Ep. 40 - How Do We Raise Emotionally Healthy Kids

What if the most important part of your child's health isn't something you can see?

When children struggle with anxiety, attention, behavioral health, or substance use, families often feel overwhelmed long before they know where to turn. Dr. Celina Moore shares why pediatricians are uniquely positioned to recognize these challenges early and why caring for a child's emotional health should be just as routine as checking their height, weight, or blood pressure. As Pam reflects on the lasting effects of trauma in communities and families, the conversation centers on helping children before small concerns become lifelong struggles.

Together, they explore how brain development shapes behavior, why movement, play, sleep, nutrition, and healthy relationships are essential to emotional regulation, and how family history can offer important clues long before symptoms appear. They also discuss the growing impact of screen time, social media, adolescent substance use, and the pressures facing today's children, while offering a hopeful reminder that early intervention and honest communication can change a child's path.

Dr. Moore explains why parents should never feel ashamed to ask for help and why a trusted pediatrician can become one of the family's greatest partners through every stage of childhood. Sometimes the strongest foundation we can give a child is knowing they never have to face life's hardest moments alone.

Looking for a practical takeaway from this conversation?
Download our complimentary companion resource, Looking Beyond the Behavior, designed to help parents and caregivers shift from asking "What's wrong with my child?" to "What might my child be communicating?" The guide explores how looking at children's emotional, behavioral, and physical health through a holistic lens can open the door to greater understanding, connection, and support.

Contact Pam Feinberg-Rivkin:
Facebook: @FeinbergCare
Instagram: @FeinbergCare
LinkedIn: Feinberg Consulting Inc
YouTube: @FeinbergConsulting8059 

Looking for a practical takeaway from this conversation?
Download our complimentary companion resource, Looking Beyond the Behavior, designed to help parents and caregivers shift from asking "What's wrong with my child?" to "What might my child be communicating?" The guide explores how looking at children's emotional, behavioral, and physical health through a holistic lens can open the door to greater understanding, connection, and support.

Contact Pam Feinberg-Rivkin:
Facebook: @FeinbergCare
Instagram: @FeinbergCare
LinkedIn: Feinberg Consulting Inc
YouTube: @FeinbergConsulting8059 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Resilient Butterfly Podcast. My goal is to share inspiring stories of healing and recovery through many diverse approaches and models. Our guests bring incredible lived experiences, insights, andor professional expertise, each with their own unique path. While we highlight and celebrate these stories, our intention is to inform, inspire, and demonstrate resilience and creativity. This podcast does not endorse any one approach. We believe there is more than one way to heal, and we're here to showcase the resilience and possibilities that exist. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Resilient Butterfly. I'm your host, Pam Feinberg-Rifkin. The podcast is to explore recovery, resilience, and strength. It takes to heal and grow at every stage of life. Today's episode is especially close to my heart as we explore with a pediatrician ages zero to 18. And Dr. Selena Moore is extremely excited to be here because of the behavioral health and substance use disorder that we can talk about in USA 0 to 18, why? There unfortunately are many, many things that are happening now in this world. And one of those, a couple of those things are our mental health, behavioral health issues. And I'm really excited to have Dr. Moore here to talk about all of these and many more things that potentially will come through. So welcome. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. So I'm really curious, first of all, as a pediatrician, this is generally out of your scope. And anytime I've had, I have had my children as as we people young, I take them to the pediatrician, and nothing's ever discussed about their emotional state or as going into teens, any questions about any alcohol or drug use. So what led you into your interest in behavioral health and what is your background in that regard?

