Ep #82: Conquer Parental Comparison Syndrome and Parent at Your Child’s Pace with Dr. Joel Warsh

Have you ever wondered if you’re doing enough as a parent for your child’s health? I think this is a concern a lot of us have, especially with the growing statistics of 50% of kids struggling with mental health issues or chronic illnesses. And if this has ever been you and you’ve ever worried and wondered if you’re enough, this conversation today is for you because I had pediatrician Dr. Joel Gator on with me today. And I love the way that he approaches this. Of course, he has the statistics and the data, and he has the things that he feels will help your children stay well, but he does it in such a doable way.

He talks about just the most simple basic steps of checking labels and making little tiny small changes that add up over time and just the little differences over time, how much of an impact they can make. He speaks to the busy parents, the parents that are working on a budget, all of those things that feel like they’re kind of really tricky and he gives you ideas from wherever you are and I love that. This conversation was so uplifting and helpful for me, and I believe it will be for you too. It’s coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

Amy: Dr. Joel, I’m so happy to have you on the show today. Thank you for coming to talk to me.

Joel: Thanks for having me on. I’m really excited to chat.

Amy: Yeah, this is going to be so great. And I’m so excited to talk about your book. And this is, oh, my goodness, if we could just talk about how many people we discuss this with. Your book is called Parenting at Your Child’s Pace. And we all need this, because there’s this world of comparison that we all live in. And so, I think this is just such a critical topic and I’m so, so grateful to you for writing this book and coming and talking to us about it and just sharing some of these ideas with us today.

Joel: Yeah, thanks. I mean, I agree and that’s one of the big reasons why I wrote the book. For me, there were a couple of things. So, I’m an integrative pediatrician and so I really try to focus on prevention and holistic wellness. I did all the regular medical training, but I try to blend some alternative and holistic medicine in with modern western medicine. So, I thought that was important for parents. I think that parents are more stressed than ever, so I wanted a book that can run through the science, but also be a little bit funny and kind of de-stress parents.

And then just like you said, this comparison, and again going back to this stress level. I think stress is higher than ever and a lot of that has to do with social media and a lot of people don’t have their family around like they used to, to kind of have discussions with. So, we’re comparing to other families and social media which isn’t always the most realistic and it can be a very stressful time for parents, even though there are many things that maybe we don’t have to be as stressed about.

I mean, there’s always going to be some stress, but I think we’re maybe stressing about the wrong things sometimes. And so that was really one of my main goals with this book. And just to really arm parents with the questions that they’re probably going to be facing and kind of how to think through it like a pediatrician.

Amy: I love it so much. And I think one of the gifts that we have in raising kids in this day and age is that we have the internet, which provides us with so many amazing resources. And then one of the biggest challenges with raising kids in this decade is we have the internet and all this information that makes us feel like we don’t know what to compare. There’s just so much data and I think we can, yeah, I get kind of lost in it.

So, one of the things I would think that would impact parenting is if we are feeling anxiety or stress over not doing it right or comparing against someone else. And then I feel like we kind of take that pressure sometimes and push it on to children, if they’re not reading fast enough, if they’re not doing whatever it is, fast enough and then we’re kind of passing that on. We’re feeling it and anxiety is kind of contagious. Is this a problem that you sometimes are seeing?

Joel: I think it’s a huge problem. I think that most parents are very well-intentioned in terms of wanting the best for their kids. But they certainly see our own stresses and absolutely, parents are more stressed than ever. Mental health diagnoses are skyrocketing through the roof and these things, our kids are seeing it, they’re feeling it, they’re living it. And sometimes we want the best for them, but really the best thing for them is for you to work on your own mental health and for you to not worry so much about everything.

I mean, it’s good to be a parent and to worry, but you don’t want to worry too much. And that’s where I say to parents, “It’s okay if you worry a little bit. That’s fine. You can come to me and I’ll try to help you to calm down or to really focus on where to worry.” But over-worrying, that is a problem and I think that has permeated into parenting as a major issue right now because of all the stuff that we talked about before. Where we have Google and I think that it’s fine. It’s fine to Google. People are always like, “You shouldn’t Google.” I don’t agree.

