Ep 163: Strategies to help parents play & be present with their children! With Dr Tina Payne Bryson!

In this episode, Dr Tina Payne Bryson returns to Ask Dr Jessica to discuss her new book  'The Way of Play' which explains the importance of incorporating play into parenting, building relationships, regulating emotions, and developing essential skills in children. Her latest book shares strategies and tips to help parents play and be present with their kids--- which ultimately will help strengthen their bond with their children.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson is a licensed mental health professional and she has co-written several books on parenting, including 'The Whole-Brain Child,' 'No-Drama Discipline,' 'The Yes Brain,' and 'The Power of Showing Up.' If you'd like to hear more from Dr Tina, check out Ask Dr Jessica episode 155---where she discusses "No-Drama Disclipline". 

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

For more content from Dr Jessica Hochman:
Instagram: @AskDrJessica
YouTube channel: Ask Dr Jessica
Website: www.askdrjessicamd.com

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Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email Dr Jessica Hochman askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.

The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hi everybody. I'm Dr Jessica Hochman, pediatrician and mom of three. On this podcast, I like to talk about various pediatric health topics, sharing my knowledge, not only as a doctor, but also as a parent. Ultimately, my hope is that when it comes to your children's health, you feel more confident, worry less, and enjoy your parenting experience as much as possible. Are you curious about your family's gut health? You may have heard of the microbiome, which plays a vital role in your digestion, immunity, overall, wellness and more. I want to tell you about a new company called tinyhealth. Tinyhealth makes it easy to learn about the gut health of all ages, even babies using a simple at home test. Their personalized reports provide tailored recommendations for nutrition and probiotics to help make informed decisions for your family's well being, whether you're addressing specific health concerns or exploring ways to optimize your wellness. Tiny health empowers you to take control of your health journey. As a special offer for my listeners, use promo code. Dr Jessica, that's D, R, J, E, S, S, I, C, A, for savings on your first test, visit tinyhealth.com today, it's quick, easy and packed with actionable insights. Hi everybody. Today, I'm so happy to welcome back. Dr Tina Payne Bryson, many of you know Tina because she's the co author of some of the most impactful parenting books out there, including no drama discipline, the whole brain child, the power of showing up, and the yes brain which she co wrote with Dr Dan Siegel. So now Tina has a brand new book called The Way of play. This book is an incredible resource for parents who may want a refresher course on how to actually play with their kids. Because let's face it, for many of us, it's been a long time since we were kids ourselves in the way of play, Tina introduces seven practical tips and techniques to help us use play as a tool to build connection with our kids. And as a quick reminder, before we delve into the interview and be so grateful if you would share it with a friend and leave a five star review. Thank you so much. And now let's get started so dr Tina Payne Bryson, I am so excited to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I've been really looking forward to this. Thank you so much for having me. I was so excited when I got to meet you at a random dinner party with a mutual friend, and couldn't wait to have this conversation with you that was really fun. And that's when you first told us about your book that's coming out. So I'm so excited to talk to you about it. Thank you. I'm excited because this is actually my first podcast to get to talk about it. So I'm really, really excited to dig in. I have to tell you. So the book that you so the book that you wrote, I'm going to read the title out loud. It's called The Way of play, using little moments of big connection to raise calm, confident kids. I just think this is such a perfect book for honestly, for myself, I really enjoyed reading it and gleaning insight and advice from you, because I'm sure a lot of people, I'm hoping a lot of people can relate to me when I say this, but as a busy parent, when you come home from work, you want to play with your kids, but you don't want your kids to notice that you're tired and on your phone, you want to feel engaged. So your book gave me great strategies on how to do it, how to think about it, and I love that you gave me permission that it only has to be a few minutes. Oh, my goodness, yes. I think sometimes we get in our minds that we are supposed to, like enter into this imaginary world of play, which is, of course, you know, play is their first language, and it tells us so much about who they are, like, what they're drawn to and play, and how they play, and all of these things. But it can feel really