Rachel Ellison June 23

The transcription is about an interview with Dr. Rachel Ellison, a psychologist and council member of the American Psychological Association. She discusses balancing motherhood and her professional life, her advocacy work for women in neuropsychology, and her efforts to improve family leave policies in postdoctoral programs. Dr. Ellison also talks about her involvement in promoting research on women in neuropsychology and her co-editor role in a book on the topic. She highlights the importance of advocating for women in science and addressing derogatory comments towards female mentors. Overall, the interview covers Dr. Ellison's personal and professional journey as a mother and psychologist. All right. All right. All right. Rachel, welcome to Trailblazers and Coffee. Dear listeners, it is my ultimate pleasure to introduce and welcome here with us Dr. Rachel Ellison. She's a psychologist in academia here in Illinois. She's Division 40 council member of the American Psychological Association, and she'll tell us a little bit about that. She's the past chair of Women in Neuropsych, and she's also a member of the Association for Doctoral Educators in Clinical Neuropsychology. And not to forget, she's also a mother trying to balance life and children and all of the chaos that goes with that. Rachel, welcome to Trailblazers and Coffee. Oh, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. I'm so happy to have you here. So Rachel and I first met in Washington, D.C. Actually, it's not like we're colleagues who just see each other in passing in the halls. Where do you work? Where is Rosalynn Franklin located? Yeah, so Rosalynn Franklin is very, very north in Illinois, almost at the Wisconsin border. So technically, it's in North Chicago. It has its own little city. So we try not to confuse the students saying it's north of Chicago. It's very north of Chicago. Yeah, I'm up there full time. And then I'm in Criger, Columbus, closer to Old Orchard and Skokie. Oh, nice. That's great. Awesome. And then, OK, so how do you explain yourself and what you do to your children? Oh, goodness. My kids. I honestly rely on the Daniels, one of the Daniel Tiger episodes. I think it's the Daniel Tiger one in which they do a song of like, you could be more than one thing. I don't know what the tune was, but it had some song about that. And so whenever they ask, I like reference back to that. Well, you can be more than one thing. I am a mom as a scientist and mom as a teacher and mom as a doctor. And mama is a mama and mama is. And then I list off like other, you know, fun, silly things or hobbies and then relate somewhat back to them about their different identities or things that they like. Yeah, I really can't go back. I think it's the Daniel Tiger episode that helps me with that. How funny. OK, so as a woman without children, what is Daniel Tiger? Oh, goodness. Daniel Tiger is it's one of the newer kids programming, I think. I think it was I think it's done in the US, but it was if I remember correctly, it was initially developed by pediatric psychologists and, you know, kids programming experts in concert. So each episode really has different lessons and there's a little song that goes with each episode to make it really easy for parents to repeat with their kids and for kids to kind of have that self-talk. So it's very it's really like healthy, good kids programming on this meant to be watched with parents so that parents can really reinforce those skills. Different episodes kind of have specific themes that parents might be coping with or dealing with that they can use in everyday kind of everyday life or pull off this episode before the dentist or before X, Y, Z or with this specific situation or just watching it whenever. Yeah, very cool. It sounds like exactly from what I know about you, it sounds like exactly the kind of programming that you would want your children to watch and that you would still go later. Yeah, they have a really good potty training episode that was very helpful for us. Yeah. Potty soccer go right away. We've seen that many times. Yeah, that's fantastic. That's fantastic. Well, apparently we're going to launch right into talking about you as a mom and I hope that's OK. Like that is great. OK. How do you see yourself as a mom? And how are you if you are intentionally raising your kids to be leaders? Yeah, I have to say my identity is what I thought my identity as a mom and my professional world intentionally or unintentionally was initially very separate in my mind. But then told it hit and a number of series of events came together and then they became fortunately or unfortunately, very intertwined. So my oldest kiddo was born seven weeks before lockdown. So I had the six weeks medical clearance. I think I went to Whole Foods once holding the baby care. I was like, I can do this. I can mom. All the great resources and support set up and then everything shut down with all those great in-person mom groups or workout classes or social outings, childcare, everything shut down. So during that chaos, I saw a call for the chair position for the women in neuropsychology position. It was in Division 40 Society for Clinical Neuropsychology of APA. I actually applied to be a committee member when I was on an internship and got rejected as a committee member, but