Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - Child Development Experts Dr. Emily Heisey and Dr. Matt Otteman

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Today we had the privilege of sitting down with Dr. Emily Heisey (Doctor of Physical Therapy) and Dr. Matt Otteman (Doctor of Chiropractic), Co-Owners of KinActive Kids and Pediatric Development Experts! As a parent it can feel overwhelming and often intimidating to focus on each milestone your child is supposed to hit at each age group, but Dr. Emily and Dr. Matt take the stress away by showing parents easy (and super fun) ways to play with your kids while also encouraging their brain development! They offered some amazing insights into what we all can be doing to stop comparing the progress of each of our kids and start honing in on each child’s unique way of learning. Such a cool conversation- we learned so much! Love you guys! Shawn and Andrew Learn more about KinActive ▶ https://kinactivekids.com/about/ Follow KinActive on Instagram for more fun ideas! ▶ https://www.instagram.com/kinactive_kids/?hl=en Are you a clinician? Join their KinActive University! ▶ https://www.kinactiveuniversity.com/ Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things, interviews. Who's Sean and Andrew? Today, we have the wonderful Dr. Emily and Dr. Matt, who are the co-owners of Kineactive Kids and Pediatric Development Experts. Let me tell you why I'm excited for this episode, Sean, and you all listening. Tell me. Sean and I are athletes. We're competitive.

We're pretty routine-oriented. We like to have tasks and goals and all this stuff. And it's interesting to combine that to parenting. Yes. And the milestones that your kids should be hitting, the most popular question in parenting is my child behind. Yes. And so these two know all about milestones. They'll know all about how to help your kid progress towards milestones, how to evaluate kids.

And so I think they do it also in a way that's healthy too and not overbearing or too cautious. They kind of hit a sweet spot. So I really enjoyed today's conversation with them. So did I. Dr. Emily has been practicing physical therapy. in pediatrics for 14 years, and Dr. Matt has been a chiropractor. He was a professional baseball player, that's right. Went on to be a renowned chiropractice for professional sports, and then transitioned

into pediatrics when he partnered with Dr. Emily. So we talk about milestones, purposeful play. We talk a little bit about sports. And I hope you learned something. Thanks for listening. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to the show. If you're interested in what these two are up to, we'll link their information in the show on it's down below. We hope you enjoy this one with Dr. Emily and Dr. Matt.

Dr. Emily, Dr. Matt, thanks for coming. Each shows a beautiful day to be in Nashville, Tennessee today. It's great. It's so nice. What's the weather in Dallas, Houston? We're in like 95 already. Oh, wow. I'm not ready for it. That's hot.

But then it can change in like a second. Yeah. That's Texas. Yep. We'll enjoy this while we have it. I am really excited for today's conversation with you. I have a million questions. We'd love to start just for those who might not be familiar with you or who,

who you are, what you do? Can you give us a high level overview about what you guys do? Yeah. So I'm a pediatric physical therapist. I've been treating for 16 years and started my own business, gosh, in 2019 after having my youngest daughter who had reflux, she kind of catapulted me into wanting to educate parents because when I was pregnant with my second after having Hannah, I was just like doom scrolling through Instagram and there just wasn't a lot of like resources out there. Then I have Heidi fast forward and her having acid reflux catapulted me into wanting to give all of this education to parents that wasn't really out there at that time.

You know, Instagram when I started in like 2019, 2020, there was like two accounts. Right. And they were really kind of boring. And I was like, maybe I just want to show what it's really like to be a parent and then give them all the education that I have from being a PT. Mm-hmm. So, and then fast forward, Matt, Matt, and then we kind of came together, PT, chiropractic, which is very taboo. Especially in the pediatric world. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And the rest is history. Yeah. So, like, Big View, our business, connective kids down in Texas, and we're on a mission to change the way the world treats their kids. Mm-hmm. So we see a lot of families from actually across the world that use our services because we do, we look through a different lens. right chiropractic PT but we're because of that mission we want to lead by example so we're setting the stage for like you can work together with a chiropractor and a PT doesn't have to be this weird thing it's actually better for the kids but then to take that further if we're going to

really change the world we have to educate right so that's where we educate parents and actually clinicians too and you say it's like a weird combo because you're merging eastern and western medicine. Yeah. Basically, American medicine and Eastern. I never know which. Let it might never eat salty waffles or whatever. American and Eastern medicine.

Yeah. It's basically like the crunchiness of the chiropractic with like the medical model with the PT. Yeah. And like putting that together. And it makes sense. Like we're looking at things through a different lens. We're looking at the same picture.

So really when you put it together, you get a really beautiful idea of what's actually going on and then you can put a game plan together and how to fix things. We were talking about before the podcast started, the difference. You were in adult chiropractic before you guys decided to like go into business together. You tried to convince him to go into pediatrics and you were like, no. Why? What is the difference between adult and pediatric chiropractics? Yeah.

So I played professional baseball and so I was like, well, I'm just going to, I'm going to do sports chiropractic. That's all I want to do. I always like looking at how the body moves and all that. So like helping athletes in high school reach colleges and stuff like that. With pediatric it's very much, it's very different in the sense of like they're not just little adults. They're actually kids. So you have to like do things differently. But looking at pediatrics through a sports lens, I think is another thing that just kind of sets us a little bit apart. So yeah, I did not want to go into pediatrics because they're smelly. They got a lot of boogers.

Yeah. Oh, man. They lick everything. But I think just, yeah, you know, I think God put us on this path to, like, come together and work at us. I don't know why, like, he chose us to do this, but here we are. And I'm thankful for that. You mentioned the combination of what you both do leads to some really wonderful kind

of perspectives on things. What would be some success stories of that conversation? combination that you guys have seen and experienced. That's a good question. I mean, so many. One that comes to mind is we just had a little boy. He was from Saudi Arabia. And he came, I saw him virtually for like a couple months.

