[00:11] Speaker A: Hi everyone and welcome to the Keep Them Healthy with Jami podcast. This is your host Jami, and today our topic is Sensory Processing Disorder and I have a guest named Laura. She is coming on to you talk about her experience and education behind working with families and children with special needs and how her development of her company, Virtual Play and Life Skills has become not only a passion project for her clients, but also for her immediate family needs. Laura is going to give some really good insight on how to navigate if you feel like your child is experiencing some reactions that are similar to what she will explain. And also she will give you some coping skills and ways to help navigate the day to day with the major Tantrums and helping your child feel comfortable and safe in their environment at home. So a little bit about Laura. Laura has had education and career experience with working with kids and adults with different needs. And after receiving her Masters in Special Education, she worked as a Life Skills teacher in New Jersey for grades three through five. And during this time she developed a community based curriculum teaching them how to be in the community and how to navigate the world. Because the world does not adapt to you, you need to adapt to it. So cut to parenthood. Lara's oldest son, around the age of 18 months, started to have reactions to life experiences that didn't seem typical of an 18 month old. So during this time, Laura was noticing these changes but at the same time not over analyzing them because he was still very young and there could be a lot of reasons why he was uncomfortable with his reactions. And so in the meantime, she started her own company, the Virtual Play and Life Skills. And then fast forward, her oldest is now three and a half and he was recently diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder and anxiety. So now she is on a mission to get him the therapy he needs and to simultaneously help other families and kids with navigating this journey from the Tantrums, the reactions to the diagnosis, to the therapies necessary, and just to give the families and children tools to help them adapt and feel comfortable and safe in their environments. So I love Lara's passion for her work and I'm excited for you guys to listen to her advice and her story. And so without further ado, let us meet Laura. Let's welcome Laura. Hello. If you listen to a bunch of my other episodes that's your passion as an adult normally stems from your experiences, especially when your experiences affect your children. And so for your son in particular, you know, you have this background in teaching life skills and coping skills, which across the board, after pandemic, most children should have access to. I believe.
[03:28] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[03:29] Speaker A: But I would love for you to first just define what is Sensory Processing Disorder?
[03:35] Speaker B: So it's funny, I've been reading so much about it and I wrote down a definition that I really liked from a blog from a mom standpoint of it, and basically was the nervous system's inability to the three big words here are receive, process and react to sensory information from one's own body and or the environment. So it's basically your body inability or difficulty with processing stimuli, whether it's internally. My son specifically, when he starts to get sick, we were just talking about this a little while ago when he starts to get sick and he's inflamed or he has a cough or anything like that, that is very challenging for him, but more so. And what you're going to see, I guess maybe out in public and stuff like that, is the inability to process or the difficulty with processing and reacting appropriately to external stimuli. So like things in the environment. Some examples like my son, the first time we took him down to the beach and this was what we noticed at 18 months old, the waves were crashing really loud. He didn't the sand on his feet. And I think back to all this stuff now, because this past summer, the first day that we went to the beach again, he was just about almost three years old. And he was actually able to verbalize at this time what the issue was. And I think back to that and I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so many times when he wasn't able to articulate it yet. I remember things like he in a store would the overhead lights, it was Christmas time, music playing, things like that. He would grab his ears or he would drop to the ground and just start hysterically crying and screaming. We were at a party this summer, and it was at a house down at the shore, and it was on the water, and it was a really windy day. And as soon as we rounded the corner to where the air was more open and the wind was really blowing, he started screaming his head off, dropped to the ground, holding his ears. Eventually, once we were able to calm him down, he was able to tell me that that was the issue. But his senses are so heightened 99.9% of the time he could walk in the house and smell something that he loves or something that you and I might be like an unpleasant odor. He has incredibly strong reactions and he'll let you know too, like if I'm cooking dinner or something and he doesn't like it. He's very vocal about that. Doesn't smell good, Mommy. So it's a lot of processing and reacting to your stimuli around you and within your own body.
[06:16] Speaker A: That's so interesting. And it must be difficult as a parent just well, now you're able to communicate with him. But what you were saying when he was 18 months old and he can't really tell you what's going on, and you're a first time parent, and you're like, is this normal? Is it not? And it has to be very stressful and very confusing. And also, being out in public and your child's throwing tantrums, most people are like, put them in time out or tell them to stop, and you're like, I can't. That has to be really difficult. So is there anything else that you would explain as being difficult? As a parent of a child with sensory processing disorder?
