December 6, 2024 • 30 mins
Developing skills to get along with others is as essential as reading, writing, or math for kids. However, the digital age has removed many chances for children to learn these important social skills. How can parents assist their little ones in naturally progressing social skills and how to get along with others? We are learning more from Patty Bardina, PhD, and her new book, "BADI BLESBOK SAYS HELLO: A Lesson in Greetings".
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Virginia Focus. I'm Rebecca Hughes of the Virginia
News Network. Developing skills to get along with others is
as essential as reading, writing, or math for kids. However,
the digital age has removed many chances for children to
learn these important social skills. How can parents assist their
little ones and naturally progressing social skills and how to
(00:27):
get along with others? We're learning more from Patty Bardena, PhD.
And her new book. Patti Blessbach says, Hello, a lesson
in greetings, Welcome to the show, doctor Bardena. It is
so nice to talk to you. I'm anxious to hear
more about your book and more about today's topic.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much
for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So why don't we start by explaining to people why
you are an expert in this field.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah. So, I've always been interested in social skills. That's
something that has appealed to me because I feel like
friendship is so important to mental health. So I've been
doing that for a very long time, over thirty years now.
I got my masters in school counseling. So while I
was working as a school counselor. I would run friendship
(01:16):
groups and help children learn social skills so that they
could have more friends. And then my co author and I,
Joanne Burgess, we used to work together as mental health
specialists at Seattle Children's Hospital and part of our job
was to teach social skills to children on the autism spectrum.
And then I've contributed doing social skills groups ever since. Then.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Wow, that's that's amazing. So you definitely are the expert
in this, and I know we've seen an increase in
autism pretty significantly over the years. Is that part of
what motivated you to write this book or was it
something else?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Really, it was just children in general. It always made me,
I guess, stress out when I saw children being excluded
on the playground, So that was part of my motivation,
was just making sure that all kids felt included. And
we know a lot about social support. The social support
is incredibly important for mental health. It's actually incredibly important
(02:16):
for physical health as well. It can increase people's longevity
their lifespan. So just social skills has always been very
important to me.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Gotcha, and how did you come up with the name
of the book.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So we set the books in Namibia, a country in
Africa that's a pretty new country, and the animals who
live there for real. So there are lots of giraffes
and elephants and rhinoceroses and all kinds of animals in Namibia,
and the Maybia's goal is to help preserve these species.
So we took names from Namibia and used them to
(02:51):
name the characters. So our last book in the series, Body,
bleas Bach says, Hello, Body is a name that's used
in Namibia that we wanted to be authentic to where
the animals come from.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Okay, I love that. I love that, And it's a
lesson in greetings. Obviously, greetings are one of those things
that you know, it's really important because that's the first
impression anybody gets of you. Is that why you chose that?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yes, yes, we're trying to do the books in a
sequential order. So what makes most sense for what's the
first step in interacting with other people? So we're starting
with very basic skills. So our first set of books
is about all the basic skills, Like the first one
is on eye contact, the second one is on body language,
and then this one has been saying hello, and I
(03:41):
believe that those three skills right there are the very
first step in how you interact with someone. So that's
how we got started.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Okay, So one kind of things will we find in
this book as far as lessons that are shared.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, so Body Blosy in this one, we're following bodies
experience and what he's observing. So it's a little bit
of a difference style where we're following Body Blusbock's thought process.
And I should let you know that a bluz block
is a type of antelope, so that that's not like
a foreign word to people. So Body is this cute
little antelope and he's going around and he's observing all
(04:20):
the different ways that people say hello, and then he
chooses which way he feels most comfortable saying hello. So
there are actually quite a few options for how we
can say hello to other people, and people do usually
choose whatever they're most comfortable with. So at least that way,
kulds have a choice for how they say hello. But
then they learned that they are supposed to say hello.
(04:43):
They can't just not say hello, you know. So that's
our cool, right.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And I think that's a good lesson to learn because
you know, as mental health and all that has become
more and more predominant, and more and more people are
embracing it and we're losing the the bias against it
that has been around for so long. One of the
things that we find is, you know, you're taught you
(05:08):
don't have to force your kids to hug family members
or whatever, which I agree with, But at the same time,
there's certain social things that still need to be done,
and it's something simple like saying hello. Like you're talking
about what other things can parents get from this book?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, so parents can just use the book as a prompt.
So we're hoping that parents and children will read these
books together and then they can discuss the social skills. So,
for instance, while Body's saying hello to let's say Jovi
giraffe in the book, he's at that point he's kind
of grumpy and he doesn't need the appropriate body language
(05:48):
to say hello. So Body's mother intervenes and says, you know,
you really need to be friendly while saying hello, and
then look at how you made Jovi giraffe feel. And
Body realizes that he made Jovi jurafeel sad. So just
pointing out these experiences to children can make them more
aware of how their behavior impacts other people and discussing
(06:12):
it so that children are more aware, and then the
parents in real life can point out those skills and
those situations to their kids that they can say, oh,
remember how body blows box that hello to his friends.
How are you going to say hello to your friends
when you go to school, or how do you like
to say hello to your friends, or how do you
want to say hello to our family friends? Just pointing
(06:33):
out that it's similar to body blossbox experience and you
can apply it to real life. Yeah, so what.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Are some of the barriers that hold everyone back? Not
just children but adults too.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Honestly, I feel like technology is are we taking a toll?
