What Actually Matters in the First 3 Years (35 Years of Perspective) Ep 136

After more than 35 years of sitting on floors with babies and toddlers - and walking alongside thousands of mothers - I’ve learned something that still surprises people.

The children who thrive in the first three years aren’t raised by parents who do everything “right.”

They’re raised by adults who stay in sync — who notice, respond, and adjust in real time.

In this final episode of the year, I’m not offering a checklist or another set of milestones to track. 

I’m sharing three anchors that have held steady across decades of real families and real development — long before social media, parenting trends, or performance pressure entered the picture.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why attunement and rhythm matter more than rigid schedules
  
  
• How language grows best inside real life, not through testing or pressure
  
  
• Why the brain grows through the body, and how movement and sensory integration shape regulation, attention, and speech
  
  
• What stress, cortisol, and nervous-system overload actually look like in babies and toddlers
  
  
• Why looking away can help a child listen better - and what we’ve misunderstood for years
  
  

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by noise, advice, or expectations - this episode is an invitation to slow down, zoom out, and reconnect with what truly supports your child’s growth.

You’re not behind.
You’re just surrounded by noise.

🔗 Discovery Calls: Looking ahead 

As we move toward the new year, I offer Discovery Calls for parents of babies & toddlers. These are free, one-to-one conversations designed to help determine whether a focused six-week parent coaching format would be helpful for your family at this time. Not evaluations, not therapy - just space to reflect and be heard.

There’s no pressure and no obligation. January is now open, and you’ll find all the details here: 👉 Start here to request a Discovery Call

🌟 Join the Inside Talking Toddlers community for exclusive deep dives and get Erin’s free guide: Top 10 ESSENTIAL Skills For Talking.

CLICK HERE FOR: Building Vocabulary: Single Words to 2-Word Phrases

Because the little years are the big years.

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Disclaimer: 

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your pediatrician or a qualified health provider with questions about your child’s development or health. The views shared are based on Erin Hyer’s professional experience and are intended to support informed parenting, not to replace individual consultation or care. Every child and family is unique — please use your discretion and consult trusted professionals when making decisions for your child.

📩 Questions: contact@HyerLearning.com
 🌐 www.HyerLearning.com

Thank you for being here — and for caring so deeply about your child’s well-being.

