Episode 248: Let’s Stop Bearing It Down with Dr. Emily Heisey, PT, DPT and Dr. Matt Otteman, DC

Hi and welcome to episode 248 of the Untethered podcast. Today we have Dr. Emily Hicey, PTDBT and Dr. Matt Ottoman joining us. Dr. Emily is a founder of Connective Kids, a global renowned pediatric intensive clinic that combines physical therapy and chiropractic care to help children reach developmental milestones. As a doctor of PT and pediatric development expert with 14 years of experience, she's helped thousands of children through her in person and private virtual services. In 2020, Dr. Emily began sharing tips for parents to support their children's gross motor development through social media and quickly amassed a following. Now, with an engaged community of over 500,000 people, connective kids expanded by launching the Connective Community, a comprehensive on demand resource that equips and empowers parents to support their children's GROSS Motor development. Dr. Emily has become known for her practice of purposeful, purposeful play where she guides parents on how to help their children achieve new gross motor skills from ages 0 to 3 years old through just 20 minutes of intentional activities. Dr. Matt Ottoman, D.C. is the CO co owner of Connective Kids, a globally renowned pediatric intensive clinic that combines physical therapy and chiropractic care to help children reach developmental milestones. As a chiropractor and former major former Major League Baseball player for the Seattle Mariners, Dr. Ottoman combines his sports focused foundation of the human body into a unique treatment style to help children increase their mobility, enhance their body awareness and achieve new gross motor skills. He previously worked with a multitude of world renowned athletes spanning the domains of Major League Baseball, the National Football League, Collegiate Football and Professional Golfers association and Major League Soccer as a Strength and conditioning Coach. With over 14 years industry experience, Dr. Ottoman has powered empowered thousands of individuals to optimize their physical well being. In 2021 he joined forces with Dr. Emily as he co owner of Connective Kids and his newly established parent company connective health. Dr. Ottoman earned his Bachelor's Degree in Exercise Science from the University of Texas at Arlington and Doctorate of Chiropractic from Parker University. He's based in Dallas, Texas with his wife and their three children. Quick Disclaimer all information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host Holly Balkan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcaster, business owner and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, airway, tethered oral tissue and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest. Posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart.

Breathe through your nose.

Let's get started. Doctor Emily and Dr. Matt, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having us.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, so I think we're just going to dive right on in and you know, share with our listeners. You can tell us a little bit about yourselves, but Emily, you know, along with that, I know we're going to talk about your experience with your own daughter. So I'm going to hand it over to you guys to introduce yourselves and then I would love to just jump right on into that.

Yeah, absolutely. So I am by trade a pediatric physical therapist. I've only worked in pediatrics and it's been for about the last 14 years. I have two little girls, a 6 year old and an 8 year old. And this story kind of started and this journey started with my youngest daughter Heidi, who is now 6. And when she was around 9 months old, well backtrack when she was about 2 months old, she just struggled with reflux and from that it had this cascade of events to where she had difficulty sitting and so that was delayed and she didn't want to be on her tummy because it hurt and she was spitting up. And then we got to the nine month mark and girlfriend couldn't do anything other than just sit there. She wouldn't move out of sitting, she wouldn't crawl, she wouldn't get our hands and knees. And then we got to 10 months and we still weren't doing anything as a physical therapist, a pediatric one at that, at that rate it was, I felt guilty. I didn't know it was wrong and I couldn't see it. I couldn't see what was going on. So I had to look outside myself, outside my profession to really get an accurate just description of her, but also how to treat her and make her successful with her gross motor development. She doesn't have any neurological issues. She is a typical child. But reflux really did show that it could, you know, be something that's even scarier. But it really wasn't. It's just how our Body responds. So I started working with her 20 minutes a day. But with that, I included a chiropractor. And we did two to three visits for six weeks and 20 minutes a day on my part. And I really got to see physical therapy and through my child's eyes and how just a small amount of work can really change these children and it doesn't have to be this big thing. And I wanted to share that. So after six weeks, she started crawling, walking, and doing all these things. I'm like, this works. But both it was the journey of PT and chiropractic that really just showed me that this is what I want to do with my career. And so after practicing for eight years, at that point in 2020, I started Connective Kids. And what started as something just very organic with two followers, my husband and my mom, and telling a little bit of Heidi story, it grew in nine months to organically to 10,000 followers. And that showed me that people were kind of flocking to this. They felt like they wanted this education, something that had a negative stigma. Our child being, quote, unquote, delayed. I wanted that to kind of be a conversation topic. Let's. Let's stop, like, pushing it down to something negative and let's start talking about it so we can be proactive and not have these issues later. And it really has kind of morphed into this whole huge business that now includes myself and Dr. Matt. And we have an intensive program kind of based off of Heidi's journey. And we help children from all over the world, both virtually in person and. And also on Instagram. And it just feels good to take something that was really hard for me as a mom and show it to everyone else that this was, you know, this seemed bad, but it actually, we can work through this together. And you have support. You can do something with 20 minutes a day that could really change your whole child's trajectory and their gross motor development.

I. I needed you back in 2018, but Dr. Matt, please introduce yourself. We'll talk about me later.

I'm Dr. Matt. I'm a family chiropractor. And I, for the longest time was like, I played baseball. I played little professional baseball with the Seattle Mariners and their organization. And that was my life. I was going to be a sports Cairo and learn, like, help people function and move and like adults and not work with kids. And then I had my own children. And that's when me and Dr. Emily started connecting back in 2020 and just kind of started to put some pieces together. And she was like, you're going to be a great pediatric chiropractor. And I was like, I don't know about that, but I like your spunkiness.

You'Re going to do.

It's going to be really good.

Yeah. And the more that I did this, the more passionate I got about it. And I think seeing things in a way, you know, Dr. Emily has a dance background. So we look at the body very similar from a movement, sports, kind of just how the body's supposed to move and how it functions. And then you start taking it back to working with pediatrics, and you can help build a really solid foundation early on. And it's just turned into something beautiful of what we. What we have here. And we really do want to change the way the world treats our children. That's one of our mission statements and what we want to do. And we do that by leading by example in our office and then educating other people on how to do that virtually. And, yeah, it's been a great journey so far.

