"My Mighty Quinn" - From Tics, Turbulence, Distraction and Disconnection to Calm, Confident and Connected"

S3 Episode 1: Beneath the Surface: The Hidden Hell of School Struggles and Refusal

• Lucia Silver / Dr Joshua Madsen • Season 3 • Episode 1

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Hello parents, carers, educators, and practitioners! It's Lucia Silver here, and I'm thrilled to bring you another enlightening episode of My Mighty Quinn. Today, we have the honour of welcoming back Dr. Joshua Madsen, a renowned chiropractic neurologist specialising in children with neurodevelopmental delays and functional medicine. It's been a while since we last spoke, and I'm excited to dive into our discussion today.

In this episode, we explore the profound insights from Dr. Joshua Madsen on neurodevelopmental delays and the critical role of functional medicine. We focus on the underlying reasons behind school struggles and refusal, shedding light on the hidden challenges our children face. 

Key Takeaways

  1. Integrative Approach: Dr. Madsen emphasises the importance of a comprehensive approach, considering diet, nutrition, gut health, and environmental factors. Addressing the whole child and their environment is crucial for effective intervention.
  2. Primitive Reflexes: A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the role of primitive reflexes in neurodevelopment. Dr. Madsen explains how retained reflexes can impact a child's ability to focus, read, and regulate emotions, leading to anxiety and behavioural challenges.
  3. Personal Experience: Dr. Madsen shares his own struggles with reading and attention issues during school, highlighting how early intervention and understanding the root causes could have changed his educational trajectory.
  4. School Refusal Epidemic: We delve into the alarming statistics of school refusal and persistent absenteeism. Dr. Madsen explains how neurodevelopmental delays and environmental factors contribute to this growing crisis.
  5. Practical Steps for Parents: The episode concludes with practical advice for parents. Dr. Madsen suggests starting with small, manageable changes in diet, reducing screen time, and addressing environmental toxins. He also underscores the importance of parents managing their own stress to create a supportive environment for their children.

Call to Action

We know it can feel overwhelming hearing all the things we need to do for our children, so we've created a headliner fact sheet downloadable with this podcast. Additionally, we'll launch a "Fresh Start" challenge for the new school year, including small steps across diet, screen time, and sleep to help you and your child thrive.

Thank you for joining us on this journey. Don't forget to check out Dr. Madsen's publications, Instagram, and YouTube channel for more insights. Have a wonderful day, and we'll see you in the next episode

Resource Links:

[00:00:00] Lucia Silver: So hello, parents, carers, educators, and practitioners. We have not had the privilege of talking to Dr. Joshua Madsen since we launched the Brain Health Movement formally late last year. So it is with great pleasure that we are inviting Dr. Josh to join us today. For those of you who may not have come across Dr.

[00:00:17] Lucia Silver: Joshua Madsen, he is a formidable chiropractic neurologist focusing on children with neurodevelopmental delays, But he also brings the vitally important expertise of functional medicine, looking at diet, nutrition, gut health, environmental toxins, and more.

[00:00:33] Lucia Silver: This level of integrative root cause approach is, in our view, at the brain health movement, the only way to approach a child, the whole child, the whole environment, the whole toxic load, and to understand how to take us back to birthright. Building once again upon healthy foundations and giving our children everything they need to thrive and live to their fullest potential.

[00:00:55] Lucia Silver: Since we last spoke it feels like Josh's clinic is now more of a medical estate with multi disciplinary practitioners and state of the art equipment focusing on intensive rehabilitation for children on site. Meanwhile the brain health movement has also come a long way on our mission to bridge the gap between world leading pediatric doctors and specialists like Joshua Madsen.

[00:01:17] Lucia Silver: Neurodevelopmental experts and cutting edge, groundbreaking science and research, and our devoted parents looking to understand the root causes of their children's symptoms, struggles and chronic illnesses. With the help of esteemed doctors and authorities hand picked from around the world, we now have a wonderful private community, and have produced free guides, a podcast, a taster course, and most recently a book.

[00:01:40] Lucia Silver: And it is our most recent book, which is more of a parent's handbook, entitled Beneath the Surface, the Hidden Hell of School Struggles and Refusal. That is the topic of our podcast with Dr. Josh today, we're going to explore with Dr. Josh, some of the many contributing reasons and root causes behind why our children are struggling and refusing school like never before.

[00:02:04] Lucia Silver: We're both approaching this as professionals devoted to supporting children struggling, but also have personal experiences of this for me as a mother, but for you, Dr. Josh, you've experienced some of these struggles yourself at school, right? 

[00:02:17] Dr Josh Madsen: For sure, 100%. The a little bit of history.