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Well, to address the first thing that you mentioned, it is our duty to look at the entire health of the child. So it's not just the physical health, but the mental health, emotional health, all of that. A lot of those questions might not be asked in front of a parent. So you, your child may have been adequately screened and you were just not aware. Sometimes I ask questions with my back to the parent. And as I'm performing, for example, an abdominal exam, I just, you know, screen the child by whispers. But usually what we do is we have a written questionnaire that the child fills out. And then when we ask the parent of the older child to leave the room, when we talk about more sensitive issues to give that child the privacy and the autonomy to be able to discuss more sensitive issues that they might not want to discuss in front of a parent. So, pediatricians, we're we're supposed to be doing this. And I think my interest um accelerated rapidly after the Parkland shooting, where my practice in West Boca Ratone was very influenced by all of the children that were affected. The children who went to that school, the children who went to neighboring schools, the children that knew children that were at that school. And so I took it upon myself to look, to study more, to take more uh, you know, continuing medical education courses in mental health, in uh pediatric psychiatry, so that as the front line, I would be able to start treatment, to give sound recommendations as the waiting list for trained mental health providers was getting longer and longer at that time.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

That's uh really interesting. I I want to note here, and this is going to be aired a few months later, but my granddaughter was in uh the synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan in the preschool last week. And that community is railing as well as us that also have been affected by that. So um timing is just everything. And of course, with COVID too, everything changed for children during that period of time. And we talk about COVID babies or COVID children that didn't get to school. So I'm sure that there was a lot that you saw during that period of time and still do after after.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Yeah, the ramifications are still going on, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Unfortunately, those ramifications uh go on and there are a lot of uh healing, there's a lot of healing to be done and to have parents know what is available for their children and that they're not weak because they need the family, is not weak. Absolutely. Because they need resources to get through those times. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

And again, as we mentioned earlier, your general pediatrician is your front line, is your number one advocate for the health of the child. So that's always a great place to start when you're dealing with any type of crisis, whether it's um a crisis happening in your community or if it's happening in your home or if it's happening inside of you, um, always look for your pediatrician. We're always there to help.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

So when uh when someone comes into your office, you know, you get to know them as infants as they come in, right? Um what is your assessment? How how early does your assessment start? Does it start with the family first to find out really what's going on in the family?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Absolutely. I always do, um I of always offer prenatal consultations to be able to get a sense of the family, um, what their goals are, what their fears are, um, and you know, to talk about all things children. And as a pediatrician at this very unique position where I'm almost part of the family, right? I I get um, you know, called into the dinner table if you don't eat your peas, or uh, you know, if you don't do this, I'll call, you know, your pediatrician, or they quote me, or um children pretend to be, you know, their pediatricians. So we have a pretty big presence in families, which is an honor. And um making sure that you know uh you take a good family history, not just of cancer risk or allergy risk, but also of mental health and addiction risk, because all of that is going to form the child.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Sure. So I don't recall, because my children are uh 34 and near 40. I don't recall actually doing a family history when I went to the pediatrician many years ago. So what is that what is that assessment or h history, family history look like? Um for first of all, medical for sure. I probably did, but I don't recall having any mental health history that they were asking about. Can you describe what that would be?

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yes, we usually ask questions about first degree relatives, parents, siblings, um, and then a little bit further out to grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, um, and ask about in the term in terms of mental health, you know, has anyone ever been hospitalized for a mental health issue? Is anybody being treated for a mental health issue or pharmaceutically? Um, is there any history of addiction and what does that look like? Um, and then we always take a suicide history to see if there's been any suicide in the family.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Got it. And with that, then that's that's a a known, you know, something to be able to have at least know and to watch as as the children progress through their years, correct?

SPEAKER_02 8:24

And you know, women who are becoming mothers right now are um, I love these generations that are coming in after me. I mean, I think they're amazing. I think that they are so much more open about mental health than my generation or the generation before me, where it was more taboo. And so a lot of times it's offered to me as I struggle with anxiety. How do I know if my child's gonna struggle with anxiety? So it's already like on the forefront of their mind when we're going through a family history that's offered to me before I even ask about it.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Sure. And um, I know that for years now, ADHD has been one of the biggest um I think identifiers potentially in school, school age children.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Um what how do you assess if someone is ADHD and or what is what are some of the um tools that they can the family can have to help the child versus going on any medication?