[06:55] Speaker B: I think that's the hardest thing is I think a lot of people don't think it really exists. Even myself, I have a very difficult time, and my husband does too. He's incredibly in tune with this. And, you know, at first, I felt very crazy when this started going on. You know, 18 months old, I'm like, okay, I've worked with kids with this before, but 3rd, fourth, and fifth grade, I don't know how it manifests at this age. Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe this is typical. It's my first kid, and it requires an incredible, incredible amount of patience. And like you said, going out in public, for us, I think the anticipation of the event is sometimes a lot more difficult than the event itself as he's gotten older, because we'll talk about it and things like that. But meltdowns out in public. You want to say, oh, I don't care what these people think about me and everything, but the meltdowns out in public, the difference between a tantrum and a meltdown and I'm not a doctor, and I'm learning this from the parent side as well, but I've been reading a lot about the difference between a tantrum and a meltdown. And a tantrum, what they're explaining that is, like, it's a goal oriented I'm angry or frustrated because I can't get access to something or someone that I want. I want it. I want it. I want it, and I'm not getting what I want. I want a button, my own shirt, but mommy won't let me. I want a candy bar for breakfast, and mommy won't let me. A meltdown, from my understanding and everything I'm reading and everything else is when your body is so completely over and overwhelmed that it starts to manifest itself physically, and that's what's causing it looks very similar to a tantrum. So I think the most challenging thing is a lot of people really don't get it, and it's a lot of, oh, snap out of it. You're fine. You're fine. And that was the one thing that his physical therapist told me for a while. We would start before we got him into physical therapy. We would say, oh, it's okay. You're fine. Big deal. Or not a big deal. And not, like, dismissing his reactions or whatever, but a lot of the times, it did come across like a toddler reaction. And that was one of the things that she said to me. She was like, you need to stop telling him he's fine when everything in his body is telling him he's not fine. And I was like, whoa. So to me, I was like, I wasn't trying to discount what he was saying. It was me trying to be like, oh, that's not a big deal. And the way that she explained to me was she was like, it might not be a big deal to you, but you're basically teaching him that when his body doesn't feel right, it's fine, and it's not a big deal. So a lot of people who have sensory processing disorder to a more extreme, I guess, state than my son does start to learn that to ignore those things in their body. So they might ignore, like, they're in a lot of pain. Maybe there's something actually going on, like, God forbid, the kidneys or something internally that we can't see. And they start to think that they're fine because they hear that over and over and over again. So from the parenting side, it's been a lot of getting my husband and I on the same page as well as family that we spend a lot of time with, too, like, hey, we don't fully understand this either. We're kind of learning as we go, and if you're interested, we'll tell you everything that we're learning and ways we're trying to handle it. It's challenging to navigate because he looks, quote unquote, normal, and I hate that term, but I've had people say that before, like, oh, he's just a kid. He'll grow out of it. And it's not it at the end.
[10:50] Speaker A: Of the day, you're the mom, and you watch him 24/7, so you know him best. And so for other people to disregard what you're trying to do for your child, it's very frustrating. And like you're saying, with the sensory processing disorder, it seems very complex, especially the parents role in the process. So when you're teaching, let's just say your sister, your mom and dad, whoever's babysitting your child, what would you tell them to look for? As if it's a situation where he's having difficulty and it's not just like throwing a normal toddler fit. Is there any signs or symptoms that you kind of can educate them on?
