Full PreFrontal

Ep. 139: Elizabeth Sautter MA, CCC-SLP - Know Thy ‘Emotional’ Self

February 15, 2021 Sucheta Kamath Season 1 Episode 139
Full PreFrontal
Ep. 139: Elizabeth Sautter MA, CCC-SLP - Know Thy ‘Emotional’ Self
Show Notes Transcript

The most basic human experience is to be able to communicate; express thoughts and ideas clearly and meaningfully while being fully understood. Most of us are unaware of the nature of these true gifts that allows humans to construct and build relationships from the ground up by launching nuanced skills such as reading faces, reading the room, and reading between the lines. Hence, the foundational skills of a self-regulated learner always includes strong emotional literacy skills which out weighs the emotional stressors of everyday life. 

On this episode, Elizabeth Sautter, M.A., CCC, returns to discusses how well-built human communication becomes handy when dealing with meltdowns, mood swings, and a sense of being overwhelmed that big-emotions often bring on. The key to the life-long benefits of successful transitioning from childhood to young adult is having found empowerment in tools to become aware of one’s own emotions and knowing how to guide them.


About Elizabeth Sautter MA, CCC-SLP
Elizabeth Sautter, M.A., CCC, is a Speech and Language Pathologist, award-winning author, blogger, and highly sought after speaker specializing in social and emotional learning since 1996. Elizabeth’s interest in social learning began early in life growing up with a sister who has developmental challenges. She is also a mom of two teens with complex social, emotional, and academic needs. These personal experiences have fueled a passion in Elizabeth to serve individuals and their families who are struggling with everyday challenges.
Elizabeth is the creator of Make Social Learning Stick, which provides consultation, training (including the Make it Stick online parenting course), and resources to assist children, teens, and their families in building skills and practical strategies to manage emotions, navigate social situations, and achieve their goals. She is the co-author of the popular children’s book series, Whole Body Listening Larry. She is a collaborative trainer for the Zones of Regulation, and co-author of the accompanying storybooks, card decks, and games.
Elizabeth is the co-founder of Communication Works, a speech therapy practice providing services to schools, individuals, and their families. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband, two teenage sons, a cat, and a dog, and firmly believes that social-emotional learning has changed her life and wants to do the same for others.

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About Host, Sucheta Kamath
Sucheta Kamath, is an award-winning speech-language pathologist, a TEDx speaker, a celebrated community leader, and the founder and CEO of ExQ®. As an EdTech entrepreneur, Sucheta has designed ExQ's personalized digital learning curriculum/tool that empowers middle and high school students to develop self-awareness and strategic thinking skills through the mastery of Executive Function and social-emotional competence.

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Sucheta Kamath: Welcome to another episode of Full PreFrontal. My mission again, as you know, is to help people discover or uncover the hidden gems in your prefrontal cortex, which is at its best is able to guide steer an informed self to take the best decisions possible, adapt and change. It's a pivot on a dime, and particularly resiliently. Show up in spaces where you're met with challenge. And that can be done. If you become more knowledgeable about self, you are willing and able to self discover, and self assess. And if you're even more prepared, then maybe consult some people and see if they can inform you to look at yourself from a different point of view. And that's the mission of this podcast that how can we help people better themselves? How can we help people find ways to tune themselves. And let's not just think about ourselves, there are people we influence, such as our friends, family, or colleagues or peers, and maybe whole nation. So in order to influence people positively, and in a most self enlightened self interest way, I think the self work is so essential. So that's why this very special guest who is very graciously, kind of maybe forced to, but maybe agreed to come back. And it's Elizabeth Sautter, she is a dear friend and a colleague and other speech pathologists, you heard our previous episode, which we launched on a very special day when she actually came out with the second edition of her very popular, very successful book. So today, I thought we should really kind of hone in on her talent and ability to foster parents ability to empower their children. So Elizabeth is a very, she's award winning speech language pathologist, she's a blogger, she's highly sought out a sought after speaker. She also is an author, she has produced these new deck of cards, which are really a treat for people to have it. And for clinicians or even parents to just have it handy on a rainy day or a non rainy day, particularly if your kids are having difficulties, great to reach out and to practice some skills. And finally, she also is a collaborative trainer for the Zones of Regulation, Leah Kuypers, was a guest as well, who is an accomplished occupational therapist. And their collaboration also has empowered many, many clinicians to bring a message of hope and a very specific, strategic process. So welcome, Elizabeth to the podcast once again.

