Dr. McClain (00:00):

A child’s job is to play and that’s how they meet all the five major domains of development, including social emotional skills, which includes regulatory skills. And so when they clock in, which is every morning when they wake up, they’re supposed to be playing.

Dr. Sarah (00:23):

Today we’re diving into one of the most natural and effective ways to help our kids develop emotion regulation skills, strengthen our parent-child connection and add more delight into our lives all through play. Joining me are the authors of the new book, The Self-Regulation Workbook for 3- to 5-Year-Olds: Play-Based and Creative Activities to Build Coping Skills and Handle Big Emotions. Dr. Abbré McClain and Dr. Jacqueline Salazar, both are psychologists with over a decade of experience working with children’s and families together they’ve created a resource for parents that takes powerful play therapy concepts and packages them in a way that parents can benefit from using in their own home. In this episode, we’ll explore how play and relationships lay the foundation for emotional regulation, why co-regulation doesn’t always have to be so serious, and how even short and simple activities can be super transformative.

(01:21):

There is so much learning that can be done through play. That’s what this episode is all about. When children are playing, their nervous system is in a state of rest, digest, AKA, the opposite of fight or flight. And in this state, the prefrontal cortex or the thinking part of their brain is firing, giving your child the ability to reason, problem, solve, and acquire new information. So what does that mean? It means that we know from research and science that one of the best ways to teach our children is not in the heat of the moment, not through a lecture, but through calm, connected moments during play. And that’s exactly why I’ve created a free guide that teaches you how to incorporate emotion regulation, building games into your child’s play. In it, I teach you fun and simple games that help children of all ages develop regulation skills like learning to breathe, inhibit impulses and calm their bodies. To download this free guide to strengthen your child’s emotion regulation skills when their brain is most susceptible to learning, just go to the episode description wherever you’re streaming to get the link or go to drsarahbren.com/games. That’s drsarahbren.com/games.

(02:33):

Hi, I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist and mom of two. In this podcast, I’ve taken all of my clinical experience, current research on brain science and child psychology and the insights I’ve gained on my own parenting journey and distilled everything down into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights so you can tune out the noise and tune into your own authentic parenting with confidence and calm. This is Securely Attached.

(03:03):

Welcome back to the Securely Attached podcast. Today we have two psychologists here to talk about an incredible resource for little kids who are working on regulation skills, which is my favorite thing to talk about. So thank you so much for being here today. Welcome.

Dr. McClain (03:24):

Thanks for having us.

Dr. Sarah (03:26):

So can you share a little bit about the work that you both do and specifically what you were doing that was like, gosh, I wish there was a resource that solved this problem a little bit better. And talk a little bit about how this book came to be.

Dr. Salazar (03:44):

Yeah, I think what really got me excited about going and filling in this gap of working and wanting to put something out for parents, but teachers and professionals that work with two to six year olds is there’s not a ton of stuff out there for them. And when we look at what’s out there for children, it’s a lot of things like worksheets and kind of these really concrete coping skills. But I think where Dr. McLean and I got excited about is we brought it back home to what children naturally do, and that’s play and that’s the foundation in which they learn about others, about themselves, about coping, about building those healthy relationships. And so we wanted to put a book out there to fill in that gap and to kind of bring it home to talk more about that children’s way that they interact with others in the world, which is play.

Dr. Sarah (04:45):

Yeah, I love that. I think this resonates so deeply with me and anyone who listens to this podcast knows that I’m a kind of geek out on the science of regulation and the science of attachment. We learn to regulate through our relationships, not through worksheets and through experience. It is one of those things you’ve got to practice doing it over and over and over again, and there’s nothing more butter on the slide for a kid than playing that is where they practice the repeating of things. It just happens so naturally in play. I’m wondering if you guys could talk a little bit, and this book does a really nice job, totally accessible and good solid. The Bay of the book is written, it’s a workbook, it’s got all these little activities that you can do that are play-based, but it does a nice job I think, of teaching a little bit speaking to parents or speaking, it talks about the science a little bit. Can you kind of walk parents through a little bit of some of this foundation on why is play and relationships, why is that important for regulation?