overwhelming. And look, if I'm just being honest, one of the reasons I wrote this book is because I hear parents all the time say, like, exactly what you said, like, like, I want to play, but I don't know what to do or and this is honest, sometimes I really hate playing with my kids. It's not fun, it's boring. And I have definitely felt that, you know, with my three boys, I felt like, if I had to slam the two super guys together one more time, I was going to lose my mind. Like sometimes it's just not fun. And I think part of it's because we're coming at it thinking it has to be a long time. We have forgotten how to play, and we're so distracted by all the other things that we need to do. And so if we can really in our mind, say, Look, this just could be for a short chunk of time, 510 minutes, even I can really be in it and really, you know, be engaged and so much more fun if you let go and really focus. Thank you No. And thank you for saying that. Thank you for allowing me to admit that I have felt like playing with my kids, especially when they were little, that it felt boring. Boring. It can be, it really can be boring. Yeah, yes, yes. And we are so distracted now, absolutely. But you know, we all know, not only is language the first or play is the first language of children, and everybody knows this, that it's it's full of opportunity. And really one of the most important things our kids can spend their time doing to build intellectual skills, cognitive skills, emotional skills, social skills, resilience, patience, frustration, tolerance, like all of these things we want for them come out of the moments of play. And let me say first too, you know, free, unstructured play, where kids are just on their own. No. Ones playing with them is crucial and important. So this is not to say you should play with your children all the time. They actually should be playing on their own and playing with peers and siblings without you. This is really because I wrote this book with Georgie, my co author, who's an incredible play therapist, because so much of that there really isn't anything out there besides Lawrence Cohen's beautiful work, playful parenting that I love, that really talks, how do we do it? Like, how do we actually get in there and play with them? Sometimes kids will even tell us you're doing it wrong, or they don't enjoy what, how we're responding to them and play, and then it's just frustrating for everybody. So this is really kind of like seven strategies to help us play with our kids in ways that build relationship, build their skills, help us get to know our kid, and actually can be fun as well. And you also pointed out in your book that it helps us shape memories together, which resonated with me so much, because I can think about when I was a kid, when an adult would play with me, I still remember to this day. You know, I remember my kindergarten teacher being so playful. He had such a great way about him, and I remember my parents were playful with me, or if there was a friend or a relative. So it does also shape our memories. It does. I love that, how you said that there. I think one of the things that is connected to that is the idea that anytime we have shared attention on something that really is the essence of what true emotional connection is about. And so I think it's probably better to to not play with our kids if we're super distracted or not even focusing on what's going on. That actually just communicates a bunch of stuff to them that we don't want them to be focused on, like my mom doesn't have time for me, or she's not interested in me, or she doesn't like playing with me. These are the kinds of things that they fill in the blank. It's better to either say, Hey, I'm focusing on something right now. I need to deal with this, and then I'll come find you, or to put it down and go engage for a short period of time. Yes, I totally agree with that. I My husband and I really try to finish our work at work so that when we come home we can be focused on our kids. We are far from perfect, but that's something that we do try to model. Because I do agree with you. I think the kids can tell when you're distracted and not paying attention to them. And Jessica, I would say too, like, of course we're gonna be tired when we come home from work. Some days at work are pretty stressful, and especially you as a pediatrician, sometimes you have really challenging days where you have to deliver tough news, or, you know, those kinds of things. I think our kids are so attuned to how we actually feel. So if we can just take a few minutes before we walk in, close our eyes for a minute, kind of get centered where we can walk in in a more regulated state, great. But some days we're not going to really be able to do that, or we're going to try, but we get exhausted really quickly, even after having a reset. And I think, you know, kids are so in tune with how we feel, and if they say something like, you're tired or you're grumpy or something like that, if we're like, No, I'm not. I'm fine. That really gives our kids only two good options. One is to not trust themselves, like I must not be reading those cues