Lianne Shinton (00:00)

Yeah.

All right, all right. Welcome everybody. I'm Leanne Shinden from Automation Dogs. Welcome to my podcast and thank you for joining me today. I am interviewing Katie Stritzel. Hi, Katie.

Katie (00:14)

Hi.

Lianne Shinton (00:15)

So Katie is a psychologist, an LEP, a licensed educational psychologist, right? Okay, could you share a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Katie (00:22)

Yes.

Okay, so my name is Katie Stritzel. I am a licensed educational psychologist. I started off as a school psychologist and I've been working in the school districts for over 10 years. And then a few years ago, I got a license called a licensed educational psychologist. The acronym for it is LEP. And it's something very specific to the state of California, but it's a license in which you can practice privately to provide counseling, consultation, support.

and evaluations and provide diagnosis and things like that outside of the school setting. So I started to practice about a year and a half ago outside of the school setting and I've been running that for a little over a year.

Lianne Shinton (01:16)

Awesome, and I definitely know you and I know you're one smart cookie and ⁓ we have helped you find a dog and train a dog. And my podcast is for dog trainers for the most part. And I wanted to talk to you today because you deal with and help parents and we as dog trainers deal with and help pet parents.

And I figure there's a lot of correlation there. There's a lot of things that we probably experienced that you experienced as well, trying to help them navigate things with their kiddo. So that's kind of what I wanted to dive into today is helping dog trainers to better help the adult side of the human side of the leash, the adult side for you.

Katie (01:50)

Bye.

and I'm going to be talking the on And I'm be talking about the of on our community. And I'm be talking about impact

COVID-19 on And I'm going to be talking impact on our

Lianne Shinton (02:12)

And I know that you have a lot of experience in consultations.

So I would love to get some feedback on all of that, because this is what you learned in school, right?

Katie (02:24)

Yes.

Lianne Shinton (02:25)

Can you tell me a little bit about like a consultation and what that means? Just so we know if we're speaking the same language.

Katie (02:34)

Yeah, so when I refer to consultation, it is about working with adults that are in a child's life. So in the school setting, I consult with teachers and staff members on how to support students with typically students who have special needs of some sort. ⁓ And that can be anywhere from lower functioning students with maybe more severe autism to students that are really high functioning.

incredibly smart students who have ADHD and struggle with attention in class or their impulsivity out on the playground and things like that. So I work from a behavioral standpoint, many other things, but when I'm doing consultation with teachers or staff or parents, I refer to that as consultation and that's just me basically coaching.

the adults in a child's life of how to support this student and how to respond in a way that can be supportive to them and help them.

Lianne Shinton (03:28)

Hmm, kind of sounds a little similar to what we do, but you went to university for this. You really specialized in consultation coaching, right?

Katie (03:30)

Thank

Right, so part of my training, ⁓ I went to university for four years and I got my undergraduate in psychology and then I went to graduate school for three years to get my ⁓ educational psychology degree so I can work in schools with children and help them to be successful behaviorally and academically. ⁓ So the majority of my job is consulting with people on how to support kids from an educational and

and behavioral standpoint to support them to be successful in school.

Lianne Shinton (04:18)

And you're not just consulting with just the parent, the teacher. There's a lot of different variables there, more so than we may have to deal with with a dog and the pet parent, for example.

Katie (04:20)

you

you

Right, so ⁓ there's many different strategies that I learned in my graduate program. One of my classes I spent an entire semester just on consultation skills and how to work with adults, which in my experience is probably one of the harder parts of my job is working with the adults in children's lives and not as much of working with the kids.

Lianne Shinton (04:48)

Hmm.

Katie (04:59)

Just because adults have learned things over the years and sometimes those behaviors can be harder to break than it is for a student who is just learning that if I hit somebody I get something I want. You know, their brains are a bit more malleable, which is, we know that. I'm sure it's the same and I know it's the same for like a puppy for example. So a puppy, it's...

probably easier to work with a puppy sometimes than it is a full grown dog. ⁓ Doesn't mean you can't work with them because our brains are amazing and we call it neuroplasticity. So we can always learn new things and create new neurons that fire together. So the saying is neurons that fire together, wired together. you know, human beings are amazing because we can learn new things throughout our entire lives. So it's not impossible. ⁓

So one of my jobs is to really help the adults in learning new skills on how to work with students with possible disabilities.

Lianne Shinton (06:08)

And I think for me, when I got into being a dog trainer at the age of 17, I was getting into it because dogs were cool and I love dogs. And then later I realized, my gosh, there's this people aspect to it. And it really is impactful to hear you say, I took a whole semester on this. This is a curriculum. They teach us how to teach the adults. ⁓

Did that surprise you too when you, I assume you went into this thinking you were gonna be helping children, but you had to learn about the adults?