Dr. McClain (05:59):

Yeah, that’s a really great question. And I think when Dr. Salazar and I were writing this, we were keeping in mind the science behind it takes a village to raise a child. The global majority has always understood that. And now we have neuroscience to sort of back up what people around the world for hundreds and hundreds of years we’re doing quite beautifully. And so what does it mean to bring this global community together and raise the importance of how significant parents are and the people that care for children? So that was the driving force for the structure of the book, how we introduced the book and also how we ended it. I think a lot of times adults are compartmentalizing themselves and trying to create space for young children, but they actually need to be included for children to be able to do this very important work, which is play and reaching right, developmental milestones or working towards right those things.

(07:10):

And so we can’t live by ourselves. We can’t survive from a classic evolutionary perspective. We cannot survive without other people. And so that is sort of the science that we’re bringing to this book and sort of explaining those things in everyday language of how parents are important. The village is important. The village is important not just for the child but for the teacher, for the caregiver, for the parent, and sort of introducing the concept of attachment through you belong here and are very much needed for this child to be their happiest, healthiest self. And those are things that scientists like Bulbie and all those folks we’re densely describing. And so we’re just saying, Hey, we need everybody and everybody’s important to everybody’s wellbeing. And that was sort of what we brought to the beginning and end of this book.

Dr. Sarah (08:20):

Yeah, I think you do a nice job of explaining how a parent is going to pick this book up because it says it’s the self-regulation workbook. We identify the problem as parents, and I’m a parent of two kids who definitely need to work on their regulation skills developmentally appropriate for them. But I’m like, okay, I’m looking at things like solve this problem. My kid needs to regulate their emotions. They need to stop having all of these explosive behaviors. I want a solution for that. And I like that we can give parents these concrete things that you can do. I particularly like that the concrete things you’re giving them to do are relational. They teach the parent how to co-regulate the child. They teach the parent how to be a secure base, but it’s still play. It’s not like we’re playing games. We’re not having to be lectured as parents on what we have to do, and it’s all on us.

(09:17):

It’s more like no play with your kid, but it’s nice to know why certain types of play are doing what they’re doing. Right. What’s the function? I also see this and I’m curious in your practice. I do a good amount of play therapy with kids, and I always tell parents when I start because usually I start out with parenting support and then there’ll be a moment where I’m like, all right, I think it’s time for me to work with the child for a little bit or with the parent child in a dyadic kind of session. And I will tell them, we’ve just been doing sort of parenting support talk therapy. I can be so direct with you when I’m with your kid. It’s going to feel really different. And there are going to be times where you might in a session be like, what are we doing? Are we just playing? Is this a therapy? How is this? What am I paying for right now? This is a very expensive Jenga game that we’re playing, but it’s like there’s a function behind a lot of these play interventions for kids, and we don’t need to get into all of it, but from a regulation standpoint, why are some of these exercises that you kind of give parents that are really common, they’re pulled right out of our psychological playbook. What’s a function of them?

Dr. Salazar (10:39):

That’s a great question, and I think what was kind of perking in my brain is in our book, we also have worksheets for parents to complete because one of the foundational things we understand is self-regulation cannot happen unless co-regulation exists first. So we also want to give parents tools and support on reflecting on what it’s like to play even just with their children, what skills do they think they’re working on? So we really want to build them up first because that’s going to help the child learn how to cope with those big feelings that they’re having. And the play activities in our book are a lot, not just having the child play and the parent kind of watching them, but it’s really having the parents and child play together. And sometimes we know from parents they bring their own childhood into the interactions with children. And so sometimes that may be hard and that’s why we added these worksheets and therefore parents to kind of take a step back and do some of that reflective work that’s required to help build capacities up.

