What Our Kids Lose When We Stop Eating Together - And How to Get It Back Ep 146

What if one of the most powerful things you can do for your child's brain, language, and emotional development isn't a program, a therapy, or a curriculum — it's dinner?

In this foundational episode, speech-language pathologist and child development expert Erin Hyer, unpacks the science behind what we lose when family mealtime disappears — and what our children's behavior, attention, and language are quietly telling us about it.

After 40 years working with young children, Erin connects dots that most parents have never had connected for them: nutrition, regulation, shared attention, and language are not separate systems. They are one system. And the family table sits at the center of all of it.

This episode is part of an ongoing series on using your home environment intentionally to support healthy development in children 0–3.

You'll hear: why blood sugar crashes look like behavior problems, what shared attention actually is and why mealtime creates it naturally, the story of a child who couldn't bear to sit at the family table — and what changed when her brain finally could, and one simple shift you can make tonight.

This is not about perfect meals. It's about intentional ones.

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DISCLAIMER:

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your pediatrician or a qualified health provider with questions about your child’s development or health. The views shared are based on Erin Hyer’s professional experience and are intended to support informed parenting, not to replace individual consultation or care. Every child and family is unique — please use your discretion and consult trusted professionals when making decisions for your child.

📩 Questions: contact@HyerLearning.com
 🌐 www.HyerLearning.com

Transcript

0:00

That's what's at stake here. That's the real conversation under the conversation about nutrition, which I think is really important, and biology and blood sugar and spikes and all of that. But the real conversation, what we're talking about here today is about belonging and teaching them in those natural home rhythms that pattern that humans have carried through centuries. That's what's at stake here.

