Episode 143: The Best Strategies to Combat Overwhelm in Early Childhood Leadership with Prerna Richards

In this episode, Kate and Carrie sit down with Prerna Richards from Together We Grow to chat about the power of coaching in early childhood education. Prerna shares why coaching helps staff and directors manage stress, boost retention, and find joy in their work. They swap stories about “monkeys” (those pesky distractions!), deep breathing, and recognizing personal triggers. 

You’ll learn practical tips for reducing overwhelm and building stronger connections with your team. This warm, resourceful conversation is full of encouragement, reminding you that you’re not alone and that small changes can make a big difference! 

https://www.facebook.com/prerna.richards
https://togetherwegrow.online/

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Transcript

Kate 00:00:00  Welcome to childhood conversations with Kate and Kerry.

Carrie 00:00:05  Welcome back to conversations with Kate and Kerry. We are so glad to have you joined us today, and we are excited to have our guest. And we are going to talk about some lovely because I know our directors love it. Some lovely tips for the directors to save their time and to save money and to keep them from being overwhelmed. Brenna Richards, excuse me when I make those all one word. And there are actually two words I'm from Together We Grow is with us today, and we are going to talk about the importance of coaching and coaching for your staff. And I love it because the best thing I actually read this yesterday. So excuse me for, my my little tidbit here today, but coaching and training as combined is a difference between learning something at 22% and learning and retaining something at 88%. So directors of you just heard that I want you to go back and think about that again. If you're sending your staff to training, they're only getting 22% effectiveness, where if they're getting training and coaching, they're getting 88% effectiveness.

Carrie 00:01:19  So with that. Brianna, tell us a little bit about what exactly you do, how that works in the brain. And then we'll kind of take it from there and enjoy our next 20 minutes with you.

Prerna 00:01:31  Hi, Kate. Hi, Kerry. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for the invitation to come and talk to you and your lovely audience. so I am the CEO and founder of Together We Grow and I provide three services professional development, which is all brain based and brain science based. And my sweet spot, if you like, is challenging behaviors, which is on the increase right now. And then the other thing I do is I'm a behavior coach. I do it in person, I do it online, and I'm also in a consultant. I help programs improve quality by doing mock visits for them, reviewing their portfolios and such. And in your intro, the 22 to 80% is spot on, and I've heard that as well. And I think it's a game changer when we see it from the teacher's perspective.

Prerna 00:02:24  Right. So the leadership, when we understand that I'm sending you to your annual required minimum training, 22 hours, 24 hours, 30 hours, wherever you happen to be, part time, full time, they're not going to retain it. So don't get frustrated with them and recognize that it's happening because that's how the human brain works. We retain so much more when it's shown to us, when it's tailor made for us in my classroom, in my situation. And so it's a game changer. And, you know, your intro also said that you help directors to reduce overwhelm? What I'm seeing in the field, which I'm sure you guys are seeing it in the field too, right now. The overwhelm is huge. The burnout is huge and the stress levels are huge. So if you are a director and an owner and you see your staff getting burnt out and you're wondering, I'm spiraling, what do I do? Right. They're not doing their best work because that human that grown up is stressed out.

Prerna 00:03:23  You got to do something. You cannot just let it continue because it won't just get better by itself.

Carrie 00:03:27  So what would you suggest they do if they were going to start with one thing? One thing? We're not even asking for like 25 tips. What's the first thing you would tell a director to do?

Prerna 00:03:38  Very first thing that I do when I start coaching a program is make them become a breathing program. Game changer, game changer. You don't have to go buy anything. You don't have to do anything. Let me tell you a little bit more about the science behind the deep breathing. So there was a research that came out in 2021, when we were all in the middle of the pandemic, and all of our stress levels were off the charts and we didn't know what was going on. Right. And what they said was shocking to me. This research said 85% of Americans right now are leading a hectic, fast paced, stressful life and we're not taking enough deep breaths. Seeing it written like that was like, stark in my face.

Prerna 00:04:18  Like what? Like, seriously, we're not taking deep breaths enough, and the job that we do in early childhood is demanding. It's super demanding and it's super stressful. And if you can take care of your stress, then you're not going to be able to manage right. So I'm going to give you three specific tips. So the first one is breathing. Become a breathing program. What does that mean. Do it on the schedule. You have to put it as part of your schedule. So if the children are coming in the morning at whatever time before you put them to nap, tell your teachers to get it on their schedule. Two breathing breaks, two brain breaks before they put them to nap. This can be as transitions as you hear them going down the hall, as you hear them transitioning. As you hear them at the carpet circle, whatever. Leave it in. Put it as part of his schedule. It will not happen otherwise. And then two more brain breaks after they wake up, before you send them home.