Elizabeth Sautter: Thank you so much. And I'm just going to clarify because it is my pleasure to be here. You did not force me. I am honored.

Sucheta Kamath: That's because you're very generous and kind. So today, I wanted to take some time and talk a little bit about your specific advice and approach to helping parents become the most effective successful and parents whose children are there their partners and their you're not teaching your children but you're working with your children, you're living with your children, and, and operating a one beautiful family unit. So tell me a little bit about your parenting principle. What influenced you the most about parenting? Where did you gather strength to find those skills and abilities that really make you a powerful influence around parents.

Elizabeth Sautter: And make it stick!

Sucheta Kamath: Make it stick. baby. Yes, stick

Elizabeth Sautter: Listen, Make Social Emotional Learning Stick, the title of the book and my on my website too. So I'm gonna, this is gonna be hopefully you're gonna have to cut me off if I get long winded here because I have so much to say. So research really does show that parents as they participate in will enhance socialization and the social skills with their child. And so that's why they're the parents are a child's number one social emotional coach. And so we spend so much time in the schools, you know, with social emotional curriculum and, and training for educators and teachers and therapists and oftentimes we forget about the parents at home. And you know, when COVID when people and if people who might still be homeschooling their children, um, it's become, it's been my mission for so long to support the parents. But now it's even more you know, pronounced about the the need for doing that because now we're, you know, schooling our kids from home. Okay, so, the reason why I came up with my approach I'll start from the beginning is because, you know, I had a center, a multidisciplinary center in Oakland, California with some amazing therapists, including Leah Kuypers was one of them. The occupational therapist that you mentioned, but other speech pathologists and educational therapists. And we would run a lot of social groups. And, you know, we would see the kids for an hour a week, and there was all, we had the luxury of having the parents there, where the teachers don't always have the luxury of getting to see the parents very often. And so we would always do parent training. So you know, this work cannot be left on the shoulders of the kids, they're not going to say, like, Oh, I just learned how to give somebody a compliment, or how to think about others and how to pause before I interact in the group. And I'm going to go home and do that at dinner, and that recess, and whatever other just doesn't work like that. So you could practice over time, and we're trying to build those pathways for the children to gain the skills, but the parents really need to know what to do as well. So every session, we train the parents, and some of the parents that, oh, you should write a blog about this, or you should write a book because our approach was really like how do you do this in the natural environments in real time for what they're doing every day with their children, you know, parents don't have the time to go to a Zones of Regulation training, or social thinking, or whatever I mean, some parents do. But if we can make this really simple for them, and show them that they can actually boost social emotional learning, when they're in the car with their child, when they're at the dinner table, when they're cooking dinner, when they're reading books, or watching TV, that's just total empowerment, and bringing this to another level of confidence that they can embed this into their, into their world, I call it embracing teachable moments. But then also to another pivotal time with me with me was when my own son, in third grade was struggling. And, you know, it's a big push to get him tested because he was super high functioning and academic cognition. But he was struggling to focus and attend. And sure enough, he was diagnosed with ADHD, learning disabilities and anxiety. And it was a lot to get him his services. But of course, I had him going to educational therapy and getting him the support that he needs. But when even when he was doing that, the the assignments, were just sitting there looking at me, you know, I feel guilty that I'm not doing the worksheets, and whatever else we're supposed to be practicing. And they're just another eye opening piece of, we need to give this information to parents in a way that it's attainable for them. And then it can inspire them, and bring on that confidence so that they can then be calm. It's a self regulation and self care strategy for them to have these strategies in a simple way, so that they can connect with their children. So that's why I just said, Yes, I have to write this book. And so that's the book Make Social and Emotional Learning Stick and the two card decks to go with it. The book is in context based home, community, holidays, special events, and bridging school and home. And then the cards are not context based, but they're just real simple activities, that parents can just open a page and say, oh, we're going to go on a car ride, what can I do in the car? Or? Oh, yeah, that's a great idea. Like while I'm reading books with my child or watching TV. So that's the approach that I am on a mission to share is it doesn't have to be this big philosophy and theory and curriculum and frame framework, it just can be everyday routines and activities.