SPEAKER_02 9:29

That is such a complex question. Um and I think we can use the same thing, like the same structure when we talk about um autism spectrum disorder or anxiety-related disorders, when um usually the tipping point will be if the attention deficit disorder or the um learning disability or the um anxiety, for example, is impacting negatively more than one function in their in their life, right? Whether it's um impairing them from being a successful student, if it's impairing home life, if it's impairing for older children, maybe sports or after-school activities. And if it's impairing more than one realm of life, then we come in and we take a look at it. The other thing that I think needs to be noted is that a lot of these um issues are coming up a little bit more prevalently right now because of the way that traditional schools are structured, where a child is expected at a very young age to kind of just be, you know, sitting and paying attention and completing tasks. And children are meant to move and they're meant to play and they're meant to, you know, release all this energy. And over the decades, we've seen a shift of free play, you know, during recess or um during times of the day to a removal of these more um creative forms of learning, whether it's learning how to negotiate conflict on the playground or learning instruments in a music class or learning how to follow contours and lines in an R class, and using accessing different aspects of the brain, that um school has become more of these different pockets of education of, you know, you have to learn these metrics in math before you can move on to the next level. You have to understand how to, you know, reading comprehension before you move on to the next level. And um, children are expected to respond in ways that previous generations didn't have to. And, you know, as a pediatrician, I can look, you know, step back and take a look at all of these things are negatively impacting kids. And um, there's not much I can do about it. But it's it you can see it. You can really see that children who are um acting out in class because they don't have the ability to regulate, because their brain hasn't developed that way yet, are being punished by the removal of the things that would help them, recess, right? So the child says, sorry, you know, little Johnny, you've been jumping out of your seat all day. Now you have to sit here while everyone else goes and plays. And that one thing that would have helped, you know, little Johnny for his afternoon sessions, now put him backwards even farther.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

And um, you know, I I I don't want to say I can't fix that, but it's it's um is there any way to have, I know you know this happens in all the schools across the country, across I don't know about other countries, but for sure in our in the US because of the metrics, as you say, that have to be made met, and the teachers are under the gun to make sure those metrics are being made. But is there any way to have education in the school systems to provide avenues such as I mean some schools across the country have implemented yoga or meditation for children? Is there a way to do this in Palm Beach County where we live? Or other and become a um standard for students to be able to have other school districts looking at that the potential of how we can help children modulate their own behavior.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

I obviously think there is totally possible. I mean, I always go back to what my dad says. If you put a man on the moon, you can figure this out, right? But but I mean, you know, brains bigger than mine and people who can develop policy, but I I can easily identify the issues. I don't know what the solutions are because we often get in our in our own way when we're trying to help children. And unfortunately, um in you know, big public policies, children are always the last to be considered. Anything that's going to be helping children, whether it is increasing teachers' wages so that they can, you know, be able to be great teachers and encourage more people to go into early childhood education to the health of children, you know, if you're looking at um how how society reimburses those who care for children, it we're at the bottom of the total pole. And we really do this because we love kids and we love, you know, to educate the next generation and make them healthy and be able to um, you know, just further society. I I I wish I could take my magic wand and fix it, but it's definitely a you know, can definitely be done.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

I I don't know, maybe school boards uh asking more physicians to be on the school boards or uh psychiatrists, pediatricians to be able to give some um greater understanding psychologist, mind-body therapist who can offer some other tools. I'm a big believer in other tools for anxiety and um and many of children I know have been diagnosed with ADHD when it's anxiety and having other tools for them to use to be able to focus in. Um and then there are other factors involved, whether it's bullying in the school, right? Or family situations. Families are um it's a it's a tough situation for families in raising children now in regard to I think it's always been, it's not not necessarily, but it's more even so now because most mothers and fathers are working right and out of the house.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Right. I think there is kind of a collapse of how society works, where you know, older generations, there was a lot of play involved. There was a lot of freedom and autonomy in young children. And you can see that in other countries where children um have a little bit more freedom within society and they're respected within society. And I think there's a lot of fear in American society of something might happen to a child because things, bad things happen. And so we're keeping children indoors more. And um I think one of the biggest, biggest issues is the ready implementation of here's an iPhone, here's an iPad, here is a screen. Entertain yourself in this virtual world because it's safe inside the house. And the problem is that screen in that virtual world is not safe. It might be safe from, you know, things that a lot of parents are afraid of, which is, you know, kidnapping or things like that, but the mind is ending up being stunted and hijacked by living in a virtual world. Sure. And I think that's probably if I were to pick one issue, that's the one that I'll die on that hill.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Um, I would have to agree with you there. And it's it's um becoming really problematic, and there's a whole nother host of of things that will come from that. Um, and there there is um video gaming addiction that's really, really um I I'm I don't know if you see it in the teens and more boys and then girls and pornography.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