[11:32] Speaker B: Yes. So I think my mom and my sister are my mom's around them the most? We live pretty close to my parents, and she's gotten very good at picking up on some of the things. You know, I've shared articles and stuff, and I'm reading this really awesome book. It's called the out of Sync Child by Carol Stock cranwitz. It's spot on for this kind of stuff, but I guess every kid is different. So you really have to kind of learn and watch your own kid. From my son, when he starts to get really amplified or we're getting to the point where he's going to start having a meltdown, he immediately pops up on his toes and he starts toe walking around a lot. His speech gets a lot faster. He'll try to explain something to me really fast, and then he starts walking around on his toes and kind of pacing around and things like that. That's another really challenging thing, is leaving them with someone else in the fear of you having prepared that person well enough to handle it. I mean, thank God my son does not typically get aggressive. Every now and then, he'll get aggressive towards me. He'll throw something. He does yell and things like that. But there are people who have it much more intense that they exhibit self interest behavior and things like that because their body and their nervous system is so overwhelmed. So I think you really have to get to know your own kid. And one piece of advice that I would recommend for parents when you're trying to figure all this out is I took a notebook of the stuff that I was noticing. So, like, the toe walking, and when he would start talking really fast, I started writing down, like, times of the day I was noticing things, and that's helped me too. Like, if I have to leave him with my mom, we just had another baby in July, and I had to be in the hospital overnight for two nights. And I'm not kidding you, I was not worried about the birth. I was worried about leaving him, even though he knows my mom and everything, and throwing off his routine of mom's not home, what is going on? And then showing up two days later with a baby and being like, surprise. Now you share a room with your brother, and there's a new baby here. I'm home.
[13:47] Speaker A: Right? That is like I said, navigating is very complex. You have a full family, you have brothers. And when moments where you physically can't be there for him, this is where those life skills and those coping skills that you're trying to promote come in handy too. Okay, so before we get to what you do, specifically in regards to sensory objects and the boxes that you create, so you mentioned that you use the notebook if you were a parent, and you start to think, okay, my child is experiencing some tantrums that seem a little extreme, and I want to start to navigate. Is this a direction I need to follow to help him adapt in a world where he may have the sensory overload? So who do you contact if you have these thoughts to help you navigate first?
[14:42] Speaker B: I would if you're in a relationship, if you're a husband and wife or partner or whatever, I would start with them first. Whoever lives in the house with you. I remember my husband. It's not that he didn't believe me. He just didn't understand. He was like, Laura, I'm an accountant. My experience with kids before we had our own was very limited. He's a numbers guy. Like, if this doesn't add up, then maybe there's an issue. But it was challenging for me to say, no, this is not typical, this is not typical. Because again, it was our first kid and I was trying to figure it out and he was like, are you sure it's not typical? And I'm like, no, I'm not sure of anything, but I think that there's something additional going on. So there was a lot of conversations with us first, and I did contact our pediatrician, and I actually switched pediatricians, and I've heard this from a lot of families. Also a lot of pediatricians not lumping anyone into a category here. A lot of times kids with sensory processing disorder are either misdiagnosed or not diagnosed until they're of school age, and they're starting to have issues paying attention, sitting still in class, outbursts, meltdowns, things like that. It's affecting their ability to learn, so their grades are dropping or things like that. So a lot of parents, unfortunately, discount a lot of these behaviors and things as tantrums when they're younger, when there's typically a deeper meaning of what's going on. So I did bring it up to our pediatrician. She kind of gave me some numbers and was like, you can try here, you can try here, you can try here. And I really didn't find it helpful at all. I kind of felt like they were dismissing me also. So I switched to a new pediatrician and I absolutely loved them. My first visit was right before we had the baby, and I said, these are some of the things that I'm noticing. Full disclosure, I am a special ed teacher. I worked with kids at this before, so I may just be completely blowing this out of proportion, and if that's the case, please tell me, because I don't want to say that he has something that he doesn't or be trying to convince people that something wasn't, quote unquote, wrong. So this pediatrician actually really listened and we were able to get an evaluation down at Chop. So I would say start with the spouse or whoever that you live with and has the most contact with your child as well. Start with the journal and writing things down, whether it's times a day or physical behaviors that you're noticing. Like I said, like the toe walking with my son, if it's really bright, he winces a lot and he'll cover his eyes, things like that. The pediatrician is someone that you I would at least bring it up to them. Even if you have the notes, or even if you haven't started with notes yet, if you're starting to get concerned, they're going to refer you to either a developmental pediatrician or there's a lot of places in our area specifically, so we're in Bucks County, PA. There's places like the play. The Bucks County Intermediate Unit is another place that's a good place to start. The problem with a lot of these places is when COVID was going on. They got so backlogged with waiting to see kids and do evaluations and stuff like that, that a lot of these kids weren't getting services when they needed or they were virtual when they needed, like a hands on kind of thing. So I would say start with whoever lives in the house with you that's an adult. Keep a running log and ask them to do it. Also keep it like a notebook somewhere that you guys can both access it and throw it in your diaper bag in the car. A lot of these, at least in my experience, meltdowns happened early on when we were out in public and he was out of his normal routine of being home and all that stuff. Bring it up to the pediatrician and if they can guide you in a good direction, then that's awesome. Maybe you already go to a developmental pediatrician who could actually do the evaluation yourself, themselves, but we had to go down the chop to get the official diagnosis. And now we're kind of backtracking. We're working now with the Bucks County Intermediate Unit and therapy and a couple of other places to see what we can do as far as getting in with a really good occupational therapist.