Sucheta Kamath: Well, thank you for taking the time and kind of walking us through this, as you said, personal experiences can be so powerful and grounding. And you talk so compassionately, and candidly about your struggles, your your son's struggle. So I appreciate that. The thoughts come to my mind that you know, you begin by talking about this, that there are many, many set of skills that are that go into self regulation, you know, you have sensory modulation, you have language based information processing, we have social communication language, which we talked about last time. This, this bringing a sense of coherence to life experience. And what do you feel are the challenges for parents when they and Ellen Taylor Klaus was one of the guests a while ago, and she also has complex kids, and she as a parent coach got informed from that. But I find that parents haven't thought a lot about shifting their parenting approach and lesson until they run into a problem with their method not working. And this method may or may not be informed by anything very profound, but they certainly haven't given a lot of thought about why change and and what you talk about your work and I talk about In my work is change is acquired because the child is not responding. So can you talk a little bit about that resistance that you sometimes see in parents annoying resistance, or these children who are not responding to those traditional conventional wisdom methods of why that could be? Do you have some examples for that?

Elizabeth Sautter: Yeah. Okay. So I have, again, a lot to say here. One thing that I just want to say is, you know, this is I can relate to what you're talking about, because actually, Carrie Linda Moose, who's a executive function coach, and she's one of the co authors of the Brain Talk Curriculum.

Sucheta Kamath: With Hanna Bogen, yeah.

Elizabeth Sautter: Yeah, with Hanna Bogan. And she talks, she was actually my son's educational therapist. And when she trains a lot, she would she talks about how there's certain kids in different ways. And we've you know, that everybody has their own analogy, but she uses the analogy of, there's some kids that are like weeds, you just, you know, they're gonna grow wherever you put them, you can't stop them from growing. And then there's some kids that are a little bit more like, you know, they need more like an orchid like, they need more nurturing, or they need more fertilizer, or like a hothouse to like, you know, to nurture them a little bit. And, you know, as parents, we are not any parent, there's no handbook or guidebook, right. And then you have a child that has additional complex needs. There is absolutely no handbook or guidebook for that. And it can be really overwhelming and defeating, and even myself as a mom, and I felt like I was so equipped with all the tools, being a speech therapist, and you know, I did babysitting and did a lot of childcare and whatnot, bring it, you know, bring it on. And then then I have a child that's, you know, a typical is developing and just struggling in different ways. And then, of course, you like, you know, go down the Google rabbit hole, look at, you know, all the books for parenting and, and it just can be extremely overwhelming. And, you know, I pulled out all the strategies with my boys, I called myself a mama fist. Because, you know, as a therapist and a mom, you're just always watching for milestones, and just trying to figure out what's going to help and, and so all the strategies, and it worked when they were younger, you know, super flex, and all these mindfulness, and I even caught myself saying to my kids, when they were being then they started resisting a little bit, right. And I caught myself saying things like, well, research shows, and blah, blah, blah. And like, I can't even believe I just said that to my own kids. And so and so. And then they started slamming, that I call myself a strategy saleswoman, and they were slamming the door in my face. And so then you just go down this, like self defeating, just overwhelmed, like, what am I doing wrong, my child's not responding to this, and it's just, it just can be so overwhelming. And so then, you know, hopefully, you can get with other parents who are going because it's really hard also to when you're around parents who are kids are the weeds, and they're just like, Oh, yeah, she's off studying, or he's off doing a debate tournament, or, you know, whatever it might be, and you're like, I can't even get my kid to take out the garbage, you know. And, and so it's just, you know, you have to have your cohort of other parents who are that's why we have the community and whatnot, make it stick parenting community is, you know, so we can be with each other and support each other and realize you're not alone. It's not you, you're doing a great job and your kids, a great kid, not broken, you know, and but there are things that we can do. And so how can we support each other in doing those things, and that's just been a big part of my mission is supporting parents and making sure they feel confident with the tools that they need, but also that they're practicing self care and compassion, because this can be extremely overwhelming.