right, or to not trust us. And neither of those are great options. So it's so much better to just lean into it. Be like You're right. I'm so tired. Will you tuck me into bed right now? I want to now, you know. And you can be playful even about that. Be like you be the doctor. I'm going to be the patient because I'm tired now, so you check me in. Can you bring me a you know, bring me a drink, and you kind of just can be playful with it, too. I think, you know, after reading your book, I keep thinking about, how can I insert playfulness into my day to day, into every moment possible with my kids? And I do really feel the difference. It's such an important reminder for us parents. So I'm really excited for people to read it and to glean the tips that I gleaned from your book. Oh, thank you so much. You know, I think we play is obviously like, you can be just straight, you can be in a playroom. You can be in the car and playing while you're, you know, you can be, you can be playing in line at the, you know, at the bank. Whatever we can bring, we can bring play and playfulness into any situation. And one of the things that I felt like I wasn't necessarily, when my kids are a little so good at the playing, like, where you think about it traditionally, where you're, you know, you're the captain and they're the pirate, you know, whatever. So some days I was good at that, and some days I wasn't. But what I felt like I learned really early on based on all the other stuff I know and about discipline and all of that, was that even though sometimes I've had parents say to me, like, I don't want to do an effing puppet show to just get my kids to put their shoes on, but what I found really early on was that the amount of energy I would spend when they weren't being cooperative in trying to, like, convince them, or trying to set a boundary that I was then having to follow through on all of these things, I could elicit cooperation so much faster, consistently, regardless of the mood my child was in, regardless of the mood I was in, regardless of what demand I was placing on them. If. Was silly and playful. I mean, I just think about the typical battles like that all of us face and that I'm sure you hear about all day long, like tooth brushing, falling, you know, going, getting ready for bed, the whole getting out the door morning routines, like, if we can just be silly and playful, you know, like, I know when my 15 month olds were 12 to 15 months old when they didn't want to get in their car seats, which is obviously a non negotiable, they would become, like, two by fours. They were, like, incredibly strong, and they wouldn't bend so they just, like, wouldn't go in their car seats. And so, you know, you can fight that battle. You can try and shove their bodies in there, and you can or you can try and bribe them. You can do all kinds of things. Right? What almost always worked was, please don't sit in your car seat. My imaginary friend is sitting in there right now, and if you sit on him, he's gonna cry, and then I'm gonna do that weird dance to calm down. So you know what I mean, like, or you just bring, Oh, please don't put your shoes on. I'm wearing your shoes today. All of those moments, if we bring silliness and playfulness, not only is it memory building, relationship building, but it works to get cooperation, and it's so much more fun for everybody. Yeah, this morning, I was thinking about it. I was getting out of the door with my kids, and I had them clean up before we left, and I was trying to think, How can I make this more fun? And so we put on some music and made it silly. We made it I made it a contest. You know, I bet you two kids can't put your stuff away faster than me, and sometimes they're onto me when I do things like that, but sometimes they're onto you, and it still works, and it's right, I was just gonna say, and it's still, they still did it, you know, with a twinkle in the eye and a smile. But I do agree. I think anytime there's something in your family that feels like a task or mundane, those typical stressful family moments, I agree, if you can squeeze in some fun, which is possible, it makes it all better for all of us involved, definitely. So I wanted to go through a couple of the strategies in your book. Your book covers seven strategies for parents, and I wanted to share a couple that maybe we could elaborate on. The first that I really liked was being a mirror, because I thought this seemed very it seemed like a very simple, nice place to start. So can you explain what being a mirror would look like for a parent? You're right. It's super simple. Anybody can do it, and it really is thinking of yourself and to reflect back what your child is doing. And the best way to do it is with our body, face and voice. Okay? So if your kids making robot noises, beep, boop, boop, boop, you just literally join in. Beep, beep. Boop, boop, you do it too, right? Or, like my son always wanted to pitch in the back or hit the ball baseball in the backyard, over and over and over and over. So he but he was a huge Dodger fan, and he had he picked up some of the kind of, like, pre batting rituals that he had