Welcome to the bio optimized summit where we are exploring the next level of physical and mental health you can achieve through targeted and intentional optimization.

I am your host dr amy and today I have with me someone that I am honored to consider a good friend now Tara hunk in, she is a functional nutrition therapy practitioner and she is founder of a program called My Child Will thrive and this of course is inspired and motivated by her personal experience with her child and so she is as well as a certified gaps practitioner and restorative wellness practitioner, she has been author and host of the autism A. D. H. D.

And sensory processing disorder summit and that is what we will be talking about today is the neurodevelopmental disorders and kids and why it is on the rise and what we can do about it.

So my child will thrive was founded out of the frustration that Tara felt when searching for explanations and solutions for her daughter. Dr visits left her with more questions and answers and she was forced to do the research and find her own way to help her child and this is so close to my story.

Tara. So this is why I think that we've been able to really align our values and our work together. Tara's daughter is now a thriving 16 year old succeeding in and out of school.

So now Terrace supports parents of Children with neurodevelopmental disorders, struggling to find the right combination of treatments and therapies through educating and coaching them so that they can get the best results for their Children while saving the time money and effort and really being able to learn from her mistakes and her journey.

She continues to expand her knowledge by attending and speaking at conferences and is a member of the Medical Academy of Pediatrics Special needs International Association of functional neurology and rehabilitation and nutritional therapy association.

Tara thank you so much for taking the time and I'm so excited to ask you questions and pick your brain about the neurodevelopmental disorders in our kids.

It's my pleasure and honor to be here with you today. I'm really excited to dig into this. Yes. And this is on the rise right? Like your child, my child, they both struggled for many similar reasons perhaps.

But just across the board more and more Children are having neurodevelopmental disorders. Many people may not even know what that is but it includes, you know, anything related to the nervous system really and it being more sensitive, more reactive and so that can look like A.

D. H. D. That can look like the sensory processing or even autism is all included in that. But it's on the rise. So I was hoping that you could really break that down for us help us understand what is happening what is going on. That those disorders are increasing.

Yeah. It's funny every time I travel to a conference which of course now that we're doing right now. But um I get into um usually an Uber after my flight. And and they asked me what I do and when I tell them what I do in terms of helping parents understand what's going on with their Children.

Um And why they're struggling so much these days they ask they like but why do you think this is happening? So it's a question I get all the time. And my simple answer is that we are now living in an environment and our Children are being developed in an environment of stress.

And stress can be many things. I'm sure you're gonna you've heard this or you're hearing this from many speakers on this summit as well which it can be any.

We we always have thought of stresses the emotional stress which is incredibly important um component of it. But it can also be environmental stressors can be biological. It could be toxic infections.

There's so many different things that could be impacting um the the child because the the impact on the Nervous and um the organs associated with that system as well um then have the same outcomes. Which was demonstrated actually there was a study in January 2018 used data from an avon longitudinal study of parents and Children to assess the the role of maternal stress. Um That it had on a child's later development of behavior. And they actually found that mothers who experience high levels of stress and in this particular case they were talking about emotional stress during their pregnancy were more than twice as likely than a less stress mother to have a child diagnosed with A. D. H. D.

Or a conduct disorder which are two of the most common behavioral challenges that are facing parents today. So that's just one example of one study that showing how stress has a massive impact on the health and development of our kids. And when we look at even those diagnoses some people may think well those are just behavioral disorders and not understand the biology root of those and how it's really the nervous system the imbalances in the nervous system that caused those types of behaviors that cause those types of symptoms.

And so those are just the downstream effects of what's going on in the biology, what's going on in the nervous system and of all the systems affected in our body.

When we think of stress, it really is the nervous system because that's its job, its primary role is the survival system and it's got the different survival states.

And so the impact of stress is huge. And obviously here in this study which I was so so thankful that that study came out really showing like some of the generational effects that can happen and how maternal stress a mom going through stress really impacts the nervous system of her child. That's huge.