I love this. I love everything about this. My own. So I have two girls, also eight and almost six, like in February, so we call her five and a half. And both, you know, journeys with both of them. My first one more so than my second just in terms of feeding, because we addressed tethered oral tissues earlier on. And I knew more of what to look for with my second. However, I was in pediatric PT with her because I wanted to kind of keep things moving as it was, trying to be more proactive and kind of going, you know, she's not behind yet. But also I'm noticing she's not doing things that I feel like she should be doing, so let's just get in there and work with her. And, you know, so they said, oh, well, she doesn't have torticollis, but she has a tight neck. And then they handed me a homework sheet for torticollis babies, and I was like, okay, right. And then. And now, you know, now over. Over the years, years since then, I have met other physical therap, are like, pri. Trained and who have, you know. I actually went to one who uses what he calls modern counterstring technique. He's like, it's not the. The, you know, one that most people know of. And anyways, I'm like, when he would do the work with me, I would leave feeling like I had a full body massage, but he barely, like, touched me. He barely did, you know, it's like. It's incredible. So I started to learn all about this and really understand how the body works together. And then I look back at, you know, her case, and I go, well, no wonder. We were in PT for, like, eight months on and off. And she was hugging those milestones, right? Like, we weren't behind. But also it was, like, still dragging her leg behind her as she gets across the room. And she's still. I was like, there's things she's doing. And they were telling me, you know, basically to push against the strain, where I then later learned, well, you kind of want to go with it, to release it, and some of these other concepts. And I'm like, I wish I knew. But I did take her to. I ended up taking her to a doctor, doctor of osteopathy and a craniosacral therapist. And the Do2Do's husband, wife, team one is a PT, but he was trained outside of this country, so he kind of brings that background with him, even though he doesn't call himself pt. I'm like, I don't know what magic voodoo they all did, but she got up and started walking, like, within a couple of days of that appointment. And this was, you know, she was like, maybe 13 months at this point. And then she, you know, that same week, crawled across the couch, which is just not a stable environment. And she's never crawled on all fours. And I was like, jumping up and down. And my husband's like, why do you care? She can walk. I'm like, no, you don't understand. There's so many things integrating and happening right now. Like, this is important, so. And, you know, she's doing great now, but that was a journey. It was a journey, and it's one that I feel like a lot of parents have zero idea about.

Well, and I think it's because you see your child, you know, you had that experience where you're like, I don't want delays to occur. But we still. Like I said, there's a very negative stigma on your child being, quote, unquote, delayed. I think there was a study out that, like, 69% of parents feel that if their child is delayed, it reflects on them as, like, a bad parent. So they don't really want to say it out loud. Right. And because you're like, what did I do wrong? How did I affect this? But really, it is, you know, everything external is going to affect the child. Whether it's reflux or positioning or, like, a leopard tongue tie, it's going to cause this cascade of events throughout the body. And being ahead of it can really just Change how, obviously how long it takes for them to get back on track, but change what they look like as a toddler and eventually a child and adult. It all sticks with you. Doesn't go away if it's not adjusted or fixed, corrected.

So do you all then have a lot of these Torticollis, you know, babies, infants, pediatric cases that maybe weren't, you know, I don't want to say dealt with it, weren't treated earlier on. But also the ones that are really little that are coming in and you're kind of going, oh, yep, we have that, you know, that Torticollis profile of hearing. Like, what are you guys seeing? How do you work with them?

We see. We see, basically. I mean, so myself as a chiropractor, a lot of moms will take their child to a chiropractor early on as kind of just a preventative, kind of proactive. They want to check their attention, their tone, so they'll come in really early on. And that's what we typically like to see because we can be really proactive with their care. And the way that I explain is that children learn how to interact with the world through their mouth. So if there is any tightness or restrictions, we can start to release that now. And that really sets them up for success later on. Now, the flip side is the other child, other kids that come in is they are a little bit delayed or they have something going on. Mom's concerned about something falling behind. They're peers. And that's when we go back and we do our assessment. We're like, yeah, you know, this is something that's coming from, you know, an unresolved Torticollis. Or, you know, you. We see it a lot too. Well, we did PT at four or five months and we get to up to walking or crawling. They're doing like a janky crawl or like, well, the torticollis is still there. It's never really got fully dealt with. And so Those are the two kind of scenarios that I would to agree, no 100%.

It's. They went in for maybe one or the other. Maybe it was just a tongue or lip tie revision, but the whole body wasn't corrected. Or it was something where they went into treatment, maybe just PT for six weeks, and they just stretched the neck. They still got it. And now you have all of these other asymmetries that go along with it. And then lastly, maybe they just focus into the chiropractic side of it. Don't get that strengthening aspect from PT and bam. You're in the same boat. It's not corrected.

Right.

So we see a lot of it.

A lot. Yeah. So you guys have that, that beautiful marriage of, you know, both specialties then, which I think is really fabulous because they're both needed. And it's really hard for parents at times to figure out, where do I go? Which one do I see? How do I fit this all into my, my schedule? And so do you, do you guys co. Treat at all or do you kind of refer to each other? How does that work?

So we, all of our kiddos who come to see us see both PT and chiropractic, and they do that within that same time frame. So if they come in for their chiropractic, it'll be followed up with pt. And we do so because. And you can speak to some of this as well, a chiropractor. And this chiropractor, he is really going to focus on releasing some of the muscle restrictions, the joints, and getting that child to kind of effectively move optimally in their environment. If you don't follow that up directly with physical therapy to kind of strengthen those connections and work and strengthen in that new range of motion, then they will lose it. So it has to go together. It really does.

Yeah, we're a big component. I mean, so especially with our camps, our intensive therapy, that's kind of how we get results really fast, is we really marry it beautifully together when the way that we communicate is so much. I know what she's thinking, she knows what I'm thinking, and like how we're going about and dealing with some of these issues. Like I was saying earlier, some kids will come in for chiropractic or for pt, and that's where we can explain to them, okay, so there's. If you have a weakness somewhere, because a lot of times it's like, well, they have weakness here, they have weakness here. Weakness is really just the muscles inability to overcome a joint restriction. So what my, my role is, is helping those joint restrictions, which is one aspect of you get the joints able to function easier. Or, you know, old school is one or the other. The other option is you go to PT and you start strengthening. You're working, you know, working towards the, the movement pattern that you want. But really for the fastest results, if you put them together, it really works quite nicely.

Well, it's just like Heidi's story that that's what made this. That's like parents inherently don't have the time, the energy, the money to be going to all these other clinicians, they gotta, they gotta work, they have other children and so why not introduce something that's going to accelerate results and have lasting results? And that's kind of what we found.

