1KHO 703: If Reading is Hard, Everything is Hard | Dr. Janissa Jackson, Learning Rx

Welcome to the 1000 hours outside podcast. My name is Ginni Urge and the founder of 1000 hours outside and here for podcast debut Dr. Janissa Jackson welcome Thank you so much for having me Ginni. I'm so excited and what a great place to start my podcast journey right here with you I love it. I love when people have a podcast debut Okay, so you are doing incredible work with families and with children You started off with this evaluations helping families to figure out what you know What might be going on with their child developmentally cognitively and then Maybe they get this diagnosis and you are also then helping out with what comes next now what what am I supposed to do now that I've Learned this thing about my child. You've been doing this for a long time. Can you talk about where your interest started? I think for me early on I was one of those people that knew like in high school what I wanted to do I had this you know this dream and this journey and I just saw differences in people and some of them were easily resilient and able to come through hard times and some really seemed to struggle and I wanted to be a part of the solution for those people that struggled so I really felt that was my mission and my calling early in life I did have to go through about a decade of college which I barely remember at this point it was You know it takes a long time to become a clinical psychologist, which is part of the reason why there's a shortage of people doing this work So yeah, so you've been doing this for 20 years Which means that you were in this field pre-i phone and saw the transition then into that part of life Can you talk about some of the biggest changes that you've seen over the last 20 years? You know it's interesting you say that when I was doing my internship residency time at children's hospital Close to my area the original guideline was from the American Academy of Pediatrics No more than one hour of screen time per day and this is in the early 2000s and I felt like that was a lot you know thinking at that time gosh I'm trying to get families to limit to one hour Well, we know today in 2026 it's substantially more than one hour per day And I think you know the those guidelines may have shifted over time. I haven't checked them recently but I've seen this lack of ability to wait lack of ability to manage time and efficiency and focus Because of the inundation of this technology where it it essentially erodes the attention span and For people that already have a genetic vulnerability to struggling with executive functioning skills and Attention and even deeper cognitive skills. It really highlights that struggle when we throw technology Time on top you know to a high level Yeah, I just read a book by I mean in Alex Hutchinson and it's called the explorers gene And it's about how you know people you'd be exploring the world where I'm gonna go across this ocean What do I find and how the the home range of children has shrunk so you know kids in the 1920s 100 years ago Could probably walk six miles when they were eight years old and He gave a story of a specific family where the kid could go six miles six miles And age eight as a third grader six miles to go fishing to the local fishing home And then it's just shrunk right with each generation trunk trunk to wear today It's often like you can't leave our yard You know it's not even like you can't go around the neighborhood you can't even leave the yard and at the same time He gave the statistic from the CDC that four eight year olds The current statistic is six hours of screen time a day Wow That's tragic in 20 years jenna said 20 years you said it was one hour and now these kids are on average six hours The accumulating effects of that Just must be tremendous Yes and starting so early Yeah, parents are giving the Smartphones so early to distract the child So they never have to learn to manage Themselves in more challenging situations, right? Yeah, okay, so then talk about you are helping families then with the The then what the now what you're helping homeschool families? You're helping public school families and you talk about how the dining room table can be the place where there's just a lot of battles And we're talking about reading we're talking about attention learning differences Even concussions is one of the things I read on your website, which is interesting because I did talk to a man who Like had gotten a lot of concussions in football and He he is in this like really poor health as an older adult and he related a lot of it to that and you're also helping adults adults with memory decline and dyslexia and ADHD and same thing if they've got brain injury. So can you talk about learning Rx? I can and this is one of the new loves for me From a career standpoint I got a bit discouraged in my clinical practice because while I think that diagnostic, you know, testing is important It's important to understand that lens and view your child Correctly of what they're really struggling with You know labels aren't very effective if we don't have good solutions to go along with those You know, it's just not very meaningful So for me, I was a bit discouraged with the status quo It seemed to me that the Solutions out there were only working around the difficulties in the in the brain and through newer research and about the last 20 years about neuroplacicity we know now we can improve Where the the source of the struggle is so that's what I'm truly passionate about because what underlies that difficulty with learning and reading and math or What