Transcript

Erin: 0:00

So when your child is developmentally ready, those words just start to come out naturally because they've spent 18, 20 months of pre-wiring and listening and coding and trying to synchronize all of these systems up. The words just start coming out, And that's where we as developmental specialists, will see this language explosion between 18 and 24 months. Not because Hello and welcome to Talking Toddlers where I share more than just tips and tricks on how to reduce tantrums or build your toddler's vocabulary. We're gonna cover all of that, but here our goal is to develop clarity because in this modern world, it's truly overwhelming. This podcast is about empowering moms to know the difference between fact and fiction, to never give up, to tap into everyday activities, so your child stays on track. He's not falling behind, he's thriving. Through your guidance, we know that true learning starts at home. So let's get started. Before we talk about tips or milestones or what your toddler should be doing, I wanna zoom out for just a moment because after more than 35 years of sitting and playing on floors with babies and toddlers, and walking alongside hundreds, probably thousands by now, of mothers just like you, I've learned something that still surprises most people, the children who thrive in those first three years aren't raised by parents who do everything right. They're raised by adults who are in sync, who notice and respond, who adjust in real time. And as we come to the end of this year, I don't want to give you more things to do. I want to offer you three things to hold in your back pocket. Three anchors that have held steady across decades of real life, real families, and real development. Because when you understand what actually matters early on, you can stop chasing performance and you can focus and start trusting the relationship that is growing your child's brain and body from the inside out. Remember this, you're not behind. You're just surrounded by a lot of noise. But before we settle in, I do have a gentle ask if talking toddlers has helped you feel calmer or clearer or more confident this year. If you would be so kind, leave a short review and share what has helped you. So then other moms, moms, just like you can find this space and can really begin to focus on what's important. Just a couple of sentences of how this podcast has supported or helped you in your real life with your baby or toddler. It truly matters and it really helps other people find this conversation and change lives. I'm so grateful for those who have already done that. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. Okay, let's slow things down just a bit. This episode is not about a checklist. It's not about 10 things to do before your toddler turns. Three. It's about perspective. A perspective that comes from watching what actually helps your child grow and what quietly gets in the way. So if you're listening while you're folding clothes or rocking your baby, perhaps you're going for a walk or maybe sitting in the car and trying to find a few quiet moments. You don't have to take notes. Just listen. If something sticks, keep it in your back pocket. If it doesn't, just think about it a little bit more. Alright, let's cover these three anchors. The first anchor is this. Stay in sync before you try to fix anything. Before you correct, before you redirect, even before you teach. Even before you start to worry. Get in sync first. When parents hear words like routine or schedule, many picture, something very structured, almost like a preschool classroom in your home, activities and tasks, even workstations. The truth is that happened a lot during the pandemic and I found that many parents quickly learned that doesn't work well at home. And while a bit of structure is always helpful, rhythm is something different. Rhythm isn't schedules. It's more like it feel your day than watching the clock on the wall. It is predictability, but it has a natural flow because it allows time for you to adjust things and to repair things, or maybe to stay where you are because it's working so well. In my clinical work, I never worked from rigid treatment plans. I tried in the very beginning because that's how we're trained in graduate school, but it didn't make sense to me. I'd see clinician after clinician clinicians stuck with their plan and be very, very rigid of doing 10 of these and 20 of these, and they couldn't let go of that and just be in it with the toddler and, and as their supervisor, I would try desperately to help them relax and be present. Kids can feel when you're just going through the motion, when you're checking off a box, when you're like, okay, we're gonna do this and then we're gonna do that. Yes, we need some structure, but. They need to feel like there's this open space to breathe. Therefore, in my work, I always had these focused areas. I would, I knew where the child was and where we wanted to work toward, and so I focused on what was important that week. What am I trying to build or enhance or nourish? Is it their listening skills? Is it their ability to imitate and play with me? Is it gestures? Is it attention? What about their spontaneous language? Right? The activity was the medium in which we worked, quote unquote, or played. But it really was looking at these, this gestalt of where the child is developmentally, and I used to joke that I could turn any. Activity or game or experience actually into a language-based learning activity, handwashing great language activity, getting dressed, putting the groceries away, sorting out the mail. Kids love to throw away your junk mail that can be based and connection because what mattered wasn't the toy or the planned activity, it was the relationship inside the moment, building with you, practicing the language, or practicing listening or following directions. And from a nervous system standpoint, this matters more than most people realize because when your child is under stress or is disconnected, perhaps it's because of poor sleep or maybe inconsistent nutrition that day. Maybe it, it's overstimulation in the morning, right? Maybe there were too many screens or simply there was too much going on