There isn't a whole lot of research on that, but
we are seeing some trends in our lifestyles. So and
it's not just children. So a lot of times we
focus on how children think technology and then maybe aren't
socializing as much. But it's also parents who are using
technology and aren't interacting with their children in the same
(07:08):
way as they used to, so they might not expose
their children to the same social skills that they used
to do. So, I just think that we need to
just take a step back and think about that and
think about how we're interacting with each other and hopefully
get back on track with teaching social skills.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah. I'm glad you pointed that out, because I mean,
I grew up as technology was coming up in my twenties, okay,
my late teens twenties, and you know, I love psychology
in general, and one of the things that I have
learned over the years is about attachment styles. And of
course those were studied originally in children, but they stay
(07:50):
with us through our life. And you know, there's the
three styles. I know you're familiar. I'm wondering what kind
of affect that technology and this lack of attention. I mean,
you know, we have parents who will hear and respond
but never take their eye off the screen, and I'm
wondering how that might affect attachment styles of this up
(08:12):
and coming generation.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah. I'm hoping that some researchers are listening to you
right now, because this is an area that I don't
think has been studied yet, and that's a really big topic,
is figuring out how it's affecting attachments between parents and children.
I did once see, for instance, I was just walking
down the street and I saw a dad walking with
(08:34):
his toddler, and the toddler kept looking at the dad,
and the dad was on his cell phone the entire
time and walking down the street and just completely ignoring
his child. And so these are things that we really
have to be careful of because technology is meant to
be addictive, right, so it's set up to hook us
in and make us stare at our screens all of
the time, and that really takes a toll on interactions.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, and it's sad. I mean, I've seen even people
older than me. But it's a daughter and a mother
out to lunch, and you know, the elderly mother is
sitting there just kind of staring off into space because
her daughter is again stuck in a cell phone, and
they spent their entire lunch and I think they barely
said three words to each other. And it was just, wow,
(09:20):
the saddest thing, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yes, yes, I think it's really important that we take
a step back and just look at ourselves and see
how much are we on our screens versus you know,
how much we're interacting with other people.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
And of course other things also affect social skills. I mean,
if a child has anxiety, which I think we're seeing
an increase in that, APHD, autism, we're seeing increases in that.
Even depression I think can have an effect on all
of that as well. What do you see as far
as research into those things. Are we making any headway
as to finding out what causes those things and how
(09:55):
to slow that down?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, you know, there really is a enough research. One
thing that I noticed is that people got very concerned
about the lack of social support from the pandemic, But
actually when they did research on that to see what
the effects were of the pandemic, they found that the
trends had actually been increasing before the pandemic. So there
(10:19):
was a national survey of children's health and they found
that the five years before twenty twenty, so before the pandemic,
five and a half million kids had been diagnosed with
anxiety and more than two million kids had been diagnosed
with depression. And those are just the kids who got diagnosed.
Those aren't the kids all of the kids who experienced anxiety,
those are the ones who actually got taken in, assessed
(10:40):
and then diagnosed. So the trends were already increasing before
the pandemic, and so we know that something else is
going on. And one thing another trend that we saw,
which is why I think that technology must be involved
in this, is that there was a decrease before the
pandemic of how much that's the collectivity of children were
(11:01):
getting and also how many young children were read too
daily by the parents, so that trend was going down also.
So it just seems to correlate with how involved we
are in technology. I don't notice for a fact because
there hasn't been enough research, but it just.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Makes me wonder, right, And I mean, obviously we can't
predict the future, but if you were to ask me,
my speculation is, I've read some studies that say inflammation
in the body is a big contributor to things like
anxiety and depression. They're saying that potentially heavy metals and
things are also a part of that, and a lot
(11:42):
of that stuff actually comes from our processed foods and whatnot.
So I think that's something that we definitely will have
to address, is you know, the way we handle our food.
But I also think that, like we've talked about before,
the attachment styles, I think we're going to see a
whole bunch of attachment, not disorders, I guess, because I
don't think there is a disorder specifically, at least not
(12:02):
that I'm aware of, but some a bunch of inattentive
which is a very difficult person to be emotionally close to.
But those people crave it at the same time. And
I feel like, unfortunately, our mental health people like yourself
are going to have their work cut out for them.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
You know, yes, yeah, so there there is definitely The
good news is that kids can get back to learning
these skills really quickly. So I think as parents can
just be super aware of how these things have these
trends affect their children, they can revert so the problems
can go away. So, for instance, there was a study
out of UCLA that showed that if you took technology
(12:40):
away from preteens for just five days, that all of
a sudden, their ability to read emotion from other people's
facial expressions improved tremendously. So just you know, and I
see that with my I have two teenagers, and as
a consequence, sometimes we take the phone and we're not
(13:00):
taking the phone calls away, but we take the texting away.
And when we take the texting away. It forces them
to have phone calls with their friends, and their friends
often don't answer the phone because they're so used to texting,
so they don't even want to answer the phone. But
eventually they realize that they need to answer the phone
in order to talk to you, let's say, my daughter,
and so then they have phone conversations. And then I
(13:24):
realize that they're enjoying the phone conversations. So I feel
like they can go back to having these skills and
just having a healthier way of interacting if we set
some limits on it, and then hopefully they improve their
social skills and that can feeling of connection. I think
that's the part of it is I see this happiness
come from those interactions.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Oh yeah, for sure. And that's interesting. It's only five
days to see a difference, you know, you think it
might take longer than that, but I guess I can
see where it wouldn't, you know. I think there's a
lot of value in, you know, playing with your children,
because you have to teach your kids how to play sometimes,
especially outside, you know, teach them how to build a fort,
teach them how to play in the mud, because they
(14:06):
don't always naturally instinctively know how to do that if
they've spent most of their life indoors. But one of
the things that I did with my kids when they
were teenagers was we their friends would come over and
we would play card games. And at first, when I
proposed the idea, they would roll their eyes and you know,
but as soon as I taught them, you know, a
handful of card games, that was all they ever wanted
to do when they came over. And they always wanted
(14:27):
to involve me, which sometimes I had time for and
sometimes I had to make time for because I did know.
I wanted them to have that enjoyment, and I wanted
to be connected to not only my kids, but their friends.