I think you have the ability to look things up and to learn when you should be worried about something. There are things that are scary. There are things that you might not know about and you read X, Y and Z and you’re like, “Okay, maybe I should talk to the doctor about this or I should know about this fact.” So, I think that’s good. But I really try to remind parents whether it’s on social media or in the book, that you have to remember the way things are set up when it comes to online and understand that just because something says something scary doesn’t mean that’s true for you.

If you look up a basic symptom, gassiness or fussiness, you can easily go down a rabbit hole to cancer or you can easily go down a rabbit hole to dying. I mean, people, they’re so worried that their kid has X, Y or Z, very random rare thing that yes, if you have a very severe stomach issue, there’s going to be gas and fussiness and diarrhea. But just because you have a little bit of gas doesn’t mean it’s that very severe thing. The world’s very litigious, and so everybody puts kind of the worst case scenario online.

Also, it wants you to click on things, so you can see the most severe and the most abnormal things that you might be seeing. But the reality of what a doctor does is, they’re kind of taking that picture. And that’s what parents sometimes don’t do. They just see the one symptom and they assume that it must be something wrong when the reality is most things are normal. And I remind parents, I get texts from parents all the time and out of maybe 1,000 texts that I get, one thing really needs more. 99.9% of the time, everything is normal and then that small, small percentage of the time is when we need something more.

So, most of the time when a parent is worried it’s not actually something that’s super scary. And I think that’s comforting just to remember that even if you’re worried about something that’s okay to be worried, but it’s probably normal. So maybe you de-stress a little bit. If you read that worst thing, that’s probably not the case for your child. There’s a whole picture that goes into a lot of those things. And a lot of parents don’t, unless you have some medical training, you kind of work through or you have some older kids, you realize that it’s not one symptom, it’s multiple symptoms.

It’s many things together. It’s a bigger picture. And that’s what kind of puts the pieces together to the more scary thing as opposed to gas means I have this bad thing.

Amy: So, this is such an interesting thing because I think I went through a really scary experience with one of my kids. And it looked like it wasn’t that big of a deal and then she stopped breathing. And so, I’m like, “Oh, this is like.” I think we have our stories and then we want to protect our friends and we’re like, “Oh, this thing, if this is happening, you’ve got to watch out.” But usually that’s not a thing, and it’s really not that big of a deal. And so how do we help ourselves?

I love that you had that statistic, one in a 1,000 of the texts, it’s not that big a deal. Is there a way to be responsible and then also be able to stay kind of calm? What do you recommend for parents in balancing that, I need to be aware and be a responsible parent and also I don’t have to stress all the time about worst case scenario?

Joel: I mean I think you said it right there. That’s why I tell people it’s good to be aware, but not necessarily to be stressed. If you are worried about something, call the doctor, go get checked if you’re extremely worried about something. Generally, you know, I mean, most of the things that are emergencies that are actual emergencies, I’m not sure. Quite a lot of times when I’m talking to parents and they’re not sure, I’m like, “If it’s an emergency, you’re usually very sure.” Other than that, in general, you have time to see which direction things go. Very, very few health emergencies are extremely urgent, go to the hospital right now.

And if that’s happening, you kind of know it. They’re not breathing, you know they’re not breathing, you’re calling 911. If they’re having an epileptic reaction, you know, this is going on, it’s very severe. You’re not like, “Oh, I’m not sure what’s going on.” You know. Every other thing, often it progresses. And luckily for people that live in modern society, you have a hospital usually within not too far away or you can call 911 if you need it. So, you have some time to kind of watch, see if things get worse, see if things get better.

The vast majority of the time we’re worried about something at the height of the symptoms. And then I talk to them 15 minutes later, “Oh yeah, it’s much better now.” You’re kind of in those waves, but folk forget about that in that very second. But if your child is still breathing and they’re still talking to you and they’re not having severe trouble breathing or not waking up. Then almost everything else has some time. And if things are going to get to that bad state, it’s going to happen usually progressively and you’re going to see one symptom, then it’s going to get worse. Then you’re like, “Well, this is really bad, it keeps getting worse. Well, let’s go to the hospital.”

But if they just have a cold or a runny nose or a little bit of trouble breathing, then usually it’s not going to turn into something that needs to go to the hospital. And we forget that we’ve all been through this before, and sometimes just remembering, I’ve had a cold before, I had the flu before, it’s not the end of the world. You don’t feel good, but you just lie on the couch and you’re good in two or three days. And that’s the same thing for kids, but we just forget that when it is our kids, we worry more.