[00:02:21] Dr Josh Madsen: When I was younger and I was in school, I had a lot of challenges. I had a lot of reading issues, attention issues. I had tutors all the time. And a lot of people don't realize like the, not only just like the aspects of just trying to keep up in class and how hard that is and how big of a struggle that is and, But the, psychological burden of that, of the, always thinking that you're not very smart or very intelligent, always thinking that yeah, I can't keep up with this, these other kids because I'm not as smart as them.

[00:02:46] Dr Josh Madsen: I'm not as, talented as them, or, whatever it may be where that now realizing that's really not the case. And that's not the case in most of these kids is I had a lot of deficits that if I would have known about at the time could have easily been corrected and therefore would have made a tremendous difference in how.

[00:03:03] Dr Josh Madsen: Everything went in school. The aspects of me not wanting to read in front of the class because I couldn't read very well come to find out it was I couldn't track a line very well. My eyes literally could not track the line. They couldn't stay stable on line. Therefore, I would start reading.

[00:03:16] Dr Josh Madsen: My eyes would skip or jump. I couldn't keep my eyes stable on it. It's not that I didn't know the words. It's not that I didn't know how to, actually read. It was just that I didn't have that basic foundational skill in place to be able to do it. And if that would have been there, and part of that is, I had some different primitive reflexes that I didn't learn all this until I was in college.

[00:03:35] Dr Josh Madsen: And, I had some different primitive reflexes that affect how your eyes track. And, I learned this late in my school career, and I went from struggling to get B's and C's, like I'm really struggling to straight A's, Dean's List, and and then school was easy, graduate school was easy, and, and, My brain made a lot of great adaptations to help me to be able to get through that period of time that has served me very well now.

[00:03:59] Dr Josh Madsen: But if those things would have been known when I was younger, it would have been just a completely different trajectory of life and just, not obviously hating school. I love to learn now, but I hated school. So I get it. 

[00:04:16] Lucia Silver: Yeah. It's such important firsthand knowledge and empathy really that you bring.

[00:04:21] Lucia Silver: And I think that's a huge. It's not just dealing with some of the neurodevelopmental delays that have been incurred. As you say, it's the psychological byproduct of that and how Little kids are made to feel that can, to be honest, be almost more damaging than the problem of not reading in itself, 

[00:04:39] Dr Josh Madsen: A hundred percent.

[00:04:40] Dr Josh Madsen: I still, I have computerized testing in my clinic and I can see how fast someone can read and compare it to normal grade averages, like how many words per minute I can see how their eyes track when they read stuff and still to this day, it will until probably about maybe a couple years ago, I did a reading program that said this of a ton, but up until that point, I still only read at the speed of a fourth grader.

[00:05:03] Dr Josh Madsen: So it made it to I just could, I, my brain learned how to read in a certain way and didn't really learn to read past that. But that also meant that I couldn't read fast enough to read something twice, so I had to remember it. And so then my brain adapted and it I have a memory, my wife always says you can remember, once I read it once, I can remember it for almost ever.

[00:05:22] Dr Josh Madsen: And it's just, that's just the way my brain has adapted, which is a great skill now. But and then now I've learned new reading adaptations and done some other programs to increase my reading speed tremendously. But, the still, even though those issues were a long time ago, they've still affected me to this day.

[00:05:39] Lucia Silver: Wow. That speaks volumes, doesn't it? But stepping back a little bit, Josh, to the crisis, the epidemic that brought you and I together, really, in the first place. The statistics coming through now in terms of absence or persistent school absence for 22, 23 in the UK, and then they're very similar in the US.

[00:05:57] Lucia Silver: We're looking at 16 percent of primary school kids and 26 percent of secondary school. Kids absent from school. That means persistently absent, so a significant amount of the time, and that's 150 percent of an increase since about 2019. I'm imagining it's similar in the States and that a lot of the problems that are presenting for you in clinic from parents and kids are around precisely this.

[00:06:22] Lucia Silver: If the kid isn't struggling in school specifically to do with attention, emotional regulation, concentration, organization reading. I'm Then they may be Refusing to go to school altogether.

[00:06:36] Dr Josh Madsen: Yep. The and I don't know the stats here in the United States like you do there, but the I consistently see it where, maybe a kid has a diagnosis of PANS or PANDAS and they have autoimmunity and they, the the stressful environment of school they can't handle it.

[00:06:48] Dr Josh Madsen: Or maybe they can't keep up and they constantly do feel like a failure because, every two seconds, someone's saying, pay attention. They literally don't have those networks in place to be able to pay attention. And there's a lot of environmental stuff that goes in that, obviously, but in lifestyle stuff and genetics stuff, but topic for a different time, but the but it makes it really hard because the kid goes to school and there's just constantly someone telling them he's doing something wrong, even though they're doing the best they can.