and they could never really get grounded or feel connected to the day. When that happens in these little bodies, the cortisol load starts to rise. That stress hormone starts to really increase. It's, it rises anyway naturally in all of us. When we start to wake up in the morning, that's what wakes us up, right? We have to become alert, but if the environment is. Too unpredictable or too overwhelming or too rushed, then it really spikes. And when cortisol is high, the brain begins to shift in the survival mode. And that's that fight or flight. And sometimes it's even a freeze state. And just as a side note, I like to share that girls often tend to freeze when they get overwhelmed and I think quite often. People who work with young girls, the, the toddler, the preschooler, even the early elementary, we can miss that, that free state where they're not feeling connected. And, and we can talk about that in another episode, but just because a girl is quiet or shy, that doesn't necessarily mean that everything is okay. And, and we can talk about that separately, but this fight, flight, or freeze learning doesn't happen when we're in that state. Fight means being rigid, We're less open, less ready to take in data, listening or watching, We need to protect ourselves at all costs. That's where we dig in our heels. A flight means that you can't slow down enough to listen or engage, right? You're running around Trying to find groundedness, right? Trying to find connection. And as I said, freeze often means putting up an invisible wall to protect yourself. That life is too much or too uncomfortable, or I'm just simply unsure. So I'm going to close the door here and just look from afar. and, and what I found as I worked with slightly older girls say, 7, 9, 10, they often had this presence about like them. If I don't draw a lot of attention to myself, maybe no one will notice that I don't get it. Maybe no one will notice that I'm really, really scared. Maybe they'll just leave me alone if I'm quiet enough and no one will notice me at all. Right. That's very common, and younger girls can do this too. That 3-year-old. So here's what what's critical about looking at this first anchor. Regulation has to begin to emerge before learning can take place. Let me share this story with you, and I think that it will help. See how this could unfold. I once worked with this little boy. I'm gonna call him Timmy, but he was about two and a half, maybe a little bit older. When I first started to work with him, he was the middle child of three. There was a newborn and then a slightly older boy. it was a beautiful, loving, hardworking family, well educated. From the outside, it looked like everything should be together, right? Both parents were professionals. There was a lot of extended family everywhere, a lot of family gatherings, lots of love, lots of interest. Lots of effort, but there was also a lot of confusion for Timmy. Timmy felt overwhelmed with his life, day-to-day life. Their biggest concerns when they first started talking with me was that at family gatherings, he would actually retreat into the mud room and lay and hang out quietly with the dogs. He wasn't being defiant. He wasn't even withdrawing per se. It was just overload for him. He needed to feel like he had some sense of control, and he was on survival mode. His mom, who happened to be a pediatrician, felt truly helpless. She said, I know medicine, but this feels different to me. I don't know how to meet his needs. So over time, I was able to demonstrate how Timmy's system. Needed a healthier rhythm, especially around some of those anchors in our days, sleep, nutrition, and movement. So even something as simple as tweaking the their breakfast you know, consistent nourishment really could help set the stage and changed his trajectory for how he kind of opened his heart and soul and, and body and mind to. Hi. His day events, right? Going to preschool or going to a play date. So instead of cereal or a muffin, which is pretty classic here in America, mom started making these high protein rich shakes. And then even making, uh, what I call those egg bites, right? High protein, good, healthy fats. Think of, the healthy fats for the brain, the protein for your muscles and energy slowed slow, sustained energy, right? And then fiber helps with the digestion. Those three macros. It wasn't magic, it was just biology, right? And so we have to look at what could be getting in the way. So biology. Often responds to consistency, Again, sleep, nutrition movement. When his body and his developing brain, when it had what it needed, those healthy fats, good dense proteins, some good healthy fiber, not processed food, he had a fighting chance to engage with the world with regularity. He was able then to perceive visually and auditorily and motor kinesthetically. His environment, his sensory systems started to get in sync with one another. Yes, it took time and quite often it was two steps forward and one step back. That's just human nature. But because of the love and the support and the extended family, grandma stepped in, aunts and uncles began to inquire and learn. Dad was really a stead, a steadfast proponent of all of this, and he really understood how these, these parts should fit together. He understood it for himself, you know, he was whatever in his mid thirties, an athlete, he's like, okay, this makes sense to me. But finding that rhythm slowly for the whole family. It took time, but they saw the shift. They felt the shift because once Timmy's body and brain were more regulated, only then could language begin to emerge, and language could be tapped into not before. When the body and the, and the brain are dysregulated in survival mode or shutting down because it's too much, we have to step back and say, okay, how can we get this back on track? And language always follows that that's the order, right? So ask yourself, what's your rhythm? What's your daily life? Is there a flow? Does it feel natural? What could be getting in the way? Does your son or daughter, do they appear grounded and open to learning? And, and yes, you know, especially first time toddlers, right? That 18 month old, that 24 month, they're gonna be active. But are