underlies those executive functioning skills is cognitive weaknesses and This is a program. I was excited to partner with because we can strengthen those cognitive weaknesses You know, whether it's a memory issue attention processing speed These have been walls that kids have been hitting up against and adults Throughout time and they're only heightened now with the influx of technology So I had this dream of thinking about all the kids for years and years I had treated and they spend their childhood Relearning things over and over again sitting at the table in conflict with their parents struggling and it scares parents when their kids aren't learning The stress just goes through the roof and it becomes their daily routine that things take three to four times as long And I wanted that kid to learn encoded and go outside go play Treasure those childhood memories instead of it being such a hard road And that's part of why I partnered with learning our learning our acts because they have massive research clinically and neuroscience showing these programs work And I've seen it and it's been a beautiful journey for me So people can actually come yes Come to your location so talk about that and then we can talk about a little bit of the broader help Yes So I have a learning Rx Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas And it was so effective that I opened one in spring, Dalark, and saw and I'm this spring we're opening in Bentonville, Arkansas So in my corner of the world There's so much hope brain training is done in person It can be done virtually But in person the center has such a positive energy. It's fun. It's exciting And it's beautiful and though that's what I offer there and I am seeing lives changed right in front of me And kids kids that I've known in my clinical practice for years that were just not making progress Have made tremendous progress. I can't tell you the number of happy tears Parents cry at my at the learning Rx centers. It's beautiful Yeah, because maybe they feel like they have no hope and The reviews you know and people write in and they give their reviews or their experience and then it's on the website It's like just tremendous, you know these kids are growing you know They've gained this many years of reading and just 12 weeks. They're pretty short programs It seemed like you know they're coming in for not very long and they're just having these tremendous gains So can we talk about a couple of the specific types of Things that a kid might be struggling with and this is what's leading in part to these Battles at the dining room table. This is for any type of child Whether you're the main teacher and in Michigan you did a webinar for home schoolers here To help families But one of the ones is reading and that's foundational right because That's going to affect all of the other learning down the road and you've got Children ages, you know all the way through up through teenage years that are gaining years in their reading skills So if there's a family listening that their their child is struggling Um, I'll say for us we started later and that certainly helped we didn't start any reading instruction until age seven And actually for our youngest we never did any reading instruction Uh, and interestingly sometimes they can pick it up But I know some kids will have dyslexia and different challenges What kind of advice do you give for kids that are in that situation? I would say one of the phrases I often use is if reading is hard Everything is hard. Yeah There is nothing that stresses out a child and a parent more Then when reading isn't working Because that is at the core of everything. It is very hard to learn if you can't read So what the way our programs are different At learning our ex is we work on the reading system the auditory processing learning a system to manage the English language in the brain But alongside that system which other programs do as well Alongside that learning our ex builds the ability to the short-term memory to encode all of that Because kids sit for years in reading intervention that they don't remember And they're not building on which requires so much more repetition Our goal is that they learn it they encode it and you move on with your life Our reading intervention. Yes, we show four years gained in particular reading skills in 24 weeks Where kids can spend six eight ten years in reading intervention And never see the same amount of growth Not that we can't partner with other types of reading intervention But because we also address the cognitive skills That's what leads to that exponential growth What isn't working? No, it's so interesting to me the reading intervention and any sort of intervention in general I do think Can leave a mark on a child If a child and I don't like sometimes that it starts so young So that's a you've got a six-year-old well, they've got to go to reading intervention They're getting pulled out maybe of class. I mean these types of things can like affect you for the rest of your life You you may not remember what you learned, but you remember being pulled out of class You know and and struggling and so sometimes I get a little Assaulty about the fact that like well, what if you just waited till they were nine like they might just be fine and it might not be an issue But what is it that is and so maybe part of its age and expectation and not Taking into account like the unique timeline of each child But what is it about these programs that are lasting year after year after year that's not working? I think it's because they're incomplete They're they're building one skill But there's these other