just felt this increased passion with all of this going on and just felt like being a woman and a neuropsychologist in this intersection space felt so real and visceral and important at that time that I just felt this drive that I needed to, I needed to chair this committee and I needed to do this type of intersectional work to apply for it. And somehow got. And so then this intersection between women's issues, whether it was in the professional space clinically or related to women trainees, all of in neuropsychology, all that kind of became a huge part of my life. And since 2020, we're really being a mom became so closely integrated and intertwined with my identity as a professional. I can't remember if there was a second part of that question about advocacy and raising your kids as leaders. I think there was something there, too, but that became like that became like almost like a column of my research and my professional identity in a way I never expected it to be before. Yeah, I am amazed that you I'm amazed. But then what I know of you, I'm kind of not amazed that a national stress, like, what do I want to say? A national experience of trauma was a motivator for you to take action. That's just kind of who you are. I also feel like there's something about being my identity of being like a professional and loving using my brain. It was really hard to transition from that to nursing and not sleeping. I was like, I just feel like I'm a cop all the time. And I just was craving. It created the action. I craved wanting to do something. And I think being in COVID lockdown with that intense stress felt like there's a lot I can't control, but I want to control the things I can. And it kind of almost fueled the advocacy at a greater degree than I think there would have normally been. Sure. And it sounds like that the advocacy that you do is is what kind of advocacy, at least in this chair role position? Yeah. How were you advocating? Yeah, so I think there were a few different avenues. I when I was chair of women in neuropsychology, we expanded the scope of things that we felt like we had a position to advocate on. So one of the big things I wanted to tackle was within neuropsychology. There is a two year postdoc that happens where in most other areas, psychology is a one year postdoc. And you need that to prove to your postdoc to be completed in order to be eligible for born certification. One thing that happened to me when I was on postdoc is that I became pregnant unexpectedly and there was a ton of stress. And I know this happened to many others who have family care obligations. And what does that mean if you have to delay your postdoc and your postdoc can't accommodate extending it? Did you complete it? Did you not? Or maybe you feel pressure to have to come back after leave when you're not ready to. But what does that mean for this completion of postdoc? So one of the really big advocacy projects we took on in WIN was putting out some recommendations about appropriate family leave policies and ways that programs could take this competency based approach versus a time based approach. The programs that may not have flexibility to delay their start or send the training after. So that if you have to take leave, how can the program work with students to do that in a way so they can still be eligible for our board exams after? So we worked on things like that, worked on increasing both flexible accommodations and awareness and knowledge of what those accommodations are for our board exams. NERSC has very specific board exams that are essentially three different parts. One of the oral pieces have to be in person. And so there's a lot of pieces there that we worked really hard with in collaboration with the boarding body. There were instances where there was maybe derogatory comments or inappropriate comments made towards women in science around the time around 20, 2020, 2021. Putting out position statements on that or comments. There was that article on women as mentors that came out inappropriately asserting that women mentors weren't as good. And it had inaccurate assumptions at the time. I think it was like Al-Shifa. I have to look back at the reference, what the reference was, but making comments on that. So it really spans from comments on national issues that were just related to women in science to really specific professional issues within neuropsychology as a specialty. Yeah, so kind of that range, I'd say, was a greater focus on professional issues within women in professional roles within neuropsychology. We also did some work on expanding awareness to and access to research on women as participants in neuropsychological research. So a lot of students will get training on metapolism and cognition or hormonal changes in women in cognition, among other issues that predominantly impact women. So putting out special issues on those topics or really curating research briefs on those topics so that different training programs would have those articles, easy access, summarizing that. And that's where, so behind me on the shelf, the Women in Neuropsych book kind of led to that book coming out as well, Neuropsychology of Women. That's fantastic. Are you a co-author on that book? Yeah, I'm a co-editor with the chair of Women in Neuropsych, Dr. Erin Solven-Baca. So she and I co-edited