The boys are getting younger and younger, becoming addicted to pornography.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Because of the screen.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Because of the screen. Because it's private. Right.

unknown 17:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

So what is the greatest, what what is the most um that you see in the and the ages of from toddler to a teen? What is it that you see mostly with children that um that you have intervene you intervene on, and what what is it that your intervention could entail, depending on what's going on?

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Yes, very broad question. So I guess by ages, you'll look at in infants and toddlers some sort of dysregulation, right? What might have been termed um quote unquote like a colicky baby. A baby's difficult to soothe, right? Um, to toddlers who are what a lot of people call the terrible twos or the three majors, right? That they are oppositional. But really, I think what we all need to learn as people who are looking at children and being with children is that there's no such thing as a bad kid. They're just are unable to regulate. And giving the parents the tools of what is normal developmentally, what are the behaviors that happen when, you know, when this is normal and when to worry? Because it's very easy to stick a label on somebody and then, you know, continue on with that label, just like you mentioned earlier, that a child who might be five or six will be having this impulsivity and this difficulty focusing and inability to sit in their seat. When they're 11 or 12, it ends up being anxiety because now they have the words and the insight to be able to explain what's going on. They've been, you know, been treated, for example, for this presumed attention deficit disorder having been mislabeled as a young child. So I think a lot of um understanding what's normal, everybody's brain develops at a different pace. Everybody's brain, um, you know, there are different functions of their brain that develop at different stages. So somebody might be able to be very um socially aware and be able to have very good social connection, but might not be able to regulate um their fight or flight, for example, like internally. So, you know, everything goes at their own pace and it's not a uniform maturation of emotions and regulation and everything. So knowing that it is completely normal for a five and six-year-old child to be popping out of their seat and walking around the classroom because they have not yet formed that inhibition. They know that they're not supposed to stand up during math class, for example, but they can't help themselves because that part of the brain hasn't been formed yet. And so they have this idea of I know what I'm not supposed to do. Oops, I did it anyway, and now I'm gonna be in trouble. I must be bad. Right. And then there's a lot of shame that happens with that, and then they carry that forward. So knowing what's normal, having um, you know, a tribe around a village around this child that supports them as they mature, and being able to give that child the the tools that they need in order to thrive.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Sure. Talking about tribe, that's the other thing that you know, so many families are not living in the same area, so there isn't an extended family to help provide that tribe for for that child or for that family. But you can make your own. Right, friends, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:14

And I think it's wonderful, especially if it's multi-generational, that you have, you know, you incorporate the lonely widow that lives down the street, who is probably also separated from her tribe. Right. And, you know, I remember as a child, my parents would send me to the neighbors just to go talk. And I would, you know, bring some big goods or maybe a deck of cards and you know, talk. And it was great for me because I gotta ask them all the questions I couldn't ask my grandparents. Like, what did you do in the war?

SPEAKER_00 21:47

You know, things like that's funny. That's so true because families don't want to have those those questions, but outsiders can, you know, are excused to come up with those. questions. Um it would be really great to have a senior set they've tried this in some ways in some places where there's a preschool and a senior center together and and there's interaction with that. Same with animals and dogs and pets and to have the that interaction to have parties.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

I know they're doing it a lot in in countries like Japan and South Korea where they have one center where you have both preschool and nursing home type retirement centers and both cohorts, you know, the the little ones in in diapers and then the elderly also all benefit.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Sure. Yeah. So I'm going to go into the teens and it may be my favorite. I love it. I'm going to actually start at the age of 12 because there's so many of our clients that they may be in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and the their history of alcohol use disorder started at the age of 12.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

Aaron Ross Powell Or younger in some cases.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

In some cases, yes. So what do you see now in your practice?