Amy: Because we just want to save them. We want to protect them, yeah.

Joel: And which you can’t. I mean you cannot protect kids from illness. The kids will get sick. I think my role as a pediatrician and my role as a dad and our role as parents is to make our children as resilient as possible so that way they can bounce back as fast as possible. You’re giving them all the tools to handle what comes their way. But no matter what you do, you’re not going to have a child that’s never going to have a cold or a stomach bug. There’s no way to, unless you live in a bubble somewhere in a mountain, maybe then. But other than that, they’re going to get sick, so that is a part of parenting and we’ve all got to be ready for it.

Amy: I love that so much because I think that goes well beyond medical things as well. Our kids, we can’t protect them from all their hard stuff. They’re going to have it, it’s coming. And so, if we’re trying to protect them all the time, we’re really just kind of not teaching them the muscles that they need to be able to deal with hard stuff. And so maybe a different approach is to help them build that resilience like you talked about and help them bounce back really quickly. So, what does that look like from a medical standpoint? How do you help your kids be ready to bounce back fast?

Joel: The main things that I think about because there’s so many things that you can do to lead a healthier lifestyle. But I try to always focus on the things that we can actually do today that are more simple, that we can kind of work into our lifestyle without being too overwhelming because it can get very overwhelming for parents. But I focus on the foundations, I call it the seeds of health, so stress, environment and toxins, exercise, diet and sleep. The two biggies for me are food and toxins.

And realistically, the healthier that they’re eating, the better the nutrients that they have, the more vitamins that they’re getting on a daily basis, the fewer toxins that you’re exposed to. Your body is going to be more prepared to handle anything that comes its way. But if you don’t have all the nutrients that you need, then how is your immune system going to function at the best that it can? If your immune system is dealing with 5,000 toxins right now, then it has to also deal with the virus and it’s not going to work optimally.

So, to me, the more that we can focus on these very basics of eating fresher food and getting those nutrients through food, eating the rainbow, getting more veggies, getting more fruit, going to a farmer’s market, those kinds of things, it’s simple, but it’s not simple. It’s something we have to really go back to because we have moved towards a society over the last 50 years or so of faster, cheaper, easier to do, mass produced and that’s great, but you lose something for convenience. And what we’ve lost with convenience is health.

And you can’t make something in a mass produced way the same that you would get from a small local farm. And a lot of what we’re eating these days is processed, it’s full of sugar. It’s not real food. It’s not basic food like an apple. It’s something that comes in a package and there’s a lot of preservatives and chemicals in there. It doesn’t mean you can’t ever eat those things, but if you’re eating it all the time then you’re not giving your kids the best chance to be healthy, and that’s what we’re seeing.

I mean, we are seeing that 50% of kids or so have a chronic disease. Diabetes rates are skyrocketing, one-third of kids in America have either diabetes or pre-diabetes. Asthma rates are skyrocketing. Autism rates are skyrocketing. Everything is skyrocketing. And we’re going in the wrong direction in terms of our health. So, we need to kind of take a step back and think about the things that we can do so we can move in a more positive direction because life expectancy is going down for the first time ever. There’s a good reason for that, I mean, we have traded our health for some convenience.

Amy: Sure. So, it’s so foundational really, it sounds like. It’s not about getting this medicine or doing this thing or that. It just goes back to the very basics which are sleep, food, what you’re putting in your body, paying attention to that, and that makes so much sense. And then I think too you talked about stress and I think we talk about this on the podcast quite a bit, learning how to help children manage that. And we do that so much by what we’re doing as adults and what we’re modeling as adults and so, I think that’s really valuable.

I think we also model food. When we’re having a good relationship with food and we’re bringing that food and that’s the culture we raise our kids in, then it becomes really normal for them. So maybe we start with ourselves and do an analysis of what we’re eating. Are we eating really fresh, healthy foods? And is it something that we enjoy? Is there a way that we could enjoy it more and make it more doable long term and bring that as something that they do with us.

