Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / What Your Child’s Meltdowns Are Really Telling You [with Dr Dusty Hess]

Transcript

What Your Child’s Meltdowns Are Really Telling You [with Dr Dusty Hess] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello, this is the Happy Families Podcast, so good of
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: you to join us. Welcome if you're new to the plod.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Every Wednesday we have a chat with somebody who can
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: shed some light on topics that we talk about a lot,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: but maybe have a different point of view to the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: one that I bring Today. It's doctor Dusty Hess and
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: nationally recognized functional medicine doctor, author, speaker, founder of Upstream Health.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: It's a transformative movement helping families reclaim their health through
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: his visionary leadership and resources including the Upstream Plus membership
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and the Upstream Plus magazine. He's raising a new standard
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of care rooted in functional medicine known for simplifying complex science.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Doctor Dusty is a sought after speaker at conferences and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: health summits and wellness events. His message inspires families to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: break free from chronic disease, lead with purpose and build
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: a legacy of health. I'm excited for today's conversation with
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: doctor Dusty Hess. Stay with us. That's next today. Welcome
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to the Happy Families Podcast, where you get real parenting
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: solutions every single day. This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: As you probably know, Clylie and I have been on
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: a bit of a health kick this year. One of
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the hardest things has been trying to work out how
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: to not just avoid illness, but be genuinely healthy. So
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: we're going a little bit sideways from where we normally
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: talk on the pod. Normally it's all about parenting and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: relationships and emotional intelligence and discipline. Today we're actually talking
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: about health with doctor Dusty Hess Upstream Health. You can
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: go online to Upstream Health to find out more about
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: what doctor Dusty does. But I'm absolutely delighted to have
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: him joining me on the podcast today. Where does this
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: conversation find you, doctor Dusty?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, justin I'm actually out in the Middlewest right now
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: in the United States.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, and as opposed to Australia cold at the moment.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah cool, that's actually snowing right now outside, So yeah,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: in my office, that's for sure.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: How many kids you have we are for let's crack
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: into this straight away. A lot of parents see meltdowns
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and anxiety and irritability and a lack of focus and
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: inattention and all the other challenges that come with children.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: They assume that it's a child who is struggling with
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: behavior like it's a behavioral issue. You argue that it's
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: not always just about behavior. There's a whole lot of
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: biological fact is that might be influencing how kids are
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: thinking and feeling and acting. Saying more about that.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, this is a great point justin I think
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: when we're talking about health, we're not just talking about disease, right,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: We're talking about a foundation, and the family is a
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: huge network that is provides a foundation for what that
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: health looks like. So I think the first thing that
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: parents need to hear is that a lot of us
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: are looking for tips, hacks and quick fixes, you know,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: for what is often a deep or physiological issue. You know,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: we're trying to quiet the symptom without understanding the source.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: But honestly, behavior is giving us information. We should see
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: it as information, not as disconnection, you know. And so
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: sometimes the child isn't acting out as much as their
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: body is really crying out. So if kids are eating
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: real food or enough food, if they're underslept, over stimulated,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: living in constant stress state, that can absolutely show up
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: as irritability, meltdowns, poor focus, and emotional volatility. And those
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: body actions are something that we need to be listening
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: to and be in tuned to. So I think that
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: that's where we have to be careful because many parents
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: are disciplining with the goal of producing children who behave
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: well in public. But sometimes in that process we can
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: really unintentionally sideline the child's identity. You know, we can
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: we let outward performance become the target, but let cultural
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: shame really pressure us into surface level correction. But real parenting,
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I believe is deeper than that. You know, we guide behavior,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: we also want to shape the child's internal world. They're
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: understanding their buy and their physiology and their sense of
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: who they are. Because at the end of the day,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: we're not just creating compliant kids or simply getting them
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: into adulthood. We're trying to raise future adults who have
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: understanding ownership and the ability to regulate well. People really
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: can step into the world and make it better, and
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: that's what we're looking for. That gets a whole lot
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: easier when we respect how they were designed.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I'll pick up on two things that you've said there.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Number One, I found that if my children are sleep deprived,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: they are just going to be more difficult. Incidentally, that's
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the same with me if I'm sleep I rarely, if ever,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: look at Kylie and say, oh my goodness, we're so tired,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: but we're nailing it today. It's not how that works,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: So that's part of it. The other thing that I've found,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I know you said no hacks at this point. Anyway,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: we can talk about some hacks later. But what I
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: have found is that if my children are irritable, if
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: they're hard to work with, if they're acting out, if
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: they're angry at each other or Kylie or I, it's
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: amazing what happens once we give them a little bit
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: of food. It's almost like their body, their body is
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: crying out for food, but they don't know how to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: articulate that. They don't even have the awareness of it.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Once they've got some calories in their system, maybe a
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: little bit of protein, something reasonably healthy that has gone
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: into their body, all of a sudden, they become wonderful
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: humans again, and we can work with them once they've
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: got some food in their system.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: It's so true. And on the same flip side, it's
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: hard for them to really understand what food is these days,
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Like what actually is real food? Yeah?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, I really like the idea as well, that
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: we're not just trying to survive hard moments, but the
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: way that you describe that, we're trying to build an
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: environment where those moments become less frequent and our kids
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: have more room to thrive this idea that we're developing
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: in them, the ability to regulate, the capacity to show
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a level of control in their lives. You're upstream health, right,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: that's what it's called. You talk about getting upstream? What
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: does that mean for a busy parent in everyday family life?