skills that are foundational for learning that are being left behind So it's like they're building this one skill and repeating it over and over and over again You know, I've worked with kids that have been in dyslexia intervention eight years And they know I'm the kid that needs help I'm struggling and when I learned about how intensive this program is that we get them in and we get them out That that meant a lot to me because when you're an intervention, it does affect your identity. I mean kids know If they if you ever heard a kid that's repeated a grade they're gonna tell you Well, I'm supposed to be in I'm in this grade and kids repeat grades for lots of reasons, but that's just a really obvious example how that gets attached into their identity pretty early When I was a kid my grandpa had a room where he took apart all sorts of electronics seeing all the parts everywhere is so exciting Today as a parent trying to raise kids in a world of screens I think about how exciting hands on learning can be it can feel exhausting trying to offer something more compelling than a device That is why KiwiCo has been such a gift We chose one of their science and engineering crates and the projects we build together turned our kitchen table into a mini innovation lab There were moments of frustration and that's actually what I love most my child had to think adjust try again And when it finally clicked pure pride It felt different from other activities because it wasn't passive They required creativity and persistence and I didn't have to do research sour supplies or plan a thing It just arrived at our door ready to go KiwiCo makes it easy to build skills over time robotics engineering art techniques All well kids are having fun and there's no commitment so you can pause or cancel anytime We're already looking forward to our next crate I love giving my kids opportunities to discover what they're capable of and honestly these make incredible gifts to Tinker create and innovate with KiwiCo Get up to 50% off your first monthly crate at kiwiCo.com code 1000 hours that's up to 50% off your first crate at kiwiCo.com code 1000 hours panda crate is an exception seasite for details Marches when homeschool families start looking ahead you can almost see the finished line spring goals end of your milestones Maybe even testing around the corner and this is such an important time to reinforce key skills and build confidence before wrapping up the year If you are thinking about assessments whether required by your state or simply the benchmarks you set for your family It's awful to have a tool that makes review simple and clear That's where I XL can really shine I XL is an award-winning online learning platform that fits seamlessly into homeschooling It offers interactive practice across math language art science and social studies from pre K through 12th grade At personalizes learning for each child keeps them engaged and gives parents clear insight into progress What stands out this time of year is a real-time feedback and progress tracking Kids get instant explanations when they miss something and parents can see exactly where growth is happening And where a little reinforcement might help it takes the guesswork out of finishing strong make an impact on your child's learning Get I XL now and 1000 hours outside listeners can get an exclusive 20% off I XL membership when they sign up today at I XL.com slash 1000 hours visit I XL.com slash 1000 hours to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price This is such a fun announcement to make womb bikes is officially the 2026 bike partner of 1000 hours outside And if you've been around here long enough, you know that's not a casual partnership We care deeply about the tools that help families reclaim childhood and womb is doing exactly that womb is founded by two dads in a Vienna garage who simply couldn't find a bike that actually fit their kids So they built one and what makes womb different is that they don't start with engineering They start with empathy every part of the bike from the lightweight frame to the brakes size perfectly for small hands Is designed to help kids feel capable and confident in a screen dominated world bikes are more than bikes They are freedom. They are connection. They're miles of memories before the street lights come on So this spring we're launching something brand new the 100 hour ride challenge or release a brand new tracker chart Just for logging 100 hours outside on bikes and for at members stay tuned Integration inside the 1000 hours outside app is coming if you've got little learners The womb go bikes are incredible available in six bright colors including the sweetest new powder pink that just feels like spring If you are working toward your 1000 hours outside this year a great bike makes it a whole lot easier womb designs lightweight bikes built just for kids so they can ride farther and ride happier go to womb.com and use code outside 10 I check out for 10% off your bike purchase Excluding the womb wow that's outside 10 for 10% off at w o o m.com Yeah, it does I mean I taught I taught math at your high school math before we had kids and You know I don't it doesn't come up that much anymore But like when you're in that stage of life people are like what do you do you know? I teach high school math. I mean pretty much almost everybody's like I'm bad at math. I was bad at math I didn't do good in math. It is it is an identity It's you know, it is part of your identity. I totally agree with that Yes, and unfortunately kids define their intelligence by how good they are at math. I mean that's a really good Indicator