Joel: Definitely. I couldn’t agree more. And you can’t expect your kids to eat healthy if you don’t eat healthy. And that doesn’t mean to me that you have to go through your house and just throw out a whole bunch of food. You don’t have to do that, but I think if we can be more mindful and start from today, reading labels, everything that you buy and purchasing things in a health conscious way, meaning that you look at the labels you start to learn about ingredients. You don’t have to have a PhD, but if you don’t know what the ingredient is, it’s probably not good for you so try not to buy that thing.

And you don’t have to go from chips to broccoli, but you can at least look at the bags of chips and say, “This one has this much sugar. This one has this much sugar. This one has these chemicals and this one’s homemade, it’s organic.” I mean, you can do those kinds of basic things and buy the better bag of chips. These little changes add up over time and then very quickly, you go from not eating healthy to eating much healthier. And it doesn’t mean that, again, you’re not eating any chips, but everything that they’re consuming is slightly better. And that makes a difference for them. It adds up really quickly.

There was this great study from Harvard where they were looking at soup. And they took a bunch of participants and they gave them five days of canned soup and five days of homemade soup. And they were looking at the BPA levels in urine, which the cans of soup are in line with the BPA toxin. And so, they took the urine samples, and they gave them the soup for five days with the can and they took it off and they gave them the homemade soup. And the difference was 1,000% for BPA in the urine, in just five days, was a 1,000% difference. And that’s just one chemical.

Just one chemical in five days, that big of a difference of what is going through your body and coming out. So just imagine that over every kind of chemical, everything you’re putting in your body and it doesn’t mean that you have that little amount of BPA is going to do anything to you. But imagine that over five years or ten years, plus every other thing. So, if you decrease that little bit, that thing and you’re giving them that homemade soup. Well, that’s 1,000% less of that one chemical. Now, what happens with all of the other things? It adds up, it makes a difference.

Amy: So, so true. And I think too, it sets a culture and I love, I like to study about brains. And so, when we kind of start a habit, it becomes almost harder to do the wrong thing than the thing that we’re trying to do when we make it regular, a thing. And so, I think as you just kind of make that a part of your lifestyle, trying to eat more fresh, trying to be a little bit more conscious of what you’re putting in. And I think those changes can start small. We had a thing when my kids were really, really little and my now ex-husband, but we were married at the time and he was in school and we had no money and we were so poor and I had all these little kids. And couponing was a thing and I got a year’s worth of free cold cereal.

And I grew up, my mom, ground wheat and made homemade mush for breakfast. So, this whole cereal thing was new for me, but it was really fun and we got all this free food. So, for a year my kids had this cereal that I had gotten with free coupons, which was great, it helped our budget. And then we get to the end of the year and I thought, I don’t actually know that I really want my kids eating cereal. And this is all they’ve eaten, so now they don’t want to eat anything else. And so, I was thinking, how do I transition them out into something I actually kind of want them to eat?

And I wanted them to eat oatmeal and so I started making oatmeal. Well, they weren’t super excited about the oatmeal after eating sugary cereal for a year. And so, I let them put sprinkles on them, little sprinkles. And they would just sprinkle a little thing of sprinkles on top of their oatmeal. And it made it fun and confetti and I don’t know, really, really fun. And I’m like, “I feel like this is, normally I wouldn’t put sprinkles on my oat milk, but I feel like this is a really good transition to help them move forward.” And now oatmeal is one of their favorite foods, and they love it for breakfast.

So, I think sometimes we can do gradual things and I think that’s what you were speaking about as well.

Joel: Exactly, that’s exactly what I’m speaking about because when I talk about this and I see a lot of people in the integrative space talking about it. For some parents, or anyone if you’re talking about healthy eating, it can be overwhelming. And it shouldn’t be overwhelming because you don’t have to do everything, that’s number one.

Number two, the comments that you always hear are, “It costs more or I don’t have enough time.” And it can cost more and that’s up to you and what your budget is and where you want to spend your money. I think it’s important to do whatever you can within your budget, eat as healthy as you can because there’s nothing more important than your health. And that’s where you’re going to get the most bang for your buck overall. But you don’t necessarily have to buy everything at the most expensive cost, the most perfect thing.