Sucheta Kamath: So talk about the this idea of triggers that, you know, there, you you work. In your book, you talk a lot about kind of helping parents tune into those kind of sticky situations and sticky points that may be either the child or the parents together are tripping over and that can lead to a big explosion, it can lead to a lot of unnecessarily exaggerated, exasperated household. So what are your suggestions? What are the triggers? And how do you suggest people discover them? And do you have some strategies for us to kind of apply to those difficult situations?

Elizabeth Sautter: Absolutely. So triggers are basically anything, you know, trigger can be something positive or negative. It's just something that sort of changes in the moment. We think about triggers as a negative thing, and that's fine because you know, that's, you know, negative things are the ones that we want different, right, you know, when your child is having a big reaction or you're having you wanted to Go away. And actually, your child having a reaction is oftentimes most of the time, a trigger for us, right? So we want to fix it. And that's why we say silly things like, it's not that big of a deal, or you stop crying or whatever it might be. And then that like, you know, it's like throwing oil on the fire, not water. And so there's little things that we can do to adjust. So I think that there's a couple of things that you mentioned is, and this is this is not actually in my book I allude to it. But this is in the parenting course that we have, is going deeper and figuring out what where your child's lagging skills are. So because those can oftentimes be the trigger. So module two of the course is module one, we introduced the WISE model, which stands for wisdom, intentionality, self-care, and everyday strategies. And so the W, and then we talk about the parents being the wise owls, I love that. And so the the the W is the wisdom, and that's where you have to figure out where your child is struggling, and also where they have strengths, because we want to have a strength based approach and focus on nobody wants to be home, like, Oh, you're so bad at this. And if you had talked about all your weaknesses all day long, you would just go into a shell and never come out, right. So we obviously want to focus on all the strengths and great things that our children have to provide and who they are, but then boost up their challenges. So you want to figure out where they are struggling where those lagging skills are. Because, like you mentioned, it could be sensory overwhelm, it could be language processing, it could be executive function, task initiation, planning, and organizing, working memory, whatever it might be, and then figure out where you know, at that moment in time developmentally, where they are, is the best place to support them. And we call, you know, when they are continuing to have triggers, we call that kind of like the pitfall moments you fall into that pitfall. And you might you fall into it with the child, or you can throw them a ladder, and you can help them climb out. And that's that co regulation piece of, you know, meeting a child where they're at as an adult, and helping them either up or down regulate. And those could be things like taking a breath for you taking a breath for them. And even just doing that, it just changes the whole energy, even between the two of us and everybody listening. We want to be able to make sure that we're getting in rhythms with our children, we don't want to bring chaos to you know, we, yeah, and we, and we really hate this is what we talked about in our courses, we want to absorb the oxytocin, which is that love nurturing hormone, and that's out of those, those meltdown situations. That's not when you're in the pitfall that's outside. So that's that special time, that's the humor, that's that inside jokes, that's there all the times where you're absorbing the oxytocin so that then they can be receptive and have that rapport and strong times strong bond with you for when they need you, which is called cortisol. Because when they're having that stress hormone that comes out, we want to be able to have them be receptive to us to throw those ladders, wet down there and help them get out of those pitfall moments. By using words, you know that by calming, validating their feelings, maybe you even stop talking, you definitely change your tone of voice, and you're all the things that you do with their intonation, and all the things that it does to calm the sub cortex so that they can get back into that prefrontal cortex for initiation. And whatever it might be that you maybe it's just even getting back to the fun, whatever it might be. And you also want to think about the environment to how you're setting up the environment, to keep their brain in a place that can have them be in a thinking and calm state.

