On this episode of Real Talk, Susan and Kristina are joined by Dr. Christopher Thurber for an insider’s guide to summer camp success.
Dr. Thurber has dedicated his professional life to improving how trusted adults nurture others and to enhancing the lives of adventurous youth. A graduate of Harvard and UCLA, Dr. Thurber has served as a psychologist and instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy since 1999. Over the past 25 years, he has been invited to lead workshops on five continents.
His best-selling family resource, The Summer Camp Handbook, was recently translated into Mandarin to help launch the youth camping movement in China. And his most recent book, The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure, was described by The Atlantic as “a tour de force” and “the rare parenting book that respects both parents and children.”
Dr. Thurber’s research and writing have focused on homesickness prevention and healthy parenting, especially in the domains of pressure and learning from mistakes.
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW:
https://www.exeter.edu/faculty/christopher-austin-thurber
https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Your-Kid-Parents-Todays/dp/1637743807
SHOW NOTES:
- Introduction and the importance of planning for children’s summer camp (00:21)
- Introduction of Dr. Christopher Thurber (00:57)
- Ideal age for children to start attending overnight summer camps (1:53)
- Benefits of longer stays at camps and how they affect homesickness and personal growth (3:07)
- Insights into the positive impacts of summer camps on children’s social skills and self-confidence (5:54)
- Choosing the right summer camp and what to look for (7:34)
- The role of camp advisors and the best time to start looking for summer camps (9:19)
- Indicators of a camp’s quality (10:14)
- Tips on how to vet summer camps (11:46)
- Addressing homesickness and how to prepare your child for camp experiences (14:32)
- Impact of technology and social media on children’s camp experiences (17:00)
- Guidance on managing communication with children at camp (19:19)
- Advice for parents on conversations to have with their children before sending them to camp for the first time (22:55)
- Importance of not making ‘pickup deals’ with children and fostering independence (24:24)
- Tips for selecting the right camp (26:00)
- Conclusion with final advice for parents on preparing for the camp season and fostering a positive experience for their children (28:00)
TRANSCRIPT:
Susan Stone: Welcome back to Real Talk with Susan Stone and Kristina Suler. We are full-time moms and attorneys bringing our student defense legal practice to life with real candid conversation.
Susan Stone: Kristina, believe it or not, even though we’re looking outside and there’s a lot of snow out there, yuck.
Did you know what time it is?
Kristina Supler: Well, umm, if I’m thinking about what we’re going to talk about today, I’m gonna guess that we’re in the time of year that despite the snow outside, we have to start planning for our children’s summers.
Susan Stone: And especially summer camp. Believe it or not, if you want your child to go to one of the more, uh, popular summer camps, now is the time that you would register.
And it’s hard to think about it because like Santa Claus hasn’t even come down that shoe.
Kristina Supler: I know, and I’m particularly excited to speak with today’s guest because I’m in, in my own family, wrestling with the idea of sending my son off to camp. And so this is, I’m really looking forward to today’s talk.
Susan Stone: We might learn a little something on real talk. Why don’t you introduce our guests?
Kristina Supler: Sure. Today we are joined by Dr. Chris Thurber, who has dedicated his professional life to improving how adults nurture others and enhance the lives of youth. A graduate of Harvard and UCLA, Dr. Thurber has served as a psychologist and instructor at Phillips Exeter Academy since 1999.
Susan Stone: I’ve heard of it.
Kristina Supler: Sure, he’s written some books. His best-selling family resource is the Summer Camp Handbook, which has been translated into Mandarin. Believe it or not, and more recently, he has authored The Unlikely Art of Parental Pressure, which was described by the Atlantic as, “the rare parenting book that respects both parents and children”. Dr. Thurber’s research and writing have focused on homesickness prevention, healthy parenting and helping children learn from mistakes. So Doctor Thurber, thanks for joining us today.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Thanks for having me as a guest. Yeah, I’m excited to be here.
Susan Stone: So it’s so funny. I was thinking about summer camp and I still remember that when my oldest, whose birthday it is today, happy birthday, Alex. But when she was in 3rd grade, I went on a field trip to Maine with her and we looked at camps together.
Kristina Supler: I can only imagine. Ohh camp touring. What a life.
Susan Stone: Yeah, it was great. We had the best bonding time, but the question is for you. I chose for to be a rising 4th grader as a time to go to camp. We looked at camps when she was a rising 3rd grader. In your professional opinion, what is the best time to send students away for a summer camp and experience? And I just have a second part to that question. I chose a camp where I just threw my kid in for seven weeks because I was told on from a well-known Cleveland area psychologist that they do better with a longer stint because when you do a shorter stint, just as you’re getting over homesickness, you’re yanking them away. Thoughts?
Dr. Chris Thurber: Well, in terms of what age a child should be at overnight summer camp and I, I do think that like any experience overnight timer camp is not for everyone. But I would say that in my experience as a parent, as a researcher, as a psychologist, there’s probably a camp for everyone. And I think it’s a perfect complement to the traditional classroom setting. So a way of boosting kids social and emotional learning, a way of increasing their social skills, their confidence, their sense of adventure. And there’s wonderful research to support all of my life experience and anecdotal evidence. The age at which a young person might go to overnight camp for the first time depends a lot on their previous life experiences and a little bit on their personality, and I think the way I would answer that question is not by giving you a number like 7 years old or 8 years old or 9 years old. But I could say that most overnight camps uh would take children as young as seven or eight. So that tells you something about 150 years of trial and error has landed us at that age, but for particular child, it really is gonna depend on that parent or primary caregiver looking carefully at that child’s readiness, which depends a lot on what previous experience that child has had away from home. I don’t know for Alex, but I would imagine that she had spent overnight at a friend’s house, or she’d been at her grandparents house without you there for a couple of days. And that’s the perfect sort of preparation for multiple weeks at an overnight camp.