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Well it um what I see is if there's a family history, there's a reason for me to screen earlier. Asking about recreational use and then asking what we call the craft questionnaire where we ask, you know, do you ever um you know how many drinks do you have a day a week? Do you ever feel like you need one to an eye-opener one? Has it ever gotten you in trouble? Have you ever suffered any consequences of being in trouble? And do you continue to do still the same behaviors? So getting a good um both family history and personal history um and that all starts with rapport. If if there's no trust between the patient, the family and the pediatrician, a lot of these things will go undetected because there is that element of social shame that goes with addiction and a lot of people feel embarrassed to talk about it. So if if there is that freedom to be able to have an open discussion with both generations, a teen and the parent and say, listen sometimes you know genetics do play a role here and understanding what is happening in an adolescent brain and having that child understand that their prefrontal cortex has not been developed yet. That doesn't finish until the mid-20s and the prefrontal cortex is uh the part of the brain that um does is responsible for judgment, for consequences, for um thinking about what might happen farther into the future which is why teens and adolescents are such risk takers. Right? They are you know they know cognitively that driving 100 miles an hour you know on 95 is dangerous but it doesn't feel dangerous at the time and they don't really see that far enough into the future. So there's a lot of risky behavior that happens. The other thing that I like to talk about with my patients is the concept of pruning. So the pediatric brain grows very rapidly and there is a lot of maturation in both the gray matter and the white matter of the brain. The gray matter is um is what it's kind of like the stuff that you're learning and the white matter is then making those connections and wiring everything together so that you know you have this behavior that then has like a smoothness to it after a while because you're for example playing the violin right in the beginning you kind of take a while to put your hand on the you know on the chord screen screw violin players exactly or how to hold your shoulder and how to you know you know angle the the bow and and then after a while it it becomes smoother and smoother and smoother. And that's the white matter that's the myelination that's the wiring that gets you know um cemented better for for lack of a better word. And in adolescence you have what's called a big pruning of connections in your brain that you're no longer using. And this is why we always say learn a language when you're young learn an instrument when you're young because as you get older and you don't use it then you lose it. There's a saying that neurons that wire together fire together. So if you throw in at that really critical time in the development of an adolescent brain you throw in something that might change the architecture of your brain like alcohol or marijuana or opiates or any other drug that can change the way your brain's going to end up wiring and firing together, then you lose a lot of really useful things. So if somebody understands even though they might not have the judgment yet because that hasn't been developed yet but if they have basic understanding um removing the shame from it and saying this is what's running through our family. And if you start experimenting at this age you're going to be at much greater risk. I often um use the analogy of smoking and asthma, right? So if you have a child who has a propensity to asthma, you're going to make sure that the air around them is clean and you're not going to smoke in front of them or near them and you're going to really um harp on the fact that if they start picking up cigarettes and breathing in, they're going to be worse in their lungs. That makes sense because you know you you it it's easier to understand the brain is just so much more complex, right? But that's very similar to alcohol use in a family that has a family history of addiction and then you throw that genetic predisposition, that environmental trigger and then you can have lifelong issues afterwards. So it's a lot of talking it's a lot of you know anticipatory guidance and talking to the family.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

If the if the family does come to you and say this is we've discovered this this is a this is what's going on what do you advise them initially to do and what what is how does a family even start from there? If someone comes to you and say I I caught my son smoking marijuana and I think he's drinking as well what can we do to mitigate what's going on and able to help this child and and erase the shame that may be going on with this so communication is key right um being able to um understand that the by the time the parent finds something out this has been going on for a while.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