Prerna 00:05:11  Super easy. Every time you breathe, take three deep breaths. That's it. Put it as part of your schedule. Take three deep breaths and we're going to breathe right now. So wherever you are listening to us, take a moment. Come back. If you're multitasking, come back. And then let's take a deep breath together. And I know you can't see us, but I'm just going to take a hard breath. So I'm going to take a deep breath. I'm going to make a heart. And I'm going to put my attention inside, and I'm going to send some love to myself, or I'm going to send it to whoever comes in my attention. Let's do that together. Here we go. Let's do it again. Let's really fill up our lungs with oxygen. Let's take a minute to get the oxygen in our brain. Here we go. Third one. How do you feel? I feel fresh, like I was literally running before this recording. I feel okay now I feel centered.

Carrie 00:05:58  I feel like I need to have like. Okay, so one of the things we do is we talk a lot about monkeys. Carey. We need some monkeys with, like, some little, like, breathing balloons or something. How can we make that happen? We need our monkeys to be breathing. I've got all these little monkeys floating around my little office. Silly little monkeys. I, I need some some monkeys that breathe. So if anybody's listening and you can find breathing monkeys, I can let me know, because monkeys.

Prerna 00:06:25  Your thing. Do you collect monkeys?

Carrie 00:06:28  it's it's become a thing because of the Harvard Business Review article. not my circus. Not my monkeys.

Prerna 00:06:35  Oh, yeah.

Carrie 00:06:36  and so teaching directors to recognize monkeys because they don't usually they're just like, I need to do this thing, and I need to deal with this thing because this teacher needs construction paper, or this child is having a behavior problem or whatever. And so they're constantly running instead of recognizing the monkey and making a choice.

Carrie 00:06:59  Yeah. Am I going to feed this monkey or shoot this monkey? So sometimes it's. Then you're going to have to do the craft project without construction paper. So you shot that one.

Prerna 00:07:08  You know, I've heard honey say the same thing in a different way in the format of a cup like you. Can you pick up a teacup so you listen to their whatever as a leader, you know, they're coming at you and they're jumping all their problems at you. You pick up the teacup, but you're allowed to put the teacup down and move away. You don't have to hold the teacup the whole entire day. So when I heard honey say that, I was just like, that resonates with me. I don't need to hold this cup anymore. I'm putting the cup down and I'm giving myself permission to put the cup down, saying.

Carrie 00:07:40  Yeah, we've been we've been using monkeys for 21 years. And the article. Yeah, the Harvard Business Review articles like, like 1969 like, this isn't even like rocket science or fairly new concept, but we really rewrote the article a lot for directors.

Carrie 00:07:57  When we first started doing our director credentialing, which has been 21 years now, and so we've we've, been given and collected, a lot of monkeys. And we have directors with monkeys all over the place. I have monkey, paperclips. I have Lego monkeys. yeah. So we've got.

Prerna 00:08:21  I use the phrase I have no monkeys, but I use the phrase I, I, I use the phrase, but yeah, but you guys have taken it to a new level of, monkey. Yeah. So you need breathing monkeys. There you go.

Carrie 00:08:33  Yes, I need some breathing monkeys, because that is definitely something. Amazon.

Prerna 00:08:38  Come on. Deliver.

Carrie 00:08:39  Yeah, I'm sure somebody will find me a monkey with, like, a balloon. Like, you know, I'm just thinking. Or I need just a balloon with a monkey on it that I can blow and give it that visual. So. All right. Okay. I'm I'm I'm doing good.

Carrie 00:08:53  So you were giving us three tips. So we did the first one and then we squirreled.

Prerna 00:08:58  Yeah, we said we showed it. And the second tip as a leader, this is the example that literally just happened yesterday. So I was in a coaching school, and this is a school that I've been working with for a long time. And they had stabilized and everything was going great. And so when I was going this week, it was in San Antonio. When I was going this week, I was thinking, this is going to be an easy breezy visit. They told me things are really good in January. So, you know, I'm looking forward to this. But when I arrived there, the director, the owner and the education director were all overwhelmed and frazzled. So I hadn't even got into the classrooms yet. Just the leadership was losing it. And so what happened? I said to them what happened? And then like, we don't know, we got a whole bunch of new kids. And then there's teachers out and then they're shorthanded and everybody's losing it. And I'm just like, okay, breathe.

