Episode 224: Healthy Kids, Happy Kids with Dr. Elisa Song

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Hey friends, welcome to the Raising Boys and Girls Podcast. I'm Sissy Goff.

And I'm David Thomas. And I'm Melissa Trevathan and we're so glad you joined us for this conversation. Let's dive in.

Doctor Elisa Song, MD, is a Stanford NYU UCSF trained integrative pediatrician, pediatric functional medicine expert and mom to two thriving children. And she is on a mission to revolutionize the future of Children's Health. Dr. Song is the best selling author of Healthy Kids, Happy Kids, An Integrative Pediatrician's Guide to whole child resilience. Dr. Song created Healthy Kids Happy Kids, HealthyKids Happy Kids.com as an online whole holistic pediatric resource to help practitioners and parents bridge the gap between conventional and integrative pediatrics with an evidence based, pediatrician backed mom approved approach. In her integrative pediatric practice, she's helped thousands of kids get to the root causes of their health concerns and empowered parents to help their children thrive. Dr. Song is chair of A4M's pediatric education and has lectured around the world at leading integrative and functional medicine conferences and premier parenting events. She has also been featured in hundreds of top podcasts, print and online media outlets. Enjoy this rich, information packed episode with Dr. Elisa Song. Well Elisa, we're so honored to have you on our podcast and so grateful for your work both as an integrative pediatrician and an author in both spaces. Will you start off by talking a little bit about your family and how you came to do the work you're doing?

Yeah, so I am first and always a mom and my kids. Yeah, so they, they are my greatest teachers and so they are now 14 and 13. So I have an 8th grader and a high schooler just kind of straddling the well, I guess they're officially teenagers now so and I have been very fortunate that they've been, knock on wood, very healthy from a physical, immune, mental health standpoint. And and they really are are my guides and I mean they keep me up to date on all the new lingo and you know what their kids are going through. So different, different ages and stages. I say each age has. And stage has a gift and a challenge. And we as parents have to just learn how to, how to be flexible. And, and in my practice as an integrative pediatrician, I've really, I've had the, the blessing to really work with kids of all ages and you know, from, from health concerns ranging from just wanting to live their healthiest lives and understanding how to do that from a more holistic standpoint to kids who are coming in with anxiety or ADHD or eczema or autoimmune problems. And parents are looking for a more integrative approach to really try to figure out are there some root causes for what's going on, is more that we can do that to maybe even reverse what's going on and help, you know, heal from the inside out.

So great.

We're so excited for you to talk about all those things today.

We are. And, and we'd love to begin by just asking you, what trends are you seeing among kids today? And also, what about parents?

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it, when you start off with the statistics, it's not so. And happy.

Right.

I mean, it'd be a little grim. And, and I lead off with really saying that this is the time to become aware and empowered is now, no matter where you're starting from. But we've known that things were, were really kind of in a dire state for kids for quite a while. You know, there was an article in 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine that noted that for the very first time ever in history, our kids were expected to have shorter lifespans than us, their parents. Wow. And almost all due to diet and lifestyle related diseases. Now that was nearly 20 years ago. And we're really not in any better shape right now. And when we think about those diet and lifestyle related diseases, we. Well, that tells us, okay, we're living in a world where the forces are kind of against our kids and us at the same time. We have control over what we put on our mouths and how we live and how we sleep and breathe. And so we want to understand those factors and then also feel really empowered that, look, we know how to make these decisions. The rates of chronic disease in kids, they are going up. The latest statistics show that at least 40% of kids has at least one chronic disorder. And we see it, I'm sure you see it in the children that you work with. It can range from eczema. At least 1 in 5 children has eczema. 1 in 10 kids has asthma. 1 in 10 kids has ADHD. 1 in 13 kids has anaphylactic food allergies. And as we get older, you know, into our middle school years, our tween and teen years, mental health really becomes more of an important factor for our children and our teens. We know that mental health is a crisis right now for our boys and our girls. And when we look at the statistics for our girls in particular, by the time they're in high school, one in three teenage girls in one survey was reported to have seriously contemplated taking their lives. And so this is something that parents need to be aware of from very early stages that doesn't just suddenly appear as a teen or a tween. You know, chronic illnesses don't just come out of the blue. We can figure out what are. What are some of the steps we can proactively take when our kids are babies or toddlers so that we can improve their chances of having the happiest and healthiest lives as they get older.

