It's Night Side with Dan Ray WBZ Costs Radio.
I do just want to take a minute before we get to our guest in the nine o'clock hour to thank Pat Boone, singer, actor, songwriter and philanthropist. His organization that I would highly recommend you check out is One for Tanzania All one word O N E F O R Tanzania t A n z A nia dot org. And that is a country in Africa which is in need of fresh water for their children of that country. And I just thought it's amazing that Pat Boone is
able to do this. And for those of you who might not remember Pat Boone, before Elvis Presley, there was Pat Boone, and Pat Boone was very famous American singer performer and continued for decades and now at the young age of ninety is sounding just as good as he ever did and trying to help eliminate not hunger, but thirst something as simple as water in the nation of Tanzania. Now, if any of you need that, Rob has written down
that One for Tanzania dot org. And I really appreciate if you checked out that website and if you were so inclined help help them out a little bit. Now we want to talk about a different topic. And as children in Tanzania literally have no fresh water, I mean, as Pat Boone described it, children in America, young children, the vast majority of whom can get fresh water just by opening up the faucet at their home, find themselves, in some cases as young as the age of seven.
Focused on their image with us is Kelly Shop. She's a licensed pediatric occupational therapist, and Kelly's very much involved. We had Kelly with us about ten or twelve days ago on the show, maybe two weeks ago actually during the eight o'clock hour, and I thought it would be great to have her back because I think that some of you might want to talk to her about this question, particularly if you have young children or grandchildren. Kelly Shop,
welcome back to Night's Side. Thank you for joining us. How are you tonight?
Thank you, I'm great. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Well, we're excited to have you. And how big a problem is this? By the way, you're a licensed pediatric occupational therapist. That's a long title. Normally, when you think about occupational therapists, you think about adults who have been injured and they need to get some occupational therapy. How does the the adjective I understand the adjective license, but how you're a pediatric occupational therapist, So who do you normally work with young children who have had physical injuries?
Is that? Is that your interest in children or your yeah?
So my yeah, So my passion is for kids and any limitations or weaknesses or deficits they have with what their occupation is at, which is their job at the moment. Anything that occupies their time has value or meaning for them. So for kids, it's school, it's you know, social and emotional interactions with their parents, with their siblings, with their friends. It's learning how to independently tie their shoe, you know,
make their bed. It's all of the activities and skills that kids need to be healthy and functioning well in whatever age they are in in their childhood development. And a lot of that looks like helping parents help their kids. So I help kids by helping their parents understand what's going on with their kids and how we can help them to do whatever they need to be doing.
So helped me out a little bit, because when I think about occupational therapy, I think about someone who I don't know it was a carpenter has injured his hand, his hands or what our hand, and he has to get that hand back. Condition apply that concept which I think most of us understand to children. When children don't have occupations, they have obligations to go to school and things like that. Explain if you could just flush that
out for me a little bit. I don't mean to be a painter that I care, but I really want to understand that.
Yeah, so a lot of just like the adult who had, you know, a condition or something that happened where he had a weakness or a deficit in his hand, needed to be rehabilitated and needed to get him back to an independent kind of normal functioning so he could be
working again. So often kids are born or you know, three years old, we start to see certain weaknesses or deficits in the milestone skills that they are supposed to be exhibiting, Like you know, they're supposed to be crawling by this certain age, they should be walking by a year. And the way the world works now kids aren't doing the things that they would have been doing ten fifteen years ago normally. So what's typical for children now wasn't typical and it's not natural for the way that kids
should be raised. So they aren't getting enough interaction with nature and using their hands and moving their bodies. Their food isn't as nourishing as it used to be. We have so many processed foods. Kids don't eat as healthy. They don't get as much sleep as they used to. They are in so many structured activities. They don't have a lot of downtime to just play and really get into understanding themselves, what they like to do, the rhythm
and pace that they function well at. We've kind of sacrificed so many good childhood developmental things for this mindset of achievement accomplishment keep going. Our kids have to be busy, they have to operate at the same pace an adult does. But a child does not have a fully formed brain or body. They can't They don't have the capacity to do all the things that we are pushing them and pressuring them to do. And it's having massive impact.