It still goes back to, well, if you have two choices, they can be the exact same price in the same store, and you’re looking at two different bags. And you’re just choosing the healthier option between those two. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be more expensive. Sometimes it’s less expensive, it just depends on the product. But it’s a bigger picture with a lot of small changes here or there. And exactly like what you said is a perfect example.

Maybe you don’t want your kids eating sprinkles, depending on what’s in the sprinkles. But if you can transition them away from the really not so good food to a better food, then you can do something in the middle that maybe it’s not exactly what you want for them, you don’t want them eating sprinkles for five years. But you are moving them in that direction and that’s a positive direction and even the sprinkles and the oatmeal are better than the cereal, so okay, great, so we’re doing this.

We’re moving them towards where we are and we’re working with our kids to kind of move them in a better direction. And that’s what I know that everybody can do. We can all do it if we’re mindful of it because we don’t want our kids to be sick. We all want the same thing. We want healthy kids and healthy families. And if we continue to have the excuses of money or time, then we’re going to be sick, our kids are going to be sick. That is just what it is. If you want to live the normal way that most Americans live then, if you have two kids, one of them is going to have a chronic disease. That’s the statistics as it is right now.

So, if you don’t want that, then you have to do something different. It’s okay if you don’t, that’s up to you, but that’s where we are. And so, we just, I think, have to prioritize this and go back to focusing on our health and our diet and do whatever we can within our budget and within the time to cook a little bit more, have a little bit more family time, buy things a little bit fresher. Whatever you can do that’s going to make a huge difference for your kids and even one more meal a week that you cook, one more fresh veggie, that could be enough to keep them healthy as opposed to not healthy. So, I just try to spread the message, just do what you can.

Amy: I love that so much. I think that’s so encouraging that every little bit counts. And I think that’s so true. I think that that’s one of those things like compounding interest, every little bit. And then if you can add on your 1% today and then you add on another 1% next week or whatever, it just makes it feel so much more doable than just trying to have this dramatic complete change that is too much for you and hard for your kids and all that, so, we just do gradual. I love that.

I also think it was really interesting what you’re saying. You’re basically making a choice to give up time and money either way. Because if you have two kids and one of them has a chronic disease, that’s costly and it’s very time consuming. And so, you’re not choosing to save your time and money to not make these changes. It’s just you’re choosing to spend it on something else instead of food and making food together and whatever, isn’t that kind of?

Joel: Yeah. No, it is. And I get that comment sometimes, “But what about the single mom who has no ability to go buy fresh fruit?” I’m like, “I understand that.” There are situations where you’ve got to do what you have to do. But as a doctor, as a parent, as someone who’s a health advocate, it’s my job, I think, to speak the truth and to tell people the reality of the world. And the reality of the world is most of the foods are really crappy and if you feed your kids that food then it’s not making them more resilient. It’s making them less resilient. And so, I think it’s important to be aware of it.

And then just to do whatever you can in that situation. And that doesn’t necessarily mean doing anything more than reading labels and just buying the best product within your budget and within your means and just buying better products from now on, but it could be the exact same price. So, I think that still gets you somewhere and we have to be mindful that on a lot of these chronic diseases, we were much healthier and didn’t have a lot of these things a few years ago. You talk about diabetes. I did a talk on diabetes a little while ago. And I was kind of looking at statistics of type 2 diabetes because it’s called adult onset diabetes. The name is adult onset diabetes because it was something that happens in adults. The average age now is 13 for onset.

Amy: Oh, my goodness.

Joel: I was looking at trying to get some statistics of then versus now 50 years ago and you can barely find statistics on it 50 years ago because it didn’t really exist or it was very, very rare. And yet now, again, it’s one-third of kids have diabetes or pre-diabetes, which is insane for a thing that didn’t exist really 50 years ago. So, we’ve got to go backwards a little bit. We’re better at treating infectious disease. People are living longer than they did 200 years ago, so it’s not all bad, but there’s some balance.

And I think we kind of focused on infections for a very long time and now not everybody’s dying at 40, which is good. That’s a good thing too. But we don’t want chronic diseases and we don’t want chronic diseases in our kids, so we have to kind of find some balance and be somewhere in the middle and look at well, okay, what are we doing better now in modern medicine? Okay, great. It’s good we have an MRI. It’s good we have antibiotics if we need them. All these things can save your life, but maybe we’re not eating the best. Maybe we’re not doing the best at chronic disease.