[00:07:11] Dr Josh Madsen: Which is it's trauma advisory. It's stressful. Yeah, it's stressful. And 

[00:07:14] Lucia Silver: ultimately, it causes another trauma, which causes further brain inflammation and further, further issues. And in the chapter of our little handbook, Josh, we try to go through the contributing factors, many of which I learned training with you on your fantastic course.

[00:07:31] Lucia Silver: But I think there's a little bit of understanding needed around a sort of 5 percent rule. If you can try and make some improvements in. Some of the contributing areas, of course, primitive reflexes and the foundational development of the brain is an obvious starting point. But if you're feeding your child, junk food, your kids on the screen all the time, you're living in a moldy environment.

[00:07:53] Lucia Silver: And you've got contributing factors that won't be helping either. So what we've tried to do. in the book and very much using a lot of the research that you have shared and provided is first of all, starting with yourself, your own stress levels. You're just screaming at your kid and you're in a bad state.

[00:08:10] Lucia Silver: Then again, I would ask you how many times when you're seeing children coming into the clinic, are the parents in a bad way? I know for sure to share personally first that, and I haven't shared particularly with our audiences yet, but around Quinn's diagnosis, that was traumatic for me. So in the first instance to try to get myself well in response to seeing my son so unwell when I was so stressed and find, seeing him finding school difficult. How much of your work is also around helping parents and understanding they have to heal themselves and look at the whole family nervous system as well. 

[00:08:48] Dr Josh Madsen: Yeah, definitely. It's, that's huge. The

[00:08:52] Dr Josh Madsen: kids replicate what they see, right? Like they learn. They're constantly learning. They're just a, they're a sponge of what they're learning. And so if what they're learning is, their, the environment they're in every day is what they're learning from. So if they're, what they're learning is.

[00:09:06] Dr Josh Madsen: For a parent to be stressed out, then they're probably going to learn that's a way to adapt in this life. Even though maybe that's not the best way. So which is really hard for parents because the parents is bringing their kid here to help them. And the parents oftentimes need to, take a step back and work on themselves some, which is really hard to do when you have a kid struggling is they always put their child before themselves, which they should, but but also they got to remember that, there's things that they need to work on in the environment of, how they are, especially with that child around to not stress them out.

[00:09:37] Dr Josh Madsen: To stress the child out even more. But working on yourself is super important. Working on your own, calming your own sympathetic nervous system, doing things for yourself during those really challenging times and making sure you have time for yourself to, when you are with your child, that you're in a calm place.

[00:09:52] Dr Josh Madsen: Because the, when the kid has, let's say they have PANS or PANDAS and they're having these, one of these extreme outbursts and then your fight or flight nervous system is going crazy. And you just, I don't you want to lose it on them and you really can't it's really challenging If you've never been in it, it's really hard to experience but you have to be able to calm your own nervous system And yeah, and you know 

[00:10:15] Lucia Silver: It is a sort of parallel, as you say, Josh, it's fight and flight and you're both in it, right?

[00:10:20] Lucia Silver: So if you're both in a state of fight and flight, you're triggering one another hugely. And I think it's Stephen Borger says in the polyvagal theory, co regulation isn't a nicety. It's an absolute man, biological mandatory. 

[00:10:33] Dr Josh Madsen: You 

[00:10:34] Lucia Silver: cannot expect, your child to be able to, their nervous system to regulate if they can't do that symbiotically with you because of what you say, they mirror but that's, that is literally biologically how they are growing is seeing how you're doing it.

[00:10:48] Lucia Silver: So yeah. So if we move on a little bit, Josh, cause I really want to get us onto it as soon as we can onto specifically the primitive reflex work. That you specialize in, but I know how strongly you advocate obviously the gut brain link diet and processed foods and sugars and so forth. Let's just look at the correlation of what kids are eating and their behavior in school.

[00:11:12] Lucia Silver: You and I have talked a lot about sugars and processed foods at a generic level, but literally what is going on at school if you're getting it wrong? 

[00:11:20] Dr Josh Madsen: Let's start here. So let's just say we're going to talk about good. Neurological function. It can't happen without good nutrition. Like we need basic nutrients.

[00:11:31] Dr Josh Madsen: We need, they're called essential nutrients for a reason. They're essential to normal body and brain function. And that comes from what we eat, right? The And if we eat a bunch of processed food, it's literally stripped of all of those essential nutrients. All those really good vitamins and minerals and stuff like that.

[00:11:49] Dr Josh Madsen: When during that process, they re fortify it, quote unquote, with synthetic nutrients, but those aren't the same thing. They're not nearly as complex, not nearly as good. So most of these kids, when you actually run testing on them, and run micronutrients, and run actual nutrient panels on them, they're, they don't have the basic nutrients for even just normal function.

