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Now here’s today’s host Dr. Eric. Hello.
Welcome to ChiroSecure. Look to the children. Uh, my name is Dr. Erik Kowalke excited to be on here for you today. If you’re watching this, hopefully you’re a chiropractor that wants to see more kids and families, uh, and communicate better. Uh, I’m a dad of six myself. They’re homeschooling right across the hall from me. So if you hear the door slamming or kids yelling, that’s just part of the show. Uh, I did this the first Thursday of every month. We have an office in grand Rapids, Michigan. They see several hundred kids every week, uh, 12 3,000 patients a week, uh, at a high volume. So we get a lot of practice in a lot of different stuff, but, um, I’m really passionate about just communicating to parents and connecting with parents and figuring out how to just teach them why it’s important to get kids just said, and through this time, that’s the most important thing you could be doing?
The number one reason why you don’t have more kids and families lining up to come into your practice is cause they just don’t know that they don’t know what you do. And they don’t know why it’s important that their kid come into your office or get their spine checked. They don’t know the importance of the spine. They don’t know the importance of the nervous system. So we’re going to go over a bunch of fun stuff today that you can tie being back to school and this whole theme and the environment that we’re in right now, everything going on with COVID. And how do you tie that into marketing and how do you tie that into education? Um, most importantly, to just reach parents and reach kids and, and improve the health of your community. So, uh, with that, I also started a software company skid that allows us to communicate to all of our patients via mobile phone and emails and automate that process.
And so some really cool things that we do in our office for that. Um, so take some notes, uh, generate some ideas that you can take back tomorrow or next week, we’re going to go 15, 20 minutes. So if you’re on lunch or whatever, you can catch this, uh, and watch it, take some notes, implement something again, I, I do this the first Thursday of every month. Thanks so much doctors do Hoffman for hosting these and putting these on and all the work that goes into all the different stuff with look to the children and the webinars series. So let’s get right at it. So, uh, in this environment, whole-school is exploding millions and millions, more kids. If you look up, uh, all the information are choosing the homeschool now because they don’t want their kid to go to school, wearing a mask and social distancing and all the crazy stuff.
So what does a homeschool environment look like compared to in school and what problems could kids be having at home related to their spine and their health and their nervous system that they might not be having at school? Uh, so they’re going to be sitting a lot more potentially in certain places and maybe chairs that are worse. They’re going to be, they’re working on the couch or they’re doing things like that, or they’re, uh, you know, on an iPad or on a screen, or what does the environment look like? That could be different than when they’re in the classroom at school. Um, and so you, you face challenges both ways in the classroom at school, they’re up in there at recess a lot. So when they’re at home, are they taking recesses? Are they on video games a lot more? Um, are they on tablets, more where their postures looking down, what’s going on?
So you might just need to ask questions to different people in your, in your office and start to get some of that information up. And then you tailor what you’re going to educate on based on the feedback that they give you in the environment that that child is working in. And you can give them some tips on, Hey, you should do this. You know, a lot of times I see kids that read a lot, like a lot, a lot in the blow through a Harry Potter series or something they’re sitting on a couch or something reading in there and their posture is just crank this way. So something easy they can do as a land, the bed and read the book, lean on your bed, on your stomach for 15, 20 minutes of every hour or something, and reverse your cervical posture, just doing that. And that can take a lot of pressure off their spine and help them in that way.
But learning more about the people that you see in your office and tailoring, what you say to them is super important. Uh, gaming stuff is just crazy. So some kids game a ton, and this is really, isn’t something that you ask a lot. You know, I don’t have these conversations a lot, but now that kids are at home, this fall a lot more than they are, it’s something that can come up. And sometimes it’s, it’s good to have those conversations with the parents and the kid’s not there. Cause the kid doesn’t want you to be telling the parent, you know, they probably shouldn’t be on game for six hours straight. So just make sure that they’re staying active. The parent knows like, okay, this can be harmful to their spine if they’re on it like tons and their posture. So how are they playing? Where are they playing?
How are they sitting? There’s just some easy, simple things. As long as the parents aware of it, they might be able to be more interactive and interacted with their kid around that whole scenario. So now that we get into sports, so if you’re in a state that they’re doing sports or doing sports, but not talking about doing sports, which is a lot around here, you look at the different sports. So this is something that I would encourage you. If you have a tie to a sport or you’re passionate about a sport, pick that one to talk about, to advertise. So in our office, if we’re doing a theme or an education, so let’s pick a gymnastics for example. So we can just picture gymnastics, kids flipping and doing crazy stuff. Cheerleading and gymnastics for girls are like tons of injuries, uh, cheerleading injuries for girls and spinal problems.