What were you doing better 50 years ago and let’s get back to that. And the simple things are we just exercised more. We walked around more. We did more and we ate better.

Amy: Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, I love that you keep talking about just taking a step at a time. And I think this goes back to comparing against yourself and where you were versus comparing about where you want to be or where others are, because that just always feels like such a gap. It can be so defeating especially if you feel like you’re in a place where ideal is impossible. That you’re saying, “Okay, if I just start checking labels and I buy this bag instead of this bag because I know a few more of the ingredients here”, or whatever.

And then just noticing the changes you’ve made so you can feel good about the fact that you are making progress. And I think that encourages us to keep making changes and finding ways to make changes. And so, it’s a way of giving ourselves some compassion, I think, which is really valuable, but then also, really helping us continue to make those growth movements forward.

Joel: Definitely. And it’s not, again, it’s not about shame. It’s not about blame. You learn what you learn when you learn it, and then you make different decisions based on when you learn it. And I think that for me growing up and for a lot of us, we didn’t come from a generation of a lot of parents cooking a ton. It was a lot of stuff was pre-made and fast food became cool. And all these things were just normal and this is just a part of our world now and it’s marketing and it just is what it is.

But we just have to be conscious that, well, maybe there are some other things that I could do differently given where we’re heading. And maybe yeah, I can cook a little bit more. Maybe I can take some cooking classes. Maybe my kids could learn if they’re older to do some of them. There’s so many things that you can do that can be great for the family and that’s whatever it is that you want to do, you pick it, you do it. But as long as we’re moving back in that other direction in terms of chronic disease, that’s what we want to see, but we’re not seeing that right now. It’s getting worse and worse and worse, it’s really bad.

Amy: Yeah, I love this, it’s a good message. Talk to me about parenting at a child’s pace and what you mean by that because I think it’s something so many of us need to hear.

Joel: To me it’s really about comparison. And especially in an age of social media, one of the most difficult things of parenting is comparing against all these other people and all these ideals that don’t even exist. I feel like 100 years ago you lived in a village, you had your grandparents around, you had the other kids. People were kind of comparing in their family, but it was, you just see what everybody’s doing and grandma’s saying it’s fine, whatever, don’t worry.

But you’re looking on social media at something that isn’t even real and then you’re stressed out that your kid isn’t doing this exact thing at this age. Most people forget that there’s a wide range of what’s normal. Every kid does things differently, and also what’s on social media isn’t even real. And a great example I love to give is, I work in Los Angeles, I work in a pretty affluent area where there’s a lot of celebrities and models and people that are in the industry here.

And so, I see some people that have pretty big followings and I will see them let’s say at a month old for the baby and they’re coming in. Maybe the parents are not in their best state right now. Nobody is in their best state at a month. They haven’t slept. They’ve got spit up all over them. They’re maybe not the happiest or even in tears, sometimes have a lot of questions, and then they go home. And I’ll sometimes see it on their Instagram or whatever an hour later, a post of the perfect nursery, holding up the baby. Everybody’s smiling, looking perfect. Hashtag blessed, hashtag love being a mom, hashtag love being a dad, so lucky, whatever.

And you’re like, “I just saw you an hour ago and you were in tears.” And that’s fine, it’s okay, but if you don’t realize that, you see this other person who is posting that’s like, “Why doesn’t my nursery look like that? Why am I not super happy? Why am I not looking perfect with my hair and makeup done and I’m in the room.” But that’s not what it is. It’s not real. So, we’re comparing ourselves to something that’s not even real and we’re creating a stress that doesn’t even exist.

Amy: Do you think there’s any value and if so, what is it to being then on these social media platforms and seeing things and kind of getting some awareness because it’s out there? We’re seeing activities, I mean, in the business that I run, we’re showing educational activities. We’re teaching kids how to read. We’re doing all these things. And then there is always some element of people saying, “Well, my kid isn’t doing, or maybe I should be doing more”, whatever. And that’s not the goal to make people feel pressured. It is to give ideas and help and information to try to give that. So how do we as parents be able to get the good things from that without having all of the pressure and maybe having it become a negative thing?