Erin 0:33

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. 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. When parents reach out to me worried about a speech delay or meltdowns that seem to come out of nowhere, or perhaps their child who just can't seem to focus, or follow simple directions food is almost never the first thing they mention. Almost never. And I get it because on the surface, what's on the dinner plate and how many words your toddler has doesn't seem to connect at all. But I assure you, after four decades as a speech language pathologist sitting on the floor with thousands of children, watching how they move, how they listen, how they process the world I can tell you with absolute confidence, the kitchen table is one of THE most powerful language tools you have in your home. And we have become numb to how we fuel ourselves. And I mean that with compassion, not criticism. We are busy. We are overwhelmed. We live in a culture that has made convenience the highest value. But very few adults, even very intentional adults, pause long enough to trace the chain. What I eat affects how I feel. And how I feel affects how I sleep. How I sleep affects how I think. How I think affects how I relate to people around me. And how I relate, that means how I show up, how I regulate myself, how patient am I, all of that affects how I parent. And then we find ourselves puzzled when our toddlers struggle with regulation, with attention, with communication their biology and our biology it's made up the same thing. These systems are not separate. They never were. So today, this isn't about guilt. Guilt is never helpful or useful. Guilt keeps us stuck and we want to move forward. This is about awareness. And awareness. Awareness is where everything is possible. Everything can change. And here's what I want new parents especially to hear. You are in the most remarkable position. You are standing at the very beginning. The slate is clean. You don't have to undo years of habits. You get to set the stage for your life right now, with your child. This is not pressure. That is an extraordinary opportunity. So embrace it. Evaluate where you are. Be willing to pivot. Choose well, for your child, yes, but for your whole family. Because everyone will benefit. And underneath all of it, respect what was designed. How our bodies, our minds, our spirits were not assembled randomly. Honor that design. And I promise you, it will not steer you in the wrong direction. Last year I released a three part series about nutrition. And honestly, it was a real deep dive. I talked about the truth, uh, around real food and how food companies have slowly, methodically reshaped what parents believe as normal and why so many of us are feeding our kids with the best intentions and still missing something foundational. And if you haven't listened to that three part series, I strongly encourage you to go back. It's still there and I believe it's episodes 99 100 and 101 from last January of 2025. So today is not that conversation. Today is not an expose. Today is a conversation about our systems and the foundational aspect of them. And I wanna keep it clear and accessible because the big idea is actually not complicated. And let me just lay it out as simply as I can. Nutrition is biology. And biology drives regulation. Regulation supports attention and attention that builds language. You cannot separate these systems. You cannot address one while ignoring the others and expect lasting results. When I sit on the floor with your toddler or any toddler who isn't talking, yes, I'm listening for the words or the approximated words, of course, but I'm also watching something much broader. I'm watching the energy levels that they bring, right? I'm watching their impulse control or lack thereof. I'm watching how long can this child sustain shared attention with me before the window closes? Food is not the only factor, but it is foundational and we can't keep leaving it out of the conversation. Otherwise, we'll never move forward. So here's something I find genuinely encouraging, and I'm sure you're familiar with it, but I just need to bring it into this conversation. Recently, even the CDC has updated the early childhood guidance to emphasize early exposure to whole foods, reducing added sugar, talking about responsive feeding, and. Family style meals whenever possible. Now, I don't lead with government agencies as my primary source of truth. I assure you that, and if you've been along for the ride in many of my podcasts, you know that. But when common sense and institutional guidance start to align, I think that's worth naming. I think it's important enough to go there and at least highlight. Because this isn't radical. This isn't fringe To me, this is common sense coming back into the room, into the dining room and the kitchen after it's been crowded out for decades by clever marketing and ultra convenient packaging, and what that means for you practically. I wanna highlight here, if you have not been an intentional eater. Maybe you're a young adult and you just haven't had that opportunity to learn, now's the time to start. Not because you're chasing perfection or looking on Instagram and you wanna be like them, Not because you need to overhaul everything overnight either. I don't want you to think that way, but I want you to look step back and look at the big picture because you are actively shaping a developing brain. Your child, maybe you have two or three kids, but that requires something from us. As the parents, we need to be intentional. It requires us to step in to be cognizant of what are our, choose our food choices and lead the family in a healthier direction. Your child doesn't have the capacity to make those choices, you know that you do, and that's not pressure I look at as our purpose. We are the parents. We are given these beautiful children to steward, to guide, to lead, to nurture, to love, and we can step into that role and embrace it. So for today, let me walk you through something that I think is pretty straightforward biology, and yet I do find most parents never really have had the dots connected for them. And so I wanna do that in the, in the front of this conversation. Highly processed foods, and I'm talking about refined carbohydrates, added sugars, the things that make up the bulk of most. Kid food. If you go down to the grocery store aisle, right? These foods cause rapid spikes in blood sugar, period. We know this as fact. So when we have that spike, what happens within 20 minutes? There's a crash. And what that, what that crash looks like in your toddler. You've seen it. You've lived it over and over again. I'm here to connect those dots. It's that 1130 crash or perhaps that four 30 afternoon crash, suddenly your child becomes a completely different person, right? They're irritable, inconsolable, sometimes falling apart over something that an hour ago they wouldn't even bat an hour at. That is not a behavioral problem. That's a metabolic event happening in a very small body. And here's why I think this matters so directly for speech and language and overall learning Language is not just vocabulary. Language is not stringing a bunch of words together. Language requires a regulated nervous system. It requires the ability to pause, to listen, to wait your turn. To hold a thought long enough to process it and then generate a response and share it. None of that is available to any child whose blood sugar is spiking and crashing. So please let me be clear about something. This is not about one cookie. It's