Do you see that parents are understanding of things like
that or have we lost some of those skills again,
(14:49):
potentially because of technology and the desire to be Instagram famous,
right right?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I think I think parents can also, just like the teenagers,
you know, improve their ability to read emotion with five
days without technology. I think if parents take up breaks,
I think parents can also go back to those same
kinds of interactions, you know. So I think it's I
think we just have to be aware that It's not
all about Facebook and Instagram and taking pictures of everybody
(15:17):
so you can post it. It's about just being in
the moment and enjoying the interaction and not needing to
document it to post it, because sometimes kids don't. They
don't feel a connection if it's through a picture, you know,
if it's through a lens, they're not going to feel
the same connection as you just witnessing the moment with
your eyes. So I think it's important to take breaks, right.
(15:40):
It doesn't mean that you can't post it, just means
that you might want to just limit it and not
have it be about everything.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, for sure. I think there's some kids, so you
can tell they've had a camera in their face pretty
much their whole life. And yeah, some of them embrace
it and some of them, like one of my grandkids
is just like nope.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And that's great that your grandted is setting a limit,
you know.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, he is not a fan. Yeah, So I
let's get back to your book series. I know you
said this is the third one. How many do you
anticipate writing because I said you said you're going in order.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yes, we're hoping to do ten, but it does take
us a very long time to do each book. It
takes us an average of two years, although Whispered one
we've been working on since before the pandemic, that the
pandemic put a hold on it. So but we're hoping
to do ten. We have ten basic skills that we
want to cover.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Okay, can you tell us what those are?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yes? So I don't have the whole list in front
of me, but the first one, the first two are
already out, So that's joby Giraffe learns to look, so
that's the eye contact one, and then there's revenue Rhinoceros
starts to smile, and that's one's about body language, about
being friendly versus unfriendly. And then this third one body
(16:57):
bluss book says Hello. That one comes out at the
end of January, and then we're hoping to cover introducing
yourselves to new friends, so that's going to be the
fourth book and starting a conversation, and then we're going
to do ending conversations because sometimes people struggle with that.
(17:18):
And that's not just children, their adults too can some
struggle ending the conversation. And then we're also going to
cover things like being bossy not being bossy, so some
of those basic skills of just of just how to
interact with people in a way that's not annoying.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, so those are a few, okay, and you expect
to have the next one out? When do you have
a timeline for it? I mean, I know this one
hasn't even come out yet, but after that, Yeah, hopefully by.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
The end of twenty twenty five we can get the
next one out. We have the basic story, but we're
still editing. And then we have Paul Sharp as our illustrator,
and he's amazing, so he said that he would work
on the illustration.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
That sounds awesome. Are you ever going to write a
book for intended for adults with this same type of
information or are you just hoping that they will kind
of find and use these children's books if they need it?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
You know, right? I have been told by doctors often
ask when I go into the doctor, they ask me
what I do for a living. So I tell them
I'm doing these books. And they say that in medical
school they have to take a class on basically social skills,
and they have to read this book on social skills
so that they learn how to interact with their patients.
(18:34):
So they said that they would find this really useful.
I have to look that book up. I'm not sure
what book they use. But yeah, so I hadn't considered
writing it for adults, although maybe I should, but I
just don't know how I would do that. I've always
worked with children, so I'm not sure how I would
go about it. I have to get creative.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, I mean, you clearly are, because you're writing for kids.
That really requires creativity. I know for me and my
college classes for in the Realm of Communications, one of
the classes I took was body language and ours was
you know, how does your body language communicate? And so
I mean I guess you could draw from things like
those textbooks and stuff like that too, if you just
(19:14):
had to take that adventure.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Although thank you, yeah, thank you for letting me know
about that. Yeah, that would be a super adventure. And honestly,
I have my husband works in the computer industry, and
I have seen a need. So I'd have to figure
out how to do that. Yeah, so, yeah, you're giving
me a new idea. I might. I just might do it.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I love it. I love it. I think that's wonderful.
My kids we've had to work on that. We've had
the charts, the feeling charts, you know, to help them
identify the differences between frustrated and angry and things like that.
And I think that there's a lot of people in
the world who kind of need that kind of work
and they don't know where to get it, you know,
(19:59):
or where to find those things. They don't know what exists.
So yeah, let's see that would be very valuable.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yes, we do. We do hope that it will help
the adults as well, So we do hope that parents
will read it along with their children, and it might
make parents more aware of what they're doing as well
and what they're communicating, because I think a lot of
people just don't even stop to think about it, you know.
So for sense eye contact, you know, we just do
it naturally for most of us, but we don't think
(20:27):
about why are we doing it. So in our first book,
Jovi Taraff, we're trying to explain why we're doing it
so people can stop and think, oh, actually, this is
a really important thing that we're doing because we're learning
about we're reading body language by looking at people's eyes
and trying to assess their emotional experience. So we're hoping
(20:47):
that it will give parents something to think about as well,
and then teachers too, you know, So we're hoping that
teachers read these books with their students that they might
also be thinking about it and they can just.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Spread Yeah, definitely, definitely, And I think I don't know
if this is part of the plan, but I know
for my kids, part of the one of the lessons
we also had to work on was, you know, somebody
would come in and bump into them or cut them
off in a line or something like that, and they
would get so upset. And I have to say, some
people just aren't paying attention, Like this isn't always people
(21:22):
doing things that are annoying or whatever, because it's not
all about you all the time. Sometimes people are in
their own little bubble and they're oblivious to the fact
that they're doing things, you know, to you. Of course,
that's what this whole book series you're talking about is about,
is starting to be aware of that. But I think
there's also that lesson to be aware that while you
(21:42):
might have learned to be aware, others may not be.
What are your thoughts on That's that's.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Really true, And actually there's quite a bit of research
on intention. What you're talking about, which is that how
you perceive other people's intention affects your reaction to it, right,
So it affects how you feel about it. And also
it can kids who are more aggressive than other children,
their kids who are pretty high on aggression. A lot
(22:09):
of times what happens is that they perceive that other
people are doing things to them intentionally. So the perception
of intention is a really big issue, and that's a
really big lesson for kids to learn. So you're right on.