[19:18] Speaker A: That's a lot of steps. And again, as a parent, you have to be the best self or your child self advocate, right? Because if you're unhappy with if you're feeling dismissed, a lot of people just are like, you know what, it must be me, it must be crazy. And then it's like a dead end. And so it's something to say with a parent to have the courage to be like, no, this feels like off and I'm not okay with being dismissed. And so I move on to the next person. And I think as parents, you know, we do look to the doctors as experts and we take their their word sometimes as a solace. You're like, Good. The doctor said it works good. And they're like, okay, move on, I can breathe again. But sometimes you just have that constant pit in your stomach. You're like, yeah, I just don't agree. It's just not right. I don't agree with the doctor. And so I'm happy to hear that you kept going. And a lot of times for me, when my kids had stomach issues and stuff, I did my own research, right? And I went down different paths and I tried different ways of healing. And for you, you started your virtual play and life skills and then started talking in the public about it and finding resources and using social media to add to your knowledge and to also give knowledge. So on that note, though, like you said that every day now in your home you have sensory boxes, right?
[20:50] Speaker B: Yes.
[20:50] Speaker A: Can you explain that or what, like, a sensory diet is?
[20:54] Speaker B: Yes. And I think that's the hard thing to touch on, what you just said too, there's no guidebook on how to navigate this and where to start or what to do. So I should backtrack too and say that we got an evaluation with a physical therapist because our weight with chop and the IU and everything was so long that we went to a physical therapist and she was the one that gave us the idea to do the sensory diet stuff at home. So I think that's another loop and a hoop that parents have to jump through to figure all this out when all you want to do is help your kids. So our physical therapist was awesome. She did a brief evaluation for us, and I went there and I was so anxious and by the end of it, she was like, okay, so I can't give you an official diagnosis. I'm not a doctor, but I definitely see that his sensory system is. And she said, quote, out of whack. So she showed me a bunch of different things that she did. She sat him up and she bounced him on a giant yoga ball a couple of times and she said, a child that's not having issues with processing this being off balance and things like that, I'm going to tip him backwards to try and roll backwards and grab a stuffed animal behind his head and lift him back up. So she sat him on his ball and she bounced him like three or four times. And as soon as she started to tilt the ball backwards, he started, like, clawing for her, like, trying to sit up because he was so thrown off, like, visually in space and his body awareness that he it was almost like an infantile reflex. Like a baby goes to fall or whatever and they get startled and their arms shoot out to the side. So she started this with a sensory diet. And I had done some sensory diet things in my classroom before, but I never understood the brain body connection behind it. Working with kids that had IEPs and 504 plans and stuff like that in Special Ed, if they were new to my room and they already were coming with a sensory diet, I would follow it. But now that I'm navigating it as the parent, I'm learning so much more about it. So for my son, we have visuals and stuff all over the house, which he's very big on routine, and that helps him feel regulated throughout the day. So the goal is to keep his nervous system regulated as much as possible. And we actually do this thing, it's called the I know I'm pronouncing this wrong will Barger brushing protocol. And it's basically a small little brush. You can get it on Amazon. You can get it on the Will Barger brushing protocol site. And we literally brush his arms, his legs, his hands, his feet, and then we do joint compressions. We try to do it every two to 3 hours as recommended by the PT. And it's supposed to get the nervous system to regulate itself and start picking up external stimuli and regulating the body in that way. And at first when I first saw it, I was like, yeah, okay. Like, I don't think this actually does anything. And we at the house have been very strict with doing it every two to 3 hours because the goal is to be proactive and not reactive. And I noticed the days that it gets too busy or whatever and we haven't done his brushing in the morning, it totally throws him off for the rest of the day. This week we've been very structured with doing it like every two to 3 hours. And the difference is night and day. Even with him not feeling well this week, it's incredible to just doing this one part of it. So a sensory diet doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the foods that you eat. It's different activities that you can do involving your vestibular, auditory, visual, all the different senses of the body and doing all these things so that they work together instead of fighting itself. So with his sensory diet, we have little boxes or bins all around the room. So a quick example of one of the things that I started creating with my virtual plant lifestyles was sensory bins. So in the morning, him and his brother get to play with sensory bins at the table. And it's a