Prerna 00:09:48  So we started with the breathe, and then I said, okay, let's unpack this. And what I helped them. So my point number two is know your triggers. What is triggering you is a game changer. If you don't know your triggers, you cannot have a plan. So I'm going to show you three specific examples of what these three leadership people shared with me were their triggers, because they hadn't even paused to reflect on their triggers. So as she's all of this is coming out on me, and I was just sitting there like, okay, when it's finished, then we will talk. So she needed to get it all out of her. And the director started and I said, okay, what is your trigger? She said, there's so many, I can't even tell you. I'm like, no, we're gonna begin with one name, one. What is getting you rattled? What is getting you overwhelmed? Name one. And she said, I can't stand the sentence when people come to say to me, can I talk to you? This sentence has become her trigger now.

Prerna 00:10:39  And I said, okay, now that you recognize that this is your trigger, what are you going to do about it? And she's like, give me a moment. Like, she hadn't even recognized that the connecting dots hadn't happened yet. Yep. This sentence was her trigger. And this is why you have to do this work. You have to find out your figure. So she said, okay, if they come to me. So she literally put a sticky on her computer while we were talking, she said, if they come to me with, can I talk to you for a minute? The sentence on her sticky boss, can you reframe that? Because I've just realized this is my trigger, and can you bring a solution with it? She literally wrote that down on her sticky on her computer. Can you reframe that and can you bring a solution with it? Because I have just learned that this is my trigger. Now she's going to tell her team that this sentence is her trigger, and she needs them to come with a solution.

Prerna 00:11:23  So she needs to practice it the second. And so of course time will tell. So I gave her one week. So she has homework of one week and she has to tell by back is that stress came down. But what she said to me at the end of the day because I was there for two days for the school, but she said to me at the end of the day, she said, I'm already feeling better because I know I have a plan. So nobody had actually come and said that sentence to her, but knowing that she was getting ahead of it already gave her mind calm. Okay, so the the education director, I did the same thing to her. She's like, you know, everybody is just throwing everything at me and it's all coming at me. And I'm emotionally not able to carry this anymore for them. Okay. What's your trigger? She said the same thing. I have so many. I said, no, you got to narrow it down. And she said, I'm recognizing that I'm avoiding this hallway on this side because even if I just walk down that hallway just to go to the bathroom, they stop me and say, can you step in for a minute? I just need some help.

Prerna 00:12:18  I can you. Like they're attacking her as she's walking down the hallway. So she's recognizing that I'm just going to avoid this hallway. I'm going to start using this bathroom. So I said to her the same thing. I said, okay, what are you going to do? How are you going to handle this? She said, okay, the next time I walk down this hall, I'm going to be brave. I'm going to walk down this hall, and I'm going to tell them right now is not the right time. Go to the front office and request help, and I will come and I can. Right. So she was getting all worked up because even just to do a bathroom stop, she was getting stuff thrown at her. And what was happening when she was stepping in the classroom was the teachers would just back off. They would just leave her with this child who's out of control. And so can you just help with this? And I need help with this, and I can't deal with this.

Prerna 00:13:00  And and she was thinking, I'm going to role model for you. I'm going to support you, but you just dump this on me and you, you backed out. So now she's going to address that. So here's the deal. These solutions are not coming from me as a coach. These solutions are coming from within you. But what the coaching does is it helps you to stop, pause, reflect and come out of the overwhelm. Because when you're in the overwhelm, you can't think. You can't think.

Carrie 00:13:25  Yeah, the coaches job frequently is not to solve the problem, but to ask you the right question so that you can solve the problem. Because we're from the outside and we can see what the big picture is and we can go, hey, why is this a problem? you know, my initial, you know, as a director solution to that. If one of my staff had said that is okay, then you need a way to show people that you can take monkeys right now, or you can't take monkeys right now.

Carrie 00:13:54  Right. so mine was. If I had a clipboard, you could give me stuff. If I didn't have a clipboard, you couldn't give me stuff.

Prerna 00:14:03  So tangible. Right? Yeah.