Joel: I think that comes with curating your feed. I think that’s the biggest thing, because social media is not bad at its core. It’s just become bad. I think it’s become bad because of the way that we use it, the amount of fighting, the what gets your attention. But you can curate your feed in any way you want. And I think for parents, if you get rid of things that make you stressed out, if you get rid of people that make you stressed out from social media or accounts that make you stressed out, then that will get you a long way.

Because if you love looking at puppies and beautiful homes and food or traveling from around the world, that makes you happier. Then if you’re seeing that stuff in your feed all the time that’s going to make you happier. If you’re seeing certain parenting accounts that are showing how perfect everything is, and then you’re comparing yourself to those other things and that’s making you stressed. Then that’s not necessarily a good account to follow. If you like learning then follow educational content that doesn’t make you stress up, that makes you aware.

It’s not about not learning, just like you said, if you get some great educational content that helps you to be aware of things, that’s fabulous. That’s what I try to do, I try to make people aware of things. But if I’m making people stress up, that’s not a good thing. I’m trying to make you aware of a situation that’s going on in the world so that you can know to look about it or to ask questions. If you’re constantly in this state of stress, and it’s just not good for you. So I think everyone has to evaluate themselves honestly, evaluate how it’s affecting them.

And then try to curate what you’re doing or get rid of it, yeah, if it’s really making you stressed, get rid of it for a little bit. But I don’t think that’s the answer for most people. The answer is going to be to really hone in on what you love and what you find helpful. And then if you open up your social media and you’re super excited to see it, then that’s probably a good thing. If it’s making you stressed all the time, maybe that’s not the best thing.

So yeah, I think we can curate it in a way and bring it back to something that’s really helpful for us. And then you can learn and be aware of things because sometimes people will be like, “I saw this and this post about botulism or something, they didn’t even know about that and then they catch it. It’s not a bad thing to be aware, but if reading about botulism stresses you out, even though your kid has a one in a million chance of getting it then move on.

Amy: That might not be the feed for you. I love that. I feel like that’s so helpful. And do you feel like doing that, if we did kind of our own social media analysis and see how the different things are affecting us and maybe make some adjustments that way. Does that impact then our parenting as we’re trying to parent and working with our own kids and the pressure that we feel around making them do this or that or be whatever, are those kinds of those things?

Joel: I think so, because imagine if you follow a whole bunch of Instagram accounts where it’s supermodels who have the perfect kids and the perfect home, everything looks perfect. And you’re like, “Oh man, I can never be like them.” Versus following a whole bunch of accounts where it talks about good enough parenting and all the ways that you’re doing great and all the positive encouragement and quotes and things like that will be like, “You’ve got this, you can do it. Everything’s going to be great.”

If you’re seeing that constantly then it might bring you up as opposed to bringing you down, comparing yourself. A teenager who has a bunch of accounts where they’re watching people travel all over the world and they’re like, “Why can’t I be doing that?” If that’s going to make you annoyed that you’re not doing it and it’s making you stressed because you’re miserable that you’re stuck at school. Then that’s not a good thing to follow. If you are a person who it makes you happy to kind of see the world and remind yourself of when you went to Italy so you see some places there, then that’s fantastic. It depends on you.

But you have the option to follow things that give you content on certain topics. And sometimes it just kind of becomes and morphs into something that’s making us stressed, because that’s what the internet and social media does. So, you can go back through what you’re following and who you’re following and get rid of everything and start over again or get rid of a whole bunch of it and kind of consciously choose what you’re doing.

Amy: I love that so much. I think that applies in so many ways as we’re kind of focusing on our own health, both mentally and physically. And then that being something that’s kind of contagious to our children too, and helping that calm or that lack of stress, I think is so impactful as we’re working with them so I love that.

Joel: The statistics again for mental health are extremely staggeringly scary. 50% of kids by 18 years old has a mental health diagnosis. Now, that’s insane. One out of two kids have a mental health diagnosis before they’re 20 years old. How did we get there?

Amy: That’s just so shocking and so hard to even hear really, yeah.

Joel: Right, exactly. I didn’t even know that stat till I heard it more recently. And I was like, “I knew it was bad but I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

Amy: That’s so, so much. So, okay, talk to me, we’re almost out of time, but I just want to know, so what kind of things do you share in your book to kind of help parents who are trying to, I mean, there’s so much, and we’re trying to figure out how to parent well, and do it at our kids’ pace. What kind of information do you offer in there to kind of help us all navigate this experience?