and they measure themselves against others So anything that's hard can get attached into the identity Learning our acts that our cognitive training programs are intense So it's three times a week 90 minutes So I think that's another point of why it's so effective not only are we dealing with the whole brain and getting to the source of the struggle But we're getting it done. Let's get in here. Let's get it done and let's move on with childhood and enjoy that I will tell you one of the reasons that I ultimately got on the airplane and And bought the franchise. This is one of the things I always say because I did not need another job Something you should know about about me, Jenny is I have a six to eight-month waiting list at my clinical practice just doing testing So I really did not need this job, but when I saw the science I couldn't not do it So the most beautiful piece of data for me is a year after students finish our program We invite them back to measure their cognitive skills Meaning we haven't seen them in 12 months and we miss them we get attached. We miss them. We haven't seen them in 12 months Our research shows consistently 97% retention of the gain And when you can post test a year out and you're showing 97% of those results That's not a different school year. That's a different life Yeah, for sure. That's that lasting hope that I get so passionate about and we've done that over and over again At our at my centers and nationally we just continue to replicate those results Yes, and like you said this is a national program. So if people don't live in your area They can look I'll make sure I put links in the show notes, but you're in this Is it River Valley area? Yeah, it's just um, yeah the fourth Smith and Northwest Arkansas Western Arkansas is as our area of the woods Yeah, so obviously there's a huge need if you are six to eight month If there is a six to eight month waiting list for testing I remember talking to this woman Her name is Angel Hanskim. I've talked to her actually a lot But at the very beginning when I talked her she's an occupational a physical therapist An occupational therapist She's an occupational therapist for kids. Yes, I'm gonna get there She's a pediatric occupational therapist working with kids and she would say similar things that All and she said it kind of all of a sudden It's it really started to roll away where her waiting list was a year out You know people could not give the services that they need so this is just showing if there's a six to eight month Waiting period just to get tested that there is a huge need for the then what you know I'm gonna do next how am I gonna handle this can you talk about what are some of the foundational cognitive skills They're a typical reading intervention program might be missing Yes So for reading intervention I will say brain science has moved forward and a lot of programs have some good research behind them And I'm really not opposed to some of the traditional programs out there They just sometimes need a another system to complement them So one of the things that they may have let's say they're strong and auditory processing That's learning to blend the sounds together in the brain blending a sounds into a word A lot of kids really struggle with that their brain isn't blending the sound so they can't sound out the word And then even in phonetic skills right those are things that other programs can do And do well one of a couple of things that I see really struggling and lagging behind one of them is processing speed If they are a slow processor Then their their brain doesn't have time to process and where they can get to a fluency level So they're lagging behind their they're sounding out words, but the word never makes sense by the end of it It's just pieces of sounds Or they don't get to that fluency level That's a big problem and honestly from my perspective as a clinical psychologist Learning our access the only research program that I have seen to improve processing speed How can you improve processing speed? That is a great question We have specific cognitive exercises with research showing gains and processing speed They're just they're like fun There you have to do things quickly and with intensity Imagine a line of arrows and you have to say what color those arrows are quickly Then you have to tell me the direction Then you have to rotate them, you know 90 degrees or Color direction so we push the brain to improve the speed And there's neuron development that supports that Yeah, yeah, it's so interesting I read a book early on in our parenting called smart moves It's by a woman named Dr. Carly Hanford It was one of my favorite books in very influential on my parenting It was the subtitle is why learning is not all in your head And what she talked about was how movement That complex movements enhance Neural wiring that they improve I would imagine processing speed because it's improving the structures that are in the brain These complex movements so she says the body builds the brain through movement and that's a big difference You know kids are not moving they're sitting and so you could see that Over time, especially as childhoods have changed, you know Think about the kid that's walking six miles to go fishing that's so much movement in a day As opposed to the kid that six hours on the screen in that such a different type of childhood And so yeah, you could see how there would be these foundational cognitive skills if you can get them Up to speed. It's really gonna help with all the other things I read a really good book this year about was last year about reading fluency It was called the