that book together. Awesome. That's fantastic. So, dear listener, for those of you who don't know, in psychology, there are a lot of kind of anthologies of these subject matter where you put a lot of different, like, research articles and meta-analyses and different things into one book to be the boilerplate for, like, this is how this science is done. And it looks to me, Rachel, like this is one of those additions. That was the intention of it. And I think the last version is something like this. Some other editors have put out 15 or 20 years ago. So a lot of the research was pretty dated, and there's been a lot of great research since then. And so, really, each chapter focuses on a different topic within clinical neuropsychology. So one is on Alzheimer's and related dementias. One is on menopause and other hormonal changes and so on and so forth. And then there's clinical takeaways and research takeaways just to make it really easy for either someone who is maybe not as familiar with psychology or for training programs of, you know, what are the key things to summarize this stuff and make it really easy to integrate into didactics, the trainings for students and for current clinicians. Yeah, that sounds super helpful. And also, like, it was very necessary to put that resource out there into the world. And I'm glad it's done. Two years of work. Yeah. Yes, those things typically take a really long time. Congratulations. So in terms of the not just the book, but the research that you do and some of it that you oversee at your university, I know that when we had talked earlier, you said that federal cuts were not really an issue for you. But are you affected at all by kind of the the overarching. Science proscriptions, I guess, in taking out certain words or language in. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. The short answer is yes. It's very concerning and problematical for myself. My own research and for my students and for new students coming into the field. You know, it's hard to promote research on understudy, understudied areas impacting women or certain disorders and better understanding how they might present differently in women. If you can't talk about women or gender kind of as a separate entity or the funding for those areas dries up. So that's very concerning. And then my broader research really focused on this intersection of neuropsychology and systemic inequity. And so a lot of those keywords that are kind of meaningful, like looking at marginalized populations or tailoring clinical protocols to be more culturally adapted to specific groups. If you can't, you know, allow for certain protocols to be for a specific group or, you know, the funding doesn't. There's no mechanism to apply for those groups or that those keywords aren't allowed. So it's especially an early career researcher. It's pretty scary. Thinking about the entire direction of my research is now not prioritized or not allowed within different funding streams or at certain institutions. And how are you thinking about that moving forward? Yeah, I mean. I think what's nice about being a clinical psychologist is there's so many different hats that you can wear, you know, whether it is advocacy or teaching or research or mentoring. And so, you know, starting my career, I see it as, well, I can always focus on some of these other paths until some of the political environment changes. And in the meantime, I can apply to more private foundation grants instead of some of these public ones. And I think some of the there are some institutional changes that are helping faculty make that transition, having it not penalize their tenure application and process, because on my annual review last year, you know, there was a recommendation. We'd like to see you apply for an NIH grant, which I did this past year. But if that's something that is going to be unattainable for administrative reasons, I think at the administrative level, there'll be more understanding of that. So, yeah, I don't plan to be applying for NIH grants in the next few upcoming few years with the current policies. I mean, I think there's some changes that I'll make and then, you know, I'm just hoping that I can focus on other priorities. I've got some current funding, ride that out until hopefully there are larger social and political changes that change this landscape and prioritization a little bit. Definitely. Yes, we're all hoping and holding our breath, fingers crossed for that. Are there other private entities that do offer funding for the research that you do? I think I have a grant right now from American Psychological Foundation that I'm really thankful for, that's funding some current research looking at modification of a cog rehab protocol specifically for racial and ethnic minority older adults, integrating as we talk about stress as something that interferes with our attentional processes for older adults, integrating explicit conversations about race related stress as part of that explicit conversation about stress. And so I have a randomized control trial that's being funded by them right now to hopefully get this manualized intervention out to, you know, other clinicians to be able to access and use and make that publicly available. I plan to apply to American Cancer Society for a modification for a cog rehab protocol