No Bad Kids: Behavior is the window to the brain with Special Guest Dr. Sara Cuperus

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Thanks for listening. Let's get into today's topic. Welcome back, No Problem Parents. We have a returning guest with us today. Dr. Sarah Kuperis is back. We had Dr. Sarah on several months ago, actually episode 104, and we're at like episode almost 160 right now. So it was a bit of a while ago, but we were talking then about pre and postpartum chiropractic care for mom and baby. And today, this is super fun, you guys, we are going to get into neurodevelopmental delay. We're going to talk about brain development and behaviors and what's chiropractic got to do with brain development and behavior. So welcome back to the show, Dr. Sarah. Thank you so much for having me.

Last time we got to talk a lot about moms and babies and how we care for those folks. And so today I kind of really wanted to go into how do you care for your little people, right? Your preschoolers, your toddlers, and how do we help support their brain development? So we really believe in our office and our philosophy is that there's no bad kids. And I know parenting those people, right? Those two-year-olds, those three-year-olds, sometimes those four-year-olds, they can be hard and they feel like bad kids, but they aren't inherently bad. And that's where, that's what we really want to touch on today is really, it's just that those behaviors that you see in your practice, see in your home are really just a window into their brain development.

And so it's fun for me to be able to, to work with a family because when you work with families and you help a kid, you actually help the whole family. And so that's really what we're, we're all about in, in our practice. So we really talk about brain development in the manner that the brain develops in a very specific way or a very specific trajectory. And a lot of times we know that certain things like stress can alter the pathway, right?

And alter the trajectory of brain development. And depending upon when that stressor came about or was introduced can change. That can be where the trajectory takes a hard right, right? Like, and now we're on a different pathway and now we've got some behaviors and some things and then mom's frustration goes up and now mom's in stress.

And so, so stress. Hold on. Hold on. I want to pause you for just a second and let's just name a few of those stressors. I mean, there's tons of them. We can never name all of them, but some of the typical stressors that toddlers to like that kindergarten age go through. Let's name a few of those. Ooh, we could look at stressors being family dynamic. This can be sibling dynamic, right? There's a struggle there. This can be, um, lots of screen time. This can be diet can be a stressor. So we can look at emotional stressors, physical stressors. This can be chemical stressors.

Um, maybe there's mold or maybe there's a pet that the kid is sensitive to. This could be, um, so we think about these stressors like chemical, physical, and emotional type stressors. So we can kind of dump those types of stressors into any of those three buckets. And then let's put the world on top of that, right?

We live in a really crazy time of, we're post-COVID now, but that has created, interesting, I'll tell you a story about what COVID has done to one of my patients, which was a fascinating story. But COVID itself and going through those years of COVID was a huge stressor. Um, when mom and dad are stressed, guess what the kid does? They act in stress too.

And then that just creates a whole cycle. So those stressors can be lots and lots of different things, but we generally dump those into those three different buckets. Well, and even the stress of transitioning to daycare. So we even talk about COVID, everybody was home and they were together.

And then when I shouldn't say everybody, because we had our essential workers, there were people that were working and there were places that kids were going, um, you know, in certain families. But the transition from one daycare to the next or from daycare to preschool or from preschool to kindergarten, those can be stressors for kids too. And I hear that a lot lately, a lot of stressor of the stressor or the stress that the family is going through, the kids going through is in transition.