calming activity that they have sand in it or rocks or water and small different toys, pompoms, things like that, different textures, colors, shapes, things like that. And for a little while I was actually selling them as a product with virtual play and life skills and they were doing well and I was marketing them towards sensory families and things like that, kids on the spectrum and stuff. But the sensory diet itself is for us knowing the signs that we're seeing and getting him the tools he needs within that time frame or minute or whatever to help him regulate himself. So we have a visual right now, I'm actually looking at it, I have copies of it all over the house. It's think of just like a piece of regular construction paper and it says when I'm upset, I can. And we sat down with him one day and asked him what the things that he's done that help him feel better. And we took pictures of him doing all the things. So one of the pictures is him holding up his little brushy that we do with the brushing protocol. Another one is he likes to get squeezed and squished and have that deep pressure on his body. So one of the other pictures on there is a picture of him laying on the ground with a pillow on top of him and him squishing the pillow on himself. Think he's a bear hugging himself. Kind of a lot of weight bearing activities on the shoulders are really good for this as well. So he'll do wheelbarrow races and stuff like that. We try to make the sensory diet fun activities. Like we don't sit down with him and go, all right, it's time to do your sensory diet. If we start to see him getting Dysregulated, whoever's in the room or whatever, we'll play a game, we'll throw stuffed animals on the ground and we'll start doing the wheelbarrows or stuff like that. There are times where we kind of have to force one of the activities because he's getting to that point where it's not going to be safe anymore for him to be around his brother or sister or whatever, because I can tell that he's getting ready to have a burst of emotions. But for us, we keep these things in all different rooms of the house so it's easily accessible for us to grab it. But it's also at eye level for him. So he's gotten a lot better as he's gotten older. And this is kind of just a routine now. We have a calm down corner on the main floor in our house and it's got a little box on the floor that has some of his sensory stuff that I created for him. There's some sensory bottles with glitter and stuff in there, but there's also his visual of things that he can pick from when he's feeling upset. Some of them involve either my husband or I, and some of them he can just do on his own, whether it's sitting behind the couch reading his books in his quiet corner. He's got like a little tiny kid couch back there and stuff. So for us, the sensory diet involves giving him the tools that he needs. And another one that's really helpful for him is chewing things. So when he starts getting really worked up, chewing gum for him is very beneficial and it helps him out a lot. So we have gum in his box back there, so if he gets to that point, he doesn't have to talk to us, it doesn't have to become a conversation because sometimes that makes it even worse. We'll just either put the box in front of him and walk away, or he'll go back there himself and get it out. So it's been having all that stuff readily available for him. And the cool thing is my virtual playing life skills on my Instagram. I started to gear it more towards less of the boxes and things that I were making and more the things that we're doing in our journey to help him. And that's been huge for us, is now that he's starting to notice the signs in his own body, he a lot of times will go and pick out something from his sensory diet on his own and do it without us even getting involved.
[29:00] Speaker A: And that's the goal. The goal is that you're like, I have to parent. Other children. And I'm a mother, I'm a wife, you have a company. It's like, okay, so you're giving him tools that he can access on his own. And the more that he practices this and you have it all over the house and he uses these tools, the easier it will be for him when it's time for him to go to school, because it'll be like second nature. He'll recognize the feeling, and he'll be able to use the tools that you have taught him and that he has used now and he uses every day to help himself. And that's the goal. You want your kid to be comfortable and happy in their environment. I mean, that's it. Whatever that looks like, it may not even be a sensory disorder, could be anything emotional, right? And so the point is that the parent and you're doing an excellent job, is to give them the tools they need to be happy and comfortable and safe in their bodies and in their environment. And so a lot of kudos to you, which is why I also think it's super important. And what you're doing and using your virtual play and life skills is you're providing people some examples of like, hey, this works for me, and try this at home type thing. And for a lot of overwhelmed parents, it's hard to find ideas and things and to do that and have time to do that research. So I'm hopeful that with this episode is that people can have a direct access to you and start their journey learning their kid and maybe asking for advice from you or just finding the resources that you have used and using them to help themselves. Like the book you talked about. Yes, go ahead.