I see similar to football for, for boys and parents usually have no clue that it could be that significant, but if you see kids, you know that, so maybe we want to educate on gymnastics and what that can do to the spine and the health of the spine for a week. So we’re going to have it on our screens. We’re going to create some slideshows. You can do it in Canva, really easily canvas that comes to super easy, free service. You can use to create graphics, put ’em up on your screens and your waiting room. Uh, we print out a handout that we give to patients. We put something in our adjusting rooms. We have screens in our adjusting rooms. We can put it on, but if you have a chalkboard, you could write facts about, uh, gymnastics and how it affects kids. Even if their kids don’t have gymnastics, they know somebody’s kids who does do gymnastics.
And so that will just spread throughout the office. It gives you something to talk about too. And you’re adjusting rooms. That’s a little bit different every day. Uh, and we also send SCAD messages out. So we’ll send them a text message about information. So we’ll take that information and the graphic we’ll put it into like a blog post or a post on our site and have a unique URL. So get higher health.com/gymnastics or something. And then we’ll send that link out through SCAD, which will go to all the patients so they can click on it and it can see that information electronically and they can share it from there to their friends or whatever. And you’re really just trying to get awareness out on like, Hey, if your kid does gymnastics, you should be looking at posture. You should be looking at, you know, injuries that kids can can get.
And then they’re fine the next day. But it resulted in a subluxation of the spine. That’s going to result in lack of performance and more stuff down the road and injuries that you could prevent through doing this. And then, however, your analysis system, if you’re doing posture analysis in the office, or you’re doing some screening offer a complimentary or discounted way to screen them or to see, Hey, does this kid have subluxations? Is it is a spine and nervous system check, uh, worth their time to come in and, and do so that stuff is super fun. So gymnastics, backflips is a huge thing, starting football. I have kids in football. If you watch them play football, the worst grades are like middle school because there’s some kids that are like 140 pounds. And there’s other kids that are 60 pounds and nobody really knows how to tackle properly.
So they’re just like spirit each other, and it’s crazy stuff’s going on? And those are the kids that like, Oh my gosh, she’s standing on the practice field and you watch them. Those kids need to get checked. So coming up with a clever picture that shows like a little kid playing football, getting tackled or something that draws somebody’s attention, pictures, say a thousand words or speak a thousand words. So using really important graphics in your marketing. This could also turn into a Facebook ad if you’re targeting kids or families or parents, and you’re educating them. So Facebook ads, blog posts, print articles in your office, uh, stuff on your slide shows in your office and then skip text messages and emails. All of that relates around football or gymnastics or soccer or all those different things. And so soccer and hockey are the biggest ones I see
For a concussion stuff, football
Two, but for some reason, lately in the last couple of seasons soccer and hockey, I’ve seen them
Ton more, um, hockey.
They can just be crazy. And you go after that because, uh, unfortunately I think coaches care more. The fact that the kid gets a concussion, he can’t play. And if he’s one of those star players, it’s, it really hurts the team for games coming up. So they don’t want their kids getting concussions for one. Cause they care about the kids for two, they can’t play if they get a concussion for a significant period of time. So in hockey, if you’re in a tournament for a whole weekend, the kid gets a concussion on Friday, he’s out the whole weekend. You could lose a tournament if it’s a star player or it stresses everybody else on the team. So you could set up talks to hockey clubs you could, and all the different hockey era, you know, marinas, and then send them information, go in there, talk to the coaches.
So many things you can do around this. That’s super, super important. So a kid that gets into in a head on collision of the boards, playing hockey is going to be at a loss, a lot higher odds of getting injured. If he’s subluxated going into that crash versus subluxated and teaching that it’s important to keep kids spines functioning healthy before they get an accident or an injury is a whole other matter on shift because usually the coaches and parents are like, well, if they get injured, I’ll bring them to the chiropractor. You can fix whatever they injured and then there’ll be okay. When reality is the injury really is being subluxated, that they don’t even know they’re subluxated, which further causes trauma to the spine and ligaments and tissues around it when they do get in a trauma or traumatic incident. So if you can improve the function of the spine, it reduces the chances of you getting injured due to trauma.
And if you can educate that, then it makes sense to get kids checked prior to them ever experiencing trauma or having issues and symptoms. And then you can keep them healthy from the start. So that’s a super important way that you always bring it back to why should they get checked for subluxations prior to getting into those injuries? So baseball they’re sliding into bases or diving into basis, uh, soccer they’re heading balls, concussion issues, just like kids wake up up with torticollis, you know, for two days. And then it goes away like there’s so much history you learn from parents like that. They’re like, Oh yeah, you know, every three months he wakes up and his next like this and you’re like, Oh my gosh, there’s something significantly going on there. Um, weightlifting is huge. I mean, kids are starting to weightless a lot more and a lot earlier than they ever did before technique and posture.