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Because the kids won't eat anything unless it comes out
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: of a packet, or they don't have time to give
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: them anything unless it came out of a packet, because
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: they're so busy trying to just get ahead. Cost of living,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: everything's getting harder, and they're just saying, I just I
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: just need to stick you in front of the television,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: give you this stuff that's in a packet, because I'm done,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and I've still got four loads of Washington take care
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: of and i haven't done the shopping for three weeks
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and all those kinds of things.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, that's really what I mean by getting upstream.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: You know, it means we stop living only in reaction mode,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: we stop asking how do I fix this behavior right now?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: We start asking a more important question. You know what
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: in our everyday family life is either supporting this child's
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: capacity or quietly working against it. And for a busy parent,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: that's exactly exactly what we need to be thinking, as
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: far as like the good news that is present, because
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: upstream usually starts much simpler than people think. You know,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: a lot of people think it's so complicated and they're
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out all the things that they need
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: to do. But it's not about overhauling your entire life,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: especially now overnight. It's about looking at the basics, like
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: we're talking about food, sleep, rhythm, overload, connection, like these
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: basic core principles, and asking where the biggest pressure point
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: is right now currently, what is the one thing in
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: this child's world that if we supported it better, that
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: could change a lot downstream? And if we look at
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: the individual, This isn't about all of our kids, because
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: every single one of them has their own personality, their
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: own things that make them tick. But maybe that might
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: be stabilizing breakfast for another. It might be protecting bedtime
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: for another, it might be reducing after school chaos. Or
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: cutting back on overscheduling. So much overscheduling going on right now,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: especially within sports. It's no longer just show up for
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: tea ball, but it's like, hey, those tea ball athletes
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: have to have three practices a week and it just
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: gets so overwhelming. Upstream means we stop chasing every symptom
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: and start strengthening the foundations. Really, so when you do that,
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: you're often not just reducing meltdowns. You're increasing the child's
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: capacity to regulate, connect, recover, and grow. And that's exactly
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: what gives parents hope because you're not sitting in the
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: back seat. You're putting yourself into a position where you're
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: actually training them up in the way that they shall
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: go that that next step is going to be shaping
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: their future generations instead of waiting for symptoms to arise
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: and then to try to fix them.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: So this requires a high level of proactivity and confidence
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: on the part of parents. Parents have got to be
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: able to stand back from what's going on and say,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: let's take a big picture of you here. Maybe on
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Saturday or Sunday, when the kids are occupied and I've
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: got half an hour to myself, I'm going to work
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: out a structure that is going to facilitate a better
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: flow through the week. I'm going to work out what
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: our meal list is going to be so we're not
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: panicking and buying fast food or opening a packet of something.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk with the kids about what their
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: mornings need to look like so that we can function.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: To me, it seems as though your upstream model requires
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: parents to be able to create that distance from what's
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: going on in the moment so that they can create
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: better moments because of the distance they're created.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: This is really important, really important, because I think one
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: of the biggest things parents mess is that behavior and
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: biology are not separate conversations. A child's ability to regulate
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: emotionally is not just about maturity or a discipline. It's
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: also about whether their brain and body have the conditions
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: they need to function well, and a lot of modern
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: life quietly works against that. So take sleep, for example.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: We tend to think of poor sleep as just making
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: a child tired, but even an adults, one night of
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: severe sleep restriction around let's say four hours has been
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: shown to measurably impair insulin sensitivity the very next day,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: almost to the point of a type two diabetic.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: So talk more about that. What does it do if
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: you're insulin is affected that way because you've had allowsie
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: not sleep, you only had full, maybe five hours of
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: polk quality sleep.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean speaking directly on the insulin front,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: you think there's so many different drivers of insulin. Number one,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: you're going to gain weight because when you're stimulating in
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: insulence days up, it doesn't matter how well you eat
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: or how much you exercise, you're not going to be
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: burning the fuel and you're subcutaneous fat. So a lot
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: of times what people are finding is they're burning the
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: midnight oil, exercising at night, they're only getting four hours