Sucheta Kamath: I love that. And thank you for clarifying. I had David Burns on one of my podcast episodes, and we were talking about negative emotions and positive emotions and then he clarify help clarify which had kind of forgotten but that they're good positive emotions and good negative, you know, good and bad, positive emotion, same. Similarly, you can have good negative emotions and bad negative emotions. And I think similarly, the trigger is is a also a nudge. So when it's a nudge to change, or it's a symbolic representation of change, it can be positive, it doesn't need to be negative. That's great. And I love this concept also, which you kind of emphasize this this co regulation to have that synchronous I call with my parents I call that a synchronous swimming, you know, kind of like the whole family is in the pool. And we are synchronizing swimming, you know, it's such a beautiful image. And what's so amazing about that imagery is what's happening under the water. So you don't just show the hands that are symmetrical, but the legs are symmetrical, but you can't see them. And I think that idea is also very, very valuable for thinking about parenting. Talk a little bit about this, the other concepts that you talk about in your parenting discussions. I love this idea of social debriefing, for example, which kind of our or maybe before we talk about social debriefing, maybe you can talk a little bit about setting the stage for that social encounter and then debriefing, I, when I read about the work that you're talking about, it's almost seems like a either, you know, after a great win or loss of a football team, or maybe White House debriefing, you know, so what is this concept of debriefing? And why should parents really inculcate that into their relationship with their parenting of their children?

Elizabeth Sautter: It's a huge piece for priming, and knowing what's expected is, and having predictability and routines is like one of the number one if when you don't know what's expected, and having things being unpredictable, is one of the number one causes of anxiety. And so, you know, we always call when we go to, before we go to a party, is there going to be parking? Is there going to be food, what are you wearing, because we want to, you know, be knowing what's coming ahead of us. And so this is something that we do in life all the time. And, you know, we talked about in our last discussion about all the hidden rules that are in, in life, and so, and a lot of our kids, you know, don't know, because they never experienced those things, maybe they have working memory issue where they don't remember those things. Maybe they have perspective, taking issues. So they, you know, forget and it's just constantly changing from culture, to culture, from household to household, from situation to situation. And so, us as parents, we can have this, we have this knowledge, and we forget to tell it to our kids. So I talked a lot about yet, it's definitely like, you know, priming our briefing and debriefing, like before a court case, or the White House, or like, you know, doing the like, before a game where you do like a, you know, a scrimmage, and then you do post game or pregame, you know, the, all the different plays that you're have to memorize. It's exactly that, you know, and all the practices and whatever, we need to do that for social and emotional learning, so too, and so that's what I'm empowering parents to do. So in my book, there's, like I mentioned, there's four sections, home, community, holidays, special events, and bridging home in school. And each, it's context space, so that they can teach in those contexts. And at the bottom of each page, I have the hidden rules. And these hidden rules start really, really early at three months of age, infants start realizing the subtle patterns in their in their world. And so this is, you know, all everything from when meals going to be coming, you know, when you're going to be napping, to you know, bathroom rules, to library rules to sarcasm, all the code switching and hidden rules that are just changing all the time. And so what we can do is we can empower our children to be aware of those to practice that to roleplay we can write social stories, we can make movies, the deeper your child's needs might be the deeper you might need to go with the teachable moment. And this is we want to be practicing this outside of the situation. So that's what I mean by the briefing and the debriefing, because you know, in the car, or before people are coming over or wherever it might be, you want to be briefing them, priming them, coaching them scaffolding for what's coming ahead. This is Oh, don't forget, we take off our shoes when we go to these people's houses and and I know it's not part of our household, but we you know, it just put your head down and close your eyes before we eat because we pray, they pray blah, blah, blah, and all these different things that you need to let them know about so that they can feel comfortable and help with the situation flow. And then afterwards, you can do the debriefing or what Rick LaBoy calls a social autopsy, and then talk about how it went like oh, yeah, like, it was so hard to wait for the birthday person to blow out the candles. And that was awesome that you did that. But you know, when when somebody it's their birthday, it's it's actually they're the one who opened the presents. So when you open the present, you know, it's kind of a little bit unexpected. How do you think that made Johnny feel? And just like dissecting it a little bit so that they can understand and hopefully have that in that working memory for the next time that they go to that birthday party and they want to they want they want to be invited back to Johnny's birthday party, right. So yeah, next time they won't open the present. Or maybe they can send a little text to say I'm sorry, or whatever it might be,

