Take It Outside: Why Can't My Toddler Sit Still? Ep 51

In this episode I discuss how UNRESTRICTED OUTDOOR PLAY makes for strong, confident, and capable children.

Current research strongly suggests that over 54% of children under 10 years of age have a chronic condition.

YET ... new research indicates 50% of developmental challenges are preventable!

Our modern day lifestyle can be tricky to navigate, but there are better choices out there. I want to challenge you to step into your own light, ask some hard questions and

** I must preface this episode with, I am not a medical doctor nor nutritionist. If you have questions please contact your family health care provider.

My intent here is for educational purposes, only. To inspire parents to peel back some layers and inquire deeper. Seek medical advice as you see fit.

I'm asking questions that you may also ask. 

There are now many well-researched studies that prove beneficial effects of physical activity on: 

• brain power
• motivation & concentration
• memory & reasoning
• classroom attitudes & behaviors
• language skills

Evidence show that physically active kids have brain synapses that fire faster and stronger, and are 20% more likely to earn better grades (not that grades are the end goal), but overall academic performance, social skills and self-esteem are!!!

QUESTIONS:
Email: erin@HyerLearning.com

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Transcript

Erin 0:02

Hello, and welcome to Talking Toddlers, where I share more than just tips and tricks on how to reduce tantrums or build your toddler's vocabulary. We're going to cover all of that, but here, our goal is to develop clarity. Because in this modern world, it's truly overwhelming. This podcast is about empowering moms to know the difference between fact and fiction, to never give up, to tap into everyday activities so your child stays on track. He's not falling behind. He's thriving through your guidance. We know that true learning starts at home. So let's get started. Hello, and welcome back to Talking Toddlers. Today, I'm going to dive deep into how unrestricted outdoor play makes for strong, confident, and capable children. I'm taking my 35 years of clinical practice, extensive study beyond just the day to day caseload, but really investigating with other disciplines, discussing with occupational therapists, nutritionists, behavioral optometrists, as well as pediatric chiropractors. Many of us who really have never stayed in our own lane, right? Initially, because I think we're just made up to think outside the box. That's who we are as thinkers, as problem solvers, and as practitioners. But, um, we're also tend to be really fascinated by the miraculous human body. And as I continue to grow and learn throughout my years of practice and then beyond this, that we all began to see the numbers of children with challenges and struggles grow and grow and that kids were coming into our practice sicker and sicker with every decade. And over time, children who presented with more complex issues, Because the minor speech delay or the the late talker was mixed with emotional dysregulation or chronic sleep issues or chronic constipation, which in the mid to late nineties, I was kind of blown away by because I had never heard. how a preschooler could end up in the emergency room in the middle of the night because he was so constipated. And that just kind of blew my mind. And so I started to really pore over scientific research and ask a lot of questions. And really... Never wanted to stop learning and never wanted to stop or settle into this is just the new normal, right? So, let's put it in perspective. 30 years ago, a child being diagnosed or labeled with a developmental disability or a neurological problem was pretty rare. But now this growing trend I think is starting to raise major red flags and that's why some of us, not all of us, I think the professionals, quote unquote, or those people who are in a position to serve you as a family and your children sometimes get stuck in the day to day routines and really They don't have the oomph to step out of their comfort zone and ask the hard questions. And so the systems, and I use that in quotes quite often, are just that. They develop protocols, if this happens, then you do this. If the child looks like this or presents like this, then you assign this. But I'm asking. Why are so many kids struggling and are we really just more sensitive to children's needs today than we were 30 years ago or 50 years ago? I don't think so. I think that the, the big umbrella is really an increase to sensory processing problems of which specific characteristics fall under that, such as speech and language delay or. anxiety or sleep issues, all of those kinds of specific boxes, right, which has his own little label seems in my professional and personal experience seems to fall under this dysregulation of our sensory systems. But I'm here to say, hold on, Because the good news is what I truly believe and what my colleagues who think outside the box, who are willing to ask those hard questions, and what research is starting to unfold is that many of the problems that we see our children facing today are incredibly treatable and I would like to say, to be bold enough to say that many, many of these cases are preventable and that is why I've decided in this phase in my career to really go upstream to reach The brand new parents, the moms and dads and grandparents and give you some insight of how to navigate this early on. Because for 35 years, I waited for someone to be faced with a challenge. Then have enough courage to pick up the phone and ask for a referral. And that's hard when you see your two year old or your three year old or your four year old struggling. And so, what some of the current researchers are strongly suggesting is that 50% of these developmental challenges that you and I