Katie (06:42)

Yes, I didn't. really thought like consultation for an entire semester, like an entire class, like I mean that's like four and a half, five months sometimes. That's a lot of studying, a lot of reading, an entire class on something like that is pretty intense. And I thought, I mean, that sounds like something, know, 10 strategies, here you go, here's how you consult with adults. But no, there was like a lot more to it in learning.

so many different skills.

Yeah, so like one skill in particular that I took a lot from that program in that class was, and it's a psychology skill too, is really trying to listen to what the problem is and having, you know, somebody share what the concern is. So when I initially go into a consultation, most of the time it's the teacher coming to me or it's the parent coming to me like, hey, these are all of the things that are going on and we're really concerned.

Can I help my student and da da da da. So the very beginnings of consultation is there's a lot of questions on my part to help me understand what the concern is specifically. So for example, if a teacher comes to me and they say, I'm really concerned about Johnny, he keeps calling out in class, he's not completing his work and he's getting in fights on the playground, know, those types of things.

I ask a lot of questions regarding, what does that look like? What does that sound like? Are there any settings in which you see more of those behaviors versus less of those behaviors? And a lot of consultation is really asking questions to help the person who is going through that situation understand better of what's going on. So if he's shouting out,

For example, the student, I ask them, do you know when they're shouting out more? Is it during math? Is it during reading? And they'll share, ⁓ I don't know. And I'm like, well, maybe we can take some data on that, because sometimes that's important in knowing. And so I'll have them just for five minutes tally how many times the student shouted out during that five-minute math lesson and the same during a reading lesson. And if it's pretty similar, then we can say, OK, during

my instruction, my direct instruction, that's when I see the most calling out. And usually they take snapshots of data throughout the day and then they can kind of see when that is. And we call that the antecedent of a behavior. So what's happening before a behavior? And then what is the behavior itself? So if we know that it's usually during a math lesson and I'm doing a whole class lesson, then that's the antecedent. The behavior's calling out and the consequence, what's happening after that?

So consequence isn't always like, I sent them to the corner or they had to go take a break outside or something like this. ⁓ More of sending to the corners like at home, you know, or something. But what happens afterwards? Consequence isn't always that. It's usually just whatever happens right after a behavior. So sometimes that whatever happens afterwards is reinforcing. So for example, some students want attention.

Lianne Shinton (10:03)

Mmm.

Katie (10:05)

So they're calling out because they're trying to get attention. Well, every time the student calls out, the teacher says, you can't call out, I need you to raise your hand first. Well, the student just gained what they were wanting, which was attention. ⁓ But the teacher doesn't know that, right? They just see that the student is calling out and those types of things.

Lianne Shinton (10:16)

attention.

Katie (10:27)

So sometimes my questions, the teachers don't always have the answers to, or the parents don't always have the answer to, and sometimes we go back and we start to take some data, and then they can really understand where this behavior's coming from and what's reinforcing the behavior. So a lot of my consultation begins with a lot of questions, and there's times at which...

the staff member or the parent is really overwhelmed and they're not in a space to really hear what I have to say. So I have a lot of knowledge in my brain and I know dog trainers have tons of access to so many different resources and strategies and things like that. And part of my job and being a psychologist is really reading a person and seeing where they're at. If a person is coming to me and they're really overwhelmed and

struggling, they're sort of like you have to gauge there's a time and a place in which to share a strategy. And sometimes they're not in the space to really hear what you have to say. One of the bigger components as well to consultation is rapport and getting that getting to know the people that you're going to work with. like, that was one of the

biggest components of that class is you need to get to know your teachers, you need to get to know your parents, and you need to build a connection with them because if you build a connection with them they're more likely to listen to what you have to say and they'll feel more comfortable with you. Their walls are going to come down and then they're more likely to do the things that you're recommending. So a lot of it is rapport building.

Lianne Shinton (12:07)

Hmm.

That is very powerful stuff. So questions and rapport building questions. I mean, I love that. And I know there's a lot of dog trainers where their processes here are all my programs, go ahead and sign up. But that triage part is so critical to build rapport, to build trust and the questions. It sounds like they really help the adults.

have a new perspective, ⁓ to see things that they hadn't even seen just by answering these questions. I love it.

Katie (12:52)

Yeah, and it also gets the buy-in of the person. It also helps with their stress level. You know, there's lots of research amongst different strategies to support somebody and to do psychology with someone. you know, when you enter into therapy and they're like, well, what is the best type of therapy? And a lot of research shows having somebody just talk about the problem or the issue.