And that can be even from mom's house to dad's house. Well, and I think what a parent perceives as a stressor is different from then what a child is going to perceive as a stressor. I think you're right. Those transitions are often a struggle for a lot of kids, right? And just to even to stop playing and go to the bathroom, the stressor, right? Like like a potty training and things like that. So, so what mom and moms and dads perceives as stressors aren't always what, what the kiddo perceives. Yeah, absolutely. So really brain development is kind of like a flower. Really? If you think about how a flower develops, it's a seed and then a seedling and then a bud and then a whole flower, that's how the brain develops too. And if we don't nurture it,

and feed it right, just like a flower, it's not going to develop into this beautiful flower that we know it has the capacity to be right. If we stop watering it, it's going to shrivel and die. And depending upon where we stop doing the nurturing things, tilling the soil and things like that will determine what that looks like. And so brain development really isn't much different than that. So when we look at, so in our office, we like to look at behaviors, kind of from this brain-based perspective. Like I said, there's really no bad kids and those behaviors are really a window into the brain and into what their processing is doing. And so we want to look at why the brain decided to take a different route. In your office then,

when your parents coming to you, let's list some of the behaviors that they're struggling with and why they're coming to a chiropractic office to help with those behaviors. So you look at behaviors, right? And you look at the state of the world we are in right now, right? Like if you step foot into any public school, you've got kids who are in significant deflective behaviors, right? Like how many kids need a para? How many kids are needing special ed services?

I'm not young, but when I was in school, in high school, there were a tiny, tiny subset of special ed kids. And now it's like the depth and the breadth of needs is just bigger. And so, you know, we have to think about like one in six kids has a developmental delay. That's a lot.

We look at ADD, ADHD. In 2016, it was 10% of the population. I'd be willing to bet it's at least 20, probably 30, because we were, like I said before, we're post COVID. And so those numbers have skyrocketed, um, pans and pandas, which is an acute, I have to get it right. A pediatric acute neuropsychological syndrome where an infection actually creates brain inflammation. And you see this like very sudden switch in behavior in your kiddo.

So pandas essentially is the same thing. It's just a strep driven illness. It's a legitimate thing. And those are one in 200 kids.

That's a lot, which is a pretty high number as well. Dyslexia. Of course, we see a ton of kids who really struggle to read. And again, that's a brain development issue.

20% of school age kids really struggle with dyslexia. So, and then of course, we've got your learning disabilities. When those kids are just really struggle to take the input into their brain and then integrate it and then get good output to create a good motor pattern. So what chiropractic does to all of that is to help the brain improve the input and better accept the sensory input and the motor input that that's coming into the brain.

So it doesn't always look like we're doing brain-based work, right? When we're working on your spine and your low back and your neck, but that's exactly what we're trying to do. So yes, chiropractors do neck pain and back pain, but we also help to improve their brains. So what I love, so when I get adjusted, I always, I used to jokingly say it, but I'm like, no, really, that's how I feel.

I always, um, tell my, my docs. Then when I get adjusted, I'm like, oh, thanks for turning the lights back on. I was on dim and now I'm not like, that's how my body feels because I've been adjusted for the last 20 years of my life being in practice, um, that I feel like you turn the lights back on. And so, um, some, some docs who work in the pediatric world, we'll talk about turning kids' power back on and things like that.

And so, so that's kind of where you feel that brain shift. Um, and when you're, everything's working optimally, your brain can intake that input in a better way and a more efficient manner. Yeah. So let's just, let's talk about that a little bit too, with the brain, the brain development.

I just recently had a doctor or not doctor shoot, um, episode one 55. My guest was, um, mother Nan and she, she talks a lot about the vagus nerve and the importance of the vagus nerve. And that is something that chiropractic can also help with. Right.

So let's, I don't really know how to ask that question, but I want to, it's, it's coming up as a topic quite a bit now, our central nervous system and being able to calm our central nervous system and how important that is, and then how the vagus nerve relates to that and then how that ties in how chiropractic ties into that. So maybe we should segue into that. Sure. So let's talk a little bit about vagus nerve. Um, because he's a big dog is really important. Um, we talk a lot about the gut brain relationship, right? There's a gut brain axis and the vagus nerve is what connects your gut and your brain. You've probably heard there's 70% of your immune systems in your gut. True story. Um, so if we don't have good digestion and good gut health, we can't have good immune health. Um, if we don't have good digestion, we can't assimilate good nutrition,

right? Like we see those kids who just like are skinny minis and they just never seem to gain weight or they're super picky eaters. Um, they just don't have great nutritional foundation. So the gut brain access is really driven by the vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve, his job really, he's part of what's called your parasympathetic nervous system. This is your rest and digest. So that's kind of the easy way to think about it. Think about going to grandma's house.

