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Feb. 15, 2023

Episode 67: Pursuing Parenting Tips For Toddlers On Up with Chris Lake

Chris shares parenting tips and strategies to help kids reach their milestones.

Chris Lake is the author of “How to Help Your Toddler Meet Their Milestones: 101 Behavior Hacks.”

He is a native New Yorker who has been working with children with developmental delays across the past two decades. He received his Masters in both General and Special Education in 2012. And in 2014, he started Community for a Cause, a nonprofit to initially advocate for children with lead poisoning. This nonprofit has successfully worked to aid New Yorkers in all five boroughs as well as people abroad. Community for a Cause has several branches that include Special Needs Advocacy, Homeless Relief, Sexual Violence Prevention, Environmental Protection, and a Community Building Branch. Through his charity, Chris Lake remains committed to doing all he can to help those in New York who are without a voice and all those who are in need of support.

In looking to expand his ability to provide for families of children with Autism, he wrote his book “How to Help Your Toddler Meet Their Milestones: 101 Behavior Hacks” to give families and providers a time-tested blueprint of how to develop children using evidence-based practice. 

*A portion of all book proceeds goes towards preventing and alleviating childhood lead poisoning.*

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Transcript

🎶 Podcast Intro: Welcome to the pursuing uncomfortable podcast, where we give you the encouragement you need to lean into the uncomfortable stuff life puts in front of you, so you can love your life. If you are ready to overcome all the yuck that keeps you up at night, you're in the right place. I am your host, Melissa Ebken let's get going. 🎶

🎶 Episode Intro:  Chris Lake is a native New Yorker who has been working with children with developmental delays across the past two decades. He joins us today on the Pursuing Uncomfortable Podcast to talk all things parenting. You're going to be glad you listened to this one, so help me welcome Chris. 🎶

Episode:

Melissa Ebken  0:02 
Chris, welcome to the pursuing uncomfortable podcast. How are you doing?

Unknown Speaker  0:06 
Great to be here. Thank you for having Melissa.

Melissa Ebken  0:10 
And you're joining us from the Big Apple,

Unknown Speaker  0:13 
queen of queens borough of men YC representing New York.

Melissa Ebken  0:17 
Excellent. Well, it is snowing here in central Illinois and I believe it's headed your way. So tomorrow you will probably be getting a few inches of heavy wet snow. It's

Unknown Speaker  0:27 
fine by me. Honestly, we haven't had snow in almost a year. It's the longest stretch of time New York City has gone without any snow. So a little normalcy doesn't hurt here and there.

Melissa Ebken  0:37 
Helps. Absolutely. Well, Chris, I didn't invite you on the podcast to talk about the leather, factually, you are doing some amazing work. Tell us a little bit about it. Right.

Unknown Speaker  0:49 
So I am currently working with children autism, Ei, ei Center, where we give children ABA, typically between the ages of two to three. I've been doing that for last 1617 years. And once my daughter came along and inspired me to write a book. And as I learned that what I do with the children, autism works with neurotypical children as well. And so I realized that I have an opportunity to share this information with parents, new parents, especially pandemic parents, I've seen that there have been some development delays across the board with kids born in 2020. Just because the world was so different, and how we operate with so different and opportunities to socialize our children but not really available, which has different consequences. And so So I wrote my book, help your toddler meet their milestones with 101 behavior hacks. And since then, I've created my own platform on IG that's behavior booster, I have a YouTube channel and I started a blog to give parents information, tips, techniques, and phrases to use so that they can best interact with their child, improve the relationship that they have a child and ultimately transform the term tools into what I like to call the transformational tools. I realized that what parents most of me, you know, it's not a manual, people say all parents didn't come to mind. But what they need to know is what what formula works in terms of what to say, and what to physically do in response to challenging behavior, as well as in response to wanting to help your child meet the milestones, oh, I want my child to point to communicate with my child saying one word hierarchical, saying two words, sentences and three word sentence expanding disputes. How do I get my child to learn I'm waffling regularly, how do I get my child to calm down with a pen. And because my background is applied behavior analysis, evidence based behavior science, I realized that I can give people reliable techniques that work, you know, I'm doing an audit, and I realize, Oh, they're just giving me the more heightened more intense versions of challenging behavior that every other parent has to deal with. So I'm also make their lives a little bit easier and make their confidence a little bit greater, and ideally, create more satisfying relationships and families. So that's what I'm doing in a nutshell. Wow. So