are told are the new normal are preventable. I know that's a bold statement, and it's not a, you know, one and done, meaning that we don't just have one conversation and flip the switch. It's a process that we as a culture have to change our mindset and our expectations and dive deep, really be willing to get our hands dirty and say, you know what, what are some of the common denominators across the board that raising our children today? Yes, is challenging. Right. It's exhausting and it's even highly diverse and complex because of the modern lifestyle. But if we go back 50 years, 100 years, 200 years, let's be logical. Let's be pragmatic. It wasn't as complicated and our kids were not challenged or suffering from early developmental issues. There's always going to be an outlier, right? There are going to be these anomalies. And that's what, you know, speech and self regulation and autism and anxiety and all of these sleeping disorders, all of those were anomalies. But now we're talking 54% of our children under the age of 10 have a chronic disease. And that's what the CDC says. I'm not just, looking at these kind of peripheral investigators or researchers. I'm looking at how can we get back to human nature? How can we get back to mother nature? So before I share some of the easy solutions, right? The pragmatic, natural preventable strategies to keep your toddler on track and to keep him or her thriving through each and every year and developmental phase. I just want to take a closer look at prevalent developmental problems that you and I mostly new families are facing each and every day. So for example, there are now one in five children in the U. S. that's 20% have a diagnosed learning or attention problem. And how that breaks down With special education and what we call IEPs, Individual Educational Plans or a 504 plan. So 1 in 16 children are on an IEP or a special ed plan and 1 in 50 kids are on a 504 plan. That's kind of how it breaks down. But the sad part is, is that nearly 12% of kids are not identified, right? And we've always known that there was a small percentage of kids, that weren't identified and were later identified maybe when they reached middle school. Some of the statistics that I was able to find from the US Department of Education showed that between 1991 and 2001, the number of five year olds receiving. What we refer to as quote unquote related services, which would be O. T. or occupational therapy, P. T. physical therapy or speech therapy, right? So O. T., P. T. or speech. That, it increased in that 10 year span from 1991 to 31%. And that the numbers of 4 year olds increased 76%. And then the number of 3 year olds. increased 94%. And that was before the iPhone and before the last 10 years, right? And especially before the whole pandemic. So those numbers, we won't know what really the outcome or that affects the negative implication of the lockdowns and the school, challenges for another 10, 15 years. And that's your child. Who needs support now through this. So, when we look at percentages, sometimes we can't relate to that. We're thinking, okay, well, 20% you know, one out of five kids and those are kids that are identified. And I want to understand. That in order to be placed on an IEP plan, you have to fall anywhere between the seventh percentile or the fifteenth percentile. Every state and every district does it differently, depending on numbers and money and manpower and all of this. So I've worked in three different states and in California at that time, 15 years ago, it was a child had to fall in the 7th percentile. which meant that you have to be in the severe range, right? In Vermont, when I moved, it was the 15th percentile. And so every state interprets these federal regulations differently. So that's why it becomes uh, a nightmare for parents mostly. But even us professionals how do we make this quote unquote equation fit? Because we see a child who is And, and the truth is, you have to be two standard deviations below the norm to qualify for speech and language services in, in In the regular or in public school settings, so that's not necessarily true for preschoolers, but once you hit that academic arena, because what happens is I have always said it kind of takes on the semantic game where you have a child who's slow to develop speech and language, and then once they hit, Kidding garden or first grade. It used to be first grade. Now it's kindergarten and they get tested quote unquote They're not doing what their peers Seem to be capable of doing like learning how to read and sitting still and all of these things Then that becomes a quote unquote learning disability but before that the vast majority of kids who end up on a IEP plan had a slow speech and language development or had something going on that wasn't keeping him or her on track. So that's just kind of a side note. And I'm sharing this because this is what's driving me to, to build a community. So new moms and dads get the truth and, and can see clarity beyond all of this noise. And so it's really important. And so that's why today I'm talking about why can't your kids sit still? Why are they fidgety? Why are they having emotional meltdowns? Why are they not able to participate in social events without worry and fret on your end, right? And so What I want to give hope to is that with babies and toddlers, let's really take it outside. Let's get back to nature, especially during these summer months and look at how can we bring our children up in this modern world? How can we guide them through the uses of all of our modern Inventions and our modern conveniences at the same time that we build a healthy inside the house and outside the house learning environment. So let's start with the obvious, right? When we take our kids outside, that includes babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, there's so much physical activity that