for patients who aren't, are in kind of post-acute cancer treatment, so a cog smart for cancer. So I think there's some mechanisms there typically, you know, there's smaller mechanisms are the ones I'm looking at versus some of the more robust ones. It's going to be through NIH will be a little bit more work, especially being early career. But yeah, there are some that exist. Definitely. Sure. Of course. I'm glad to hear it. I'm glad to hear that all of that isn't just drying up for you and that there's still hope for you and your career. How did you get involved in the neuropsychological study of socially conscious issues or these systemic marginalization issues? Yeah. So I guess going way back, you know, I did my undergrad at Northwestern University and I majored in human development, psychological services and psychology and had this certificate in civic engagement. So I've always kind of had this balance of interest in larger organizational change and some of these individual level change processes as well. But I had a mentor in undergrad who introduced me to Division 27 of APA, which is the Society for Community Research and Action, SCROP, and was really interested in their clinical community doctoral programs where you could get a clinical degree. You could be a psychologist. Maybe you could imagine maybe one day I'd want to see patients. But you get this degree in community psychology along with it to study these larger social issues. So I only applied to Division 27 affiliated PhD programs that have this dual. I could get this clinical training and it was a clinical PhD in addition to being this community psychology specific research PhD. Didn't know that neuropsych existed. And then I think it was in my second or third year of graduate school, was in our in-house clinic and doing some testing there, not neuropsych testing, but just some more straightforward testing with pediatric patients. And the supervisor kind of said, well, if you like this, you should do a neuropsych craft. And so I applied out and Neal Glifkin, Dr. Neal Glifkin at UIC took me in, even though I had no prior neuropsych coursework or clinical experience. He's a really strong mentor. And, you know, my first day, he was like, this isn't rocket science. You will get there. You'll get there eventually. You just have to kind of catch up and learn the basics. So I did that first neuropsych craft and fell in love with neuropsychology, kind of this puzzle piecing together where patients come in with this question and you're trying to better understand, is whatever's going on normal or not in terms of cognitive changes, personality changes? And if it's not, what are the potential etiologies or causes of that? And then you help with recommendations. So it sounds like puzzle pieces left there if you like. And I loved it. And so I went that way clinically and really then started, especially when I was on postdoc to transition my research to more neuropsychological focused research or studying cognitive processes. And so I had this long standing research of researching social issues and researching mentoring and then really worked in postdoc and beyond and merging those two. And so they, a lot of early supervisors, I think, had no idea and kind of looked down at how could you possibly merge those together. So it's like I have a plan and it will work and they will. And now we have a lab that kind of gracefully merges those two issues. You know, we had a special issue, especially through Wynn, that came out on best practices, mentoring women and gender minority trainees in neuropsychology. So I was able to pull all that great background in mental research with neuropsychology. So able to merge it kind of in more professional areas that are empirically published and within my kind of straight lab based research as well. That sounds fabulous. And what is your lab called? It's called the socially conscious lab. And so we're trying to play on words with the conscious piece of it. That's the best I can come up with. So it's a socially conscious lab. That's right. I mean, for us, nerdy psychologists and you are even a degree nerdier with the neuropsych. I've got a watercolor brain behind me for those who can't see. I fully embrace. I fully embrace the nerdy neuropsych role. Absolutely. Absolutely. We're very good at plays on words. Probably couldn't write a screenplay to save our lives. No, no. We play to our strengths. Are there that many women in your area of the field or have you carved a space for women? Yeah, I mean, their field has actually shifted to predominantly women identified trainees coming in. I'd say there's there's a bigger gap. Some of the literature is identified from surveys that have been done, a bigger gap in leadership positions within institutions or professional organizations that starting to transition over. But those tend to be at a higher rate still by men versus women, especially compared to the number of women in the field. And they tend to. There is still a larger number of predominantly white women versus women of color. And so the field has been increasingly worked on really increasing that pipeline of students from diverse backgrounds, whether that is non-traditional backgrounds, getting into neuropsychology or, you know, helping individuals who come from more marginalized aspects of