not about one birthday party. It is not even about Halloween, although I've talked about that in the past. It's about accumulated load of daily choices, repeated, normalized, seemingly unremarkable choices. A little sweet here, a little processed package here, a little cracker here, a little fruit roll up here. All of that quietly shape your child's biology. Over the day, over the weeks and the months and the years. That is what we're talking about today. Not a moment in time, but a pattern. And toddlers don't choose what goes in the grocery cart, or at least they shouldn't. You are pushing the cart. You are paying the bill. You get to decide. They don't write the shopping list. They only eat what is offered to them. So please be bold enough and courageous enough to embrace that role and step into it. So when we understand. That the regulated nervous system is the foundation for speech and language and that blood sugar stability is essential for regulation. We're connecting the dots here. Then what goes on the plate actually becomes a language intervention, and I, I've shared that with parents dozens of times in the past. That is a language intervention opportunity, not a dramatic one. But a quiet daily cumulative one. And if you really step back, if you're honest with yourself, you'll see how it all fits together. Now, here's the part that I find genuinely beautiful about all of this topic, and I love talking about it and sharing it with parents who are open to listening, right? I want you to sit with us for just a moment. Shared attention is when two people notice the same thing at the same time. Makes sense. Right? That's it. It's simple as that. You look at an apple, I look at the apple, we both know we're looking at the same apple. That is the engine of language. That is how we connect the neurons to build the neuro pathways for speech and language. As human beings, every word your child learns, every concept that they absorb, every social exchange they practice. It starts with shared attention. So before your child can name something. They have to notice it with someone. You help them identify that, put a label to it, and then share it, right? So the meal time, the shared meal time, it's real unhurried family time together is one of the most naturally rich environments for shared attention that exists in your child's daily life. And you have it right here at the tip of your hands. Think about this. Historically, right. Look at it from, from hundreds of years ago. Just, just for a moment. For most of human history, across all cultures, across centuries, families gathered. Around a fire pit around long wooden tables on a blanket in the picnic areas, right? Children sat with adults and observed. They watched how, how grownups talk to one another, how they laugh, how they negotiate, how they pass food, and waited their turn to tell stories how they listened to one another. Even interrupted one another and they figured out what works and what doesn't work. Language evolved around shared meals. It's historic, not in separate rooms, not in moving vehicles, not with screens in front of each of our faces. And when we zoom in on one modern family mealtime and really look at what's happening, what's the layer upon? Right. What's the actual extraordinary event? And we could look at that. Making a grocery list, right? That's planning and sequencing, shopping together. That's vocabulary. One of my favorite places to learn, categorizing, comparing, contrasting, putting the groceries away. That's spatial reasoning. Memory organization, meal prep, setting the table, passing the dishes, cleaning up all of it. Vocabulary, sequencing, executive function, turn, taking social awareness, all woven together in the ordinary fabric of your family meal. Yes, nutrition is biology, but meals real shared present meals are social architecture. Let's think about how we can bring that back into your daily life and let your children thrive in that, that new habit, that family ritual. So I wanna tell you about a child I worked with years ago. I'll call her Christie. She's one of my favorite humans. But Christie came to the United States from Russia when she was about three years old. We were kind of unsure. She actually had a very rough start in a couple of different orphanages and very little human connection. it seemed once we kind of dug into her history, but. When I first met her, I knew she was bright, genuinely visibly bright, determined little girl, beautiful child from the inside out. she had been adopted by this family that I knew. They were close friends of mine, and we really wanted to work together to help reestablish that foundation that we knew that she missed in the orphanages, noting that. Auditory processing was really her weakest length. That the way that her brain received and organized sounds that built our language was really more like static, right? That something wasn't getting through, and, and the frequencies kept breaking down. We knew that that was a severe problem with her, her foundation. And we actually worked together for a long time and she made steady, steady progress and, and she really did. thrive in this new home and and environment. And when she was about seven or eight, she completed a very intensive auditory language training program with me that really began to reorganize how her brain was able to process sound and build speech and language from the bottom up. And it was one of those stretches of work where you can feel that something genuinely. Shifts, right? That the neural connections were being established and that her processing speed was actually increasing in real time. It was a fabulous experience in my career and that I was fortunate enough to, to share with many, many families. Well, a few months after we finished that program, she came back to see me and she said something I have thought about many, many times since then. She said, you know, I finally understand why everybody hangs out at the dinner table after Sunday dinner, that they actually love sitting there and talking, telling stories and joking and. For years, I would just typically eat my dinner, get up and leave and, and leave them to all of that noise, right? Because to me it was just that it was noise. It was almost painful for me to sit there. I couldn't follow along, and it was just, it was costive to my auditory processing. Now she says it's one of my favorite times of the week, and. I had to take a big breath when she said that because a huge light bulb went on. She was able to explain what it felt like, what it sounded like in her own head, because what she described, that table after Sunday dinner with her extended family, the laughter rising and falling, the stories coming and going, the joking and bantering, that is not just sound. That's actually belonging. That was connection, that that was family identity being passed around alongside, you know, the rolls and sweet potatoes that is saying to our young children, this is who we are and you are part of this. And for years, because of how her brain was processing, or shall I say, not processing the language, the spoken language around her, that table was overwhelming. It was loud and disconnected, almost like fingernails on a chalkboard. Like something happening to other people that she couldn't tap into. She couldn't reach, she didn't get why they would just sit there in that noise. And, and we talked about it several times in, in the months after, but when her brain found regulation and language became accessible, that table became magnetic to her.