That in and of itself is a powerful component and can help a lot of people with bringing down their stress level. And a lot of it working with adults is I find, you know, I'll go and observe in a classroom or I'll observe an interaction between a parent and a child. And a lot of it is coming from the adult, the anxiety or the prompting, which is causing a behavior or something like that. So,

Lianne Shinton (13:24)

Hmm.

Katie (13:48)

Really most of the behaviors are, there's a big adult component to it and they don't realize it, they don't recognize it. And so part of my job of going in and observing a student and observing an interaction, I can see it because I have the training, but then it's really, you have to be very careful in how you share it because you don't want to just completely burn that bridge and you know.

You don't want to tell people like you're doing this and this and this wrong. Like, I don't want to hear that as a person. And I don't, I want to be very mindful of how I share that information. And so maybe I see 10 things that we can do differently and maybe a little bit better for this student. might, depending on where that adult is at that moment, I might share one strategy or maybe I might not share any strategies at that time. I'm like, hmm.

Lianne Shinton (14:19)

Hmm.

Katie (14:43)

let me think about that and let me figure out some other strategies and I can come back to the table on this and let me see if I can do some research. Even though in my mind I already have a list of 10 strategies, but I know that that person isn't ready to hear any of my strategies. So I'll say, let me research that and that'll give them time to kind of process as well. And then when we do come back to the table, another strategy that I learned is

Lianne Shinton (15:06)

Wow.

Katie (15:12)

What have you used in the past? ⁓ And that has worked. when I was younger in the field, I've been doing this for over 10 years now, but when I was younger in the field, a lot of staff used to be like, I've got shoes older than you. I've been a teacher for so much longer than you and all these things. And what can you tell me? What strategy can you give me? those types of things. I'm sure you've had clients that you work with dogs that.

the clients are much older and they know way more and they've lived more life. So I respect that they have so much experience and part of the consultation is really asking those questions and then they remember, ⁓ I had a student just like this 15 years ago and we put them on a behavior contract and they started doing so much better or

Lianne Shinton (15:40)

Hmm.

Katie (16:06)

⁓ I had to use visuals in the classroom and a visual schedule and we had to use a lot of what we call priming, which is preparing the student in advance if there was a change or what's going to happen during the day and those types of things. So sometimes my consultation is really just listening and then they start to come up with all the strategies. And I kind of, you know, will guide the conversation if they're in a space where they can hear it. If they're not, then I usually

swoop into whatever idea they have. So if they say they really have a great idea of like we used a behavior contract, I know that that's an evidence-based strategy, then I'll swoop in and I'll be like, I'll create the behavior contract for me for you, what can I do to support? Like what do you want it to look like? And then ⁓ we work together and that's part of the consultation and collaboration.

Lianne Shinton (16:41)

Mmm.

Wow. A lot to unpack there. There was one thing I wanted to kind of have you expand on, and that was where you mentioned that the adult is part of the behavior that the child has. And we see that with dogs, obviously, as you know, having a cattle dog, things feed down the leash. Like if they see, there's a dump truck coming or another dog coming and they start to tense up.

Katie (17:15)

you

you

Lianne Shinton (17:28)

and they don't

even realize that they're triggering the behavior. ⁓ That's just me explaining it as a dog trainer, but maybe could you elaborate there like some tips that adults could do if they're triggering these behaviors for the kids or if they're inadvertently reinforcing things, like how can they break those habits, I guess would be my best question there.

Katie (17:45)

you ⁓

Right, so.

For example, one of the biggest components of behavior when I'm working with parents, for example.

the parents will, you know, quote unquote trigger a child in a certain behavior sometimes. And it's because of the way they reacted to the behavior. So one of the fact, one of the biggest factors is we as adults have to work on our own anxiety, our own tenseness, and we have to remain as calm, cool, and collected during, let's say a tantrum. So like,

If you have a young child and you have kids as a parent, your child has had a tantrum at one point or another. ⁓ It's really important when you're working with a child, and I'm assuming a dog is the same, you have to keep your cool. And if you are feeling triggered by the tantrum, then one of my biggest recommendations to families is you need to go and take a break yourself.

and then come back to it when you can feel calm. And a lot of the times it's because of like self-care. So parents are tired, for example, they're exhausted, they come home at the end of the day, the child is also tired and exhausted. So you have to hold space for understanding that it's not just you that's tired. They might be having a tantrum, they might be hungry, they might be tired from their day. And when...

you know, their brother took the toy from them and they're having a meltdown over it. If you start yelling at them, why are you crying? And they tend to cry more, it can make the tantrum even worse. So one of my strategies in working with families is you gotta come in calm and we call it co-regulation. So if I'm calm about something and I'm trying to help my child, they will emulate the same

behavior. So if they see that I'm calm, they will start to copy me. And there's lots of studies around this, especially with like the polyvagal nerve. And ⁓ we as a species are very group based. And if we're all in a calm state, then and I think that's the same for dogs, right? Because they like they're in a pack kind of thing. So the adult is the leader and

really the adult has to be the one that keeps their cool and the student will follow along. If the adult is losing their cool and yelling or getting tense or anxious, the child is going to follow whatever the adult does typically.