Which you talk about in your book that we love, Healthy Kids, Happy Kids, An Integrative Pediatrician's Guide to Whole Child Resilience. And for it to be whole child in resilience. I mean, there are just so many important factors coming together there. Will you talk about what led you to write the book and what you hope parents and those of us who love kids will gain from it?

Yeah. So when I really was thinking about the title of the book, and I wanted to incorporate this idea of whole child resilience, because wellness is a. A moment in time, it's a particular state, but it doesn't tell you how resilient that child is to bounce back from whatever life throws their way. So the idea of resilience is not necessarily sheltering your child from every single negative, you know, experience, or even illness, you know, infection, for that matter. It's really about building those foundations so that they have the tools from a physical and an immune and a psychological standpoint to be able to manage that. And typically, when we manage a particular stressor, our body and our brains learn how to do it even better the next time. So that's the whole idea of building resilience, and it's got to be from the inside out and the whole child. And so I really wanted to write a book for children and parents and frankly, also for pediatric practitioners who need to understand how to incorporate this into their practice so that they know that despite the scary numbers and the statistics, that your child doesn't have to be one of them. And if your child is one of them right now, there's a way to move forward, and there's a way to live in our modern world with all of our modern comforts, but still be able to thrive.

Thank you for writing that.

That's so hopeful.

And the COVID also reads why your child's microbiome holds the key to lifelong wellness. So for folks where that may be newer terminology, will you just even talk about what that is, what it means, and what it has to do with resilience?

Yeah. So the microbiome, you know, there's much more research now even. I mean, there's been an explosion from even when I started writing this book several years ago. And what we understand about the microbiome, so the microbiome, we actually have several microbiomes in and on us. A microbiome is a collection of microorganisms, trillions of microorganisms. And they can be bacteria or viruses or yeast, even sometimes parasites. Now, the most well studied microbiome is our gut microbiome. So the trillions of microorganisms that are inside of our gut, and many parents listening will have heard of probiotics. So probiotics are those beneficial bacteria that hopefully reside in our gut microbiome. Now, we also have a microbiome on our skin. So if your child has eczema, we want to understand what's going on with their skin microbiome. Our mouth has its own microbiome for, for breastfeeding women, their breast milk glands have their own microbiome. And the gut microbiome having been really the most well studied and elucidated for children. We, we. The gut microbiome in children is the foundation for the developing immune system and their developing brain. And the research really looks more at when there are disturbances in the gut microbiome, what happens. I always like to have a more positive flip to that. But we have to understand, you know, what some of the disturbances can result in. And so with the gut immune system connection, we know that 70 to 80% of your immune system resides in your gut. And so your gut microbiome communicates with your immune system. And when you think about your baby coming out, every single thing that they're exposed to, whether it's food or bacteria or, you know, different environmental allergens, completely new. So their immune system needs to be trained to hopefully tolerate everything, not be reactive or allergic to everything. And that relies on their microbiome being healthy and communicating with their immune system. And we know that any disruption, especially in the first six months of life. There's one study that looked at nearly 800,000 children and found that those children who received antibiotics or antacid medications in the first six months of life had a significantly increased risk of virtually every single allergic disorder by the time they were four, sometimes even double the risk. So that includes eczema, asthma, hay fever, anaphylactic food allergies. So then we know. And I always pause here because, you know, I know some parents are listening and thinking, oh my gosh, my kid, that was my kid. My kid had antibiotics when they were four months old for an ear infection and now they're dealing with eczema and asthma. Well, it's never just one thing that is a significant factor. And we can't go back and change what's happened in the past. But what is important is now this piece of information can further tell your child's story of what got them to where they are now. And then we can from there find solutions. So I know, I mean, I tell everyone both of my children had antibiotics when they were under five weeks of age. And sometimes they're absolutely necessary. We just have to understand that the impact on the microbiome and work to recover and repair your microbiome if you do need medications like that. Now, the gut brain connection is especially important because we know, I mean, mental health, the mental health crisis is not just in our teenagers, it's in our youngsters too. You know, with anxiety and sensory disorders and OCD and ODD and I mean, whatever other initials you know can be thrown at them, right? But your gut microbiome, there's an intimate gut brain connection. And what's fascinating is that connection through the something called the vagus nerve is largely driven by your gut. 80 to 90% of the communication between your gut and your brain occurs from your gut to your brain and your microbiome. If you have a healthy balance, they're responsible for making up to 80 or 90% of your serotonin. So serotonin is, it's considered a neurotransmitter or a brain chemical, but it really is a gut chemical that helps us feel calm, relaxed, manage stress. It's the precursor to melatonin, which is our sleep hormone. And our gut actually makes 400 times the melatonin that our brain does. And dopamine, which some parents will be familiar. Many teenagers now in high school are learning about neuroscience in the brain. And dopamine is our attention focused, reward, stay on task and motivated brain chemical that's made by our gut, 50% is made by our gut. And when that's not appropriate at appropriate levels, that's when we might see some signs of adhd. And so when we think about any mental health or brain conditions, we always have to look at the gut microbiome. So the microbiome and understanding how to support a healthy microbiome for your child is really the first, and I would say the most important foundation to focus on no matter what's going on with your kids.