there periods where there's that sustained attention and focus and deep play? And remember, play is learning. So. Your, your first real question is to, is to sit back and just look at your daily life rhythm and see where you fall on this and what could be changed, or are you doing just fine? Right. So the second anchor is, and, and I talk a lot about this whole area because this, this is the heart and soul of my work over the last 35 years. But we, as the parents, as the adults leading our children, we need to talk with our children inside everyday life because language doesn't grow from instruction, right? And you can wait for instruction when they're in second, third, fourth grade, and beyond, right? It grows through shared attention. And building the processing skills of their native language. And this, this really does come up constantly in my work. A mom will tell me, oh, you know, he just simply doesn't label things. When I ask him, what's, what's this, honey? What's this? And he just turns away. Or perhaps I give him two choices and he just points, but he won't use his words. Or, I hear this a lot, you know, he understands everything, but he just won't say it. And here's what I wish every parent can really wrap their minds around expressive language. Talking is harder, significantly harder than receptive language. Receptive language or understanding comes first, and I think. If we back up, everybody gets this, but actual talking, actual speaking comes much later on because it's so much more complicated. So I do talk a lot about gestures here. So pointing is communication, waving is communication. It's not avoidance. They're using it to communicate their needs in the moment. Speech requires an enormous amount of mental and physical preparation, energy and coordination in real time, and I have said this for my whole career. Babies are born, ready to decode any language. They're called citizens of the world. I believe that it's part of God's beautiful protective plan because who knows, a baby might end up in a foreign country and they might need to learn a non-native language. Maybe mom decided to move back to, to Germany or France, or the whole family said, uhoh, we're gonna go to South America. The newborn needs to be able to learn, acquire, and really code any language. So the hard wiring, the prep has to be there. That's, that's a, I think it is truly a remarkable survival skill, right? Those first several months actually all the way up. What research has shown is all the way up until about eight months of age, your baby can auditorily, perceive, not understand, but hear and perceive the different sounds in almost any other language. Your baby's brain at that time begins to prune away unnecessary sounds, sounds that they haven't heard in their native language somewhere around that eighth or ninth month. And so he can no longer distinguish or recognize the differences in, in most languages, hopefully, because he's been spoken with and two, for those eight or nine months. And, and so whatever the primary, primary language is, and yes, it's true if you have two or three languages, if those are your primary languages, and he hears them all day every day. Say Grandmas speak German to him, or Mom speaks Spanish to him, he's going to be able to process those primary languages. And that's, that's just how us humans are designed. It's God's brilliant plan. Right. But he has to then begin somewhere around eight months to identify patterns that are consistent or important in his native language and figure out which sounds go together. Oh, s and h can go together and say, shh, but they can also stand alone. And, oh, those are three different sounds. So there's a lot going on auditorily that he's coding. At the same time, he's learning how to coordinate physically, his breath, his voice, his jaw, his lips, his tongue, all of the physical components. At the same time, that's a lot to carry out, right? And that's why I lean heavily into what we call differentiated babbling, right? Different sounds, consonants and vowels. We wanna hear a lot of different sounds when he really starts babbling at eight and 10 months of age. And then gestures or homemade signs, those are very, very important too, because of its symbolic representation. Just like spoken words are symbolic representation. Waving means something. Blowing a kiss means something. It's true communication, and it precedes spoken language, singing songs, and nursery rhymes. Again, it's in almost every culture that we've studied. There is a slower temple, there's elongated sounds. There's a lot of opportunity for imitation and repetition. There's unison or shared singing. All of these builds that connection with your baby and provides a lot of practice in all of those different sounds. He can hear it, he can practice it. And then I also lean heavily into animal sounds and environmental sounds that can get a lot of mileage in these first couple of years because they're not real words, but they represent, the moo represents cow and he's starting to put his voice and his his oral motor movements to represent a word right, or an object and, and why. Nursery rhymes and animal sounds are really reinforced at this age. It's'cause they're more fun, right? Like I said, moo or quack, quack, quack. Or Hee-haw. Hee-haw or room. Those are more interesting than cow car donkey, right? Those sounds we can play with. There's low pressure, much easier to produce'cause there's a lot more wiggle room. We can stretch it out and play with the volume and elongate the sounds and so there's a lot more interest in it. And so your, your new child who's just coming online and figuring this out. They're going to be much more engageable with all of these fun activities. Right. And there's actually a lot of fascinating research on coral vocalization. So when babies or toddlers begin to babble, babies around them will also babble. They'll kind of join in and part of it, and it happens with crying as well, which is a form of communication, right? But it's wired into us. It's part of our tribal instinct is, is very ancient to, to do that choral, to chanting, right? Those, those songs and hymns. And, and a lot of people believe that it's, it's just