It seems like it works really beautifully together. And I feel like I accidentally stumbled on that at the end of my journey, kind of going like, I don't know what the magic bullet was here, but we had been doing one for so long and then we introduced the second. Right. And it's like, oh, miss the missing. Like, it's like, so what are things then that parents can look for? Are there certain like milestones that kind of should, you know, I don't like to call them red flags, but milestones maybe that like if a child's not hitting them, that you kind of go, hey, you should come talk to us.

Yeah. I always say there's a nice. God gave us like a really lovely grace period. So even though, let's say textbook says a child should be rolling tummy to back around four months, back to tummy around six months, sitting without hands around the six month mark, you know, crawling anywhere from eight to 11 months you have this kind of sliding scale that you have a little catch up period. And you really see that sliding scale with walking because walking can start at 11 months and it may not even start till 18 months. But it really, there aren't a lot of skills that need to be achieved until the 24 month mark. So you see you have this nice 12 to 24 months mark that you kind of play catch up. But if you, it's kind of starts with head control and parents inherently know they haven't, they know it in their gut and go with that, go with that first and foremost. And even though people say, well they'll, they'll do it in their own time. Not they will, but sometimes they need a jumpstart and that's okay, that's okay. But just passing it off and saying, oh, they'll get it in their own time. They're lazy. No, no, children are not lazy. They are inherently motivated to move. So if they aren't moving, something is causing that. So first and foremost it is really honing in to your parents like gut reaction and then, and then talking to further professionals about that.

Yeah, I think if you, if as a parent, if you think about something three times or more, go seek help. Like go, go ask somebody about it. Go seek external. Because I think for your own mental health that's really, really.

Yeah. If it's taken right in your head, like you got to get out of that. That's not healthy.

I'd say physically. Any asymmetries, like red flags, asymmetries. And then I always look at transitions or lack of transitions. Asymmetries. Are they only turning one way or they only focus, you know, nursing on one side. That's an asymmetry. Yeah, transit. They get a little bit older, they start transitioning or they don't transition.

That's what I was gonna say. What they not transitioning starting from seven months on. Those months are defined by movement. So if your child is not moving, it doesn't matter what kind of movement, but just getting in and out of sitting, trying to army crawl, trying to roll everywhere, it doesn't matter how. But if they are just in one spot, like my Heidi bear, that's not. That's not ideal. Let's. Let's look a little bit further into that.

Yeah, well, and then my girls were both holding their head up at birth, and they're necks were so tight that. And with my first one, we were like, wow. And then my first one, I mean, I had no idea of any of this, you know, eight years ago. And so my first one also, she was flipping herself over on her belly, like at a couple of months and getting stuck. But then every time you flip her back to her back, she flipped herself back to her belly and she just. She would not sleep flat. She. She did not like tummy time because of all, you know, the tension was uncomfortable. She'd cry. Could not hold her head up very well in tummy time. But if you're holding her up, right. Oh, that head was nice. You know, it was up, right? It was up. So, yeah, it was just all these things. She crawled up the stairs at six months and crawled back down the stairs at seven months. And I was like. And I showed her by, like, I was like, I didn't realize it was going to transition to this, but I showed her on our deck, like how to get down from a chair, like a, you know, a soft couch. That was like a step. It was kind of low to the ground. I'm like, let me just kind of help move her leg around and show her how we go on our belly and get down safely. And that transitioned to going down entire flight of stairs. And I was like, I've created a monster. And that was at seven months old. And then I would take her, like, to the gym, and she would hang from like the parallel bars for 90 seconds, and people be like, wow. They'd be like, I Have a freak of nature for a child. What is happening? And when I started to, like, really realize all the things she was doing, like climbing up the rock wall thing, turning herself around and sliding down on her own at, like, you know, 11 months, I was kind of just like, this child's always kind of just figured it out. But also like, this can't be normal. No one else's kids are doing this. Like, what's going on? And it wasn't until 24 months of age when I came back from my first, you know, myo course and looked under her tongue and under her lip, I was like, okay, now it all makes sense now. Now I. Now I see inside her mouth in a different way that I. Okay, we got to do some work. But yeah, it's so on with all that. Are there, like, any tips or anything that you can provide to parents to support their children at home? If you're, you know, obviously reach out to a professional, but are there other things they can do as well?

Yeah, going back to. And I know you can speak to this as well, because this is really where we joined forces was this idea of purposeful play. And purposeful play is really just supporting your child's development through what feels like playtime. And when you really do so it doesn't take all day. It doesn't mean that you need to sit down and, you know, write out what your program's gonna be. No. 20 minutes. 20 minutes. And say we are working on sitting. How can we best facilitate sitting through playtime? Well, how about let's work on tracking an object to the right and to the left so that our trunk muscles start to fire on both sides. And we're having to shift a little bit more, work into our pelvis, strengthen up those hips. What about reaching forward? But even more than that, maybe let's reach to the side. Now we're getting those protective reactions. It doesn't seem like much, but what it does is it sets them up for success in their next motor milestone. And 20 minutes a day, that's all I did with Heidi. And it. It was amazing how quick they just. They're like little sponges.

Yeah, I love the. I mean, purple supply is what. Initially, that's what Emily was putting out on Instagram. And I had my, like, four or five month old at the time, and I was like, I love this idea of purposeful play. It's like being proact. Like, I think it's so interesting how people want to be proactive with things, except when it comes to gross Motor development. Sometimes they're like, let's just wait and see what happens. Like no, you can do things and it doesn't, it's not, doesn't mean there's something wrong. It just means that there's. You can play with a purpose, you can work. And I would say for the parents that are feeling that, I think it definitely depends on what goal or skill they're working on at the time to get a little bit more direction. But they're not alone. We have our connective community. It's an online platform with a bunch of purposeful play ideas. And I mean I was answering questions in it today.

Yeah, every gross motor skill is broken down into these very Easy to digest 30 second videos that build up to acquiring that skill. And it's videos that are so easy to follow. Yeah, but.

And a lot of the parents are asking the same, the same kind of questions. So if they're, if there's concern out there, like you're not alone.