Thank you for explaining this in a way that we can all understand. Yes, this is so helpful and practical. So you talk about, speaking of practical, you talk about five things that your child does every day and how important those five things are. Will you give us an overview of each of those things that you talk about in the book? You know, David, there is never a right time for better health. I keep waiting for life to slow down and and somehow my life never gets the memo.

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As a pediatrician, I want to bring in the research and the science and also, you know, what works in my practice for my own patients. As a mom, I need to make sure it's doable and that it's achievable. And as a parent, we also know it has to be fun for your kids. It can't be another task that you're throwing on your kids. Or as a pediatrician, another thing that I'm just giving a busy parent to think about and to do. So I really framed this idea of creating microbiome magic with the five things that we already do every single day. And this is for parents and grandparents and for kids. So the five things that we do every single day, we have to do them anyway. We have to eat every day, we have to breathe every day. We have to move our bodies, drink, hydrate, and sleep. So those five things, well, if we learn how to do those things, like a gut hero in a way that nourishes our microbiome, we can, we can support a healthy microbiome and create microbiome magic every day. So that's where I framed this, this idea of the five things for microbiome magic. Now, one, one is not necessarily more important than the other. And I put it in A wheel. A wheel of whole gut resilience. Because if your child is right now the most selective eater you could imagine, and you're thinking, oh my gosh, how am I gonna, how am I gonna change their diet? This is not meant to be stressful. Right. There are four other things you can work on. So if they love to move, great, have them move. But do it mindfully every day in a way that nourishes their microbiome. Or, you know, you can work on sleep or you can work on, on breathe. And so everything that you work on will move the wheel forward. And guess what? When you work on, let's say if you work on sleep and sleep becomes optimized, your child's palate may just open up because now they're not so sensory overloaded from being overtired that they're more open to trying new things.

So great. Okay, you mentioned the vagus nerve, and you have an entire chapter on the vagus nerve. We do a great deal of talking about that as it pertains to anxiety.

Yeah.

Will you spend a little more time just talking about it? And not only the difference it makes, but how can we harness the help it can bring?