Okay, And then now we can drill down after the break on this concept of body image and when we talked before, and I now realize that your interest in your concern is quite broad and and and quite important. And and you're we have a two and a half year old grandson and he just wants to play and uh, and that wife is Yeah, my wife is much better with him because I'm always saying, well, why don't we, you know, sit down and teach him about math or I'm the guy that's that's trying to teach him this,
teach him that or whatever. And she's much better at this, probably much better as a parent and a grandparent. But but I want to talk about the issue of kids as young as seven being concerned about body image. That's what I want to get to with you tonight. And my question what you're going to ask when we come back, is is it more with when we get into the
younger age. I think about these honey Booboo competitions where they dress up these little four and five year old girls in with makeup and you know, so called mini beauty contests or whatever, And is that what's going on? Because this is this is an area that to me is frightening, frightening to think that children as young as seven more concerned about what they look like and what
it's frightening. So we'll we'll get to all of that, I promise if any of you have questions for my guest, Kelly Shop, particularly if your parents today I'm no longer a parent, I'm a grandparent, you can give us a call. You know the number six one, seven, two, five four ten thirty or six one seven nine three one ten thirty.
Will be back with Kelly Shop, a licensed pediatric occupational therapist, and I think that I have qualified her for all of you to understand the depth of her interest and experience. We're back on Nightside right after this.
You're on night Side with Dan Ray on w Boston's news radio.
Chuess is Kelly Srue. We're talking about body issues for children. So let me start off with the basic, the most basic. Does this question of body images for children? Is it impacting little boys as well as little girls? That's the first question.
Yes, it's impacting both.
Does it impact them in similar ways or or are is it different between the two genders.
I would say it's a little more for girls. It impacts more, but it definitely impacts both, and it impacts them the same way. In that the world programming, the billboards, the TikTok things, the YouTube kids, what we see on TV is the ideal image for a boy or a girl, a man or a woman. And a lot of times we know that these images are they're photoshopped, or you know that the actor actress is you know, doesn't look
like all the other moms at school. She is very fit and thin, and and so kids are getting the message by all the different screens that they look at that this is what I need to look at, I need to look like, this is what an ideal person looks like. And we have an obese nation, so we have a lot of kids who don't look like that, and they can.
What I'm trying to get at here, and I'm trying to understand it. So kids as early as seven, boys and girls have been bombarded with images of the ideal what the ideal adult appears to be, whether it's you know, a male body builder or a female you know, beauty queen.
Is that?
Is that what we're talking about here is are these are the images? When? When is this this thought? How does it plant it in their heads? That's the first question.
I think it comes from multiple places, but in my mind, it comes from the increase of screen use from everybody. You know, kids have access to screens in school, they're using iPads to research things. They're using iPads to do all of their work, and so they can access images and what people look like. And also because of that increase of screens, kids are more critical, judgmental, and harsh
in commenting on their peers' appearance. And so cyberbullying is very real for very young kids that they are being told they are fat, you're fat, you're skinny, you've got big legs and various things, and so very early on, kids are understanding that their body does not look how it should look, or somebody has told them what is wrong with it.
Of course, as an adult, I think to myself, if you're seven years old and you're a little shorter than the other kids in class, or a little heavier or whatever, or maybe you're wearing glasses, all of that will eventually kind of resolve itself. Now, kids probably don't understand what that means. They want to be the I guess, the best looking second grader in the class. Do they share that with their parents? Do you find or do they
eternalize it? And then are the parents contributing to these aspirational stereotypes which are unrealistic?
I think a lot of kids do internalize it because they realize their parents are busy and you know, they come home from school and life's happening. Maybe they go to soccer practice or piano practice, and parents have been working and so there's not a lot of time. I feel like so many parents these days are rushed and they don't spend enough time being really intentional and engaging, aged and looking for clues and cues from their kids
that something could be amiss. And and so a lot of kids, yes, they do feel and it's all about they want to fit in. They want to belong. They want to feel like they have a spot. And you are told that you're too slow, or you're too fat, or you're too miss or to that. A lot of times they don't fit in, and so that's, you know, so what they don't.