He was born like less than a pound. Just insane. Came to Texas from Saudi Arabia and he wanted to learn how to come up and stand. He wanted to learn how to walk. and at that point couldn't do any of it and when he left texas after what five weeks he walked out the door and i mean it was amazing to see that and other kids just yeah and with that one the mom this is so sweet the mom when she left she goes i'm gonna bring chemo that was his name i'm gonna bring chemo back here i'm gonna show him where he learned how to walk like as a really i'm like that's how old was he

four five then wow yeah yeah yeah wow the first time then they came back um and then actually ended up staying for like two months and wanted to learn how to go up and down stairs jump i'll do all the things but i mean sometimes it's these kids that come in and they just haven't had the care right and so you give them a little bit and then they just always exceed your expectations sitting and crawling and moving and then the parents get their independence back interesting frame of that i like that the parents get the independence back but go ahead i want to jump to like foundational question like work our way up here because this is a fascinating to me and something that we have talked about a lot. Our sister-in-law is a speech

pathologist and she's always like I want to see babies as soon as I can because it just like helps set them up for a success. As a new parent if someone's listening and they have an infant or they're getting pregnant or they have a four year old at home, when do you know it's time to take your kid either to a chiropractor or to a physical therapist? Because in America, pediatricians, are not going to prescribe that. So from the chiropractic perspective, I think with birth, there's a lot of stress that happens to a newborn.

I would say to at least get checked for some of that tension pretty early on. And then usually about like the four month where you'll start to see maybe some like tortacolus, flattening of the heads, things like that. Like if you're seeing some of the signs, yeah, talk to the pediatrician, but don't be afraid to advocate.

yourself too. There's nothing wrong. And I think that's maybe you can touch on like just the mental attitude. The thing with like physical therapy, it always had has had this negative stigma on it. Like something's wrong with my child. Kind of the same thing with speech therapy. It's like, oh, if you're going, something's wrong. But we tried to kind of change that, especially like with Instagram, showing that kids can be typical like my own child I had to work with because she at 10 months was just sitting there. You know, she wasn't crawling, wasn't pulling to stand and nothing. And I wanted to break that stigma down and it'd be more proactive that you can take your kid to get this education from the PT and get them help that they need and maybe

just need a little jump start. So really changing the mindset more so than, oh, is it time to go, you know, see a PT or chiropractor? Let's do it proactively and get as much education as we can. I don't know about other moms listening, but as a mom myself, especially when we had our first, I went down a rabbit hole of Google saying when should my kid be X, Y, and Z? Crawling, talking, eating, holding, playing, all of it. At what point is that not okay to like, for a mom to look at? Is that fine for us to look at?

Never Google anything. Okay. You know, it's all like cancer, cancer. You know, it's never a good idea. I did it myself, which makes me think that I shouldn't have. But yes. The cool thing is, with development, there's a sliding scale.

So you're going to get the textbook answer if you go on Google. So should my child be sitting? Well, you know, the textbook says around six months they should be sitting independently. But there's a sliding scale for, you know, this way and that way, by like two months. So you shouldn't freak out. But also the cool thing

is, you know, parents get so concerned about their child not walking around like 12 months, right? But from 15 months all the way up until 24 months, no gross motor skills happen. So your kiddo could start walking at 16, 18 months, and they're going to be perfectly fine

because it's a catch-up time. Those first two years are very scary, but having that kind of education that it's okay to be behind a little bit, you're going to catch up like that helps. What do you base, because I feel like depending on the source, the milestone changes and then, you know, the internet's wonderful because it has kind of helped make these type of rubrics or milestones accessible and it's like great to know that okay there are milestones that I should

be aware of but where do you guys base your rubric off of like hey we're going the most aggressive as far as we're going to look like see if kids are hitting these as early as possible and that's what we expect or is it something different than that I mean I go more with how the body develops and so a child isn't going to be able to you know lift their head tuck their arms underneath them to develop mentally. two months, two, three months. And that's just how the body develops because we body, our body develops shoulders, tummy and hips, all develop first.

So if those are all working well, no restrictions, everything out from there is going to work. So if I see that they're able to start lifting their head and have good head control, that's going to tell me that likely they're going to be able to have better head control and sitting. So it's just how the body is going. So if a child, let's say, has reflux and they're arching back and they're throwing themselves, that's going to kind of cascade into some events that it's going to break down

that gross motor development to where they may be more delayed. So I always, again, do a sliding scale. I typically know around four months, so you're going to do prop sitting, you know, rolling about six months, nine months to ten months to eleven months crawling. So there's, you know, kind of some fast and loose ways that you can go with it. And I just take it all with the green assault when it comes to education and what looks nice. Yeah, I think the, I think the, I the gross motor checklist are good because it gives us an inside look at like the development the neurology of how the child's developing studies show that like 60% of parents are nervous about their child hitting you know developmental skills on time and even more there's another one that said if

your child is delayed 70% of parents feel like if they're not hitting those milestones that that's a reflection of their parenting ability so if you feel like that you're not alone but there's resources out there there's you know the internet is a good thing there's something that we like to talk a lot about which is purposeful play like doing things at home we're not forcing things we're just giving the opportunity for the child to do things in an appropriate way and it may just be simple things like moving a toy from the left side to the right side or taking things off the floor and putting it up on couches doesn't have to be this like you know in-depth like pt you can just be playing with your

kid and that's initially what i reached out to her for i was seeing families and i was like well and then i had my first kid and i'm like well i'm going to play with my kid why want i want to do it in a purposeful way right so that's where we started getting connected yeah and purposeful play kind of came up um with Heidi my youngest um and she was delayed i was working with her and i could only do about 20 minutes so that's all i could must her because she would scream and cry and so there was little things that I could do like put her in the side sitting position or instead of laying her on her back maybe we would you know hold her up to where she has to work on our head control things like that easy things and and then I started talking about that

on Instagram and then so instead of looking at milestones it was more like let's do things to encourage development rather than hone in and focus on what they aren't doing let's focus on what we can get them to kind of emerge and do I'm excited to talk more about purposeful play. I do want to talk about the parents side of things. Sean and I are competitive, and so you see the other kids developing. I think it's naturally instinctive to just kind of compare. Like, oh, hey, this kid is running already.