Grandma always wants to feed you and sit, sit, sit, right? Like grandma's house. This is your parasympathetics. And kids generally don't like to function in parasympathetics.

So we need to do things to help them promote vagus nerve stimulation, right? So I teach kids how to hum or when they're brushing their teeth, I want them to hum or gargle, gargle when they're done brushing their teeth. And I teach adults this too, which they, they always giggle at me. And I was like, instead of singing in the car, I want you to hum instead because they're even parents, right?

Like moms and dads, they're driving at a hundred miles an hour here, here, here, sympathetic all the time. That's your fight, flight, freeze. because we're going to baseball and then we're going home and we got to get dinner and we got to work and we got to do all these things. And so your kids can't function in parasympathetics either if you're not. So I teach moms and dads how to get there as well. So, but the, the vagus nerve is really the guy who's been, who's the, the connector between the gut and the brain and why all of that is still really foundational because it helps to drive that, that grandma, you know, rest and digest parasympathetic system. So this makes sense too, because like Mother Nan was talking about, she actually creates meditation audios for people to be able to just help regulate and calm that vagus nerve. But you're just reminding me of something that I don't think we do hum as much as we used to. And so it sparked a childhood memory. Now we have ice cube makers in our refrigerators, right? We don't have the ice cube or freezers. We don't have the ice cube trays anymore, but as a young girl, we'd always have to fill up those ice cube trays, right? And going from the sink to the freezer, you'd fill up the ice cube tray and you didn't want to spill it.

So you'd hum. My mom always said, if you want to make it to the freezer without spilling the water, if you hum, you'll get there without spilling a drop. And it was so true. changed your brains. Totally. Yeah. I calmed it down. So you didn't have like the jitters. You didn't have all this nervous energy. You weren't like shaking to get the, you know, ice cube tray over to the, so you're just sparking. That's like, yeah, I love it, but that's exactly it.

And, you know, and a lot of times we've lost some of that wisdom, right. That has been passed down forever and ever. My mom was an urgent care nurse and she would call or she would get done with work and she'd be like, oh, you know, feed that kid a popsicle that's fluid. And so is jello. And so is blah, blah, blah. And I was like, and I just looked at her and I said, mom, not everyone has a mom like you that knows those things. Like I'm lucky I have you to that, you know, those things and you think that's second nature, but so many moms don't have that, don't have that good support system. And, um, or even the wisdom, right? Like the, all those old school, like wives deals like that had purpose. Right. So, um, I mean, silly stuff like Epsom salt soaks with super cheap and easy. Right. We love that. And we recommend those all the time in our office. And I have people look at me so funny and they're like, what? And I'm like, no, it's a magnesium salt.

Magnesium's a muscle relaxer. This is good for your body and your muscles and your, and your, your being. And I go, I thought that was an old wife's tale. And I was like, no, it's actually legit. Like, yeah, some of those, some of those old school techniques and things, are relevant for life. I mean, forever, like they just don't go away. One of the things I'm thinking of is when you have a toddler who's maybe misbehaving a lot, and it seems like it's misbehavior. It seems like they're just being naughty, right? They're just being defiant or a preschooler. And you're seeing their behaviors are amped up and they're being less interactive and more like demanding, which again, typical for that two to four years old kind of phase. The thing we go to right away is discipline and be end and consequencing the behavior. When you say behavior is a window to the brain, what are some of the things that you're looking for underneath the actual defiant behavior? Okay. So this is where it gets super duper fun for us. So we're kind of looking at this trajectory of brain development that we talked about, right?

