Kristina Fields, MS, LMFT: Breaking the Fast-Dopamine Cycle

What if your kid isn’t “addicted” to their phone—what if their brain is just wired for fast dopamine now? Licensed therapist Kristina Fields, MS, LMFT, breaks down the science of attention, why phone-free school policies actually work, and how small, consistent changes at home can rewire focus without declaring war on technology. She also gets real about using her own clinical playbook at home with her 3- and 5-year-old children.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Christina Fields, LMFT
• 2:25 Phone-Free School Anxiety
• 4:15 Early Outcomes And Enforcement
• 6:05 Fast Dopamine Explained
• 9:20 Slow Dopamine And Effort
• 12:05 Practical Detox Steps
• 14:55 Silence, Trends, And True Change
• 17:20 Teaching Little Kids About Brains
• 20:10 Nature Over Noise At Home
• 23:00 Balanced Screens And Co-Viewing
• 25:00 Nature Deficit And Outdoor Play
• 28:10 Encouragement And Getting Help
• 33:21 Nonprofit Closing And Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Welcome to the Next Talk Podcast. We are a nonprofit passionate about keeping kids safe online. We're learning together how to navigate tech, culture, and faith with our kids. We are joined today with Christina Fields. I recently met her and I've gotten to know her. Our team has, and she is just a wealth of information. Christina, will you introduce yourself to the Next Talk listeners and tell us a little bit about yourself professionally and personally?

SPEAKER_03: 0:30

Yeah, absolutely. Let me start first, though, Mandy, by saying thank you for having me here. I'm just so excited about the work that Next Talk is doing, that you're doing, and the education that you are giving to our community that is so needed. And so I'm excited to be here and partner with you and just support all of the amazing things that you're putting out there. My name is Christina Fields. I am a licensed marriage and family therapist. I'm also serving as a faculty specialist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at UT Health San Antonio. I work in child psychiatry and I've been there about 12 years or so. And so along my career path, I've just been able to be surrounded by some of the experts in this field. And I'm just so privileged to be able to share a little piece of that with y'all today. So personally, I have a I'm a wife and a mother to a three and a five-year-old, which has just been a fun ride. The hardest thing and the best thing at the same time is what I tell everybody. And so we are starting to kind of navigate the technology, you know, and introducing what that might look like for them, um, even at their young ages. And so something I'm very cognizant about and constantly paying attention to in my own home.

SPEAKER_02: 1:50

Thank you so much. I love having you here. We we met, um, I was presenting to the Department of Psychiatry, the where you where you work. And it was such an honor to be able to meet all these mental health providers that were doing amazing work and wanting to learn more about online dangers and the work of Next Talk. And so we just connected and it immediately right away knew that we had the same passion for kids and families. You know, Christina, we were talking recently about phone-free schools in Texas and what we were seeing with that. And you had observed some things as a counselor. I wanted you to share that first of all as we as we kick off this show.

SPEAKER_03: 2:32

Yeah, so I have the opportunity um to see uh young people, teenagers that are in our schools. And when this, you know, we were going back into the new school year, it was something I was checking in on and seeing how everybody was feeling. And I'll never forget um one of them had told me, you know, oh my gosh, we're going back to the 90s. And I tried really hard not to take offense to that. But um, you know, it was it was really stressful, and it was really um, you know, what am I gonna do? People, you know, um needed the music, right? I need my headphones, I need to be able to listen to something. And so I would, you know, was constantly hearing just a lot of the anxiety, and actually not just at the level of the the kids themselves, but there was a lot of parent anxiety too of how am I gonna reach my kid? How um what if something happens? And so um, you know, I kind of spent some of that time in the beginning just trying to give them a lot of education and how this can be helpful and equipping them with like, well, you know, what does research tell us about you know having your phone in the school and how it does distract you and steal your attention, it makes you perform uh lower end tests, things like that. And so some of them were very surprised by these things. Um, but yeah, I think there was a little a little panic in in some of the kids, and some even said they were gonna go get old school um the music devices just so that they could have that that music, yeah, the iPod. Um, so that they could just have that music and you know, again, stimulation because they're not used to having nothing. So yeah, I saw I saw a bit of that in the beginning.

SPEAKER_02: 4:12

And then we're we're several months in now. What are you seeing now? Has there been any shifts or any new information that you're gathering as you've kind of monitored this situation?

