Forgotten Children! – The Shocking Reality of Young Caregivers & How to Protect Their Future

In this episode of “Hormones, Metabolism, and You,” Dr. Cassie Smith and guest Connie Siskowski, RN, PhD explore the challenges faced by children caring for chronically ill family members. They discuss the emotional, educational, and health impacts on young caregivers, the lack of recognition and support in schools, and the need for policy changes. Dr. Siskowski shares her personal experiences and describes her work with the American Association of Caregiving Youth, highlighting the importance of community support and resources for these often-overlooked children.

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Educated at Johns Hopkins, New York University and Lynn University, her doctoral research uncovered the high prevalence of caregiving by students in Palm Beach County, FL. In 1998 she established what is now the American Association of Caregiving Youth with its successful Caregiving Youth Project and Caregiving Youth Institute. Connie has contributed to multiple publications. Awards include an Ashoka Fellowship, Purpose Prize, Distinguished Alumna Award (Johns Hopkins University), Top Ten CNN Hero, a star on Boca Raton’s Walk of Recognition, and a faculty appointment to the RAISE Family Caregiving Advisory Council.

Blog/Transcription:

0:03 welcome back to this week’s episode of Hormones Metabolism and You i’m your host Dr cassie Smith i’m a functional

0:09 medicine endocrinologist based out of Oklahoma City today I want to open your eyes to something you’ve probably never

0:16 thought about at least I had never thought about it so we all know that the world is aging right and especially in

0:21 the United States modern medicine has made our lifespan much longer people are

0:27 living to older ages however our ability

0:32 to produce and make doctors and healthare workers whether it be nurses nurse practitioners etc that is

0:39 decreasing so we have an increasing population who is also aging and needing

0:44 more care and less caregivers to give that care so the question becomes who

0:50 takes care of this aging population typically when you think about that you’re going to say well their family

0:56 members of course but my guest today says that actually a lot of times it ends up being children and it’s children

1:03 of those family members and when I say children we’re talking young children middle a like middle school age children

1:11 sometimes high school age children and the problem with that there are many which include these children don’t know

1:18 how to properly care for adults they don’t have the resources to do it no one’s taught them how they start missing

1:25 school they are tired at school you know a lot of them end up trying to drop out

1:30 of school and then the you know the other issue with that is they become traumatized they have trauma related to

1:35 this they have sleep disorders related to this they end up with chronic health issues uh they also don’t end up

1:42 graduating high school a lot of the times and then that makes a you know economic impact on the world as a whole

1:48 and so my guest today is going to shed some light on this and she says that

1:53 about 4.5 million children are caregivers for

1:58 chronically ill people in the United States today which is somewhat alarming so Connie Shiscowski is an RN and now

2:06 has her PhD so Dr connie was educated at John Hopkins New York University and

2:11 Lynn University her doctoral research uncovered the high prevalence of caregiving by students in Palm Beach

2:18 County Florida in 1998 she established what is now the American Association of

2:23 Caregiving Youth it was successful and she now has the Caregiving Youth Project

2:29 and Caregiving Youth Institute this is a non-forprofit organization that helps

2:35 young children understand how to care for chronic chronically ill family members connie has contributed to

2:41 multiple publications awards include purpose prize distinct alumni award at

2:48 John Hopkins University top 10 CNN hero a star on Broca Raton’s walk of

2:55 recognition and a faculty appointment to the Ray’s family caregiving advisory

3:00 council and so I hope that you find this conversation somewhat eyeopening

3:05 somewhat sad as well but eye opening and just help helped you realize that we do

3:11 have this this disconnect and this niche of need in this country and it’s just it

3:18 was I found it very fascinating so let her explain to you how we have this whole generation of children that are

3:25 actually caring for chronically ill people and what impact that’s having on

3:30 society and the economy so today I have Connie Saskcowski with me she’s an RN

3:38 and a PhD and we are going to talk about something a little different but we’re

3:43 going to talk about the role of caregiver from a child’s perspective so she actually works with a social service

3:50 type group that helps provide resources and education to children like middle

3:55 school and high school children who have chronic chronically ill adults that they care for whether it be their parents or

4:03 grandparents and so she just wants to shed a little bit of light on this we were talking just for a second before we

4:08 started recording and it’s kind of fascinating to think about this and so she has some good points that she wants

4:14 us to think about from a caregiver perspective especially when we’re thinking about children so will you tell

4:21 everyone Connie please kind of how you got into this role and what you kind of

4:26 do on a day-to-day basis sure i’m happy to and thank you so much for having me

4:32 so when I was in middle school um my parents were divorced and we lived with

4:38 my grandparents and I helped my grandfather he and I were very very close but you know when you’re 11 12

4:46 years old you don’t really you’re not prep I wasn’t prepared for some of the

4:51 things that I needed to do for him and um then I as his health declined and he

5:00 worked until he was 84 by the way part-time but then as his health

5:05 declined he needed more help and so um I moved into the living room to be closer

5:11 to his bedroom and then one morning in 1960 I went to give him his medication

5:18 at 2:00 and he was no longer breathing i could still feel the coolness of his

5:24 skin and so not only the trauma at that time and trauma wasn’t recognized in

5:31 children but also then he was like my hero he was you know I learned a lot of

5:37 compassion from him and then he wasn’t there and here I was going into high school and uh so I went on to be a nurse

5:45 i specialized in cardiac nursing and lo and behold he was he had

5:52 congestive heart failure and then you know my I really did a lot across the

5:59 whole healthc care spectrum everything from teaching paramedics um I moved to

6:05 Florida I I was a licensed nursing home administrator I moved to Florida in 1990

6:11 and at that time I worked with hosp That was a very grounding experience

6:19 uh to be with someone um when they were dying and um it it was really

6:28 interesting to see how family affected were affected or affected that dying

6:34 process so then I did some work in home care i started a company called MDTU to

6:41 do physician house calls and then in 1998 I had the opportunity to go to the

6:48 first international conference on family caregiving in London and it was there that I learned about what they call

6:55 young carers and you know I said “Wow I was one of them.” And these are you know minors who

7:04 are providing care and it could be for an adult or it could be for a sibling

7:10 and so I was remarried and my husband encouraged me to get my PhD which I did

7:17 expecting to have a bigger voice for all family caregivers never expecting to be

7:23 looking at the population of children in this role but I had that opportunity i

7:29 took it i had already started a nonprofit to provide volunteers to

7:34 people who were homebound and caregiving families it was added it it went to in

7:40 Palm Beach County is like the 10th largest school district in our country

7:46 and so this work that I did was the first in our country on an a large scale

7:53 and it showed that of more than 12,000 kids more than one in three who were

7:59 caregivers were either missing school having trouble focusing not doing

8:05 homework but it was at a time when schools are looking starting to look at high school dropout and saying what’s

8:12 wrong with the schools what’s wrong with the teachers they weren’t looking at what else is going on in the life of the

8:18 child and so I shared that data and then the

8:23 first national study came about and it showed that

8:29 this was in 2005 that there were at least 1.3 million children ages 8 to 18

8:36 in our country in that role so with that came some media attention

8:42 and then there was another study a few months later that looked at young adults

8:47 who dropped out of school and 22% said it was to care for a family member so

8:54 between the national data the visual because people have still have a hard

9:00 time imagining that children are doing this and and that other study we were

9:05 able to get funding in the nonprofit that I had already founded to begin the

9:11 first caregiving youth project in our country and in the beginning we called it young caregivers the young caregiver

9:18 project but then you know young is so subjective people didn’t understand they

9:25 thought young was like you or or you know people in their 20s and 30s they

9:30 didn’t think about children in this role and in fact you know there’s no there’s

9:36 still no government support to recognize these kids and you know what it’s really

9:41 tough to learn when you’re under stress i’m sure you know that with your practice yeah i can only imagine like as

9:49 a middle school or high schooler not only is it difficult to learn when you’re under stress but it’s also

9:54 difficult to sleep and probably difficult to you know when you’re stressed your body doesn’t absorb

10:00 nutrients as well so then a lot of these children probably aren’t growing like they’re supposed to whether it be height

10:06 and or mentally uh their emotional capacity to grow is probably diminished

10:12 from the trauma or just the stress and again the lack of sleep so there’s lots of things that could be playing into

10:19 that and you know you pointed out before we started diabetes right so I I mean I

10:24 take care of I’ve taken care of a lot of people with diabetes and especially type 1 and I never really thought about that

10:31 you know I have people who come in who are older or even you know 40s and 50s

10:37 who probably do need a lot of care at home whether it be you know helping with

10:42 meals or making sure you know their feet are clean or there’s not a nail in the bottom of their foot or whatever it may

10:49 be and you pointed out that a lot of these kids are caring for people with diabetes and so then you get into you

10:56 know are these children also administering insulin giving them medications things like that and that

11:01 can be probably pretty traumatizing for some children it definitely is and you

11:07 know sometimes though they they enjoy the caregiving aspects the taking care

11:14 of someone cuz it really is a two-way street they don’t always enjoy all the other things that go with it where they

11:20 have household responsibilities taking and giving medication is something that

11:27 they’re proud of but yet they’re scared about you know they’re worried what if I

11:32 give too much you know what if grandma can’t swallow the pill and also we’re

11:38 seeing as you you know I’m sure a higher prevalence of kids on the autism

11:44 spectrum that’s also a really difficult challenge for siblings who need to

11:52 provide care maybe both parents are working and it’s really really hard on

11:58 them because of their worries and also you know because they don’t really have

12:04 anybody to teach them what to do yeah and I can imagine that if a sixth

12:10 grader or an eighth grader went to school and asked a teacher you know how do I administer insulin or how do I draw

12:17 this medication up from a syringe or how do I you know whatever the teachers aren’t going to really have the answers

12:23 to that either right because teachers aren’t right and it’s it’s outside of the purview of school nurses you know

12:30 they don’t know what to do with it because it’s not in the curriculum yet so we work with we have a pediatrician

12:37 on our advisory council actually on our national advisory council we have a

12:42 geriatrician who um has been involved in adult family caregiving he’s at UVA and um he has

12:50 taken this to heart and so he’s now teaching and he’s 91 years old by the

12:56 way and teaching medical students which is just so important you know people

13:03 today don’t realize how the economy has impacted many of the families

13:10 and you know then the choices which we read about all the time is do you get

13:15 medication or food you know so it’s really it’s a very

13:21 complex issue involving health care education and the community so we work

13:28 in partnership with the school district so we have a formal agreement

13:33 And we do a screening of kids beginning in sixth grade so that those who we work

13:39 with are at the top three of five levels of responsibility so it’s not like uh a child is in our

13:47 program which we provide at no cost to the families you know because they take grandma dinner twice a week or have

13:54 dinner with her they wouldn’t be eligible so these kids are often providing more than 20 hours of

14:01 caregiving a week and do um ADLs they do bathing feeding maintenance care help

14:09 with mobility as well as other you know household chores managing suctioning i

14:15 had one pediatrician say to me Connie before I met you my focus was on my

14:21 patient not on his brother who was suctioning him and so

14:27 you know and and people take the work of these children who are really filling

14:33 the gaps in health care because we don’t have enough health care workers today to assist one boy said to

14:41 me “Well Dr connie what would our country do without caregiving youth?”

14:47 And it’s really true you know because there is no one um one of the the

14:54 representatives because we’re trying to advocate and educate legislators so that

14:59 there can be some support for these children and small support that wouldn’t be at any cost to the schools and so

15:08 anyhow he said “Well children shouldn’t be doing this they should be in foster care.” That’s really not an option

15:14 because then who’s going to take care of the person they were helping and who’s going to take care of them in foster

15:20 care you know but it’s a reaction of people who are uninformed not knowledgeable and

15:27 often who live in like a little bubble and don’t recognize what’s really going

15:34 on in families yeah you said a couple things that I think are worth pointing out one of them

15:40 is you know think as a doctor I never thought about that either right so I’ve

15:45 had patients who I know are wheelchair bound or who have had strokes and can’t

15:51 give themselves their medication typically when they come to their appointments they would come with

15:56 another adult but I never thought to think I never thought to ask you know

16:03 hey Linda I’m assuming your husband John works so when he’s at work who’s giving

16:10 you your insulin since you can’t move your arms during the day right like who’s making sure that you’re not

16:16 sitting in a you know wet diaper all day who is bathing you like you just I mean

16:21 we don’t learn about these things in school so that is a good point and I guess you just always assume that it is

16:27 some other adult but sometimes you’re right it it probably can’t be and then to think about how does a sixth grader

16:35 7th grader eighth grader 9th grader even learn these things right because I mean like sixth graders and seven I mean you

16:42 know this teenagers like it’s hard enough to get them to bathe themselves enough right so it’s like you have to take a shower every day you do you stink

16:49 but then how do you teach them to bathe an adult and how do you do it where

16:54 there is dignity for the adult and the child that’s doing it i mean there’s so many questions cuz even as an adult that

17:01 would be difficult right and to your point like 20 hours a week that’s a lot of time that they’re spending caregiving

17:08 and you know probably cooking and just all it’s just kind of crazy to think

17:14 about and then it also makes me kind of sad because you know in other countries

17:20 probably I’m assuming Japan countries that are just a little more tight-knit have communities i’m assuming what

17:27 happens in those communities is neighbors help family helps friends help right like and so the children can focus

17:34 on education and going to school and in America I feel like we’re just so uncom

17:40 like right we’re just so just discombobulated and we don’t have this sense of community anymore and so

17:47 unfortunately things like that fall through the cracks right and it’s just like people probably don’t know how to

17:53 ask for help or they don’t know who to ask for help and then this ends up happening and you said about how what

18:00 percentage of kids are actually caregivers well we know that there’s at least 5.4

18:07 million in our country yeah and so think about the ramification of that here’s my

18:13 brain the ramification of 5.4 million kids not getting proper education to be

18:20 able to go out into the workforce and help grow our economy and help keep you know America doing the things it needs

18:26 to that’s a lot of workers that you’re taking out of workforce or just

18:31 education in general so then how do you make this better you know if you have less people finishing school and less

18:38 people going to college and I mean you know these might be the people that would be healthcare workers because they did it and they loved it and and but

18:44 they’re not even able to get through school exactly but with support they do so well like our high school our average

18:52 high school graduation rate over 10 years is 98.3% and so by investing in a program that

19:00 supports these children and provides them with what they need it really makes

19:05 a difference to the child to the family and ultimately to society because if you

19:11 graduate from high school your taxable earning potential is greater you’re less

19:16 likely to be involved with teen pregnancy or disease or crime and

19:22 ultimate system dependency and so it’s really an investment in the child and they feel cared about um and

19:30 so it’s it it one of the things that we worked out with the school district is

19:35 to be able to award them community service hours because essentially they’re volunteering at home and at

19:42 least in our school district there’s a requirement you have to have so many community service hours in order to

19:47 graduate high school and so that’s one of the things that that the kids can

19:52 feel good about you know hey there is recognition for me one of our activities

19:59 we do home visits which are very revealing and you know we’ve we think

20:06 that we’ve seen everything and then you go into another home and you see something else one of the the situations

20:14 was with a single mom with cancer and at the time at the end of our home visit

20:20 she relayed that her 15year-old daughter who was in our program had said that she

20:25 moved the mattress into the living room because the noise of the rats was so

20:30 loud it didn’t let her sleep you know having rack control was certainly nothing in our budget but we got some um

20:38 you know dollars and critter control came in and they eliminated the media

20:43 problem but they said if you really want a solution and this was in a manufactured home that you needed to

20:50 build a rat wall well I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a rat wall but we

20:56 had never heard of a rat wall what they do is they dig down a couple feet around the perimeter of the manufactured home

21:03 an air conditioner and put in a um a barrier that the rats can’t penetrate

21:10 and get underneath and so it’s a solution and that’s what we try and do

21:15 is find solutions so even for the children that you know need specific

21:21 help with say mobility assistance uh we’ve developed six different modules uh

21:28 called we call it knowledge and knowhow to help them do a a deeper dive another

21:33 consideration I don’t know how often you go into a

21:38 drugstore but when I go in I see more and more OTC meds you know for sleeping

21:46 for stress control for this for that you can buy them but there’s no way to look

21:51 at how do they interact with other medication we did a a program with

21:58 poison control and they actually gave out Narcan to our families not that our

22:03 families were involved in the opioid stuff but they made live in a

22:08 neighborhood with where others are and so then they had it but at we we do have

22:13 an overnight camp we only have it for middle school children and I I would

22:18 imagine you can understand why we don’t do high school kids so it’s interesting

22:24 we have a campfire and they go swimming and archery and all this kind of stuff that they never get to do otherwise they

22:32 still worry and so after breakfast after they’ve had a night away from their

22:37 caregiving we have them fill out a note card about what are you worried about

22:42 you know and how else can we help you and their worries are profound so even

22:48 though they’re away they still worry and that’s why it’s so important uh when

22:53 they’re at school they worry and that they are allowed to call home you know

22:59 maybe it’s not with their cell phone because we don’t advocate that they use cell phones in class but let the school

23:07 provide them a way you know provide them a school phone so they can check in at home and decrease those worries so that

23:15 they can um study and learn yeah that’s such a valid point i know

23:22 you were telling me before we started there was a big news article something on the news about cell phones in school

23:29 and obviously you know you don’t want kids just Snapchatting texting on social

23:35 media at school but I had never even thought about some kids have a phone at school so that they can call and check

23:41 on somebody at home and so I can see where that would be you know very hard

23:48 to be in school all day long and know that somebody’s at home and could be you know sick or need something or whatever

23:55 and be thinking about that while trying to learn because you know school is is difficult as it is not just the learning

24:02 but I feel like even after co like you kids it’s different right like there’s

24:08 different groups and you’re trying to fit in and you’re stressed about all you

24:14 know everything while trying to learn but then if you’re also stressed about somebody at home could be sick i mean

24:19 that’s totally it’s just different and I think it’s you know it’s kind of mindblowing and eyeopening for a lot of

24:26 people listening to this probably because a lot of people have never thought about this but it is true i will

24:31 tell you I do know that I worry about the health care system in general in this country for multiple reasons but

24:37 the largest one is the amount of doctors nurses providers that we make every year

24:44 it continues to go down which doesn’t make sense to me because I know so many

24:49 people who apply for med school and get rejected and it’s like why are we not making more schools to educate people

24:56 who want to help people when we obviously are at a deficit in providers in this country and the population is

25:03 aging needing more medical care yes and yes um you know and it’s just

25:10 there’s there’s so many issues with that um so I do think that it’s very

25:16 I mean it’s amazing that you’ve done this but also that we’re sharing this with people because I had no idea so

25:22 this this American Association of Caregiving Youth you guys founded it in

25:28 Florida but is this like a national thing or is it just in Florida so yeah

25:34 Florida is its home boca Raton is its headquarters as we started to share our

25:40 results people from other states have started reaching in so we’ve developed a

25:45 nonprofit franchise model if you will for affiliates we also um and so the

25:52 more recent ones are in Colorado and Hawaii we work with pediatricians and

25:58 others we we started a caregiving youth institute so we have an annual

26:03 conference we’ve done publications participated in research university of

26:08 Miami Miller School of Medicine UNCC Chapel Hill and others we’re working the

26:14 whole state of Rhode Island has modified its policies and we work with them uh to

26:22 make accommodations for kids who are caregiving youth as and

26:27 so that they can have some flexibility in their schedule and so that their

26:33 teachers know say that they’ve been up all night and they didn’t get their homework finished so not that they

26:39 should be punished but let them you know turn it in a little while later without

26:44 getting uh penalized so we have to celebrate the work of

26:50 these children and value them i mean you you can see a child pushing someone in a

26:55 wheelchair and you think oh that’s so nice but who thinks about what happens when they go home because everything

27:02 that they do is behind the closed doors people don’t understand

27:07 and one one of our local county commissioners had said to me one day

27:13 “Well Connie maybe they don’t want to know you know because it’s like there’s so

27:18 much to know that it’s one more thing to deal with but this is such an important

27:25 investment in society’s future as well as helping healthcare

27:32 um itself.” Yeah do you is there a American

27:38 Association of Caregiving Youth in Oklahoma do you know not yet we h we

27:43 have people have contacted us all over so um we are open you know to beginning

27:51 affiliates in other places so um we provide the support to them as they

27:58 begin their program so it’s like a partnership with another nonprofit organization

28:04 yeah no I think that that’s very powerful that’s amazing work what do you

28:09 I’m curious Connie what do you as far as like when you see these children and

28:14 interact with them what do you think are the top things that like stand out to you like what sort of health issues do

28:21 they have or do they struggle with is it is it mostly sleep is it mostly anxiety

28:27 like what stands out with these kids do they have do any of them end up like

28:32 with behavior issues or substance abuse issues or or what do you see well not so

28:38 much uh substance abuse and you know it’s a whole different ballpark when the

28:44 children are supported and valued so then you know there’s they have purpose

28:49 to their life and and that makes a difference um they learn life skills one of the boys who

28:56 graduated said to me “Dr connie you know I didn’t realize until I got out of school how much I knew that my friends

29:05 don’t know.” So in terms of their health nutrition is is lacking you know the

29:15 some of the neighborhoods the kids don’t feel safe so they don’t have the opportunity to be outside and and so I I

29:23 see that as an issue plus with a lack of financial resources it’s hard to

29:29 participate in sports or other you know after school activities you got to get

29:34 on the bus so their their lives are different

29:40 than their peers and sometimes you know there’s still a stigma say somebody

29:45 grandma has Alzheimer’s disease and people hear about how some people become aggressive so the other parents don’t

29:53 want their children exposed to that and so you know they can’t have kids over

30:00 they can’t do slumber parties and you know what’s normal uh for for time

30:06 growing up yeah well I think that that’s

30:11 was that’s very eye opening and so I appreciate you bringing it to our attention obviously I appreciate all the

30:17 work that you do it sounds like you know it kind of found you which is always the best stories right how things in life

30:24 just find you you fall in love with them and then years later you have this amazing organization that’s helping

30:30 children and and you know youth care for aging adults and to your point like I

30:36 only see this getting worse because people are living to be older and unfortunately even though our lifespan

30:42 is increasing our quality of life is not and so I see this all the time people

30:49 are living longer but it’s not great years so modern medicine I guess we have

30:55 modern medicine to think for that we keep people alive but not necessarily healthily um and so this will continue

31:02 to be a problem so I do think that it’s good to point out and obviously I appreciate you coming on and and talking

31:08 about it but then for all the work that you’ve done to help all these kids like that’s that’s really awesome and to your

31:14 point giving them a purpose like everyone needs a purpose in life and so if they have this purpose and if they

31:20 feel validated and like they’re doing something to help then obviously you know they don’t end up hopefully

31:26 hopefully they do graduate and they don’t end up going down the wrong path and maybe you know these are going to be

31:32 great caregivers nurses doctors yeah many of them want to go into health care

31:38 like one boy wants to find a solution to MS that his mother has you know and and

31:44 that’s what we need because that’s I mean if you you know if you grew up

31:49 taking care of somebody like that and you you know make it through high school and I mean you’ve made it through a lot

31:54 of tough things in life uh then you’re probably going to do really amazing things right so you’re used to doing

32:00 hard things but it’s it really has been a calling because when I did this

32:05 research which was with the school district and Palm Beach Atlantic University I got this phone call from

32:12 the principal investigator and he said “Connie you know your section I had a

32:18 family health section was had the most profound results of the whole survey.”

