for our children as individuals and what they need, but it’s how we start to create this wave of change in the world for how we understand and work with and treat these children, how we look at what’s going on with them and how we approach that in more appropriate ways, in ways that lead to more progress, in ways that get us better outcomes.

So if you are in a situation where you feel like either personally or professionally, that we’ve been doing these things, they’re not working — don’t be afraid to look at other options and to make a change, regardless of what others may say. And I’m thinking about the beautiful conversation that I had with my friend Silvia Farbstein, mom to Brandon, who is now a young adult with a rare form of dwarfism, and she talked in that episode about her journey with being an advocate for her son, in so many ways being an advocate and really encouraged all of us to be willing to thinking outside that box and to do whatever needs to be done, even if it is breaking the mold and even if it makes people uncomfortable. It reminds me too of an episode with Dr. Vaughn Lauer, school psychologist, where he talked about the critical role that parents play in the IEP process and really how to tackle tough IEP situations, tough conversations with school teams so that you can have more support around getting the kinds of school-based therapies and interventions that your child might need.

And very recently, the conversation with Dr. Joel “Gator” Warsh on how you find a supportive pediatrician or physician or medical advocate for your child, because that’s a challenge too. You learn about all these amazing, great, new integrative options, and then you may feel like you hit a dead end with the providers that you’re working with around your child. So that conversation provided some great tools and ways of thinking about that. And then, you know, obviously back to the conversation with Dr. Durand about optimistic parenting fits in really well here, that there’s always a reason to have hope, and that actually parents holding on to hope and living in a space of hope and an expectation that the child will improve, that your situation will improve, that that just is the foundation for everything else. So you’re never out of options, retain that hope. 

These are the 5 key takeaways that as I really looked back over the first 100 episodes of The Better Behavior Show that I thought really stood out: Brain and body are interconnected, what we as parents and adults bring to the table is really important, there is no one path to progress, supporting the entire family is critical, and you’re never out of options. There are always reasons to have hope and to expect that things will get better. So I hope those speak to you at this moment in time, this unique moment in time that we’re living in as the pandemic situation continues, as we are in the start of a new calendar year, as we have lots of things going on in our world on a macro scale and then obviously the many things day to day and moment to moment that we’re experiencing and living with in our own homes with our own kids.
I hope that these key takeaways speak to you in some way with what you’re dealing with right now. As we wrap up here, I just want to emphasize that it’s really important to me on this show to cover the topics, that people and the issues that matter to you. I love it when you all as listeners send me feedback and suggestions. “Hey, I’d love to hear about this topic/Hey, I heard this person, I think he or she would make a great guest.” So send me an email to support@drbeurkens.com. That’s the email to send your requests, your recommendations that you have for guests, topics, things that you would like to see me cover on future episodes of the show. I always love to hear from you. 

Thank you so much for being a loyal listener and fan of The Better Behavior Show. You all are why I do this show, and you may get such an enjoyable and meaningful process. I had no idea when I started back at episode 1 that I would love podcasting so much, that I would love these interviews and conversations, love engaging with all of you in this way, but it really has become one of the favorite things that I do each week. So thank you for being here. Please continue to subscribe on your favorite podcast players, leave reviews, share the show with your friends and colleagues. When you subscribe and you leave reviews, it helps bring the show to the top of the rankings so that other parents and professionals can find it more easily, so I really appreciate you doing that and supporting the show and supporting others in their learning. So here’s to the first 100 episodes and everything we’ve learned and explored together, and here is to the next 100 episodes that are to come. And on that note, I will see you again back here next week.