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Hello and welcome to the questions and answers edition of Thriving Kids, a podcast from the Child Mind Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of children with mental health and learning disorders. I'm Dr. Dave Anderson, clinical psychologist and your host. Last week I was joined by Dr. Ruben Para Cardona, a professor at the University of Tennessee and an expert in parent child relationships. We had a beautiful conversation about why the relationship is the foundation of all parenting and how you make deposits into your child's emotional bank account and why it's never too late to heal a connection. Today we're answering your questions about how to build and maintain a strong positive bond with your child or teen. Let's get into it. So our first question on this Thriving Kids podcast Q and A episode on building strong bonds with your kids is this one. I know the advice is to spend 15 minutes of child led special time together, but honestly, playing dolls or trucks for the hundredth time is boring. How do I maintain a warm and positive energy when I'm secretly counting down the minutes until I can go do something else? I love leading off with this question because we're starting kind of the developmentally early end of the spectrum and this is difficult for many parents. It's this notion that in order to build a positive relationship with your kid, and I am the parent of a nine and a six year old with my lovely wife. And the secret that I even would tell my kids when they get older is that even as child therapists, which my wife and I both are child psychologists, we were pretty bored with a lot of the stuff that they did from zero to five. Because at the end of the day, when you have an infant, a lot of times all you're doing is talking and looking at them and listening and narrating things for them and maybe like talking about what they're looking at and trying to show them various things. Because with an infant, the biggest thing is their exposure to words and speech and new stimuli around them. And as a way of starting to get their brain wired around certain experiences as you get into the kind of, you know, ages from say 2 to 5, parents are often told to spend special time with their kids, you know, following their lead in play, trying to make sure that they delight in their child and that they're excited about these activities and that they spend this kind of quality time. And yet many of the toys that are made for 2 to 5 year olds are mind numbingly boring for parents. So I get where this question comes from. So first and foremost, let me just say it matters that your kid sees that you're making time for them. It matters that your kid sees that you're trying to engage in activities they like. You do not have to necessarily be acting like you're a joyful clown at all times, so delighted in absolutely everything. Your presence already is one gift to them. Your response to their achievements or the things they're trying or the things they play with. Play playing with is another gift. But you don't necessarily have to find yourself incredibly amused. When we talk about the bar for special quality time, especially when we do therapies, for example, with kids from ages 3 to 7, most of the time we're talking to parents. If there's maybe one child in the home, about five minutes of quality, you know, special playtime each day. If there's multiple children in the home, we want to be mindful of just how many things a parent is juggling. And we might say, look, let's try to find, you know, once or twice a week with each of the kids to have just quality one on one time each in an activity of their choice, where you don't feel like you have to set too many boundaries or rules. And the value of this within the parent child relationship is that you're really. And we talk about this Dr. Park Cardona and I on the podcast last week, as well as in other episodes on kind of parent child relationships with various experts on the podcast. This notion of filling your child's cup, you're really trying to make it so that your kid sees this kind of emotional availability, this willingness to engage in their interests, this willingness to kind of delight in the things that they're trying for themselves at an age appropriate level. And all of these predict warm and positive relationships later on. And they predict more disclosure by your child and telling you about different aspects of their life because they see you kind of showing up for this time. That said, I tell parents, like it's a fake it till you make it situation. If your child is playing with big Lego blocks for the hundredth time, you know, you might try to amuse yourself by building a new structure, but you may find yourself just in this space of saying, wow, that is a big tower again. Or if you are once again having a tea party with dolls or feeding a doll, or you're playing the same game of tag that they delight in. What I tell parents to take comfort in is that these are attachment rituals. What the reason why kids go back to these things over and over is they find these are reliable sources of connection for them. With you. They want you to see that they built a tall tower. They find it interesting to see how you give them new ways of socializing with their dolls in the midst of a tea party. They are delighted at this chasey that is so developmentally, you know, kind