I want to amplify on this on the other side of the news break here, but you mentioned it, and I don't want to slide by it. If parents are not seeing the signs that their child is dealing with some sort of an issue, what are the signs that if the parent is trying to make a living and all of that, and are they not paying attention. What should what should parents be looking for?
Well, in the first place, parents should be proactive on the front end about how they talk about their bodies and the language that's used in their family home. So I recommend talking about being fit, being fit for your unique body, and that looks different. You might have a sibling that their body is made differently, so it's going to look different on them. But instead of talk about being skinny or fat, or we're talking about being healthy
and fit and at every age. Right, I have to be healthy and fit at fifty four, and that looks different than what healthy and fit look like at twenty four. And how we model appreciation, exercising our own body, eating well, getting enough sleep. So there's a lot of proactive things that we can do in our house to minimize that. You know, we're going to not focus on being skinny.
It doesn't matter what the billboard looks like. Because you're healthy and fit for an eight year old little boy, you're great, you can run, you can keep up with your classmates, you're doing all the things that you need to do well. That's what we're focused on.
And then you're talking there about positive encouragement.
I get that yeah.
But even if the parent is trying to encourage the child positively, if the child, for whatever reason, which I'm sure happens, tumbes the parent out and is more focused on fitting in with the kids at school, and fitting in at the kids at school makes them focus on their physical appearance. Are the signs that parents can see with the chat with their child that maybe as much as they're trying to talk to them about being fit
and healthy, that's not the focus of the child. I mean, the fact that they're staying in their room, the fact that they're not communicating. Are there some signs that the child can display to the parents that the parents can pick up on and realize that they need to talk a little more about this to the child.
Yes, yeah, So that's one way is if your child seems more withdrawn, seems to be isolating obviously, if your child is making changes in their diet what they're eating, or seem to be more controlling and you know, not eating things that you know that they like that they're trying to eliminate. If your child is asking you things about their body, you know, mom, do you think my face is too fat? Like they're they'll be asking their parents.
They're trying to get more validation that something could be wrong with them or maybe not.
We're at our nine thirty newsbreak, so I got to do that and we can amplify on that a little bit. And I have some other questions, but I'm sure our audience also wants to ask questions, so I will make them aware that they can call, they can ask whatever questions they want. As I often said that there's no dumb question. The dumb questions are the ones that you don't have the courage to ask. I learned that when
I was in college and law school. A question, Yes, that's the one that comes up on the final exam of the midterm six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty six one seven, nine three one, ten thirty. Back on night Side right after this with my guest, licensed pediatric occupational therapist Kelly shop talking about body issues for children, young children as young as seven or eight years old.
Back on night Side, right after the news at the bottom of the arra of my Name's Dan Ray listening to the Nightside and WBZ Boston's Boston's news station ten thirty on your AM dial.
Night Side with Dan Ray ONBZ Boston's News Radio.
My guest is Kelly Trup. She's a licensed pediatric occupational therapist. We're talking about body issues for kids, for children, young people, young children as young as seven. Is that really the
age when this first starts to impact people? Is it because they have now kind of grown out of the baby days and the toddler days, and now they're in school, you know, one hundred and eighty days a year or whatever with other children, and this little conversations that are going on in the school bus about what child looks this way and that way. Is that sort of what percolates it gets it going or am I?
Yes?
Yeah, so it is. It does have to do with the age and stage of development.
Of the child.
And so a seven year old has had their eyes opened more socially and they're making, you know, their their friendships matter more. And so all of the comments that might have been happening when they were four or five they weren't listening, but now right over.
Their head, yeah, and over their head.
Okay, And I assume that now it's more beginning to become more cool to be to be liked by your friends, and less cool you're less reliant upon the wisdom that mom and dad might have for you.
Yes, yeah, your dad might have great wisdom, but your dad's not with you from eight thirty in the morning until three fifteen, and so if you aren't fitting in, it can feel really lonely. And kids are meeting these days.
Oh please, I've seen stories here where young girls. There was one I'm thinking of in central Massachusetts who were so badly bullied she committed suicide. This was a huge story here in Massachusetts about ten years ago. Yes, just we have some callers. I'd like to get to some callers and incorporate them, and we'll continue, I hope by when we finished this hour, you can refer us maybe to either some books or some websites where parents and grandparents can go to get some help for their kids.
And we haven't even touched upon these four and five year old beauty contests, which to me are the absolute, the weirdest manifestation of exactly what we're talking about.
I think, yeah, agreed, what we're talking about there.
Let's go too. Dorena is in Chelsea. Doren I appreciate you. I've been very patient. You've held on. You were first this hour with Kelly shop talking about body issues for children.
Go ahead, Dorian, Hi, Dan, and Hi, Kelly, Hey, Hi, I just I just turned the phone on it, and I'm very very I says, I have to call in no matter what, if I'm right or wrong. I when I was a little little girl, I always leaned towards my father's word more than my mother's. I trusted my father more than my mother.
Why is that?
I don't know that that's a question that Kelly's uh gonna want to answer or qualified. I mean, uh, Kelly, you probably know about more about this than I do. Little there were many little girls who daddies, you know, make a big meal, little girl, daddy.
Little girl.
Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Yeah, that's true.
That's what I thought.
Nice, she probably knows more about it than you and me during Kelly, or that beyond your scope of specialty.
Well, it depends, but I would I would say that my experience would say that a lot of times mothers have expectations as females of what we want our daughters to look like and be like. And some of these expectations are unknown, unintentionally put upon our kids that were established when we were growing up as children. And so but there is a dynamic between a mom and her daughter and how they look, and the focus on their appearance and the way they present and their mannerisms and things,
a lot of outwork focus. That is just kind of how we were conditioned. And so I'm wondering if that's part of it, and if maybe your dad was just more understanding and he didn't you know, he wouldn't have had that expectation because he wasn't a female like you.
Did that make any sense story?
It does?
But the only thing was it was always.
A weighty issue.
What you like? You said body image weight Yes, so.
Your mom was. So what you're saying is your mom was critical of you.
Well, well not as much as my father was. But they both loved me because I am their daughter. I was the first daughter in the family.
I come from a daughter of six children.
Okay.
And the thing was she always pressed the issue. She all this is crazy.
But I'm going to tell you.
Well, I think during during, I think we're at the reservation here. I think we're getting too deep into your relationship with your parents. And I don't know it has anything to do with body imaging.
I think it it does. It has it's a.
It's about a way issue.
Okay, kid, get right to it, because I got a whole bunch of callers and I don't want to short change them, all right, Okay.
I was I was always I was always a plus size Okay, and uh, I just.
Can't help it.
I'm gonna put my body images. Your bone structure has to do with bone structure and your hereditary and the cells. That's what it's got to do with it. Okay, you know what I mean.
During during I appreciate your call, I really do. But unless you can pose a question to my guest who's an expert in this area, If you can pose a question, great, But but if you can't, I'm going to have to move on. Do you have a question for Kelly about your upringing? Go ahead. If you've got a.
Question, well, what it's about health, Dorian work.
With me, please?
Yeah, So, Dorian, I would just say that you know you can't your parents were doing the best that they could with what they had, and so in how you operate now, and I don't know if you have kids or you have brand kids, but for you to just have the mindset of it's all about being fit, because what you experienced based on your body type and your body frame and all of that. It sounds like that wasn't the message that you were sent, that your unique
frame and body makeup looks different than everybody else's. And so going forward from today, you can adopt that mindset right now, like, I'm not going to compare myself to any of my siblings or anybody else because God made me unique with my own unique makeup look and phone structure and all of that. And my job is just to be fit and healthy and active whatever age you are today, and to send that message to the others in your family or the people that you impact in
the world right now. Does that help?
I'm not. I don't judge people, Kelly, because I had.
Very much for the call, Dorian. I appreciate all very much. We've got to move on.
Uh.
I'm a little frustrated, as you can tell. And I go. We had a tough night with callers last night. And I'm telling you, folks, if you want to call and ask a question, great, But if you want to call and tell us your life story, that's not what Kelly is here to do. Let me go next to Alison Beverly, Alice next on and I said with Kelly shoot gruadhead Alice.
Yes, I am a school nurse and it was in pre k through high school, so we had all ages. And I just wonder what Kelly thinks about I was a propos of school uniforms. I don't think that solves the problem, but then there's not as much maybe you know, competition.
And then also what I'm thinking, and I don't know what she thinks about the fact that certain sports are there's certain activities in school that are the more popular ones that they that I think that they need to like find out what the kids that are like left out that you know, the arts and theater things like that are things that should be looked at because everybody is not a gymnast or a football player.
Or yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree. You've got great questions. So I agree with you on the uniforms. I think that they help take the focus off of the individual dressing and that can get competitive. And if everybody has a uniform, then the focus is taken off of the clothing that is on the child in school, and that is helpful. If there are kids who are larger and the uniform doesn't fit them. Well, they can still have stress and worry about that, but I think overall, the
uniforms decrease set. So I'm for that, And then I love I totally agree that I think there needs to be more open mindedness about different activities for kids. And so I have a podcast called Making Sense of Parenting with Kelly Shoot and I have an episode on is your Kids Sporty? And it's all about sports. And my thought is that every child is sporty. We just have to find the right sport for them. So for some kids, they don't like contact, they don't want to be touched
or hit or bumped into. So what sport can we find for them that they don't have to be touched? Is it golf? Is it, you know, rock climbing. There's a million different sports that aren't team sports where kids can be really successful and feel really strong and fit and active and confident, and that's so good for their self worth. And so yes, it can look like theater,
it can look like all kinds of different things. And so I encourage parents, if your child doesn't like soccer or swimming or football, keep trying, keep exposing them to different things, because they will find something that they can do and that will be their thing, their sport, and that is so incredibly healthy for good childhood development.
All right, great questions, Alie, Thank you so much for joining the conversation.
Okay, have a great night.
Thanks. Be back with my guest Kelly shop six one seven, two, five four ten thirty or six one seven, nine three ten thirty, coming right back on night Side.
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w Boston's news radio.
We're talking with Kelly Shoe. She's a licensed pediatric occupational therapist, and we're talking about the issues of children, young children, kids seven years old, boys and girls who are more concerned about their looks, their appearances than anything else in their life. It's called body image issues. Let's go to Mike and Quinsy. Mike, you are next on night Side with Kelly Shop grdhead Mike.
Heaym said, Dan Ray, how are you go ahead?
I'm doing great. Say hi to my guest, Kelly Shoop. What's your comment of question? Mike?
Uh, your first time calling?
Oh, first time. We'll give you a round of applause as a first time caller. We'll get our digital studio audience up out of their seats and they go you got a studio. Go ahead, Michael, go right ahead.
The reason why I'm calling because I used to have my daughter. I got divorced you seven years old, so I woke mother's hours and then raised that she's twenty seven years old. And my question to the therapist we went to the caraffe and everything. Right now, she's an FBA Asian. I just do not like the choices she's making.
This again, Mike, I'm not sure that you're connecting with the guests. So your daughter, you said, is now an adult, right, yes, okay, And so your question, we're talking about kids who when they're very young, they are more kids as young as seven are more focused on their body type and if they don't fit that image of perfection, they changed their diet and they lose a lot, they lose a lot of their childhood. I'm more worrying about what they look
like than what type of person they are. So if you have a question for Kelly that you think relates to that, go right ahead.
Yeah, miss Kelly. What do I want to ask you is what is it I can't do improve her self esteem her personality to become more strong?
Whose self esteem your daughter's self esteem? Yeah, well your daughter? How old your.
Daughter right now? She's twenty seven and she's.
An FBI agent. Yes, I suspect she has a very strong personality and that her self esteem is fine. Again, we're I think we're just a little about twenty years further down the line than what we're talking about. Kelly, do you want to give a shot at this? I'm more confused now than ever.