Our kid just learned how to walk. And then you couple that with what you mentioned of, man, the parents feel like if they're behind, it's their fault. What do you do with that? What recommendations do you have from the parents? Because I feel like to a certain extent, that feeling of not guilt, but like is sometimes helpful because as long as it comes from a place of reality and it's not just totally made up and there's like action steps that you can say, all right, well here, this is true.

My kid could use 20 minutes of play time and now I know what to do moving forward. But what recommendations do you give the parents with that? Yeah. And I love how you said like action steps, right? like if you're anxious about it like what can you what can you do right so the first thing is educate yourself right that's the reason why like look at the gross motor checklist you may have you know timmy down the street that's the same age as johnny and they're walking around and johnny's not doing it yet right right um but you look and you're like all right well johnny's 10

months timmy's 10 months he's just ahead of the curve right we're still typical or even more so you get pressure from like grandparents right and they're like oh well back in my day we were just doing all this stuff and everything was fine we're like I think there's more information out there now your memory might not be great yeah yeah I was actually a year in 10 months yeah yeah so I think first is like educate to know like when things are supposed to be happening because then you can you know clap back so to say I'm like you know if somebody's giving you a hard time but then yeah there's resources out there for purposeful play where if you do feel like you're getting behind going to and look at the Instagram look at the things that you can do at home yeah and just being like

hey um yeah they're not walking yet but we still have like another six months where we can be working on it so like go away basically but i mean that that like that guilt or oh my gosh am i doing it right i'm not doing enough as a parent it never ends i remember i remember like the 20 minutes of tummy time was recommended to us and we would do that with our oldest daughter and she would last like two minutes and it'd be done and I'm like oh my gosh yeah I'm gonna I'm either gonna force you into doing this and we're both 20 minutes yeah but here's the thing too and this is what I try to educate on Instagram is that tommy time isn't even like the holy grail like it really isn't and I think it's just really meant to anxious make us anxious as parents because no they don't like it right

But playing on their side, playing vertically, playing on their back, all of those have the same benefits. So it's like a big, like, you know, pie chart, for instance. And so, again, it's not just doing one thing and it's doing other things. And I think that helps parents be like, oh, okay. If I'm holding them in the vertical position, oh, I'm still helping out their development. Yeah. Yeah. There's a good, um, bluey episode.

Oh, yeah, I love bluey. We love blue. What's it? The baby race. Oh, the baby race. Um, and it's exactly like what we're talking. about like oh you know another kid is doing this but blue was a bum scooter i know yes and so i think as parents like if you have the anxiousness like do something to to like take some kind of actions

that and that it could just be looking at when things are like educating looking at when things should happen but at least like take some kind of action with the anxiousness of parents and the milestone markers and charts and everything that were given and exposed to these days is there such thing as I don't even remember where I read it or I heard I think it had to do with words like how many words kids speak but like yeah if they get delayed they'll never catch up is that true or is that false false totally false I mean literally sometimes kiddos just need like a jump start okay Heidi she wasn't sitting we worked with her um six six weeks 20 minutes a day She was crawling, pulling to stand, walking.

She just needed a little bit of help. But no. I think that's the scariest thing is we don't want anything to be wrong with our kiddos. Yeah. I mean, even like my oldest, she has glasses, and I was just so upset at first. I was like, she's not perfect. You know, and so anything is going to kind of set us off. But there really are little things that you can do to kind of just calm your anxiety about it.

And it's not the end-all be-all if they need to jump start. And I think we know so much more now about like neuroplasticity, like the way that the brain changes over time. Like you're not just fixed to your brain, even us as adults. Like, and kids even more so at the age of two, a child's brain will be 80% the size of what it is as when they're an adult. Oh, wow. And kids at age two have actually more connections in their brain, synapses they're called, than we do as an adult. And so what happens then is selective pruning where they have all of these connections that are being formed through repetition, through play, through exploration, they start to get rid of some of those synapses and they can hone in on certain things. So like the neuroplasticity piece, yeah, even though they may be, you know, delayed a little bit, they're going to catch up because of how the brain works.

Yeah, and that just goes through just teaching and facilitating and maybe needing to go to a PT. Yeah, but I think that's the hardest thing is a lot of times in the medical world, if a child gets a diagnosis, even if it's something as simple as torticolus where they have tightness in their neck, a lot of times doctors are like, well, what are we going to do now? I mean, they're just going to be like that forever, you know? And especially kiddo that has like CP or spina bifida or down syndrome, they're like, this is your child. And it's not true, especially if you're getting help prior to like three years old. I mean, they're like sponges, kiddos are, and you can teach them how to do all these things, all these great things when they've already been written off by medical professionals. I'm curious, you just mentioned something.

On a personal level, what was that experience like the realization of, oh, my gosh, my kid's not perfect. Yeah, that's humbling, right? I mean, my youngest daughter, too, she just got diagnosed with ADD. I have ADD, so obviously it was probably going to happen. And I just felt so much guilt about that. But then having the guilt and also realizing I was able to go through it and figure out kind of strategies to help, I'm able to help her. So it is tough.

I think as parents, we always kind of feel that guilt no matter what you do. But talking about it with other parents, I think is helpful. I just realized actually Sean just told me the other day that I'm actually not perfect either. And it was, but it only took you 33 years. It's actually, no, I think it's, I mean, that is maybe just a baked in expectation or hope that we have as parents for our kids. Like, I want you to be the kindest, the smartest, the fastest. Oh, yeah. And then it's like, well, that actually totally undermines any appreciation that you might have for the nuances and the color that they bring to life where it's like, you don't need to be the biggest, the best ever.