32:23 And so I just had this sense I have to do something about it and and even to your point of maybe not even caring for

32:30 adults but caring for siblings I can see that a lot too where if you have if you’re the older sibling and you have a

32:36 sibling with diabetes or whatever and mom and dad are at work all the time and you’re with the sibling on the bus when

32:42 they get home and you know providing the snacks i mean that can be stressful too right like if you have a little sibling

32:47 that you’re caring for so it is I mean it it opens my mind to some definitely

32:53 some different things I never thought of as a provider but also just as a person as well i want to end by asking you

33:02 three questions that I ask everyone and then at the very end I’m going to ask one more but don’t overthink this very

33:09 simple question but people love this so what is one food that you feel is most

33:15 beneficial and why that that is a really hard one because I really love pizza

33:23 pizza yeah i don’t know why do you love pizza

33:30 i don’t know it’s easy it just tastes good i don’t know but it goes well with

33:35 champagne pizza okay well that’s a very interesting

33:41 answer Miss Connie i bet people will love that so we’ve never had pizza and we’ve never had pizza goes well with

33:47 champagne so we’ll just we’ll stick to that what is one thing that anyone can

33:54 do that is 100% free that will benefit their health i would say exercise and

34:00 breathe deeply you know breathe through your nose relax take time for you be

34:05 sure to exercise and have fun i would agree with that all

34:11 good things exercise breathing and fun and the the last question I want to ask you is what is one thing you wish you

34:18 would have known about your health particularly 354 years ago that you would have done

34:25 differently i think I would have been in

34:31 counseling sooner because the trauma that I experienced as a child carried

34:38 over into my adult life and it wasn’t until I was in counseling after I moved

34:43 to Florida which was in 1990 that it was pointed out to me you know what the

34:50 impact of trauma and so that’s why the work that I do today is not only for the

34:56 kids today but to help them tomorrow so that they don’t have to suffer

35:03 yeah I completely agree i think trauma and counseling is very important and

35:08 especially probably in these kids and you know we forgot to point this out we talked about this prior to the episode

35:15 starting but not only in kids and kids being caregivers but I also see this in

35:20 my practice a lot a lot of 40 50 60 year old people now are also stuck in this

35:26 kind of in between caregiver role that I think is important to point out you know

35:32 they have children that they’re trying to care for and then they have aging parents and they’re kind of yo-yoing

35:37 back and forth between like obviously I have my immediate family that I am responsible for and caring for but then

35:45 I have these aging parents that I feel responsible for as well and sometimes it can be very difficult to care for aging

35:52 patients or parents more so than it can for small children because you know aging parents and elderly people have

35:58 their ways and their set ways and they’re not going to change and so you know there’s a whole another dynamic as

36:04 well of caregiving as you get older and a lot of times the parents don’t

36:09 recognize the impact on the children i always remember a family I talked with in North Carolina and um the single mom

36:18 was taking care of her parents who lived a little ways away and she had a son who

36:23 was graduating from high school and he was really angry that his mom had to

36:30 spend so much time with her parents that it took time away from him yeah so

36:36 there’s all different aspects it’s very complex you know and it’s one size

36:42 doesn’t fit all that’s why we offer a menu of services to our kids so that

36:48 they and their families can benefit yeah and to your point I think counseling is so good and it’s one of

36:54 the things that if I could change one thing about healthcare that would instantly like happen right now to every

37:01 human in the United States what I would pick is that they all got counseling like I think that every single person

37:07 would benefit from counseling from seeing a therapist from whatever and this world would be just a very

37:13 different place if people would have this outlet to speak to someone and then to learn how to deal with their emotions

37:19 and the trauma that they’ve had and and move past it instead of just being angry and blowing up and you know we teaching

37:26 people having a sense of community you know because with our society’s mobility

37:31 you don’t have that but did you see on from the San Diego Zoo in the past

37:38 couple of days they had the earthquake in San Diego and in the zoo all the you

37:43 got to see it all the elephants started feeling the shaking and so they made a