That's really important for us to know to start to understand the bigger picture. Yeah it really is um sort of monumental, and as you said it, you were talking about when we talk about the diagnoses that I I don't really love talking about diagnoses too, because even though that's how everybody identifies and it was one of my struggles as a parent. When I first set out on a journey with my daughter, we didn't actually have a diagnosis. And so what you, like, you said, it's it's we want to look at those that set of symptoms.

So we're seeing things like sensory issues where you have a child that um and we're gonna talk a little bit more about these ones, but but sensory issues, we have a child that has um difficult, even getting dressed in the morning, every single piece of clothing that you put on them makes them uncomfortable.

It seems socks seems on socks are usually the one, the parents have that meltdown when they're putting their socks and shoes on in the morning. Um you know, if you live in a climate like I do in the Great White North um snow snow suits are going to be the, the, the end of you. Um, but and it could be loud noises going to places that you would think would bring them joy, which is something like an amusement park or going to a movie theater, They are overwhelmed easily.

And um the meltdowns ensued and a lot of parents feel like they're being judged because here's their child having a meltdown um which in a situation where most Children would be quite happy to be there, but really it's just their their their system is overwhelmed.

Mhm. And that becomes an additional stress and especially when they are young, their nervous system is still developing and so when it's being developed in this context of already having stress, already being overwhelmed with the environment, even maybe some of the biological internal stressors that may be happening with toxins, then it really sets the foundation for the nervous system to just get worse in terms of its reactivity, its sensitivity and then a person's going into you know school and adult head trying to manage this nervous system that really is working against them.

Yeah, that with without a doubt and I think one of the challenges, so when we talk about signs and symptoms that we want to look at for um you know if your your child's brain development is off course.

We we've talked about a couple of them, but I think most of us are familiar with, you know when you first get pregnant, your friends give you that book, the what to expect when you're expecting and then you get the what to expect in the first year in the second year. So we're looking at those typical developmental milestones and I always say I wish someone would give me the book of what to expect when you get the unexpected.

Um So because they weren't as much help to me, but they are really good help for seeing if those developmental milestones are off course, so it talks about like all the ones we love to look at and sort of check off our list like gross motor skills, rolling over, sitting up, crawling, standing, walking and running fine motor skills, like using their hands and fingers to eat dress play and write language skills, speaking, using gestures, understanding what other people say, So there's the expressive language of the actual speaking and the comprehension, which is the understanding um and then cognitive skills that they start to as they start, you can see them start to learn and solve problems and remembering and reasoning and social skills which would be responding appropriately to others and having relationship with family and friends and cooperating when they need to, but what we want to do with those, so usually they have sort of, you can, you can get those charts, there's a number of one's pathways dot org is a fabulous website um that that shows all the different developmental milestones and when they typically will happen and but what we want to be looking for is whether or not not just are they meeting those milestones in the, in the, in the pattern that they're sorry, in the timeframe that they're supposed to um we want to pay attention to whether they regress from those milestones, but also we want to make sure we don't have a child that skips a milestone and um, that's the most common example of that is when you hear of someone or maybe it's yourself and I'm sure I would have done the same thing if it had been my child, they skip most of the creeping and crawling stage.

Yeah. And we're so proud. We're like, yes, there, that's not good. My child, brilliant. Look at them and what we don't realize is skipping that milestone.

If you're skipping a whole pile of that nervous system input that's required for lower brain stone development to go up into the cerebellum and then further into the cortex.

So it's that bottom up development of the brain. That's why it's so important that these milestones in younger younger life are not only met. Um, they don't regress and we don't skip them at all.

So Tara, this is so cool. I'm so glad you're bringing this up because uh, they're, the program's called neuro reorganization were ones that I first did with my son. And then with the other families that I worked with with, whether adopted Children, foster care Children or other Children who have had, you know, trauma maybe went to the nicu after they were born and had that separation and attachment and they're still working with those, those issues neural reorganization, neural reorganization has been really important for them.

But then when I started working on my own stuff, then I was like, hey, well if they're doing it, then I should try it. I have no idea. I still have no idea.

You know, whether I skipped crawling, I don't know. But what I did was I started doing some of these neurobics organization, things got on the floor, got on my belly and started scooting, you know, doing the creeping and then doing the crawling and terra.

Like, it was amazing to me the amount of um motion that came up for me just doing those exercises and it was like the stuff is stored in my body. And it wasn't until I actually went and did those types of exercises I would have been doing when I was a baby and I know from my nervous system that I was very stressed as a young infant and those emotions came right up and there weren't any words to them, I didn't necessarily understand it, but it was definitely processing and bringing it up.

And obviously now I'm at a point where I can, you know, uh process and resolve that when it comes up. But it was fascinating to me. Uh just that, yeah, that piece of the neuro development and not skipping or missing a milestone because of how important it is in the formation of a healthy nervous system.

Yeah, that, that I, I love hearing that because it's, it's, it's really interesting, a lot of people when they think about the brain, like to, we hear a lot about, for example, with the cerebellum, which has been known for, like in the past has really only been talked around about its role in um gross motor coordination. So, so just beyond the brain stem, the development of the cerebellum is is next, and that's one of the reasons why these inputs are so important. But what we've learned since then is that the cerebellum um is also has a massive role in cognition and emotion.

So it's interesting to hear that you find when you do these um developmental, gross motor movements that you also see that impact in um from an emotional standpoint as well. So I I find that really interesting to hear that. Yeah, it was it was bizarre.

It was kind of one of those things where it's like, I don't know why I'm crying, I don't know why this is coming up, obviously important, so I'm going to let my body do its thing. But but yeah, like the emotional aspect and the neural aspect, like, they're integrated right? We can't we can't separate them.

And that's why when there are imbalances in the nervous system, it often shows up as emotional and behavioral issues, but those are really just symptoms, those aren't the core issues. And so the diagnoses are not always as helpful because it's really the root cause that we're looking for.

Absolutely, no, that's it, and you've hit the nail on the head and it's it's so exciting to to hear you talk about that as well I think what's also really interesting and I'll just take it from my personal experience with my daughter the more that we did that type of work um as well from for her from her perspective um we saw huge jumps and her both her cognition and her emotional regulation so that that ability to bring yourself back like everybody experiences you know you want people to experience emotion and reaction but you want people to be able to um modulate and temper their reaction to things so it's more appropriate. And uh when we started to do the type of work that involves um neural rehabilitation from everything from primitive reflexes which we can talk about to um some other core stability exercises and a number that this this cross crawl type motions that you're talking about.

Um We we saw a marked jump in both her cognitive abilities in terms of processing um ability. So when you're talking about dyslexia dysgraphia, things like that, fluency and reading um speech um as well as in um in her emotional regulation.

A lot of people think that learning disabilities and kids are kids that actually don't have. It's about intelligence. Learning disabilities which that A. D. H. D. Dyslexia dysgraphia all those are are tied in together those types of diagnoses. It's really about actually they the definition is they have um at their at or above average intelligence.

So in a lot of cases they can be genius levels even and certain learning sets, but they are unable to process the information at an appropriate speed and interpret it or speak it or whatever it might be. So it's it's really exciting when you can see that the brain can actually change um but not change who they are, but just change their ability to come out and express themselves appropriately.

And a lot of what you're talking about. It comes under this terminology, the neural plasticity. And I know that you talk about positive neural plasticity and negative neural plasticity.

So explain those two different terms and why that is important in this big picture. So, I came across this concept um partly through um actually gonna hold up that this is one of my favorite books. So if you want to, you want to learn about how much hope there is in terms of how the brain can change and heal.

This is a fabulous book. It's by dr norman Deutsche. Um it's called awesome Way and he's a Canadian University of Toronto, not far from where I am, and it's a fabulous collection of stories and um and he traveled the world to find out more about what the power of the brain to change and really the neural plasticity is exactly that and as you know, one of the core values that I'm just gonna take a quote out of his book. But one of the core values of laws, the laws of neural plasticity is that neurons that fire together, wire together and in other words, this means that repetitive mental stimulation um will change the structure of the brain's neurons that are processing the stimulation or experience, which makes the synaptic connection stronger.

So when we talk about negative neural plasticity, it this is when, for example, our Children are developing and things are going off course. So the more that's repeated over time, the more rooted in their nervous system that becomes so the earlier we can address that, the better. But what we know is that at any age we can um we can enact positive neural plasticity and actually correct those neural pathways and um and you have changed lasting change.

And that's the really cool part about it is when those those neurons are firing in the right direction of the pathways is is in in the correct way that the more you do, it's just like strengthening a muscle, the more that's repeated, the stronger that gets and you don't get that regression um that in a skill that you would otherwise get from maybe doing um other types of interventions.

So that's one of the amazing parts of the whole field of neuro rehab. And we're seeing this more and more stroke pain, patients were learning traumatic brain injuries and that's where a lot of the stories that come in here, but there are some about um learning disabilities and attention issues and and things like that as well, Barbara Arrowsmith, which is another Canadian, which is one of them that that's highlighted in his books as well, but the core concept is that neural plasticity is a true two way street, um, even when it's not functioning optimally, uh or the wire, the neurons are wired together improperly, it has still has the potential to change.

So we should never give up hope and actually we know that there's so many things that we can do when we combine that in particular though with a number of other things like nutrition to optimize the biology um, and nutrition and metabolic support along with the right stimulus.

Um, pretty much anything is possible, right? That's where the magic happens. And one of the other things that he mentions in that book is the integrative listening system and I've had a couple of kids that I've been working with do that program and in combination with everything else that we're doing, it just totally enhances the neural plasticity and accelerates all of the work that we're trying to do.

And it's been amazing to see that transformation happens almost like watching them change, you know, from day to day, as you see their brain and it's now working better.

It's now, you know, the pathways the right pathways are more balanced and they're less reactive and when parents ask me or even adults asked me, you know, like how would I know if I have these types of imbalances in my nervous system or if I have trauma patterns in my nervous system, like what would that even look like?

How would I know? And one of the things that I always tell them is, well, usually in one way or the other, your reactions, your emotional reactions will be either too much or too little, but rarely is it going to be that sweet spot right in the middle where you're able to respond in the moment in an appropriate way with the right amount and a lot of people can relate to that whether for themselves or their kids, they really can see that. Yeah, it's there either extreme reactions over the top or I'm so overwhelmed that I'm not able to respond and I just kind of need to go and curl up in a ball and pull the blanket over my head.

Absolutely, I mean, that's, I'm sure we all at certain points in our lives can completely understand that those feelings. Um and it's amazing to me. I mean, one of the things though, I again, I want to stress because I think it's really important to note that the idea here isn't to change your child, it's not usually tries to make them feel better, it's optimizing their health, I always worry about um you know, there are always people that are saying, but I like my, like, I, you know, I don't want to change them and and especially when we talk about changing the brain and um pathways that everybody's worried about them um losing their personality or they're just, they're they're just who they are as a person and I will say, I have never seen anybody, it's really more of who they are as a person can come out because the stress of the the non optimal, let's say, development of the brain, it's actually taxing on them, so it doesn't allow them to fully flourish and um it causes a lot of grief for them on a day to day basis.

And one of the things that I always tell parents, we start to do some work together and you're trying to make all these big changes in your life, because there are there is there is some hard work to be done depending on the child in the circumstance, everybody's different, but think about whether it's harder to make those changes and do these things um to help support their health, or is it harder to think about going them going through um each and every day, the way they're feeling at that particular point in time and the way they're interacting with the family.

So it's it's it's really not about changing them, it's about helping them thrive and this is why our work is so aligned, because this is what I keep telling people to, it's like whether we're talking about your child or yourself when your nervous system is optimized, you're just naturally going to feel better and when you naturally feel better you're going to do better and everything in life, you're going to have the capacity for more, you're going to have more resilience, you're going to have just more alive nous more creativity.

And so the focus then is really optimizing the route of so much of this which is the nervous system and and then the rest just flows and it blossoms and it transforms and the work is is at that ground level, optimizing the nervous system.

So let's swing back to that terra, we are going to need to tell people like where do they start with this? Uh optimizing the nervous system knowing that there's a lot of different stressors in the environment or even biological.

So can you go through again like the uh all the different types and some specific examples of the stressors and then we'll lead right into where does a person start to finding all of this and addressing what may be their particular stressors in their environment.

Yeah. So I mean they're they're probably more than on the list right now. But I usually talk about sort of the foundational ones because you know where we want to build off of.

So we wanna try to course correct those foundations and make sure that they're there before we go and dive into too many other things, there are quite a few foundational things, but some of them we can focus our better places to start because um what what we find is there's a number of things within our health and our nervous system that when we fix those things or we support those things, those downstream effects start to go away or they self correct because the body has that incredibly amazing ability to heal.

That doesn't happen in every person or every child right away because some Children or adults are more metabolically unhealthy or they have more things to deal with.

But for many people just starting with those foundational things. So um the areas like we were talking about before, one of the biggest ones is in the live in a very toxic world, whether it be um toxicants that are in our environment because of, you know, eating or drinking out of plastics or it's into the drinking water, which is a big challenge. Um whether it's in the air, whether it's E. M. F. S. Because we are all inundated with those on an ongoing basis and how that impacts things like our sleep um and cellular health.

Um and then we because of that, that actually is one of the places I love to start because that's an actually, relatively speaking easier place to start and can have huge impacts because sometimes we find it's just that one environmental stressor that's a tipping point for a child.

Um So we'll talk about sort of five. Well actually it's a little bit more than five hacks of places to start. But environmental health is one of the ones.

So we look at that environment that the child is living and sleeping in um on an ongoing basis right away. We we also want to look going back to the whole um brain development aspect of primitive reflexes.

So um primitive reflexes are the reflexes that we're all born with and they're there for survival purposes and they express themselves at different stages in development either in utero or just beyond. And they're supposed to actually evolve or integrate um at different stages in development um in the child's life.

And if they don't then that higher brain development doesn't happen appropriately. And we start seeing things things like we were talking about before that those sensory integration issues. Um and um and many many more things could be language development um and and other things and and one of the ones that I usually give us an example because it's the one that most people can relate to is the moral reflex and I know you'll be familiar with it, but for those that aren't it's the startle reflex.

So you know when your baby is young and they kind of jump and their hands go up and they again it's a survival instinct gets them to do that. But that that reflex is um should be um should be integrated um at or inhibited or integrated depending on how you look at it at 2-4 months of life, so that that shouldn't be as pronounced by that point in time.

So if you have a um like a child, that is one that um every time you come up to them, they, you know from behind they startle and they might like literally jump up their skin and I'm telling you, I see adults do this all the time to definitely something.

So if you think about the up regulation of the nervous system um and right into fight or flight, uh it's very difficult for a child that that responds like that.

So um so extremely to down regulate and then things like focus in class or even handle an environment where there's a lot of different noises and and things going on. But but believe it or not, there's a lot of signs and symptoms that go along with that.

There's the hypersensitivity there. They have poor impulse control. Um They tend to have the stimulator issues such as motion sickness or poor coordination, which you wouldn't think would be tied to that.

And that's why these things are so interesting. They might be physically timid, not really interested in going out and pushing the limits in terms of their play, like kids normally do. Um they can have um poor um pupil larry control and that would be from again that up regulated nervous system and they don't they typically don't like change. Uh I had a kid like that, some of that, but has learned and has matured into how to manage change, but the ones that can't transition from one thing next, if it's from playing to having their lunch or it could be a change in the scheduled school that they weren't expecting. All those things can really set kids up.

That's from one primitive reflex not being integrated, but they're simple exercises you can do at home, it could be assessed at home, it can be done at home, um all to uh to overcome that and again, um Rewire the brain and then all those follow along developmental milestones will will come along as well. So primitive reflex integration is one that I always tell people to start with as well.

Um and then vagal tone and I know you talk about this a lot. Um so many of our kids, if they don't have vagal tone, we're going to have a really difficult time regulating well, so many of the the system in question. Um but sleep is impacted.

Blood sugar handling is impacted. We can go the list just goes on and on and on. So um doing things to improve vagal tone is really, really important with these kids and like I said, when that's fixed or it's worked on things like um digestion uh, automatically fixed and that's so important because we have all these kids um that we know it's very well known in the community, um, in particular for autism, digestive um, symptoms are rampant part of that part of that community.

But it is also in pretty much every other part of the community, any other developmental challenge, maybe not as severely, but it's still there if we are working so hard to feed our kids well and then they can actually digest and assimilate the nutrients. It's a lot of frustration that goes on there and they also end up on digestive supports for one end and really that can be addressed and fixed permanently through looking at what's happening in the nervous system itself. Yeah. And that, that vagus nerve is so important and it really is one of the root causes of so many different things like you're saying.

And um I love, I love talking about this because it's so misunderstood and we don't realize how much of our stress trauma gets stored in that vagus nerve and sets off these imbalances. And and then the resulting problem, especially with the digestive system, like you said, and even what I've seen a lot of is inflammation in the gut, more food sensitivities, nothing is working well in the gut when you have a vagus nerve that is stressed or stuck in those stress patterns.

Yeah. Without, without a doubt. I mean that doing the neuro rehab piece of our overall protocol with my daughter in particular, um, was the key to getting off of digestive, you know that that was it's a pattern. I see time and time again.

So it's amazing how that. Um So obviously I also talked about the obviously the other foundation is diet and getting those whole nutrient foods into their into their repertoire which is challenging with these kids because again they just function which makes them picky eaters and they have sensory issues etcetera etcetera.

So it's not it is a challenge. So it's one of those things again, if you work on the premier reflexes and the vehicle things as well. And then of course hydration, hydration is way overlooked on an ongoing basis if we don't have proper hydration, we're not gonna have proper detoxification but we're also not going to have proper cell um uh cellular health as well. Um So so in and we want to get down we need to look at down right down to the cellular health and and mitochondrial function which is a whole another thing.

And then of course microbiome and immune function. So there's everything there. But if you start looking at things like primitive reflex integration, vagal tone hydration, getting some good foods in there um and those taking away those toxins around um you're gonna be off to a like a huge start, huge start. Yeah. And just with that you can expect to see changes, you can expect to see more emotional regulation and with that than all of the regulation that's seen in a person's health. And like you say, it's down to the cellular level. We're actually looking at what's happening on that cellular level, whether it's a nerve cell or it's a, you know, intestinal lining cell. What's happening on that cellular level is really what we're being able to shift by working with the primitive reflexes, by working with the vagal tone and especially the nutrition and hydration.

I interviewed luminaria and she talked about the drainage, right? And so that's all part of what you're talking about here, where we've got to get the system's working efficiently to clear stuff and be able to process stuff for the body to do. Well, absolutely good. Well, how can people find you, Tara? Um Absolutely, absolutely.

Sorry, I apologize there. Um you can find me at my child will thrive um which is just www dot my child will thrive dot com. And there's lots of free resources, resources. There's a toolkit there if you want with a lot of the tools that I work with um with, with families that I work with.

And um you know, if I can leave you with just sort of 55 quick things that I think that our five or six quick things that I think that will really help you just get started going back to those same things is one is just water bottle. So to get that just grab a water bottle and make it fun for your kids.

So, a lot of kids don't like to drink water. And um we want to both get them drinking water and also know how much they're drinking every day. So we can sort of see how that's going along. And one of the uh no cost trick you can do is for each time you fill up the water bottle or they do it have them wrapped in an elastic band around it. So you know how many bottles of water they're drinking throughout the day and make sure that's the best quality water that you can get.

I love that idea. I may need to do that for myself to drink more water. No, no tech way to to go about it. Um The other one is turn off the wifi red or at night.

So that's again a simple thing. You can actually even get these plugs that they're very inexpensive that they don't use the wifi. They just use an R. F. Frequency um uh from an old school remote control. You can just turn off all the plugs to any of the of the wifi devices in your in your home at night.

That will create a really great sleeping environment. They're out there that will not even start working with a child until parents agree to do that because impact how they sleep and sleep is even get to that, but how sleep is so so so important for them and their brain health. And I would say that in my experience it's almost like their nervous systems are more sensitive to E.