Melissa Ebken  3:01 
what do you do with all your hot tights on? The No, you use some acronyms at the beginning there, EI and abi, can you tell us a little bit about myself. So

Unknown Speaker  3:15 
here in New York misspecified case, the other acronyms are different in different states or in different countries, we have early intervention. So before a child would go to preschool, which is usually at the age of about four years old, late three to four years old, we have the opportunity to have a child between two and three years old, early intervention, so that if a child has developmental delays, if they're cognitively behind, for whatever reason, if their speech is delayed, for whatever reason, physically delayed, et cetera, they're fine, more skilled, 630 a little bit delayed, they can get services, whether it's speech therapy, occupational therapy, and ABA. And that's, that's my discipline. And that stands for Applied Behavior, analysis. And what that means it's a way to help a child learn to behaviors that they can apply in their everyday environment, whether that's putting on and taking off the jacket, whether that's being able to point to communicate their wants and needs, or speak their wants and needs if they are in the verbal capacity and ready. As well as being able to make will be called one to one correspondence is what we do for matching which expand the old skills we learn in kindergarten, pre K will expand out our lives in different ways. So matching as a as a toddler, expands out to us knowing what icon on our phone is for what, you know, that picture where it's a blue sky with the sun in the cloud. I know that means weather because I have an association of one to one correspondence. So you know, that understanding starts as early as two and we just lay down that foundation. It's

Melissa Ebken  4:46 
amazing. I love it. I have 13 questions. I may not get to all our team. But we'll start with some basics. Have you talked about terrible twos becoming transformational too? Is I remember thinking how tos treats a problem. I think maybe where we're good here. Never Should I have thought. Because when he turned three and was able to express himself. It blew up. Yeah, yeah, I remember at one point thinking, Okay, we had a good run my kid, like, for three years, that was great, I can clean to that. I don't know what the rest of his life is going to be. But right now it doesn't look like it's gonna be good.

Unknown Speaker  5:40 
That's hilarious. I'll tell you something. So that the phrase terrible too is it's, it's a moniker but it's kind of a mis moniker because honestly, terrible twos starts at 18 months. And it typically ends at four months. And my personal theory as to why it ends, again, I'm gonna really specify my personal theory as to why I end the four months is because at that point can go to school, typically at four, they're going to be in some sort of, out of the home social environment. And as a result, they're gonna have an opportunity to be socialized in a different way in the home, we socialize the kids as best we can, with what skills you have we have with what energy we have, and what training we do or do not have, when they go to preschool, they're going to start realizing that there are rules from day one. And it's very different from our relationship with the children, they're developing from, from neonate. from newborn to infant to toddler, in the span, and for a full year. Typically, there are no rules. They they grow up, they cry, they learn, if I cry, I get what I want. If I cry, I get what I need. If I cry, get attention, there's no rules, nothing's really required them something's like tummy time, we might may or may not put on a child, we may or may not have a child clean up, we may or may not have a child adhere to a strict bedtime or naptime. And that's, you know, across different parents, parenting styles, etc. But outside of those three, there's not a whole lot of rules. In school, we have to sit down when everyone else is sitting down, we have the raisin if you want to talk, you can't talk right now we're gonna sit over here, now we're gonna, we're gonna project sound, we're gonna go outside, all of us are doing this together, we're gonna hold hands, we gotta do better than better than that. And they realize when they see other kids, we're also following these rules. Oh, this is what we do here. This is how it's done. And it happens from day one. So it's a lot easier to digest. And their brain switches to Okay, I'm gonna fight to get this way I used to, I'm used to into, oh, well, here, we do things different. And they're starting to start to be able to accept that there are rules, and they can limit their own wishes and desires and impulses. In the moment, as they see other kids doing the same thing. It's harder for them to especially your firstborn child and the child, it's much harder to do that at home, when for the first 12 to 18 months. It's it's been like whatever I want to do. Parents don't have parents don't have a heads up. And I have utmost respect for pediatricians. They are overworked. But they are not behavior scientists. So they are not able to give parents a breadth of information that they would ideally be able to get pregnant. Oh, because 12 months, not HSC you know, your expect to see this, this and this. And when you come across this behavior, here's what you can do. That'd be great. If that was the case, with the interview panel, they can swap monster because he was no good at maths know what to expect when you're dealing with terrible tooth. But truth be told, Most pediatricians have between 75 to 125 different patients they see each week. And the amount of time they actually have to sit down face to face with the patients about seven minutes. So the handle, right, when you think about how much time you spend in the pediatricians office with their assistant versus them, they typically have about seven full minutes to run through their checklist, do a couple different things. And then, you know, have a conversation with you. So they don't have the bandwidth to really share that. And that's where I realized there's a gap. And my goal is to to help fill this gap. Now by myself. I get it down the road, I'll crop collaborate, other people get conversations going have parents realize they can have other conversations going on in their communities and with other disciplines, so that more information is shared freely and easily. So we have better roadmap because we all need it.