So when, when babies are born, we have infant or primitive reflexes that we're born with, right? Like you stroke their cheek and they open their mouth, right? That's how they get food. That's a rooting reflex.

You put your finger in their, in their palm, they're going to grasp. That's a grasping reflex. That's a primitive reflex. So there's a handful of those primitive reflexes that are present at birth that are necessary for their survival, essentially, but they should be fully integrated and essentially gone by the age of one.

and a lot of times the what we see in kids with behavior is they're still there um so we look at what are their primitive reflexes still there and so we can do some things um to exercises and things so that we can reintegrate those those primitive reflexes but then if you think about how a toddler develops so so we go from these primitive reflexes for survival mode right because that's what they're doing they're just in survival when at birth then in the first year think about how babies explore their world. It is all about movements and it is all about touch.

And so movement and touch is the next step in this trajectory of brain development. And then from there, in our second year, we go to this auditory and visual development. And then the last directory is visual cognition. So the ability to see the past or see the future.

So this is kids who can, like some kids who are on the spectrum, they're so literal, right? And they can't lie. When that kid lies, that's visual cognition because they know they're purposely not telling the truth. And that's like, that's a huge win, even though like lying is not a win, but the brain development piece of that is a win.

So what we'll see here is when kids get stuck in certain patterns, right? So we go from infant primitive reflex, movement, touch, auditory and visual, and then visual cognition. So what we can see is watch how your kid explores their world. Are they high touch kids?

How do they snuggle with you? Do they snuggle with you? Do they want to touch you? Do they stroke your hair?

What do they do? What's their combing mechanism? When life gets too crazy, what did they do? What happens is we move down this hierarchy to comb our brains.

And sometimes we, and some kids are stuck in a pattern and they can't move beyond that pattern into upper levels of the hierarchy. And that's what we see as hyperactivity. It's too loud, auditory sensitivity. It's too bright. It's too bright all the time. Um, they're like, or the kids who are constantly noisy, you know, and they're making all the loud noises or like popping and cracking and making noises with their bodies and their faces and, you know, tapping their feet and snapping their finger and they're just obnoxious. And after a while as the mom, you're like, okay, stop because that overloads mom's brain, um, can be just emotional dysregulation too. So those are the types of behavior. So if we can look at that, so,

or is the kid. So if the kid is a movement touch kid, you know, those are pretty easy. Um, that's the kid, they go into a new room, they have to go and touch all the things like those kids come in my office and they want to play with all the things on my desk. Fine. I don't care.

There's nothing you can hurt in my office. We see kids all the time. But kids who are auditory and visual, they've scanned an entire space in about three seconds and they've touched everything with their eyeballs or auditory. So what we'll see is like, if you have an auditory kid or a visual kid, life gets too crazy. They put that hoodie on and they pull it tight, right? So they're going to shrink their world because this is too much. And so I'm going to shrink this world and just do this or making eye contact is too much, right? So those tend to be your auditory or those verbal and visual processors. So you can see like watch, just we call it watch and wonder, right? Watch your kid and observe your child, not as your kid, but just as who they are and how are they exploring their world. And that'll tell you a lot about what is going on with their brain development. So your primitive or infant reflexes, right? Those are the ones you're born with for survival. We generally perfect brain trajectory is that we want to see those are into fully integrated. So they're gone essentially by the age of one. So they're going to disappear at at varying rates throughout that first year. And then after that, we move into movement touch.

So when I took this information and was starting to learn this, I was like, I don't have neurodeflective behavior. And then I was like, oh, wait a second. Everybody does. Yep. And so when you think about your neurodeflections, what do you do when you're stressed? So what, Like I clean because I like to create organization when I feel like something's in chaos because I'm stressed.

I will clean because number one, I can see results and satisfaction and it's very orderly and it makes it fills my bucket. But it's also movements and it's also a touch. So I we move down this hierarchy when we're stressed. And so I kind of that's my deflection is in that movement touch category.