I mean, you can do a whole class on that in your office. You could tackle all these sports once a week for the next six or eight weeks. This season is just hardcore. Of course. Um, and so it’s a perfect intro to get information about subluxation and nervous system interference in front of parents. So those are the sports let’s go on to hobbies and look at hobbies that start a lot during this time of year piano kids playing the piano a lot in different instruments, like the violin and the guitar. I mean, if you’ve ever tried to play a violin, I haven’t, but like a couple of times with my kids would have him, fuck this. I can’t play the violin. I don’t even know how to get by like neck, the whole thing. Right? So if kids are playing that for hours and hours and hours and hours violinists in the office and they have their own unique issues going on, you could do a whole thing.
If you’re passionate about violin or instruments, have a picture of somebody playing a violin. Yeah. And use that whole thing around marketing around how to improve that the function of the spine. If you play instruments and then you can go into like improvement of the cervical spine. So you improve the cervical spine, you improve lung capacity, which if you’re singing or billowing on instruments, improves your ability to play the instrument. And you can go into that whole thing. There’s a lot of different avenues. You can take it, uh, horseback riding this time of year SSI, joint stress. Obviously if they’re falling off horses, which happens all the time, you get all kinds of crazy injuries, but just the art of riding a horse and S I joint pressure is a huge thing that I see a lot, uh, martial arts ballet is another one that causes a lot of joint sacred stress teaching just the anatomy of the spine.
The secret is different segments that don’t fuse together yet. So if it’s a child and you know, they’re getting an injuries or they’re horseback riding, and the sacrum is subluxated, not a place at multiple different levels. If that’s not corrected it fuses together like that causes the base of the spine to be off as causes further compensation in the structure of the spine, as a developed that you can’t maybe ever get back to where it was because now the base is solidified teaching. All of that is super important and it brings you down a whole nother rabbit hole. So hobbies are really important to this time of year, where a lot of times we focus on stress, but kids are in a lot of other stuff too. Um, and different clubs where maybe they’re using computers a lot, even more so than before. So getting all that information wrapped together and advertising is a whole nother marketing strategy and way to educate parents on subluxations.
So, uh, computer work alone. If you start to look up some data on this, and I encourage you to put stats in for every one of these that you do. So if you do computer stress, put a picture of somebody to computer, find three to five stats on what it does. So there’s a 300% increase in disc pressure sitting versus standing and moving around. So you’re sitting all day long. Here’s a stat that increases it. Here’s a research article that goes along with it and post that back up on there. Um, and then a whole other factor that we really aren’t considering. I think as significant as it is, is just the stress that kids are under. Now. We’re in mass all day long. If they’re in that scenario, even being at home now, if they weren’t before totally different environment, um, kids are under stress.
You know, we’re under stress trying to deal with all this craziness going on in the country. Well, kids are just experienced that too. They hear what we’re saying here with their teachers are saying they hear everybody complaining around them. They hear people freaking out. There are people yelling at each other. They hear like that’s stressful to a kid. Their environment is totally different now than it was last year. So they’re under a lot more stress. So when you’re, if you do HRV in your office, you’ll see this, we do heart rate, variability, nerve scans, and stuff through CLA, and you can see kids scans different. Now you can see stress on them that you typically don’t see in kids with all of this going on and communicating that to parents is super valuable as well on, you know, just having a conversation, it’ll open up a ability for the parents to realize, Oh yeah, you know, maybe, maybe we could do this, you know, depending on the scenario to make the stress, not so bad on kids, but even there, they’re breathing stress with bass.
I mean, there’s so many any areas there that are just so important to realize that, you know, kids, aren’t going to say it a lot of times, they don’t even know that they’re under stress, but sleep is so important. And if you look up how much sleep kids should be getting, I mean, typically little kids, that’s like 12 hours, 11 hours, 10 hours as they get a little bit older. If they’re in school and in sports, a lot of times there’ll be lucky to get seven or eight hours of sleep getting up early and get on the bus on top of worrying mass and all the stress and everything going on. That’s just not enough. I mean, they’re going to get sick this fall. Their immune system is going to be down. They’re not going to perform as the best. And I can remember their stuff in school.