Joel: Yeah, I try to go through all of the, or many of the common questions that I hear every day in the office. So that way you can kind of run through the things that are most likely to come up and talk about things in a balanced way, giving both sides and kind of talking about the different big topics and how you can take in all that information and then do what’s best for you. I find a lot of information is very one-sided when you read it.

You read a potty training book from a certain expert and this is the one way that you have to do it and if you don’t do it this way, you’re never going to potty train. But the reality is that there are just so many ways to do most things. And so, I try to talk about the evidence, but also kind of give examples and then talk about each side. And then bring it back together to really remind people to, within the boundaries of what’s reasonable and safe, you pick whatever’s best for your kid. Get the information and then choose what’s best.

And I think the best example of that to me, is kind of feeding a baby at first, baby led weaning versus giving them purees. And parents are so stressed about how to do it and which one is right. And baby led weaning, if you don’t know what it is, is starting them off with food that you can kind of cut up really small and they could chew it as opposed to pureeing it. And there’s a whole world of people who are super into baby led weaning and you’ve got to do it this way. And then a lot of parents are very scared to give their six month old, actual food that they have to munch on, and so they’re scared they’re going to choke so they don’t want to do it.

But then they read, you’ve got to do it because they have to grow their muscles properly and there’s many reasons, what potentially are positive from baby led weaning so I’m not against it, but it stresses parents out a lot. And sometimes they’ll come to me and say, “I read this book, but I’m not really comfortable doing it. So, what do you think? I really don’t know if I should do it.” And I say, “Well, if it stresses you out every time you’re going to feed your kid, then maybe that’s not the best way to start. Start with something pureed, start with something that’s mushy, and then work your way up to that as you feel more comfortable.” But if you’re stressed at every meal, that’s going to go to your child.

And let’s put into perspective that there are kids around the world that don’t have any food. So, baby led weaning versus purees is not the thing you need to be stressed about. Having food is, focus on giving them healthy food. And it’s those kinds of things that we don’t think about. And we’re very social media centric, I don’t know what the word is, very focused on some of these problems that don’t really exist. It doesn’t matter if your kid’s baby led weaning or not really. Just [crosstalk] and they’ll get it.

Amy: I love this so much. I’m very excited for this book because I think so many of us need to hear it because there’s such, like we said, there’s so much information out there. And it is, everyone’s giving their very, very one sided perspective and it’s just so much. And so, I think giving ourselves permission to recognize there’s lots of ways to do it. There’s lots of ways to do it well, and it’s going to be okay and that’s okay. I’m excited. This is so good. Thank you so much for coming to share with us today and where can I send people to come and hear more from you?

I know I’ve been on your social media, on your Instagram and I’m already screenshotting. I’m like, “I need this message.” So, tell us where we can send people to find you.

Joel: Thanks. So, my Instagram is Dr. Joel Gator so you can find me there. Everything is from there. The book’s called Parenting at Your Child’s Pace. You can get it from everywhere where you get books or you can go to parentingatyourchildspace.com. And then if you go there and my email’s on there and you can email me if you do get the book. And then I’ll send you the first chapter, a bonus chapter and then a bunch of discounts.

I have a VIP kind of community where parents can chat with each other and ask questions and I’m in there as well. Because one of the big things that I’ve found is people always want a place to kind of discuss and ask more questions. And so, I did start that about a year ago or so. And so pretty active and exciting to have a place where parents can chat with each other and me. So yeah, parentingatyourchildspace.com if you want to grab the book.

Amy: Amazing. Thank you so much for coming and sharing and spending your time with us today, we so appreciate it.

Joel: Thank you so much. I appreciate everything that you’re doing.

Don’t you just love all the fun things we’re learning on the show together? Well, we wanted to give you a chance to practice a little bit of it at home. And so, we made you a special freebie just for being a listener here and you can grab it at planningplaytime.com\special-freebie. That is planningplaytime.com\special-freebie. So what this freebie is, I’ll tell you, is an amazing alphabet activity that you can start using with your kiddos and it is based in play and is so fun.

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Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website planningplaytime.com. See you next week.