Yeah, I mean, I just, I think it's so important for kids and teenagers to understand the role of their vagus nerve. And, and when I, when I talk about the vagus nerve, this chapter is, it's chapter six. It's called the breathe chapter, because we have to breathe every day and we can engage our vagus nerve in multiple way. But your breath is one of the ways that we can most easily control how our vagus nerve is working. So when I explain to parents and kids, well, what is the vagus nerve? Well, the vagus nerve is the part of our nervous system called the parasympathetic nervous system that is responsible for rest, digest and restore. So when you're in a calm state, many kids and parents have had the experience of being, quote, in the zone, so focused, or, you know, you're performing well, you feel like everything's flowing and you're confident and, you know, and you're just in this state of calm, but an alert, aware calm. Well, guess what? That's your vagus nerve that's kicked in and you're now in this really calm restorative state that's balanced by the sympathetic nervous system that puts us into fight, flight or freeze. Now that is not in and of itself an always bad thing. Right. If a car is coming towards us, you bet we want that to kick in and jump out of the way, right? And so, you know, it's the proverbial saber tooth tiger that puts us into fight or flight. And that's balanced by, okay, once that threat is gone, we don't need to be in fight or flight anymore. That saber tooth tiger walked away. Now our vagus nerve and parasympathetic can come in and say, okay, you've done your job. Now I'm going to take over. The problem nowadays is that we have from the moment we wake up. For most of us, our sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight is being triggered by, you know, rushing to get your kids out the door for school. Your, your, you know, you have an exam or there's a soccer tournament or, you know, whatever it is. We're just constantly in the state. And so our sympathetic nervous system gets plenty of exercise during the day. Our parasympathetic vagus nerve doesn't get much exercise. And it's. We know through the decades that vagus nerve functioning in children and adults has gone down, down, down. And we can measure this in something called heart rate variability, which some people will know if they use, if they have an apple watch, for instance. So some people are familiar with that term, but we know it's declined. And the reason why optimizing your vagus nerve is so important. And I let kids and parents know. It is great that when you exercise your vagus nerve, you feel calm and relaxed. I love that. I would love that for everybody. But from a pediatric medical standpoint, that is a really great side effect of why we really work on the vagus nerve. We work on the vagus nerve to manage our, our brain's cortisol stress response. Working on the vagus nerve reduces chronic inflammation. It balances our hormones, it regulates our blood sugar. It has so many profound effects. So I think for children, as we sort of as parents, our role is to help propel them successfully into adulthood. One of the most important things that we can teach our kids as they head off into high school and college or beyond, whatever that looks like for them, is to regulate their nervous system and learn how to, to access their vagus nerve. And like I said with breathing, so when we're in fight or flight, our heart rate goes up, up, up, up, up, and we're, you know, we're just in this jittery state. We can't tell our heart rate to slow down. It just, it is what it is, right? However, we can control our breath and simply by slowing our breath, inhaling fully to expand that Balloon in your belly and, and letting your lungs really fill up and then exhaling slowly. Well, that, that breath control right there activates our vagus nerve and kicks in that rest, digest, restore state. And there are many different ways that we can do vagus nerve work. And I call it, I've been calling it vagus nerve work more because when I call it mindfulness or meditation or yoga, walking, nature, a lot of kids and parents, I can see they're not doing it in front of me, but I can see in their mind that they're kind of rolling their eyes and kind of saying, oh, yeah, I'll get to that. Right. So I really, really want to have parents and kids know that really engaging your vagus nerve every day, mindfully, is, is one of the most important prescriptions that I could ever give to a child. You know, more important than a whole list of supplements and, you know, even some medications too. I mean, this is so important.

So glad you're talking about it. I mean, from a. We obviously study that more from a mental health perspective, but I mean, it is profound, the differences that it makes.

So profound. And you know, we know that many of our kids, it's not just mental health anxiety, they're also dealing with pre diabetes. They're dealing with, you know, joint pains and chronic headaches and, you know, chronic abdominal pains, heartburn, reflux. And so, and so for our kids, I'm sure you found as you really support their mental health with their vagus nerve, a lot of their physical symptoms, symptoms resolve. And so, you know, that's where connecting that. Wow, okay. The brain, the mind, it's not separate. We've done an injustice in conventional medicine by separating our body into different systems and different parts. And for too long, the, the mind piece has become, you know, really kind of the, the stepchild, you know, to, to the physical body. And it's so connected and there's, there's so much more power in, in what we can health if we can understand the power of the mind.

Yes, well, and I think the things that we're prioritizing today are reversing so many things that you're trying to do. Really. I mean, even the fact that not only are you talking about that, and I love that you call it vagus nerve work. I think that's a great thing to talk about with kids. We might borrow that if you don't mind, but also the fact that you're talking about hydrating and movement and, and sleep. And again, we see all the time in our offices how Foundational those ideas are to physical and emotional health. Will you touch on each of those a little bit more and the power and what we can do to help?