Um, you know, kids that have a hard time paying attention anyways, aren’t gonna be able to pay attention for nothing. If they’re not sleeping, like they’re supposed to. And they have all this extra stress is going on in their life. So this everything going on is just introducing so many more variables and increased levels of stress. So, you know, communicating sleep and how and why it’s important and why it should be getting it to the kids. All the parents are in the room is important to you. Cause some kids just want to stay up super late every night. And if the parents has to go to bed, they give them a hard time. So if it comes from you and you explain why and how their performance will increase, and you find something they love, like they love soccer. Well, Hey dude, if you want to perform the best in soccer, you need your sleep because of X, Y, Z.
And when I’m adjusting you, it’s important that you get adjusted because I found this, which is going to help you perform better process quicker, you know, prevent injuries in soccer. And it’s coming from you as the doctor, instead of the parent, the parents in the room, you could educate them and they get it way more times than, than doing it the opposite and the parent trying to tell them that information. So take advantage of that opportunity to, um, when you’re in the office. So I would encourage you to take this a lot of stuff. I mean, you could go 15 years, different ways of marketing and all this and educating parents, uh, come up with one or two that you’re passionate about. What is one sport that you’re passionate about or, you know, is huge in your community? What is one, um, other activity that’s that, that is passionate, you’re passionate about, or, you know, is a big thing in your community, whether it’s ballet or violin or horseback riding or martial arts or whatever, and think about how do kids get subluxated in that sport or in that activity.
And what can I do in my office to check them, to see if they have subluxations and how can I advertise that? And then what is the benefit of getting chiropractic care and being part of that activity or that sport, and then what are some research around it, on why it’s important and what it does, the spine and the nervous system. And then you come up with an ad for that, and then you put it in all the places I mentioned. Um, if you can do that just in September, since we’re just starting and you do two, like one sport and one activity, you’re going to see just the whole culture of your office, change your communication change. You start sending it out via automated email blasts was scared or text messaging. Parents will ask you questions on it. They’ll respond to your email and be like, Oh my gosh, my child is doing this.
Um, and you know, do you think this would be something concerned about make yourself available on social media? Like if you do a Facebook live talking about concussions and football, concussions and hockey, or a piano playing and cervical spine, you know, muscle tension, very symmetry, uh, you do some Facebook lives on that and let people comment or email you with questions. Now you’re engaging them at a whole nother level. They trust you more because you’re making yourself available and you can communicate to them and that’ll drive even more referrals into the practice. And then talking about you to other people that they know, because every parent that you get one parent that plays hockey, well guess what hockey parents do? They talk all the time. And they’re going to tell all the other 10, 11 kids on the team parents, Hey, did you know this?
This is what they found with Johnny, like such and such and such and such. Um, you even educate them about concussions. As soon as the first kid gets a concussion, they’re going to remember, you know, Oh, dr. Mike talked to me about concussions. He gave me this information. I really should give it to Will’s mom. Cause we’ll just got a concussion. So those are just super fun ways to communicate, leverage back to school, leverage the ability to educate, uh, have fun with it and just love on kids this time of year, they’re going through a lot. There’s their, their stress and everything going on too. So showing love and joy, giving them fun stuff in the practice. If you can give out snacks after school, I mean, they just hammer the snacks at the school at our office this time of year, uh, whatever you can do to make their experience great in the office.
Cause if the kid doesn’t love to come in, the parent’s not going to come in. Parents not gonna want to drag them in. So you gotta make sure it’s fun for the kid. When they come in a joke around with them, have fun with them, make sure they actually like being there. Make sure they don’t have to wait too long. If they’re waiting a super long time, it’s inconvenient. They’re trying to get there between school and sports or after sports. They gotta get home and do homework and go to sleep. So the efficiency is super important. We do that specific with the skit app, we group families around. So they can find times that are slower in our office to help balance out our schedule. We can literally schedule through the phone. Mom’s phone goes right into our EHR system, moves their appointments around. So they get in and out really quick, 15 minutes this way or that way, it tells them if it’s a little bit slower at three than three 15, all of that makes a huge difference in their experience, which makes them want to commit to care, which makes them come back, which makes them refer people and just drives the whole engine of the office.
So efficiency is the name of the game during this busy time of year for kids and family. So thanks so much. Hopefully you got something out of that. Took some notes, can implement some stuff for September. We’ll see you back in October. Hard to believe I’m saying that already. Uh, thanks again for ChiroSecure, Dr. Stu for putting all this on don’t miss Dr. Monica, the third Thursday of the month. Her show is great, uh, about kids and just so much neurological stuff. So thanks again. And we’ll see you guys in October.
Okay.
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