Melissa Ebken  9:18 
Well, I tell you, I came to parenthood later in life. I was 38 When my son was born 39 And thank goodness, because the hot mess Express I was oh for my 20s Yes.

Unknown Speaker  9:32 
Same same here same year. Yeah, absolutely.

Melissa Ebken  9:35 
So I have so much admiration for younger parents because I don't think I would have realized when I was I know I would not have I'm sure others are a lot more emotionally mature than I was at that age. But I would not have had the awareness that a lot of the acting out was about his stress, his anxiety and not is or choices and bad behaviors about

Unknown Speaker  10:01 
something you said right? There is so important. And I want your listeners to really digest that, oh, kids have anxiety. And I've been working with staff and parents for so long, and I bring this up. And frequently I'll get blowback or pushback into like, Well, what do they have to be anxious about? Like, Listen, everyone. I know for us, it's very uncomfortable. But bills, and dating are not the only sources of anxiety, then, that's, that's what we act like, we act like we didn't, we just weren't when we hit 13 or 14, or send our brains into it. Now you have this new feeling that you never have no anxiety existed from day one, or when you were born. Anxiety exists in a child who's hungry and has no actual way to communicate. I'm hungry. I need someone to give me some food. I don't even know what food is. I just know My stomach hurts. I am teething. And I don't know what this is. I just know that inside my head is a lot of pain. And I don't know what to do with it. Because a bone pushing through my face right now literally. And everyone's like, what's wrong? I don't know. But Can someone help me out? There's a ton of things you can actually they can't leave the room. They want it again, courtside. They can't get the clothes, they can't pick their fruits, for the most part, at least what you buy from the grocery store. If anyone wanted to at any point, they could pick them up and walk away with it. There's a lot to be anxious about. They have good reasons. Plus, they also know they don't know they still have the humility to walk around the world and be like, I don't know anything that that is what's going on. And people are kind of expecting me to say, Hey, what's this? I don't know. You never told me. I guess now you're telling me it's a monkey? That's great. It lives in a jungle. I didn't know why are you quizzing me before informing me. Right. So what is a place? What is any like so so we have to sit back. And when we see our kids acting out or having tantrums, I always tell my staff, you know, rule number one is be kind because I really want people to impart an empathetic mind when you approach kids because they're dealing with emotions, too. And they don't know what emotions are. And they don't know how to cope with it, process it. And it's completely on us as caregivers to guide them through while using language they can digest to get through, right, because you can't tell a three year old hey, you need to process these emotions a little healthier. Billy, that's, that's not an appropriate way to let all your aggression because like, what what did? What are you saying? Basically, like, hitting is not nice. We all use nice hands. It makes everyone feel happy. want people to feel happy? Right? Great. Let's just do that. Like you got to find the right language. But yeah, anxiety is huge. And kids have so much more than we give them credit for. And if you approach a child in a calm manner, when they're anxious, it helps decrease the anxiety so so very much if you're telling a child you're shouting our child to calm down, you know, relax was mad. What you that's, that's not that's in the history of humans and the history of ever. That has never helped anyone, anywhere. So anyone,