SPEAKER_03: 4:22

Our kids are so resilient, and I think we don't give young people enough credit for that. And I think when you do um introduce, you know, new rules or things like that, as long as you know we we we stick to it and enforce it, I do think that there is a level of you know adjustment. And again, it it takes a couple of weeks, maybe a month. Um, but I did see that in a lot of the my patients that I did see that they started to get used to it. Um, some have mentioned, you know, they had teachers that enforced a pretty hard policy before this. So it was some of them it was a little bit familiar. Um, and then I'll say there was also kind of the other half where I noticed they were actually being able to use their phones in the school as well, or some of the policies were not being as enforced as strongly in the beginning or during lunch or during free periods and things like that. So I think that probably gave them a sense of ease um around, you know, the shift that was happening.

SPEAKER_02: 5:21

Well, and I I've seen that too. Some of the school districts. Um I am what I'm seeing from the next talk perspective is the same as what you are seeing as a counselor is um is the schools, some of them have gotten laxed and they actually are using their phones more than they should be. And the other part is if it is still being enforced, kids are resilient. I love how you said that. Sometimes it may be hard at first. And I think there's a lesson there. And I kind of want to dig into that for anybody wanting to cut back on their screen time. So it's it's a mom, it's a dad, it's a kid, it's a family doing this together, which would be amazing. What is some practical advice that you can give us?

SPEAKER_03: 6:03

So, before I think we go into what are some things that we can do, I think it's really important to understand what is actually happening in our brain when we are using our phones, our screens, our social media. So I'm gonna walk you through some brain science, if that's okay. Um, of course, our brain is very complex and very uh there's so many things happening. However, I've I've tried to simplify it in a way that's easy for us to understand. And so I want to focus on the idea of dopamine. So dopamine is a neurotransmitter that lives in our brain and is produced when we experience uh pleasure or something positive. And it's our it's our feel-good neurotransmitter. So uh with phones, with social media, you know, every post, every picture, every notification, you're getting a small dopamine hit. And so when we're scrolling, we're you know, we're seeing things, they're funny, um, maybe they're sexual in nature and exciting, they're they're validating to our emotions. Sometimes they're negative or you know, they evoke some anger or frustration. But again, it's that stimulation that we begin to create. Um, and you know, liking to to the slot machine, like what's coming next, right? The way that I look at what I like to consider is fast dopamine. So it's essentially those easy, it doesn't create, it doesn't take a lot of effort to get. And so that's the world that we're living in today, where we never had such an ease and access where I could just open my phone, push a button, and you know, something arrives at my doorstep. And so, you know, it's fun, it's fast, it's easy. I liken it to like junk food, right? It's good, it's delicious, but we don't want to overconsume it because that's not good for us. And so our scrolling, our likes, our notifications, our you know, binge washing, it's all of that fast dopamine. And that's what attaches us to our phone because we're getting these spikes of dopamine in our reward center. It's um it's effortless, right? We're we can do it from our bed or from our couch. And with fast dopamine, what we find is it's that it's kind of like that that spike up of dopamine, and then we come crashing from it. It's it's uh, you know, you kind of come down, and that's where you might start to feel bored or restless or anxious. And then many of us sometimes even unconsciously, it's when you grab your phone and you don't even realize you're grabbing it because your brain is like seeking that next bit, right? And so we kind of live in this place now where we're we're so used to this fast dopamine, this junk food that we're getting. And I want to pair that with slow dopamine. So it's so dopamine isn't a bad thing, it's a really good thing. It's supposed to motivate us for reward. But traditionally, what does that look like? Um, you know, I'm gonna go and cook a meal, right? Instead of just clicking something on my phone and it's showing up on my doorstep, I'm gonna open my recipe book, I'm gonna go to the grocery store, get the ingredients, I'm gonna come home, I'm gonna prep, I'm gonna put it in the oven and wait 45 minutes for it to cook, put it on my plate and eat it. So if you think about that, I'm getting that dopamine, you know, at the at at through this event and through this accomplishment that I've made this meal and the taste and you know, all of that. But there was so much process along the way, same with working out. You it takes a lot of, it takes effort from you to then experience the dopamine that follows. Same with reading a book, um, same with completing a project or a task. It's that slow dopamine requires the effort. We're turning on more um parts of our brain, our prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for impulse control, for you know, patients, for you know, future-oriented thinking. And so if you think about these tasks that end in reward, we're actually pulling from you know other neurotransmitters and other parts of our brain. And so what we see with that dopamine, what's happening, is it's not an instant hit, it's this gradual rise, and then we sit there for a little bit and then a a a dip down back to baseline. And so you don't crash as easy as you do, like when you're scrolling, and then all of a sudden it stops. And so I think that picture is really important to paint. And I try to paint that picture for um my older kids and my parents because I want I want them to understand that when we live in this fast dopamine place where that is that is you know where we're we're experiencing that to the the real world starts to feel boring. We don't have the bandwidth and the patience to sit through something, to sit down and read a book, or to go for a walk without your phone or without music or without you know anything, you know, in your ear. And so we have to kind of detox ourself from that and learn to relearn to experience the the dopamine that requires effort, right? Reward comes from that effort. But we live in a culture now where it's so easy.