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: of sleep, they're eating perfectly throughout the day, and their
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: corzol rhythm is all over the place, and their insulin
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: still high. They're not losing the fact and so you know,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: but instead of trying to control the insulin at that point,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: because is what a lot of people are thinking right now,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: what we need to do is slow down and get sleep,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: and that right there could be the biggest mover for
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: that specific individual or that child that's going to help
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: them self regulate. And when we get that metabolic stress
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: under control, just after one bad night. You know, when
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: the biology is under stress, emotions usually get shakier too,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: you know, like there's so many different things that happen
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: physiologically when that insulin or that cortisol or that circadian
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: rhythm is disrupted.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: And while the kids probably aren't out exercising, they are
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: up on their screens. So kids might be getting four
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: to six seven hours of sleep a night, which is
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: not nearly enough for them because they've got access to
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: their screens. And that's going to have impact, like you said,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: on their emotional regulation, on the insulin production, on their
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: metabolism generally, on their capacity to learn at school, They're
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: ability to be good with their friends. Like the flow
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: on from that one thing is an almost today it's
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: doctor Dusty Hess and nationally recognized functional medicine doctor, author, speaker,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: founder of Upstream Health. It's a transformative movement helping families
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: reclaim their health. I want to spend a bit more
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: time on sleep. I know people know that things like
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: food and sleep matter, but not how deeply. We've done
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: several podcasts on the importance of sleep. But I love
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: the way you're talking about here. Let's talk about sleep, food, stress,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and screen time and the impact that that has on
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: motion regulation in kids, probably more than parents would be aware.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you know what we were talking about previously,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: where people don't even know what real food is anymore.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're going into the grocery store, It's like,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: is this real? You know, it's really difficult, and so
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: you can imagine what our kids and our future generations
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: are going to think unless we start to think more treatments,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: unless we start to change their trajectory and train our
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: kids and what real food really is. You know, parents
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: often think about food in terms of growth, you know,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: but food is also brain fuel. So we have to
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: train our children to decipher it way earlier in life.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: If we plan to change fertility, if we plan to
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: change any trajectory when it comes to our kids having
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: a better life than we had.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: So I'd love to get cat in this way more.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: But in the interest of time and also to make
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: sure that other people that fall asleep, let's talk about that.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about strength, and let's talk about stress.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, stress is another big one. You know. Chronic
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: stress doesn't just create, like it's not just from a
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: hard emotional day. I think that's what a lot of
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: people think of stress, like, Oh, I'm not stressed. It's like, no,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: we have to think of stress from a totally different perspective.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Physiological stress is a totally different animal, and a lot
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: of people are being driven by this underlying stress that
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: they don't even know is going on. And a lot
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: of times within child development, especially in the literature, shows
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: that stress affects the HPA axis, which I'm not going
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: to put people to sleep with that, but it's the
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: hypothlamic pituitary adrenal axis and the communication between the amygdala
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: and the prefrontal cortex. So if I were to bring
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: that whole down just in to a simple way, it's
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: really just the core systems for threat detection, impulse control,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: and regulation. And in plain English, when a child lives
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: under too much load, their brain gets pulled more towards
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: survival and less towards reflection. Right, So this is why
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: stress needs to be understood. It's not just like you know,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: kids are in this environment. They're not like in a
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: high level corporate job, so they don't have stress. They're
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: just playing on the playground right now. We have to
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: be aware of their environment and support them in a
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: way with tools to be able to process that too.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: And then I would say screen time, this one really
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: matters because it's just getting more and more. I mean,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: i don't know about you, but I find myself on
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: a screen more and more these days, and I've got
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: to figure out strategic ways to get away from it,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: to be able to manage it in a healthy way.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And you could imagine our kids growing up in it.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: It's a constant conversation now in our family, constant absolutely, yeah, yeah,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: and it needs to be.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: You know, we have to be intentional with everything, right,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: So you being intentional with your your health choices and
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: with your food, and with your stress, and with your