literally wires the brain and the body and the cognitive relationship with this world, right? And I've said this before, but this, this is really my purpose, my driving force that building physical Ability building creative right in your mind. How? How can I play with these sticks? How can I navigate this little pond or this little stream? Or how can I make a mud pie and and have the day of my life right? The best day of my life. But let's look at this. So outdoor play supports your sensory development, all of those eight senses. In a previous episode, I talked about how we have our five senses. Our sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. But you have these three hidden senses. It builds, Or test your physical limits gives them opportunity to push themselves beyond their comfort zone and it builds Their ability to express themselves right to to be creative. What can I do with these? natural Environment right to how can I play hide and seek I can ditch underneath this little bush over here And nobody's gonna see me right it builds confidence To be chasing your brother or the dog and you fall and you get back up and you just rub off your knee and you keep going. But it also challenges Us as parents to encourage them to do things that are a little unsteady, right? And to build their perseverance and build grit, literally from the ground up through nature, through natural environments. Some of the activities that you can do, when there's more space, more freedom, then you have these big movements for running, jumping, hopping. Kicking, throwing, rolling in the grass, right? Climbing a tree, climbing over a stumbled down tree or some logs, right? All of these physical opportunities, these experiences puts the human body, the human being in a more relaxed state. There's a wealth of research that supports that. It's a calming mechanism. And even though it might look like craziness as they're running around or playing or being creative. It's wiring their system. So then they can transition back into the house, into a more quiet contained environment. And then looking at the balancing skills, and this is a, an important area where, you know, the beginning of my career, I spent five, six, seven years. In neuro rehab, right? When there was brain trauma and how do we recover from that? And I focused mostly on, pediatrics and adolescence, but transitioning that into what, what happens to the neurological development when you're just coming into this world. The same mechanisms are needed, right? And so when we age, then that's when the sensory systems, the processing, the timing mechanism is slowed, right? And so that's when, unfortunately, older adults can't take care of themselves or they, they lose the privilege of their driver's license because their response time is slow, not necessarily because they're old. There isn't a chronological age per se or cut off. It's, I know many 85 90 year olds that are still driving, What a child needs to build that healthy processing system is they need a lot of novelty, right? So taking it outside in this uneven terrain, in this unpredictability, helps build that neurological growth, that sensory integration. And it's very different than playing in a very... Well organized playroom in your house or a very neat, tidy gymnasium, or even you and me going to the gym. And I've thought about this a lot lately going to the gym in a very repetitive motion. it might build muscle mass and we might even lose some body fat, but it doesn't help our neurological wiring. And so going outside, And hiking is better or just going to the park and walking in nature on the grass barefoot would be ideal, right? Because it's helping both the physical and the mental, the brain, the neurological wiring, which supports then a child's attention, focus, problem solving. Higher order thinking I'm always talking about thinking of that pyramid and that we're building that foundation so that apex what's our goal to get your second grader third grader fourth grader able to sit in the classroom for a couple of hours in these chunks and attend why he's learning how to read and write and do math and Science and whatever else they do in those classrooms, right? but then to be able to then Be free on the playground and play well with other children, but we do this at the toddler and preschool level by exploring rocks or logs or you can even help your new walker, right? I'd say 14, 16, eight month old, take his hand and let him walk along a low wall, Along your, your property or down the street at the playground they have to work their balance that something's new and novel and I've shared before in the past how it's important to look at your footwear too because we don't want to inhibit that perception, that processing, that real time. So when I look at the brain as this biological clock, right? We're talking milliseconds, which is one one thousand of a second. And when I look at speech and language, the difference between rhyming words, I know this is a little off, but, but it's how the brain is. This clock that has to be in sync with one another, that frontal lobe, the left and right hemisphere, all of this, the motor neurons. That it's a timing mechanism, so auditory processing are these two words the same or different? If I said cap, tap, that ck and tt, that first phoneme, that's just 25 milliseconds, that difference. So they have to be really, really fast at processing sounds. In audit, what we call auditory space, right? And so if you are expecting your first or second grader sitting there learning rhyming words or how to spell a word and sound it out, they have to have, seven years of physical movement and integration and wiring to sit in that chair and be stable enough and synchronized enough to process, Hmm, let me see if these two words rhyme or not, or what's that middle sound. If I say tip. Or top. Can I pull that middle