identity coming into the field. There are a few also researchers who have amazing labs set up that do different, but kind of in a similar vein of this intersection between looking at systemic inequities and neuropsychology. So Dr. Manley's lab is another lab that does some really cool work. And there's a few others, but it's I think a smaller field of us who are intersecting neuropsychology and looking at systemic inequities. But they do exist. The labs do exist. Yes, they're out there. But once again, women carving a space for themselves where there isn't one. How do you either mentor your students or make space for those more marginalized identities, marginalized backgrounds within neuropsychology? Yeah, I think there's a few different places. I mean, I try to be very, very intentional in how I mentor and provide as much communication and scaffolding and resources as possible. And I think some of that extra communication can be really helpful. We've got a really long lab expectation document that the students co-collaborate with me each year to make edits on, to make sure that it really is not just my voice, but the students, other students in the lab are having a voice. We talk a lot in the lab about the creation of lab culture. And so what do students want out of the mentoring relationship? What do students want out of the lab experience? Is that happening with what's happening right now? So we do a lot of intentional conversations about that. We try to make a number of our lab meetings, we transition them to be more professionally development focused, where the students have a voice on what might happen in those, whether they're related to kind of personal professional topics like CVs or giving talks or specific content topics in the field. I try to structure where students have every other week 30 minutes in my calendar, no matter what. And so they always feel like they have the space and time. And then within that, really giving an organized space to check in about research, check in about classes, check in about professional issues, check in about anything else. And then, you know, we also have some pretty explicit conversations about the odd nature of a graduate advisor early on and what that role looks like and what different boundaries of communication are and being clear and explicit about that or letting students ask questions about that because this is someone who's teaching your classes, who's, you know, mentoring you on milestones that they're evaluating, but then also is your advocate and your mentor and grows to be your colleague as well. And so we talk about, you know, very early on about, you know, if you can't make a meeting and there's something big and personal going on, you don't have to tell me what that is. But giving the space, if you feel like you need an outlet, I can be that person, too. And if you feel comfortable, you could communicate, but you don't have to. And all those different kind of lines and trying to have transparent discussions about that so that if someone also hasn't had acculturation to different types of professional expectations in graduate school, that I'm really trying to set them up to succeed through structure and through sharing of information or through check-ins and feedback loops. The students suggested doing surveys at the mid-year and end-year where the lab managers send that out and then give feedback back to me. So we're constantly doing this iterative process to check in about the processes we're doing and the ways that I'm communicating and the structures that are in place to really make sure that it is appropriately supporting students from a wide range of backgrounds coming into the lab. It's a long answer. It's such a great answer. And, too, it sounds like you've got really great mentoring that was applicable specifically to you. And it sounds like you're passing that on. What other advice do you have for not just students, but anybody who's interested in this stuff? What advice do you have for women who are pursuing a science career? Yeah. I think my biggest advice is to don't be afraid to ask for information and ask for informational interviews. I found that early in my career doing cold call informational interviews were some of the most, like, eye-opening and helpful experiences where I would, if there were certain, before I knew exactly what area I wanted to go into, just reaching out to people and saying, hey, can I have, with a really specific ask, 15 or 30 minutes of your time? Then it was all in person. So, you know, in person, I'll meet you at your office. And, you know, just to learn more about how you chose your particular career, how you got there. And then sometimes at the end of that I would ask you, based on what we discussed, is there anyone else you'd recommend I chat with? And sometimes it would snowball other contacts as well. I usually have a list to start with. But I found that to be really helpful. And just searching through early on, like, when I was looking at graduate programs, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to research. And part of what helped me was looking at different faculties' websites. I was like, well, what I can't research? Like, what are the range of things? And so I just found that, like, information gathering, trying to just pull all that in was really