guide to the science of reading and all the things that went into that That go into fluency and it was like what you're talking about and also background knowledge You know to the kid even know what these different words mean And then that's gonna make the the book come alive to them you could see how If you're spending so much effort just trying to sound out the words You're never gonna like it Right Absolutely, it's it remains such an effortful process at that point Yeah, and I love what you're saying about movement and some of our exercises involve standing up being bad toss while they're doing these processing speed exercises, which is beautiful One other piece I don't want to miss with reading and how learning our axis different is building the short-term memory Because if you don't remember what you just read Then reading isn't fun at all and you're not able even from building the word to building the sentence to building the chapter It becomes a futile process if you don't remember what you've read and kids are never gonna get excited about that Yeah, the number of kids that start our program and they hate to read and they leave our program and they love to read It's just inspiring to me because it's an attitude. It's a confidence And if you love to read your potential changes dramatically Absolutely absolutely. I would say I am a professional reader That's an idea for word But I love to read it and hand to my life in so many different ways and there is this man I was talking to about reading in particular and he was saying his name's dr. Daniel Willingham I think his book is just called raising kids who love to read and one of the things he talked about was that like most people like to read if They're fluent You know if it's not this massive struggle of Vanetically trying to sound out the words If you can actually pick it up at a somewhat Quick pace and you can remember what you read and you've got this story and you're invested So if if that and also if it is the most attractive choice at the moment And that was one of the things that he said is that one of the biggest struggles is that For a long period of time it was your most attractive choice because It's seven at night and there's nothing else to do you know There's no TV and there's no YouTube But when it's not the most attractive choice than kids even who like it are not choosing it So there's just a lot of components there right You can move from hating it to loving it what a difference and then if you're Limiting your screen time your kid will choose that and I agree it will go So it will help them to go so far. We've actually never talked about dyslexia At all on the show. So what are you know, you're talking about processing speeds and sounding at words short-term memory What are this um sort of the unique things when a child has dyslexia For me dyslexia is often misunderstood a lot of people think of dyslexia as seeing things backwards You know just seeing words written backwards and I think that's been a A publicized version of dyslexia maybe on TV and different avenues But the way that I explain dyslexia to parents is there is not a strong organizational system in the brain for managing the english language I think yeah, and that way think of a file cabinet where everything is just kind of out of order and crammed in there And what happens is kids that don't have that system in the brain have a random approach to reading It's so frustrating to parents like I just went through this word in this paragraph and we get to the next paragraph and it's as if they've never seen the word before So under that there's a lot of encoding that needs to happen and reworking that system in the brain through auditory processing through phonetics through short-term memory skills A combination of cognitive skills to help reduce the impact of that dyslexia condition on that student So interesting there's just all these factors there let's talk about another one you talk about attention the human attention span is shrinking Can you talk about what that affects for children and how we can help them Yes, I was preparing for a talk recently and just looking at some current statistics and it It was mentioning that the human attention span has declined 30% in the last 20 years Wow, so just here just since you've been in practice. Yeah, huge and I've seen it and and I do see that and when you have that struggle Kind of genetically and then you've declined what you have right if you have a limited attention span and it's been reduced even further than coping in the world becomes very difficult I would say there's a lot more irritability a lot more impatience just a lot more discontentment because Wow, kids don't just stop and look at the look out the window Breathe You know take in their surroundings. They're constantly needing more of that input that sensory input that is so overwhelming to the brain That's interesting. I read a book earlier last year last year You know you're like flip over like when did I read it? It's really good book. It's by Dr. Mark Burman And it's called the nature of the mind. It's about attention It's about attention restoration and how time and nature restores your attention And he talks about these studies that he's done out of the University of Michigan where it's not you don't even have to like it Like you can be hating it Obviously often when you go outside it it improves your mood But he was like even if it doesn't improve your mood and you're cold or you're too hot or whatever you're uncomfortable That it will it will restore your attention And he similar to what you're saying related it to a lot of these