Yeah, that's. I love that. I mean it's, it's one of those things where I don't know if it's because I've always been around PT ot, you know, being a speech pathologist myself. But when my, like when my first one would not lay flat and we knew, I knew something was up, you know, got like a tiny little wedge and I kind of propped her up a little bit and she was more comfortable that way because I was like, well she'll lay on me. So I know if she has. Maybe if she's not flat on the ground, maybe that'll help. So we could do tracking activities and we, you know, I knew she didn't want to turn her head and so I was trying to get her to kind of follow the fun noisy toys this way and the fun bright noisy toys that way. And you know, she, you could see that it was easier she more range of motion one direction than the other. I do think that helped her over time. And she didn't really appear to be a kid who was to able asymmetric. Like she fed the same on both sides and she didn't have that same torticollis profile that my second one had. And not that hers was that extreme but you know, she was just kind of like carry tension from head to toe. Like it was just straight body tension and it was, it was incredible. I mean it was really amazing to see. But anyway, she's doing great now. But yeah, I mean these kinds of tips were not available.

I remember I said this to a Parent the other day. And again, I had been treating pediatric PT for 8 plus years at that time. I remember looking on Pinterest for what to do with my four month old, my five month old, because I, I didn't know how to play. My play was always structured because I felt like if a child's on the floor, this is why I don't babysit other people's babies because I'll like start assessing them and make them do stuff and they cry and I'm like, I just don't do it. But because I never could just, just let her relax and play. So I'd be like, so what am I supposed to do? And Pinterest did not tell me what I needed to know. But hopefully now we're at a. Where you don't do that. I just did a reel the other day. That's what to do with your 4 month old. I was like, where was that? Yeah. So hopefully we are kind of getting into that deficit and feeling that need.

Yeah, well, and it's, you know, when you talk about purposeful play, I mean it's very functional. Right. And this is a lot of what you do when you're working on speech and language with children this age. Even in feeding, you know, we, we do a lot of fun play based things. But it's so funny you say that because I'm like, I always joke, I'm the least one person. My kids are like, can we play a game? Can we do this? And I'm like, do we have to like go ask someone else in the house? Like I'm busy but I can play with someone else's kids all day long because it's that like structured, functional plan. There's always like an end goal in my mind where I'm like, what are we working towards? So yeah, I'm not the fun one.

I get that. I get that it's, and it's hard working with your own children. So I feel like as a, I'm sure you know this, as a mom who did have to kind of address some issues with their own, with your own child, that you really can empathize with parents on a new level now when they come in and they have kiddos that are on this wide spectrum, maybe they're just slightly delayed, maybe they're just being proactive or maybe there are some significant delays, but you know where their head is at and you're like, I get you, girl. Like, we can have some cocktails later because this is going to be a journey. But it's going to go quickly and it's gonna be great.

I love that. So, so tell me more. So you mentioned this platform that you have for parents now. So like, how do they find that? Where can they access it? Share that with us.

So you can go to connectivekids.com that's going to have all of our resources links on that. You can find the connective. It's called the Connective Community. We also have a bunch of free resources there. We just came out with a free 2023 gift guide for the holidays. So.

And it all centers around purposeful play.

Purposeful play broken down by age groups and what skill that you're looking at. We also have our gross motor checklist on there, which it's really beautifully done. And the way, the way that it's structured and it just looks, looks. It's not like, I don't know, it's. It looks nice aesthetically a pleasing. You can put on your fridge and it's not like awkward, like it looks nice.

I love that.

Yeah. I mean, and the community is great because again, it's a safe space. It's a safe space where if you ask the question, you don't feel like other parents because it's almost like an interactive Facebook group. It's like if Facebook and like GroupMe and maybe Instagram all got together, made a baby, it would be this community. It's an interactive other parents. You have videos on there, you can share pictures and your success stories. But like, with that being said, it's, it is not scary going into that environment that you're going to be judged. So that is, I feel like a huge passion of ours is just making this okay, it's all right, you're gonna be fine. Like, let's talk about it, let's get through it and let's.

Yeah. And one thing that's been really helpful too is we've actually had a lot of clinicians, chiropractors and, and pts ot like people telling their patients about it so that they can work like especially the chiropractors. It's a great tool for them. They can treat, you know, in their office and then have purposeful play. Be proactive, like speak your language, Be proactive with your child's development. Go to the connective community and check it out.

Yeah. Well, what's unfortunate is that I think you probably know this as a treating clinician is getting services whether it's insurance based or not insurance based. Just having the available clinicians out there to treat your child in the Pediatric model is hard. It is hard to come by. And you may sit there with your child who has torticollis for four months to get on, be on the waiting list, and finally be seen. Four months is. We just lost so much time where we could have adjusted and, you know, corrected this. And that is just. I hate that. It's like, you can't. As one person, as one clinician, even as a team, there's only so many kiddos you can help. And I think that'd be said for most clinicians. So having this is a way to jumpstart and get in there and know what you do. It was like me pinteresting, you know, what I'm supposed to do? It's like, what do I do with my toward college child? What do I do with my kid who doesn't want to roll?

Here it is.

And let's get started instead of waiting.

Yeah, you're speaking to my larger mission.

It's.

You know, when I. Back in 2019, I was like, oh, I'm going to make a course for myotherapist and my friend who has a child with special needs who's big in the speech pathology, like, medical SLP world. She was like, hallie, no, I would really need, like, a pediatric, like, feeding course. Like, a real pediatric feeding course. And I was like, oh, that feels like a lot of work. That feels really heavy.

I don't.

I don't know. I mean, at that time, too, like, I was like, okay, I've worked with toddlers. I worked with younger, you know, kiddos. I've worked now with infants, but mostly surrounding tethered oral tissues and some complex medical cases. But, like, I've never worked in a NICU or, you know, other hospital setting or someone else's private practice. You know, I only had my own and worked in the schools and whatever. So I was just kind of running through it. And so she's like, well, if you don't do it, I'm gonna tell somebody else to. And I was like, okay. I was like, you just said. You just said the one thing you got to say to get me to do it. So I ended up pulling a team together so we could all teach from our experiences and expertise. But it was that same thing where I kind of had this big aha moment where I was like, how do we get kids off the waiting list? They can't wait four months for feeding therapy. They can't wait, you know, and some of them are on waiting lists for much longer than that. And it's, it's sad and it's scary. And so my whole bigger mission just became, well, if we can't treat them all directly, how do we, how do we create more therapists that can? And how can we do this on a more global level to make these services more accessible to these children? So I saw you were talking. I'm like, yes.

I mean, and we, we also have a. It was building blocks for therapists, which has about a thousand clinicians in it. And it's going to be morphed into Connective University. Mid January, we'll be releasing it. And basically it is jump starting anyone who wants to be in pediatrics. Because that's the other thing is. Yeah. Think about getting a specific topic and wanting more information on that. Yes. But can we just lay out what it is to be a pediatric therapist? Because no one tells you. Oh, yeah, there's no classes. We have one pediatric class in PT school.