SPEAKER_02: 11:46

You painted such a great picture for us of how we can explain that to our kids because they don't understand, especially if they haven't experienced the low dopamine building process that we grew up with. You know, I feel like this is where parent wisdom really can come in in some conversations, because how you describe making a meal. And that process is creating patience and grit and resilience, like all these character traits that we are needed in our world. And if we can educate our kids on that, maybe they will be more motivated to make some changes and kind of start to see how their phones and screens are affecting them.

SPEAKER_03: 12:30

I'm always surprised how my teenagers that I get to work with are so receptive when I am able to talk to them about these things and how their brain is actually working. And what, you know, I think my my reputation is, you know, if if if you end up with me in the therapy room, like you know you're gonna get some neuroscience, you know, as part of it. And and they're and they are, and parents especially too, to be able to understand that, it starts, you know, starts to make sense. And then you start to really be able to see, okay, well, what can I do differently? Right? What are the things that I can engage in that are gonna help kind of reset how my brain is functioning, where I'm not feeling this pull and this addiction to my phone or social media because it's hard. It's hard, it's so easy. Um, and so going back to your your original question of, you know, what do we do? How do we kind of essentially detox from that? And um, you know, I would say step out into things that that again create that that slow dopamine. So thinking about um a new skill, you know, try reading a book, even if you have to start small, you know, five minutes at a time, like start to train your brain to sit in these spaces that are a little slower moving. I think one of my the biggest ones that actually that I will recommend to people is to go for a walk. Go for a walk without listening to anything. And I'll tell them, listen to nature. What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you see? Um, because I think it within nature is incredibly healing. Um, our kids are not spending enough enough time outside. And you know, when we're not on our phone, we're engaging our eyes and our ears. But when we step out into nature, like we engage all of our senses. We get to slow down. And again, through that, you're going to get that dopamine. You're going to feel so good. Um, it just takes a little bit longer, but I think the reward feels so much better. And so I really tried to tell and encourage uh some of my patients, like, just start there. Just go around your block. I remember just telling this to somebody, you know, within the last month, just go around the block without the headphones, without a podcast, without the music. And they came back and they said they did, and they were quite surprised. Like, wow, that that was kind of peaceful.

SPEAKER_02: 14:56

I think that's so interesting because when I walk, I I do have my my music on, or I'm listening to a podcast, and I don't equate that with screen news. For some reason, in my brain, it's like that's fine, but you are so right and engaging all of our senses. And I never really have thought about it like that. I think it's such a good point. The other thing I wanted to say is you were talking, I recently got sent a TikTok video of a young adult, a teenager young adult. I'm not quite sure the exact age, but she was raw dogging. Have you ever heard that term? Because it was new to me. I think I saw your post. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So what did it? Yeah. So what was so interesting is there's this TikTok trend going on right now. Who knows how long it'll last, right? May just be a couple days. But it's it's teenagers and young adults where they are forcing themselves to go into silence. So just like what you said, no music, no nothing. And they are sitting there existing and being bored because they want to retrain their brain because they've realized that exactly what you're talking about, these dopamine hits. And the TikTok videos that I've gotten sent, I've gotten sent so many of them. And every one of them, I look at this kid and I'm like, are their parents educating about the dopamine and what it's doing to their brain? And now they're trying to recorrect. Like, where's this coming from? But I love the trend of it.

SPEAKER_03: 16:24

Yeah, I I did see that in I appreciate the discussion that it is creating. And and yeah, you know, there's a level I think of kids realizing the importance of boredom. On the other hand, I I think my critical end saw it through the level of, okay, you're still doing this for likes and to post it on social media. So that reward, right, is that those those quick dopamine hits. How many likes can I get from this? Or how many, you know, how can I go viral, right? Am I gonna go viral? So truthfully, if if you know, if I was standing in front of those TikTokers, I would say, I think the true challenge is putting your phone away and just going outside for a walk and don't post it to show anybody. Just do it for you, right? So is it bad? No, I'm not mad about it. Like, good, I I love the awareness, but there's there's an underlying motivation in there where I'd rather just see you put the phone away. Cause um, I think that's that's where true, you know, true healing is really gonna begin.

SPEAKER_02: 17:26

That's where true change happens, is when you're doing it not to not to tell anybody about it, not to post about it. That was such a good point, Christine. I'm so glad, I'm so glad you said that. It moving in the right direction, but we're still getting that dopamine from all the likes. And and when you were talking about dopamine earlier and the likes, too, like, you know, never have have in has anyone been so able to reach like celebrities. Because I feel like that's where a lot of dopamine hits come in. You know, a teenager posts something and then their favorite celebrity retweets it or comments or something. And it it's just this this like longing to be known and that dopamine hit, and just I don't know, it's just not good for our mental health. For you can see it. You can see there's always this chasing, the chasing that happens. And how you're presenting it, I love just the slowing down, the enjoying the process, the not telling anyone about it. It's so valuable. Let me ask you this, Christina, as we're talking about, you know, teaching kids and modeling this in our home, this slow process, this learning. So you've in a you have a three and a five-year-old. Like, how do you do that with them? You have all this expertise from your professional life. How do you bring that into your living room at night?

SPEAKER_03: 18:50

I'll never forget coming home from the hospital uh with my son and thinking, and and mind you, I'm a therapist and I I you know, working is how I'm working. And I just remember thinking, like, they don't why they're letting me go home with this? Like, I don't get a manual, I don't get a you know, rule book. Like, and and I say that because it's incredibly hard. And I I feel very grateful that I do get to do what I do for a living because I do think it gives me a different perspective when I do uh uh raise my children. But I I say that to for parents to give themselves grace because we don't get that handbook when we come out of the the hospital and take our kiddos home. And you know, I think my generation was one of the last to grow up without uh smartphones and you know social media. So this is still really new. Like the data that we're learning and researching is is coming out, and so you know, parents have had to navigate this. Um and it's been it's it's hard, it's very hard, and it's it's moving quicker, I think, than we can keep up with, right? As far as um best recommendations. So for me, as I, you know, my kids came into this world and I started um I actually it started with my gift registry, if you could think of that from my baby shower. I remember seeing some of the most like, oh, baby toys and this and that, and things that were lighting up and making sounds, and you know, all of these kind of crazy toys. And I, you know, I think, you know, I I leaned into a little of like the Montessori style, you know, wooden blocks and um less stimulation, right? Because and that's what I s where I started with them, because I I wanted to allow them the opportunity to build and create with a basic set of blocks. You can do that, you know. But if you have all this stimulation and noise and toys and lights and you know, some of that's great. Not that my kids didn't have any of those things, but I really have tried to lean into more of those less stimulating, kind of less, you know, loud and song kind of toys, lights and all of that, because I didn't want to overstimulate them. I wanted them to be able from I think a young age, just learn to be able to sit in silence and build or create. And so, you know, now that they're three and five-year-olds, um, you know, I still try to hold true to that. Mind you, they of course they have some sound things and light things, but I I do still try to have that mindfulness when engaging in with toys with them. There's a book that I had read called Raising Mentally Strong Kids, and in that book, Dr. Eamon really stresses the idea of starting to teach your your your children about their brain and healthy brain development. So we can share all these things with our teenagers, but really it should start when they're three years old, right? When they're five years old. And so we we play this game, and again, I got this idea from um the author, you know, we're all opposed to my children, you know, we we just had Halloween, and so they had Halloween candy. Is this good for your brain or is this bad for your brain? You know, and they're like, oh, that's bad for our brain. Can you still have it and enjoy it a little bit here and there? Of course. But they're starting to make that association. You know, we have eggs in the morning. Is that good for your brain or is that bad for your brain? Oh, that's good, you know, for our brain. And so they're starting to learn that there are, you know, there's a reason we don't eat candy all day long, right? Because certain things are gonna help our brain and certain things won't. And we do that with technology too. My kids know, you know, is TB good for your brain or bad for your brain? Or, you know, they don't have an iPad. I have an iPad, but I have one or two games, like if we we recently went on vacation, so on the airplane, they get to play. And so it's that idea of is this good for your brain or bad for your brain? And I remember one time, I'll share this quick story. My son, uh, I had allowed him to use uh, he's five now, so he gets it sparingly, maybe once or twice a month for 10 minutes or so where he can play a little game. And the one time I had left him on the couch and he's playing this game. I got busy in the kitchen. Next thing I know, I look over and he's sitting right there and he's like, Mom, here you go. This is bad for my brain. And so just the fact that he was starting to able to absorb that and learn that for himself, you know, is just so telling. And so if we can start our children off young, just helping to educate them, just to have that awareness, I think it's gonna pay off, right? When they're older.