a natural way to practice that. It, it gives us more, more courage that we can join in and be part of a team, right? There's, there's power in numbers, so to speak, right? But even, even if we're in a chorus, we sing and sound a lot better when we sing together than, you know, the perfect soloist, right? And so toddlers are doing the same thing. They're joining in, in this small group because, because it, they can change it in real time and, and really gain practice. So this is also why some children don't respond well to frequent choice questions, Do you want cheese or an apple? And you are wanting them to say one, sometimes this is where they'll point, but giving them two choices is a better format than, do you want cheese that Yes. No question. Do you want an apple shakes his head no. Right. So the the first stage is that Yes, no question. The second stage is giving them two choices, hoping that they'll imitate us. Cheese or apple. But some kids simply don't really want, they, they kind of know on a subconscious level what you're trying to get them to do and they don't wanna play yet. And, and I've always explained it to parents as they haven't bought in to the speech aspect of this relationship right up until about 10 months of age, they're really. Well, loved and well taken care of. There isn't a lot of heavy lifting on their part. And I don't look at this as a problem. I really look at it as a phase or part of a stage of entering spoken words that there standing on one side of the bridge. And they know that they wanna get to the other side, but they really don't wanna walk alone. And so they, they'll wait because they have faith in you. You love them, protect them, support them. She'll come get me, she'll carry me across. Right. And the truth is, what happens quite often at that 8, 10, 12 months is they're, they're comfortable with where they are. Right? They're well loved, they're cared for, they're happy. They have only fleeting moments of discomfort, They're kind of saying to themselves in a very subconscious way, right? None of this is conscious, but do I really have to put in this effort of talking?'cause it takes a lot of work, or, you know, she'll just kind get it for me. Or, you know, life is pretty good. I'll just kind of do without some kids learn. I'll just walk away. Right. And I've seen it thousands of times, right? A young toddler just simply walks away and says, eh, you know, I'm gonna have lunch in a few minutes. It's okay. I, I don't really need anything right now. And some kids do. Put up a stink and start whining and you know, maybe have a little tantrum. But mom and dad love them so much, eh, they won't let me struggle too, too bad. Right? And again, all of this is subconscious on your part and their part. You're trying to nurture them across the bridge, And they're like, you know what? It's pretty good over here. So what I suggest, again, to hundreds, if not thousands of parents is to back away from testing or the performance kind of feel of it, that maybe, or I know it would work a lot better if we step in as a play actor and that we begin to wonder. With them. Let me explain what this means. So we're not asking them to perform or do something. And what we really want to do is step into being a communicative partner. Not to teach them or to parent them, but to really be with them as a partner. so say, you know, you have something, I just have a pair of glasses here, but I say, Hmm, I'm trying to remember what these are called. Hmm. And I think, and I wonder, and I look at them, I look at these and I hold them up and I'd say, um, is this a hat? No, no, it's not a hat. And they're looking at me because I'm just wondering, I'm just contemplating. And I'd say hat. No, that doesn't sound right. And I look back at them and I'd say, Hmm, do I put them, you know, in the sink? No, no, no. It doesn't go in the sink. You know? And you could do this with an object that's important to them, A cup, right? Um, but you're asking simple, concrete, silly questions and they're starting to attend to your silliness, And, and you can say, oh, can I drink from this? No, you don't drink from this. What do I do? What are they called? And if they're not saying anything, they're just watching you. Nine times out of 10, they'll just watch you. Then you just give them plenty of opportunities with your kind of silly wondering, silly questioning. And if they don't say anything, then. A good little trick is a whisper. You can say, oh, they're glasses. That's what they are. Glasses, because kids love whispering. They love to play and control their voice, and they also love it when you whisper kind loudly in, in their ear, right? Because that's, that's personal. It's, it's getting connected with them. But all of this playful banter, playful engagement is, is engaging to them. They're gonna listen and there's no pressure. And you don't do this all the time. You do this a few times here or there when you're say, getting ready to take a bath or you're putting the dishes away, right? And he's helping you, or you're even, you know, getting into the car and you're like, Hmm, what is this called? Uh, is this a shoe? And you know, you're pointing to the buckle in the car seat. No. And you're looking at them and you're pulling them in. And this is how children I think, have learned naturally for thousands of years. They're pulled into the environment and we have to be, many times in the current modern environment, a little bit more obvious in it because our days tend to be a lot busier than say, you know, 150 years ago. But. They're, they learn, they acquire, they develop these skills, not through testing, but through play. And when you engage like this with wonder or silliness, and leaning into it, then they're, they're going to feel less pressure. Right. And sometimes, like, I'll stand in front of the sink, say, we're gonna wash our hands. And I'm like, okay, our hands are dirty. Hmm. I wonder what we do first. And you're, you know, you're just plain silly. You're looking around, you get the towel. Hmm. Is do we need the towel? You know? And really, I. At this point, it's, it's being silly. Yes, but playing helpless invites your toddler in to support you or rescue