One.

That is it. And then you leave and you're like, holy moly. So it is a jump start and there's different tiers to it, but the first tier is like right out of school to like out for five years, everything you need to know. And it's how to teach the typical. It's how to talk with your parents. And again, yes, it's equipping kind of the world with more successful, confident, treating.

Clinicians, how to know the typicals that you can recognize the atypical. And then tier 2 and anything up is how to deal with the, you know, how, how to. Okay, now you see it. Now how do you go about doing it?

But I know you're, what you're saying, it's like when I started doing those courses and putting them together, I was like, oh my God, it's a lot of work. But I swear it made me such a better clinician because I was like, oh, that's why I do that.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's interesting. And now it's just like so easy to rattle it off. But you actually have to be so introspective as a teacher and I think you've learned that too, that you become a better therapist with that. So it's all, it's winning for all. Yeah.

No, I didn't realize that PT school really doesn't give you training, you know, around PEDs, maybe outside of one course. It's, you know, we get a lot of pediatric training as SLPs, but it's really around speech and language. And so I had zero training on pediatric feeding. I mean, my only Feeding training was on like adult dysphagia. We're talking stroke, post stroke, you know, dementia. It just all kinds of things that come when you are like 50 or 65 plus. Like there was nothing before that. And I was taught by one of the most like world renowned, you know, speech and swallowing therapists and we went to NIH on a little field trip when I was in grad school because she ran the radiology floor. I mean, really cool exposure to a lot of really cool things. Right. But at the same time she didn't work with pediatrics and there was no pediatric feeding class. And that is a big issue because it's scary. It's medical. Right. Most SLPs come out into the world doing school based or not. And I'm not downplaying it, but you know, you're not really worried about medical things when you're going to work in the school so much, you know, as an slp. And even so a lot of private practices are focused on speech and language, not so much on med SLP stuff. And so I was like, where is this? This is like so critically important. It's like the number one thing that's missing. I don't, I don't make it make sense. It doesn't make sense.

I know, I know. And there's such a need out there.

Yeah, well, and to your point too, Dr. Matt, you know you said you have to know what typical is, right. In order to know what atypical is. We've that, that's like the entire premise. We spend three modules just on typical development, like starting in utero, understanding, like swallowing starts at 12 and a half weeks in utero. And the pattern that you're going to be born with is there at 12.

And I'm learning right now.

I mean, it's crazy, right? It's like I was mind blown. I was like, what? I was like, why did nobody tell me this? Like all these moms blaming themselves for their kids feeding issues. I'm going, well, this has been going on since like the end of your first trimest. You know, I mean it's not your fault, but like also let's, let's work together and fix this. But yeah, just kind of understanding like all those milestones. And like you said that milestones are also a suggestion. There's a large range of when things happen and a lot of children are on their own trajectory. However, right. There's like certain foundational skills, which I'm sure is probably true for you all too, that have to be in place in order for us to make progress in other areas. And so often, no one's ever talked about those building blocks or foundations. I'm like, you can't build a house without a foundation. It's going to collapse. So, you know, you start to talk to people like that are like, oh, well, that makes sense.

Like, yeah, we get the question. I know from parents all the time. It's so, how much, you know, the key question. How much tummy time does my child need to be doing? Because it's such a buzzword, right? So much so that I feel like as parents, we've immersed ourselves in tummy time. We're like, they will just do tummy time right there on the floor all day long, and they will be the best baby ever. But the reality of it is that anything that excess is a bad thing. And so you want to introduce all these other positions. Back play. Being on their back is lovely. This is how they learn how to track and to your point, learn how to tuck their chin and swallow, you know, and get more of that proximal core strength. Strength from our shoulders, our tummy and our hips. If that isn't working, then feeding will never work. Right. And that's another kind of building block to it all. And that's why I love species, because I feel like it's just such a very much harmonious relationship with what y' all have and what we have. And then chiropractors being proactive in keeping our body just, well, well run machines, but just. I don't know.

I mean, I just did a reel on this the other day. Yeah, the. The back, you know, tummy time, back, sideline, sideline play, and then vertical, vertical play as well. And there's a lot of. I mean, vertical play you can get into, but, you know, what's the age range? You can do it. But really, when we're talking about vertical play, it's not like you're just setting them in a. In an upseat or you're sitting them in a, you know, a container. You're doing things where they're on you and they're vertical and they're tracking and they're looking and they're learning head control. So.

And each one of those things build off the next, right? So having a strong proximal musculature builds on being able to push to their arms. Being able to push their arms mean they're going to be able to sit. If they can sit and extend their back now, they can start swallowing, chin tucking. They have good Oral muscular control. And they're gonna not gonna have as many feeding issues as compared to a child who has poor lip closure and did no tummy time or no back play. And then, so everything affects. It is. It's a chain reaction. It's a domino effect.

Yeah. And we have some sayings. Like, one of them is like, what we see on the hips, we see on the lips. And I, you know, I always try to kind of instill that in feeding therapists because I'm like, you guys can work and work and work and work all day long, but if this child does not have proper posture and they can't support themselves, one, you're probably creating a dangerous situation. And two, you know, we, we need, we're not supporting the child in the way that they need. They need those foundational skills. And so, you know, you mentioned even like side lying. That's a really great strategy for feeding some of our babies who are struggling to breast or bottle feed. And it's, again, something that needs to be worked on. We can't just put a baby into a sideline position and assume that they're going to be able to sustain it or, you know, succeed in that position either. So I love that you brought that up because it's just one of those things that people go, well, what's that? I've never heard of side lying. And, you know, or even.

Anyways, so fun fact. So sideline, actually, because of gravity coming down on the ribcage, helps to develop that rounded rib cage and their diaphragm. Now, children that have reflux may probably didn't do a ton of sideline play. Kind of like my Heidi. And so you get this more like flat, not rounded out diaphragm. And so it lifts, it stays up here. You're not going to get this up and down effect. And so you're going to get leakage up into the gi and the esophagus.

And.

And that started with just being on their side and getting that beautiful rounded ribcage. So we have optimal movement of the diaphragm.