Sucheta Kamath: You know this, can I share a funny story about these? Go on and on, right? Oh, my god, yes. Well, my mother grew up in a very tiny, tiny village in India, and she got married very young. She was 19. And my father grew up in the city, Bombay, and he was much more worldly than she was. And when they got married, and they came, came to the city, and so my father took her to this very fancy place. So first of all, you have to remember my mother had not eaten at a restaurant, because that was just not part of the culture you eat at home, it was considered, in fact, not kosher to eat at a restaurant, because you don't know who the cook is who the chef is, whether they have washed the utensils, whatever. So, so this, this was a particular joint where they would serve, it was a afternoon tea, so there was a, you would be sort of tea and they would have this tea, with three different types of pastries, and cakes and things like that. And my mother did not know this, but my father thought she knew it. But she had never been exposed to anything like that. So you get charged for the amount of pastries you eat on this tea. Now, she grew up in a culture where you do not leave a single ounce of grain of rice in your plate, because that's considered rude. So here she is. So the waiter brought these 25 pastries. She's eating one by one. So my father is petrified, like, Oh my god, I married a hog. My mother's saying, Oh, my God, like, I don't want to be rude. But the man will think that I'm just obnoxious. And so she's finally after 15 of them. She says, I don't think I can eat anymore. And he's getting sick. And so my father says, Oh, I thought you want it. You were hungry. He said, she said, No, I just didn't want to be rude and leave some unfinished. And my father had to pay so much money for the pastry that he thought his dainty wife will eat one or two. Oh, my goodness. So yes, debriefing would have helped.

Elizabeth Sautter: right priming would have helped or briefing ahead a time. There's I mean, there's so many stories about, you know, funny things that kids have done, and hopefully that, you know, it can get like serious though it can be it safety wise, you know, like not knowing what's expected in these situations. And so it's, it's, yeah, I have so many stories about kids in our social groups and how they've, you know, not understood when in our group that we're talking about perspective taking and how you know, I always encourage parents to don't buy gifts on Amazon and for your child, have them go with you to the toy store to Target wherever you're going to go and have them pick out based on what they know about the other person. That's a huge perspective taking that's exactly a tip right there. Right. So anybody for the holidays, you know, don't just buy your kids gifts for their, that they're buying for other people have them be involved with it, because it's huge perspective taking, right. Okay, so we had a birthday party and one kid came in, we always do a check in in our social groups, and he said, Oh, I was so happy. I went, I bought, we talked about buying gifts. And it usually one of the hidden rules was buying gifts for people, things that you like that they might like to things that you have in common. And so he was proud of himself because he bought this his friend, a teenage friend. He wrapped up his new favorite deodorant, because he thought this other boy because he loved it, and it was helping him. So he's like, Oh, this is a great gift for somebody else. But that's the nuances of hidden rules, right? Like, you don't really get products to like especially deodorant, maybe perfume or cologne, but not deodorant. But how is somebody supposed to know that? What's the difference between giving deodorant and cologne, you know, it's all these nuance base things that and things like and everybody laughs and I didn't know why they were laughing. And so you had to dissect and do that debriefing about that.