I'm happy to try. So is this you feel like you need to be doing something specifically to help her self esteem?
Now?
Is there? Does she have weight issues or body image concerns at twenty seven that you're aware of?
Not at all, Not at all if she's an FBI agent, Mike, I think again, I hate to do this, but I think you and Doreen miss I have misunderstood what we're trying to talk about tonight. So thank you for your first time calling. I'm best of luck getting yourself back squared away with your daughter. I would just say, and I'm not a psychologist, No, I play one on TV.
Why don't you reach out to her sometime? I assume she's living in another part of the country, But why don't you reach out and tell her you'd like to come down and visit and have dinner or something and talk about whatever differences you have. She might be very open to that.
Definitely, I will do that. Thanks, thank you, You're very welcome.
Call again. Okay, let me go to a different This is Michael in Boston. Michael, you're on with Kelly Stoop.
Right ahead, Michael, Oh, thank you. I was wondering I haven't heard anything pertaining to so called eating disorders like anorexia? Would this be common in teenage girls? Boys too, But that's not as common as girls bio log shot, But is this the root of anorexia? Are you knowledgeable in that eating disorder?
I know this is.
Yes, yes, so I I work with kids from age ages of one into their twenties, and so yes, I'm very familiar with eating disorders with teenage girls, middle school girls. The signs that that appear, and the things that the tips and the tricks that they use. And you know, now, there are more ways than ever that they can learn
about eating disorders. They can just jump on the internet and jump on an app that helps them count their calories and ways to hide food, and so it is very prevalent and it's a way of control, a way for kids to feel like they have a sense of control. And when kids are growing up now, they feel like a lot of what they do and a lot of their day they don't they don't have control over it. Their parents are telling them, go to school, do this, get to soccer practice, get to you know, church class.
And so food is something that the kids can control and they like that, and so that can lead to eating disorders. But the body image problems that start at seven can act absolutely lead into eating disorders and even more of a focus in body dysmorphia, which is having a mental condition that really is focused on flaws and imperfections in your body. Spend a lot of time ruminating on you know, my face, my nose is too big,
or the my neck is too long. All these really again extreme ways for a child to be understanding themselves, to be seeing themselves as you know, it's it's incorrect, it's not accurate, it's a distorted way of understanding themselves. And it can start early, well, very quickly.
Do they have a treatment for anorexia now nowadays, But when a girl reaches that age and she looks in the mirror, she's actually sixty eight pounds, but she thinks she's way over weight, and she continues to diet. And as you say, an image problem, do they treat it right?
No, there is not. There is not a quick fix for that. And so that is why it's incredibly important for parents to be plugged in and talk to your kids about, you know, what being healthy and fit looks like for them. It's also important for kids to let their kids, for parents to let their kids know that there are certain times during development, but right before a child is going to grow taller and height, they actually
grow wider out. So I have a son who's twenty one, and a nineteen year old daughter and a fifteen year old daughter, and so I was very intentional about you know, they would start to feel we could see like their body was changing, they were getting a little thicker in the middle, and then all of a sudden, they would sprout up a couple inches.
Kelly, I hate to do this to you, but we have run out of time, Michael, one of the best best calls of the night. Thank you so much, appreciate it. Kelly. How could how could folks get in touch with you if they would like to get in touch. You have a website.
I do have a website. It's www dot Kelly kshoop dot com and they can email me with questions. I do a one on one coaching sessions with families and parents with any behavior issues concerns that they have. You can find me on my parenting podcast, which is Making Sense of Parenting with Kelly Shoot that's on Spotify and Amazon and Google and all the places.
A lot of ways, a lot of ways. Kelly, thank you so much for your time tonight. Hopefully a lot of people listened to what you had to say. It was very good. Thank you so much.
Thank you. I enjoyed it.
Thank you. When we get back, we're going to talk about Signalgate, the Yemen signal controversy. Learned a lot about it today. I hope you'll share with us. We have a great guest, Hiawatha Bray of the Boston Globe. He's a tech writer. Coming up right after the ten o'clock News