And then they start arching, breast support and all things, and they arch to get away from that, that burning sensation. And then they don't want to be on their side because it's hard for them to do it. So it's just like a back and forth. I'm sure you see it all the time.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, a lot of our babies are coming because they're all the arching and they're uncomfortable and their tummies may be distended. And, you know, it's just. There's a lot going on. But, yeah, that. That sideline. We like to use digestion and gravity when we can to help, you know, with those. That sideline position with, you know, some support for some of those little ones who are struggling to feed in other positions. And it can be a beautiful thing, but that's also where we pulled in, you know, PT and Cairo, et cetera, and kind of gone. Okay, guys, help. Help us with this baby. Like, what do you. What do you think this baby's, you know, strongest positioning is right now? What should the family be working to poor. It's like, what, you know, what can we do to support them? Because, again, you know, I. We see people, like, strap these babies into, you know, a high chair at four months, and they're starting to feed their babies, and we're going, whoa.

Okay.

The AP went back to, like, recommending six months for small to start, you know, solid. So can we, like, pump the brakes? And second of all, like, does your child sit on their own? Are they at least in the tripod position? Like, where are we not saying that we can't feed a child who can't sit independently, but typically, you know, to make sure that they are physically ready for that transition. Like, that's a big key factor that.

We typically look at 100% and, you know, going back to these, strapping them into all these different things. Yeah, it's too much. It's too much. And, you know, just doing these little things, like sidelines, especially for a preemie, it assists their chin tuck. And now they're able to swallow. They bring their hands to midline. They know they have two hands. They can feed themselves. And so it's just one after another. And you don't necessarily have to put them in some kind of system, feeding system in order to do that.

Yeah. And I know I've been talking a lot about feeding, but I think, you know, it's important to mention speech and just vocalizations, too, because we need that support for our airway in order to vocalize. And so, again, a lot of these babies who are really quiet, who are not moving, who are struggling to feed, you know, there's just. There's so many layers to the onion that we see with a lot of these little ones. And it's, you know, when you just kind of look at them and their positioning and you look at where, like, my own daughter, for example, was most comfortable when we were moving. My first one, who Was super tight when we were moving, when she was in her car seat and when we were, you know, I, I. She was sleep for three hours in her car seat, which I now know is not ideal. While I was, like, walking around Nordstrom in the mall. Right. Because that's. She would not sleep in a crib, but she would sleep, slip in a pack and, or not a pack and play. What is it that, that, that angled one that they've, like, since recalled, you.

Know, that the baby or. I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, and she slept there at night sometimes because that's the only place she would sleep. And then they recalled, and I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, I just feel so lucky that nothing happened. Rock and play. Thank you. Yes, yes, yes.

So used it. Who had reflux every night. It was lovely. And they recalled it.

But yeah, I was like, you just took away the one thing that so many of us were counting on. But, you know, it's that, that's what had colleagues talk about, like, container syndrome, right. With putting babies in containers all the time and not even giving them the freedom to move. And, you know, even when they're sleeping. Like, do you guys have an opinion on those, Those. What is, what is it? Like, marshmallow one? Oh, well, there's a snoo. We can talk about the snoo, but the, the marshmallow one where you look like the Michelin man or whatever, where.

You'Re like, yes, well, if you. Here's the deal with the Merlin sleep sack or even a snoo prior to, you know, anything four months and under, whatever the trunk is doing, meaning if the trunk is stationary and cannot rotate and move, the head will follow it. That's just a fact. So think about being restricted here. Whether it's the, you know, snoo or that sleep sack or suit and your body's here, their head will stay there. They don't have the ability to rotate. Right. They really don't even learn how to rotate volitionally side to side until three, three and a half months. So, yeah, that's a, that's big. That's big. Because if, you know, they could do it involuntarily if their trunk wasn't stuck them on the spot. So, yeah, they're not ideal. And they're expensive, them snu.

Yeah, I try. I tried the Merlin one on my, my first. And she shrieked her head off. She was like, not having it. So I was like, okay, that's getting returned. And we're never doing that again. And you know, she was also like, we called her Houdini because we could put her into like a little like sleep sack that just had a Velcro, you know, attachment to, to kind of keep the arms down. And really it was from keeping her to scratch her face. She, we'd wake up and she'd be like her hands all over her face and I'm like, how did you do that? And it just also kind of told me, well, that's where her body wants to go, so why are we fighting it? So we, you know, I would put her in like a loose sleep sack more as a blanket and just kind of give her like a little bit of support. And you know, she, she still did whatever she wanted and she, we gave her free reign. And you know, thank goodness because I guess it helped her in the long run. But.

Well, yeah, motion is lotion. So if they ain't moving, then you're not getting adequate movement everywhere else. You're going to get joint restrictions, muscle tightness.

Yeah.

If it's too good to be true and you're having this beautiful like baby. My baby's never slept, so I don't know what that's like. And they cried a lot. My first was so colicky. But so I always laugh that they have a beautiful rounded head because I held them all the time. All the time. But yeah, I mean, whenever you restrict and if they are sleeping eight, you know, plus hours at night and then taking two, two hour naps, well, that, that will mean that they're not moving and you probably will get flatness and some of it. So again, anything in excess is kind of not a great thing, especially 12 months and under.

Yeah, yeah. No. My babies also are held all the time, so they also have beautifully round heads. I can, I'm very thankful for that given the tightness and you know, the not torticollis diagnosis that we didn't get. So. Oh man. So I guess, you know what I think and we talked about this early on with like tethered or tissues and everything. But do you see? I'm just curious to know, do people come to you because they're like, my baby has a tongue tie and we're going for release and we need you to help like get us ready and then you do you get a lot of. That is the first question. And part two is do you also get cases where you go, I don't think that these tissues are actually impacting your child. Like we're seeing change without maybe needing to go for that procedure. Like, do you see?

Yeah. So I would say they definitely will see a lot coming in on the chiropractic side where they'll come in and the mom will be concerned or just because they'll, they'll come to us at, you know, I had a two week old recently and we talk and you know, we always talk about eating, sleeping, pooping. Those are kind of the markers that the child's trying to communicate with us since they can't verbally communicate. That's the markers that we want to see how their body's doing. So eating is the biggest one. So you know, they'll go to the pediatrician, the pediatrician will say something about, you know, potentially seeing a tie or they'll ask about it. We'll start talking about how they're feeding. And then I always ask, well, how are, like, tell me the symptoms that you're seeing that makes you think that there is a tongue tie. Or they come in and you know, they're not gaining weight. They're. We're going through. Okay, here's what my recommendation is. I think definitely there's a time and a place with, with tongue tie revisions and going to get it checked out. But you can't, if you're going to get a tongue tie, you can't take away all the other, it's not going to resolve all the other symptoms because again, your, your body starts to interact with the environment through its mouth. So if there's a tie there, something release. You're going to learn like muscle memory, joint memory. And you have to assess the full body when it comes to lip and tuck ties.