They don't find out the first in the first moment, right? That child has probably already experimented outside the home and then has felt comfortable enough with being able to be in the home to be able to continue. And that goes for any behavior that we deem risky as as adults when we look at adolescents, whether it's sexual behavior or if it's substance use abuse or even anxiety depression and mental health issues that might be more inward facing that by the time the parent catches wind of it, action needs to happen immediately because that is the tip of the iceberg there's a whole other rest of the iceberg and know that um there, you know it's going to be a multi-discipline approach. So you're going to have support for the family the parents support for the siblings support for the patient and know that you know there are people out there that can help you and start now because wallowing in denial is not going to have that kid get better any faster.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Denial is a river of what is it called a river denial in a river in Egypt Egypt so many times we have families that come to us and they're like so distraught it's crisis that they're afraid of their adolescent they're afraid of the behaviors that have been displayed potentially violence from the adolescent and also afraid potentially of them taking their life and so they do everything which is counterproductive but they they they think that just by holding on tight is going to help this person but it just kind of explodes.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

Oh of course have I seen it have I lived it absolutely absolutely because there is that innate fear um as from a parent to lose a child and um and you would do anything to protect your child and so the the reaction that you would have is to hold them closer and tighter and um and kind of like turn inwards. And the opposite needs to happen. You need to find those who can help you. Even if it's your you know your degree your vocation your your job is in this you have to be objective. You have you have to be the parent first and reach out to those who can help your child it has to be a party that's objective.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

You cannot be objective as a as a parent parent no matter what because it it um it taints you and there's so many also I have to say the same thing is we will get maybe physicians families who are physicians or very and they have done this and this and this and they are so entrenched in well I have the answer so why would you have anything else but again yeah very humbling. Taking that and giving it over to someone else to be able to help your family and let go.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Yeah there's an aspect of surrender there. And um and then know that your role as a parent is to be the parent and you can leave the therapy or the clinical role like put that on the back burner because you can't do both. You can't do both and your the child needs the parent at that moment.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Absolutely yeah and tell us about where you're practicing you're in Palm Beach County but exactly where you are where people can find you and you and I heard the other day when I met you that there you do some house calls as well.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

I do so um you want to get something done you give it to a busy woman right yes um after about 20 years of practicing general pediatrics in um the Boca Rotona area I have opened a concierge pediatric practice my office is in West Palm and I see children in the home as well. So it's an annual membership type model where then they have access to me 247, which is why I just silenced my phone so we wouldn't get interrupted during this conversation. So I I do that as um it's a wonderful way to practice medicine. It's a wonderful way to be um of service to families because I have a lot more time to be able to um to dedicate and I also look at things a lot more holistically because I'm able to step back and look at not only the child but the family and how the family works and going into the home is a very special thing because you get to see all of those that care for that child, whether it's a babysitter or a grandparent or siblings or you know it's it's it's really really special and being able to practice medicine in real time as opposed to you know if your child's having a mental health crisis then you call the pediatrician and they say well we don't have an appointment for another 10 days and then you get there and you only have 15 minutes and you know it's very stressful and it's it's very difficult to practice medicine that way. And just like we mentioned earlier about the education system being flawed, the healthcare system is is quite broken. So I've been able to step away from that system and practice medicine in a way that's very um that's very satisfying to everybody. And I also do consulting work for the Children's Center for Anxiety related disorders in Del Rey, which is wonderful where families who may have been evaluated there for um diagnoses or maybe are in counseling there, either the parent or the child then would like to have like a pediatric more of a global view of what's going on whether that looks like we're um going to be focusing more on the pillars of health like you know sleep which is so important or nutrition or play or um you know or or organic things for example what does the blood look like is there enough vitamins and minerals and that's supporting all of these important things what does the gut look like right because so many of our neurotransmitters are serotonin and dopamine and epinephrine and norepinephrine are actually being formed in the gut. And if we have a child who has a very um limited diet or maybe has what we call dysbiosis where the gut flora is not healthy, they're not going to be able to produce the neurotransmitters needed. And so if we can look if we can peel back the onion as opposed to throwing a drug on it and there are kids who do need medicine and you know I'm very comfortable doing that as well. But wouldn't we all rather um make sure that the foundation is as healthy as it can be before we turn to pharmaceuticals.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Absolutely yeah so there are so many concierge physicians in this area for the older adults but as a pediatrician are you the first one in this area not there has been one in Palm Beach Gardens who's been around for about 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Oh wow she's like the mother of all of us you know newbie concierge pediatricians and there it's it's becoming more popular because the demand is there. I think um as parents of children who might have chronic illness or even children who are healthy but they have a busy you know life that it there there is a need to not sit in a waiting room and um be able to see the same physician every single time and not have um those big practices with multiple you know physicians and there's a place for that as well right because there's a lot of ease and access and things are covered by insurance. But for those who are looking for a different way we there are all these different models out there.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