37:49 circle and had the little ones on the inside and they were facing out as to

37:55 protect them and if only we you know could protect one another

38:02 that’s really cool i did not so parting words I always I’ve kind of started

38:08 asking people about this too if there’s one thing that you hope anyone listening to this takes away from this what would

38:15 it be to help us with funding and to get

38:21 policy for caregiving youth so that they don’t have to wait until they’re 18 to get any

38:28 kind of government support well thank you so much for everything that you do we’ll make sure that all your stuff gets

38:35 linked in the show notes and we’ll make sure that the American Association of Caregiving Youth all of that information

38:41 is in the show notes as well and thank you so much for what you do and for coming and chatting with me today oh

38:47 thank you so much really I really appreciate it thank you have a good day

38:53 so that was a pretty powerful episode i hope that it opened your eyes your heart and your mind to maybe just a different

39:00 side of youth caregiving and chronically ill people in the United States you know

39:05 to be honest with you as a healthc care provider it’s not something I I really thought about although I did think about

39:11 who’s caring for these patients I just always assumed it was an adult so to know that there are millions of kids

39:18 caring for chronically ill people is you know alarming and heartbreaking at the same time so so thankful for the work

39:25 that Connie does and the American Association of Caregiving for the Youth as well if you found this interesting or

39:32 would like to share this with anyone please please please do make sure that you’re following us anywhere that you

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39:57 about give me podcast topics or guests and I’ll get them on here for you and

40:02 last remember that Modern Endocrine is a virtual practice as well we have a license in 39 states and counting our

40:08 goal is to be in all 50 states by the end of the year and we will see you virtually from the comfort of your own

40:14 home or wherever you’d like to see us from if you’re in Oklahoma City come visit our state-of-the-art clinic but we

40:20 can also do virtuals as well we would love to help you with any of your health care needs we do love to focus on you

40:27 know foundational functional wellness we do look at mitochondrial health gut health hormones we specialize in all

40:34 those things in addition to weight loss but we see a lot of just chronically ill people as well to try to get you going

40:39 back in the right direction we have an amazing health coach who also can help with just nutrition or any sort of

40:46 coaching that you need as well thank you so much for your time this week i appreciate you taking the time to get

40:52 some education and learn more about health in general and we’ll see you next week on the next episode

40:58 [Music] the information presented including any materials discussed referenced or linked

41:04 within this podcast are for general educational purposes only not the practice of medicine no doctor patient

41:12 relationship is formed from you listening to this podcast or utilizing any of the information provided i am a

41:18 doctor but I am not talking to you as your doctor the information provided is not intended to diagnose or treat health

41:25 problems or take the place of the professional medical care provided by your doctor if you are experiencing any

41:32 health problems including problems you believe have been touched upon in any respect within this podcast you should

41:39 consult your doctor about the problems without delay you may ask your doctor whether he or she believes the

41:45 information I have provided would be helpful to you but you should still consult your doctor immediately and

41:50 follow his or her medical advice as your treating physician i’m just here to provide you basic knowledge about the

41:57 issues we discuss so you are more aware of them and can better discuss them with your doctor that’s why we call it back

42:04 to the basics join me on the next episode as we continue our journey

42:09 [Music]

Disclaimer:

The information presented including any materials discussed, referenced, or linked within this podcast are for general educational purposes only, not the practice of medicine.

No doctor-patient relationship is formed from you listening to this podcast or utilizing any of the information provided.

I am a doctor, but I am not talking to you as your doctor. The information provided is not intended to diagnose or treat health problems or take the place of the professional medical care provided by your doctor.

If you are experiencing any health problems, including problems you believe have been touched upon in any respect within this podcast, you should consult your doctor about the problems without delay. You may ask your doctor whether he or she believes the information I have provided would be helpful to you, but you should still consult your doctor immediately and follow his or her medical advice as your treating physician.

I’m just here to provide you with basic knowledge about the issues we discuss so you are more aware of them and can better discuss them with your doctor.

That’s why we call it Back to the Basics. Join me on the next episode as we continue our journey.