Yeah, well, what's fascinating is when we work on moving our bodies every day and, you know, through the pandemic where a lot of children were not in class and zoom schooling movement went way down. And so a lot of our kids became used to being very sedentary, and we're seeing those health effects. What's interesting is when you start to exercise, your microbiome shifts. And exercise has been found to improve your gut microbiome independent of what you're eating. So again, for that kiddo who maybe is having the same package of Mac and cheese and Cheetos every single day, all right, that is not ideal. But, you know, if it's too challenging to think about shifting that right now, then work on exercise, because that will help. Even with sleep, it takes just two hours. I mean, sorry, it takes just two days of sleep deprivation to shift your gut microbiome to a less balanced state. On the other hand, it takes up to seven days to restore it. And so we really want to prioritize sleep for your microbiome, your gut brain connection. We know, I mean, as we head into the winter seasons with colds and flus, I mean, there's viruses all year round. But, you know, not getting enough sleep also reduces your immune system's ability to fight infections. And so, and it reduces your ability to tolerate stress. We know you're, I mean, we've all, we all know this as adults. You're just so much more reactive when you haven't slept well. Right, but that, but there's a reason for that. And our memory doesn't work as well either. And so, so sleep and, and understanding that with sleep, I mean, most of us adults and kids are chronically sleep deprived. So we have to think, how are we prioritizing this for our families? And I get, sometimes it's, it's, it's a fact of life that both parents are working, and by the time they get dinner on the table and they want a little family time, it's getting way past what should be their bedtime. But then perhaps really shifting and thinking, well, during the week, we're going to prioritize sleep. If that means that we have a little less family discussion time at dinner, we shortened a little bit, and then we have it longer on the weekends at Sunday brunch and Saturday dinner. But really thinking, how can we shift those priorities? And frankly, a lot of time in the evenings for families nowadays is, is not necessarily family time. It's, it's spent on screens. I mean this is kids and adults. And so you know, thinking well, how do we shift that as well? Because the screens are, play a big role in, you know, teen and you know, pre teen anxiety and mental health concerns and physical concerns. I mean when you're on your screen you tend to not be moving. So we're also seeing an increase in overweight, obesity and type 2 diabetes in children. And then hydration. We know water drinkers, it's interesting one study found that water drinkers are, tend to be higher fruit and vegetable eaters too. Whatever. That correlation is not a causation. But when we focus on hydrating, we're also probably noticing what we're eating and trying to make different decisions as well. And higher water drinkers also have healthier microbiomes. So, so thinking about, and I give really practical tips on how to think about incorporating this into your life. So for instance, I know sissy, you're drinking your water, right?

I know you're making me thirsty as we're talking about this.

So you know, if you have your, if you take your child and you know how much they weigh in pounds. So let's say you have a 50 pound child and so they would need on an average day that's not too hot, they're not exerting themselves and sweating a ton. They would need about half their body weight in pounds as ounces of water fluid. So that would be for your 50 pound child, about 25 ounces. And then I want to make it even more concrete. So then we take their water bottle. How big is their water bottle? A lot of kids have 12 ounces or 24 ounce water bottles. So if your child is carrying a 12 ounce water bottle to school with them, then I'll let them know you need to drink at least two of these every day, plus a little bit more. So let's think about, well if we're going to fill it up first thing in the morning, you just drink from this. You know, I would say, you know, by the time lunch is over, you want to have had most of that and then you refill it and then by the time dinner comes around, you want to finish that. So it's not too close to bedtime. So making it practical. And then the other thing that I also that we should touch on just really briefly is for kids, the one thing that we can do to empower them in their food choices is helping them to Understand how to read food labels in a really savvy way. So I tell kids and parents the two things that I think if you know how to do this, by the time you leave high school and leave home, you're going to be set for life. If you can regulate your nervous system like we spoke about, and if you can read food labels like a gut hero and I give all sorts of guidelines on how do we think about. Instead of buying the bag of Takis with the artificial red dye, the monosodium glutamate, let's find alternative swaps that don't have these ingredients that mess with your microbiome and mess with your brain and immune system and find swaps that taste just as good but will be more nourishing for you.

That's great. So much good practice.

I know. I was thinking as you were talking about water, I feel like there should be a correlation that we could somehow hook in kids that the more we pay for their water bottles, the more water they drink or something. They've become so expensive, don't you think?

Oh my gosh.

I know.

And then there's. But that, you know, that does actually it can help because sometimes, I mean, I forget the name of this one water bot that my son was saying can I, can I please have this? It's supposed to be the best one. And I'm like, well why? Why is it the best one? But if, if you. It doesn't have to be a really expensive fancy water bottle, but get some stickers or some finger paint and just decorate it and have them make it their own so that it's fun when they drink it. You know they like that idea bottle. Yes, I do too.

You talk often about adhd, autism, anxiety, depression, a host of things that we could episode. We'd love to do an entire episode on each of those with you. But any high level advice you'd give to parents preventatively or you think is especially important for those of us who love kids who might be facing any of these issues to remember.