you. Right? They want to join us. They want to provide something that's worthy, right? They need to feel needed, important in this family dynamic stuff. And so now we're not performing, but we're participating together. We're, we're doing this together. And it's playful, it's non-threatening, right? So participation really builds their courage to try things that maybe aren't easy, like single words, right? But you're giving them more opportunities to practice through your everyday life, And, and over time, this builds more confidence in them and then they'll start to practice more on their own. And what, how I like to look at it is that speech should not, or speech should feel natural. Almost like breathing. Almost just like waving, right? That, you know, think about it. When we walk by someone on the street and they say hello to you, you automatically say hello back. Oh, hello, I'm, how are you doing? You know, beautiful day. It's just automatically, we don't really think about it, right? So when your child is developmentally ready, those words just start to come out naturally because they've spent 18, 20 months of pre-wiring and listening and coding and trying to, to synchronize all of these systems up. The words just start coming out, And that's where we as developmental specialists, and many parents will see this language explosion between 18 and 24 months. They move from 20 words to 200 words. Not because every day they went out and labeled things around the house, right? Oh, rug, couch, cup, pencil, window. But because you pulled them in. because through everyday life experience and engagement with you and other family members and his community, he heard words put to things and actions and feelings in real time. They've played with the voice in songs and nursery rhymes and environmental, sounds and animal sounds and all of this, and they've coded things and so now things are linking up and they're beginning to, those neural pathways are, are forming, right? They're still kind of superficial. They, they're not deep embedded grooves, but once there's, there's a pathway that they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, they're gonna go back and forth more and more. And those grooves are gonna get deeper and more automatic, And stronger and build upon, and not just one words. Now you can say three words, right? And that's where automaticity, that's where speech fluency comes into play. So the work is beginning to feel more natural because we've built from the foundation up, right? And that's where we call things are beginning to emerge, but now it's rapid, it's really happening every day. You should almost see changes and growth. And so that's why I say for this anchor number two, talk with your child inside your everyday life. It's not at him or expecting him to perform as much as you are giving them the model and the opportunity to explore, right? So now the third anchor for this, this perspective at this end of the year and beginning of a new year, is how everything should tie together. And it's, it's really looking at how the brain grows through our body. If something feels off attention regulation or language, right? The words aren't coming or if they're not sitting still, or if they seem overly sensitive. I always look at the body first, Because those skills talking and listening and attending are brain derived, so that's built through the body. So when a new family would come into my practice, I always started by watching how the child moved as they entered whether she was holding him, or he came in walking himself, or she put him down right away. What was his or her physical state? How do they stand or walk? Do they scoot or crawl? Do they climb up on the chairs? You know, I used to have a, a big sofa in several chairs, and of course kids wanna climb, you know, how are their limbs and their torso, what about their jaw and their lips and their eyes? are they a natural nasal breather? All of those physical structures and how they use them in real time helps me see inside where are they developmentally, right? Because speech and language isn't going to come if there's a dysregulation or a disjointedness in their physical growth and development That is incredibly telling, right? Yes. You do have to understand what some of the physical milestones are, you know, to expect an eight month old walking, that's not typical. Right. you know, for him or her to be up on all fours and eager to try to move his body forward or sideways. Or backwards, right? At eight months, they're just beginning to, to figure out how they can move on all fours, and that's age appropriate, But this physical exercise and maturity is really building the connections in their neural pathways or building the neural pathways, right? And making those connections stronger and stronger. And it's true throughout our whole life, not just as babies and toddlers at my age and your age, and every age in between. So when we talk about. Sensory integration. We're talking about all of the systems, The tactile system, which is the touch, Does he have sensory sensitivities? Does he like deep pressure touching or is he more of a soft, gentle guy? That, but we're looking at that tactile development. Then there's the vestibular. That's your inner ear is crucial for balance. Spatial orientation, coordinating the head as well as stabilizing the head and moving the eyes, right? There's a lot of coordination back with the heads and the eyes. And, and then there's proprioceptive that is very important. And, and I learned this through the occupational therapist that I worked with, you know, 35 years ago, but it's, it's our ability to sense our body's position in space. And then when we move in that space and how much effort does it take, again, when I watch a child come in and they're trying to, uh, you know, crawl up on the sofa, how much effort can they coordinate? Can they feel their body in this three dimensional world? How much effort does it take to pull up to a stand or to roll over? Or even simple things when they're just opening and closing cupboards. You know, do they have that balance? Can they adjust? And all of these things that they're doing, climbing up on the sofa, opening and closing