Dr. Sarah (11:52):

Yeah. Are there any particular exercises that you teach in the book that you feel like are some of your favorites for that? I mean, I think there’s layers to this play work, but if you’re saying we want to build regulation skills, we first have to help a child be successfully, what are some of the exercises in the book where co-regulation is a fundamental you look like that shines in that exercise?

Dr. McClain (12:20):

Yes. So I’m going to answer this question in a roundabout way because Dr. Salazar and I, we had to narrow down these are our 25 favorite things. We sat and talked about literally hundreds of different interventions that we have either been trained in or we came across or worked through. And that was the hardest part of writing this book, not the before and after, but the in-between of what have we seen thematically over time that has built high levels of co-regulation. And that’s what we want to give people. We want to give people the prime and the most important, the most fruitful activities. And so I don’t know if I could choose one because I think 25 is our one big right thing that we narrow down.

(13:22):

But I think part of the 25 is that we don’t get to pick what makes that attachment and relationship and co-regulation occur. I think that was another decision that we made is to include variety where based on a child’s development, for example, with emotional identification, there are modifications based on neurodiverse children, children who are still sort of learning language and that there’s different ways that that child could meet that regulation competency with the support of a caregiver or teacher. And so we wanted to create the top 25 that we’ve seen results from and making sure that those 25 also are accessible to everybody. That doesn’t require a lot of material. Almost all of these things do not even require a worksheet or something standardized, but it allows the parent or caregiver or teacher to feel confident in engaging in this particular activity. And so it’s really hard to pick one because we sort of picked 25 from hundreds of ideas, but these are the 25 things that we feel confident in.

(14:51):

And we have seen parents and teachers over time feel really confident in implementing those things, taking feedback from those things, and reinventing write those things, which is part of why right at the end of the book, there’s a space for adults to play and create their own. Maybe they found a better way than what was standardized in one of the activities, and they can create their own for them and their child or their classroom. And so the goal is right, more of empowerment versus Oh, right, this is the best one for this person. We want adults to feel like they’re making a good choice and being able to select the ones that work for them.

Dr. Sarah (15:42):

So you can’t go wrong. There’s all it’s great. And I do, I also think, and this is so true for I feel like every parenting intervention, no matter what it is, it’s like you have to sometimes throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks for your kid because it could all be really good and well vetted and very validated strategies, but it’s not going to land for your kid, this one or this one, but oh, they’re obsessed with this one. So it’s finding what works is actually part of the process too. I also feel like it might be important to note these are play-based activities that help strengthen a muscle for longer term emotion regulation, building skills, whether it’s self-awareness or body awareness or developing tools for cooling off our nervous systems or feeling connection when we need it. All these things are muscles that they’re strengthening, but they’re not interventions for the heat of the moment. We often talk about emotion regulation with parents. It’s like, okay, my kid’s melting down. What do I do? That’s not the time to pull out one of these games. When are these games best used? How do parents integrate them in life most effectively?

Dr. Salazar (17:15):

I think one thing that came to mind is I think part of it is repetition. This is not just a game that you’re going to play and then the child magically learns. And I think the answer is integrate it wherever you can, whatever works for your family. We all have different schedules and family systems and multiple kind of children. And for teachers this may be trying to implement it throughout the year, just one of these activities to see and make sure it’s consistent and sticks. So I think the answer is it depends. And I know that’s the favorite answer in psychology is it depends. But I really think it just depends on your family, your culture, your system. And the most important thing is just being consistent with it and not just giving it one shot, but giving these activities multiple shots to see how they stick and land with the child.