21:51

That's what's at stake here. That's the real conversation under the conversation about nutrition, which I think is really important, and biology and blood sugar and spikes and all of that. But the real conversation, what we're talking about here today is about belonging and teaching them in those natural home. Rhythms that that pattern that humans have have carried through centuries. That's what's at stake here. So think about what, what would a healthy table actually sound like?

Erin 22:32

Right, and I've thought about a lot about this since Christie's experience and since I, I've met other families over the years. Let me try to describe it, right, it a healthy meal, family or family time is not silent. Right. Silence at family meals, usually something's wrong, right? Or perhaps everyone is somewhere else mentally, and they're, they're becoming more and more disconnected. That happens a lot in the modern day because of electronics, right? But a healthy family mealtime is not chaotic either. It's not competing noise, right? With, with no shared thread. It's not just complete mayhem. A healthy table sounds like what Christie heard. Laughter that rises and falls naturally and shared jokes, right? When one person is talking, while other people are actually listening. Right. Someone is asking, wait, wait, how? Tell me what happened next. They want to know they're engaged and perhaps when you have younger kids, you know, a parent will gently redirect the conversation, oh, let her finish. Right. Go on, Susie, tell us what's next, but. It also includes all of the natural noises, right? The sound of dishes and forks and chairs. The real life moving through that real moment. It doesn't sound like a television is humming in the background while people are half listening and being dysregulated. It doesn't sound like everyone mentally is somewhere else, right? It's it's quiet. And those moments come when you, when you're dealing with teenagers, but that's a whole different conversation. I'm talking about how do we set the stage right? And, and I talked about this in a recent episode, uh, just a few weeks ago. The way that the background television becomes unnoticed disruptor, right? It's just on, it's just the way it is. That phrase, oh, it's just on, but. In reality, our brain doesn't just experience, it's just on, right. It it, especially to the younger developing brain who's always working towards filtering sound and separating what's priority versus what's background. That's, that's a heavy load for them to, to try to process. Right. Even we, we and I shared some, some research on even when we sleep, that's that background noise can interfere. But when you add a constant stream of auditory input to the nervous system that is still developing, right? Still learning how to regulate, that cognitive load increases. And then when that cognitive load increases, our shared experience decreases and what happens? That's where. Where you have meltdowns, where you have frustration, right? Where there's an irritant in the background, a low grade irritant that nobody seems to identify, and shared attention decreases the conditions for language growth weaken. Right, because we're uncomfortable in this physical environment, we're not sharing enough. And so I stopped trying. That's not dramatic. That's just neurological. That's how us humans work. And it has been that way probably since the beginning of time, but certainly for the last couple of centuries. So I want to say something about food itself here, because we can't talk about mealtime without addressing that, right? And, and I don't want this to be all about that. I have those previous episodes that you can go and listen to, but meals don't have to be elaborate, especially in those first, you know, three years. But I say even, first 10 years. they just have to be more intentional, And actually, I think the simpler the better.'cause the, the, the goal here is to share the meal. The goal here is to give all of us good, healthy nutrients, right? Single ingredient food, nutrient-dense. Basics. Meat and potatoes, meat and vegetables, and some fruit on the side, right? Real protein, uh, healthy fats, a few vegetables, and a piece of fruit, like I said in their actual form. You don't have to complicate it. Whole foods that most of us now say, if your grandmother can easily recognize that as food, then you're on the right track, right? Keep it simple. Keep it clean. Keep it family oriented and, and I think this intentionality starts from the very beginning, from the very first bites that you begin to introduce to your baby. Right. Let me, let me include this piece'cause I think this is important. Babies arrive in the world nourished by something that I think many of us are now truly embracing. Biologically extraordinary food, right? Breast milk adapts. It protects your baby by design, right? It fuels rapid brain growth in ways that are still being studied and understood. We know how remarkable it is, but I still don't think that we fully understand. Formula, on the other hand, is a manufactured approximation. And I want you to hear that word approximation. I believe it is simply impossible to duplicate God's perfect design. Breast milk is truly not a recipe. It is a living, adaptive, biological system that responds to the specific baby needs in that specific moment. For example, and many of you have heard this, perhaps many of you haven't, but during a single feeding milk can change from four milk, which is watery and lower in fat, to hind milk, which is richer in fat and calories. That's designed to satisfy true hunger. And if your baby is sick, your whole process of of nursing can read that, right? The breast milk can increase in specialized white blood cells and antibodies. It registers, oh, maybe there's a high fever or maybe there's Antibodies in its saliva that I can then code and understand, and I will adjust the breast milk. That's pretty remarkable. And