of appropriate at these ages and the notion of, like, danger and heightened emotionality and, you know, will. Will they catch me or won't they catch me? The other question, I'll just say I get a lot in these, you know, quality play times is that if parents play competitive games with their kids, if it's sports or if it's a board game or, you know, something like that, as kids get into kind of the early elementary school ages, or if it's tag, like, should they try their hardest? And my answer is, vary it up. You could show once in a while to your kid how good you are at Connect 4, but really the whole focus is on connection, not necessarily on learning to win just yet. Competition comes along in a little bit later developmental stages. So with that, let me move into the second question because there are a lot of overlapping themes in some of the questions we get this this week. Our second question on the Thriving Kids Q and A podcast this week. I love the idea that we have to make deposits of love before we can make withdrawals of discipline. But what do you do when your child's behavior is so challenging that you feel like you're in a constant state of withdrawal? How do you find things to deposit when you're feeling frustrated and resentful? This relates so well to the conversation last week in the sense that this listener was hearing. Dr. Para Cardona and I discuss this notion that so much of authoritative parenting, this idea that you lead with nurture, but you set boundaries when needed, which itself is kind of the midpoint of authoritarian parenting, which is being hyper structured and permissive parenting, which is being very unstructured and only leading with nurture. That what we see in the research is that the outcomes for kids, the, you know, connectedness in a parent, child relationship, kids, self esteem and resilience, all of those things are optimized when parents are kind of striking this balance between leading with nurture, making deposits of love, and then making withdrawals of discipline or setting boundaries when absolutely needed. And this is the essence of all behavioral parent coaching. So we get lots of parents who come in and they say, my child's behavior is so incredibly challenging, or all I feel like I'm doing is threatening, taking away privileges, punishing, things like that. And my answer is, I get it. Like, you're programmed very much like most parents are, which is that evolutionarily, parents are programmed to notice when their kids are hurt, when their kids are doing socially unacceptable things, or when their kids are misbehaving at a certain level. That would work from an evolutionary perspective. You are ensuring the success of your offspring by trying to maintain their health, trying to make sure they don't hurt themselves, and also trying to make sure that they don't do things that would get you rejected by others in your community. At the same time, in modern parenting, that instinct is less useful because it puts you in kind of this zone of being a negative behavior detector. And a lot of what we work with parents on is trying to catch your child being good, trying to make that your default. Because even with parents who feel like they're in the most withdrawal focused stage where all they feel like they're doing is threatening or punishing, the way that we build up a general kind of like, you know, house of cards of managing behavior effectively is we say to parents, let's start at the bottom of this pyramid. And the first thing that we do is we try to find times to engage with your kid in one on one time. There are situations where you're less likely to have to set boundaries or set rules. You're more likely to be able to show them some moment of connection or emotional availability, or, you know, kind of find some joy or be impressed in what they're doing. And we kind of do those as deposits into the bank. Then we look at the environment and maybe we structure the home or certain outings so that we're less likely to get into conflict or see a kid misbehave. Then we try to help parents to think about how much they're making deposits, how much they're catching kids being good. And every situation that parents bring us has a flip side in this regard, in the sense that when parents say siblings are always fighting, I'll say, look, as much as I know that you're stressed right now and pulled in a million directions, I know there are moments when by intent or even unintentionally, siblings might be getting along or at least not annoying each other. Or a parent will say to us, look, my kid is always misbehaving at the dinner table. And I'll say, I totally get it. Your child may be acting like a barbarian at the dinner table, but I know there are also moments when they might be quiet. There might be moments when, yes, they do use a fork. There might be moments where yes, they do try a new food. And we really try to think through with parents what are the positive opposites of some of the behaviors you're really annoyed by, and how do we get you to a point where you're catching a kid, being good, catching their effort. And then we build upon that. We try to ignore minor misbehaviors that are occurring. And then we try to think about when we're, we're smartly using consequences that we can use, we can follow through on consistently. And you know, for younger kids, this often involves some sort of timeout. For as kids get older, it might