Dr. McClain (18:16):

And I like to think of it depends, therefore we should do it as much as we can. And part of the intro of the book and we try to really explain the role of a child’s job. All of us have jobs and responsibilities and there’s dividends to that and a child’s job, their actual job is to play. And that’s how they meet all the five major domains of development, including social emotional skills, which includes regulatory skills. And so when they clock in, which is every morning when they wake up, they’re supposed to be playing, whether it’s a game to get ready and get their clothes on and brush their teeth and eat breakfast, whether it’s in the car on the way to school, and these are things, small things or having a special time and oftentimes quality is better than quantity. And a lot of times parents are like, if I don’t have two hours, I don’t think it’s a good enough amount of time to spend with my child.

(19:26):

It could literally be the five minute ride in the car. Oh, I see red things or I see blue things. What blue things or red things do you see that’s playing, that’s engaging? And so I think part of the intro of our book is to try to hold parents and understand how busy parents and teachers are and that if you could just get little things in that is much better than a sort of all or none if we don’t have the time, we just can’t do it. And so we want to try to perk up that creativity and parents feeling good enough in those moments.

Dr. Sarah (20:10):

Yeah, I hope that this is becoming more kind of collective mainstream belief that kids and play. Play is the work of childhood. And I feel like sometimes I am curious if you guys hear this with parents in your practice, but I work with a lot of parents who are like, I hate playing with my kids. I love my kids. I want them to play. I get the value of it and I don’t want to play with my kids. And to that I’m usually like, yeah, I think probably there’s, and I usually will do a little bit of an audit on what does it look like when you play with your kids? And usually it’s just them entertaining their child or them feeling like they have to create this elaborate Pinterest worthy play set up for their kid. And then by the time they’re done doing all that work, they’re kind of exhausted and the kid makes a giant mess and they’re frustrated.

(21:11):

They had an idea in their head that felt thwarted. And so one to that, I usually say to parents, let’s reassess how you define playing with your kids. One, playing with your kids is not the same thing as entertaining your kids. I also tend to teach them strategies for encouraging more independent play, which we could talk about that because I do think these sort of parental involved play activities that you have in your book are actually building blocks that can turn into independent play. But there’s a lot of myths about independent play that parents think, my kid, they would never leave me alone to play. It’s like, well, you could be sitting right next to them and they could be playing independently. It’s that they’re driving the play, not asking you to drive the play. But when we’re talking about, oh man, it’s so overwhelming to play with my kids, I think this is a very helpful workbook because I think it gives parents a little bit of almost like a primer in what more structured parent child dynamic play activity could look like.

(22:23):

That is not you entertaining your child, it is still child led. You are participating in it and holding the frame for it, but you’re not driving it, which is the part that is exhausting about playing with our kids and why we tend to start being like, I really don’t like doing this. This is not fun for me. Can you talk a little bit about that piece and how this might teach parents a new way of being with their kids in terms of play and change, maybe their relationship with their kids when it comes to being involved in their play?

Dr. McClain (22:59):

I wonder a lot of the times about parents who share this type of information, what’s underneath that, which is actually a desire to connect but feeling like they don’t know how.

(23:16):

And that was another driving force of Dr. Salazar and I writing this book is really wanting to hold parents and raise them up a little bit. Parents are very hard on themselves and oftentimes punish themselves and they’re talking about their child and oftentimes they’re talking about their own right experience. And so we want this book to be healing and empowering for them. And I think part of those reflective worksheets that we do have in the book is for parents to have a safe space, a safe nonjudgmental space to talk about why they didn’t enjoy a particular activity or what came up for them in that moment. And to your point, reintroducing this is what play is really about and what’s happening, whether it’s in the world, in your community at home where we don’t have the space to actually enjoy something and how do we create those spaces?

(24:34):

And sometimes parents need help with that, whether they’re in the therapy space or they’re taking a look at this book and it’s like, oh wow, so I need to enjoy part of this too. I get to actually enjoy spending time with my child and I didn’t realize that I could be a part of that or I should be a part of that. It’s not something that pediatricians always share in the pamphlets that they provide are in wellness checkups, you kind of get the developmental milestones, the checklists, but we don’t always have those conversations of you are a part of this really complex, sometimes challenging and beautiful relationship. And so that’s another reason why we wrote this book the way that we did.