So anyway, I'd never really Thought about reckoning with that Like hey, no, they're gonna fall short in certain areas And excel in others and it's like, that's actually really fun Yeah, me and my husband have this joke Anytime like I like leave the garage door up or anything I'll just be like, I'm not perfect, okay? Yeah, so I just say with everything

And he said, yeah, I know But it's kind of a good way to Throw things out there Let's talk about purposeful play Because it's a large part of what you guys recommend. And I know part of that is the parent involvement with play. So walk us through the different aspects of that. So it doesn't need to be hard. Okay, 20 minutes a day can really catapult your kiddo from, you know, possibly having a delay or, you know, having an issue

later on. But it's just really playing with a purpose. I'm throwing that around. But it is taking your kiddo and working on skills that they already should be doing, but you're just doing it in a way that's going to enhance their cognitive, their social development, their physical development. So, for instance, if you have a four-month-old and you know that they're working on head control, putting them in positions like sitting on the edge of a table and you're kind of holding them there, that's going to help with their visual convergence. They're going to be able to work on their trunk control. They think they're playing. But what you're really doing is helping their body to develop so where they can eventually do all that on their own. So it's simple things like that.

You're not forcing them to speed up through development. Again, you're just providing them the opportunity and the space around them to flourish. The body's designed to do certain things. You're going to give them the best opportunity that you can for them to reach these different. milestone. I do feel like there is, I don't know, a trend, especially in America right now,

where, like, parents are so obsessed with the fear of hurting their child physically in a way of, how do I say this? Not, like, in an abusive way, but, like, trying to teach them to walk, trying to do something almost too soon, that they end up bubble wrapping their kid, and they don't even realize that they're holding them back to a certain extent. Yeah. Is there either a resource or a way or something to say or advice to a parent where it's like they're actually intended to do that? Like you're you're supposed to be teaching the physicality side of it.

Yeah. I think knowing a little bit about, you know, getting a resource that knows, you know, like a PT or whatever and kind of educating yourself on that is one thing. But, I mean, kiddos have been moving around for generations, right? and they're here and we're here and our parents did a lot less I mean we slept I mean I slept on my back

I slept on my belly I used to ride to the grocery store when I was like six I never let my kids do that I myself at like five at night oh yeah you know and I'm still here today so I think some of it is that we don't want to make the same mistakes

as like our parents our parents generation so then we kind of helicopter around but getting outside and just letting them play really and you know walking in sand that helps develop those little ankle intrinsic muscles little things like that just letting them play is going to enhance our development we don't have to step in all the time you know like let them be kids yeah and their like bones aren't fully formed they have more you know fat percentages they have like they have more cushion or tumbles and trips and things like that like they're going to be okay yeah get him on the playground just get them on the playground and that easy is that grip strength coordination balance boom you're done 20 minutes boom uh i just saw something you're just talking about the playgrounds playgrounds have changed too right like i remember back in my day it was like concrete with like a jungle gym and like you fall like you're breaking something yeah and like kids

today it's like this like super cushiony like you ever oh yeah it's probably like the mats that you're jump around to gymnastics. And I think a little bit of that, kids maybe lose a little bit of like the consequences with things because they're like in this overprotective state. But just to go back to like, yeah, they're going to fall. They're going to have different things. But that's consequences and that's part of growing up is learning these like these consequences of what is going to happen to your body.

Yeah, you have to learn through cause and effect. My oldest, she fell down like three or four steps. I was so hardcore on her. And I baby my youngest. She fell down like three or four steps, and I'm like, well, you can't go that fast. And it's like, I know you're hurt, but you're good. But again, yeah, kiddos are going to have bumps, bruises. They're going to figure it out.

I honestly, probably more naturally, am inclined to be on the opposite side of the spectrum of the bubble wrap parents. Yeah. I'm more of like my kid's going to walk at six months old. So let's like, let's do all the stuff. We've got to do. What's the downside to that? Tell me why. You might be setting them up a little.

but for some stress later on, no. I mean, hey, I think y'all said you're competitive, so if it's going to happen. I would correct that. And I don't think we're ever racing to a milestone, but we do, we try very hard to bite our tongues and let our kids play, and play hard and fall hard. Yeah. And do you feel like a difference between, like, your daughter or your daughter and your sons like with mine i have uh two girls first and then boy was last and the the two girls

like i will baby them like but the boy i'm like get up go go you do the same thing oh 100% yeah i think honestly it's more how they respond to like drew our daughter was just like really aware earlier and so i guess she kind of responded differently to things whereas our son it's like you know he can knock his head against the wall and just like keep doing that for 45 minutes you're like all right well all right it's just two different scenarios i am thanks to sean trying to approach parenting differently from a child to child uh which is a good challenge but is there an age limit to purposeful play or how how does it evolve no um so let me give me an example of just like my girls um a lot of times i feel like i always want to like direct like how they play and which is a little

bit of purposeful play but you know they are eight and nine them going outside um you know jumping on the trampoline um washing their little cars or whatever you know they're building cardiovascular endurance they're doing all these things but going on walks riding your bike all of these things that you can't age out of it's just knowing that it's just like us working out right um we know that it's for our bodies and so that's kind of how I teach movement and that can be at any age you know especially as they get older like let's say 11 12 13 14 where they want to be on devices you know having time that you set aside be like okay we're putting that down we're all going outside we're going to go play basketball together so it you can't age out of it but you do

have to be intentional the older you get for sure I think like age appropriate play and age appropriate toys like especially like madden he's you know 19 months right now i'm i can't give him just a black and white book and expect him to like thrive yeah but i can give him a toy where he can like put things in and that's going to like really get him going but uh my three-year-old my five-year-old i can give them that same toy and they're like i don't care about this they want to color they want to do different things so i think and that continues as you go like age-appropriate toys could be painting it could be you know even adults like going to the gym i think you have to get creative right for movement um like i love all of the stuff that gets really messy my husband hates it

he hates slime um he hates uh glitter i think most people hate glitter um what's that sand oh the kinetic sand oh yeah no i love it's stuck in everything it gets stuck in everything it does it destroys your vacuum like it's done it does it's so expensive it's so expensive So every time it's on the floor, I'm, like, trying to do not do that. But, like, getting them outside using, like, kinetic sand, I will get, like, cool whip or shaving cream, have them paint with their toes. They think that's so much more fun. And then they're moving, they're grooving, and you kind of get into it, too. And then it's something that it could take 20 minutes.