Lianne Shinton (20:44)

Excellent, excellent. ⁓ Wow. I wanted to go back to questions. When you have someone reach out to you and they need a consultation, they need help. Do you have them fill out a big form with the questions preemptively or do you ask questions during the consultation so that you can see reactions maybe and dive deeper like or

Bit of both.

Katie (21:18)

So like for my online system, is like if they want to, they want a free consultation, for example, to work with me. ⁓

The online system is very basic. It's sort of just like, what's your name, your child's name, your child's age, and then like a brief description of how can I help kind of thing. ⁓ It just gives me a snapshot idea of what I'm kind of going into. And then the consultation, really the meeting itself is when I will look closer at

I'll ask the questions and I'll get to know more of what's going on. ⁓ I don't have like a ton of stuff online because it's... I feel that a lot of what I work with, it's easier to explain verbally than it is to type it all out.

Lianne Shinton (22:13)

Yeah. And the reason I ask is because I see some businesses, ⁓ dog trainers specifically, they'll have like an intake form before they even have that like one-on-one. And I never have really done that. I like to just like you get the gist of their name, their information so we can be in contact, schedule the appointment. And then I want to take that deeper dive and ask all those questions.

Katie (22:34)

you

Lianne Shinton (22:41)

and go through them together. feel like that's such an important part to help build trust, rapport, like you mentioned, help me learn if I'm gonna be the right fit for them. Yeah, so anything you can share on asking more questions, I mean, you're triaging the situation. And that's the piece that I think some dog trainers just...

Katie (22:45)

you

you

you

Right.

Lianne Shinton (23:07)

you know, we may not think about like, I just ask all my questions on a form and there's maybe a disconnect. I would never go into the doctor's office and fill out a form and then walk into the room. Here's your prescription. Like there would be questions.

Katie (23:22)

Right. I think it's important too to be aware of like there's some people that can complete online forms much more easily than others. ⁓ Many people have disabilities and when I say disabilities I don't mean that you can't function in life but for example my dad has significant dyslexia. He is a business owner though has done amazing in his life.

Lianne Shinton (23:33)

Hmm.

Katie (23:51)

you know, and he's an entrepreneur and he's made lots of money and is, you know, doing fine in life. But for him to fill out an online form, that's really hard for him, for example. And similar to somebody with perhaps ADHD or high functioning autism or things like that, it can be harder for them to express themselves. ⁓ And so I think, you know,

just because of what I do for a living. I think it's always important to take into consideration that you don't want things to be too hard to get to you. You really want it to be as easy to access the person and then when you do meet with someone, you're able to see if you can connect on the level that you're wanting to and if they can help you in the way that you're looking for. Because it really is like, it is a, you know, at least when I'm working with

When I'm working in a school, I have to try to connect with everyone. And that's one of the parts of my consultation classes. You have to be approachable. So if you're not approachable, then people aren't going to really want to work with you. And that was a big component of that class is you need to be kind. You need to smile. You need to...

Lianne Shinton (25:00)

Yeah.

Katie (25:07)

be welcoming as a person and so that way they'll want to work with you and then they're going to want to ask you questions and then they're going to help students because the idea behind it is and I'm sure for dog trainers your whole idea is you want to help people with their dogs and I just want to help kids be successful in school and the way that we're going to be able to do that is to make connections with people who are working with the kids and if you don't have that underlying connection then they're going to be closed off and they're less likely to

implement the strategies that you're trying to get them to implement.

Lianne Shinton (25:42)

And you've mentioned the word strategies a few times. I was wondering if you could share maybe some of the most common strategies you implement to help you work with the adults or just share a way on strategies that you think could help dog trainers with coaching the human end of the leash.

Katie (26:05)

Yeah, so one strategy I learned from a professor in graduate school

was, especially when working with parents, which is similar to the parent of a dog versus the parent of a child, is you want to copy the body language of the person you are working with. So one of my professors told me that if a parent is sitting there like this in their chair, you don't always have to have the same exact body language, but you might sit back in your chair and kind of go like this.

matching the body language of the person, there's some psychology behind it where it can help that person feel more comfortable. So if they're going like this, you also go like this. If they cross their leg over their other leg, you also cross your leg over your other leg. ⁓ Cause you're matching their energy and in a way you're connecting in a series of like types of body language. So that's one small thing that a professor taught me that I do.

at work all the time. I'm not sure exactly if it works all the time, but it's something that I just do in my practice now. So, emulating the person you're working with to do similar body language. ⁓

Lianne Shinton (27:26)

love that. It is kind of fun. you, you know, you could just go out in the world or stay home and with family and just see what happens.