seen some of the doctors do. So he would tap the plate, like three times and then check one side and then get his bat in position. So I would just, I had my glut, you know, I was catching. So I would kind of like tap, like, pretend I was tapping three times, and then change, move my body in in reflection of what his body was doing, right? Or if they're making a silly face, you copy their face with your face. So it really is just mirroring what they're doing. And what's great about that is it helps them see how people are connected, how they bond. It helps them tap into emotional connectivity and even empathy, there's a ton of science that shows that actually, without our awareness, we often will mimic with micro muscular movements, particularly around our mouth and eyes, what other people's faces are doing, and it's one of the ways that we think it allows us to tune into what Other people are actually feeling, because there are neural associations between those micro movements and emotional states we've had internally. So I think it's just a really simple way to join with and like, like we talked about earlier, sort of when there's a shared focus of attention, I think it really just at the at the base of it, it really communicates to our kids, we're tuned in, we're with them. We're paying attention to them, what they do. It delights us for the most part, in those moments, and we are sharing attention with them. Yes, no, I like the example in your book that if somebody's crossing their legs, and you cross your legs, you sort of mimic what they look like, or you mirror what they look like. It makes them feel more at ease and more comfortable. Yeah? So similarly with kids, if we mirror what they're doing, I can see how that would work in the same way. Yeah, it's like communicating. I'm totally with you, right? Yes, that's what it is. Yeah. I used it this morning. My daughter was coloring at the table, and I just tried it out. I said, You know what, I'm gonna try to mirror her. I went down and sat next to her, and color next to her, and we just started talking, and it felt really good. I feel like the mirroring technique is a great way to sort of integrate yourself into your child's world. Yeah. And you know, what's great about it is, if you don't really feel like, I don't know how to play, I don't know where to start, literally, just follow their lead. That's really all you're doing. Is just kind of, and obviously we want. To be thoughtful if, as your kids get older, if you're doing and you're copying them, they may feel like you're mimicking them like so obviously, be attuned to what's going on, but we are really just following their lead. And it's, it's something anybody can do at any point. And by the way, you could try it on your significant other too, because it really does. I you know there are studies that show that that when you when someone is like when they're dating, if the other person is doing similar kinds of gestures and movements and tilting their bodies or heads to one side or the other, even at dinner, you can tell that they like each other more, or they're communicating. I like you, so it's actually a great way to help another person like you said, feel it. You feel connection. I love that so much. Okay, the the other technique that I think is really helpful is the idea of using storytelling to play with our kids. This is a technique that I integrate a lot in my job as a pediatrician, and I notice they respond so well when you can insert a story that they relate to. Yeah. Can you give any tips to parents? Where can they insert storytelling? Or where can they use storytelling to help them raising their kids and playing more? Yeah, some of you who are listening might know our book, the whole brain child that I wrote with Dan Siegel. And really the second strategy in that book is called, name it to tame it. And this is similar, but it's really putting it into how we do it in play. And so what? What's amazing about storytelling? First of all, it's important to know that sometimes children just tell stories to be silly and to just tell stories they are made up. So if your child starts telling a story about something, where you start going, oh my gosh, did this really happen? Like, don't freak out. Just know, sometimes kids, that's part of what they do. And I remember, you know, learning early on in child development studies that even scary things that kids hear about, like in fairy tales and things like that, like feeling a little bit uncomfortable, playing with the idea of power, playing with the idea of fear, playing with the idea of scaring someone else, like all of these things are part of trying on different emotions and different experiences, but in a safe, play based space. So just know, sometimes stories are just made up stories. Otherwise, stories can be incredibly powerful, because it's really integrating different parts of their brain that do different things, like putting things in order in a logical way, and using words that allow us to communicate things, but also communicating our felt sense of experience and the texture and feel and emotion of an experience, and