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On ABC Next day for Hulu subscribers. So again, I mean for any of these, we really want to look at their microbiome. And so if a child were to come to me in the office, I might do some stool testing. But not everyone has access to that stool testing. So the priority then is going to really figure out what are the factors that are disrupting their gut microbiome that may be putting them more at risk for not producing enough serotonin or dopamine or GABA or all of these other neurotransmitters. And so we're getting at for a lot of these kids, you know, the first thing, if you just take out the artificial dyes and you take out, you know, the artificial, the preservatives and the food emulsifiers, all of these food additives and you really get back to. And I'm not saying don't ever eat out of a package, but looking at the packages and staying as close to real ingredients as possible, that that shift can be profound. I had one kiddo with behavioral problems, odd adhd and so and he was a very, very selective eater. So, you know, not really not any vegetables or fruits to to name. And he would have Gatorade and skittles after soccer practice very frequently. And so while we were thinking about the blood test to do and the stool test and thinking about what, what else we wanted to look into for him, I said, why don't. Let's just do one thing. I'm not going to tell you not to eat candy or have, you know, have a hydration drink after. After soccer, because that's. Your friends are doing that. But let's just make one small shift. Let's get rid of all the artificial dyes. So we looked and we found, you know, packages of Skittle, like and M and M, like candies that were. That had natural colors so that mom could give that to him, you know, after the game. And we found a hydration drink that, you know, came in a fun little bot but didn't have the artificial dyes within. I mean, it probably was less than a week. Mom sent me an email and said she couldn't believe the difference because he had always been very sensory, never liked her hugs, you know, and would kind of wipe away her kisses and just, you know, was, you could tell, not comfortable in his own body. And, you know, within less than a week, he was. He wanted to sit next to her, he wanted her to hug him. And he stopped wiping off her kisses. I mean, as a mom, that is so profound. And it was. That was the only thing we did because it was so overwhelming, managing his behaviors that mom couldn't even think about how is she going to get some supplements into him. But we took away that, you know, I'm going to call it toxic burden, right, that inflammatory burden off of his brain. And then he was much more able then to be receptive to, you know, some of the supplements we want to try and some of the testing that we wanted to do. So that can be very dramatic. And when we look at the gut also, there are some probiotics that we know there's so many different kinds of probiotics on the market. There are particular probiotic strains that have been found to support dopamine and serotonin levels. So then we can always start with that as well while we're trying to figure out other things. Now, when you have ADHD or anxiety, depression, even autism, there are very common nutritional deficiencies that arise. And I would say the three to really look into are going to be vitamin D, which is so important for your brain, zinc, which is really important for neurotransmitters, and magnesium, which is really important for calming. So getting foods in that are rich in those. Ideally, I would like to measure those in your child's blood because sometimes it's Surprising to me how low kids are and how much supplementation they might need to get to optimal levels. So taking out the artificial food dyes, optimizing nutrient levels and supporting the gut microbiome, I mean, those would be the three things that, I mean, no matter what's going on with your child, that's going to help them feel better.

Thinking about supplements like that, we have, because we have conversations with families a lot about medication at the point that they're asking those questions or are being recommended medication. And I know there's a psychiatrist that we work with often in town who before he will give kids medication for adhd, anxiety, depression. Depression, he makes them start on a supplement of fish oil.

Oh, love it.

And so just out of curiosity, I mean, what, what would you, what are your favorite recommendations in terms of supplements? Sounds like zinc, magnesium, vitamin D. Yeah.

So I think, you know, omega 3 fish oils absolutely are important. Vitamin D, I would say starting with vitamin D and fish oils, magnesium, I mean, those would be in general, I think could be very, very helpful. Zinc. The only thing with zinc is that it can make your tummy upset. So zinc has to be taken with food. But a lot of kids, so the tip off for your kiddos when zinc could be especially helpful is if they have any sensory issues, if the tags on the, on their clothes bother them or they can't stand loud sounds. They don't want you to turn the blender on at home or very, very picky eaters you any, any sensory stuff going on, then zinc can be very helpful for that. Now, when it comes specifically to, let's say, adhd, there actually have are a couple of different good studies showing that saffron, you know, the, the, the yellow spice that is in paella and curries. So saffron for kids at a dose of, you know, around 30 milligrams was found to be as effective as Ritalin, but without the side effects of appetite suppression, agitation, insomnia and that Saffron, really, there's not going to be any side effects with that. Saffron is an herb that's been used historically too for mood and uplifting the mood and for depression. So that's something I'd say in the research. Also there's something called pine bark extract or pycnogenol that's very helpful for, for ADHD symptoms. For anxiety. There is an amino acid called theanine that is very, you can find that in green tea. Now for your kids, you can get decaffeinated green tea and they can Just sip on that throughout the day. You can make it cold, you can add honey or a little splash of juice to it. But theanine is very calming and helps support serotonin levels. So that would be great for anxiety or depression too. And so, I mean there are some different targeted supplements that could be very helpful. And in fact in the last section of the book in part four, there are suggestions too based on condition for some supplements that may be helpful and.