You're right on with what you're teaching your kids, and
that would be something for us to consider that Maybe
we could figure out how to do a book on that.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, maybe that one can be for teenagers so that
when they learn to live, they'll realize that, you know,
don't get so mad in traffic, Like you don't have
to be the police when everybody's driving crazy. You just
need to let them do the yeah or yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
In the eighties, the road rage, the adults needed that
less them.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Too exactly exactly you're following where I'm going. Yeah, we
needed this book for adults.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
You're right to figure out how to how to make
them read it. So that's the thing will be the
biggest challenge. Yeah, no, there could be. It's all it
covers all of these issues. I mean, I just think
that social skills, I mean in general, covers all of
these issues because it's every single part of every interaction
that we have every single day, right, you know, yeah,
(23:20):
the people.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And I was just gonna say, it's just so interesting
to me because I almost went into sociology for these reasons.
In psychology because I'm fascinated with people and motivations and
what makes one person tick versus a crowd, what makes
a crowd tick? You know what I'm saying. But we
can look back in history and you know, it wasn't
that long ago. I mean, you know, eighteen hundreds, let's say,
(23:44):
where if a farmer needed to build a barn, he
called his whole community together and they all work together
and they built this personal barn. They didn't get the
benefit of the barn. The neighbors didn't you know what
I'm saying, Like they were building it for somebody else.
But there was no question about well I'm you know
what am I getting I'm too busier, I don't want
to or And now it's like if you were to
try to do the same thing. Now no one's going
(24:06):
to show up, like you're going to have to hire
be right, because nobody's going to come and do this
for free. And it makes you wonder what has changed
so drastically in that time to make society change so drastically, right, right,
And that.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Would be that to be something very interesting to research,
because it is incredibly damaging to us as humans to
have that kind of social support. They I mean, social
support is absolutely incredible. So I was looking up all
the research on social support to see what the effects were,
and it's amazing. It's like diction that social support. For adults,
(24:42):
it decreases stress, it improves physical health, it improves mental health,
it protects against cognitive decline, and it increases people's life
span by seven years, like it makes people live longer
by seven years if they have social support, just from
having social support. And then for children self esteem, it
improves academic skills, it improves the grade, it decreases behavior problems,
(25:06):
it increases their like helping behaviors and their sharing behaviors
and cooperation, and it improves them mental health as well.
And those effects on children are long lasting, like it
lasts into their adulthood. So I think what people are
forgetting is that given to others and having the community
and being supportive of others so that you receive the
(25:29):
support and return is incredibly important for every part of
our health. So yeah, it's something that we really do
need to get back to.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, and I love that you point all that out,
and I have to add to it. You know, back
in the barn raising days or whatever, you might not
have always gotten along with farmer Joe across the street.
He may have made you mad, he may you know
what I'm saying. Like, you may have political differences in
your opinion, You may differ in your choices of how
you live your life and what you do in which
(26:00):
church you go to and where you spend your money,
and that person could be complete opposite different from you,
but there was still that social support. And it's almost
like nowadays if everybody, you know, if you find somebody
who I like to call it holding up a mirror
and says, hey, you're being a little selfish, you're being
a little bossy, you're being a little controlling, you're being
a little fill in the blank. We don't like hearing that.
(26:20):
Nobody likes hearing that, you know, I mean, that's human nature,
but we need to hear it. And instead of needing
to hear it and realizing it and doing something about
refining our edges, people get mad and then they think
that all people are bad and I don't like people,
and I just don't want to be around people, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yes, yes, and somehow we need to get the message
out that actually social support is incredibly important. Yeah, yeah,
for all parts of our lives. So it's yes, somehow
we need to get that message out. So I think
you're doing that, which is really helpful, but it would
be nice if more people. Yes, we do. Yes.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Well, I know we're coming up on the end of
our time, but I want to ask you this question
this way. You're the expert, and I am curious. Is
there anything that the audience needs to know either about
your book, about you know, your motivation for the book,
anything that you've done in your career, anything the audience
needs to know that I didn't know to ask you about.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I guess one of the things is that, well, first
of all, I should mention our website because it's way
easier to remember than the names of our books. Our
website is deckyfriends dot com and that way you can
find the names of the books on there and you
don't have to try to remember those names since some
of the names might be difficult to spell. But yeah,
so on our website we do the links. We're also
(27:42):
talking about just animals in general, so on the website
we put some fun facts about animals because a lot
of these animals are going extinct. So our motivation is
really one to improve social connection for children, but also
have the adults who read these books with their children
or their student or their clients just be more aware
(28:04):
of these issues and also just be thinking about We
set the books in Namibia, and the reason for that
is to think on a more global level. We want
to expose children to other countries. So we want children
to be thinking, you know, my country is not the
only country in the world. We need to cooperate with
people everywhere. We need to think about, you know, be curious,
(28:26):
be curious about other cultures, be curious about how it
might be different, are the same from our culture, and
just be thinking about the world in general and how
people get along.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, I love that. I think that's really important. And
so that's Ducky friends like quack quack duck right.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yes, yes, ducky friends dot com. Yeah, Zucky with a why?
Speaker 1 (28:48):
And then if we want to buy these books, is
there any particular place or could we find them pretty easy?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
They're on Amazon and Bonds and Noble and they're they're
listed so that booksellers like Boo bookstores could order them
that they're not in local bookstores currently. We're working on
that as well.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Awesome. All right, Well, hopefully you'll get a whole bunch
of Christmas orders soon.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Thank you. I'm very nice. Yeah. Yeah, we're hoping to
spread the word. That's their goal, and we'll just keep
plugging on anthees.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the
show today and for sharing about your books and from
you know, the things that you know that you're trying
to share knowledge with people so that we can all
live in a better society.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity
and thank you for sharing this information.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I hope you've enjoyed today's show. Thanks for tuning into
the show on your favorite local radio station. You can
now listen to this show or past shows through the
iheartapp or on iHeart dot Com. Just search for Virginia
Focus under podcasts. I'm Rebecca Hughes with the Virginia News Network,
and I'll be here next week on Virginia Focus
Welcome to Virginia Focus. I'm Rebecca Hughes of the Virginia
News Network. Developing skills to get along with others is
as essential as reading, writing, or math for kids. However,
the digital age has removed many chances for children to
learn these important social skills. How can parents assist their
little ones and naturally progressing social skills and how to
(00:27):
get along with others? We're learning more from Patty Bardena, PhD.