bringing all of that together to successfully communicate and elicit a response in somebody else that you're wanting, right? So you could be really dramatic in how you tell something are really subtle and see if they pick it up. Stories are incredibly powerful in play, because they can allow us to be setting our kids up for success or helping kids process something that already happened. When something difficult happens, children often can't say it, but they can play it. And so you will see kids playing out these themes in in their play, like maybe a scary dog or something. So they might have a stuffed dog and they put the dog in the corner, and maybe they put the dog under something, or maybe they yell at the dog, and they're doing these different things that are letting you know there's still some processing happening, right? So then you just would narrate what's going on, what you're seeing, what you're observing. And then you can even bring some emotions, like, oh, that's that dog has such a loud bark. Oh, that's that can be scary. So you're introducing those kinds of emotions into it. The other way we can use stories is, like I said, to set kids up for success. So I'll give a really specific example of this. Anytime kids have a big transition or dealing with something challenging, it might be a parent has a hospitalization coming up, or there's a family move, or in my case, I made little books for my kids before they went to preschool, and I just did it in Word I mean, just Word document. It took me 10 minutes, and I basically walked through the story, right? Which is, what will JP do when he goes to school? Oh, he will go to the backyard. He will have story time. He will make friends, you know, all these things. Then I add in sometimes Luke might miss mom and dad while he's at school. And then the message of resilience is, I can ask your kid, what's the bravest animal you know? Sometimes they'll come up with strange examples, but it might be an eagle, it might be a bear, you know, whatever. And you can get temporary tattoos on Etsy for almost nothing, and you can put and you can put this in the story. So I would say, if JP is missing mom and dad, he can look at his tattoo and remember that mom or dad will be there to pick him up soon, and that his teacher will always help him. So he was, we basically were front loading what experiences he might have, what he might feel, and then how he what he can do when he feels that right? So that's resilience building. So we can do that with play. So we can be, you know, have set up school, right? And. And and really though we want to follow our kids lead, so we might set the scene, let our kid kind of play out what they're thinking about, what their attention is going to and then those are times we can, we can kind of narrate the story of what's happening and empower them. I love that, because I'll bet that Luke was immediately put at ease after reading that book. Yep. And I also wonder, I know your kids are grown now, but I I wonder if he remembers that you did that. I'll bet he does. You know, it's amazing about it. I don't know if he has explicit memory. I mean, I think we he's heard me talk about it before, and I do still have the book so we could go back and look at it. But whether or not our kids have an explicit memory of a specific thing we helped them make sense of in play or in story book form. And, you know, many children love the same stories over and over and over again. This allows them to scaffold in new layers of complexity and new ways of thinking of things, new perspectives on it, so they might even be playing the same things over and over. What's amazing about storytelling is it also communicates to our kids when something happens that we don't quite get or that bothers us, or that we're thinking about a lot, we share our stories with each other. And so what was amazing is it wasn't just a survive strategy. JP and Luke would come to me, and my older son, Ben, too. I did this with him. They would come to me like. JP, I remember one time said, Mom, I saw a Scooby Doo episode at my cousin's house, and I keep thinking about the scary guy, and he said, We need to tell the story. He literally would say, we need to tell the story. He knew it was a strategy that would help him be able to move through it. And so I hadn't seen that particular episode, but if you've seen one on Scooby Doo, you've seen them all. You know it was them all, you know, it wasn't really a mummy. It was old Mr. McGregor who was mad at the kids, you know, or whatever it was, yeah. And so I said, Well, was it really a mummy? You know? What do you remember? And we kind of walked through it. Now, we could do this in play also, you know, where he would be, I would say, well, let's play. Show me what, show me what. You know, who's the guy, you know, we could set it up that way, but it's really something that we lay in as a lifelong strategy, which is that we share stories with each other, whether they're exciting and wonderful or they're really hard, that we're in it together as we process and work through and this is, you know, this is sort of like the science behind why