Katie (27:36)

I know, I know. And you

in your mind, you know what you're doing, but they don't know what you're doing.

Lianne Shinton (27:40)

Yeah!

I'm

gonna try it, because it's like A-B testing. Like, let's see what happens if I start doing that. Okay, okay. So the goal in that is to, they feel more comfortable and relatable and just make a better connection with you, yeah.

Katie (27:48)

exactly.

Yeah.

more connected. Because if you

think about it, you know, if you come in and, ⁓ you know, like, for example, I'm working with a teacher and they just had a really long day and they're kind of leaning in their chair and they're like, yeah, this kid did this and this kid did this and they're sort of leaning. And I come in and I'm like, you know, listening to everything you have to tell me, it can, we're not matching the same energy level. You know what I mean?

Lianne Shinton (28:22)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Katie (28:30)

And

it can be intense and it can kind of put people off. So I'm assuming that's kind of where that strategy came from. Another strategy that I've used is repeating back what they tell you. Like not word for word, but when people feel heard as anybody, and this is a basic psychology skill, ⁓ whenever I'm doing therapy, for example, or consultation, ⁓

Lianne Shinton (28:42)

Mmm.

Katie (28:58)

If someone feels heard, then they're more likely to listen to what you have to say. And also, it feels good to be heard, you know? So if a teacher says, yeah, today Johnny called out 25 times, and it was so overwhelming, and I'm feeling really stressed because all the other students aren't really getting the instruction they need, and you know, things like that, then I would say, I hear you telling me that Johnny called out a lot today, and that was really overwhelming for you, and you're just feeling like the rest of the kids aren't getting what they need.

repeating things back to someone. One, it's good for them to hear what they just said so that they can process it in a different way. And then two, it also helps them feel connected to you because it makes them feel heard.

Lianne Shinton (29:43)

Would you frame that with a question at the end? Like, did I get that right?

Katie (29:50)

Sometimes, just sort of depends, like I kind of gauge it in the conversation. It depends on the conversation. If I'm doing counseling, for example, I might say that at the very end of saying that, am I understanding you correctly? And when you said this and this and this and this, and then they'd be like, yeah.

Lianne Shinton (29:52)

Okay.

And then any, do you have one more amazing strategy that you could share with us? Cause these are great, like golden nuggets that you're dropping for these dog trainers right now.

Katie (30:25)

Bye.

I think another strategy is to also find commonalities between the two of you. So I know I mentioned earlier that it's important to make a connection with someone. So I used to have this professor, for example, and he would just kind of shoot the breeze all the time. And I was always like,

We have work to do, there's all these things that we have to get done, and you are just talking away about a baseball game and what is going on right now? Like, there's so many other things we need to get done. But it's actually really important to make that connection with someone. If you share a little bit about yourself or you hear them say something like about

Lianne Shinton (30:59)

You

Katie (31:21)

something that they might like, like, yeah, we went camping last weekend or something like that. That's a little nugget of information that it's important to take when you're trying to maybe make a sale, for example, of, they like camping. Where can I and my and my Rolodex of information in my brain? I like camping too. I went camping up in Big Pine.

You can ask them more questions. you went camping. Where did you go camping? I went camping in, you know, I don't know, Utah or something. ⁓ I went camping in Utah one time or whatever. These conversations, although they seem sort of meaningless, are actually really, really important because forming those connections with people are going to make them more comfortable with you.

So when I used to think my professor just keeps talking about baseball with another student in my class and I felt like this isn't important and not valuable for our time, it actually was because that student was then more invested in the class and they studied more and they did a lot better in the class. so, and the same goes for teachers. When I work with a teacher, one of my biggest strategies is like, how many times have you connected with this student?

⁓ And most of the time a student doesn't behave in class because they don't feel connected to the teacher or the classroom setting. So a strategy that I have them use is the two by ten strategy where for ten days, for two minutes, for ten days, it's only two minutes, you talk about whatever that student wants to talk

Lianne Shinton (33:04)

Wow.

Katie (33:05)

And when

they talk about what they want to talk about and then you repeat back to what they said and they feel heard and they feel connected to you, they're less likely to engage in behaviors in your classroom. the connection is important.

Lianne Shinton (33:15)

Wow.

Yeah,

these are, this is just great stuff. So I wanted to ask a question and see if it's the right move or not. So when I'm talking to someone about their dog and I'm asking about like the barking and they're starting to get like all of those emotional hot buttons are getting pressed and they're starting to go into like that reliving like, he dragged me down and I hurt my knee and I was so embarrassed and he got away from me and like they're, you know, not happy.