things like irritation or inability to cope with stressors And so you could see how if this is something that you're struggling with a child as a child and then you become a parent Like there's a lot of stressors And so it can be a really tricky thing And so 30% is a massive number 30% decrease in the last 20 years And obviously we're not living in a world that is conducive to Turning that around. I mean what if that number keeps going genissa Like what if it's like 50% in the next you know, I mean it's just shrinking shrinking shrinking What are ways that we can help our kids with their attention spans? I think it's so important to bring our kids back into the present moment To be fully experiencing what's happening around them I mean you can do the grounding technique where you use the five senses. Tell me what you see right now What do you hear what what is something that you can feel in there you and doing that outside There's so many so much beauty that just restores the soul outside But I think we have to be intentional because if we're not and we let our kids be carried off on this train of technology I think you bring up a really good point. How scary is that? That our kids may not be able to focus at all where What if so many more of the population are now meeting criteria clinical criteria of attention issues It's a scary thought process for sure. Yeah. Yes, that means we think about for now and in the future Can you touch on the concussion situation? Yes, absolutely so For concussions, I you know sports are a very big um A big deal right now in our culture and sports are great right physical exercise um getting outside However, there are it's in certain sports. There's an increased risk of head injury concussion and concussion can happen anywhere But oftentimes what parents are told in the neuroscience community is go home Weighted out it'll get better And a lot of times we do see some mild improvement with time in the brain But these are important time matters And we have clinical we have neuroscience research showing at learning our acts that we can see dramatic gains with brain injuries And this is from concussions to more serious traumatic brain injury And I think if there is something out there with science behind it You should definitely seek that out to help regain what may have been lost We have so many stories that are just phenomenal We worked with a teacher recently at our one of our centers who had been in a car accident and wasn't able to work And he is already driving again and making gains towards he wants to get back out there And making a difference in people's lives and not sit at home a year hoping for some form of improvement What happens when there's a concussion? So a concussion is essentially a bruising and a damaging of a particular area in the brain So when that occurs there's damaged neurons And the brain is a very very complex organ I think we can all agree that is very complex So no two concussions are the same You know one person might be dizzy and headaches and another person is losing You know peripheral vision or you know there's so many different ways it can impact the brain Depending on where it is But the truth of it is we need to exercise that brain We need to get neuron development going and neuroplasticity and there's hope for that Yeah Can you talk about the adults you just brought up a teacher and I was Interested it was interesting to see on your website at learning our ex and I'll put the link in the show notes as well as the link to your Clinical practice where people can join your 16 month waiting list Great Then you have they need to get tested but gosh it just shows there that's such a long time It's yeah You said it's hard it there's a shortage because it's such a long schooling process But wow there's there's not enough people out there to help our kids But it was interesting to me to see that you are helping adults actually in a lot of the same ways that you're helping kids So can you talk about? I mean, I think God's you would be hard to be an adult That's going to need to come in and get help with reading But what a life changing thing if you can come in and in 24 weeks or you know to start to see these huge improvements What's that like for an adult that takes that step to come in and get help? You know, I have a beautiful story of a dentist Um that it was kind of an embarrassment for him that he was Clearly bright clearly successful. Yeah, but really struggled to read And if you knew the number of engineers and physicians where they have these incredible skills But reading isn't one of them and They hide behind that and he did our program. He worked so hard. He was one of our favorite students um And now he can read much better and his kids see that he isn't perfect He went back and he got some brain training Um, we have a surgeon doing our program right now Uh more focused on short-term memory Because just because you find a way to get to that career Doesn't mean there's not big cognitive struggles you're working around And eventually you get tired Because it takes a lot more effort to do those jobs That's why I say with learning our ex the earlier the better we start at five But it's never too late if you're struggling and you're tired and you think I'm really working around some things in my mind Then there's likely a strategy and a hope and an individualized program we could create for you Yeah, you talk about memory decline which is something I think most people are like pretty freaked out about Absolutely How would somebody know to come? I think First of all it could benefit anyone you you can do our program just for