therapy or journaling or talking to our Friends or partners can be so healing is that when we tell stories, whether that's through play or through words, it actually helps us not only integrate an experience, but helps set set us up to feel like we can handle it again in the future. And that's that's sort of the nuts and bolts of resilience. And what amazes me is how powerful stories are for children, because I know that when I tell my kids stories, they'll remember them for for years and years, because I'll re I'll retell that story, and they'll say, Mom, you already told me that story. But I know it's been a long time, and still, it still stays with now it Yeah, so it's, it really is amazing how powerful storytelling is, and children are so captivated and driven by stories. You know, this is actually a great parenting hack. Lots of times when we're in the car with our children and we're driving, that's when a lot of conflict happens between our kids, and they may have meltdowns, and obviously that's much harder to like, go tune in and hold them, or those kinds of things when we're driving. But oftentimes, when my kids were fussy or having conflict in the car, I would start telling a story, and I would make it up. It was so dumb. Like, you know, I'm sure it wasn't at all creative or good. I would like, there was this bird and it was in the tree, and it didn't know what it was going to do, and I have no idea what I'm going to say next, right? Like, so I just start telling a story. And usually kids will get quiet because they become so curious. They are such curious, driven learners at these young ages. So stories can be really helpful for just helping your kids get restarted and regulated again or again to elicit cooperation, I would start telling a story, and I say, as soon as you get your shoes on and grab your bag and get in the car, I'll tell you what happens next. Come on, and then they couldn't wait to cooperate, right? So stories can be really, powerful, just in terms of their curiosity and cooperation as well. I use it every day. I hope people are going to be onto my hack as a pediatrician. But all the time, I'll look in kids ears, and they're fighting me about examining them. And I always I'll make up a story. I'll say, oh my goodness, do you know what I see in your ear? And I'll make up something like, oh my goodness, in your ear, I see Mario was, why is Mario in your ears? Perfect? Yes. Or, you know, I always to keep it fun. For me. I try to change what I find in the ears or what I see in the mouth. You're playing too, yeah. I can see, you know, they come to the doctor, they're a little nervous what's going to happen here. And I can see that when you add in storytelling, it definitely relaxes them, yeah. And I think one thing to just remember, too, is that we as grown ups, whether it's the role of the pediatrician or the role of the parent or the role of the teacher, whoever we are in a child's life, we are meaning makers for them, and how we narrate things is huge. And so like, you know, I. Know now some kids still have a lot of fears about getting sick and all of these things post pandemic. If their parents have given particularly a lot of attention to making sure no one gets sick, the way we say things, matters a lot. So if I say wash your hands, because there are a lot of germs going around right now, versus wash your hands, it's really important our hands are clean so everyone can stay healthy. Same demand, same boundary, same request, but the meaning of what I'm giving attention to, and the why communicates either threat or safety. And so I think you know, if you know what it's sort it's the exact same thing. Jessica, you talk to parents about probably all the time, like if your child falls and they don't immediately cry, but they look at your face, and if you gasp and freak out, they will cry. There's even some things going around on social media where a parent pretends to hit their kid's head on the on the door frame, like they don't actually hit their kids head, but they they use their hand to make the noise, and then they go, Oh, I'm so sorry. Does that hurt? And the kids will often start crying. So, you know, we create meaning around everybody freak out. We should be worried all the time. Versus, I may not know the answer, but I trust we can figure it out, or I trust we can handle hard things like the messaging we give our kids around everything constructs how they see the world in themselves. And this is, this is huge, 100% we are their model. So they look to us for safety, for comfort. And so absolutely, if we are, if we as parents, react and we are fearful at every turn, at every cut, at every scrape, at every fall, the kids will learn from that. So I agree, as best we can, if we can hold it together, if we can be a reassuring presence in their life, that definitely makes a huge difference. Yeah, and I, I'm, I'm quite convinced that one of the hugest contributors to children's mental health crisis is the amount of anxiety that parents are dealing with themselves. Again, we are creating meaning for our children, like the world is terrible and everyone should be afraid and