[00:12:07] Dr Josh Madsen: A lot of these issues are, I personally feel they're environmental in nature, meaning that They're not getting these basic nutrients, they're getting, and therefore they don't have the basic detox pathways appropriate. They don't have the ability for basic normal brain function to be able to adapt to a lot of this stress.

[00:12:24] Dr Josh Madsen: And I think a big portion of that is obviously food I really strongly feel that. But then there's all the other complications with, how we have, especially in the United States, we have glyphosate sprayed on everything, which is a known neurotoxin. And we have. Which, obviously, I understand from an agricultural standpoint, there's necessities there.

[00:12:42] Dr Josh Madsen: But the we have folic acid straight on everything. We have we have herbicides, pesticides straight everywhere. All of these things in themselves, may not create enough load to cause a mass amount of neurological inflammation or deficits there. But once you start compiling them all, and everything, you get a little bit bigger, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, it becomes a big deal.

[00:13:05] Dr Josh Madsen: And that stress, if you don't have basic nutrients and basic antioxidants, you can't detoxify that stuff appropriately. Now that we have them built up in the system, creating more inflammation, and now we have bigger and bigger issues. And I often tell parents you literally have to swim upstream if you want to have a healthy child.

[00:13:22] Dr Josh Madsen: You need to focus on their food. You need to have water filtration because there's so much stuff in our water that is not healthy. You need to have organic food. You need to have air purifiers and things like that in our home because of how construction's made now. And to prevent mold issues and things like that.

[00:13:39] Dr Josh Madsen: You have to be a really cognizant parent. To to have, to really make a difference for these kids. So I don't know if I answered the question there, but Yeah, it's 

[00:13:48] Lucia Silver: a lot of stuff, isn't it? And trying to get a sort of, we talk about 5 percent margins, trying to do a little bit here and a little bit there, can you each week, if you're not doing any home cooked food, let's make the challenge two home cooked meals this week.

[00:14:01] Lucia Silver: If they're on the screen every day, make the screen available every other day. Make tiny adjustments in each area slowly, and that compounds positively as well as compounding negatively to get some results. With the work that we've done with Quinn, Josh, right? We work with His nutrients, we work with his diet, we work with exercise and rehabilitation, we work with deep breathing, we work with getting plenty of sunlight, we work with getting him off the screen, taking sugar and gluten and dairy out of the diet.

[00:14:33] Lucia Silver: So there's lots of things going on in marginals that are having a transformative effect on him. 

[00:14:40] Dr Josh Madsen: Yep. And I often simply just think of it as there's something known as negative plasticity and there's something known as positive plasticity, where negative plasticity. Things that are creating a negative effect.

[00:14:50] Dr Josh Madsen: So like every time a kid is on, playing the video game on an electronic and we're getting all this, these hits of dopamine every time they do something good, but making them focus for really short periods of time. That's. Having an effect that's creating a negative neuroplastic effect, meaning it's creating plasticity for them to focus for a very short period of time, then get a reward.

[00:15:10] Dr Josh Madsen: That doesn't create the plasticity that we're looking for in a classroom where they have to pay attention for a long period of time that's unrewarded. So always think of it as is this activity that they're doing, is that going to benefit them long term? Is that going to help them long term?

[00:15:24] Dr Josh Madsen: Or is it, I'm using this device so that, I can. Keep him out of my hair for 10 minutes. You gotta look at the short term versus long term reward of, what kind of, what battle do you want to face? Do you want to face the short term battle of, educating your child on why you need 10 minutes to do whatever activity?

[00:15:42] Dr Josh Madsen: And not put them in front of a screen and tell them they can go do something else because the kid will adapt they'll go Do something else versus the long term consequence of if I keep using this over and over again It's gonna reinforce that in their brain and it's gonna make it harder on this other side So the more activities we can do that are looking long term Especially when it comes to like attention and stuff.

[00:16:03] Dr Josh Madsen: I think that's really important 

[00:16:06] Lucia Silver: Which is a very good reminder that it's not just about building the positive networks, it's avoiding building the negative ones too. Let's deep dive into the real juice now because we both know how excited we are to talk about primitive reflexes and how they can be the most forceful hidden barriers in the classroom or hidden barriers to classroom success, right?

[00:16:25] Lucia Silver: So once you've got your oxygen mask on and you're taking small steps to address diet and lifestyle factors that could be negatively impacting your child and family as a whole and you've looked to clean up your environment as much as you can. It's a good time to look at foundational systems. And these are the key developmental milestones which, if missed, can create many of the problems we're seeing in the classroom.

[00:16:46] Lucia Silver: So a quick reminder for anyone hearing us talking about primitive reflexes for the first time Josh and I've talked about them plenty in previous podcasts, but they are the first foundations of the nervous system, right? A newborn baby has primitive reflexes that should disappear around 12 months of life.