Katie (33:30)

you

Lianne Shinton (33:47)

I generally will also during that time ask, what do you really love about your dog?

Katie (33:48)

you

Lianne Shinton (33:54)

So that way I'm thinking I can get them back to, I still love them and I still want to buy training because this is my dog, my dog that's gonna be with me for 10, 15 years. And I wanna make sure that we touch on like, well, he's good with my kids and he's so, I just love watching TV and just petting him and he's so soft.

Katie (34:01)

you

Lianne Shinton (34:17)

plays ball in the backyard and he's cute. I

Katie (34:19)

you

Lianne Shinton (34:19)

want them to tap into that because it helps me get them out of that. ⁓ he's driving me crazy. I just want to get rid of him and then start to be appreciative of that. Like I want to put money into his training to have that lifelong like bond and dog. Is that a good strategy trying to ask what do you love about him?

Katie (34:23)

you

you

Yes, I think that's a great strategy. In fact, I use it with parents and teachers all the time. ⁓ Because it is usually when they come to me, just like when you're going to a dog trainer, there's all these problems or things that you're really struggling with, which is why you're trying to reach out for support.

And so it is easy to go down sort of that negative trail of information. And I'm actually working with a client and a student right now, or a child right now, and a parent. And the conversation has been fairly negative about the child. Still, there's some positive components. And then I'll ask more questions. Oh, so they're really athletic. Tell me more about that. And so when they do share a positive...

then I'll kind of plug and I'll ask more questions in the positive direction, which is a very similar strategy to what you're using. And I love that of like, tell me something you really love about your dog, because you're getting all these good feelings and you're making that connection with them. And then that's a big component of consultation is, you know, make them feel good.

and feel comfortable with you to trust your dog or with me to trust your child and how to help them to be successful. So, it's important.

Lianne Shinton (36:08)

Awesome. Now I want to ask a of a question that I experience a lot when I'm not a lot, but like as a, I guess, a woman dog trainer, sometimes I'll have mom and dad judging each other. Dad's like, you know, in the chair with his arms crossed and telling mom how she's doing not a very good job. And I'm all like, you're next dude.

Katie (36:31)

you

Lianne Shinton (36:38)

And it could be vice versa.

Katie (36:39)

you

Lianne Shinton (36:41)

But do you ever see that where they get maybe competitive or they come down on each other as a family, they're not unified?

Katie (36:52)

Yes.

That is something, and I think I kind of touched on it earlier, is this co-regulation component of like if a child's having a tantrum, then we need to be the regulated one and help them to calm down. ⁓ Another component to working with children, for example, which I'm assuming is similar to dogs, is we need to not only keep our cool, but we want to model the behavior we're trying to teach.

You know, kids are obviously different than dogs and kids are, you know, we have smarter brains, if you will, and we can learn and things like that in a different way. Dogs can learn too, but I mean, ⁓ most children learn from the adults in their lives. So if they see that ⁓ the adult made a mistake and they get really angry about it, the child is going to do the same thing. I made a mistake and now I'm going to get really mad about it.

It's important for the adult to take a minute and be like, ugh, I made a mistake. I'm feeling frustrated. I need to go take a break. It's important to model behavior like that for children. ⁓ Now, I know you can't really model that for a dog, and they might not understand that cognitively ⁓ like a child, but ⁓ modeling the behavior we want is one of the bigger components in working with children.

So, but I think it's a lot of energy probably based with dogs and things like that. So if the dog is sensing this negative energy of one person putting the other person down, that can probably feed into the dog and then cause behaviors as well, which could also make that person nervous, which is then feeding into the dog and causing behavioral issues as well, right? So if we're undercutting each other, then that makes us uncomfortable.

Lianne Shinton (38:42)

Hmm.

Katie (38:51)

and then that's gonna maybe not be the most helpful. I don't know exactly how you would fix the two adults having that kerfuffle in terms of like a dog, but what I do is I model the behavior that I wanna see even in counseling. So I'll play a game in front of the parent and we'll play game with the parent and the child and we'll play Uno and I'll be using a lot of positive with the child.

Good job, you skipped me, my gosh, but that was such a good play. And I'll be sort of very animated, because I'm working with younger children usually, but if it's a teenager, I'm not as animated. But I model the behavior, I want the parent to see the behavior, and hopefully then they also do it, where they're more positive with their child, and creating more positive memories with them.

Lianne Shinton (39:38)

Hmm.

Do you ever see parents that are jealous ⁓ and the child causes conflict between mom and dad? Because we see that obviously with dogs. And do you help there? Do you have any strategies to help with that?