Well there is so much support that can be and and needs to be provided to parents as children grow you know from zero to 18 that um you'll you go for a wellness check or a sick check. That's about it. But the other things that you described it's like fine tuning a child's brain and body to be their utmost in their life and we get so busy as humans and as parents that for them to have for parents to have that I would think that it would be such a relief to know that someone else is really helping. You can't put a price on it no you cannot put a price on it.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

I actually have one family that I I see they have several children and she tells her friends that I'm the third parent on in the family because you know for these big decisions and little decisions and guidance and everything I'm just like the little you know Jiminy Cricket who's sitting on the shoulder saying well it's so it's so valuable for their growth and development and for their education because they need that healthy growth and development and be able to really feel that they can talk to someone privately about anything that may be coming up. Right. So and a lot of people think they can turn to uh social media or the internet to get or or even worse um artificial intelligence to get these answers. And then you have this information overload and this misinformation and disinformation and it's really hard to know what to trust out there. I don't Google how to fix my carburetor because I I know what that word is but that's all about that I know and I'm sure if I googled it I will know what to do. But that's not going to help me if there's a problem with my fixing or it doesn't help me understand exactly what the role of a carburetor is or how to detect if you know there's going to be some problem with it. So I leave that to the experts. And um I think it's very easy to do scroll at three o'clock in the morning when your baby's not sleeping how to fix these things and you're going to have 10 people giving you 15 opinions and you're worse off than you were before you started doom scrolling.

SPEAKER_00 40:13

I mean there is so much information that is out there that good, bad and whatever indifferent um and be able to just be at peace to have that. And I was um saying this recently that people will pay for a contractor talking about you know fixing your own carburetor but people will pay for a contractor they'll pay for a finance person um a lawyer to for a lawsuit but when it comes to their health they minimize and try to have everything covered under insurance and that's not even the today it's not possible to do that. Right. It's as you say the healthcare is broken and we need to look at other ways to have a healthier way to do it. Right.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

And oftentimes it it it makes sense. I mean I have some children in my practice who are very ill and the you know the membership fee that that you know it's you know the annual membership is less than one ER visit. And you know after the deductible and the co-deductible and the co-pay and then all of that. Sure. And if I can keep the kid out of the ER, sure, then it's worth its weight in gold. So it's not just the financial part, but the trauma for a child to go to the emergency room and get blood work done or the weight or you go into the emergency room with one infectious disease and you come out with three.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Right, right. And you have yeah it's it is trauma just going to the hospital. Yes um for a child for anyone actually it's it's it's not a good thing anymore.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Well thank you so much for wonderful coming on I really appreciate you having this guidance for families and and um for everyone that knows uh we do intervention case management coaching so Fimber Consulting can get referrals from anywhere including pediatricians.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Yes and I can also be found my website is my practice name is Morehealthy kids. My last name is more with two O's so my website is morehealthykids.com.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Yeah that's great. Thank you so much. Thanks thank you for joining the conversation today. If you are seeking help for yourself or a loved one please reach out to our Feinberg consulting team at 248 5385425. That's 248 5385425 and check out our website at feinbergcare dot com. I'm grateful for our guests and all who have joined us today. Make sure you follow us on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts