Big Kids, Bigger Feelings with Alyssa Campbell

0:01 Hey everyone, welcome to a very special episode of Parenting and You with me, Dr. Shafali. Today we're diving into a topic that's close to every parent's heart. How to nurture our children's emotional world as they grow. I'm thrilled to be joined by an incredible guest, best-selling author, educator, fellow mom of two, Alyssa Campbell. You may well know her as the voice behind Voices of Your Village podcast. Today she's here to talk about her brand new book, Big Kids, Bigger Feelings, an essential guide for supporting children's social and emotional development. But more than that, she's going to really talk about her own process, her own mothering journey, her own triggers, and that's where the real juice really is. We all know that we need help in the early years of parenting, and Alyssa is a master at helping us navigate all the turbulence that these years bring about. I cannot wait for this conversation.

1:02 Joining me now is my dear friend Alyssa Campbell, best-selling author of Tiny Humans Big Emotions, mother of two children, founder and CEO of Seed and Sew, and the host of the Voices of Your Village podcast. Alyssa strives to change the way adults experience children's emotions so we can respond with intention to raise emotionally intelligent humans. Welcome to my podcast, Alyssa. >> Thank you. I'm excited to hang out with you, Shabali.

1:33 >> Oh, thank you. Tell us about seed and sew. What is that? >> Yeah, so I did research in building emotional intelligence in kids with Lauren Stalppel, a colleague of mine. And after the research ended, I just started talking about it. And that's how Seed was born. And then it organically grew on its own from there. And now we do a lot of work with parents, teachers, and caregivers. So we have a professional development program for child care spaces, family childcare providers, childcare centers, and then we do a bunch of work with school districts really helping teachers do this work. And all the families in any school that we're working with get access to our resources as well. We have the podcast and Instagram and two books now, Tiny Humans, Big Emotions and then Big Kids, Bigger Feelings.

2:20 >> Amazing. So, as a child, did you find yourself struggling to be seen for who you were or with your own feelings? And did your parents raise you in the more traditional style of parenting where, you know, feelings were to be, you know, suppressed or not talked about? How were you raised? >> Yeah. So, I'm one of five kids and I have four brothers and I grew up in a lowinccome household. And so, my family really focused on meeting our physical needs, making sure we had food on the table and a roof over our head, but didn't have the capacity for emotional needs and really learned that emotions and expressing emotions was high maintenance or it meant being needy to have emotional needs. So yes, I very much grew up in that traditional sense of what it looks like to express an emotion and especially as the only girl in a household of boys, it was like so dramatic and all that jazz.

3:21 >> Yeah. So how did you become aware that wow, I'm a human in a household where I'm not allowed to share. And how did that impact you as a teenage girl, as a young woman? And then how did you break out of it? Yeah, I feel like I didn't fully know consciously that I wasn't allowed to express emotions growing up. It was just culturally what I experienced, right? I would express them and it was often responded to with like dismissiveness or it was shut down or I would get cut off from receiving like attention or connection until I was like calm. And then as a teenager that really looked actually for me as like lashing out where I was looking for like how can I get you to notice me or to pay attention to me. And then as a young adult I started to go to therapy and dove in and realized, oh man, I've been holding a lot of this in or I've learned that if I express it, I won't be lovable or valued or worthy. And at the same time, I was doing my master's in early childhood education. And I was supposed to teach kids about social emotional skills that I hadn't been given as a kid myself, you know, >> and so as I dove in and built my awareness, it then gave me the toolkit to be able to show up in my classroom.

4:52 And now as a mom of two. >> Wow. So now as a mom of two young kids, >> do you find yourself still like going into those old patterns of, you know, dissociation from your feelings or do you ever see those shadows show up in your current life? >> Oh, for sure. Especially when I'm underresourced, like when I'm not taking care of myself, when we have nights that are sleepless nights with the tiny humans or if I'm traveling for work and just stretched more thin, then absolutely I can fall back into old habits and patterns. You know this, you wrote this book that it takes work to be a conscious parent to do this with intention. And for me, I feel like the greatest thing I learned was how my unique nervous system works. So, how to regulate myself and what drains me and what recharges me. And my husband and I are totally different. The way that his nervous system works is different than mine. And learning how mine worked gave me the toolkit to be able to recharge and anticipate what was going to drain me.

5:58 >> So, you know, there's so much talk about nervous system recharge, reset, and renewal, but people really don't understand what that is. So, can you break that down really simply? using yourself as an example. How did you go from not knowing how your nervous system worked to learning to regulate it? >> Yeah, absolutely. I love this question. I think you're right. It's gotten really buzzwordy and that's so cool. But what does that even mean? Still lingers. So, we have nine sensory systems. We often hear of five. Sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, right? Those five senses.

6:33 But we have four other senses. One is our interceptive system that lets us know if we're hungry, if we're tired. It lets us know if we have to go to the bathroom. It's those internal cues that say like, "Oh, I have butterflies in my stomach." Would say, "I'm nervous or I'm excited." Then we have our vestibular system. It's our movement sense. It located in your inner ear. It's responsible for your balance. It keeps you upright. And then we have our propreceptive sense. This lets us know where our body ends and something else begins. So, if I'm walking through a room, I don't run into a chair or run into a table. Or if I go to sit next to somebody, I don't sit on them. And then we have our neurosceptive sense. This is what I call our spidey sense. And it's the one that says like, "Ooh, there's like danger in the room or there's something uncomfortable." You know, if you walk into a room and two people have been like arguing and they stop arguing, but you can like feel that tension.

7:28 That's your neurosceptive sense at work. It's letting you know like something's off here. It reads the energy in the room. And for all of us of these nine, our nervous system will respond differently to them. Some people are like details people and they really notice the sound in spaces or visual stimuli like if there's clutter somewhere that's really draining for them. Or they might notice how clothes feel, they may be too itchy, too tight, too snug. For me, I don't notice a lot of the details. So, I filter a lot of stimuli pretty quickly, but then I miss a lot of details. I'm like the annoying partner in our house that leaves piles of clutter everywhere because it doesn't for my nervous system add up until I'm really overstimulated and it takes a while for my nervous system to get there. I crave propreceptive input, which is that like big body input. I love like a kickboxing class or I love to wear a baby and have a kid sit in my lap. I want that deep pressure. I could have a massage for like four days and I'm like, I want more, right? Like there's not enough of that for me. I also crave tactile input. So that like touch of like light touch or you think of like cooking or baking and like having your hands in everything. I love that feeling. And my husband's the opposite where he notices all the details of everything. So he just the other day he was like, "Oh, you clipped your nails." And I was like, "Oh my gosh, thank you for noticing." And he was like, "Yeah, you put the nail clippers back in the wrong spot." And for the record, they were just like a little to the right. Same cap. But he know Yes. But he is visually sensitive, so he notices those things. So for him, having things clean or orderly, having decreased sound, like not having music in the background or the TV on or like radio on, that all helps his nervous system because he notices a lot of those details. And for me, what's really helpful for my nervous system is to have access to that like deep touch or like a workout or movement. We were talking before we started about how I like to stand or I walk while I'm writing or doing meetings on a walking pad because that helps regulate my nervous system.

9:38 My husband sits in a chair that can swivel or like bounce backward a little to get him vestibular input. That's something he craves. For me, that makes me nauseous. So, as we're diving into this, understanding that for all of us, our nervous system filters this information differently and then make sense of it differently. So, it's regulated by some things and disregulated by other things. And it's not one sizefits-all. We actually worked with a group of occupational therapists at SEED to put together a questionnaire for folks who can take it at any age, adult down to baby. And it'll help you understand how your nervous system works or how your kids nervous system works.

10:18 It goes through all nine sensory systems and shows where on the spectrum they might be from sensitive to seeking and what that means and what might be helpful for you. If you go to seedquiz.com, that's available totally for free. and to help people learn about their own nervous system in the way that for me it was so transformational for myself, for my relationship with my kids, my relationship with my husband to really understand that, oh, he's not trying to be annoying when he's like, "Oh my gosh, can you please put away these piles?"

10:49 And I'm not trying to be annoying by leaving them. We just move through the world differently. >> Really, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to do it this evening. So, seedquiz.com and we're going to take that. And you didn't even know I was going to ask you about this. I thought like, oh, you were just going to give me like some basic answer, but then you launched into this whole science and now you even have a quiz. So, I'm so excited to take the quiz. I want to find out what is, you know, my unique way of, you know, calming myself. We all probably do this without even realizing, right? We're all like falling into these patterns where we don't realize, oh, this means I'm that. And there's some relief to be found in that. Talk to us about your growth as a mother in your most vulnerable way. If you can, >> what has been, you know, the most difficult, you know, personality block that you can't dissolve or keep coming up against in your parenting? It could be leaving stuff around and forgetting stuff or it could be something deeper.

11:52 Yeah. >> What's something that you've discovered that boy, this is something that's really hard for me as a mom? >> My oldest, my four-year-old and I are a sensory mismatch. So, he's like my husband where he notices all the details. He's what we would consider sensory sensitive. So, for him, he can get really overstimulated and overwhelmed faster than my body does. I can take in a lot of stimuli pretty quickly and filter it and I don't need as many breaks throughout the day. I don't need as many like kind of quiet down times. I also really love touch and he's disregulated by touch. And so probably the most challenging thing for me as a parent is pulling back in the moment to ask not what do I need, but what does he need here? So when he's having a hard time, what feels right to me is to give him a hug or to touch him.

12:46 And for him, he flies off the handle. That's disregulating for him. My daughter's very similar to me and so for her, she like wants to be in my lap and have that hug and she wants to talk about it and wants me to validate her experience. And my son is like, "Please be quiet and don't touch me. Just be near me." And I have to really work hard in those moments to be conscious of what my nervous system's craving versus what his nervous system's craving. We're going to take a quick break. Don't go anywhere. When we come back, we'll hear more from Melissa Campbell.

13:21 In my book, The Parenting Map, I talk about the different essences of the child, right? >> And to tune in, you know, to use the term tuning in to your child's way of being, right? And you're explaining it in terms of, you know, their nervous system. I explained it in terms of essences. But I remember when my child was around five or six, I'm a like supercharged human being. Like, let's go, let's do this, let's do that. and now let's bake this and let's and I'm a like a super excited doer >> and I get charged by projects and I get excited but she is more lowkey in that energy department and needs to go slow or do one project at a time and one project every week and I first took that as like I got judgy about it you know like oh you're lazy in my opinion or you're not so positive like me and you're not loving life and taking life by, you know, the helm. And it took me a while, maybe just a few days to realize that, wow, y'all are just the way you, like you said, move around in the world, very different. And don't judge her. In fact, you may be the tsunami that she could judge, right? And you could be the tornado that is just disregulating her.

14:40 And she used to tell me, "Mom, slow down. Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom." And I just, you know, we always think that we are the right ones. you know. >> Yes. >> And so adjusting and not judging, right? Not getting into judgment of your son, for example, that why can't you allow me to touch you or touch is good. >> Not imposing that. How do you work with judgment for yourself as a mother? Do you have judgment? And how do you work with that? And then do you have judgment, unconscious judgment towards your children if they're different from you?

15:11 >> Yes to both for sure. Mhm. For myself, like so much of this work comes back to self-compassion work and I think of Kristen Nef's work around self-compassion and allowing myself to make mistakes. I grew up in this punishment culture, right? We talked about that a little bit at the beginning of I grew up in kind of a traditional you make a mistake and you need to be punished for it so that you know how bad it was and you feel bad enough that you won't do it again. And what that carryover looks like in adulthood is that when I make a mistake, there's a part of me that doesn't want to let myself off the hook because I need to feel bad about it. Right? That is kind of that rollover of punishment culture is that now there's a part of me that says, "No, you need to feel bad about this so it doesn't happen again."

16:00 And a lot of my work is acknowledging that that part doesn't serve me anymore and allowing self-compassion that yeah, I made a mistake and I'm going to make a bunch of mistakes and >> I am also I can hold myself accountable and move forward from those mistakes and that's a lot of my work there. And then for my kids, it's really pulling back and asking myself like what fills them up. So, we recently went to a jazz festival, music festival, and my daughter's like on cloud9. This is her jam. She loves music. There's people everywhere. She's grooving. She's finding kids to connect with. She and I are very similar. And my son is like trying to engage, but he's flooded. He's so overwhelmed and overstimulated. And we left earlier than we were planning to leave because we were like, he's hit a wall and and we've got to go. And internally, I start to spiral into he's never going to be able to go and have fun and do these things and he's going to be so limited in what he has access to. I can jump from he's four to he's 16 and can't do these things so fast. You know, >> and for me that work is really pulling back and saying, "Yeah, right now he's four and still building a lot of skills to navigate the world in the way that his nervous system works." And Alyssa, this is fun for you. It's okay if it's never fun for him, if other things are fun for him. And I have to really work hard and like consciously reminding myself of that. Yeah. And especially when our children exhibit anti-culture, you know, traits like he's more maybe introverted. He likes more downtime. He doesn't want to be stimulated with loud crowds. And we grow up in a culture that's extroverted, right? like you should be out and have fun and love music and be with the crowds. And then we tend to have that voice in our head that's pointing a finger. And we want for them to have fun. And we don't realize that by wanting them to have fun, which we think is a good thing, we're actually dismissing their authentic self, which is going to make them actually worse up for their sense of worth, their sense of safety, and who they are or with us. We think we're like exposing them, right? And there's a fine balance between pushing your kids, right? Like encouraging them, but then pushing them out of their own authentic self, right? Pushing them out of comfort is one thing, but then pushing them out of their authentic self is another thing. So your child, your son, you have to really know yourself and ask yourself, am I pushing them out of their comfort zone, which could be a positive thing, or am I now pushing him out of being who he is? So, can you talk about that a little bit? Like, and do you ask yourself that question? Like, when am I doing this for me? Yes.

18:55 >> When am I doing this for them? Right. >> So much. And I feel like honestly my husband's a good like balance for me in this cuz he and my son are very similar. Actually, relatively recently, we had scheduled time where each of us was going to have like solo time from the kids. And we're about to go on a trip. It's going to be 10 days all together. And we're like, let's just carve out a little bit of time for us individually.

19:18 And my individual time was going out and hanging out with my friends. And so I'm like in a group at a restaurant hanging out. Love my cup is filled. I come home. His time was going by himself to a record store and going out to lunch by himself. He fully was solo throughout the entire time and he came back recharged. And I was chatting with him and I'm like it there's just not a world in which I would do what you just did and be like yes that was recharging for me. And so he's a really good balance for me here and does a good job of helping me come back to see like he's a fully functioning happy adult and he's thriving and he still doesn't love the things that I love. He experiences joy in other ways. He can do those things.

20:08 he could go out to dinner with friends and he's just going to have a longer recovery time because he's like, "Oh, it wipes me out." And for me, I'm like energized by it. And so being able to see him in adulthood actually is really helpful for me in then parenting the child in front of me cuz I'm like, "Okay, I have a snapshot of what this looks like and I understand how my husband works now." And so I can transfer that a little bit to, oh, this is what's going on for my son. And you're kind of lucky in a way that your husband is so living a parallel life to your son because you get to see what your son would look like, right? Because your son is so different from you. Not because your son is, you know, negative or deficit. Just because he's so different from you, you could judge that as being whatever negative negative negative. And because you don't have a model for it being a functional thing in adulthood, all you have is your own model. you're going to think that that cannot lead to a functional model because you are your own best model right now. So, it's so great to have your husband to to show you, listen, this person can get married, have children, be fine, have a job, like don't project onto this person just because it looks so unfamiliar to you.

21:17 >> And there are still times that I'll experience kind of that fear. And it's the fear of will he be happy because I wouldn't feel joy doing the same things he does. >> Right. Right. So we project, right? So I wouldn't be happy being alone or, you know, going to eat dinner alone, but he would, but because I would, we project it. We project it all the time, right? So it's really fascinating that you have both kinds of kids in your house and and two kinds of adults, you got kind of lucky with that. And because you're so different than your husband, so it's helpful that you have another parallel there. But we're always projecting like you know based on our experience, our feelings, the way our brain works. We do this with everybody, our partners, our children. If I feel so bad about something, how can you not feel so bad?

22:11 Or if I can feel such joy, how can you not feel so much joy? So let me ask you a very deep question. If you can take a moment to think about it, >> what is next on Alyssa's emotional growth challenge? like you know I have to lean into this. I've been resisting this. I have to do this for me as a woman or mother or wife. What's an area in your life that you are still struggling with emotionally?

22:37 >> Number one is productivity. That feeling of like my value and my worth comes from doing and not just being. >> And so really being able to pull back and say like this is enough. I left today and I've done enough. Whether the to-do list is done, whether I have accomplished every goal or even laid them out, just allowing myself to be worthy and valued from being. I grew up in a culture that was really focused on productivity. I was a star athlete and I was a star student and I was president of student council and all the things, right? and went on to create a successful business that's thriving and write the books and put the programs together and I have found worth and value in doing and have received that like praise and the accolades from doing from accomplishments. And so when it comes time to slow down and play in the backyard with my kids, it's hard for me to be present when I'm like, "Okay, I also have to order those groceries or throw in the laundry or do X, Y, and Z."

23:47 It's hard for me to slow down and be and say, "This was enough. This was the right thing to do today for me." >> Yeah. you know, do you allow yourself more and more as you're growing older to take those moments of stillness and be just in, you know, receiving mode versus giving and doing mode? >> I wish I could say yes, Shafali, but I feel like as actually the business has grown, I've gotten more and more into doing because then as the business has grown and there's more to work with, I'm like, "Oh, and we could create a resource for this or we could go do this." and it's created more opportunities and avenues for doing and it's easy for me to get sucked into that and to kind of fall into that. So truly this is my greatest ongoing present work is I guess to be present I think especially when it's about my relationships just being with my husband and hanging out without having something else going on in my brain or being with my kids and just playing and allowing that just playing to be enough.

24:54 >> Yeah. I think that what I've been doing in my life just a little bit is you know first taking out things that are extra. So anything extra goes anything you know irrelevant where before I would you know extend myself to do a birthday party a wedding I cannot do it I cannot do it and I've stopped feeling guilty about it and another thing I try to do is really you know go 20 minutes on Saturday morning or 2 hours on Sunday afternoon I totally shut down right put the phones away completely put my legs up and just stare or just be or just allow where I'm not producing. And I actually do it for my business because I think when we stop and become still then actually the business grows better. So even if just for a strategy even though that's not why we should be being still that nothing space that nothing time allows you know the right answer to come forward and the third thing I do is now after many many years and decades of not doing this I've now really when things don't work out like I'm trying to hire somebody but they just got another job or I really wanted to you know put a down payment on a house but it was taken away anything like that from big to small. Now I don't waste time in the regret or the what if or the it should have and I just lean straight into this is great, this is good, this is good for me, let's pivot. And I think all these things if we can begin doing more and more for doers like you and I, >> we stop wasting energy on, you know, things that would normally suck us because we put so much on our plate that we have to find ways artificially even to eliminate that extra burden. You know, we have to like pry out that time in the schedule. And sometimes it could be about not going to the gym and saying, you know what, I can't go for that walk today. Even though it seems counterintuitive, but doing less ultimately is doing more, but doing it more aligned, you know?

27:10 >> 100%. Yes. And right, my team jokes now, like, please don't let Alyssa go on vacation cuz I come back and I'm like, okay guys, I thought of a new thing. >> Yes, I do that, too. Isn't that funny? Once my brain has like a minute to think more stuff comes >> and go. Yes. Yes. >> Exactly. It's the biggest thing not to go on vacation. Anytime I do downtime, I come back with 10,000 more projects. So >> So real.

27:38 >> Yeah. But I think that's just the nature of, you know, rest and rest burgeons creativity. And then if you already have a creative mind, now you're going to be on fire. But I think it's just natural for people like us high functioning overdoers. We really need to learn like you said not to tie that worth into productivity. And that's hard. It's really hard because especially when the work is so gratifying like your work and my work. We love it. Like now we're having a conversation together. It's one more thing on our agenda but we love it.

28:12 So it's such a hard balance to strike. tell us about you know male female husband wife dynamics and you know the mythology of we should be on the same page you know one in every three parents will come to me saying what do I do my partner's not on the same page how have you figured that out and maneuvered that with your partner >> yeah I think even outside of gender we're all just raised in different cultural contexts you know that what I was raised up hearing ing or experiencing some related to our gender and some just related to we were raised in different places with different cultures. And so then we come to the table with different ways to handle things, different ways to navigate things. I very much had to build the skill set for curiosity in my partnership where I feel like it's easier for me to be curious with kids or even outside of like in relationships at work and things like that. like, huh, I wonder what's coming up for that person.

29:14 But in my partnership and in my marriage, that's the space where I have the hardest time. I would find myself just listening to be able to retaliate with something, right? Like essentially mount my argument back, not really listen to understand. And the greatest gift I was given was harnessing the skill of curiosity with him and saying, "Tell me more about what you're nervous about here." or what do you think's going to happen if we respond to him like this when we're talking about parenting or if we don't do that and really getting to know what's at the root of what my husband's fear is around something or what he's concerned will happen or won't happen whether it's immediate or down the road and when I can get curious then I can actually meet him with in that space of fear or in that feeling rather than kind of on that surface behavior like we do with kids right where we're looking beyond that behavior to say, "Okay, what's coming up here? And why are they throwing this thing or hitting or yelling something at me? Like, what's really going on?" When I can do that with my husband, it's a game changer. Again, my ability to do that just requires me to be resourced, me to take care of myself first and make sure I'm supporting my nervous system and my regulation so that I can show up with curiosity and be in a conscious brain and not just for my subconscious.

30:39 When do you find yourself triggered by your children or your work or your husband? Give me like what is a trigger moment so people can relate to it and go oh my god thank goodness she gets triggered too like last question I promise you but just like something that triggers you like very specific >> like and don't say traffic or something like that something more personal and then let's help people to understand how you navigate it so that we can give like a real life example. Yeah. So with my kids I two big triggers. One is whining where just like the sound of whining makes my skin crawl and I can find myself I used to hear from my parents I can't talk to you in that voice. Like when you have that voice I can't talk to you and I want to fall right back into that where when my child's whining at me I'm like right like I just don't want to respond. I want to ignore. I want to say I can't understand you with that voice even though I can understand. And so that for sure is a trigger for me and I spin into this like disregulated parent who's going to react instead of respond and I have to work really hard and sometimes I won't. Sometimes I will say like I can't hear you with that voice or I can't understand you with that voice.

31:56 And then later I will come back and repair and say, "Oh man, earlier I was feeling really overwhelmed as I was getting dinner ready and you were using a whining voice to tell me that you needed help and when I was overwhelmed and heard the whining voice, I wasn't kind to you. I'm going to try and slow my heart down so that I can be kind to you next time." That's something I'm still working on. And being able to just own that later, but it doesn't mean I don't react sometimes in the moment.

32:23 Right. And another one is the sibling relationship. When my daughter, especially she and I are so similar and she is a connector. All she wants in the world is to hang and be connected to the humans around her. And my son doesn't have that same drive for connection. He really like my husband wants more of that solo time. Wants to kind of go and do his own thing more. And my daughter starts the day once she sees her brother going, "Hi, hi, high five." and just like in his space and in his space and trying to connect and it's so cute and for him he's so overwhelmed by it and I can find myself getting annoyed with him where I'm like she's just trying to connect with you bud she is just just give her the high five all she wants is the high five and then she'll leave you alone and honoring that for him that's really overwhelming when he starts his day and she's in his space and in his face but in the moment that can feel really hard for me and I'm It's not a big lift. Just give her the high five or say hi. Just connect with her. And really pulling back and seeing his side when it's so much easier for me to see hers cuz she and I are so similar.

33:33 >> Right. But if you were the parent who was like him, maybe you would tell her, listen, have compassion for him. He can't do it. Like try to do something else, right? you would correct her, but now you're correcting him because it's who who we identify with and who we in a very very deep way think is more right than the other one. Right. >> Totally. >> So, we endorse people who are like us who think like us. And it's the same with parenting. So, that that was a really good example. But Alyssa, tell us about your new book that's coming out.

34:04 I'm so excited for you. >> Yeah, thank you. So, we have Big Kids, Bigger Feelings publishing in September. We are I'm so stoked because after we wrote tiny humans big emotions, we just kept hearing from people like this is great and also what do I do with my bigger kids? So this is age 5 to 12. We dive into the nervous system in it. We get a little nerdy with folks and also what do you do? I feel like there's so many resources for the younger ages.

34:29 We're like okay it's exhausting and tantrums and meltdowns and what do you do with them? And then we have resources for teenage years where we're like, "Oh, that's emotionally draining and hard and how do you navigate it?" And there's this kind of idea that in the middle that it gets chill and everything's easy and that's not true. They're still humans and they come to the table with all their humanness. And especially in those elementary years, we see an uptick in that need for inclusion and belonging. that social piece starts to matter more than it has for when they were under five and not in school yet in navigating the peer stuff. It looks different and then they're in school and now kids are wearing certain clothes or they're saying things or they're watching certain shows or they're exposed to certain media and the kids around them are trying to figure out how do I fit in here? who are my people and what happens when somebody says something to me where now I'm excluded or I'm embarrassed or I'm left out and helping them learn how to be in their body and in relationship in these ages and that's what we dive into in big kids bigger feelings all that minutia in the 5 to 12 years 12year-old range.

35:36 >> I love it. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> I'm so excited for you and thank you for being so honest and sharing so much today. >> So happy you were here on my podcast, Alyssa. >> Thank you. I'm so happy to be here with you. Always a pleasure hanging out with you, Shafali. >> Hey everyone, I hope that was as insightful for you as it was for me. And I will see you on the next episode of Parenting and You with me, Dr. Shafali.

36:01 Parenting and You with Dr. Shafali is for educational andformational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, psychotherrapeutic, coaching, health care, or other qualified professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.