sound out in the middle of that CVC word? And so, that's how this is all interrelated. But you can't get there. I keep saying this, and this is my mission for parents to understand. You can't expect your child to get there without all of this precursor. this rich life experience. And getting outside will help them do that will help every child do that, right? Like I said playing on rocks or walking on low walls or high walls when they're a little bit older or Jumping from rock to rock right or jumping over cracks You know on the sidewalk or wherever you're playing right to crawl under bushes to navigate In this three dimensional world, yes, you can do that inside your living room. If you have a little tube that you can crawl around or underneath the coffee table, all of those kinds of indoor obstacle courses are fun and great, especially if there's very poor weather outside, but to get out in nature, that's a thousand percent better and richer. So those are big muscles. Now let's look at the creative when kids do all of those big muscles and we'll talk about the fine muscles that the smaller muscles, is really this open ended freedom of expression, right? If they're playing hide and seek and they have to crawl under a bush. Oh, can they see me Or hey, there's a big rock. Is that rock big enough to hide my body, my four year old body or my two year old body? when you bring them outside and you start to introduce some of these, then you, you join in with them to help your two year old learn how to hide and seek. And then when they're three and four and five, they can do it on their own. But is that open ended activities that are bountiful outside? And limiting inside and you're in your house and it's noisy and things are breakable and you're trying to do stuff, right? And it's stressful. Not that you can't do it from time to time. And, trust me, I've seen great families do it. where you make your own tents inside and, and all of that, but outdoors, it's more unpredictable, more natural. And we'll talk about what the other elements outside bring to a healthy. nurturing developmental process, right? But now let's let's let's just cover some of these fine motors and and I want you to all to recognize that I understand that a lot of this is just sensible, the key is what research is showing us is that kids need to do this every single day. A couple of times a day if they're lucky, right? So, let's think about what you can do in the summer months with fine motor as it relates to sensory processing. Elements that you can use, water, sand, dirt, mud, right? Um, paint. There are a thousand different recipes to make your own Play Doh or bubbles or slime. Yes, a preschool setting does this, but that's still fairly contrived. It's still keeping your kids relatively I don't know what, what's the word in a well protected regimen. I'm talking about true open ended creative play where you can then bring containers from your house or go to the dollar store, right? Different sizes. So a child filling up a really big, four cup canister or Or a child filling up. A bucket of water and trying to move that across the table, he's going to make different calculations than if he's just doing a little scoop of a one cupper, right? He's making different adjustments in his body and effort and muscle. Being able to pick that up or pull it across closer to him. It might dump all over the place and that's okay. he is learning how to adjust his effort and his coordination, his motor planning. In real time. And those things then are generalized into the kitchen with you, into the dining room table, right? And you can then incorporate some of these beautiful gross and fine motor development, these sensory motor integration kinds of pieces into the house, right? Help with food prep. Clean or wash the vegetables, right? Or start easy by stirring this little batter, or help mama pour the milk into the mixture, or let's wash your hands, and then you can help mama make these hamburger patties. Feel the food. Get used to different textures on your hands, because you played in dirt and mud all day, and you're not overly sensitive, and it makes sense. And it's fun where you can hear pull these lettuce leaves or shuck these corn or peel these potatoes or wash these vegetables because you have experience and you've honed not only your physical, but your tactile in the sense that, oh, this cool hamburger meat isn't yucky. This is fun. And then I just wash my hands afterward. No biggie. Right. and then, you know, it brings back to connection. If you can wash these green beans for mama and then you can help me pack them dry and then we can cook them together and then we'll eat them at the table together. And you helped feed our family. So it's, it's this whole process. and this is really, really important on two levels, We need to spend time outside for our physical health, our mental health, our spiritual health. and to use the fact that toddlers and preschoolers and kindergartners, kids love to help us, right? So, that witching hour that so many parents... and us researchers and clinicians have identified as a real effect, you know, between four and six, five and seven, depending on where you live in your household and all of this. Um, that's really, really hard for a vast majority of families and children. And so if you can carve out time, whether it's 10 minutes or 15 minutes with that transition before dinner, just to go outside, just to maybe pretend that you have duties. Such as, you know, let's sweep the front porch, or let's pull these weeds, or let's water these flowers. Even if they're really just weeds and say, here honey, can you help mama water them? You know, your three year old doesn't know the difference. But you're going outside, you're helping that transition from your busy, busy, busy day, whatever that is, whether it's formal school or home daycare or, or