And her new book. Patti Blessbach says, Hello, a lesson
in greetings, Welcome to the show, doctor Bardena. It is
so nice to talk to you. I'm anxious to hear
more about your book and more about today's topic.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm so excited to be here. Thank you so much
for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So why don't we start by explaining to people why
you are an expert in this field.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah. So, I've always been interested in social skills. That's
something that has appealed to me because I feel like
friendship is so important to mental health. So I've been
doing that for a very long time, over thirty years now.
I got my masters in school counseling. So while I
was working as a school counselor. I would run friendship
(01:16):
groups and help children learn social skills so that they
could have more friends. And then my co author and I,
Joanne Burgess, we used to work together as mental health
specialists at Seattle Children's Hospital and part of our job
was to teach social skills to children on the autism spectrum.
And then I've contributed doing social skills groups ever since. Then.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Wow, that's that's amazing. So you definitely are the expert
in this, and I know we've seen an increase in
autism pretty significantly over the years. Is that part of
what motivated you to write this book or was it
something else?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Really, it was just children in general. It always made me,
I guess, stress out when I saw children being excluded
on the playground, So that was part of my motivation,
was just making sure that all kids felt included. And
we know a lot about social support. The social support
is incredibly important for mental health. It's actually incredibly important
(02:16):
for physical health as well. It can increase people's longevity
their lifespan. So just social skills has always been very
important to me.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Gotcha, and how did you come up with the name
of the book.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
So we set the books in Namibia, a country in
Africa that's a pretty new country, and the animals who
live there for real. So there are lots of giraffes
and elephants and rhinoceroses and all kinds of animals in Namibia,
and the Maybia's goal is to help preserve these species.
So we took names from Namibia and used them to
(02:51):
name the characters. So our last book in the series, Body,
bleas Bach says, Hello, Body is a name that's used
in Namibia that we wanted to be authentic to where
the animals come from.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Okay, I love that. I love that, And it's a
lesson in greetings. Obviously, greetings are one of those things
that you know, it's really important because that's the first
impression anybody gets of you. Is that why you chose that?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yes, yes, we're trying to do the books in a
sequential order. So what makes most sense for what's the
first step in interacting with other people? So we're starting
with very basic skills. So our first set of books
is about all the basic skills, Like the first one
is on eye contact, the second one is on body language,
and then this one has been saying hello, and I
(03:41):
believe that those three skills right there are the very
first step in how you interact with someone. So that's
how we got started.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Okay, So one kind of things will we find in
this book as far as lessons that are shared.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, so Body Blosy in this one, we're following bodies
experience and what he's observing. So it's a little bit
of a difference style where we're following Body Blusbock's thought process.
And I should let you know that a bluz block
is a type of antelope, so that that's not like
a foreign word to people. So Body is this cute
little antelope and he's going around and he's observing all
(04:20):
the different ways that people say hello, and then he
chooses which way he feels most comfortable saying hello. So
there are actually quite a few options for how we
can say hello to other people, and people do usually
choose whatever they're most comfortable with. So at least that way,
kulds have a choice for how they say hello. But
then they learned that they are supposed to say hello.
(04:43):
They can't just not say hello, you know. So that's
our cool, right.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
And I think that's a good lesson to learn because
you know, as mental health and all that has become
more and more predominant, and more and more people are
embracing it and we're losing the the bias against it
that has been around for so long. One of the
things that we find is, you know, you're taught you
(05:08):
don't have to force your kids to hug family members
or whatever, which I agree with, But at the same time,
there's certain social things that still need to be done,
and it's something simple like saying hello. Like you're talking
about what other things can parents get from this book?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, so parents can just use the book as a prompt.
So we're hoping that parents and children will read these
books together and then they can discuss the social skills. So,
for instance, while Body's saying hello to let's say Jovi
giraffe in the book, he's at that point he's kind
of grumpy and he doesn't need the appropriate body language
(05:48):
to say hello. So Body's mother intervenes and says, you know,
you really need to be friendly while saying hello, and
then look at how you made Jovi giraffe feel. And
Body realizes that he made Jovi jurafeel sad. So just
pointing out these experiences to children can make them more
aware of how their behavior impacts other people and discussing
(06:12):
it so that children are more aware, and then the
parents in real life can point out those skills and
those situations to their kids that they can say, oh,
remember how body blows box that hello to his friends.
How are you going to say hello to your friends
when you go to school, or how do you like
to say hello to your friends, or how do you
want to say hello to our family friends? Just pointing
(06:33):
out that it's similar to body blossbox experience and you
can apply it to real life. Yeah, so what.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Are some of the barriers that hold everyone back? Not
just children but adults too.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Honestly, I feel like technology is are we taking a toll?
There isn't a whole lot of research on that, but
we are seeing some trends in our lifestyles. So and
it's not just children. So a lot of times we
focus on how children think technology and then maybe aren't
socializing as much. But it's also parents who are using
technology and aren't interacting with their children in the same
(07:08):
way as they used to, so they might not expose
their children to the same social skills that they used
to do. So, I just think that we need to
just take a step back and think about that and
think about how we're interacting with each other and hopefully
get back on track with teaching social skills.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah. I'm glad you pointed that out, because I mean,
I grew up as technology was coming up in my twenties, okay,
my late teens twenties, and you know, I love psychology
in general, and one of the things that I have
learned over the years is about attachment styles. And of
course those were studied originally in children, but they stay
(07:50):
with us through our life. And you know, there's the
three styles. I know you're familiar. I'm wondering what kind
of affect that technology and this lack of attention. I mean,
you know, we have parents who will hear and respond
but never take their eye off the screen, and I'm
wondering how that might affect attachment styles of this up
(08:12):
and coming generation.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah. I'm hoping that some researchers are listening to you
right now, because this is an area that I don't
think has been studied yet, and that's a really big topic,
is figuring out how it's affecting attachments between parents and children.