Melissa Ebken  12:44 
anyone? Anyone,

Unknown Speaker  12:45 
calm down. Oh, thank you. Oh, okay. I lost my mind for a moment. Thanks for your empathy. Kindness is really the case.

Melissa Ebken  12:58 
Okay, Chris, we're in the grocery store. And our kid has a meltdown. And we got a basket full of groceries. And we really need to make it home with these groceries. What do you do?

Unknown Speaker  13:10 
Are you by yourself? Or do you have any anyone else with you? Okay, by yourself, here we go. So you have to get to Melton is huge. And you can you can tell this is gonna take a while, step out of line. Step out of line, let whoever's behind you do what you got to do. And you can love people like, Hey, give me give us a minute. All right, take a deep breath. Prioritize, prioritize what other people are thinking and saying about your net? Wait, wait, wait, no, that's not right. That's the opposite. That doesn't matter. Okay, what people think about you in that moment. And what people say about you in a moment is irrelevant. I really want people to have that in your head because I come across so many parents, who really prioritize not being embarrassed over doing the work that's necessary to help your child grow. And it's not conscious. It's not an intention. So I don't want it to feel like I'm blaming or judging. But it's what happens. And regardless of what the intention is, when certain things happen, there are certain consequences. And if you, Kate, when a child is having a meltdown, because they want the chocolate and they want the candy, or they want the toy, and you say, Okay, fine. Sure you go, what that child has done, has learned a certain formula. When I cried the supermarket, I cried at checkout, my mom gives me what I want. That's all they learn. They don't they don't, they don't read it as good or bad, or Oh, that was naughty. They just think that was good. That was useful. All behavior continues as long as it is useful. So biggest takeaway, I say it a million times I say over and over again. Because it applies to our newborn kids. I want you to put each other I worship with our employers, our staff, whoever, if the behavior is useful, you will continue to do that behavior. Same for the kids. Cell flu water a make sure your child's safe because if they're having a tantrum, some kids tantrum in different ways where they might flail and flop about want to make sure they're not gonna hit their head. They're not going to hurt themselves, that things are gonna fall on them. They're not gonna hurt anyone. Also, obviously safety is first, if you see that they are in a position where they are completely safe just being stressed and loud about it, you want to calmly let them know the rules, okay? You need to establish the boundary very firmly, while still being unkind. You don't need to be a jerk about it. But let him know, sweetheart, A, that's not how we asked, my daughter hears me say this multiple times a day. That's not how we asked. And then she'll pause and say, Please, like this better. But too, you can also let the child know, a firm know. And I want parents to be more comfortable saying no to your children. That's okay. That does not mean you're a bad parent. And it doesn't mean you're mean. And I've come across this a lot in the last 15 or so years where people think that if anything you do that results in shock, crying equals I'm being me. And we can throw that out. That doesn't serve you that doesn't serve your child that doesn't serve any sort of counsel that's judging your parenting skills. It's just for society. Because that child is going to grow into an adult, when it has an understanding, that's going to be reinforced, reinforced year after year that you're going to the grocery store in some sort of manner. It's simply you establishing boundaries. And as parents, we need to be assertive, it's not, it's not okay to say I want my child to want for nothing. That's not realistic. It's a beautiful concept, but it's not very realistic. And also, the successful people in the world all want it for something. If you want your child to be successful, they have to learn patience. They have to learn tenacity, they have to learn grips that love to work through, I want this right now. But I can't have it. So what do I do to properly get this thing I want? So if you're willing to give the child what they want, make sure they ask nicely. So let them know that's not how we ask how do we ask and establish that first. If it's not, they cannot have for whatever reason, I'm nope, sweet, we're not going to have that. We're checking out we're going home. And then what you're going to do is calm as possible is repeat yourself, you're gonna get down to your level, eye level, make your body smaller. This helps to relieve the amygdala because when it gets having a tantrum, it's happening your brain is their amygdala, which is their emotion center, and almost center is really over firing. And so if you add heat energy, emotionality to that, then they get to a point where they are literally out of control. And that's when you can see like, really get big, but you want to repeat yourself, stay calm or pick yourself, stay calm, repeat yourself, stay calm and gather on notice. We don't we're not having that. We're not having chocolate today, you know that you had students earlier, we're not having some goal some and understand. They still will cry. There's no like, got it. I just had to snap my fingers. And now we're done. They still cry. And that's okay. This is them. Working through the emotions. This is their first. This is the first time develop a new coping skill. The first coping skill we had is crying. So now I teach them now there's another coping skill to not get what you want. And that's okay. They don't get what they want. Because you don't always eat chocolate, right? You don't always need their new toy. He gets expensive. Well, well,