Carrie 00:14:04  Right. But as a coach, it's not the director answer. It's the coach answer, which is, what is your plan going to be as opposed to giving the resource? It's instead of being the teacher, which frequently the director is right. They're the teacher. They're teaching their staff tools and techniques. The coach comes in and says, what is wrong with your you know, this is a problem with your performance. How can you fix it? Right. And asking those questions, absolutely beautiful.

Carrie 00:14:33  But that's the beautiful thing about coaches and for directors who are listening, that is the big difference between a coach versus a consultant. So if you've hired a consultant, they're a subject matter expert. They're coming in to tell you what to do, where a coach comes in and recognizes Is that you probably already have the answer, and our goal is to help you ask the questions, help you think of your best answer, and help you come up with your solution versus us telling you what we think.

Carrie 00:15:08  Because as a consultant, you pay us because we're the subject matter experts. As a coach, it's a different ballgame. So I mean, I'm speaking of ball games. I'm just going to take a sports coach metaphor. if you think about the number of coaches who they themselves were not elite athletes, but yet they can coach elite athletes, right? So they're going to tell them they're going to help them through the process of being an elite athlete. That's what a coach is. The consultant is the person who was the elite athlete who's going to tell you, this is what I did to be the elite athlete. So, so definitely something to think about when you're working with consultants, subject matter experts, coaches, trainers. You know, we all have lots of titles and some of us. All of us on on this call actually do all of the above. And so sometimes we'll even stop and go. Which hat do you want us wearing? You know, we've we've entered into a coaching agreement.

Carrie 00:16:16  Yeah. however, you're wanting me to give you the answer. Am I gonna write? I want you to work through the answer yourself. So again. So we've gotten to two. We've gotten to breeding. We've gotten to know your triggers. What's our third?

Prerna 00:16:30  Yeah. So thank you for separating the two. And I think that's super helpful for somebody listening. If you're wondering about consulting and coaching you know which route is yours. So the number three the three one is find your little wins. So what I said to them was because they're spiraling and because they're overwhelmed, they have to see that what they're doing is making a difference. So find your little wins. And so I told them to put a white board. And so I went in as a behavior coach. But this this two days that I spent in the school had so little to do with the children's behaviors. But we did this deep work with the teachers. We did this deep work with the leadership. And I didn't even tell you the owner's trigger.

Prerna 00:17:10  Her trigger was that tardiness was happening. And she said, you know, first she said, I can't even again, the same thing. I think the overwhelmed brain says, I don't know what my triggers are because there's so many. But when she narrowed it down, she said, what's really frustrating to me, and she used that word. She said, I'm just I'm not going to say the word. But she used the word and she said, I feel so ticked about this because I just spoke to somebody on Friday and that person was tardy. And Tuesday that person is tardy again. And I am so sick and tired of this because as an owner, I am showing up for you all. I'm not dropping any balls because, you know, she has 250 enrolled children in her school. It's a big program, Right? And she's like, I'm not dropping the ball. You're depending on me, but I can't depend on you. And I'm sick and tired of this. And so again I said to her, she said, what are you going to like? What are you going to do about it? And she said, my instinct is to write her up.

Prerna 00:18:02  And I said, okay, that's a reactive instinct. You're feeling frustrated right now and you want to write her up. The write up is not going to help you. It's just going to continue. Somebody else will do it and you just continue. And so I instead of that, I said, try to think about what else can you do? And she said, okay, maybe I need to go back and have a conversation with them. And I said yes and tell them that this is triggering me. I'm feeling this. I asked her, I said, how does that make you feel? Let's go to the emotion. How does that make you feel? And she says, I feel disrespected. To be honest, I feel ignored to be honest. Hello. You. And, those were her words and those were her feelings. I'm feeling ignored and I'm feeling disrespected. And I said, great, go and have a follow up with that team member and be honest and transparent and say, what was your perspective from that conversation we had on Friday? What did you walk away from that conversation on Friday? Listen to her perspective and then tell her your perspective.

Prerna 00:19:01  My perspective was I thought we had resolved it. Now I'm feeling ignored and I'm feeling disrespected. This relationship, this professional relationship cannot work if I don't feel respected, what are we going to do about it? Right. So put it back on that. And and it was funny because I texted her at the end of the day when I got home from San Antonio. How was your follow up conversation? And she says it went really well. I feel so much better. And I'm carrying less burden because I talked it.