I did once see, for instance, I was just walking
down the street and I saw a dad walking with
(08:34):
his toddler, and the toddler kept looking at the dad,
and the dad was on his cell phone the entire
time and walking down the street and just completely ignoring
his child. And so these are things that we really
have to be careful of because technology is meant to
be addictive, right, so it's set up to hook us
in and make us stare at our screens all of
the time, and that really takes a toll on interactions.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, and it's sad. I mean, I've seen even people
older than me. But it's a daughter and a mother
out to lunch, and you know, the elderly mother is
sitting there just kind of staring off into space because
her daughter is again stuck in a cell phone, and
they spent their entire lunch and I think they barely
said three words to each other. And it was just, wow,
(09:20):
the saddest thing, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yes, yes, I think it's really important that we take
a step back and just look at ourselves and see
how much are we on our screens versus you know,
how much we're interacting with other people.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
And of course other things also affect social skills. I mean,
if a child has anxiety, which I think we're seeing
an increase in that, APHD, autism, we're seeing increases in that.
Even depression I think can have an effect on all
of that as well. What do you see as far
as research into those things. Are we making any headway
as to finding out what causes those things and how
(09:55):
to slow that down?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, you know, there really is a enough research. One
thing that I noticed is that people got very concerned
about the lack of social support from the pandemic, But
actually when they did research on that to see what
the effects were of the pandemic, they found that the
trends had actually been increasing before the pandemic. So there
(10:19):
was a national survey of children's health and they found
that the five years before twenty twenty, so before the pandemic,
five and a half million kids had been diagnosed with
anxiety and more than two million kids had been diagnosed
with depression. And those are just the kids who got diagnosed.
Those aren't the kids all of the kids who experienced anxiety,
those are the ones who actually got taken in, assessed
(10:40):
and then diagnosed. So the trends were already increasing before
the pandemic, and so we know that something else is
going on. And one thing another trend that we saw,
which is why I think that technology must be involved
in this, is that there was a decrease before the
pandemic of how much that's the collectivity of children were
(11:01):
getting and also how many young children were read too
daily by the parents, so that trend was going down also.
So it just seems to correlate with how involved we
are in technology. I don't notice for a fact because
there hasn't been enough research, but it just.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Makes me wonder, right, And I mean, obviously we can't
predict the future, but if you were to ask me,
my speculation is, I've read some studies that say inflammation
in the body is a big contributor to things like
anxiety and depression. They're saying that potentially heavy metals and
things are also a part of that, and a lot
(11:42):
of that stuff actually comes from our processed foods and whatnot.
So I think that's something that we definitely will have
to address, is you know, the way we handle our food.
But I also think that, like we've talked about before,
the attachment styles, I think we're going to see a
whole bunch of attachment, not disorders, I guess, because I
don't think there is a disorder specifically, at least not
(12:02):
that I'm aware of, but some a bunch of inattentive
which is a very difficult person to be emotionally close to.
But those people crave it at the same time. And
I feel like, unfortunately, our mental health people like yourself
are going to have their work cut out for them.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
You know, yes, yeah, so there there is definitely The
good news is that kids can get back to learning
these skills really quickly. So I think as parents can
just be super aware of how these things have these
trends affect their children, they can revert so the problems
can go away. So, for instance, there was a study
out of UCLA that showed that if you took technology
(12:40):
away from preteens for just five days, that all of
a sudden, their ability to read emotion from other people's
facial expressions improved tremendously. So just you know, and I
see that with my I have two teenagers, and as
a consequence, sometimes we take the phone and we're not
(13:00):
taking the phone calls away, but we take the texting away.
And when we take the texting away. It forces them
to have phone calls with their friends, and their friends
often don't answer the phone because they're so used to texting,
so they don't even want to answer the phone. But
eventually they realize that they need to answer the phone
in order to talk to you, let's say, my daughter,
and so then they have phone conversations. And then I
(13:24):
realize that they're enjoying the phone conversations. So I feel
like they can go back to having these skills and
just having a healthier way of interacting if we set
some limits on it, and then hopefully they improve their
social skills and that can feeling of connection. I think
that's the part of it is I see this happiness
come from those interactions.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Oh yeah, for sure. And that's interesting. It's only five
days to see a difference, you know, you think it
might take longer than that, but I guess I can
see where it wouldn't, you know. I think there's a
lot of value in, you know, playing with your children,
because you have to teach your kids how to play sometimes,
especially outside, you know, teach them how to build a fort,
teach them how to play in the mud, because they
(14:06):
don't always naturally instinctively know how to do that if
they've spent most of their life indoors. But one of
the things that I did with my kids when they
were teenagers was we their friends would come over and
we would play card games. And at first, when I
proposed the idea, they would roll their eyes and you know,
but as soon as I taught them, you know, a
handful of card games, that was all they ever wanted
to do when they came over. And they always wanted
(14:27):
to involve me, which sometimes I had time for and
sometimes I had to make time for because I did know.
I wanted them to have that enjoyment, and I wanted
to be connected to not only my kids, but their friends.
Do you see that parents are understanding of things like
that or have we lost some of those skills again,
(14:49):
potentially because of technology and the desire to be Instagram famous,
right right?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I think I think parents can also, just like the teenagers,
you know, improve their ability to read emotion with five
days without technology. I think if parents take up breaks,
I think parents can also go back to those same
kinds of interactions, you know. So I think it's I
think we just have to be aware that It's not
all about Facebook and Instagram and taking pictures of everybody
(15:17):
so you can post it. It's about just being in
the moment and enjoying the interaction and not needing to
document it to post it, because sometimes kids don't. They
don't feel a connection if it's through a picture, you know,
if it's through a lens, they're not going to feel
the same connection as you just witnessing the moment with
your eyes. So I think it's important to take breaks, right.