Yeah. And as the, as a pt, my approach is. Yeah, I don't know if I've seen in isolation a child with just a lip or tongue tie and that be the only thing like. Okay, no, I don't, I don't think I've ever seen that. So I joke like that. Is it like a lip and tongue tie or is it really that we have. And, and maybe it is, but that doesn't mean that we don't have these restrictions all the way through our body like a little chain. And if this isn't addressed, this doesn't matter. And this is expensive. Right. It's what, three, I mean, I don't.

Know, like three, $400 and thousands depending on where you go and how many sites you need to have released. Sometimes they charge parents like 400 for like the upper lip, the lower lip, another 400 for the tongue and then if you get the buckles, it's. Yeah. I mean, and look, I get it, like it's not covered by insurance and the, A lot of the like. So the dentist that we do refer to, at least through my practice, spend a lot of time with families and they collaborate a lot on a team basis. So it's not like you're just going in, getting a snip clip, sending them on their way. Right. They're conversing with us, we're all talking, we're all treating the child. There may be four people on the team. Right. So, you know, and they're, they're educating the family. They're doing a consult ahead of time that they're not maybe chart. They don't charge for that consult. Right. So it's covering their time in other ways. But. But yeah, nonetheless, it's still expensive.

It's expensive. The protocol for which you have to stretch them. I know after could be more painful for the parents, from what I hear from parents. And could we, like you said, could there be something a little bit more. What's the word I'm looking for, Conservative that can be done that maybe could have the same result. And what happens if you do all those things and it still doesn't help and you have to now go do something else like pt, chiropractic, both. And you just spent that time and money and energy and emotions.

Well, that's what, that's what we can relate. That's what we hear a lot of families coming in there and we feel for these parents because they're doing everything that they're supposed to do. Well, my pediatrician said to go do this. So I went to the, to the dentist. And, you know, it's. We know the ones that just will, you know, work on everybody. So they, they go there, they got it done and they're expecting it to get better. And then they're like, well, Mike, there's something wrong with my kid. And then that reflects on them. And so it's this cycle and they and I, we just feel bad because we're like, you're, you're doing all the right things. I wish you could have come here first and we could have like, worked through some of this. But you're in the right place now.

But let me ask you a question, which is are you seeing any type of. Just both the prevalence of torticollis and lip and tongue tie now being more talked about, that it has to be a full body approach. Are you still seeing that the majority of parents are Going to these dentists or whatever and just simply thinking that is the quickest fix and they're good.

So we, we see 50, 50. Now I have a private practice in the D.C. maryland, Virginia area and I'm in South Florida now and I've had some therapists down here, but we don't have a, like, we don't have an active team currently. And so I'll say like between these areas, like I do think a lot of the individuals that I've, I've collaborated with, they get it because they've actually gone out to do like their own training in myo and tetheral tissues and peed feeding. Even though they may be a dentist, they're trying to get educated so they understand like, who, who are we treating? Who needs to be on the team? Like, who should we be collaborating with to figure out? And, and they won't release a child until oftentimes the team signs off on it. Right. But that's obviously not everywhere. So by nature of having like a following on social media and having my online business as well, there's also those individuals who tell me horror stories all the time where it's like, oh, I got this baby that maybe I'm so vocal now that we get very few if any of those calls where they've now left a dentist's office and they're like, they said to call you. I'm like, I hope they didn't tell you that because we've told them that's not okay. This shouldn't happen this way. So we really don't get any of that anymore. In my practice. It's rare if we do, but I do I. And this is a totally made up number. I feel like it is still 50, 50 because I, you know, there are parents too who may get educated and still say, you know what, I don't care, I still want that procedure first. And they will go to somebody who's willing to do it despite the fact that, you know, and then we have parents on the flip side who are also getting very educated thanks to social media who are going, oh, I should go see these other providers. And oh, okay, they said I need a functional assessment. What does that mean? And we're going, well, a functional assessment, at least in my world, right. Means where does the functional impact structure is important. But is breathing impaired? That you know, do we have correct oral rest posture, Is that impaired? Is sleep impaired? Which, hi, we're talking about babies. So that's a very different conversation. But you know, in the overall scheme of things, you know, do babies who are like gasping for air when they're sleeping, are they snoring? They shouldn't be snoring, right? Are they audible? Are they noisy? Like, we've had parents, for example, who've gone through a whole team approach. They've had a gone through tongue tie release and everything. And their babies then have closed mouth posture because of the pre and post op work surrounding that procedure. And they're like, I had to go check on my child six times last night because they were so quiet. I thought they were dead. Like I, I've never, my child has always been so noisy that like, I just had this like fear in me that like something happened and I kept going and I was like, nope, nope. They're breathing, they're just super quiet. This is weird. And we're like, that's normal. That's what they should be doing. And that too, you know, I think is also the other side of this conversation. So many parents don't realize that audible breathing, snoring, like that's, that's a red flag, if you will, into needing to look into what's going on. But anyways, one more thing and I'll shut up. The other thing we tell parents too is if you come to us and feeding looks okay and we don't have airway concerns and you're just kind of seeing what appears to be tight tethered tissue, we will refer you for maybe, you know, to one of our other practitioners that can help with you know, maybe some tension elsewhere in the body. But I'm not going to refer you to a release provider because if feeding is going well right now, we don't want to rock that boat because I can guarantee you that it's not. Well, I can't guarantee, but in most cases it's not going to go well after a release. Especially if it's going well right now. Maybe the baby's compensating really, really well. And okay, in an ideal world, we don't want compensations. We really want everyone full, fully functioning, you know, at their best. But when we're talking about like infants who really need to feed to survive in a very specific way, we don't want to take that away from them.

Right.

So and, and soapbox.

That's exactly right.

Well, I think there's something to, to be said to put it more in like a gross motor terms. Parents ask me all the time about their children's feet. So it's, that's a big thing. Right. And they're like, well, their feet kind of look like this or they're clawing with their toes and you know, they have very flat pronated feet, just like their, you know, toes turn out. And I'm like, are they age appropriate? Are they walking? Are they, you know, trying to jump as we get to the two year mark, are we doing. Oh yeah, we're doing everything. They're just all over, they're doing things. Okay, do they seem like they're in pain? Do you feel like they have stopped moving?