involve some sort of loss of a privilege. And as you get in the teenage years, it involves setting the boundaries around the things that teenagers care most about, usually some level of financial support for their social life, their curfew or the timing of their social life. Transportation, extra food they want to get, perhaps with a friend, or other things that they're asking about that you might be willing to purchase for them beyond the chores they might do in the house, the allowance they might be earning, or in many teenagers cases, the job that they might have in high school that might be earning them some sort of wage to pay for themselves. So all of this is to say that, like, we kind of work with parents in thinking through how are you making these withdrawals in a sustainable way where you can consistently follow through on a punishment. Because one of the other principles that we really need to emphasize to parents is that punishments are most effective when they're small and consistently used. And then we track the data on whether or not these behaviors are decreasing over time. No single punishment makes the behavior go away forever. Punishments don't need to be big, they don't need to cause great distress in the child. And you know, there's something where we're often talking like, how can we remove this small increment of a privilege? Or how can we decrease curfew by this much? Or take away a certain amount of time spent with friends, or take away some sort of preferred activity in increments in order to show the child that there's a boundary here, but at the same time being reasonable and consistent and pivoting back to kind of leading with nurture where we can. And I promise you this process. You know, when, when parents look at building these skills up, it's kind of like watching hair grow. It can be that parents don't really see the change on a day to day basis, but within two weeks, they often see some significant changes. Within four weeks, they really see some changes and within three months that tends to be the course of a good evidence based course of therapy. For parents who are wondering about resources for this, we have many resources listed in previous podcast episodes around promoting positive behavior, including the first ever podcast episode of Thriving Kids and also with another thing that I'll reference and which will be in our show notes from this episode which is our positive parenting Thriving Kids curriculum which is available for free on our website childmind.org if you are looking for resources to lead you through this skill building because you might not have a mental health professional to guide you. Okay, our third question. I spent a good bit of time on that second question because that's just my area of just clinical passion here. So our third question on the Thriving Kids podcast Q and A episode for this week. I had a massive blow up with my teen yesterday and said some things I regret. I want to repair the relationship, but I'm worried that if I apologize I'll lose my authority or seem weak. Can you actually build a stronger relationship by admitting you were wrong to your child? This is a great question because a lot of the thinking that parents have when they say I can't show this level of vulnerability to my kid because I will seem weak or I'll be taking away my authority, I often remind parents you have authority inherently in the position of parent. You are providing your child with shelter, food, clothing, support, love, you know, oftentimes a little bit of money for their extracurricular activities or different things that they are passionate about collecting. There is so much support that you're already providing that by virtue of just being that support, you have a ton of power. You are already offering, you know, certain privileges that you can giveth and taketh away that already is part of your authority. Also, you know, you are providing guidance, you are providing advice. Whether your kid groans, whether they yell at you when you provide it, whether they actually listen actively as you provide that advice is another story. But there's so many different sources of authority for parents that when parents get over focused on this idea that vulnerability or apologizing would make them seem weak, I want to remind us first of all of that context. And then I want to also remind us of what skills we're helping our kids to develop for a lifetime. Do we want them to see modeled for them the notion that when you do something wrong or when you blow up, or when you say words in anger, you return and you repair or you apologize? Absolutely. Now apology is just the first step. What I really tell parents I want kids to see that model is the notion of seeking authentic repair. Because at the end of the day, for their future roommates, for their future partners, for, you know, future relationships, in fact, future dynamics with you later on when you all get into arguments as they get into different life stages. The real kind of essence of an apology is a commitment to oftentimes changing your behavior or doing better in the future and then demonstrating that. So to model that is to ask the same of your kid at later stages of their development and to hopefully lay the groundwork so that they can do that in future relationships. So to this parent, I would say, you know, I do this all the time. I'll say to my kids, just like, you know, I