[00:17:01] Lucia Silver: And these are automatic movements that ensure a baby's survival. So the rooting reflex to feed from the mother. But when these are not inhibited, they can be an early indication that the brain has missed some key developmental milestones and neuroscience recognizes that retained or unintegrated primitive reflexes are one of the most important underlying and foundational causes for many.

[00:17:24] Lucia Silver: if not most of the symptoms relating to the whole spectrum of neurological disorders. Once integrated, the gaps in our children's development improve, bringing quicker and longer lasting results. I always feel very self conscious doing this in front of you, Josh, but I hope that's a little, a fair summary of what they are.

[00:17:44] Lucia Silver: The 

[00:17:46] Dr Josh Madsen: first reason why they're the first thing I work on in any kid if they have them, 

[00:17:49] Lucia Silver: I'm going to hand over to you because what I really want to talk about is the relationship between some of these reflexes and fight and flight responses with the symptoms that we see presenting ADHD, anxiety, academic struggles with reading, learning, sitting still and the big one where children flatly shut down and will do anything rather than going to school. Is there a way that we can neatly look at a few of the reflexes together and look at it before the school struggles and refusal and then after those reflexes were integrated and you did work with them in clinic, what then happened in school? 

[00:18:27] Dr Josh Madsen: Yeah, so if we're gonna talk about If we're talking about anxiety or overwhelm in school there's never just one thing, right?

[00:18:33] Dr Josh Madsen: But what I would say is, like, when kids still have these primitive reflexes, they they're a big piece of the overall aspects to look at. Really big piece. And a lot of times, just by really having those alone, It's simply makes massive changes. So if it's coming around like anxiety not wanting to go to school cause they're anxious, I always think of a moral reflex.

[00:18:55] Dr Josh Madsen: Number one moral reflex is a startle reflex. It should develop or it becomes a more appropriate reflex right around three to four months of life. It's the same reflex like when you drop holding an infant and you move really quickly or they drop down really quickly, or someone makes a loud noise around them and they startle and their arms come out.

[00:19:12] Dr Josh Madsen: They, their pupils typically dilate. They usually will start to cry or they go into a fight or flight state. That should start getting inhibited or regulated right around three to four months of life. But in a lot of kids, it doesn't. So what happens is let's say they're in class and someone, drop something next to them.

[00:19:28] Dr Josh Madsen: They startle and look at it. So let's say they move too quickly. They startle and look at it. Lights coming in can be too overwhelming, cause them, puts them into a fight or flight state. They go to the lunchroom and it's just really overwhelming. It's really loud. It's really abrasive for them.

[00:19:43] Dr Josh Madsen: They can startle really easy and get sent to fight or flight state. So it'd be like this way. I was described as parenthesis. It would be like you walking down the hallway and I jump out at you and I startle you, your pupils dilate, your heart rate goes up and you're either going to decide to run away from me or you're going to fight me.

[00:19:59] Dr Josh Madsen: But every time this child, when they still have this reflex, every time they move their head too quickly, light or sound comes into abrasively, they get that same response. Their pupils dilate, their heart rate goes up, and they're either going to run, or they're going to, get, have a behavioral outburst is typically what we'll see.

[00:20:14] Dr Josh Madsen: And some kids can hold this together for long periods of time, like they can go all day and they get home and they just completely crash and they have really big outbursts. The teacher may go, Oh no, they're perfectly fine. But once they get home, it's just every, the floodgates open type of thing.

[00:20:29] Dr Josh Madsen: And they've been able to hold it together, which just shows the resiliency of the brain and the strength of the brain that they can suppress these things. But it gets to a point where. Just if I was following you around all day, startling you, eventually you'd have a big behavioral outburst at me too.

[00:20:43] Dr Josh Madsen: The and so it's, that is the reflex that I often think about the most when it comes to that. And a big reason for that reflex still being there is the frontal lobe isn't strong enough to shut it down, the vagal system doesn't develop efficiently, which your vagus system, vagal system is what eventually, learns to calm ourselves.

[00:21:03] Dr Josh Madsen: Which is what like deep breathing helps with there, there's lots of different vagal activities you can do for that as well, but taking care of that reflex is, I think is one of the most important ways and most beneficial ways to calm that down. So if we're talking about anxiety or something like that's what I think of first.

[00:21:19] Lucia Silver: So with children that are presenting, that's where you will often start and anxiety is definitely I would say one of the prevailing symptoms that our parents talk about, that's where it starts. Anxiety. Anxiety. They don't want to go, they're worried, they're and then once the system is in that fight or flight, Josh, it's all pervasive.

[00:21:39] Lucia Silver: It's not just at school either. It starts the anxiety presents socially, the anxiety presents just going to a party, because it's, the whole system is in that state. Yep. So what about, and I would say that's, I would 

[00:21:52] Dr Josh Madsen: say that's I would say that's just one factor. And then if you start looking into the like electronic use since cell phones and especially like social media stuff has came out that has increased especially female anxiety, it's doubled.