then your body knows that morning milk contains more cortisol to promote alertness. Keep the baby awake, right? It follows that circadian rhythm. While night milk contains higher levels of melatonin to aid sleep. That's remarkable. It's a living fluid. That formula can't ever begin to mimic. Formula was designed to be good enough. It was designed for babies to, to survive. If there was a medical reason why we can't breastfeed, and for many families it is necessary and I totally understand that, but I just want to. Add to the brilliance of what our bodies, the adult bodies, the mother and the baby, what we're designed to do. And so I understand there's no judgment when we have to resort to formula, but we need to be honest about what we're working with, right? Because I think with that honesty. Then we can then be more intentional as we approach any other feeding decision that follows that. so, if formula has been your path, and as I said, there's no judgment. But here's my encouragement. If that's been your path, let that be the moment that you then step into intentionality, right? Be because when you do go and transition to solid foods, let that become your opportunity to recalibrate, knowing that they weren't able to get the breast milk and that you did the next best thing. So let's go back and look at, okay, what are we designed to do? At around six months, and I purposefully say around, because the real criteria is not the calendar, it's your baby's body, right? Can he or she sit independently? Is her head and neck control and stable. Is there a strong core that allows him to lean forward without collapsing? Can she maintain that position with control? And ease, right? That matters deeply. And it's not just about developmental readiness. This is about physical architecture that promotes and allows safe swallowing. The number one issue that parents new parents have is, oh my gosh, I feel so uncomfortable with introducing SOS because I'm afraid of choking. And I get that. So then you go to, where is the baby physically, developmentally ready. Right. So an upright, stable, self-supported sitting posture activates a mature swallow, and that reduces choking, and then everybody can relax and start to enjoy this mealtime sharing. It puts your baby in control of the experience, which is exactly where the control belongs. We don't want to force feed or spoon feed when they're not ready. When those things are present, that's your green light, not the date on the calendar, but your baby who's in front of you. So when we do transition to solid foods, that is not a casual milestone, and I think we all know this, but I think once we kind of get going, right, maybe the first couple of weeks and then we just start feeding kids. Kind of haphazards, right? With no plan. I'm a planner, But it's, it's not just a milestone. It is truly a biological shift, and it deserves our attention, our planning, so. Many of you know that baby-led weaning has become very popular here in the United States. I think it was first introduced somewhere around 2010, about 15, 16 years ago, and I understand why, right? I embraced it, I studied it. I began to teach it really, and. Uh, you know, for years I talked about exploration, right? The first month or six weeks is all about exploration, variety of textures, building autonomy at the table with your baby, and I really believed a lot of what I began to introduce, and I still believe most of it honestly, but as time. Went on and I, my thinking has really grown. And, and honestly, that's what good science is. That's what continued research and real life experience are supposed to do for us, We can move forward and, revise our position Once we've experienced it from real life, right? Once we studied more and we researched and there was a trial and error, but I've changed my perspective a little bit on this and, and I think it's important to share with you is my listeners and, and to be honest and forthcoming. One thing I want to be clear about. Your baby needs to be in control of the eating experience. That I still, hold on. That's the whole concept of baby led weaning, right? They're in control. And, and, and I alluded to this earlier, I don't advocate spoonfeeding because that takes the control away from them. We can front load the spoon, hand them that spoon, and then they can control. And, and with that, you know, there's a lot of questions around purees and. Honestly, and I've shared this before, I think it's an unnecessary step. and it's an added stage that we, our culture, I'm not quite sure about the Europeans, but here in the US we then, give it to the kids and we stay stuck in the puree stage, I think, for too long. And then it's hard to wean them off of that because it's easy, right? It's a quick fix. And if you think about it, let's go back in time again before the electric blenders even existed. What did mothers do? They just mashed the food, right? They kept it simple. They kept it real, mashed the food and it, it was enough. It actually was better And so the, the one puree that, I give a, a little pass, is the plain high-fat yogurt, and even that can become a slippery slope and we rely on it. But, so just be mindful. It's all about intentional eating. But here's what I know now that I didn't emphasize before. The first foods are not. about exploration. They're not even about building autonomy and, and I think honestly, those things are important and they will come. Okay, but really when we're beginning to introduce first foods, because your baby at six months, give or take, they don't really understand the eating process, right? They're just putting everything in their mouth. Oh, and this actually has flavor, right? And they realize this is different than the rattle or their toe, But the first foods need to be about building a brain. And think about it, your baby's brain is under construction, and what does it need most? Iron protein, healthy fat. That's it. Think about the