reacted in anger there. I said something that I shouldn't have. I'm sorry about that. You know, I will try to be better in the next moment and try not to get angry about this particular thing. And then what I want to see from them, where I want to catch them being good, is if they come back in future conflicts and say, I should have done that better, or, I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have said that to you, or something like that. Where we're really developing these relationship skills for a lifetime and not so much thinking about authority as much, and that that's really where we want to sit. Question number four. I have three kids. With two of them, the warmth comes easily, but with my middle child, our personalities just clash. We've been butting heads since he was a toddler. Is it possible to build a positive relationship with a child when you feel like you're fundamentally different people? This is a great question, because especially as people have multiple kids, they can't all necessarily be total personality matches to any particular parent. That doesn't mean that you're not building an incredibly positive relationship, because what you gotta remember with your kids is you're the only relationship to you that they know of. They don't have anything else to compare this to. Now, granted, they may compare themselves to their siblings and say, you treat them nicer or you connect with them on more things, or you share interests with them. But all we really need to do is respond with, but I'm so interested in loving each of my children equally and in building new and different things and to do with each kid uniquely, like, I want to get into your interests. I want to understand you. And even if you don't feel like that's as easy as it should be, I'm here for it. That's all kids need to hear. Because at the end of the day, yes, it might come easily for you with maybe one of your other children, but being able to say that explicitly your kid is an incredible gesture of love and saying like, you, you and I might still be seeing the same thing. You're right. One of your siblings might share my passion for sports and the other one might like the same kind of music. And our demeanors might just be that we both run hot, whereas, you know, your two siblings might run cool. And so for that reason, you know, I may not run as hot with them even. So, name those things. Tell them that you notice, you know, certain differences, but that you are again, uniquely devoted to building each relationship and making sure they feel connected to you. That can go an incredibly long way just hearing your parents say over and over. Because at the end of the day, so much of what people sit in therapists office talking about is what they created in their head about what they wondered their parents impression was. And not every parent is as good at making explicit different things. But what I always go back to is telling parents it doesn't need to be eloquent, it doesn't need to be incredible. It doesn't need to be at a level where a therapist would give it a gold star for its level of emotional insight. It just needs to be simple. Say I am here for this relationship. I want to develop our unique relationship. I want to figure out what interests we could share. Or I just want to understand what interests you have. And even if I don't share them, I want to be into them. Let's keep it simple. And in the end of the day, as your kid moves into adulthood, they'll know that people can be different. People can share, you know, not share the same interests. People can, you know, run like kind of oil and water, but at the same time they can be devoted to connecting with each other and they can do the work of that. And that's what you've modeled for your kid. And that's what really matters. Our Next question, question 5 on this Q and A episode. I grew up in a very traditional home where parenting was all about because I said so. I want to be warmer and more open with my kids. But whenever they push back, my inner drill sergeant takes over. How do I stop reacting from my own childhood baggage and stay in that wise parent headspace? This is a great question that's reflective of a kind of mindful parenting approach. A lot of what we're doing in initial sessions, when we start working with parents, especially in Consulting on how to build positive relationships with their kids is we're kind of asking them about their own parental models. Some parents might have more authoritative parental models, parents who balance nurture and structure. Some parents might say, look, I had a drill sergeant for a parent. I was to be seen and not heard. I was, you know, meant to hop to. The second that I was given instruction, I was told that relationships of authority in my household were based around the idea that this person has authority. I don't. And until I get to my own independence, my own house, my own income, I don't speak up. I do what I'm told. And granted, you know, what we see in households like that is that kids will often be quite well behaved. Kids will often say that they, you know, learned a certain level of obedience or following directions, and they'll pride themselves on, you know, certain qualities that were valued in those households. Respect for their elders, things like that. And we want some of those qualities. But at the same time, what we find is that in households that correct