[00:22:05] Dr Josh Madsen: I I was reading a book oh, I cannot think of the name of it right now. But it was talking about the extreme increase in rate of anxiety. Oh, it's called the anxious generation. There you go. Increase in anxiety since social media has came out. And the they recommend in there that, any kid younger than high school shouldn't have, or be able to be on a social media, which I agree with.

[00:22:27] Dr Josh Madsen: We shouldn't have phones in schools and stuff like that, because that alone can create massive amounts of anxiety. The I think a big portion of it is not only our diet, not only reflexes, but The environment that, especially older kids that they're in all the time those things can be a big player into it, but sorry, side note there. 

[00:22:44] Lucia Silver: And Josh, talk to us about what happens when you do inhibit the Moro reflex. What happens after? What, I know it's not the only thing we're looking at, but what, just, it's not all doom and gloom. We are seeing some transformation and outcomes from this, aren't we? 

[00:22:59] Dr Josh Madsen: For sure. For sure. The that reflex plays a lot into the development of our balance centers, plays a lot in development of our sensory systems.

[00:23:05] Dr Josh Madsen: So number one, typically our balance improves a lot. Our sensory systems develop a lot. Meaning that every time we move too quickly, we don't overwhelm our system. We don't get put into a fight or flight response. When light comes in, sound comes into like at a high rate, we don't overwhelm that system. And we get put into fight or flight states nearly as easy.

[00:23:24] Dr Josh Madsen: So usually anxiety comes out a lot with it. Especially if they have that reflex, if they have anxiety, that should be checked. If a kid has anxiety, you should check that reflex. If it's there, then when you rehab it, They do, typically do much better on an anxiety standpoint, especially if it's there, it's going to be highly related to that.

[00:23:41] Dr Josh Madsen: So then we start working on their vagal system, getting that more efficient, retraining their balance center so that continues to develop. As their brain gets healthier, they're able to adapt to more, they're able to handle more stress. So then the current stressful environment to them becomes less stressful.

[00:23:57] Lucia Silver: Yeah, it's a very gentle reintroduction to life feeling less threatening. for them. And from that point, then hopefully there's the ability to settle a little bit in the classroom. What about the relationship then between the ATNR, which you could explain a little bit to our listeners, and attention and reading as well, how that affects, 

[00:24:22] Dr Josh Madsen: Yeah.

[00:24:24] Dr Josh Madsen: Yeah, so AT& R is a reflex that if you put a child on their hands and knees and you drop their low back down, if I was on my hands and knees, turn my head, their arm would drop out on the opposite side. And turn their head the other way, their, arm that dropped out straightens and the opposite arm drops.

[00:24:37] Dr Josh Madsen: You can also test it standing, have them stand and close, put their arms straight out in front of them, like a zombie position and have them close their eyes and then turn their head. And if their arms start rotating with their body, that's another positive sign for it. It should go away right around six, seven months before we start to cross crawl.

[00:24:53] Dr Josh Madsen: And a lot of times kids that don't cross crawl appropriately, or they walk really early, right around like nine, ten months, a lot of times it's just because that's, just reflects the present and when it shouldn't be. But when it comes to actually school related stuff, what you'll see is reading issues, you'll see handwriting issues, you'll see eye stability issues.

[00:25:10] Dr Josh Madsen: If you can't read, Stabilize and focus your eyes. You really can't focus your brain because you have to be able to keep your eyes fixated and focused. It's one of our biggest sensory organs. So if we can't focus our eyes on something, it becomes very distracting for the brain. We need to be able to focus our eyes to be able to focus the brain simply.

[00:25:25] Dr Josh Madsen: But but when we have an ATNR or even a symmetrical tonic neck reflex in STNR, what we'll see is as their eyes track, they get big skips and big jumps in their vision. And also they can't keep their eyes stable when their head moves typically, so they can't use their eyes independent of their head very efficiently.

[00:25:42] Dr Josh Madsen: So it makes it when they read a line, their eyes, let's say they're, going word by word, their eyes skip, they have to re figure out where they're at, come back to where they were, keep reading some more, their eyes skip. You have to re figure out where they're at. So it makes the reading much slower.

[00:25:55] Dr Josh Madsen: And like I was talking about, this is my case. Which makes it really hard because your eyes are constantly trying to re figure out where you're at and re read the same words over and over again. And 

[00:26:04] Lucia Silver: that gets labeled dyslexia sometimes, Josh, right? And it may not be dyslexia at all. It could just be this reflex.

[00:26:11] Lucia Silver: Their eyes are skipping all over the place and they can't follow the line. 