helpful. Talking to people and talking to, you know, to mentors about this is what I'm interested in. What do you think? Going to networking events and putting yourself out there. And that's initially how I ended up in the field I was in. I had a conversation over a bathroom stall where someone, you know, talked to me and then we were still going to the bathroom, which was awkward. But all results is you have to meet my office mate who is a community psychologist. And that's how I learned about community psychology. So I think it's just that putting yourself out there, talking to different people, creating those mentoring opportunities when they don't exist. And mentoring doesn't have to be a year-long thing. It can be a very time-limited, almost like a sponsorship type of activity. And just creating of your own mentoring opportunities should they not exist. Yeah. How brave of you to just cold call people and ask to meet with them in their offices. I never would have thought about that. But that sounds like a great thing that you really learned from. Before social media. So people weren't, like, they weren't LinkedIning someone or something like that. So I think it felt like it was more normal than just to, like, give a phone call and set that up. But, yeah, who knows? But brave nonetheless. I think it does require a certain amount of courage. Not just to cold call somebody, but to kind of pursue what you want for your degree. I appreciate it. But I also think it's, you know, it's putting less weight in each of those interactions. And if they say no, it's okay. Go on to the next. And you're just, I just feel like life is all about throwing darts. I mean, that's with any, you know, awards that you apply for. Like, you know, opportunities that you get just in the same way when I applied for women in neuropsychology as a committee member. I didn't get in as a committee member, but, hey, I got accepted as the chair. Rather take the chair position. It's just throwing darts. And sometimes you don't know who else is throwing darts at the same time if you're on the same board, a different board. And so it's just putting less weight and stress on each of those interactions. It's just a dart. And you'll throw on. You'll either throw on or move on and throw the next dart and it will be okay. Well, this is fabulous. And I think throwing darts is definitely going to be the title of this podcast episode. I love that visual so much. We started out talking about being a mom. And I want to kind of circle back to that because you are involved absolutely so much. Do you feel like you live a balanced existence? And if you do, like, how do you cultivate that? Yeah, that's a great question. I think, honestly, part of the way that I think about my task list, starting in graduate school, really helped create the, I wouldn't even call it balance. It's not balance. But create the organized chaos that gives home life an equal priority in my mind to work life. I just felt like in graduate school, because of the amorphous schedule, my task list, whether it was a work or a personal item, one didn't have a greater importance. It was to-do. And it was just part of that to-do list. And organizing my day is like a continuous to-do list. These are the things rather than separate. And that's kind of the way that I've approached all the things that I have to do as a mom, is that it's just part of, that's just as much as part of my to-do list as the work-related tasks. But, yeah, I think a good calendar and a good calendar planning system go a very, very long way. That was something I think I honed a lot in graduate school, was really, really high-level calendar planning. And I don't think I could do it without that. Because I handled my kids' calendar, a child's calendar, and my husband's personal and part of his work calendar. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. And the paper calendar, too. I wish I could show it to the listeners. Yeah, I feel like I'm one of the few surviving dinosaurs who use paper. I can't do the electronic calendar. If you want to take a couple of photos, you can send it to me and put it on the Insta. Yeah. So you at least- Oh, my gosh. Look at that. So it's aggressive and scary looking. But that really helps me kind of keep everything organized. But, you know, part of, I think, part of what's helped right now is being in a faculty position, to be honest, with the flexible scheduling really helps. We're having that autonomy to choose how I do my day allows me the flexibility to more seamlessly integrate and take care of the kids-related tasks that I need to. But, yeah, I think part of it, too, is being an advocate. So when I got this new faculty role that I'm in now, I advocated and created, you know, for a .9 FTE versus 1.0 because .9 allowed me then Fridays to carve out for my clinical private practice, which also gives me flexibility. If I don't see a patient, then I can use that Friday for consulting aspects or things for the kids. And so, you know, part of it was advocating for this role to have that flexibility, advocating for, which worked out well for students, too, for the two classes I teach to be in the winter so that I can have less structure the rest of the year where I do just as much work. But it helps with kids to have only one part of the year where I have to go in a