whatever, and that you're, you're helping them transition to the evening. and keep in mind that anything you do inside your house can go outside. So, if you like, oh, let's sit down and read this book, let's do that on the front porch. Or let's do that on a blanket underneath the tree. Or painting or drawing, can, do you have a little kids table or a picnic table? Or, if you're going to have a snack, hey, let's have a picnic. Either prep the food there in the kitchen and bring it outside or, you know, bring a few little things that you can cut up the carrots or open up the dip all outside. Teddy bears, cars, trucks, trains, dolls, even dress up outside. If you don't have a yard, or you don't have easily accessible, see if you can go to the park or the local playground. Also, can you find a local farm that you can go visit? if that isn't possible, how about a farmer's market once a week? Right? Again, helping your kids understand where food comes from. But being outside in Mother Nature is the key. Hey there, Mom. I just wanted to jump in and ask a big favor. If you're gaining benefit from these episodes, please consider leaving me a review. It's the only way I can expand my reach and find moms and dads and grandparents just like yourself. I'd be so grateful. I'll leave a link down below in the description to save you an extra step. So thanks in advance. Let's get back to today's episode. I want to go back to some serious statistics again, some data that's driving me to help you make better, healthier choices, right? To encourage you and challenge you. some of the side effects of our modern indoor living has been that children are experiencing more and more myopia. And what that is, is nearsightedness. And it makes sense, right? Because that means that we have kind of blurried distance vision. And it's because everything kids do nowadays seems to be within arm's distance. Right? Whether it's screens and you know how I feel about that. But even just being indoors limits your, your long distance visual. And you and I that sit in front of a computer or do desk work all day long, we need to take vision breaks too. Every 90 minutes to two hours at least to go, if you can't get outside, at least look outside through the window or a balcony. Go stand on your front porch or walk around your work building. Whatever you do to stretch those eye muscles. So your distance, vision stays healthy and strong. the second big side effect, and this is a bigger conversation that I will continue to talk about is vitamin D deficiency. And you're like, what? How does that all relate to speech and language and early childhood development? it appears that our modern lifestyle is really the biggest impact on our human, ability to make vitamin D. And that's what happens. Vitamin D is mostly produced in the skin by response to sunlight. So it's not like. The sunlight gives us vitamin D, and that's why taking a supplement can be helpful, but it's not the best method, right? That only 10% of the vitamin D actually comes from food. It's really our skin's response to going out in sunlight, and we can talk about When, where and how on a later deep dive into what vitamin D, the importance of vitamin D, but it's interesting because Vitamin D is really a hormone, it's not a vitamin, but it's so important to the health and well being that we refer to it as a vitamin, right? But hormones, help control our cells and our organs functioning, right? So vitamin D plays an important role in serotonin and melatonin. And serotonin is that feel good hormone. That you and I, when we go outside and go for a walk with our girlfriend and we're having a pleasant time, it's that, that serotonin hit, right? That's making us feel relaxed and enjoying the moment. And then we carry that back into our work environment or our home environment. And then melatonin is the hormone that helps us transition into sleep. It makes us feel drowsy and ready to go to sleep, right? And so a lot of people will take melatonin supplements, and I know a lot of children are nowadays on melatonin supplements. It might just be easier, and I'm, I have to guess I preface all of this. I am not a medical doctor. I'm not a nutritionist. You know that I'm a speech language therapist I'm just trying to help everyone connect the dots and and to ask bigger questions and to be courageous enough to say hmm something isn't adding up and How can I live this life and guide my child? Um, in a more purposeful direction, right? So if we're having skyrocketing numbers of early developmental issues, as well as anxiety and sleep problems and gut issues and all of this, then perhaps these statistics about children, for example, 50% of children from one to five years of age are known to be vitamin D deficient. 70% of children ages 6 to 11 are vitamin D deficient. And so I am trying to be logical. I am trying my best to be pragmatic and say, Hmm, what's going on? Maybe our indoor life, which includes, our play is inhibiting our ability to be a healthy vitamin D maker, right? So some of the symptoms of vitamin D deficiency would be fatigue, poor sleeping, body aches, depression, feeling sad, right? The whole seasonal affect disorder that was incredibly well known when I lived in Vermont. One of the main reasons why I've moved South, but Muscle weakness, loss of appetite, getting sick more easily. This is, you know, just Google it. Again, I am not a medical, healthcare provider. I'm an allied healthcare provider, right? Speech and language early child development. Go talk to your doctor. Go talk to a naturopath. Go talk to a nutritionist. And if you don't like those answers, talk to somebody else. Right? You are the consumer. You have a right to shop around until you find alignment and say I wanted to live and create a home that is healthy and supports well adjusted development and, and emotional well being. There are no perfect answers, but I'm