[00:26:15] Dr Josh Madsen: I call this a foundational skill for learning. It has to be in place. And whether your kid has true dyslexia or they don't have dyslexia, this has been found at a really high rate in all reading issues. Which dyslexia is technically a completely different issue, a phonetic awareness issue, but the this still applies because if they can't follow a line, now they're going to have a harder time doing their Horton Gillingham, they're going to have a harder time doing those, all those adaptive mechanisms or learning strategies, I should say, for dyslexia, they're going to have more challenge because they, again, they can't keep their eyes stable, they can't track their eyes appropriately.

[00:26:51] Dr Josh Madsen: And I don't think I've ever seen a kid with dyslexia that doesn't have this reflex. So it's really highly involved with it. And I think it's a complicating factor. And then I also think that a lot of kids get diagnosed with dyslexia even though they don't fit really the diagnostic criteria at all, but they have this reflex and they have a lot of learning issues.

[00:27:13] Lucia Silver: And someone said the other day, another doctor in the field said, I know young kids, unless there really is an optical nerve issue or some problem with the eyes should be wearing glasses. You don't see animals going around with glasses as little kids. There's There is a lot that we can correct with the eyes through this same practice, eye convergence and so forth.

[00:27:30] Lucia Silver: The foundational settings of the brain, right? 

[00:27:34] Dr Josh Madsen: Yeah. Yeah. There's, it's wild when you, and I work hand in hand with eye doctors that are really good. I love working with them. And it is, it blows my mind with when we get rid of primitive reflexes, we get their balance centers functioning appropriately.

[00:27:48] Dr Josh Madsen: Then they do, some vision therapy, get their eyes stronger. How many of these kids completely come out of glasses? Prescriptions completely changed it, which I never even knew was possible until, probably six years ago as I started working with a lot of eye doctors and the the coming with prescription, next thing I knew I, we do a whole bunch of stuff with them.

[00:28:06] Dr Josh Madsen: And, six months later, the prescriptions, Completely changed where they don't need any glass anymore. And I was like that's crazy. 

[00:28:12] Lucia Silver: I love it. It's such an immediate, beautiful outcome from your work, isn't it? To just show that so much is coming from the foundational systems and everything else is unable to develop efficiently as a result of that early development.

[00:28:26] Lucia Silver: That early case and with STNR and kids with their, this one I found fascinating right at the beginning where kids who can't sit still in the classroom and are getting sent out of class, each time their head goes down or they're looking from the board to the desk, the bottom half of their bodies are having are shooting out.

[00:28:44] Lucia Silver: So the top half and the bottom half aren't coordinated. And then you're shouting at a child in class, sit still, when actually they can't. Because that particular reflex is causing a physical, a physiological response, right? 

[00:28:58] Dr Josh Madsen: And another thing that a lot of people think of, yeah, like that movement is, it looks like they're just messing around all the time, but are constantly fidgeting when they're really not. And another thing a lot of people think about is like, how do these kids have really underdeveloped balance centers?

[00:29:11] Dr Josh Madsen: Like they literally are just constantly moving, but it's because they cannot balance. And they're getting yelled at Oh, sit still. And the kids like trying, with all get out to just sit still, but it's, their balance just centers aren't well developed and they don't have the same quick responses to correct themselves like other kids do.

[00:29:30] Dr Josh Madsen: Those are called postural reflexes and they're just not developed. So they move a lot farther before their system kicks in and brings them back to midline. And. So not only is when that's going on, your frontal lobe, which is supposed to be learning, is focusing on just trying to keep you upright because it's a survival mechanism.

[00:29:49] Dr Josh Madsen: Then on top of that, you have someone saying, sit still, which is stressing them out, which is shutting their frontal lobes down even more. 

[00:29:55] Lucia Silver: Especially if they're shouted at by the teacher, right? You've got a moral reflex happening. You get them shouted at as well. The kid's and out of balance and exhausted.

[00:30:02] Lucia Silver: Yeah 

[00:30:05] Dr Josh Madsen: think of all that stress and then think of all the on top of that, like they're, you have the running out of energy constantly because they're just, every time they get put in a fight or flight state, their blood sugar spike in, then it's dropping and they're getting low blood sugar.

[00:30:18] Dr Josh Madsen: And man, it's just a, it's when, especially when these reflux are there, it's a imbalance centers just aren't developed. It's. That would be really stressful. 

[00:30:28] Lucia Silver: When you listen to it this way, when you listen to all those compounding factors it's a miracle we've got any kids really managing in school because there's, as you say, the odds are stacked against the kids. It's really hard. It is really hard. That also 

[00:30:44] Dr Josh Madsen: shows the, that also shows the ability for the brain to adapt, which is amazing. The brain has such an unbelievable ability to adapt and change. And to the environments is put in. So it's also not only oh, this is a bad thing, but it's a, it's shows the power that if they're in the right environment, that the changes that can truly happen.