Nope, nope.

Everything's great. Then they're okay. You just need a real good pair of shoes, a little bit better structure so that that foot doesn't grow into really pronated. But I think it, I think I looked at the statistics and 10 of the population had like a perfect foot. Everyone else, no interesting kind of funk going on.

It's interesting. Well, you know, and that's like what we're moving towards with our skulls. I mean our skulls are shrinking. There's some really interesting research being done out of the University of Pennsylvania and they're looking at prehistoric skulls versus like, you know, now. And so even with these babies who are being born right, our skulls are not as big as they used to be. We are living on a soft food diet. We don't develop our muscles, you know, in the same way to support our structures and there's just a lot more collapse. So, you know, that is one other thing that we look at too with these babies is we look at, well, what does the palate look like? Can the tongue, you know, from a suck, swallow, breathe standpoint, can the tongue actually make contact with the palate? Can it reach the palate? Because we can work on all the other foundational things all day long. But if that foundational thing is not in place either, we've got a bigger issue at hand and this child is going to struggle to feed. And we need to figure out a compensation right now that works until they're old enough maybe for expansion, which is becoming earlier and earlier these days, but whole other conversation for another day. I know they could snowball real quick. I know, I know.

So I mean, I could do this all day.

Yes. Well, no, and this has been amazing. So is there anything that you haven't shared that you want to share before we start to wrap up?

I mean, I think the take home with all of this as a parent, as a clinician is let's stop bearing it down. Things that are scary that we feel guilty about as parents because there's a lot of clinician parents out there too, me being one of them, you being one of them. And we're almost harder on ourselves because we should have known better. But you can simply not look at your child, your own child, the way you can assess other people's children. I had a PT mom in here last week and her child had down syndrome. She's like, I can't see it. And then I started showing her. She's like, I get it. I see it now. She goes, but I couldn't see it and I couldn't see with my own child. I say, so you need to not feel guilty, ask for assistance from this community, and then once you get it, pour back into that community what you learned and help educate other clinicians, other parents. And that's what I love about social media. It's just, let's keep bringing this all to, to attention and it not be scary and negative.

Yeah. All we can do is the best we can with information that we have. So if you, you know, my world is, is my world and your world is your world. But if we work together, it becomes our world. And so you can. And that's how we just really, again, going back to changing the way the world treats our children. I think we all just need to keep working together. And like you said so well, like, just bring it out. Bring the stuff that maybe isn't. Hasn't been talked about as much and start bringing it out into, into the open. And let's talk about it, because it's. You're not alone in dealing with issues. Someone else is going through it too. And we're only going to be stronger together.

Yeah. And I think lastly, there is no real gold standard when it comes to pediatric care in the PT world. There's so many different methods, and I'm sure there is as well, and speech and OT and chiropractic, different handling techniques or different certifications you can get. But there's not really a gold standard. So to say that only one profession maybe can treat something the best. Well, that's not really true. So let's just like break down those walls and let's all be more collaborative. And it's going to help not only your profession, that profession, it's going to help more kids.

Yeah, yeah. We can just kind of knock down a whole bunch of egos and, you know, all work together. We would all be in a much better place. Right. It's between that and the siloed approach, between, you know, healthcare in the United States, which doesn't make this easy either. You know, I do feel like there is this, you know, slow but steady push towards collaborative care and efforts to truly look at like, who is the patient sitting in front of us, what are the goals of the caregiver or the patient, you know, and working towards that again instead of what insurance might be telling us to do.

I so see that that's one of.

The first things, that's one of our first lessons when we get new clinicians, new students is, is you have to, you ask the questions, you have to listen and then you have to relate everything that you do back to what that parent wants when they come in. Because it ain't about you, it ain't about you.

They don't care. They, it's like whatever the cliche thinks, it doesn't matter because if you aren't helping that parent and get what they want, they will never come back. So it's very much kind of moving into this new wellness model where it's centered around the parent, not about what they're going to be reimbursed for.

Yeah, I did, I did this training in December of last year and somewhat it was called Airway first and everyone was like, well, what is your secret? How do you have so much success with your patients and how do you move them through like so quickly and hi, this, that and the other. And I was like, I mean, I can charge you guys money and tell you I'm just listening to my patients. All right, I'll teach you how to do that. I was like, Airway first airways, really important to look at. So like, you know, I would say if you can't breathe, you're dead. A little morbid, but true. I'm like, aside from that, like we have to be listening to our patients. And I was like, people are, they're going to love this, going to be really angry that they paid for this. But I was like, you've got to just stop and look at what they wrote down on the intake form, ask open ended questions, probe further, get like, they don't know what to tell you if you don't ask the right questions and hold space. They also can't engage in that conversation with you. But they have to be able to feel comfortable. They have to feel like they trust you. They have to actually believe that you're listening and not just listening to respond. Right. But like listening to hear them and help them. And you know, and I was like, I just, I think it was such an innate skill of mine that I didn't realize other people didn't do this. And I was like, when I took like 10 steps back and I was like, why is it everyone else struggling, like they're taking the courses that I took, like, what's going on? And I kind of went, oh. I mean, I connect with my patients. Do you guys not do that? Like, is that, is that not a thing? So, yeah, I love that you brought that up.

It's always the simplest thing that seems like everyone knows, but they really aren't doing it. And then when you bring that to the, to their attention, they're like, oh.

Okay, yeah, it's a dance, right? It's like a dance. I always say it's like a dance between art and science. You kind of have to like marry the two and remember that you're talking to a human and working with humans because, you know, medicine is medicine, but these humans. Yeah, well, I love that. So tell us one more time where everybody can find you and then we'll, we'll wrap up.

So everyone, you can go to connective kids.com that's gonna have all your resources there. You're gonna be able to find our connective community, which is education for parents. In January, mid January, you'll see Connective University. That's our education platform for clinicians. We also have the free shopping list there and the free gross motor checklist. And then obviously all of our, both of our Instagrams connective underscore kids and then I'm Dr. Autodc on Instagram, have a ton of free resources.

Amazing. Well, thank you both. We'll also make sure that all that is linked to the notes below the episode. So if anyone's driving, don't, don't, you know, keep driving, be safe. Thank you both so much for joining me today. It was an absolute pleasure to have you in chat.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having us.

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