the cupboards, rolling over, crawling under the table, all of these physical things are not only testing their body in this three, three dimensional world, but giving themselves another try and to become more fluent. And they're, we are, we're wired to do that, right? To explore and move our body. And then of course, there's auditory part of the sensory integration. Auditory is not just hearing right to hear your voice or to hear the doorbell or the dog barking. It's much more complex. Of course, everything in our body seems to be more complex, but it's looking at pitch and volume. It's also looking at location and orientation. That's why children who have recurrent ear infections, maybe it's their left ear and they, they can often be disoriented because they don't have bilateral hearing. Right? Who's calling my name and do I, can I recognize where they are in this room? Is it behind me? Is it in front of me? Is it to the right of me or to my left? And. And it's important to say when they go from a small, maybe your home is quiet and and small and it's just you two, and then you go out at the park or to a big play event or to a school event, and now there's a lot more talking. There's a lot more movement. Can I, can I integrate all of this and get oriented? And so a lot of things is ha a lot of things are happening in that first 12 months and 24 months, all of which are, can compete with their emerging skills, right? When they shift from this small home base to this big world. Can, can I use the skills that are, are, are still just coming on board and that's why listening or following directions. It can be tricky when you change the context. And then of course for all of these sensory processing skills, there's visual, And at this age, with your, your child at those first two or three years, visual is really the dominant sense, right? Because everything else, even though visual is still fairly immature, but everything else needs a lot more wiring up, even though vision does as well. But part of the safety, survival, I think, um, design that God gave us was it was to really hone in on visual skills, visual processing to recognize people's faces. Ah, because that's survival. He or she will take care of me. And then to start to discriminate. Oh, that's mama. She's my most favorite. That's papa. He's my most favorite. And I recognize those faces. These are different, right? Those first couple of months, they don't really discriminate as well as they do when they get a little bit older, 6, 7, 8 months of age. But visual processing helps us understand and navigate, recognize different things like rattles and car seats. Oh, I'm getting into the car seat now. Oh, I'm getting, you know, into my crib now. But it also, helps make sense of motion and depth and color and integrating all of these things, putting it with touch and feel. And what I hear, oh, this, this is a cup, right? Ooh, I see the water swooshing around. Here's my example, right? And, and it's coming to my mouth. Oh, I know. I can take a sip. And so those kinds of things of visual and tactile and auditory are coming together in that first 12 months and 18 months and 24 months. All of these systems are talking to each other as they're coming on board and you're, you're toddler is trying to navigate them and make sense of this, this kind of neurological conversations that's, that's going on in their own head. And the, the reason why I share all of this kind of detail with you is to gain perspective on what your baby and your toddler, and even your preschooler is working on each and every day. This, these, these neurological pathways are just beginning to wire up and just beginning to sync up with each other. That's a lot of cognitive mental bandwidth. It's a lot of physical energy. Right. And I do think most of us, it's easy to overlook what your baby and toddler and preschooler are, are doing at any given moment. And I think part of my responsibility here is to just keep helping us remind what, what's going on and not to minimize it. Because I, I do look at especially early human development and I'm just in awe. And, and I remember, back in graduate school when I really started studying what it takes to physically and cognitively develop speech, I was, I was totally overwhelmed. I thought I was surprised. Any human really learned how to talk and listen because so much needed to wire up. So much needed to sync up with each other in order to master this human communication system and understand at the same time that we're building this physical body, How can it be so complex and yet natural all at the same time? I think only God knows, of course, we just study it and, and try our best to understand it and support it. Right? Here's a good example of how this complex human system can be overlooked and misunderstood by both professionals and everyday parents and I think it's also why many children struggle, especially kids who have sensory processing issues or sensory sensitivities, but especially those kids who are on the autism spectrum They struggle with listening and looking at people at the same time. This is a classic issue that many kids will have. And part of it, or, or a big reason behind it, is that children, their brain cannot process the visual data and the auditory data simultaneously. It's just, it's an sensory overload for them. So what do they do is they look away and, and the truth is, we now know that they look away so they can listen better. And that's not being disrespectful and it's not even avoidance. It's really, I think, a natural adaptation that they've learned. And I remember in graduate school and even in the nineties and probably in the two thousands, that adults demanded that they look at someone and listen to them. And that it was it was actually probably the number one treatment goals written in clinics and schools across America, and, and I believe probably still is written in any treatment plan, unfortunately. But what science has taught us is that most of the time when kids look away, they do that so they can fully hear you or fully process and not have competing visual data. That's just an overload for them. Here's a real life example. Say you're driving, you're on a, a road