perfect food of breast milk. What does that contain? Iron, protein and healthy fat. So the question to ask is not, oh, is my baby enjoying this? And I see all of those videos on social media and they're charming. Right, but I think the question should be, is this food supporting growth? Is it stabilizing blood sugar? Is it building strong biology, or is it just convenient? That question again, is not judgment. That is a question of leadership, and I want to encourage you to step into that role. You've taken this on as a mom or a dad or even a grandparent, that is a leadership role. Nutrient density first, everything else is secondary to building the brain, and so when the green light comes right, they're physically able to sit up and they have control over their body, then bring your best intention to every bite. Especially if you've had to lean in to, to formula. Now this, at this stage, now you can look at real food, right? Simple, clean, dense, healthy food, food that builds the brain that you're responsible for. So this, think of it as this. This is the handoff, right? We go from breast milk or formula that build that foundation. And then the food that you begin to introduce to them that builds the future, and like I've said, it's your choice, right? You get to lead this, What you put on that tray next matters more than what most people are willing to ever tell you. And here's something I feel strongly about as well, right? Your toddler does not need a separate kids' menu ever. They need you to see how you do this together as a family. This is how we do it here. This is how we nourish our bodies. This is how we sit and share together. This is how we listen and wait and belong. As a family around this table with this simple, basic, delicious food identity forms through repetition and every dinner or every lunch or every breakfast, whatever meals you can find to regulate, that's your opportunity When your child grows up hearing, this is how we do it in our family. They're absorbing more than the food habits. They're absorbing your values. Your stability, your rhythm, and your leadership. The food industry, they will protect your table. They're actively working against it. Engineering, food products that your child will prefer over real food by design screens, they won't protect your table. They're built to colonize every quiet moment, including this one. And I'll add one more. Your pediatrician who doesn't ask a single question about what your child is eating at every, well, baby checkup is not going to protect your table either. The system is not set up to catch this. You are. You are the only one that can do this. And it doesn't require gourmet cooking. It doesn't require perfection. It requires intentionality. So let me bring this home because I don't wanna leave you with a long list of things to do. Long lists I think can be paralyzing and overwhelming. I wanna leave you with one simple shift. Your toddler cannot create the environment they need to grow. You know that they can't regulate their own nervous system. They need you. They can't choose what goes on their plate or what happens at the dinner table. They're completely dependent on the adults in their lives to shape those conditions. You can do this, and here's the shift One protected meal, one. Real food. Nothing elaborate, just whole and simple. No screens. And I'll say what I actually think here, right? Screens are designed to pull us in. They're engineered to play to our addictive nature, to keep us scrolling, to interrupt the very impulses that make us human right. We want to be present. We want to connect. We want to build through eye contact and that connection, but the screens interrupt that. And they are extraordinarily good at what they do, which is exactly why they don't belong at anybody's table, but especially toddlers. Attention is finite. And for this one meal that I want you to identify, you want every bit directed at each other. You want it to be shared with purpose and then. Let the conversation breathe. Ask one question. It doesn't have to be sophisticated, especially when you're dealing with toddlers, right? Oh, what was your favorite part at the park today? Right? Even if your toddler answers with one word, even if they just point to something, even if they stare at you for a moment and then go back to eating. You are still building something there. You are building shared attention around the meatballs or the broccoli or the sweet potato you are building the early architecture of narrative, the sense that experiences are worth putting into words, and then we get to share them with someone who cares about hearing them. Right. You are building turn taking and emotional safety and, and that quiet, steady message. Hmm, you belong here. This table belongs to us. You are part of us at this table. That's the message that you're building from the bottom up. So when I talk about eat, talk, and play, I don't say that as a slogan. I use it as a daily reminder that it's our architecture. I've been doing this work for nearly 40 years, and what I know deeply, without any doubt, is that prevention is quieter than intervention. It doesn't make headlines. It doesn't feel urgent. But trust me, it's far more powerful than anything we do after the fact. Prevention is easier, and it starts at the table tonight if you want to, If today's episode stirred something in you, if you're beginning to see how small shifts in your environment can really change the trajectory of your child's development, your child's. Progression. That is exactly why I offer discovery calls. they're not therapy, they're not diagnosis. I just want to offer clarity through conversation. A chance to look at your child's world together, Find where the leverage is and what can you do to improve it? Take advantage. The link is in the description below and I'd love to talk with you. So thank you again for being here. God bless and I look forward to the next talking toddlers.