bringing up these questions. So then we can bring it back home and say, okay. What can I look at? Who do I need to talk to more specifically about, you know, vitamin D, or my, my son or daughter's Um, nutrition. can babies go outside? What do you do if you, you know, have a one year old who isn't walking yet? It's a beautiful opportunity during that transition from the end of the workday or end of school day. Change the scenery. Go outside. Sit on the porch. Bring a mat. Put it on the grass. Lay under a tree. It is God's natural mobile, right? We, again, create this indoor living. We have these mobiles for babies over their crib. We have a mobile mat, right? If they're doing tummy time or laying down on the floor while you're trying to do your duties, right? And here, look at these colorful objects. Well, nature. gave that idea to us. that's what Nature gave us right to lay under. Look at the branches and the leaves move to feel the warmth and the light of the sun to have the different breeze. The feeling of the breeze on your face. Some kids can't stand a breeze on their face. They're tactically defensive to see the movements of The branches in the wind and the breeze or a bird fly or here for that plane and anticipate it coming across the sky or see this, see the clouds. All of this is so rich for our babies, so, so rich. And then you're lying next to him and talking and laughing and holding his hand. Then you can flip him over, give him some of that more tummy time that we all need to support our babies with. Right? Change that scenery, especially at the end of the day, right before dinner. It will help them. So you're getting vitamin D, right? It will help them with that melatonin and help them with their circadian rhythm, their internal biological clock that helps them transition from daylight to evening and darkness and help them then Go to sleep and sleep through the night, sleep peacefully, And in a future episode I talk a lot about early sleep patterns, And how, how does the baby wire itself with this circadian rhythm, this internal biological clock? Because all of these challenges that our kids face If they're struggling and they have poor sleep regulation, if they're constipated, or if they are not self regulated because they're, they have low muscle tone, all of these quote unquote diagnoses or boxes that we check are inhibiting a child from building their speech and language, from building their cognitive, from building their higher order thinking because they're on survival mode. They're trying to just survive another day and get through the next hour or feel better. And so we can't continue our conversation in our own little bubble. Like, and that's what I felt as a practitioner, that I was in my own little bubble working on specific things. And when a child couldn't sit on the chair or even sit cross legged on the floor with me, he would fall over. and I would go to my OT colleagues and say, what that was the deal. What's going on? And so in the late, early 90s, really 90 to 95, I worked closely with OTs and then, I had a couple of OTs under me in my practice because there was no way that I could address early speech and language skills without addressing the sensory processing So I had to peel back the layers and understand some of the root causes that was blocking. Early speech and language, early human communication, early attention to the spoken word, even attention. There's always a reason why a child is inattentive and there's, I had a colleague once that actually generated like a list of 136 reasons, one of which. is that they have a clinical diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, but there are 130 some odd reasons that would. inhibit them or interfere with their ability to attend to whatever is the task at hand. to wrap this up, I really want to challenge all of you to look at what your day, your week, your month, your summer, And how can you do it differently? How can you upgrade? How can you just simply go and have a picnic in your backyard? How can you make some mud pies? How can you just lay on a mat and look at God's beautiful natural mobile under a tree? How can you do that? How can you weave that into your day to day? And not, not just once a week, but every day. Every. Single. Day. I know it's not easy. I know it's complicated. I know we have so many things going on in our plate, but if we want your second, third, fourth grader to have this beautiful access to high academics, right? whether you're homeschooling or whether you're going to send them to public school, whatever the scenario is, it doesn't really matter. Yeah. Because these early years, these formidable years, right? Everyone says that, but, you know, I've peeled back the layer so much in the last 35 years that, that I no longer just look at preschool. I now look at toddlers and I no longer can look at toddlers without looking at babies. And the truth is, I can't look at babies without looking at what happened in utero, right? Because it's this beautiful developmental process. from conception on. So I challenge you to go outside, take it outside. Anything you can do inside, you can do outside, get messy, get dirty, get loud, be creative. you can support and guide your little, little ones, right? You're one and two. And then when they hit that third birthday, that fourth birthday, they're really doing it on their own. Their creativity is just, as I said, bountiful. And their imagination runs wild. It's gross, physical development, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, sensory processing, that feed and support cognitive and human communication and connection. It's all related and it's beautiful to be here again and I can't wait to hear what you all are doing outside with your little ones. So thanks for listening. I truly appreciate your time because we're in it together for our kids. God bless. See you next week.