It could take an hour. Now you have the nap time and you're halfway through your day. how important is messiness so important and why because it gauges all the senses that tactile the somatosensory everything you know visually it just the mess helps them to kind of make a better memory it just it's good for every i mean you like things i'm sure that you can kind of move you up with your hands and stuff so it's just good and like food early on like you're doing any kind of like baby lead weaning or anything like that like you're giving them food. They're not actually like getting nutrients from that, but they're just playing with it. And the

purpose of that is like the set, they're building their senses. And so getting dirty is a good thing for these kids. Is that what you tell the parents? Because like, Sean is the tidy one between us. I could, I could not move a single thing in our house or like organize anything for a month and be totally fine. But is that how you're asking parents to reframe things? Like, hey, this is actually good. Let them do it. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I'm the messy one. So it's hard because I'm just like, just do it. But you can do things that can enhance their senses, such as like a sensory box or sensory bin, then you kind of contain the crazy.

And then they can have like a little pouring station or whatever. But I mean, I always grew up on mud pies, so, you know, I'm the messy one. And then like create a chore for the older kids. I'm like, oh, now it's time to clean up. Oh, yeah, let them do the dishes with you. I've done that many times. I think it's awesome. I'm like, I'm winning.

Yeah. Combination of the physical play with the mental development. Does that ever end as we age? I'm just curious because I feel like you just move less and less as you get older. But I was thinking the other day about how important routine is for our kids. Like we're pretty routine oriented. And I was like, actually, that's still the way it is for me now. But these things that we think only apply to young kids might extend beyond that, you know? Oh yeah. That's, yeah. As adults, you like structure. Like we tend to find. structure throughout the day, you know, when you drive to work, a lot of times you're like, I don't remember the drive at all. You're just kind of on an autopilot, right? Your brain's going into the old patterns and the habits of like things that it's done. How do you guys purposely play now? Try to get out with my kids. We do basketball. You play basketball? Not well. Okay. Let's go. Not well. I could just picture. it's not great What's that an air ball

That you're a picture Yeah You know More just heard like Jumping And like My 5'1 frame Going into this like

Dancer pose Yeah right But like Anytime we have like balloons Or anything like that We can do something For like an hour or two I love balloons

Yeah I can do so many things with that But I mean In general I try to get them to do chores with me Yeah Were you asking like how do we You?

Yeah Yeah So like I play golf Okay I play guitar. Yeah. I like, yeah.

Oh, I don't know if mine's actually real purposeful. I just like to read like smutty books. Yeah? Yeah.

You like to paint too. Oh, yeah. I like to paint. Oh, I like to craft. So I like repaint, paintings or whatever, and then I do floral things.

Love that. Love that. Wow. I want to take a quick, not break, but we have, we asked Instagram what their questions were

for you guys. We have some rapid fire questions before we, I think this will unlock some more topics. It doesn't have to be rapid fire, by the way. I think some of these might... You have to talk as quickly as you can.

I think some of these might have more intricate, you know, explanations. Word association, right? Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So from a lot of moms, they said, is doing a W sit really that bad for your child's hips? Yes and no.

Okay. Okay. W sitting is typical, okay? Just as long as it's not their only position that they're in. So they should be able to go into lots of different. positions, you know, feet out in front of them, crisscross applesau, side sitting, laying on their belly. But if they're only in W sitting, yes, it will continue to cause issues down the line.

What? It will stretch out those ligaments on the inside of their knee. It could cause in-towing. It's just going to cause pain down the line. You've got to think when they're W sitting, they're using little to no muscle contraction in their tummy. So basically there's a big blob right there. And it locks their pelvis down to where it's not going to give them any type of movement.

So they're just sitting there. So, in all intensive purposes, as our bones kind of grow, you're going to get a little bit of torsion on there, and then you're going to have some feet, knee, backish, all the things. So the more you do it, bad. Would you say discourage it? So if you see your child sitting in the W, just, like, move them to a different position? Yes, but don't, if they're doing it and they're not doing it more than like 80% of the day, I wouldn't worry about it. Again, it's a typical position. but a better alternative, which would be side sitting, which is side sitting is like W sitting except

one legs in front and one legs behind. Now your pelvis is shifted forward anteriorly. Your back is nice and straight. You can move in and out of that position. Your hips are working. It's like a one-stop shop. So with the W sitting, like she had mentioned, it's going to, the reason why they're doing it is because they aren't turning on their tummy muscles, their core. So maybe they need some like core strengthening. If they're in that W-sit, they can cause some constipation because their pelvis is just locked, right? If it doesn't move, it doesn't move, right? So if, if you're seeing, lotion, if you're seeing some of these other, like, things going on, like your child does have constipation, maybe the W-sitting, like, altering some of that and getting them into other positions

can help with that aspect as well. And again, when it comes to, like, W-sitting, instead of being like, don't do that, don't do that, give them other alternatives, right? Get them. them off the floor, right? Take their toys and put them up on the coffee table so they have to play on their knees. Get them a little chair to sit in. Things like that. To where it's, you're not, I always like to, especially like with my girls, instead of being like, don't do that. Like, let's do this instead. Gosh, it's so much easier to say don't do that though. I know it is. It is so much easier to say don't all day long rather than like acknowledging all the good things. That's one thing I had to practice with our boys more was just like the parenting technique of

distraction or like Oh yeah But they're also trying to like kill themselves Every five minutes It's like please don't jump off the banister It does take a different level of like mental discipline As a parent to say okay I'm not gonna just freak out and just do that

Don't do that I have to let me just have another level of awareness and say okay let me be creative Give them a different No just no with my PT hat I'm like let's try this instead at home I'm like stop it doing Yeah All right

Next question My baby has to wear a helmet for a flat spot on his head. Will this delay other skills since he's carrying extra weight on his head? That's a good question. No, not necessarily, especially because they're only going to wear that for about six to eight weeks. And the earlier they get it around four or five months, they're not going to have to have it on that long. Now, if it is something that they have to wear all the way through like eight, nine, ten months, it could disrupt a couple things. but the level of that helmet and how, you know, the weight really isn't going to change much.

At what point is your child's tiptoe walking a concern? Anything in excess is a bad thing. Okay. And I say that, again, walking our toes is typical, okay? Just as long as they're not doing it, 80% of the day. And if they do it past the age of two years old, then we kind of have to look at that as a red flag. Okay. Again, usually if they are going on their tiptoes and they do it, let's say,

only for like one, two, three months, you're good. After that, they should be kind of done with it. Okay. Yeah, and if they're doing it, like she said, 80% of the time or more, then it's probably time to get a console with a PT. Again, to just try to figure out why. Yeah, if they've been walking for a while,

because the longer you wait with that, then they can tighten up some other things and change some of the biomechanics and go down to a hole. Yeah. This might be a very loaded question because this might be a never-ending list, but could you rattle off the top of your head a top list of like if you see this it would be good to get a like a consult and let's say that is a little question let's say we have a lot of new moms so I would say young like in the first two years that's a lot of things I'll say one in the beginning so look at your we were just talking about this the other day we take these like pictures of our kids where they're laying on this like super cute blanket right it's like one month two month three month

Look at those. If you are always seeing the same head tilt, even up, it'll be the strongest around like four months. But after that, if you're seeing it consistently, get a console. Thanks. Yeah. So there's a whole lot of things that can scare parents. A couple things that come to mind are like fisting hands. Okay.

And if they're fissing their hands all the way up, you know, and they never release them or whatever, they're like, they have CP. You're like, no, they don't. You know, kiddos are going to fist their hands because it gives their hands. shoulder stability just like when we're doing like pushups or whatever you do them here it's going to give you more shoulder stability so it's typical a lot of these things that kiddos do that are real funky are typical you know the first three months of walking kiddos are going to do a whole lot of funky things they're going to fall a lot they're going to go on their toes and all that's typical it'll so it's kind of having that free range of knowing that they're developing still

but kind of rattling off issues is like uh it's that's kind of a crap show because Because parents are going to be like, oh, God. That's my child. With the couple we've talked about so far, the 80% if they're doing this 80% of the time or if they're doing something all the time, that might be like a, hey, maybe this shows an imbalance. You know, there's something to like a mom's intuition or a dad's intuition. And if it's taking rent in your head for like longer than like a month, I would ask, you know, the pediatrician about it. I would try to get some resources. Yeah.

We've talked about this. That's like our like rule of three. Like, if you think about it more than three times, go get a console. Oh, interesting. Because it's just, that's where we're trying to, like, break down the stigma of, like, going to do, going to PT. It's okay. Kids go to PT all the time. Adults go to PT all the time.

It's okay. Kids go to the chiropractor. Like, go get a console. If it's taking rent in your head, don't let it, like, keep you up at night, you know. Go get a console. It's okay. Yeah, and have those resources. Like, on my Instagram page, I, everything is, like, either videos or pictures because, again, you don't want to go to Google.

Because it's going to be like, oh, yeah, your kid is going to a guy. There's just no action. I mean, yeah. So it's like showing what things can look like that look atypical and being like, oh, this is actually typical. You know, flat feet, for instance. You know, it is totally typical for a child to have a flat feet because their foot is all cartilage until like three years old. They don't even start to develop. It's like a big mush.

That's why it's so hard to put on shoes, right? You're just putting a ball of mush into a shoe and trying to stuff it in there. frustrating it's so hard it's so hard our baby's a big beat too it was always hard but this is us with our third baby though it was the first time we were consumed he we couldn't figure it out and the amount of resources we jumped around to trying to figure our little man out it was consuming you did a great job with that um next question my five month old only wants to roll to one side why could this be instead of just looking up that one skill is it fading over into other skills. So are they only looking one direction? Are they only wanting to play with

one hand? Are they, when you put them on the changing table, are they always wanting to bring only one leg up? So it's not necessarily why they aren't doing it, but what possibility could it be throughout the body that is causing that? Because sometimes it just may be, especially with rolling, around five months, they just don't even want to roll from tummy to back anymore because they start to get scared. That's typical. So again, watch it for about a month. and look at different positions to see if it's kind of translating into those. Yeah. I was just talking about this.

We do education for clinicians. So I was talking to a bunch of pediatric chiropractors. And I was going over like the growth motor checklist and like when things are supposed to happen. It's like textbook says rolling belly to back is going to go first. But then I was explaining to them that there will be a time where you'll be rolling belly to back or they'll be rolling belly to back and then they'll stop. And the parents will ask me all the time. Like, is this, why they're not doing it anymore? I'm like, yeah, because they're spatially aware enough where they're doing this like push and then a little bit of a trust fall to get onto their back.

I'm like, I don't want to do that anymore. And that's okay. Yeah. And I mean, I have masterclasses that I teach parents and there's like four things you need for rolling. You know, you need to be able to push down through the ground. You need to be able to look right and left. You need to be able to tuck your chin and all the things. And so usually if a child isn't rolling like one direction,

it's probably goes with like not wanting to look at a certain way. It needs to probably toward a call it. This sounds awful. I can't even. I don't know what you're about to say. You have to say it now. I'd put them on the edge of a couch and I'd sit there with them like right close and they'd be looking at me and as a joke, not as a joke,

but like we would play. They would learn how to like, I'd set them right on the edge to where they could roll just by the momentum of the couch. And then I'd push them back a little bit and then they would start doing it and they would think it was so funny and I'd flip them around, we'd do the other side I don't think that was bad. Because it like encourages them to roll off a couch. I don't want it to sound like I'm... No, I do like the

I call it the Texas tornado. Yeah. And basically you just put them on the ground and then just roll them, roll them, roll them, roll them back and forth. They learn how to roll both sides. That's something we do a lot in the in the office. We do it but we'll do it on like a wedge. We'll tell parents take a cushion, put on the floor and then that way, when they, because that is a great way to teach them how to do that. Yeah, because it becomes a game.