Also.

When medication could be needed, the considerations to think about because it's not about never ever using medications, it's just, you know, just. But what I tend to see for kiddos who come to me on medications, maybe they're less wiggly in their seat, but they still feel anxious or, you know, they, they still don't. They're not feeling as, as, you know, know, resilient as we want them to be. And so working on all these other things can help really balance even more from the inside out.

Thank you. So helpful, so helpful. We love to ask a more big picture question of thinking about your work. What do you believe kids need most from their parents today?

I think, I think as we take a look at where our society is heading, I think that what parents need the most from, what kids need the most from their parents is to see that their parents can also self regulate. I think parents are so anxious nowadays too. And you know, we, you know, we are energetic beings. You can, you can sense when someone is happy or angry or anxious when they're sitting next to you, even if they haven't said a word. Right. And so if we want our kids to be calm and regulated and be able to manage in this world, we need to be able to do that for ourselves. And, and I think that too many parents, especially moms, will kind of put that aside. I'm just trying to help my child. I'm just trying to, you know, do everything for them and, and that's not serving them. We have to stop and say, well, how are we going to regulate so that that bit of self care is actually the best thing we can do for our kids. Yes.

Well, we have talked often about how in all these years of doing this work, we've never seen parents as weary and discouraged and really in a lot of ways feel as much like failure as we are seeing in parents today. And I love your Liza, your message is so practical but it's so hope filled. I mean I love even how, how you're talking about the statistics with so much kindness and I think empowerment as you're doing. So what is a reminder you'd want to give weary parents? I mean, self care certainly is a.

Piece of that, I'm sure.

Yeah.

So this was something that, as I was starting on my journey, just really a different pediatric path than my friends in residency. It can feel as though you're not making any progress or that things are just, just so slow and have I really made a difference? And I understand for parents, especially when their kids are dealing with any particular health concerns and they're just feeling like, I don't know if this is worth it. So the best piece of advice that I was given was to periodically stop and look back at how far you've come. It's so important because as we're looking to the mountain peak of optimal health and just can feel like it's this insurmountable climb and I'm not there yet and it's still so far away. But when you stop and you look back, you realize, you know what? I'm actually, I'm, I'm. I made it a quarter way up or halfway up. I'm almost there. I'm closer and closer. So that's a, It's a really important reminder because if you're feeling weary and, you know, feeling defeated, you've come to a place where you know so much more than you did than when you started.

Started.

And that's a gift too. So we just keep. Keep one step at a time.

What great wisdom.

I know, I know.

I'm gonna apply it to my puppy training right now. I'm just gonna acknowledge June hasn't relieved herself in my office all day today.

That's right. And that's come a long way. I know.

She has come a long way. She hasn't even woken up. I know.

Right, right.

She's asleep.

Exactly.

Right.

Okay. We like to end with something fun and food related. We've got a two part question. Part one is queso or guac? Part two is what's your favorite taco? And it's so fun to ask you this question because we were sharing before we hit record on the episode that we were able to intersect with you through our mutual friend Danielle Walker, who recently we got a chance to make a delicious skillet queso with dairy free skillet queso.

That was fantastic.

Yes.

That was so good. So it's fun to talk food because that's where our relationship began.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So the first one, I'm definitely a guacamole person over queso. I love my guac.

Us too.

And then tacos. I would say it is a grilled shrimp taco with lots of lime, Mexican slaw and mango salsa and lots and lots of cilantro. Oh, me too.

You're making me hungry. It sounds delicious.

It is a delight to meet you and I feel like I learned so much in this conversation. I can't even imagine how excited and encouraged parents are going to be hearing from you. And we want every one of you to grab a copy of her book because you if it is fantastic. And like we've said, it's so grace filled and so helpful from a practical standpoint. Just. We just could not be any more grateful for your work in the world.

Oh, well, thank you. I'm so grateful for having me on and sharing this with your audience. And it's. It's a. It's an honor for me to be able to support parents because I know that it can be challenging to find it.

Well, that comes through in your words and your kind. He does. Yes. David. What a team we have that we get to call friends who help make this podcast possible.

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