certain amount of days rather than two quarters across the year where I know I have to go in. So I think that I advocated to create structures that help with that balance, too. So a lot of self-advocacy. Yeah. According to, again, like what you need and not hesitating to ask for what you need. Yeah. Again, I know you wouldn't categorize yourself as brave, but I do think that this is pretty brave. And potentially women are going to have to be even more brave to advocate for the same things coming up, just considering the socio-political atmosphere that we're in these days. Yeah. That being said, let's circle back to the question that I left unanswered for you, which was, how are you teaching your kids to be leaders if you're doing that intentionally at all? Yeah. I think a few different pieces. Two kind of intentional. And I have to say, I'm very, very intentional about the way I parent. You know, before I clinically worked with adults, I was TDF to Anne. So I've done PCIT, parent-child interaction therapy, used to do a lot of parent training work. And so I had spent a lot of time thinking about this, presenting on this, teaching these issues, and training my husband on PCIT skills before. You know, this is how we will discipline. This is the approach. This is the rationale for this approach. So, yeah. So one thing that we've been really intentional with our kiddos on is helping them understand their body and their emotions and really that mind-body connection so that they can understand themselves and understand how to communicate to others where they're at, what they're feeling and what their needs are. So teaching my two-year-old how to take a deep breath and then to calm down first and then to express calmly what she needs, what she's feeling. And then we talk etiology of big feelings without using that type of language of, you know, my five-year-old, about six months or so, he came home from school. He'd been really having trouble since we had dropped the nap at school, which he and his teacher had wanted to do. And he said, Mama, I think I'm having bigger feelings after school because my body's really tired and I think I might need to nap at school again. And I was so proud of him because that's something that we've worked on is, okay, when you have really big feelings, what are some of these internal or external factors that might be contributing to that? And when you communicate that to others, it helps people understand where you're at and what's going on. So I think that's a whole big space and it helps them empathize with others, too, is kind of the next stage about that of understanding, well, what might be the external factors that are contributing to this going on with this person and their behavior and where they're at? And so we have a lot of conversations about that. Okay, go ahead. Sorry, do you use the word external factors with your kids or do you have a different vocabulary? I think two things about, like, what else might be going on outside of your body, what else might be going on that you can't control, other things that might be going on. So, you know, we might not even label it. I'm talking about, yeah, you might be really hungry and tired. And when we're hungry and tired, that makes our feelings a lot bigger. You're having some big feelings right now, aren't you? How can I help you calm down your big feelings? And we might give them some options and talk about it and then start to give them the language and the ability to be able to say, I'm having a big feeling. I'm really tired. You know, and be able to explain to us what's going on, too. So, yeah, I don't think we use external factors. I feel like I switched into kid mode and tend to use more kid-appropriate terms. For sure, for sure. But, yeah, for those listeners who aren't psychologists, I do think that note that you're making here is going to be so helpful in kind of translating what you and I are talking about. Yeah. Into your life. Yeah. And then I think the other piece that we really intentionally focus on is I'm really trying with my five-year-old to help him develop a voice. I think what's hard is because he's so in touch with other kids' feelings, he tends to want to resolve situations very quickly and back down from things. And so we're really trying to work on, it's okay to say no. This behavior that this person did was not acceptable. You can say no. From anything to teaching how to leave a situation, you don't need to continue to engage with this person in giving options. You can walk away. You can give them, you know, if someone's having a behavior that doesn't feel kind to your body, we might use that language. You can tell them, I don't like when you do that. If you continue to do that behavior, I will leave. Or you can choose to just leave. Or if you feel like you need to, you can go tell a teacher. And so we kind of, we talk through when those situations come up, those different ways to advocate. I was really big early on with my kids about advocating for boundaries on touch. And being able to communicate or to ask a child, well, you have to be able to say goodbye to this person. But you can choose, do you want to wave? Do you want to high-five? Or do you want a hug? Or which would you like to do, but you have to communicate goodbye? Or you have, you know, same thing, you have to