Melissa Ebken  17:57 
Ruppin and that, I might have some arguments on that. That's good rebuttal. All right, let's stick pith.

So my next question then, teenagers, they stop talking, or they overshare about everything seems to be one extreme or the other. How do you navigate communicating well, with a teenager, especially one that's an internal processor that may not be quick to talk, to be

Unknown Speaker  18:27 
honest, teenagers really crave honesty, and they loads fakeness they tend to be very good perceivers of the inauthentic. And they are the point in all of us that we all went through a read, our favor of adults died when we realize you're not real, you're inauthentic in some sort of way you lie. Or you say don't do this, but you do this. You say no shout in the house. But when you say no Shouting, shouting at me to not shout in the house. And so the more authentic you can be, and the more the more you can also own your own failures fixed. Sweet. I know. You know, we have plans and I changed plans that you don't like them. Sorry, that's unmade. It's my fault. Something came up that I forgot I forgot about it. And I know I'm let you down. But let's make sure next week, you are the priority. And no matter what we're going to do X, Y, and Z. Make time for your teenagers. Because if the only conversation you're having to kid is how a school, our school. They don't want to talk to you. It's like there's this small talk. You know, a lot of times we just have small talk with our kids, and they feel it and they don't want to really engage talking about their friends learn all their friends names, the best friends names are close friends, they ask them specific about their friends, have conversations with them, that they want to have conversations with you about. And that's going to create a closer relationship. Have times and dates when you do something with your child that you know your child truly cares about loves and not just on the birthday or on a special holiday. You know, if you can, if you're about it, have a hook like have a day we take off in school. Hey, check it out. Thursday. We're not going to school. We're gonna do X, Y and Z and they will, they will be like, what? We're doing something fun and we're not going to Yes, it's okay to sacrifice one day of school to create a very huge bonding moment with your kid do that do something that's fun here and there. It used to obviously have to have rules and establish boundaries. But being authentic is huge. Owning your own mistakes is huge. And then also given them the understand that you care about some of the things that you care if you don't care about Roblox, Roblox three hours, right? Obviously, if you don't care about Minecraft, you don't have to talk about that, or whatever. Whatever they're super into. They like Oh, my God, just but the friends, certain things that they love doing that you can engage them or conversation with talking about it, give them that space so that they can feel like you. You have a that they can have companionship with you like your kids, not your friend, right. But you do want to friendly moments with your kid at the same time.

Melissa Ebken  20:47 
Yeah. Hey, another question I have. You know, kids want to try everything. They want to be involved in everything. And I believe it's good to expose them to different opportunities and experiences. But how do you establish this is too much, we can't schedule every moment of the day for different activities, that there is something inherently valuable about making priorities and choices about what you're going to do and what you're not going to do. How do we balance that? What's interesting?