It's also why I go work out. Right. Like when I'm stressed, I need to get out of the house. I need to go move my body in some way, shape or form.

So I'm a movement touch deflector. That's where, that's where my deflections like to show up. Some people show up, their deflections will show up in auditory or visual, right? So if they are stressed, they want to go be creative.

They want to go paint. They want to go sing, things like that. They're going to crank the music, right? So we all have deflected behavior.

So ask yourself like, what do I do when I'm stressed? and your kid does the same thing. It just looks different. Right. So now when you think of your kiddo that pulls the hoodie over their face and they're sinking down, instead of looking at that as being disrespectful or they're, you know, ignoring you or whatever, it's like, Oh, they're getting a need met.

And they're overwhelmed. Exactly. So when the, when the load doesn't match where their brain's at, they just shut her down. And so if we can't, if we can unload the brain, so how can we, how can we, we say, how can we decrease the complexity of what's going on in the world?

Maybe that's turning the lights down. Maybe that's turning the radio off. Maybe that's letting that kid go to the room. So it's not as loud, um, depending on what they need, right?

Maybe it's letting them blow the stink off, get them outside, take them to the trampoline park, take them somewhere and get, if they're a movement touch kid, um, you know, that's why kids have loveys, right? Stuffies are things that they love to, to touch and feel. Um, one of my adult friends has, um, she calls her Phyllis and it's a piece of ribbon. And when she is stressed, this is where she goes. She is a movement touch and she just, this is, this is repetitive. Um, it's the feel of that. And so we kind of go back into those very basic, um, types of, of, um, when we're stressed, we kind of go into those deflected deflections basically, because they're calming to us. Gotcha. And so then what do you, when you see kids with any one of these deflections, what do you, what does chiropractic care do?

Again, if we can help the brain. So when, again, when the domain demand on the brain is too much for where they're at, it creates deflections. And so what chiropractic does is helps to create better resiliency, better stress resiliency. So that we can increase the demand and they can tolerate a little bit more of the stressor before they shut down.

So that happens through an adjustment. Yep. So by increasing that, the input into the brain, we can get then better output in the body. But one of my patients, speaking of COVID, and this is just a really fascinating story to me and just about how COVID has changed his brain. They came in because he had a sports injury and that's part of what I do as well. And so I started treating him. And even in the first visit, it was, it was the son and the mom. And the first visit, I was like, this kid just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

He's clearly an auditory learner and an auditory. That's his default, right? His deflection is in an auditory manner. By the second visit, I'm like, mom, has anybody talked to you about ADD or ADHD?

Because this kid can't answer a question. Like taking his history took me a very long time because he couldn't stay focused. and she shared with me that he, these, this ADD-ness of him only started after COVID. She was, I've never seen this behavior out of him before COVID. And I said, are you kidding me?

You're kidding me. And she's like, no, never. And it was just one of those, like the stressor on his brain, he's a very social kid. And so then to not be able to go to school was horrific for him and the stressor of no, no social interaction, too much screen time, too much visual input for him totally changed the trajectory of his brain development.

And he was like, so we're talking 13, 14, um, when, when COVID started for him. And so it was just like, oh my gosh, like it's legit. Like this has changed kids' brains. And, and, you know, this was our first real school year, real school year since all of that happened.

And now we're supposed to, we're, we're asking kids to just be normal again. Just go back to the way. But then look at kindergarteners, right? Like, oh, they actually had like their prime brain development is, you know, prime, prime brain development.

80% of your brain is developed by the age of five. So during their prime time was COVID. Right. When the world was on fire, mom and dad are stressed to the hilt.

Maybe they're working. Maybe they're not. We don't know what's happening. And the stress of that and those poor kiddos, like shout out to kindergarten teachers.