Katie (39:55)

you

If there's jealousy going on

For example, it's usually like the child favors mom and then the dad feels sort of left out. I don't know how it is in the dog world exactly, but that's typically what it is. Yeah. There you go. So usually there's like a preference for not usually. mean, sometimes there's a preference for one parent over the other. And it's not that the

Lianne Shinton (40:23)

It's exactly like that. Flirty loves mom.

Katie (40:41)

It's not that the child loves the mom more, the dad more, or whoever the child has more of a preference for. Sometimes there's a dynamic there where they're not feeling as connected to that parent. most of the time my recommendation for that is find ways to connect with your child, whether that's go play a board game together, go on a walk together, go take a drive together, go on a trip together, those types of things.

Try to create those positive memories and take some moments, know, because your kids aren't going to be your kids forever, if you will. Like, they're going to grow up and they're not going to be around as much, so try to really enjoy those moments. And so I would assume it's similar with dogs. you know, if the dog is favoring one parent, maybe then the other parent that's not favored needs to spend more quality time with and doing fun things.

fetch more and play the tug-of-war game they really love and you know those types of things and and that would be what I would recommend to a parent who's not feeling as connected to the child is take the moments and that's what I do in counseling if a parent's not feeling connected I'll be like come to the next counseling session let's work on that and most the time we play a game together and I modeled the positive talk and the positive and the creating that fun moment and they get to see that they're like this is fun

playing a game with my child and those types of things.

Lianne Shinton (42:07)

Awesome. Now, one thing that I've experienced and I would guess that you have too is when you kind of feel bad for maybe the dog is in the wrong family, you know, and it's just, it's kind of burns us out. We feel sad for the situation that's going on. Maybe the dog is just too much dog for the little old lady. You know, I'm sure you see that where it's a kid and they're just not

being treated great. I'm wondering about burnout on our end as the coach that has to experience all this stress of running a business and seeing some people with a dog that they're not compatible with and just having to go home and drink a bottle of wine or have a nap. ⁓

Katie (42:46)

you

Bottle.

I mean one of the biggest components of being a mental health professional and this is like something that I had to learn quite a bit and it is very hard to do and I think it's based on your personality as well. I feel like some people are very good about separating like their work life and their personal life and it doesn't sort of bleed over. I admire those people. I wish I was one of those people. I am not one of those people. I very much love what I do and I work with children and I'm

Lianne Shinton (43:24)

you

Katie (43:34)

always thinking about the students I work with and all the different things that I can do to support them and I have a hard time sleeping at night and da da da da. So one of the biggest components as well for that is care for the caregivers, what we call it. Is you really have to take care of yourself. So I don't encourage drinking, it's not a healthy coping strategy, but do I say that I don't drink a glass of wine myself when I'm feeling really over?

Lianne Shinton (43:54)

Hehehehehe

Katie (44:00)

I do sometimes partake, but I also need to partake in the ones that are more healthy, which is taking a walk or a bubble bath or talking to a friend or, you know, connecting with someone who might be older than you or a little bit more wiser about a situation or a family member that just, you know, hey, I need to talk to somebody. Can you lend an ear to me? Or sometimes it's just having some quiet time to yourself.

Whatever it is that you do for self-care, if you are going to do a job where you're helping other people through a difficult moment, like if they're really struggling with their dog and that's a really stressful component of that family's life, that can be hard on anybody that's around. We call it vicarious trauma, if you will. And so in order to avoid the symptoms of vicarious trauma is you really have to take care of yourself. So like...

Go get your nails done and go get some wine with some friends or go on that girls trip or go camping. Whatever it is that works for you. There's lots of studies that support being out in nature even just 10 to 15 minutes a day is really helpful for mental health. ⁓ So just go outside.

Lianne Shinton (45:17)

Yeah.

Katie (45:23)

for 10 minutes and they also say if you just sit in a park for 10 minutes a day, that in and of itself is a very helpful strategy. ⁓ Which is nice, which is why dogs are usually such a great component for people is because it makes you go outside more. And your dog can help you because you connect to another living thing and know those types of things, spending time with your dog.

Lianne Shinton (45:42)

Yeah.

Katie (45:51)

whatever it is that you're self-care and the things that you like to do that fill your cup, because you can't pour from an empty cup, if you will. So if you're feeling really drained and down, if you go into a dog training session, for example, you're not going to be in a positive space because your cup is running really empty. So you need to do what fills your cup. And then you can pour into others and fill their cup.

Lianne Shinton (46:04)

Hmm.

Katie (46:18)

metaphor makes sense but I it does.

Lianne Shinton (46:19)

Yeah, does.

does. mean, burnout, it definitely is part of probably any business owner, anybody in life could experience it. And I think having strategies there to instead of just accepting it and being negative, I try not to be very negative. So I don't want to dwell on that. And I'm going to do the things that are going to help me to get through this because I will get through it.