Unknown Speaker  21:20 
So how do you how do you limit the amount of time that they're spending in activities? That's a great question. Let me think about that for a second. I guess maybe you could sit down and make a schedule, you could say like, we have to pick, I guess, given the option to pick, like, we can only do three extracurricular activities, right, maybe give a numerical limit, we can only do two because mommy and daddy are busy, because I'm very busy. And I also have, I also have to do things my schedule, like make them aware of how time works, right? Not just for them, make, make them even more like time works for you, but also works for me. So we have to make time work for us. And then say it so you can pick. I see you're interested in gymnastics, and you're in swim class and music and this and yeah, I think this year, we can only do three. So let's let's pick two or three, whatever number works for the person's household, let's pick two or three that you really, really want to do this year. And if you want to do it again, next year, we'll stick with, but if after a year, you're like, you know, I really don't really like genetics, I'm like, Okay, let me just swap one out. And that way, you can have your sanity and your time, because you need that too. Too many parents get lost in the role of singularly being a parent. And then, you know, work is your side hustle to support being a parent, you're a person to, you're entitled to have your your fun and your hobbies and your enjoyment as well. So you know, I would say make make time to make time to make time, you know, have a day where it's a Saturday or Sunday we sit down and schedule, what they'd like their year or their month or season look alikes. So that there's, there's an understanding this, this still capacity that we really could run out.

Melissa Ebken  22:51 
And kind of along with the activities, so say your kid wants to do this activity, just this one activity, and they get involved with it. And it's super fun. They're loving it. And then after a short time, you know, ever don't really want to go, there's nothing big going on. There's no red flags, that there's a dropping, because that's a separate conversation. But they're just yak skip practice today? Or it's like, no, you've made a commitment to the activity to the teams, you know, how can you balance?

Unknown Speaker  23:23 
So all of that, and my friends, my wife's good friend camicia had a really good answer to this question with her daughter, because the daughter wanted to run track. And she started running track and achieve same thing, she kind of flaked and said, You know, I don't really want to do this anymore. And so can we just say to her, Okay, here's the deal, you can quit, when you're really good at it. Once you're really, really good at it, then you can quit. But you need to put in the effort. And I think the goal there is to really instill discipline in the kids. I think a lot of kids in this generation have learned. You know, I'm I'm 40 So I'm the microwave generation being born to 80s You know, generation formed that guy you guys had you had songs, but we now look at 20 Somethings, and we're like, but while while they have a sharpness, and they have a wit and a sensitivity, it's beautiful and inclusivity and global mindedness that I really, really respect. Overall, the biggest critique I can give of the 20 Somethings, there's a lack of discipline, I see that I see what they're very good at finding hacks and ways out of it. That are, you know, kind of hard to touch. I can't say how many staff would just use the Hakko I have to take off tomorrow for personal reasons. Oh, you know, I can't question that. So sure. See, when I see you, now, we got to find someone to cover your kids. But you want to make sure that your kid has the sense of discipline because if they really want to be successful at anything in life, anything and I mean anything in life, you need to have discipline and I think it's very important to have that conversation as well especially with teenagers, or even tweets so that they can have that that seed of I want to have discipline in Your head wants to have a level of mastery in your head. I don't want to be a jack of all trades. If I am a draggable, I want to be a master of many trades or, or best notes one thing. Either way, there's no one they can look at that isn't this even tick talkers. They say, well, this person, they're just a tick tock. They're disciplined in their skin. They work every single day, working with Canva, or this Saturday, I think, to make sure that their content creation is beautiful. They're not sitting back on a Saturday on a couch, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a picture and shoot and mess up their discipline and crap, you're not seeing the discipline. Every athlete, this musician that they see on TV is discipline. Elon Musk, any any famous, wealthy person that they can name is discipline. So they also want to be successful. And they want to have a life that they could really enjoy to do what ever they want the freedom to do more things that they want, or travel or whatever big goals they have. It requires discipline and discipline starts. Now the question is often asked in high school, that every teacher loads is when are we ever going to need to do when am I ever gonna need to know this? And, you know, now I look back and wish they understood how to answer that question. Because it's a very simple answer, you have to, you may not need to know how to do this. But you need to know how to do things you don't want to do. everywhere, every aspect of life, whether you're in relationships, a job, higher education, you're going to be asked to do certain things that you might not be crazy about. And if you if you flake out now at 1314 15, and don't train yourself to have some level of discipline, then when you're older, and you need it, you're going to find some harsh consequences that you won't like, and you'll be scratching your head because you might not realize why you might not realize why you bounce from entry level job to entry level job and you're in your late 30s and your 40s and your 50s. And might be because you don't have discipline, you might not be able to deal with the discomfort, you might not be good at clerical because you said Well, I'm chi school, I don't need to learn how to do that. It's a skill set, discipline bleeds. And so that's the thing, I would really make sure that the child no discipline bleeds. If you have discipline in one thing, it's gonna bleed into the air, and you have a lack of discipline and one thing that can bleed into other things as well. So, you know, how do you want your life to turn up? How do you want your life turn out? Because I guarantee you, it's hard to find a very disciplined person who's not successful if they don't exist, but it's hard.