That was your purposeful play right there. It was. There you go. It was. There you go. I didn't want to sound like they were like rolling off, we go. I'm encouraging them. All right.

Next question. My baby isn't sitting independently yet at five months, but only wants to stand up. Is there a reason for this? Typically, if a kiddo only wants to stand up, they're probably being in positions where they're standing up more in, like, devices are like, like, Yeah, containers. So really a child shouldn't be putting weight through their feet until about seven months. And a lot of those bouncers and all those things.

Oh, that's the device you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I call them containers. But, yeah, like bouncers or jumpers, if you will. Yeah, because it's easier to be in the standing position. Sitting is way harder because you can lock all your joints out in the standing position, whereas you have to turn on your tummy, your hips. Push through your arms.

Push through your arms. Do all these things. So that's where that purposeful play goes in. You got to get them on the floor. We did a lot of the devices. We did a lot of them. But now we know better. And we're not bad.

Yeah, it's not bad. Like, I remember with COVID, my wife was working from home. And so, like, Mave, our five-year-old was on a lot of conference calls. And, like, you're just doing what you can to survive as a parent. It's all going to be okay. There's nothing bad about containers. but if they're only in like the same container all of the time that's when you can see these asymmetry or like compensation patterns

with the if they said they're only five months yeah again that's not you're under the window of sitting so you don't have to worry about the sitting part like it'll be okay gotcha yeah interesting yeah and containers aren't bad I just talked about this yesterday on Instagram like they get a bad rap yeah but except for jumpers. Those are terrible. They should just go in the trash. Sorry. Why? Why? Is the hips? Is that right? Well, so you think about it like this. A child shouldn't be able to jump physiologically until about 18 to 24 months. So putting like a 6 to 8, 10 month old in something that helps them jump, not good for their body, right? It's not good for their hips. It's

caused dislocation. It caused toe walking. Just their joints and body aren't ready to accept all that force it's good to know but it's okay we did that wrong three times so yeah yeah but they look they do look cute though our kids used to go ham on that thing they loved it it's really fun to watch it is selfishly okay um any strategies to help a child with walking a ton um bring them to you first and foremost balance comes before walking yeah okay so getting them out in the middle of the floor, having them stand over your legs, having them hold different objects other than your hands. Like, we have these little squishy, really called, Bumo stick things.

Yeah, something like that. You can get a ring. You can get their little snack can. Let them hold that. You hold it. And so you're giving them confidence. Little strategies like that. Use your, how are things positioned in the living room, right?

Use the couch. move it closer to the chaired where they can go from one side to the next and they start getting some rotation. Things like that. Having the little pushwalkers are great. But you're really just kind of getting that independence and kind of changing things throughout the day to encourage steps. I think one thing that gets missed a little bit with walking is maybe they need shoes. Maybe they have some laxity in their ankles. So a good like marker. If they're cruising for three months or cruising for three months

after ages like 12 to 13 months and they're cruising for three months and they're not trying to balance they're not taking steps they probably have some weakness in their ankles where they need a little bit of support on their feet so as a chiropractor

like I like barefoot I do think barefoot is best for like sensory and everything but you're getting to that age where they may just need a little bit of external support to strengthen the proximal muscle like their glutes and hips and core muscles

and then you can take that support away and they'll be just fine. Interesting. I love shoes. Yeah. I love like talking about like kids shoes. It's like my thing. I could tell you like shoes.

Those are some fancy shoes you get on. But like shoes are so important to kiddos and I know that barefoot is best, whatever. But, you know, they're going to have to leave the house eventually when they're walking. So there are good shoes you can put on. And those like barefoot shoes or all those are just terrible. I love those, but anyway, I don't have those for our kids.

No, not for kids. They're just for you. Anyway, I'm learning a lot. Yeah. We have a lot of notes. Okay, we're done having kids, so, you know. We did it. Not quite right.

None of us do it right. None of us do it right. Was crawling removed from the CDC list of milestones? If so, how come? Oh, man. I don't know why they took it out because it is the most important milestone because it connects both sides your body and even like, adults like crawling is a great way to strengthen like everything your arms your shoulders you

know grip strength um and so again to take it out i think i don't know if they were trying to make parents like feel better if they skip it yeah i think there that was at a time like post-covid um so there was a lot of delays that were happening because of um like container babies or or speech um you know was delayed because of the mass and things like that and i think what they were doing was trying to normalize that a little bit where yeah maybe they're skipping crawling because crawling is a very complex skill so if they if kids do skip it you know maybe they had restrictions and things like that but I think what they ended up doing is really just normalizing dysfunction yeah instead of keeping it on there because crawling is so important like I did

bear crawls this morning for my workout like you will crawl at some point why would you take it Yeah, and if you don't crawl, you're going to have issues later on, whether it is like spatial awareness. These are like the kids who, you know, they can't really sit in a chair. They'll just like fall right out. The grip strength is affected. You know, riding a bike is a bilateral coordination. Climbing, that's bilateral coordination. So all those things are going to be delayed or they're not going to want to do them or they're going to be scared to do them because they don't have a crawl.

You know? Grip strength. I was going to say, I will say, our daughter didn't crawl. Yeah. We're really knocking it out of the park here. Yeah. Yeah. I say I never crawled.