Carrie 00:19:29  Okay, Kate, you have to say something so that anybody on the video can see what we're seeing and why we're laughing.

Carrie 00:19:36  So, my son's cat decided that I was going to make a really good cat tree today, and he jumped up in the middle of the presentation to come sit on my shoulders. And usually he does that in steps. And that was the first time he ever just jumped up on my shoulders. And I was trying really hard to not laugh and.

Prerna 00:20:00  Hit me as all of us were.

Carrie 00:20:02  Shocked. So okay, I'm glad I was wearing a denim shirt. And I think he knows that because he only ever does that if I'm wearing like a denim shirt or a sweatshirt. But usually he like climbs. And so anyway, as anybody who's watching or listening my.

Prerna 00:20:19  And visually he was not only on your shoulder, he was wrapped around your head. So visually he was like the whole tail head thing was around your head. So it was hilarious.

Carrie 00:20:28  So for those of you who don't know, there is a YouTube channel you can go watch and see Kate with a cat on her head. Well, actually, you might not be able to see it until she talks, but.

Prerna 00:20:38  Oh, that's funny. That was.

Carrie 00:20:40  Funny. Okay, so, funny because I know what time it is. And I know Carrie, you had another call. So if you ever need to jump off Carrie, just just, you know, I'll just disappear yourself or whatever. Oh my God.

Prerna 00:20:55  This is going to be the video that people watch.

Carrie 00:20:57  Just just because you asked, is this going to be video? And this has never happened before. This has never.

Carrie 00:21:07  Usually he sits on a chair, there's a chair, and usually he just sits on the chair. And we always talk about. I joke that he's a very lazy coworker and that and my son's like, well, I will talk to him about his performance. Well, today he gets to have a whole other conversation. So speaking of, you know, employee co-workers and, you know, things that might be triggers anyway. Yeah. Sorry.

Prerna 00:21:35  I mean, actually.

Carrie 00:21:36  That, you know, so we've so we've gotten to one, two and three and I'm so glad that,

Prerna 00:21:42  Oh, this we got there. Yeah. Through all this we got there. You know, it's really important. So really the number three, because we didn't talk long about it. What I said to the leadership team and to the classrooms that I had coached that day, because there were five that we had worked with and we had done the deep work with the five classrooms.

Prerna 00:21:59  And a lot of the work that I did was labeling your feelings, identifying your triggers, because what happens in the classroom sometimes is when the teacher is triggered by that child. I'll give you a quick example of why this is important to find the wins with the teachers. So this teacher, the minute she walked into the room, she just said, I'm so stressed out. I'm overwhelmed. I'm just absolutely exhausted. I can't anymore, I just can't anymore. I'm like, okay, what is your trigger? And she said she named these two kids. And I said, what do you know about these two kids? And she said, enough that they don't listen to me and drive me crazy. And I said, beyond the beyond that. What do you know about these kids? And she could not tell me any personal information about these kids. So why is that important when you have not connected, all you're doing is correcting. When you're only correcting whether you're a leader or whether you're a teacher.

Prerna 00:22:52  If the only thing the children hear you is correcting. Don't do this. Don't come here. Sit down, turn around, wash your hands, eat your snack. Blah blah blah blah is behavior talk. If only you're doing behavior talk and you're not connecting. Those kids will become your triggers. And the spiral is so fascinating to watch. The more you trigger me, the more I don't connect with you, the more I label you, because my brain goes to overwhelm. And so her homework for this week is to bond with this child and to connect with this child. And you should have seen her face when I said that your homework is to connect. And she knew, just like I had poured cold water over her, she was just like, how am I.

Prerna 00:23:31  Gonna do that?

Prerna 00:23:32  I'm like, you're going to play with her. You're going to play with her. Not going to direct her play. You're not going to just tell her what to do. You're going to join the play and you're going to hold your instructions.

Prerna 00:23:44  That's all I want you to do. Join her in play. Even that seemed overwhelming to her. And so, going back to the note of the right your wins for the day. My homework for them is before they leave the campus, they need to right everybody in that five classroom and the three leadership people. What made you joyful today? What brought you joy today? We're going from stressful to joyful. What brought you joy today? And with those children that are triggering you, those children that you haven't bonded and connected with. What was specifically that you did? And that really did seem like the hardest homework I was giving them by their faces. It was just literally like, Karina, you're torturing us.