Katie (46:24)

you

you

Yeah.

Lianne Shinton (46:48)

Instead of just, I'm burned out. I'm going to shut my business down or something like that.

Katie (46:53)

Yeah, and then yeah, so taking a beat, going on a walk, thinking about it, taking a few days, whatever it is, and giving yourself grace. And looking at the cup half full, you know. You could also, there's studies that support journaling. ⁓ You should just write your thoughts down every day. ⁓ Gratitude is a huge component too of mental health. ⁓

Lianne Shinton (47:14)

Mm.

Katie (47:23)

You know, I'm a Girl Scout leader as well. And so we did this whole lesson on gratitude and ⁓ gratitude journaling was something that came up and I was like, I love this strategy. And it's something that I work on with my students where you just in a journal write three things that you're really grateful for every single day. That's a very simple strategy, but can build positive mental health every single day. So it seems like something so small, but even something so small can be so powerful. ⁓

and look at the good things that you did do, not just the things that you didn't get to.

Lianne Shinton (47:57)

Can you say that again, that homework of the writing three things?

Katie (48:03)

Yeah, just write three things in a journal of what you're grateful for each day.

Lianne Shinton (48:09)

Wow, yeah, that sounds interesting. And then you can look back through that journal, right?

Katie (48:18)

Yep, you can look back through it and having, really the idea is having moments to look at what you have every day is good for your mental health. Instead of, didn't get to this and I didn't get to that and I didn't get to that. That's typical for our human brain, because we are always trying to strive to be better. That's just part of how we are. Like human nature is we're always trying to improve and be better. And so it's easy for us to get down on ourselves because I didn't get to that phone call and I didn't get to that.

Lianne Shinton (48:33)

Hmm.

Katie (48:47)

and I didn't get to this and I didn't get to that and you know we didn't do this and we should have done that. It's very easy for our brains to do that because ⁓ that's one of the amazing things about the human brain is that we can grow and get better but sometimes we get stuck in the negative and then it can kind of pull us down so you really want to combat that with the positive and so the gratitude journaling is something you

Lianne Shinton (49:12)

I am gonna start doing that. got it. So three things that I'm grateful for, did you say? Or that I'm.

Katie (49:20)

Yes, and

it can be simple. I'm grateful for, you know, my dog. I'm grateful for the place I live in and I'm grateful for having my health. You know, it doesn't have to be anything super, but try to come up with different things each day. I'm grateful that I had this great conversation with you today.

Lianne Shinton (49:32)

that's a good one, yeah.

That's what I was thinking. I'm grateful for flirty. That's always going to be every page that I write. ⁓

Katie (49:42)

you

every page. I'm great

about that, Hody.

Lianne Shinton (49:54)

Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about or share today? Because I feel like I have to have you on my podcast again, and we have to go deeper on consultations. think it'd be good to stay on track with consultations and communicating and connecting with the adults, the human side of the leash on our end. there anything on those two that you would like to share more?

Katie (50:23)

think that's it for today. Yeah, I have to get to Maddie's baseball game.

Lianne Shinton (50:30)

Oh, fun, fun. Okay, well,

we need to talk later about another topic that we can dive deeper into because I was just amazed and I'm always amazed just talking to you. You're so smart. So thank you so much for sharing today, Katie. I hope that this podcast helps you. I thank you for coming into our doc training world. And yeah, if...

I don't know, do you want to share where people can find you if they have questions about their kiddos?

Katie (51:04)

Yeah, so I mean if anybody in the state of California is looking for support in helping your child or I also support adults with possible difficulties or disabilities. ⁓ I usually support adults when it comes to educationally related things. So if they're trying to go back to school but they had a really hard time passing certain classes and they need accommodations or things like that I do assessments for that.

so that we can get accommodations in college. But I also work with adults in terms of executive functioning skills and things like that. But my niche is very much children, and so I work a lot with children of all ages. The ones that I specialize in are ages three to 22, and I support them in both social-emotional, academic, and accessing.

general education curriculum in ways that they can and just helping them to be successful in schools and in life. ⁓ So that's a lot of it. You can find me on my website which is katestritzel.com so that's easy and I'm also on psychology today so you can just type my name into that and you can contact me through that as well.

Lianne Shinton (52:20)

Awesome, well thank you so much for sharing today. I hope to have you on again. I have so many more questions and things we can talk about and thank you everybody for listening as well. Again, it's Katie Stritzel from katestritzel.com. Thank you, Katie.

Katie (52:33)

All right, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Lianne Shinton (52:36)

Yeah, and ⁓ I'm gonna just, okay, you're 100 % uploaded, so you're good. I just wanted to make sure it was uploaded. So, all right, thank you, thank you.

Katie (52:45)

Okay. Thank you, Leigh Ann.