Like they are saints. I'm telling you, because they have had to manage more behavior, more neuro deflective stuff, um, just more kid, uh, struggles than ever before. Absolutely. And I think a lot of our kind of our go-to when kids are misbehaving, again, I'll kind of bring it back to this, is that we're looking at, you know, you go to your pediatrician, you share with your pediatrician, most likely you're going to get a recommendation or referral for counseling or therapy or an assessment, some kind of a diagnostic assessment, which can be good.

And there are lots of other pieces to the puzzle. It can be physical. It can be chemical. It can be emotional.

There's so many possibilities of what could be happening with your kiddo. How does a parent kind of go, okay, here's maybe my first step. I think when you have kids who have things, maybe they have a diagnosable condition, maybe they don't. And they're just emotionally a little bit harder on your family.

And they're not the compliant firstborn people pleaser. Then you have a second or third kid. You're like, well, I thought I was a good parent. Now I'm not.

And then you seek out information, right? Like I believe every mom just wants the best for their kids, but what worked for one kid doesn't always work for the next. And so now we're lost. Like, what do I do now?

So where do I turn? And so that's where, like, I think as chiropractors and pediatric chiropractors, we're just a piece of the puzzle. Certainly we're not the end all be all. We're not the only stop.

And a lot of our warrior mamas, that's what I like to call them because they are, they go to battle for these kids. They're reading. they are so well-educated and they are asking good questions. But then I think that's a good, that's such a good question because how do you discern what's the thing? What, what, what do I try next? Right? Like sometimes these moms have tried all the things and they end up in our office.

Like, I don't actually, I don't know. And to that, I always say like, trust your mama that we've disempowered moms to care for their kids. Like we all know better. Everyone else knows better. And I was like, no, no, no. You know your kid better than anyone else in this world.

So when you get some piece of new information, sit with that a little bit. Chew on that. Does that feel right to you? Does that align with your values? Does that make sense to you? And some of it will. And some of it you're like, yeah, I'm not doing that. That's too weird for me. I'm not there.

And maybe five years from now, you might be there. Whether you've birthed your child, you've adopted your child, you're caring for someone else's child, you know, just by being around that baby, that child, that teenager, you know, if something's off or not a lot of times, or if it's just not sitting right with you, there's something not sitting right with you. So yeah, asking questions and just kind of taking in all the different resources that you're hearing about, writing them down and going, okay, which one seems to fit the most right now that I'm like super interested in go with that one start there right right yeah when you hear the answer from your pediatrician oh they'll grow out of it i'm not concerned about that go to another pediatrician get a second opinion well and that just robbed mom of her intuition ability right like she knew something was wrong and now you just invalidated that mama and then she doubts everything and like no like that's what we try to do we want to give mamas their power back right like and like you said, whether you're, you're adopting or fostering, or you birth those humans, you have that intuition,

you do. And listen to that, tap into that, like, no one knows better than you. And so, but, but, but certainly, there are situations where mamas feel very robbed of that. And, you know, and these warrior moms, they're advocating hard. And then to feel robbed, like, oh, you don't know what you're talking about feels just really horrible. And they leave that office like, Oh, well, I feel defeated now. What do I do? And I, and I think we already, as moms, when our kids are having, you know, misbehavior, we're getting calls from daycare or school to come pick up your kid or what, and you're, you're just like, what, what else can I do? These professionals don't know how to take care of my kid when they're with them, or they don't have the means to whatever. No,

I'm supposed to know. So I'm reaching out for help. And now this person's telling me they're going to grow out of it or, or they're automatically sending me for some, for a diagnostic assessment. And you look at that and you're like, that doesn't, that doesn't feel right. That doesn't seem like my kid. I don't think my kid's on the spectrum.

I don't think my kid's ADHD. I think there's something else going on and I want to rule other things out. Trust your mama gut and keep going. And I just really love that you're validating moms in the way that you are doc Sarah. And I know you've done this for years because I've just known you for years. But you really want that parent to be seen and heard and supported. And so I love that you're acknowledging that and saying our mama intuition is much smarter and much more capable than sometimes we're giving ourselves credit for. So I love that you just really build mamas up. I appreciate that about you and your practice just in general.