[00:31:07] Lucia Silver: Yeah, absolutely. And you have seen this time and time again. through your clinic of cases of school refusal and school absence where it is transformed. They're back in school. They're functioning, not just top line cases like you, where you've gone up three grades, but kids that are just not functioning.

[00:31:23] Lucia Silver: The journey that you and I have been on with Quinn and I'm so happy to share, in a terrible way with school and loving school again, and slowly with these composite parts. I just want to inspire. To those listening that there is so much that can be done.

[00:31:38] Lucia Silver: And as Dr. Josh is saying, it's a really positive trajectory of essentially rewiring the brain and thank goodness for neuroplasticity, right? That we know is scientifically proven and tracked. You're seeing how many kids, Josh, day in, day out, the moment just changing, right? 

[00:31:57] Dr Josh Madsen: Yep, it's crazy. It's and they change so quickly, even like the most severe ones that I would never think changed it.

[00:32:03] Dr Josh Madsen: They change, but especially kids that are just, maybe they have some school struggles. Maybe they have some learning issues. Those kids jump, make massive strides in very short periods of time. I could consistently see kids jump multiple grade levels in a matter of weeks to months in reading, which is, but it's basic.

[00:32:22] Dr Josh Madsen: They're really smart. They're very intelligent kids. They just can't track a line. And once they can get some of those basic abilities, now their brain that's already extremely intelligent, can now work, the way God intended it to. 

[00:32:36] Lucia Silver: Yeah. Josh, thank you so much for your time. In conclusion, can you leave us with, What could we say?

[00:32:42] Lucia Silver: The three most important things a parent listening for the first time might think to start with if their child is at home, maybe refusing or maybe just struggling at school. Where would you suggest they start? 

[00:32:59] Dr Josh Madsen: Ooh, that's a big question. I think I would start with

[00:33:02] Dr Josh Madsen: I think I would start thinking about what is my long term goal with my child. Is it that I want them to be able to go to school for long periods of time and be able to focus and be healthy? And then I would say, okay what factors get me to that point? Is it being on electronics all day long?

[00:33:16] Dr Josh Madsen: No, that's not going to help at all. It's going to make things worse. So let's probably reduce or get rid of that. Is it. Feeding them food that is going to nourish their body and help their brain to function better for this. If it's that or going to McDonald's, we're going to say we're not going to McDonald's.

[00:33:31] Dr Josh Madsen: We're going to have a home cooked meal. Getting them basic nutrients, getting rid of as many of those environmental factors that are going to put their brain in a negative neuroplastic state. We want them in a positive neuroplastic state. So really assessing your own life and going, okay, what are the factors that I can control?

[00:33:49] Dr Josh Madsen: That I can do for my child that is going to make for a better long term outcome. And then just start saying, okay I'm going to do 10 percent better today. I'm going to do 20 percent better next week. I'm going to do 50 percent better the week after. And then now you've started a positive cycle forward.

[00:34:06] Dr Josh Madsen: And you're going to see that. You're going to see it in their brain. You're going to see their functions going to improve. It's just making those changes. Then you can start worrying about, Okay, what are the, all the other things? What are the advanced things I can do? Can I, the rehab strategies I can do?

[00:34:18] Dr Josh Madsen: The different things to build better neuroplasticity in this child once they get a basic foundation in place? That is a 

[00:34:28] Lucia Silver: challenge, but I did it. We can do it. We can absolutely do it as parents guided by authorities such as yourself. And we are so privileged to have this connection with you, Dr. Josh, to be able to continue to bridge your information and share it with our audiences. Dr. Josh has some fantastic publications and a brilliant Instagram account and YouTube channel.

[00:34:55] Lucia Silver: So we'll be sharing those with you. 

[00:34:57] Dr Josh Madsen: We will put everything on a sheet 

[00:35:00] Lucia Silver: to cover everything you can find out about this brilliant man's work. Thank you so much for your time today, Dr. Josh, and we'll look forward to reconnecting again. I'm going to come see you in the States. Cannot wait to see your clinic. And we'll be sharing that with all of our followers as well.

[00:35:16] Dr Josh Madsen: Awesome. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. 

[00:35:18] Lucia Silver: As ever, that was a fantastic conversation with Dr. Joshua Madsen. It can feel overwhelming sometimes hearing all of the things that we need to do for our children to get them onto a pathway of greater health. So we are going to create a headliner fact sheet downloadable with this podcast. And we will also create a challenge for you this summer that you can document and tick off.

[00:35:48] Lucia Silver: We'll call it a fresh start. To the new school year and in it will be some of those small steps that you can take across diet, screen time, sleep and other little things that will help you on your way and you can keep a track of it and you can let us know how you get on. Have a wonderful day.