(15:40):
It doesn't mean that you can't post it, just means
that you might want to just limit it and not
have it be about everything.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, for sure. I think there's some kids, so you
can tell they've had a camera in their face pretty
much their whole life. And yeah, some of them embrace
it and some of them, like one of my grandkids
is just like nope.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And that's great that your grandted is setting a limit,
you know.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, he is not a fan. Yeah, So I
let's get back to your book series. I know you
said this is the third one. How many do you
anticipate writing because I said you said you're going in order.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yes, we're hoping to do ten, but it does take
us a very long time to do each book. It
takes us an average of two years, although Whispered one
we've been working on since before the pandemic, that the
pandemic put a hold on it. So but we're hoping
to do ten. We have ten basic skills that we
want to cover.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Okay, can you tell us what those are?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yes? So I don't have the whole list in front
of me, but the first one, the first two are
already out, So that's joby Giraffe learns to look, so
that's the eye contact one, and then there's revenue Rhinoceros
starts to smile, and that's one's about body language, about
being friendly versus unfriendly. And then this third one body
(16:57):
bluss book says Hello. That one comes out at the
end of January, and then we're hoping to cover introducing
yourselves to new friends, so that's going to be the
fourth book and starting a conversation, and then we're going
to do ending conversations because sometimes people struggle with that.
(17:18):
And that's not just children, their adults too can some
struggle ending the conversation. And then we're also going to
cover things like being bossy not being bossy, so some
of those basic skills of just of just how to
interact with people in a way that's not annoying.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Yeah, so those are a few, okay, and you expect
to have the next one out? When do you have
a timeline for it? I mean, I know this one
hasn't even come out yet, but after that, Yeah, hopefully by.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
The end of twenty twenty five we can get the
next one out. We have the basic story, but we're
still editing. And then we have Paul Sharp as our illustrator,
and he's amazing, so he said that he would work
on the illustration.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
That sounds awesome. Are you ever going to write a
book for intended for adults with this same type of
information or are you just hoping that they will kind
of find and use these children's books if they need it?
Speaker 2 (18:13):
You know, right? I have been told by doctors often
ask when I go into the doctor, they ask me
what I do for a living. So I tell them
I'm doing these books. And they say that in medical
school they have to take a class on basically social skills,
and they have to read this book on social skills
so that they learn how to interact with their patients.
(18:34):
So they said that they would find this really useful.
I have to look that book up. I'm not sure
what book they use. But yeah, so I hadn't considered
writing it for adults, although maybe I should, but I
just don't know how I would do that. I've always
worked with children, so I'm not sure how I would
go about it. I have to get creative.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, I mean, you clearly are, because you're writing for kids.
That really requires creativity. I know for me and my
college classes for in the Realm of Communications, one of
the classes I took was body language and ours was
you know, how does your body language communicate? And so
I mean I guess you could draw from things like
those textbooks and stuff like that too, if you just
(19:14):
had to take that adventure.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Although thank you, yeah, thank you for letting me know
about that. Yeah, that would be a super adventure. And honestly,
I have my husband works in the computer industry, and
I have seen a need. So I'd have to figure
out how to do that. Yeah, so, yeah, you're giving
me a new idea. I might. I just might do it.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I love it. I love it. I think that's wonderful.
My kids we've had to work on that. We've had
the charts, the feeling charts, you know, to help them
identify the differences between frustrated and angry and things like that.
And I think that there's a lot of people in
the world who kind of need that kind of work
and they don't know where to get it, you know,
(19:59):
or where to find those things. They don't know what exists.
So yeah, let's see that would be very valuable.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yes, we do. We do hope that it will help
the adults as well, So we do hope that parents
will read it along with their children, and it might
make parents more aware of what they're doing as well
and what they're communicating, because I think a lot of
people just don't even stop to think about it, you know.
So for sense eye contact, you know, we just do
it naturally for most of us, but we don't think
(20:27):
about why are we doing it. So in our first book,
Jovi Taraff, we're trying to explain why we're doing it
so people can stop and think, oh, actually, this is
a really important thing that we're doing because we're learning
about we're reading body language by looking at people's eyes
and trying to assess their emotional experience. So we're hoping
(20:47):
that it will give parents something to think about as well,
and then teachers too, you know, So we're hoping that
teachers read these books with their students that they might
also be thinking about it and they can just.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Spread Yeah, definitely, definitely, And I think I don't know
if this is part of the plan, but I know
for my kids, part of the one of the lessons
we also had to work on was, you know, somebody
would come in and bump into them or cut them
off in a line or something like that, and they
would get so upset. And I have to say, some
people just aren't paying attention, Like this isn't always people
(21:22):
doing things that are annoying or whatever, because it's not
all about you all the time. Sometimes people are in
their own little bubble and they're oblivious to the fact
that they're doing things, you know, to you. Of course,
that's what this whole book series you're talking about is about,
is starting to be aware of that. But I think
there's also that lesson to be aware that while you
(21:42):
might have learned to be aware, others may not be.
What are your thoughts on That's that's.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Really true, And actually there's quite a bit of research
on intention. What you're talking about, which is that how
you perceive other people's intention affects your reaction to it, right,
So it affects how you feel about it. And also
it can kids who are more aggressive than other children,
their kids who are pretty high on aggression. A lot
(22:09):
of times what happens is that they perceive that other
people are doing things to them intentionally. So the perception
of intention is a really big issue, and that's a
really big lesson for kids to learn. So you're right on.