[30:39] Speaker B: No, I was just going to say and that's been like I said, it's hard to navigate. And if I didn't have the experience from the teaching side of it, there are still days where I'm like, what am I doing? I do all this stuff with him day in and day out, and my husband does all this stuff with them day in and day out. And like you said, the goal is I've had people say to me before, well, is he going to just grow out of it? And it's not something that he's going to grow out of, but it's with these tools in place, he's going to have a better capability of adapting to and dealing with the things that upset him and frustrate him. So yesterday it was, I don't know, for example, he bumped his leg and it caused a full blown meltdown about that. And then he has a really hard time bouncing back from things like that. But the goal is as he's getting of school age and things like that, he recognizes these things. He knows that there are things that he can do with or without my help, because eventually he's going to be in school full time and things like that. And our goal is he's not going to grow out of it. He's always going to have some of these sensitivities to things. And when I was teaching, we used to call it like the whacka mole thing. Like, you get one thing, you think it's somewhat suppressed or it's under control or it's regulated, and then something else pops up. So for him, he used to hate having his nails cut, and now he knows it's just something that we need to do. And we'll brush his hands with the Will Burger brush before we do it to kind of like desensitize him to that feeling of the clipping. And that's huge for him. So even at three and a half years old, he's recognizing, okay, sometimes there's things in the world that are not comfortable or that I don't like, and sometimes I just have to deal with it, but I'm learning how to deal with it. That's going to help me.
[32:30] Speaker A: Absolutely. And it's also like you're saying every progress that you make with him that he before he hated, hate clipping his nails, and now it's like he's at this point where he can adjust and adapt. And that must have felt so good for you as a mom, to be like, wow, okay, another obstacle overcome. And like I said, you know, there's going to be more. I mean, that's parenting period. It's obstacles that you're just constantly whacka mole, like you said. But for the parents, and this is for parents in general, when you have children, when you have multiple children, it's always high stress and overwhelming in managing the emotions of toddlers, the emotions of yourself, the emotions of your spouse, all of that. And so I want to end this episode with just you had some really good advice that I agree with when it comes to being a parent and managing your stress and not to forget about these needs of yours as a parent. Because if you go under, the whole team goes under. Do you want to highlight that last portion for me?
[33:37] Speaker B: Yeah. That is something that I still struggle with, is self care and taking care of myself and doing things for myself. That's always been something for me. That's been difficult because it's like we were talking about this before we grew up with families and moms who did it all. I remember I was thinking about this the other night. I remember we would all sit down and my mom would go and start vacuuming or cleaning the bathrooms and stuff. And the other night I was vacuuming at like 08:00 at night, and I'm like, oh, this is what he was doing. Because she doesn't have a second during the day to actually do it. So it's important, too. And another awesome skill that you can teach the kids is taking care of yourself and dealing with letting them see you struggle also has been really helpful for my son. So on the days that he's having meltdown after meltdown after meltdown, and we have three kids under three and a half, so we're three in diapers, one sort of potty training. Our days are very chaotic and there's times where I lose my cool. And it's been so helpful for him for me to say, you know what, mommy's feeling very frustrated today, and Mommy's going to go downstairs for five minutes and go walk on the treadmill, or Mommy's going to take a drive real quick and daddy is going to stay with you guys. It doesn't sound like a lot, but those kind of little things that I can fit into the day have been very helpful for me. But it's constantly something that I'm working on. Like we went out last week for my birthday, and like I said, he was staying with my parents, and I know that they know how to handle them and things like that, but the amount of prep work to even get those little bit of time out of the house and letting other people handle some of these things, it's very challenging. So we made it a point that typically when we try to get out, we'll get out for like 45 minutes or like a quick dinner here and there. And we went and spent the whole day out. And I wrote out all the notes and brought this and brought his sensory things over to my mom and all that stuff. But like you said, if we go down, the whole house goes down. So it's something that I'm trying to work more into my day to day. Not my week, my day to day. Because there's like eyewear, noise canceling, little earbuds sometimes during the day, and it doesn't completely drown everything out, but it just takes that edge off a little. And that's self care. Like, if you're home with the kids all day long or whatever the situation is, that is self care. Giving yourself a little bit of a barrier or a buffer between something that might even be setting you off is huge.