enhancement to realize you know I just want to be better one of the things I often say is I will be a student there I'm a little busy right at this moment With building you know three centers and a clinical practice But I want to always be at the top of my game. I want to have the most to offer my family my patients my career Um, so I will be a student I think for those that are wondering you know, is it time should I check this out? If you're asking yourself that question, it's probably great to come in for an assessment The what you learn in that assessment is so eye-opening But for the line of is this a problem? If you're spending energy throughout your day retracing your steps trying to remember what you were doing Uh, what did I walk into this room for what was I going to say You're battling it probably more than you need to it could be better. It can't be better It's hard to know like does my brain work like everybody else is like you just you don't know like you don't know what you don't know And what about adults with ADHD Adults with ADHD are often getting late diagnosed meaning that they didn't know they had it when they were a kid sometimes It depends on their age And I would let them know that while this program is intensive our average adult programs are like 14 weeks If you could get some freedom and minimize some of those symptoms associated with ADHD in 14 weeks What more would you have to offer your kids and your job and your family? Yeah, so that's a helpful way to think about it What are some things that an adult with ADHD would be struggling with that they could get help for That is a great question I think the way ADHD often impacts the brain or more in those executive functioning skills like in my experience life doesn't get easier as you become an adult from childhood You're juggling more Yes, so um we work with what's those cognitive skills underneath that so your sense of time management improves Your sense of being in the present moment when you're not trying to rehearse the four things you need to remember You can hold that conversation and be truly present in those relationships And that's a beautiful thing Yeah, so much hope and so much help. We're gonna totally switch gears Okay, you live on a kettle ranch I do Tell us about that you say your husband works as a cowboy he's your co-owner and director But your husband Justin works as a cowboy cook with his very own chuck wagon and operates the family's kettle ranch I love this It is so much fun So we live on 140 acres down a dirt road We have lots of cows We have donkeys we have chickens We get outside and that's really grounding for me I love to be where I look out my windows and I see 100-year oak trees So that's our environment. We're passionate about you know farm to table. We Processed some of our own beef and we just have kind of a grounding effect with that My husband has a youtube channel. He is a wonderful cook I tease him that I married him because of how he can cook it's fabulous He it's horsepin ranch chuck wagon He has passionate about history of cooking getting outside cooking over the coals So he has even worked with some 4-H and taught them how to cook with the Dutch ovens and um Worked with kids to learn about that He actually does a cowboy cooking show at silver dollar city which is an amusement park are you familiar with silver dollars? But is there more than one or is it just one this is in Branson, Missouri? Oh, yeah, no Totally been there Okay, and we've been to there's like a theater there. I spoke at a conference there Then we went to silver dollar city with my friend Rachel and I'm pretty sure that silver dollar city. There was like this um Okay, not only is there the amusement park? I'm I'm 100% sure actually because I can picture the picture that we got there You can go in this cave. Yes You can like this huge cave and there's like bats, you know, I mean it was like quite the experience Yes, okay, so he works there. Is this near where you live? It's three hours north, but he only works there during the Cowboy Harvest festival Which is about six to seven weeks in the fall But he does a cooking show with his wagon teaching Partgoers and kids how to cook over the coals how to make coffee outdoors And just the history of the American West And he's passionate about teaching kids to cook especially outside because it's fun What what an interesting life that you have both of these things So he is guy his own YouTube channel. What's his YouTube channel? Horsepin ranch. Oh, you said that horsepin ranch So is this newer is this like when you got married was there already the cattle ranch It's we bought the land early when we were married, but it's taken a long time to build it to this place And we've added land since the original track where we built our house um But it's taken time he was cooking early on but he's really developed in his outdoor cooking skills and Just love sharing the history of it and kind of getting back to your roots Yeah, the cooking outside So interesting. So do you go along with him? Any ghost to that cowboy harvest festival? I do. I can't spend all the time there because I have a few other hats that I wear but um So our dollar city is the 1880 so you have to wear like period correct clothing And you walk in and we have an apartment kind of on site because he's a an entertainer there And we walk into the park and it's just it's a beautiful. There's low stress in the 1880s There wasn't cell phones there wasn't technology and It's it's just a nice step back in time. Yeah, that's a really cool park We had a great time there and I thought the mind thing was super