Carrie 00:24:25  Yeah, because this is a job where we get to play for a living, and when we get wrapped up in the overwhelm, we forget that silly, ridiculous, goofy and cute things happened throughout the day. If we're caught up in overwhelm, we've got to take that time and remember, this is an amazing job.

Carrie 00:24:50  Kids, just people just walk up to you and give you art. No lawyer is doing his lawyer job and somebody just walks up and gives them art. Or my my husband, software designer. Nobody walks up to him in his day job and just randomly gives him art. People don't just walk up and hug his leg like the things that we get.

Prerna 00:25:12  It'd be me if.

Carrie 00:25:13  I did make sure that people.

Carrie 00:25:15  It would be a little weird. It would definitely be a little weird. If they did, it was okay.

Prerna 00:25:19  You brought up something just really important. We forget and we get caught up in it. One of the examples that I had in that school, in the infant classroom, there were four teachers. So already you have amazing ratios for teachers in an infant classroom. Are you kidding me? But the four of them are not getting along. Four of them are not getting along. And that was part of the leadership stress. So these two these two are sitting in the place of I'm I'm I'm I'm hurt.

Prerna 00:25:44  I'm not being seen and heard. I'm just emotional stress. These two. Stop talking about the feeling so much. Why do we care about people's feelings? We're just here to do our job. Let's just do our job. You're not a machine. You're not working with machines. You're working with humans. And the four of you are not connecting. And the two of you are triggering each other. You two are feeling very sensitive, and you two are feeling very aggressive. And the two are stressing each other out. And this was part of the leadership stress. So yeah, dynamics in a classroom become the leadership stress the dynamics. And oh this was the best part. One of the infant teacher who was just like, I just I'm in there to do my job. I'm just in there and I don't even care. I'm like, you're not a machine. And she says, but the children don't feel it. I'm like, you are lying to yourself.

Carrie 00:26:36  So I think on that note, because that could be a whole other episode.

Carrie 00:26:40  But on that note, I am going to pull this back in, because one of the things, because you brought it up and you made a great statement, which is stressful, too joyful, and which I actually think is the name of your upcoming mastermind. So I just want to I'm going to I'm going to put the big plug out there. So March 25th on a Saturday. Brenda's got a great mastermind. And so when you are listening, go back, look at the show notes. We're going to have the links to register for that event. we are excited to share that event. we'll be posting about it on our Childcare Conversations group on our page. we hope that you all will go learn it's free. That's even a better price, right? You know, you gotta love that price. All right.

Prerna 00:27:29  And just for registering, you're getting a download. You're getting ten tips to go from stressful to joyful. So you'll walk away with ten tips and you'll get a recording.

Carrie 00:27:39  So great.

Carrie 00:27:40  And if you guys are listening, it'll end up in Carrie. So, Carrie, make a note. it'll end up in Gary's Freebie Fridays on March 17th. so make sure that you're on our newsletter list to get the registration and all the information on March 17th. And we are so excited that we were able to have today's guest. And hopefully we'll have her back. and maybe we will do some, of those, a classroom dynamics or teacher dynamics in a classroom and how that really does affect both the director and the teacher. And thank you so much for joining us. And, Carrie, do you want to tell them what they need to do?

Carrie 00:28:18  Leave a comment. reviews on your social media or not on your social media, on your podcast listening app, whether that's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you do. If you leave reviews, then that helps other people know that there's some value here. So please go ahead and write a review. If you do screen capture it. Send it to Kate at Texas Director.

Carrie 00:28:44  And she will get you a free t shirt that says that you're a superhero because you are,

Prerna 00:28:51  I want a superhero t shirt.

Carrie 00:28:52  That's what you want. What do you want?

Prerna 00:28:56  Okay. Well, yeah. Medium.

Carrie 00:28:58  You want to be a critic?

Prerna 00:29:00  That was amazing. Look at you guys. Just doing good stuff out there. Giving freebies. Of course we want a t shirt. Thank you guys for this opportunity, and I hope it helps whoever's listening. You got this. Look, your work is important. You're doing amazing work. Keep going. And you're not alone. Look, you belong to an early, early childhood community. Lean in. Get help. You are with these lovely people. There's a lot of help available.

Carrie 00:29:25  Okay. See you next week, guys.

Kate 00:29:27  Thank you for listening to Child care conversations with Kate and Kerry. Want to learn more? Check out our website at Texas Director. And if you've learned anything today, leave us a comment below and share the show.