I walked at seven months to eight months and never crawled either, which is interesting. And it just goes to show you like we talked about like kids and like bubble wrap and all that. Like your kids will be okay. Like if they don't, if they skip crawling, it'll be okay. Yeah. But they may have to, you may want to do some things to help facilitate the aspects that they're missing from things like crawling. There's no limit on when you can crawl, right? So, I mean, say your kiddo didn't crawl.

I'm sure in gymnastics, you did some type of like crawling maneuver, whatever. And so that continues to like to integrate as we get older. So, I mean, if they didn't crawl, then maybe at three, four doing activities that gets them on their hands and knees. Interesting. I'm curious for you, Dr. Matt. So you're a professional baseball player. Now you have kids. You treat a lot of kids.

How are you doing sports as a parent? Man, I love sports. I think sports are great developmental tools for kids. I'm not a big fan of only one sport, especially at a young age. I didn't play baseball until I was nine. And that really was the only sport that I played. I wish I would have played more.

But now, knowing what I know now, I think there's great sports with like soccer, baseball, like get them in different sports that they're using their body in different ways. different ways because at a young age it should just feel like play and I think we get so hung up on like competitiveness and especially like for me I'm you may feel the same way too it's tough when they don't want to do what you like want them to do like I I danced my whole life and my both my girls hate dancing and I'm like they would go up on stage freeze I'd be

like what is wrong no it's so tough to just know it's you're kind of setting yourself up to be sometimes disappointed although my oldest plays soccer and my husband is like a soccer dad you know yeah into it yeah oh yeah he does his drills with her and i'm just like whatever but uh they they hated all the things i don't know if i'm gonna do like coaching for yeah for my kids you say that now i know i know it gets intense i don't know it's need to need to think about that more i was telling you our three-year-old just had his first t-ball practice which was our first organized type of sport as a family and uh already my focus as a parent is just on jet right like first all it's not great baseball you know but i'm just like thinking about him and all the stuff he's doing

and i intentionally am not interested in coaching at all because like it's just way too much focused on the one kid and i don't think it's healthy for anybody um and i i do want him to play sports you know what i'm saying but i realize he might not want to he's big into bmx and so last I went to the BMX course. Yeah. And I thought he was going to, you know, I was imagining us sitting down and maybe watching football or tossing the ball in the backyard. No, we're ripping BMX. It's like, all right, okay.

I got to get used to this. Yeah, they usually throw out your expectations pretty quickly. But it's hard because you go from a phase when the kids are maybe like two and under where you're doing all this purposeful play. Like you are being, you're the source of all of their world. Yeah. And then they start playing out in the backyard by themselves a little. more maybe and to remove yourself and have the discipline to do that is hard because you have trained to do that a little bit in the early years you know no for sure i think what i try to remember

is that like like our marriage goes first before the kids and so if i do that then there's only so much time that you can put into yeah like some of these sports um because i mean when i was younger my mom i mean i did all the things you know tap ballet jazz ice skating, gymnastics, whatever, pageants. And it just can be so much that you fall away from like what's important, which is like that family unit. So I think there's only so much time you can put into it. That's why we're like, we limit it to like one or two activities.

Yeah, I think unfortunately for us like young parents, I don't think it's going to stop because I was talking to a patient two days ago. And her son is 18, about to go to college. I was like, how are you feeling about all of this? And she's like, you know, I'm just, he's such a sweet boy. I'm just afraid. I'm nervous. So I think what I told her was all we can do is really build the best foundation that we can for our kids.

And then as they age, they're going to go and be themselves and they're going to do things that they want to do and less of what you want to do as a parent or want them to do. And you just have to be okay with that. But you can do everything you can while you have them to, to, to, to, you know, to, you know, solidify and have the values that you want them to instill and things like that. Yeah. We spoke to someone the other day who was talking about having a family culture when it comes to finances. So like our family is a family that saves or whatever, like having a style about your family.

And I think if you were going to sit down with all these parents, it's like you wouldn't hear them say, our family is a family that undermines everything else so that we could do as many. sports as possible. So it's like understanding, okay, what style do we actually want to have as a family and then making sure that the activities align with that, I think, is good. We tell our girls that all the time. It's like you come second after, you know, mom and dad. And having that kind of mentality, I think, hopefully sets them up for a good foundation as they get older and know that, you know, with school or sport to not take it so, you know, to that stressful zone to become personally yeah but while you're in it it's hard yeah it's hard while you're in it it's easy to

sideline coach on that one yeah oh man uh this is a real treat i think we covered all of our bases do we miss anything for you guys no no no i don't think so what resources can people find online on your social media on your website all of it yeah so you can go to connective kids that's k-in active kids dot com and there uh we do have a gross motor checklist um you know They're all over the place, but this one that we have on there goes all the way up to age five. And then if you are a clinician, like I said, we have educational resources for clinicians and for parents with masterclasses. So if you're looking for a purposeful play, you can find those masterclasses on the website.

If you're a clinician that works with kids, maybe you want to work with kids a little bit more. You want to understand it. You can take our Connective University course that we're doing too. Yeah, and Instagram. It's free, you know, connective underscore kids. There's about a hundred billion different things, you know, from how to get my kid to roll to what am I supposed to do with them and their amoeba at like four weeks old. Yeah. And then my Instagram is a little bit more crunchy.

So it's Dr. Otto, D.C. There, a little bit more of the crunchy. I'm like crunchy light. We're on a mission to change the way the world treats their kids. We see that there's a change that desperately needs to happen in the world. And by combining chiropractic with PT, we are trying to just give kids the best opportunity to succeed at life. So we're leading by example in our office in Texas. But if we're really trying to change it, we have to educate the future.

So that's where our resources are for parents and clinicians. I just think it's so powerful, you know, speaking to the guilt and anxiety, you guys really do a great job at providing the action steps and education for people to like, you know, cut through that and make something happen. Right, because education is power. Yeah. I feel like definitely empowering. This is a real treat. Thanks for the time.

Thank you so much.