Dr. Salazar (25:28):

And I think to add to what Dr. McLean is saying, I think as a mom of a freshly 1-year-old and a child psychologist, I do think as parents there’s this pressure to play and to kind of have this one idea of what play looks like. And in our book we talk a lot about different types of play and how we even play as adults. So people watching, I think we all kind of catch ourselves as adults doing people watching. That is a form of play. And so I think we really try to help but also expand parents’ understanding of what different type of play is to normalize that you probably are playing all the time and don’t even know that you’re doing that. And so our activities also integrate not just these kind of plays that are maybe what we think about plays, which is interacting with the child completely, but it might be activities where the child is just doing their own thing and parents are sitting there and cheering them on. And I’m thinking in one activity in particular where we have the child put on a talent show and then parents are helping set the containment up of the stage and kind of pulling the props in, but the parents really just sitting there and watching their child in wonder and that is play. And so we really wanted to capture all different types to say you guys are playing as parents and doing a phenomenal job at that.

Dr. Sarah (26:56):

And I mean obviously this book is a great resource for kids, but I’m always looking at things for a parenting lens. So steeped in parenting psychology and the psychological world of parents and I see a book like this and some of these strategies, I could see a use case for this with a mom who has postpartum depression who’s having a hard time or maybe had postpartum depression and now maybe she’s recovered from it. But that sense of delight in my child is hard sometimes to access. And that’s a big thing that we work on in work in postpartum depression recovery or PMA Ds. And I could see this book almost being like, I’ve worked with a couple parents recently who are like, they love their kids, they have a good attachment relationship with their kids, but they are so burnt out or they’re so depressed or so overwhelmed by other things in life that finding that joyfulness and that playfulness with our kids is hard.

(28:04):

And the idea of just a very well-intentioned suggestion to play more with your kids can feel like insurmountable and too open that it’s like, I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll put it off. And I do think this book could be a really useful tool for parents who are like, I know it would be better for both of us, me and my child if I was working on this with them, but here are some concrete things. It’s like guidance, it’s more contained. It’s like, okay, if I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to try to come up with something to play with my kid for whatever reason, maybe it’s hard to tap into that creativity right now. Or maybe I’m really burnt out or stressed about other things. If you can just flip to a page and be like, ah, okay, this tells me what the purpose of the activities, the materials that I need. And again, it’s like a bowl, you got it in your house, and then four steps and then some tips for the village. These are doable and they’re just, I don’t know. It feels like it’s giving people a lane to walk down when maybe playing with your kids feels really overwhelming. And I know this book is intended to address the needs of the child, but I feel like you can’t address the needs of the child if the parent’s needs aren’t being met too. And so it’s the whole family system we got to work with.

Dr. Salazar (29:35):

Exactly, exactly. I think one thing for me and Dr. McLean writing the book and we talk with parents and we have parents who struggle with postpartum like OCD, depression, et cetera, and one of the things I think we always tell parents is you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be good enough and good enough, meaning we get that this job is probably one of the most difficult jobs that one can ever have, and we just want parents to try and want to be engaged and want to be attuned. And so that’s why we wrote these steps to be so basic and things you can grab from your house and anybody can do because we want parents to all kind of have this joy and wonder with their children and kind of sending the message, you don’t have to be perfect, just good enough and four steps is all that it could take sometimes in doing these activities.

Dr. Sarah (30:37):

That’s such an important message. What’s the feedback you’ve gotten from, I’m assuming you tested these out with the families you work with. What’s the feedback? What are people saying that they like about it?