toward a more authoritarian model, there's less of a warm and positive relationship between parent and child. A child is. Or a teen is less likely to say, I go to my parent when I'm struggling and I ask them for advice or I ask them for help. And a kid is less likely to tell a parent in particular when they're struggling, because the sense is like, look, your job is just do what you're told. You know, kind of listen to your parent. So what we say to parents is, we're not faulting you at all for the, you know, fact that your parents probably tried their best, that you might still be emulating them in a certain way that is also trying your best. But if you're looking to open up a few more of those avenues of connection, we can help you think about how you want to maintain your authority in a way that feels authentic to you while also searching for what's within your wheelhouse in nurturing and in building some warmth into the relationship. And that can be as easy as saying to a parent, look, keep your authority. Like, continue to tell your kids that you expect them to listen as quickly as possible. And for some people, they'll say, like, look, this is really cultural for me, or this is something that is really meaningful, and I'm not willing to compromise on that. And I'll say, we can take this as a yes and not an either or. Let's maintain that. And in moments when your kids have finished their homework, done what you've told them, to do. Let's then focus on, you know, relaxing for a second in moments where you have a little bit of space, a little bit of downtime, and practicing some of these connection skills, you know, talking to your kid about what they're doing, asking what they're, you know, playing at that moment, or what they're looking at, you know, or what they're watching on television, asking them what book they're reading, and just kind of trying to get into their world and understand it and just do that in a non judgmental way, which makes it so that kids are more likely. Even in homes where parents are really focused on, you know, a kid following through on directions, parents making space for that kind of discussion makes it so that a kid says, okay, well, even though I'm expected to listen, they really are interested in my life, they're interested in my interests. And so if I have a problem with my friends, or if I have a problem with a romantic partner, or if I have a really difficult thing that I'm trying to address in school, I might be more likely to bring that to them. Our sixth question on this thriving kids podcast. Q and A. My daughter is 15 and has hit a wall of silence. Every time I try to be positive or ask about her day, I get an I don't care or a door slammed in my face. How do you keep a relationship warm when the other person is actively trying to freeze you out? So this is something where I get pretty granular when we get into this kind of wall of silence place where I say to parents, like, look for all of your best efforts. You know, teenagers can be moody. They can be shut down. And this can also really scare parents because a lot of millennial parents are being fed narratives about what this means. They're being fed narratives about adolescent depression, what it means for kids to be isolated, things like that, that really SC and parents are right to be concerned. We don't want teens to be isolated. That can often be a sign of depression. But at the same time, we can build that connection bit by bit again, even if you hit that wall of silence. And the biggest way that I get granular with parents is about how your speech is kind of characterized when you're around your teen. So I will highlight for parents that much of parental speech tends to be giving directions, asking questions, or either implied or direct criticism of what teenagers are doing. They tend to spend their time a bit away from us at school or with friends. Or maybe they're isolating themselves in their own activities when they get home. And so when they emerge from their room, it's very common for parents to react with a sort of like peppering them with a bunch of directions and things that are on their plate that they want to make sure the teen takes care of. Criticizing something they might have said earlier, or their moodiness, or how they behave to the sibling, or asking an endless string of questions, hey, by the way, how is science right now? Did you get that homework done? Also, did you get that thing? And did you also make sure that you told your father this? And so it's this sense where teenagers will tell us that they walk out of their room and. Or whatever space they were in, and they're just kind of immediately accosted with different things they have to do and different questions about whether or not they took care of stuff or things that are more about the parent leading the conversation and their particular concerns. So what I always say to parents is, I want to teach you three skills that we often use in behavioral parent coaching with younger kids, and that is to use behavior descriptions, reflections, and praise. And what I mean by that is, with younger kids, oftentimes kids who won't speak, or kids who are really behaviorally reactive, we coach parents to be able to sit down next to a kid and just either describe what they're doing, like a play by play announcer, or reflect their speech, which means to paraphrase their speech without asking a question, or