You're right on with what you're teaching your kids, and
that would be something for us to consider that Maybe
we could figure out how to do a book on that.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, maybe that one can be for teenagers so that
when they learn to live, they'll realize that, you know,
don't get so mad in traffic, Like you don't have
to be the police when everybody's driving crazy. You just
need to let them do the yeah or yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
In the eighties, the road rage, the adults needed that
less them.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Too exactly exactly you're following where I'm going. Yeah, we
needed this book for adults.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
You're right to figure out how to how to make
them read it. So that's the thing will be the
biggest challenge. Yeah, no, there could be. It's all it
covers all of these issues. I mean, I just think
that social skills, I mean in general, covers all of
these issues because it's every single part of every interaction
that we have every single day, right, you know, yeah,
(23:20):
the people.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
And I was just gonna say, it's just so interesting
to me because I almost went into sociology for these reasons.
In psychology because I'm fascinated with people and motivations and
what makes one person tick versus a crowd, what makes
a crowd tick? You know what I'm saying. But we
can look back in history and you know, it wasn't
that long ago. I mean, you know, eighteen hundreds, let's say,
(23:44):
where if a farmer needed to build a barn, he
called his whole community together and they all work together
and they built this personal barn. They didn't get the
benefit of the barn. The neighbors didn't you know what
I'm saying, Like they were building it for somebody else.
But there was no question about well I'm you know
what am I getting I'm too busier, I don't want
to or And now it's like if you were to
try to do the same thing. Now no one's going
(24:06):
to show up, like you're going to have to hire
be right, because nobody's going to come and do this
for free. And it makes you wonder what has changed
so drastically in that time to make society change so drastically, right, right,
And that.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Would be that to be something very interesting to research,
because it is incredibly damaging to us as humans to
have that kind of social support. They I mean, social
support is absolutely incredible. So I was looking up all
the research on social support to see what the effects were,
and it's amazing. It's like diction that social support. For adults,
(24:42):
it decreases stress, it improves physical health, it improves mental health,
it protects against cognitive decline, and it increases people's life
span by seven years, like it makes people live longer
by seven years if they have social support, just from
having social support. And then for children self esteem, it
improves academic skills, it improves the grade, it decreases behavior problems,
(25:06):
it increases their like helping behaviors and their sharing behaviors
and cooperation, and it improves them mental health as well.
And those effects on children are long lasting, like it
lasts into their adulthood. So I think what people are
forgetting is that given to others and having the community
and being supportive of others so that you receive the
(25:29):
support and return is incredibly important for every part of
our health. So yeah, it's something that we really do
need to get back to.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, and I love that you point all that out,
and I have to add to it. You know, back
in the barn raising days or whatever, you might not
have always gotten along with farmer Joe across the street.
He may have made you mad, he may you know
what I'm saying. Like, you may have political differences in
your opinion, You may differ in your choices of how
you live your life and what you do in which
(26:00):
church you go to and where you spend your money,
and that person could be complete opposite different from you,
but there was still that social support. And it's almost
like nowadays if everybody, you know, if you find somebody
who I like to call it holding up a mirror
and says, hey, you're being a little selfish, you're being
a little bossy, you're being a little controlling, you're being
a little fill in the blank. We don't like hearing that.
(26:20):
Nobody likes hearing that, you know, I mean, that's human nature,
but we need to hear it. And instead of needing
to hear it and realizing it and doing something about
refining our edges, people get mad and then they think
that all people are bad and I don't like people,
and I just don't want to be around people, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Yes, yes, and somehow we need to get the message
out that actually social support is incredibly important. Yeah, yeah,
for all parts of our lives. So it's yes, somehow
we need to get that message out. So I think
you're doing that, which is really helpful, but it would
be nice if more people. Yes, we do. Yes.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Well, I know we're coming up on the end of
our time, but I want to ask you this question
this way. You're the expert, and I am curious. Is
there anything that the audience needs to know either about
your book, about you know, your motivation for the book,
anything that you've done in your career, anything the audience
needs to know that I didn't know to ask you about.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I guess one of the things is that, well, first
of all, I should mention our website because it's way
easier to remember than the names of our books. Our
website is deckyfriends dot com and that way you can
find the names of the books on there and you
don't have to try to remember those names since some
of the names might be difficult to spell. But yeah,
so on our website we do the links. We're also
(27:42):
talking about just animals in general, so on the website
we put some fun facts about animals because a lot
of these animals are going extinct. So our motivation is
really one to improve social connection for children, but also
have the adults who read these books with their children
or their student or their clients just be more aware
(28:04):
of these issues and also just be thinking about We
set the books in Namibia, and the reason for that
is to think on a more global level. We want
to expose children to other countries. So we want children
to be thinking, you know, my country is not the
only country in the world. We need to cooperate with
people everywhere. We need to think about, you know, be curious,
(28:26):
be curious about other cultures, be curious about how it
might be different, are the same from our culture, and
just be thinking about the world in general and how
people get along.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, I love that. I think that's really important. And
so that's Ducky friends like quack quack duck right.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yes, yes, ducky friends dot com. Yeah, Zucky with a why?
Speaker 1 (28:48):
And then if we want to buy these books, is
there any particular place or could we find them pretty easy?
Speaker 2 (28:53):
They're on Amazon and Bonds and Noble and they're they're
listed so that booksellers like Boo bookstores could order them
that they're not in local bookstores currently. We're working on
that as well.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Awesome. All right, Well, hopefully you'll get a whole bunch
of Christmas orders soon.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Thank you. I'm very nice. Yeah. Yeah, we're hoping to
spread the word. That's their goal, and we'll just keep
plugging on anthees.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the
show today and for sharing about your books and from
you know, the things that you know that you're trying
to share knowledge with people so that we can all
live in a better society.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity
and thank you for sharing this information.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I hope you've enjoyed today's show. Thanks for tuning into
the show on your favorite local radio station. You can
now listen to this show or past shows through the
iheartapp or on iHeart dot Com. Just search for Virginia
Focus under podcasts. I'm Rebecca Hughes with the Virginia News Network,
and I'll be here next week on Virginia Focus
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