interesting So there was a lot to do so a gosh. I want to go back that's in the fall the cowboy harvest festival I'm not even heard of that we went to this um theater. It's called Oh It's like Bible stories and it's called it's right there in Branson. I'm looking it up. Right and sound It's called science sound. Yeah, so we went into that too And then I was like I said I was speaking at a conference. It was a cool area to go to there was a lot to do So interesting. What do your kids like working on the ranch? Then too my son has done more of the ranch work He has worked at our ranch and other local ranches on a horseback and he helps feed. Hey Selling his own cattle helps him have money through college. So he's in college right now um so yeah Wow, what an interesting life You got so many different so many different parts of it Can you talk about over the last 20 years you're you're helping with these evaluations? So you're talking about autism spectrum disorders, oppositional defiant disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, tick disorders, mood related disorders, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalcula, intellectual functioning and adaptive functioning Is there anything that parents need to know about? Testing like you know, should there be early testing when do we do that? You know, how do we know if our child is hitting markers or not? In any sort of early life parenting advice Those are some great questions I will say that Meeting getting that early checkups with a pediatrician is a good marker for are they meeting milestones? So they're they're kind of a watchdog to make sure and most pediatricians refer Pretty readily for psychological testing But I will say to that parent if you have a gut feeling that something isn't working right Something is off Feel free to seek a second opinion or just call and set up testing yourself It's a lot of times that parent intuition is correct and not every pediatrician in that 15 minutes you're in the office sees Exactly what you're seeing And it can be a lonely and scary process. It you know, I don't require a referral from a pediatrician if you're just Afraid and your gut says something is off Then it's probably better to get in line and rule that in or out um, and I would say too if you're afraid of a diagnosis it takes courage It takes courage to put your child under a microscope But I think you're going to learn so much whether or not there's a diagnosis It's worth it. It's worth walking through that journey if you have some concerns So then you can figure out what's next Absolutely and early parenting strategies. I would say Choose your battles It's very um we get anxious when our kids do things wrong because it feels like we're failing and then our kids are gonna fail in life And we kind of catastrophize Okay, if they talk back to me they're going to be in prison in 10 years and I'm failing but Take a breath and choose your battles Decide what truly matters side steps to the ones that don't I mean don't be afraid to tell your child know But choose what matters so that they know what matters and not everything becomes a battle Yeah, you say you like to make homemade soup making homemade soup matters That's the word nearby. Oh, I was like that matters But yeah, you're at a lot of things don't over you know, and over time Kids grow out of different types of things and so I so appreciate this conversation You have such an eclectic life so many interesting things that you're doing and I do think though that they all tied together Right, which is like you talked about you know, you're out you're you're really impacting the world and intersecting parents lives when there's probably some fear and trepidation and they might feel hopeless and so you have your own part of your life That's grounding for you you like to read you're making soup you're out with the animals You know, you're doing these hands-on things That's I would imagine balancing out spending time with families that are maybe in a low point and really need a lot of assistance and And then you're seeing and you can read it on the website all of the The happy tears type reviews that are coming from these actual things that are helping children and will help them in the long term 97% retention over a Over you know, this full-year period and then they have those skills moving forward So such an honor. I'm so glad that we've connected you are doing incredible things in the world and Like we talked about it's like the attention is dipping and that is not on an upward the upward slope or trajectory at this point at all so things tend to be on this kind of downward slope because of technology These things will be helpful for years to come We always enter show with the same question with the favorite memory from your childhood that was outside A favorite memory from my childhood outside My mind goes immediately back to the camping trip with the trails built in and the smell of pine trees and Running ahead of my parents and just seeing around you know, what's around the next corner Just all the sights and sounds of those trips are forever ingrained because we did live in town So those camping trips were just right in the mix of nature and I loved it So yeah, what a memory I would I would be curious about your kids meant what your kids would say you know growing up with this Kettle-Rent what a cool thing Junior, so what an honor. I love what you're doing It's so helpful for parents and I appreciate that you came on to talk with us today I'll make sure I put all the links in the show notes so people can come find you. Thanks for being here. Well, thanks for having me