praise something you see that they're doing well. So with a younger kid, they're sitting there coloring with crayons, and you might say, I see that you're coloring that parrot's beak a cool purple color. Okay, so that's a behavior description. Then the kid says, yeah, and after this, I'm going to color the whole rest of the parrot rainbow. Oh, okay, you're going to color the parrot rainbow. That's a reflection. And you're just kind of paraphrasing what they said. And then there's a praise, which is, I think you did a really good job coloring that parrot. Now, with younger kids, we can use those verbalizations pretty frequently. And they don't, like, turn to us that often and say, like, you're super weird. Why are you talking like that? Teenagers absolutely will. So we say to parents, you're not going to, you know, use these verbalizations very, very quickly. But what you want to do is think about, like, how can I approach them in a moment of transition or in a moment when they're involved or doing something that they like? And I will just use These things. So I give parents the example of many of the in home visits that I've done with adolescents in my career where I just think to myself, I'm going to walk in and especially if the adolescent are really defensive or they don't want to talk to me, or they're like, you're the sixth therapist I've seen. My parent just keeps, you know, scheduling these appointments and I can't believe that you're here and I hate therapists or something like that. And I just think to myself, I'm going to walk in and whatever they're looking at, whatever game they're playing, whatever video game it might be, whether or not I'm interested, whatever television program they're watching, whatever they might be, you know, looking at or just kind of like, you know, reading or you know, doing with a friend at that moment. I'm just going to try to use these verbalizations. So to give an example, I, you know, might go in a home visit and I see a kid who's playing a particular game, you know, on the, on their computer or on a video game system. And I might say something like, oh, it looks like, you know, you did really well at picking up this thing or at, you know, accomplishing this particular mission or something like that. I'll lead with a praise and then, you know, Maybe I'll wait 30 seconds and I'll say it looks like you and your friends are working together to do X. And I'll just kind of like give a behavior description and then I'll wait another 30 seconds and I'll just give another play by play kind of commentary. And usually within three or four, a teenager will say to me something like, no, we're actually doing X. And that's my moment for reflection. Anything they say, I'll just say, okay, so you're telling me you and your buddies are doing blah. And I'll just kind of re paraphrase it and then, you know, I'll wait another 30 seconds and I'll give another praise. And what that does over time with a teenager is it just says it kind of, it kind of messes with their expectations situation. It's that they're expecting to come in with your own agenda and you're just sitting there, you're just being with them, you're not necessarily telling them what to do, you're not asking them a bunch of questions. In fact, I haven't asked a single question. All I'm doing is watching what's going on. It makes any person a little Bit more relaxed and a little bit more feeling like you can both have agendas in this conversation. There's a little bit more of an egalitarian ability to kind of share back and forth. And you're more likely to see somebody start to disclose things over time, the more you focus on doing that when you can. And this is the last thing I tell parents about this is you can't always do this. You got to tell your teenager, you know, to grab their coat or they got to remember this particular thing or, you know, to take their feet off the dinner table or whatever else it is. But when you can fall back on those verbalizations and then see if you don't notice, over the course of a few weeks, a teenager starting to disclose in moments of quiet, moments of transition, when you're in transit, you know, things like that. A little bit more. Our seventh and second to last question on this thriving kids podcast. Q and A. We are a high speed family. Sports, work, school. We are lucky if we have 20 minutes of downtime in the car together. What are some microhabits we can use to keep the relationship positive when we literally don't have time for long heart to hearts? So bottom line is that, you know, kind of related to my answers to questions earlier in this episode. There is a lot you can do in the cracks, like going between different activities. There are still great moments to explicitly tell your kids you're proud of them. You know, reinforce resilience, talk about how they bounce back from particular thing. You know, praise them for flexibility and reacting to kind of like the high speed schedule. What I often tell high speed families to do is first look at their virtues. You know, what particular things does your family value? Is it flexibility? Is it, you know, engagement? Is it passion about a number of different activities? Is it adjusting to, you know, changing needs of a bunch of different family members? Is it that you're, you know, looking for folks who can adapt and amuse themselves while other siblings have, you know, different activities? There are