SPEAKER_02: 23:49

That's a perfect example. You know, I always tell parents, you're parenting a phone years before they get a phone. And this is a perfect example because you're tea, you're having these little conversations with him about candy and his diet, and that's translating into the digital world so that when he does earn a phone eventually, and you're walking him through that process, all these years he's he's thought about is this good for my brain or bad for my brain? Because you've implemented that in your home and he's gonna think about that on the things that he's looking at on social media and scrolling through.

SPEAKER_03: 24:21

Again, I think it's it's it's absolutely influenced by the work that I do. But then, you know, just being a mom and trying to be mindful of that, and it's hard, you know. Sometimes screens, you know, are easier. Like if if if I put on a movie for them, like I can get things done and it's amazing. But, you know, at what cost? One of the things that I'll I'll tell parents a lot too, who tend to get really overwhelmed and I have so much to do and you know, clean the house and this and that, and I and I'll always tell them, I'll say, you know what, parenting is a lot easier outside. And I what I mean by that, especially with littles, like if I leave them in my home to play with their toys, like I mean, it looks like a tornado went through. But if I get them up and get them ready and we get out the door, um, we go to the park or we go on, you know, nature trails, not only does my house get to stay clean, but they just get to experience the world and nature and and play with rocks and sticks and running. And it is just it is just so much more easy. And then they burn energy, right? And they come home and they're not as running around the house and things like that. And so I really encourage, you know, parents just get them outside, just just take that time because it pays off in the long run. And I think it can just be really helpful, not just for their development, but for your for the parent as well, um, and their own mental health and and getting outside and stepping away from from the home.

SPEAKER_02: 25:43

I think you give have given us some such practical advice for especially uh parents of young kids, right? Because the toy thing that you were talking about, like I I wouldn't even have thought of that, quite honestly. And and as you were talking about them building blocks versus just pushing a button and hearing a sound, my mind just went to what you just said about you're baking your meal, right? You're teaching your two-year-old to work to build the tower or make something out of blocks. Like it's effort before they get the reward or the dopamine hit. And that's just such a great concept to teach littles. That's that's easy, honestly. And and really, if you like you think about it, I like how you compare, you know, there are benefits, yes, to the mental health of a child getting outside, but it's also a benefit to keeping your house clean and not being, I mean, it's easier to parent outside. I love how you said that. But I would say also, like, like as you're thinking of a of a young parent trying to navigate all this, and you we everybody's busy, right? Them spending hours building a block, it's gonna keep them preoccupied too. If and and it's gonna cre get their little mind going more than just a two-hour movie, right? And not to say you can't plop them down for movie night, of course, but what we're saying is have a balanced approach and make sure that's not your go-to all the time as to set them in front of a screen.

SPEAKER_03: 27:11

Absolutely. Yeah. And that's not to say, like I said, we have Friday movie nights at my house, and the kids very much look forward to that. And so we, you know, we have our our time in front of the screen. And and truthfully, too, I know I have read uh if you're you're little, so the American Pediatric Society says no screens under 18 months, which quite frankly is not old enough. Um, but again, you know, I have a five-year-old, and so this idea of how do I start to introduce him, because he'll he'll be in kinder next year, you know, and going into a true elementary school where, you know, it's the exposure is gonna be there and the technology of, you know, entering school is gonna be there. So I don't want to become totally naive, but it's the idea if if you are gonna allow your children um screen time, it's best when you're doing it with them and you're at this age, right? You want to sit alongside them, and if he is playing a little game, you can sit there and talk about that and still have that relational component to it.