communicate a hello. But here's the range of options. But you don't have to give a hug. If they want to give a hug and you don't want to, you could say, no, thank you. I prefer teaching them the language or the tools or that they do have options to say no to touch. And that, you know, teaching kids that if a kid doesn't answer, it doesn't answer means a no. And there's some really good books. There's a really good book. It's a board book on Amazon, Yes, No. And it's not about sexual consent. It's really teaching that kind of consent and boundaries. Like on the playground, if you ask a kid if you can push them on a swing and they don't answer, that not answering, whether by not answering with their voice or their body, still means no. Is there a reason that that was so particularly important for you to teach your children? I think it comes back to that wanting them to have voice and autonomy and being able to know that they're in control of their person. And the book also talks about, you know, that there are times that adults will tell you what to do with your body. And they'll explain it to you. You have to wear a helmet. You have to get a shot. Like these things are going to happen to your body. And here's why. But I really want to make sure that my children feel confident enough to have a voice and to communicate and to stand up for themselves and express themselves so that they don't get walked all over. Because they are developing these great empathy skills. And I think that goes hand in hand with them. You need to know how to put your own boundaries up and how to advocate for your own needs, too. Absolutely fascinating. I could talk to you about all of this stuff for ages, but I did promise you 45 minutes and we're already over time. One last question, though. What's the question that you wanted me to ask you that I didn't? Oh. I mean, I think we talked about it a little bit. You know, I think whenever I think about motherhood and, you know, where my life is now, understanding how COVID and during that time really had an impact in shaping my identity, my kind of experience as a mother like that. I don't think for different cohorts coming through anyone, the moms who had either new babies or young babies during COVID, I think it was such a unique experience. Yeah, but we talked about that a little bit. But that's the only area that just feels like it's such an elephant in the room whenever those conversations about motherhood come up, that even when I'm talking to my own mom and, you know, she'll try to empathize and it's like, no, like, you really can't understand what it's like to not only have a kiddo during that time, but be a working, be a full-time working with a kiddo during that time. It just felt like it was a whole different experience. But, yeah, I think we talked around that a little bit. That would be the only other kind of big, I don't even know what the question is around that. But that just feels like such a big elephant sitting there that relates to that part of my identity. Yeah, definitely. And something that I'm sure that you'll continue to explore. Yeah. Internally as well as externally with those who shared that experience with you. Yeah. Good night, COVID-19. You know, during that experience, I published Good Night, COVID-19, which is a, you know, a parody on COVID-19, not COVID-19, on Good Night Moon to help parents who had young kids be able to teach their kids using essentially a social story. What are these new norms and how do we explore these feelings and resources in the back? Just because, like, yeah, it just it felt like that was that was such an intense experience, like meeting an outlet for other moms at that time. Yeah, yes. I think it's such a moment in time that for you to say, like, I wrote this to process this for myself makes so much sense. But also in all of the research that I did on you, that never came up. Like, I had no idea. No longer for sale on Amazon. I closed the LLC on it. It was too much to kind of keep up with all that. But but it was fun. It was fun while it lasted. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know what? We're here for processing. And Abby and I, if you ever need an outlet, you just give us a call and we'll have another fantastic conversation like this. I think what strikes me about you and what first struck me about you, as I tried to introduce at the top and then completely forgot my own thought. When we first met in D.C., what struck me about you on our little advocacy trip to the Hill was how thoughtful you are. And how mindful you are of how you behave in the world and how you verbalize what you're thinking in the world. I knew this was going to be a good conversation because of that. And thanks so much for opening the windows so that we could see, like, that is just who Rachel Ellison is. She is a thoughtful, mindful, conscious human being. And I'm going to I'm going to just strive to be more like you, I think, every day. Well, I'm impressed that you have a podcast. We all do. We process our own shit, right? Yeah. Yeah. But thank you so much for inviting me to chat today. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I think you're going to really inspire some more people out there, not just me. And thank you so much for, again, sharing yourself with us. I'm going to stop the recording.