lots of virtues. And then in those moments that you can have in transition, to pepper in feedback about that or to ask, you know, quick questions, to kind of say, like, listen, you know, I know we only have a little bit of time, but, you know, is there anything you want to talk to me about or is anything that's kind of, you know, troubling you? And a lot of kids, when you give that, like, quick kind of like question in the cracks, they may not be in a space to emote at that moment. They might have been looking at something on a phone, or they might have been reading something or thinking about a homework assignment, or they're not ready to like, just settle into an emotive space. But what I would also do is I would not stop trying in the cracks. And I would also make sure to explicitly say to them, I also just want you to know, if you ever need to slow down or like, we need to find some downtime together, you know, let me know. This is something that I think is important on two levels. One is in high speed families, sometimes with multiple kids. You know, two of the kids might be really into the high speed, lots of activities. One kid might deeply value downtime more than you might expect, but they're just kind of going along to get along. And it's really a good thing to kind of ask kids from time to time if the pace of their life is what they want and to open it up for discussion about whether or not they really want to have that many activities and to make it that it's an acceptable conclusion to maybe have fewer activities in a sibling and that that can still be a valuable way to spend life if that kid wants a bit more time for boredom or daydreaming or engaging in kind of undirected art projects or something like that. We want creatives, we want people who are high speed, we want folks who are super driven and trying to do all the things. We want people who hyper focus on only one thing. Like we want all that variation, humanity. So on one level, just asking your kid if they need more downtime is a really good thing to kind of open up as a discussion. The other is just to explicitly let a kid know that if they're really troubled by something, if they're really struggling, there is always time to slow down and give them examples of times you've done that with other members of the family. And make sure to repeatedly tell them, don't just have the conversation once, that if they ever need you to slow down and take some time, you guys need to have a meal together and really talk something out, you are here for it that's immensely valuable. So now our last question is a quick one. In this thriving kids podcast Q and A episode. If you could give a parent one phrase to say to their child tonight to instantly boost the warmth in the house, what would it be? And I would say that the easiest thing that you can think of is, first of all, I can give you a phrase stem, and then I can give you a specific phrase. Just notice something that you were proud of them for that day, anything. And if you can't think of a specific thing, just saying I'm so proud to be your parent every single day. You know, I know lots of families, they might go toward I love you, which is a great thing to say to your kid. And there's something just about a genuine expression of emotion in any given night where you take yourself kind of into a moment of groundedness and they really hear that gravity in your voice of you saying, I just want you to know I love you so much. Or I just want you to know I'm so proud of you and I'm so proud to be your parent. Or I want you to know I was so proud to be your dad today when I saw you do this. So much of life is moving at this kind of breakneck pace. And for our kids, so much of what they're looking for from parent, even if you fought that whole day, you can say it even in spite of something, in spite of the fact that right now I know that we've got a lot of moments when we clash. I just want you to know I'm so proud or I feel so lucky or I'm so grateful to be your parent. Gratitude's another one that you can absolutely go with. But you vary those up. Love, pride and gratitude. I promise you, you're filling your kids cup at the end of the day. So with that, thank you to all of you who listened to this Thriving Kids Podcast Q and A episode. For more tools and support, I encourage you to visit childmind.org you find our resources there. That's also home to our Family Resource Center. And within the Family Resource center you can find hundreds of articles, guides, packages of resources and guidance for supporting children with mental health, behavior or learning challenges, or even just the typical challenges of childhood and adolescence. You can also find our Positive Parenting Thriving Kids hub on our website, which features a video on building warm and positive relationships and also features our guest on Last week's episode, Dr. Ruben Paracordona Cardona on some of the Positive Parenting Thriving Kids videos. This is part of a broader library that covers everything from healthy development and self care to navigating major family traditions. Sorry, major family traditions and transitions. Both of those links will be in the show notes. Thank you to everyone who wrote in with questions. Keep writing in with questions for our bi weekly Q and A episodes. Thank you for being part of this Thriving Kids Podcast community and to you. You're doing a great job. See you next week.