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: screen time and with sleep, like all of these things.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: There's so many parents that aren't having those conversations, and
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I think that that's the scary part. It's like we
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: have to have the awareness, but it's one thing to
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: be like, Oh, I know sleep is important, I know
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: stress is important. I know screens. You know, we got
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: to manage those a little bit more. But don't you
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: understand our situation, Like we don't have the time to
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: really talk about that, you know, or we don't have
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: we don't I mean, what do you actually have to
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: do as far as resources to be able to teach
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: that stuff? It's so basic. Do we have to teach it?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: It's like, yes, we have to teach it. You know,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: the screens these days. If we do not teach the
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: future and teach our next generation what to look out
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: for and how to manage it, it will consume them
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: because the traject is not healthy. So you know, there
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: was a twenty twenty two systematic review. It was a
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: meta analysis that covered eighty seven studies of more than
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty nine thousand children, and they found
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: that greater screen time was associated with more externalizing problems
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: like aggression and inattention, and more internalizing problems like anxiety.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: And so these effects were small, but they were incredibly consistent.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: So we have to see the underlying metabolic disturbances that
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: these screens are having on kids. But we can't just
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: keep it from them. We have to help teach them
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: and understand why. And that's really important.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: That's the right challenge as well, because in spite of
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: what you've just said, a lot of parents are like, yeah,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I know, I need to have the conversation. I know,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: we talk about it all the time, but I can't
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: get my kids to buy it. Like my kids just
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: say no, you don't know what you're talking about. My
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: kids think that they know better, They think that it
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: doesn't apply to them. I think that for a lot
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: of parents, hearing this can probably be a little bit
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: confronting because there is always room for improvement. For some
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: it might be a bit free. They're like, Okay, I
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: now know where I need to go. It's a conversation
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: that can really highlight just how exhaust and discouraged and
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: even blamed a lot of parents might also feel when
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the kids are struggling. So, if we were to wrap
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: this up, what would you want to take home message
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to be for parents who have heard our conversation about
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: creating this environment that's going to help our children to
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: behave better because the environment is more conducive to good health.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: What is the most valuable thing that we can live
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: with parents? As we wrap our patchat.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is really important because when we see all
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: this dissonance, it's easy to get this victim maintainet. You know,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: oh everything in my moderation like oh that you know,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: we're all we're all going to be broken and dead
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: in no time any ways, you know, and they're just
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: throw in the white towel. And the first thing I'd
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: want parents to hear is this. You know, your child's
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: struggle is not proof that you feeled. You know your
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: exhaustion is not proof that is gone. That's the first
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: thing that I'd want parents to hear. You know, a
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: lot of parents have simply just been trying to solve
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: deep problems with shallow tools, especially from TikTok and Instagram. Yeah,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: you know, and that's discouraging for anyone. But you know,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: when you begin to understand that behavior is information, that
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: physiology matters, that small upstream shifts can change a lot downstream,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: you start to get your footing back. You start to
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: feel like you're more in control because your child doesn't
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: need your perfection. You know, they need your understanding, your steadiness,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: and your willingness to just really keep building. So we're
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: not just trying to get kids to adulthood. We're really
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: raising future men and women who can bring strength, wisdom,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: and goodness into the world. So don't despise the small steps,
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: take the time, invest in them, one step at a time,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: And if there's something that you don't know, learn about it,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Find areas that you can be able to grow in
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: so that you can help shape them with wisdom and knowledge.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: You know they matter more than you think, and there
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: is more hope here than many parents can see in
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: the middle of the struggle.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Doctor Dusty Hess, I appreciate your goodness. Thank you for.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Shure, Thank you so much, Thank you so much for
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: having me.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Doctor Dusty Hess is a nationally recognized functional medicine doctor, author, speaker,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and founder of Upstream Health. For more, we will link
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: to Upstream Health in the show notes. What a great
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: and informative and helpful conversation. The Happy Family's podcast is
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media, with additional support
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and help from Mim Hammonds. If you'd like more in
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: foto make your family Happier, you'll find it all at
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: happy families dot com dot I back tomorrow