[36:24] Speaker A: That's what you're teaching your son, right? And so being a role model and showing that every day for him is probably going to be one of the most beneficial things you can do for him. You can put all these things around the house, but same thing for you. You're like, yes, I know I need self care. I know I need to do these things, but yet I'm not doing them. But when he sees you doing them every day, you're teaching him how the way that he should live. And that's going to be one of the most beneficial things, because we can say all that we want, how we want our kids to behave and all, but if we all behave that way, they're going to go right off our vibe.
[36:59] Speaker B: Exactly.
[37:00] Speaker A: That's one of my motivators. I always ask myself how would. I want my kid to live as an adult, and if I want him to be stressed out and running around and ragged, then I would live that way. But I learned, I guess it was almost five years ago that I learned that that's not what I want for myself and that's not the role model status. I want my kids to see me as every day. They know I have a non negotiable. I shut it down for 20 minutes. I go, I do my meditation, I do busy breathing, I have a cup of tea, and then I'm good. And then I come back to life. I work out every day. I eat the way I eat because I want to feel good and have energy. So it's all of that. But it takes time. And sometimes we hit rock bottom before we realize how bad we put ourselves in. We're not taking care of ourselves. And you're at this moment, you have three young kids. It's really hard to add that in. It was really hard for me at that time when I had five young kids. It's hard. But I will tell you this. Once you start and once it becomes part of your routine, it gets easier. And your kids recognize it as like, oh, Mommy's doing her best time. And then they know I'm like, off, I'm off bound. Like, no, unless there's an emergency, don't come near me. I just need it because they know I'm happier once I do that. And your kids and, you know, and like, you're teaching your son, he's happier when he takes care of himself, when he's feeling upset. And so it all comes together and it's all interconnected. And I think that's one thing that we forget as parents is that they're watching us all the time, all the time, all the time, good and bad, right? And so I try to focus on doing things that obviously that serve me and make me happy and also to show that that's what life is. We want to be happy and comfortable and safe, and we need to do what we need to do to create that type of environment for ourselves. So, Laura, thank you so much for coming on today, because this was so much information and I think it's going to be super helpful, especially for those parents who have the younger kids who may be questioning and maybe it's not severe, but maybe they're, like, in this moment, I need to have some type of idea of what I could do when he's having tantrums, even just in general. So I think that everything that you've experienced and all you're going to be able to share with the world, with your virtual play and life skills, and then also just as you continue to learn, I think that being a resource is one of the best things we can do when we have experiences that are tough. So I'm really proud of you for doing what you do, and I will include all the links to get to you. I will have your email. I'll have your Instagram for virtual play and life skills. And send me that book that you were talking about. I'll link that up too. I think that's a good resource for parents.
[39:51] Speaker B: It's awesome.
[39:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to put that out, too. So anyway, Laura, thank you. This was really wonderful and I hope you had a nice time.
[39:59] Speaker B: Awesome. I had a great time. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm hoping we can help some other people out who might be struggling like I was.
[40:12] Speaker A: Thank you so much to Laura. That was such good information. And I will have all of her links on my show notes, so check that out. And also make sure you check her out on her Instagram account at Virtual Play and Life Skills. Now, I want to thank you as a listener for once again for taking the time listening to my podcast. I hope you could take away some helpful information and guidance if you resonate with the sensory processing disorder and anxiety, maybe personally or for a friend. And please take some time, follow my podcast on Spotify, Amazon Music. Or you can subscribe to my newsletter that I send out on Fridays, and that is through my website. Keep them healthy with Jamie.com. And as I always say you do, you stay well and keep them healthy.