everything's horrible, versus we've got this. We can figure it out our Wow, this is really hard, and I know we can do hard things like, what is, what are the messages that were, what are the stories we're telling ourselves, and then what's getting communicated to our children about what the world is like, Absolutely, and by the way, and this is why I think your message about playing is not only important for kids, but honestly, probably just as important for us adults. Absolutely, because I think it's such an honor to be around kids. They force us to be silly. They totally remind us to play and to be playful, which, you know, lifts our moods. You can't help it. But it's true, like, if you know, if you, if you kind of force yourself to join in with your kids and act, you know, do a silly dance, or play a silly song, or join them in their in their play, if you give it a few minutes, you're going to feel better. You can't think about the news when you're you can't think about what's happening in the world around you when you're in it with your kids well, and thinking about how the brain is just real. It's in one way, we can think about it as a huge Association machine. These neural networks get activated after they get linked together. So when we play, it's activating a lot of kind of play states we had when we didn't have as much stress. When we you know, it's sort of reminding us of what it's like to be freer as a child if we had those experiences. I think the other thing to say about it too, and this is true for adults just as much as it is kids, is it sort of lets some steam out of the pot. Play releases nervous system arousal. It releases stress. It's like laughing or crying or yelling or other things we do and we're really stressed. Play really allows us to to not just process difficult things, but to just release a lot of that stress, it's a protective factor. So great. I'm just thinking about how, how do I want my night to go tonight when I'm home with my kids? How can I, how can I do less nagging about the dishes and more, more infusion of play time? Well? And you definitely need those dishes done. So you know what? Play dishes. Play dishes, yes, yes, no. Amen to your message. I think it's so wonderful. I think it seems like such an obvious message, but it's something that we forget. We forget to do it. So I hope people that are listening use this as motivation to be a little more silly. Get out with your kids, mirror them, lay down with them, even for a few minutes, it just takes a few minutes. As you mentioned in your book, which I loved, I love that reminder so little moments for big connection. And really, the book is full of strategies that are really easy, like the mirror one, like just narrating what you're seeing them doing, like as they're building a ramp, or, you know, as they're tucking their doll in, you're saying, Oh, your doll is tired. You're tucking her in, right? So just really simple ways to follow their lead that can be really powerful for your child and for your relationship. And my my last question for you, I'm just so curious. When we had met at that dinner, you had mentioned that after writing this book, you wish you had you. Known some of what you had written about when you were raising your kids, I think I would have, I mean, these strategies. I actually wish I had known like these strategies, and what to call them and how to do them, really more intentionally. I think a lot of the time when I was playing with my kids, I was thinking about it as passing the time. It was what they loved doing more than anything. And I was like, and you know, when your kids are little, and I was at home with them a lot when they were little, you're just trying to get through the day. Like, the hours can take forever sometimes. But I was always product production. Like, oriented like, oh, there's so much to do today. And I think I wish I would have just let go, been more present, forgotten about all the things that needed to be done, and just let myself give in to those moments more. And I will say too, let me say this final thing, when we play with our kids in ways where we follow their lead, we build their skills, we have fun with them, and we really are thinking about our job as disciplinarians and as parents, as building skills so that they become, you know, really strong in what they're able to do in the world without our input. The later years of parenting becomes so much easier because our kids have built amazing skills, and they regulate themselves, and they make good decisions, and when they mess up, they know how to make it right. So it's exhausting all the work we put in, but it does pay off. It really does. I encourage everybody listening to please get a copy of the way of play. And thank you so much Tina for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. It's so fun to talk to you. Thank you for listening. And I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Ask Dr Jessica also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review, wherever it is you listen to podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask Dr Jessica. See you next Monday. You.