Yeah. And one of my favorite questions to ask moms is, well, what do you think is going on? What do you think? And sometimes moms go, I don't know. That's why I'm here.

legit, like fair, but sometimes they're like, well, maybe I was thinking that or this or that or the other thing. And it's like, oh, well, let's explore that a little bit. And like, who would we know that could help us explore that? Certainly. And maybe it's me, maybe it's not me, but I know lots of people. And so part of my job is to resource mamas to help get them the help that they need. Yep. Same here. Same here. So just before we wrap up here, what is the, what does the chiropractic process look like for these younger kiddos?

So one of the reasons we love treating kids in our office is they respond to care super duper fast, like way faster than we do, right? Like you watch your three-year-old fall down and they pop back up and they're like, I'm all right. And they just keep running. We fall down and we're like, oh gosh, can I get back up? Can I feel all my fingers and toes? Like if anything broken and who saw me?

And then I hurt for a week, right? So like it's a whole, like they're very, plastic is probably the best word I can use, right? They're very resilient. And so that we, but we can use that to our advantage. So their bodies are used to change.

They change on the daily almost, right. It seems like. And so the chiropractic adjustment, we're trying to impart good, good, positive input into their brains. And so their brains are like, oh, okay, cool. I'm in. And they respond really, really fast. And so that's part of what, what brings us joy because we can see really positive change really quickly. The hard part with these kiddos is like, they do need more care because their, their, their issues are just deeper are just deeper than say neck pain or back pain. So they will need more care, but we don't have a cookbook because I don't think that's fair. Like, oh, you have ADD, you need 85 visits. Well, I don't know that. And if you could be a super awesome kiddo and responds really well to care and like a couple of visits and, or a handful of visits and you're, you're doing better.

And that's what we are really desire. So like, we don't, we don't sell packages like that because It's just not individual care. And that's not really patient centered care in my opinion. So it's whatever that kid needs.

My rule of thumb is once a week until they're 50% better and better might be different behavior, right? Or man, we've really done better or they handled these transitions better this week. Awesome, right? It just depends on what those neural deflections look like.

And are we ever going to make them go away? Probably not, but we can make them tolerable and not come out as wicked looking behaviors, right? Like I still have neuro-deflective behaviors in my forties. And so do you, I'm sure of it.

And so, um, so like I said, once a week until they're 50% better is kind of my rule of thumb. Um, kids generally respond really, really fast. So it's not like you're going to sign up for three years of care in our practice. Cause I like, I love my patients. I just don't want to see you in my office every day. I'd rather see you at the park or in the grocery store. Um, but I also, We also want you to be doing well as a family and as a patient.

And so that's really our important piece. But also our job is not to make you dependent upon being adjusted. So I'm kind of a less is more kind of gal. So we need to do enough care to get the job done, but not so much that you just, your body becomes dependent upon needing to be adjusted every week or twice a week or whatever it is.

So I believe that once we get to that, let's say 50% better, then we start to back off. So more of you. So I'm going to give you things you can do at home and less of me. And so empowering, again, empowering that family and that mom to like, you know what to do.

You've got this and you're going to do the things and it's going to be great. So it really is case by case. It just depends on the kiddo. It depends on the family.

If you have a kiddo that's misbehaving, acting out, and you seem to have tried a lot or everything. I think you need to give Dr. Sarah a call. If you're local to central Minnesota, you can give Dr. Sarah a call and see her at her office. We're going to have the link for all of your information in the show notes. I really appreciate you coming on the show again.

Totally my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. All right, parents, that's it for today. Make sure you head over to the website, noproblemparents.com. Sign up to get our emails. We're going to be giving away tips, tools, techniques and resources, updates on podcast episodes, roundtable events, and more. Check out noproblemparents.com. For now, hugs and high fives. You got this.