trip, you have a couple of friends, or maybe you have your family in the car with you and everything's going just fine. Then all of a sudden you realize you're lost and you, you're thinking, uhoh, uh, I don't know what to do. What's the first thing you do to try to rectify that situation? You turn off the music, you tell everyone to be quiet, and you try to orient yourself. Where are you? Maybe your GPS isn't working right. We can't rely on that. Um, and, and you really try to think through, but you have to turn off the background noise. You have to, you have to disengage with competing data. Right. And you tell everyone, sh I have to figure out, you know, what intersection am I, have I seen this building? Do I know you know where to go? Can I figure this out? With, with less data coming at you, you can focus, you can think, you can make a decision, right? And so our little kids, they do that all the time. If they're lost in their play and you call their name, it's hard for them to turn that off and shift gears and look at you. And especially when they're two and even three, And so quite often kids with sensory processing issues will naturally want to reduce the load, and they'll look away from you and they'll listen and, and then they, they're doing the best they can under the circumstances, right? So. The brain and the body connection also needs movement. And that's where climbing and crawling and carrying things, pushing things, opening, closing, but it also needs what we call cross lateral movement, right? Crossing that midline. Think of patty cake. Patty cake. That strengthens the brain. Hemispheres boosting coordination of your left side or your right side and your left side, right? Balance and spatial awareness. And so it's really important to, to build that integration and that synchronicity by having a lot of variety to their movements, And so. What I always phrase it as is ultimately we want a 7-year-old to sit at a desk, whether at home or at school or someplace, and be able to read or write or color, and to have that sustained attention, sitting upright, being able to do something with his hand work at seven. That is an appropriate developmental goal. But what he really needs, or she needs to get to that point is seven years of movement and play and exploration and talking and listening and wiring. And the funny thing ironically is that other cultures, Finland and Sweden, they don't even have. Formal academics until age seven, right? They have extremely high literacy s scores, and yet they don't really introduce formal literacy and formal academics sitting at a desk and doing more paperwork, right? Or book work until seven. They do a lot of play-based movement, play-based social communication development, both outside and inside. And so I think unfortunately here in the United States, we've missed the Mark A. Little bit and that as you look at your baby and your toddler and your preschooler, I just want you to, to think about what serves him or her the best, what's the most natural way, and that more movement actually equals. Better brain health. And this is true at any age, like I said earlier, you and me, but especially with your two and three and five and 7-year-old, and we all know the truth if we're really honest, that screens on the other hand are passive and overstimulating at this stage especially. But we also look at the screen that it's two dimensional, it's a flat screen. It gives no visual depth or spatial awareness or opportunity to build those visual processing skills. And, and we know this for sure, that's what the science tells us, and that's one of the reasons why the American Academy of Pediatrics says, you know, no screens until age two. Because we know it interferes with their visual development. Right? And screens don't build the brain, they actually bypass it, right? It's just a big dopamine hit. So as we walk forward into the next year, think about these things. Think about what is the most natural, basic, healthy, and healthiest environment that I can provide, right? So now I I just wanted to integrate all of this, the, these three main anchors that you can carry in your back pocket. I, I wanted you to paint this picture, that these three, to stay in sync. Right, and, and that if you're in sync with your child, then you can redirect them, then you can model for them. Then you can show them a better, more useful way. The second one is to talk inside your real life. Use everyday activities as the prompts. And then the third one is that the body leads the brain in development, and that movement is required at any age, but especially when they're just wiring the systems up and that's not doing more. That's really seeing what healthy, natural human development is. It's going back to the basics, keeping it pragmatic, right? Your child doesn't need you to be perfect or to set up these activities or to do these tasks. They need. You to be present connected with them, And and I look at it as building this relationship as a healthy soil, right? When the soil is rich and nourished and uncluttered, right? You've pulled out all the old weeds, you've raked it and turned it over. Then growth follows Naturally. It's not forced. So as the final episode for 2025, if you've listened and you thought to yourself, wow, I wish I had someone to help me see my child clearly, to understand where we are and how we can move forward, that's what my discovery calls are all about. They're personal one-to-one conversations. It's not about evaluating or even. looking at if therapy is or isn't needed. it's just a space to ask questions and get grounded and to see if perhaps one-to-one coaching is a good fit. And you can find the link down below. And if that feels supportive and is good timing for you, then great. I look forward to setting up that call and really getting to know you and your family better. And if not, that's okay. Sometimes just listening to these episodes is enough to move that needle and is enough for you to notice what can I do differently? Thank you as always for spending time with me. I'm so grateful you're here and happy, happy New Year. I'm excited what we're gonna build together in 2026, and I will see you in the next talking toddlers.