Melissa Ebken  27:07 
Discipline Trumps motivation all day, every day. Absolutely. Chris, this has been so fantastic, I'm gonna have to have you back on again, someday. As we conclude, are there any last thoughts that you'd like to share

Unknown Speaker  27:25 
keys kindness, that's always number one to behavior will continue as long as it is useful and your behavior. And so I invite people who are listening to my voice to analyze your behavior, because our kids are a mirror of us. And for the most part, they're responding to how we hit whether we thought we were responding to them, or we were having a moment in public. You know, analyze is what I'm doing, making their behavior more effective is what I'm doing, making their behavior less effective. And be honest yourself, be honest to yourself, hold yourself accountable to the good and the bad. And at the same time, appreciate all the hard work that you do. As a parent, it's easy to just get no kids doing this, because not doing this. You're raising a human, you're raising a person so much work, it's so uncomfortable with so often, we need so much support. And we don't get a lot of manuals or guidance or tips until you know, recently with social media and in podcasts like yours, that people have more breadth of information and wisdom that they could use. So again, behavioral continue as long as useful. A key is kindness, analyze, analyze, analyze, and take a breath. Honestly, take a deep breath.

Melissa Ebken  28:37 
And, folks, Chris has a wealth of information, check out his website, the link is in the show notes. And I want you particularly to check out the blog. There are a lot of fantastic articles there. And check out the bonuses in you'll find eight downloads, PDFs that you can use immediately. So also on the website is his book. It's an ebook or paperback 101 behavior hacks. So so much information. You're not in this alone though sometimes it can feel so isolating. Chris, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. Have a good one.

🎶 Episode Outro: Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. If this encouraged you, please consider subscribing to our show and leaving a rating and review so we can encourage even more people just like yourself. We drop a new episode every Wednesday so I hope you continue to drop in and be encouraged to lean into and overcome all the uncomfortable stuff life brings your way. 🎶

Chris LakeProfile Photo

Chris Lake

Author

Chris Lake is the author of “How to Help Your Toddler Meet Their Milestones: 101 Behavior Hacks.”

He is a native New Yorker who has been working with children with developmental delays across the past two decades. He received his Masters in both General and Special Education in 2012. And in 2014, he started Community for a Cause, a nonprofit to initially advocate for children with lead poisoning. This nonprofit has successfully worked to aid New Yorkers in all five boroughs as well as people abroad. Community for a Cause has several branches that include Special Needs Advocacy, Homeless Relief, Sexual Violence Prevention, Environmental Protection, and a Community Building Branch. Through his charity, Chris Lake remains committed to doing all he can to help those in New York who are without a voice and all those who are in need of support.

In looking to expand his ability to provide for families of children with Autism, he wrote his book “How to Help Your Toddler Meet Their Milestones: 101 Behavior Hacks” to give families and providers a time-tested blueprint of how to develop children using evidence-based practice.

*A portion of all book proceeds goes towards preventing and alleviating childhood lead poisoning.*