M. F. And the waves the electromagnetic waves and in our environment and so so much more important for all of us. It's important but so much more important when you're working with the nervous system that does have some of these imbalances to at least have that period of rest from those, especially during sleep when that is the body's time to rejuvenate.

Absolutely. Yeah. So I mean that's when you learn about the lymphatic system which I'm sure at some point someone speaking on that you just realize how important it is to protect their sleep environment.

Um I did mention diet before when I was going to say about that diet was just focus, don't focus on taking out the things that we all know are bad for them.

Focus on putting in more nutrient dense foods that will eventually squeeze out the bad and they'll start to learn to like the nutrient dense whole foods.

Sometimes it's really difficult to just rip things out of their diets and a lot of parents find greater success was just squeezing them out over time.

Um We talked a lot about vagal tone. So just in terms of things we can do. I'm sure you've talked about this a lot already but vibration um Looking into potentially vagal nerve stimulator which you can talk to a practitioner about and then there's some essential oils that also work really well. I love vibrant blue oil parasympathetic blend, that's my my favorite. Um And then obviously the primitive reflexes if you don't know anything about it and you are wanting to get started, I do have resources on my website but also I highly recommend picking up this book.

It's dr robert, miller Lowe's disconnected kids. He teaches, walks you through how to assess your child's primitive reflexes and then what to do about them. So there's a home program right in there.

Um And then we already talked about removing any unnecessary toxins toxicants from their environment like cleaners and laundry detergent, personal care products are the things that that you can do again. That's super easy and quick.

It just takes an hour to go through and rethink what you're using. And the last thing I'm gonna tell you just because we're all dealing with this weird school schedule right now. So if you have a school age child or even a young child and they're driving you crazy because they're fidgeting all the time.

My advice to you is let them fidget uh that fidgeting and and that's something that parents often don't understand is that um letting them fidget actually allows them to focus better and call themselves, they're doing it for a reason. So you want to give them opportunities for breaks where they go and bounce on their on their mini trampoline or on a bosu ball or an exercise ball and and then um I highly recommend getting a little sit disk.

I don't know if you use those ones um Amy but the disk is sort of like a flat ball that they can sit on. It will engage their core allows them to fidget a bit and um in in doing so it will help them focus and attend to what is going on in class a little better.

Yeah as you say that it brings one kid into mind particularly that I was working with and she could not get through math. Like math was just the bane of her existence.

She could not focus and I'm trying to work with her on the attachment and trauma stuff and we found that you know what when she could stand up and then she could fidget all she wanted to, she was able to focus so much more on her math and so yeah, now I've got kids on the exercise balls, I've got kids on all kinds of stuff, I even use some of the acupressure stuff on their feet if they are sitting down, make sure that their feet are actually able to touch the ground.

So they're able to have that grounding, there's so many little tools and tricks that we can use to be activating their nervous system in a way that's helpful so that we can help them help them get through this and help ultimately like your daughter, you know figure out ways to manage, manage the, you know, the change or whatever it is that they are particularly challenged by that they can they can learn this stuff and it is possible for them to do really well and thrive completely.

And so actually on that note, my daughter just came home today, she's in grade 11, she came home today with her second year in a row on the honor roll, her certificate and the science award for her grade and the english award for her grade.

Then that's from a child with that was diagnosed with severe learning disabilities. So that doesn't give you hope. I hope it does. But if that doesn't give you hope, I'm not sure what will well and good work to you right?

Like that just shows your dedication as a mom to figure out what it was that she needed when you weren't getting the answers and solutions from the conventional approaches.

Right? Thank you. Absolutely. And thank you, I really appreciate you sharing this with us. I really encourage all of our audience of course to look more into your work.

I think that you do fantastic work and I cannot recommend what you do enough. And thank you for joining us today. I am your host for this bio optimized Summit Dr AMY and make sure and get the discount prices for the content, the recordings while it is still available because once that is gone it is gone forever.

And I would just love to see you inside and be able to connect with you more together. Let's find that next level of health and aliveness.

Tara Hunkin

Tools for Child Thriving with Sensory & Neuro Issues