Dr. McClain (30:53):

I think throughout the years, and I’ve been doing this work for about 12 years or so, I think young people give the most visceral feedback you could ever have. And I think part of our role is child psychologists and people who truly understand what it means to be a full complete human no matter how young or how old you might be, that feedback is so important. And part of why we made sure things did not go past a few steps, we’ve heard things like, that’s too much. That’s too much Dr a or things move out of my way. It’s like, okay, I’m taking up too much space. I need to be over here and this is how this activity needs to be set up, or that was really fun. Or parents coming back and saying, you know what? We tried this and it kind of worked.

(31:54):

And so we would ask, okay, well what worked in that space and then what didn’t work? And it was like, okay, maybe this activity is not a weekend activity. Maybe it’s something that happens right before bedtime, and so that is some of the feedback that we’ve gotten, or we should do this instead. And sort of testing that out in the therapy space. And I’m like, you know what? You were right. And I don’t think I’ve ever worked with any young person that didn’t give me some truth in what they were saying. Now the delivery of that information we could debate about, but there’s always some kernel of reality that they’re sharing and that’s always super important to Dr. Salazar. And I think parents too. There’s often some truth in there. There’s a lot of feelings in there and those things are valid and there’s also a truth, and that is feedback that’s super important for us as we do this work.

(33:00):

And then also write and writing the book and then having consultation, having clinical accountability no matter if you’re licensed or not, that you are saying, Hey, is this connected to science or is this connected to how I want to do something? Right? Or being able to provide that honest feedback, well, this didn’t work because this is how you were feeling before you went into that session. And so that’s another way of clinical accountability around are these activities, are what we doing? Is it intentional? Is this intervention backed by theory and theoretical orientation? Are you being intentional with this or are you just trying it out and seeing how it goes? And that accountability has been invaluable, really honing in on listening, paying attention and us being attuned as clinicians.

Dr. Sarah (34:04):

Yeah, yeah, clearly a lot. This is the thing about play and especially the play therapy is on the front end, it looks so simple and light and delightful as it should. And on the back end there’s a lot of work that goes into each piece of that intervention. And I think that this is a nice, I mean, you don’t hide that at all in the book. You help parents understand there’s a function to this. The reason why we’re doing this and not this is explained. And I think that’s really important. It’s almost like a democratization of the information a little bit, which is what I’m always trying to do with this podcast too, is I want parents to understand why certain things are recommended.

(34:58):

I don’t care who is telling you to do something. Even if they have all the credentials in the world, you should understand why you’re doing what you’re doing so that you can modify it to fit your kid. You don’t have to follow these exact guides in the book either. If you know the function of the exercise, you can tweak it so much better. For example, in one of the exercises where you are helping them build an understanding of transitions, so you do it before bedtime and you’re helping them tell the story and it promotes closeness and connection, but also helps them identify the markers of a transitions, what things have a beginning and a middle and an end, and how do I move through those things? That’s the play.

(35:47):

Now, if I want to just do the activity and I don’t understand what the function of it is of helping my kid learn about this idea of a beginning and a middle and an end and how I move through that sense of transition, I might miss the point and I could also keep the essence and totally change the activity. I can look for all kinds of other moments in my kid’s life to talk about this idea of a beginning and a middle and an end, and how do we move from one thing to another? So what I love about this kind of approach is giving parents not just a script, but a framework. If you teach ’em how the sausage is made, then they can go and make some other types of sausages, whatever. I just feel like that’s so important and it does kind of pull the veil back on our field, which can be a little shrouded in mystery, which I think can make some people wary of it. They’re like, I don’t really trust therapist. I don’t really trust that world just judging me. They’re just trying to tell me what to do. I don’t want to be controlled. But I don’t know, I’ve heard all kinds of things. Are you reading my mind right now? I’m sure you have stories too, but helping people understand what the science means and why it informs the suggestions we make, I think is invaluable for parents.