SPEAKER_02: 28:17

I love that. You talked a lot about nature, and you know, I I kept thinking, you know, getting out in nature just as adults too, and and and making sure your kids are outside. It reminded me of Jonathan Heit's book, you know, the bring back the childhood, bring give kids a childhood, delay the screens. Are you I I'm I think that's exactly what you're saying here, as far as how important getting outside and enjoying nature is for our kids.

SPEAKER_03: 28:46

Yes, I've read his book, and um, you know, I I I think he has a lot of great ideas, um, and I'm excited how you know viral that his book went, that and how popular it became. Um I actually, and what started my own journey into looking in technology and and how it's affecting us, I um some years ago, I read this book called The Last Child in the Woods uh by Richard, Richard Loaf, I think is how you pronounce his name. And he coined the term nature deficit disorder. And this book was published in 2005. And so if you think about where we were as a society in 2005, we didn't have the social media and the smartphones that we do now. But for me, the fact that he already started seeing our kids are being pulled out of nature and sat at home in front of TVs and started associating that with you know, we're we're disconnecting ourselves from, we're disconnecting our youth from nature. Um, and again, that idea to be creative, to explore, there's a level of risk in nature, kids climbing. Trees, all of that sort of things that are so important in growth and development. I think within his book too, at some point he referenced just the for our immunity and things like that as well. There is so much benefit in just being able to be in our environment. And so I know that's hard. Majority of households live in cities, but you know, it could be as simple as just going to a park, you know, finding a little bit of a piece of a green space. Um, I know we're lucky here to have some really great nature centers in our city, but I highly encourage to, you know, especially if you want to detox your home a little bit of some of that, you know, social media and screen time is to just get out and explore. Again, going back to the American Pediatric Association, say I think kids are spending on average it's less like 10 minutes or less outside playing a day when then they're spending upwards, you know, five, six, seven hours on their screens. Like we are, we are backwards, right? Um, and so how do we encourage more outdoor play, outdoor exploration? There's so much growth that happens there. Um, and I'd hate to see our kids lose out on that.

SPEAKER_02: 31:16

Okay, that term you used, I hadn't heard it before. So it was nature deficit disorder. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_03: 31:24

Yeah, it's not a true medical term, and I should have said that. So it's not an actual um medical, it's just it's a term he coined and hopes, you know, that and it has caught on some, yes, but nature deficit disorder.

SPEAKER_02: 31:37

I think that's actually brilliant. And you said he he said it in 2005. So just for context, she's right. Uh, Facebook was invented in 2004, Instagram was invented in 2010. So Instagram is a big one for our kids. Uh, he was ahead of his time. He had foresight into saying we're gonna have a problem here because we're gonna go inward and be inside on screens, and we're gonna have this nature deficit disorder. And, you know, now you have Jonathan Hyatt coming along too, and the research is coming out now, and he's packaging it up and it's reaching families. And so we just need to be intentional. And you guys know at Next Talk, we're not anti-tech. Like my kids have phones, we we have phones, but but we need to be the boss of our screens, not the screens be the boss of us. Like that is the key. And Christina, I love how you have kind of simplified how to talk to our kids about dopamine, but also like just simple things we can do, make adjustments at home with our littles to help as we get toys for them or how we talk to them about what's good for their for their brain and not good for their brain. You've you've just been a wealth of information. Is there anything else? We have a lot of parents that listen to Next Talk with a lot of different ages. And I know you have littles, but you also counsel teenagers. Is there anything that you would like to say to our parents?

SPEAKER_03: 33:03

You know, I get, you know, kind of going back to what I said that, you know, giving yourself grace this is not easy. Um, you are there trying to support and provide for your families, like it's it's hard, you know. I would say, you know, also just don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it. I think sometimes how do I actually implement this? And and even listening to the podcast or reading the books can be incredibly helpful, but sometimes it, you know, you need a little more support than that. Um, and so I'll oftentimes see families that come in and we do a lot of parent coaching just around okay, how do we start making these steps? What does that look like? Let's have these conversations together. Yeah, we just again, Mandy, I'm just so grateful for what you're doing because I think when we know better, we can do better. And so spreading that education and awareness around what our kids are up against is just so important.

SPEAKER_02: 33:59

Well, thank you for all the information you provided. It was invaluable. And um, I hope you won't be a stranger to the Next Talk podcast. So let us know if you see any developing trends that you think we need to talk about. Just shoot me an email and we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_03: 34:13

Absolutely. Look forward to chatting with you again soon.

SPEAKER_02: 34:18

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 34:19

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