Sucheta Kamath: So funny. Yeah, because you're suggesting you stink. That's why here. Yeah, I think like one thing that you're just pointed out here, which is so important that I think parents may be under estimating the power of these simple everyday decisions. That just for convenience, I'll just order it. I'll get it ready. You just take it with you. Please do. The mother has coordinated with the other guests' mother, what are his favorite books? What does he like? What does he already have? And none of that information. First of all, the parent has not empowered the child to do that investigation or perspective taking exercise. But also I think at a risk of, you know, having to increase our work. We are compromising some of the foundational skill building process. Yeah. Because we are trying to be very quick and convenient and be very proficient. So lastly, tell me a few trip tips that your parents are so grateful that they learned from you that these are like the most amazing techniques that has changed what happens at home?

Elizabeth Sautter: I think, you know, we went over some of them with the priming and the pitfalls for the actual situations. But I have to go back to one thing that I preach and teach all the time and practice for myself is self care and compassion. So you know, parents and myself included are always looking for a magic bullet, what's that one strategy that's going to make a difference? What's that one tool, you know, or whatever it's going to be. And, unfortunately, parents, I have to tell you, and I'm telling myself this every day, there's not one tool, there's not one magic trick. It's a path. And it's a process. And we put together, you know, in the makeup parenting course, what has really helped for our parents, and what's really helped for myself on this journey. And I can share that with you another time. But the bottom of that journey is self care and compassion. And what we mean by self care is just doing things on a daily basis, whether that's mindfulness, or walking, or exercise, or food, or sleep, or whatever, being around people that nurture you, is doing that on a regular basis. Because if you as a parent do not have water in your own picture, you can't pour in the cups around you, there's just nothing there, you have a dry pitcher. And so that has to be first and foremost. And parents often think well, that's selfish, and they put themselves in the bottom of the totem pole, but it really has to come first and foremost, because even if you show up for your kids, you're not going to have the same ability to support nurture, or model, you know, whatever it is that you need to be modeling and you're not going to be able to take care of yourself. So and then the other piece of it is self compassion, which I follow the work of Kristin Neff. And, and you know, doesn't matter how many you know, walks and exercise or bubble baths, you take if you're sitting there on your walk, beating yourself up, and, you know, talking about how poorly you did this, and that and the other, you're not enough, it doesn't matter. So you know, we have to treat ourselves like our own best friend. And you know, have that one breath for me one breath for you. And one of the strategies that she gives it all leave with, as we were wrapping up is, you know, at the end of the night is the most for most people is the most common time when you before you're falling asleep if you can put your hand on your chest and your hand on your belly. And just soak that in. And then when you're throughout your day, you do that as a ritual at night, if you do that, throughout your day, when you just need a little grounding moment, you'll come back to that rested state of self calm self compassion. And so there's so many different things that I could suggest here. But you know, we're short on time. So I will leave it at that. And we'll have to just do this again. We'll continue more.

Sucheta Kamath: We do and thank you so much for sharing. I love this one breath for you one breath for me. I think I love Kristin Neff's work and and I think just to end with this thought that it's a journey. I think what I'm hearing is no matter. Don't let's not think about us being parents to K to 12 kid, you know, it's a lifelong journey. We can continue to better ourselves throughout this whole life that is ahead of us. So thank you for being here with us once again, before I let you go do you have any recommendations of your favorite books?

Elizabeth Sautter: I have so many recommendations for parents. I would absolutely recommend the Whole Brain Child by Tina Paine Bryson and Dan Siegel, Dr. Dan Siegel. And I have actually a while ago for my center, I did a book club with the parents. So I have some notes on that on a blog that I wrote a while ago. And then the other one that I would recommend that's been really helpful and especially in our world right now with our kids are so many kids that have anxiety is Dr. Dan Peters work of From Worrier to Warrior. And he has loved that yes, there's there's a companion book, one for the child and one for the parents. And it's been really phenomenal for my own son, my younger son has anxiety and for the parents that I work with as well. So I love Dr. Dan Peters work. And him as a person is just fabulous. I would recommend that.

Sucheta Kamath: Well, well I am again, very grateful for your time. Thank you for being here. Thank you, listeners for joining us today. If you love what you're listening to share with your friends, please Like us on social media and follow us. And here's to better parenting. Thank you Elizabeth, for being here.

Elizabeth Sautter: Thank you so much for having me. That's great.