Dr. McClain (37:09):

Yeah, absolutely. And I think to your point, when we were writing this book, there was never a time where we weren’t thinking about the both. And in a relationship there’s always two places, two people, two things. And oftentimes the most existential question young children ask is why. And that is oftentimes the really difficult question to answer when parents are right, they’re just trying to put dinner on the table and get out of target or unpack the car. And so how do we help parents increase their confidence in understanding why something is happening? But we don’t want to be the most important person to that young person. We want the parent, the teacher, the village to be that person. So we don’t believe in gatekeeping information that helps parents to live sustainable, happy, healthy, sometimes chaotic lives. We want to see that happen, and it’s oftentimes much more sustainable if it came from the parent then through this telephone type of, I’m going to control what I tell the parent and what I write, tell the child that it’s much more sustainable outside that one hour or 90 minutes a week. We want the parents to spearhead that and then come back and talk to us about how they felt about it.

Dr. Salazar (38:47):

And I think we kind of wrote the book to balance it with that knowledge and framework and the activities because we know from our experience, we work a lot with parents who have significant trauma, and sometimes it’s just doing the play and the activities and sitting in that, because that was a part of their childhood that they never got to do, is they never got to play. And so they don’t know what it looks like, what it feels like. And so then sometimes they’ll go back to the knowledge piece after the play and be like, oh, that is what I was doing. So we really tried to balance both for all different types of parents out there, whether it’s just getting into the activities without the framework and just feeling what that feels like and noticing the stuff or the parents who are like, Nope, I need some research first to kind of figure out what am I doing? Why am I setting this activity up this way? So we really try to come at it from a holistic way of celebrating all different types of parents and catering to all those different needs that they have as well.

Dr. Sarah (39:50):

Yeah, that is such a good point actually, that yes, you can just do this for the play and you don’t need to know why. And sometimes that’s the therapy, right? Parents learning how to play with their kids isn’t obviously helpful for the kids, but it is profoundly therapeutic for the parents because what we’re really treating is the parent child relationship. And that is, I always say the entire family system is a single thing. You treat that

Dr. McClain (40:28):

Exactly.

Dr. Sarah (40:29):

Not each individual in isolation, even if you’re just working with one individual in the family system, the family system has to be considered. I think that’s very beautiful.

Dr. Salazar (40:42):

And that’s why we added in the book after every Activity is Village tips because we know that it’s not just one person, it is a whole village that is caring and making sure this child develops how they deserve.

Dr. McClain (40:58):

And I think Dr. Salazar and I are kind of the perfect storm. She is a psychologist and a mother, I’m a psychologist and a village member. And so we were just thinking about all the people who have helped us to thrive and grow, and we had all of those people in mind when writing this book.

Dr. Sarah (41:24):

I think that is so valuable. This is for the whole village. If people want to find this book, if they want to follow your work, where can we send?

(41:33):

Yeah, so our book is available at Target and on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble. And so you can get those ordered right and they’ll get shipped right to you. You can also see us at www.chiwellnesscenter.org to learn more about us or to share, there’s a contact tab and so folks can feel free to reach out and ask questions, whether that’s about the book or more about therapy services and what that looks like. And we are also on Instagram and Facebook as well.

(42:17):

What’s your handle?

Dr. McClain (42:18):

Our handle is @chicago.wellness.center.

Dr. Sarah (42:24):

Amazing. Alright, well we’ll put links to that so people can find them in the show notes. And thank you so much for coming on. I’m so excited about this book. I’m going to get a couple from my practice’s office, I think.

Dr. McClain (42:37):

Thank you so much. We’re so happy to be with you this morning.

Dr. Sarah (42:45):

Thanks so much for listening. I hope you’re feeling inspired to play. If you want a good place to start, don’t forget to go to the episode description to get a link to download my free guide with emotion regulating games to play with your kids. And while you’re there, it would mean so much to me if you could go ahead and rate and review the podcast. It really makes a big impact and helps us get this podcast out to more parents just like you. I’ll see you back here Thursday for another episode, and until then, don’t be a stranger.