Susan Stone: And do you have a thought about the second part of my question, 4 weeks versus 7 weeks or maybe even shorter depending on the camp?
Dr. Chris Thurber: Well, I haven’t in my experience noticed a difference in the factor that your friend cited, which is intensity of homesickness. In fact, this was what I wrote my dissertation on was homesickness and have followed the research that’s been done since then, quite closely enough to know that there isn’t a difference in, say, homesickness intensity between someone who’s staying at camp for two weeks versus 4 weeks versus 7 weeks. That again, I would say your friend was right in that longer stays and I would say four weeks or more result in a more immersive experience for young people and that shorter stays just a few days are a good taste of what? Overnight camp is like, but aren’t gonna create the kind of social bonds and result in the sort of self-reliance and you know, willingness to try new things that will happen with a longer stay.
Susan Stone: That’s exactly what I learned at that time. That you’d really takes a good chunk of time like 4 weeks as the minimum before you can really develop the friendships, develop leader styles, or even reinvent yourself. You could be that nerd at school and that fabulous person at camp. It’s a chance of really defining yourself.
Kristina Supler: Sounds like a good movie.
Dr. Chris Thurber: It is very cool in that way. Well, it’s a good movie and an even better experience. It’s one we, you know, we underestimate sometimes. I think the social pressures that young people feel in elementary school even and you mentioned the unlikely art of parental pressure that I wrote with Hank Weissinger. We took a look at a lot of the research that’s been done and were surprised ourselves to see how pernicious the effects of unhealthy pressure are for even elementary school age children and a lot of it is about pressure to conform, conform to dress, conform to preferences for favorite TV shows and how you present yourself online. So there are a lot of different domains of conformity, all of which happily evaporate at the best camps, and I think that that sort of reinventing yourself and boost in self-confidence can happen in as little as two weeks. I would also agree with you that a longer stay like 4 or 7 is going to strengthen that young person’s confidence.
Kristina Supler: Dr. Thurber, I’m curious to hear your thoughts for our listeners out there, parents with the child, let’s just say in grade school age is irrelevant, but a child who’s maybe only slept at grandparent’s house or has had maybe one or two sleepovers with a friend family member, whomever, what advice would you give those parents for sort of the building blocks to help ease your child into this experience to go away from home?
Dr. Chris Thurber: To have more of those, I mean, and we were at deficit because of having to quarantine many of us during the pandemic. So we have some catching up to do in providing healthy experiences for kids away from home. And just as you suggested in your question a day here a night here a couple days expanding to you know, two or three days, those sorts of experiences are what give a young person confidence in their ability to spend time away from home without their primary caregiver or caregivers and they can alert you as a parent to any sort of anxieties that need to be sorted out prior to a camp stay.
Susan Stone: What should parents look for in and overnight camp?
Kristina Supler: Hmm. That’s a good question because no camp is gonna say yeah, send your kid here. We’re OK. I mean, every camp has a long list of superlatives. Best, most fun. Exciting. You name it. You know, everyone’s smiling on on the video on the website. What do you what should parents look for when vetting camps?
Dr. Chris Thurber: You guys are cracking me up and it’s such a great question. First of all, can I just say how happy I am that we’re recording this in late November and hopefully it’ll be provided to your listeners soon because as you said in the opener, this is the time. This is the time uh. I get asked to do podcasts all the time in May, right?
Kristina Supler: But well, I know this was and this was Susan’s idea, this idea, an experienced camp mom sender offer.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Well, may all moms and dads be as pression as Susan and Kristina? Seriously, it’s it’s, you know, this is the time to be thinking about it. This is the time, as Christina said, to be preparing with practice time away from home and what you should look for in a summer camp is a great question because and you were joking about it, you go into a camp’s website. Remember that that’s marketing, and I’m not deriding camps or their websites, and it’s important that they have them and there’s great information on them. But remember, it’s marketing and the the camps are gonna look similar. I mean, you can distinguish the all boys camps from the all girls camps, from the all gender camps, from the Coed camps and the ones that have horseback riding from the ones that don’t have horseback riding. And that is information that you can call from a website, but that’s not telling you anything about the quality. So I would say three things that I think parents need to look for and you have listeners all around the world, but let’s bring it down to North America. In Canada, there are provincial camp associations like for Ontario and for British Columbia, et cetera. In the United States, we have the American Camp Association. These are the accrediting bodies for camps, and it doesn’t guarantee that a particular camp is a great match for your kid. But these associations are a first step that can’t that parents should look for is the camp accredited to be an operation? It needs to be certified by the Board of Health in most states, so you can assume that that’s the case, but you can ask to see their, you know, Board of Health cert. Then I would say by whom are you accredited knowing that accreditation happens once every few years and it is a way of saying at the time this camp was visited by trained peers and the camp world it it met these minimum criteria? Or maybe exceeded them then is where it gets interesting, and that’s why Jon Malinowski and I wrote the Summer Camp Handbook, because there are lots of accredited camps and some of them I wouldn’t ever send my own child to and some of them I would be glad to. So I think what you need to look for is first and foremost after it’s passed Board of Health and accreditation. Is this a place where there’s a good deal of tenure among the staff now? Potentially, the director who was there for 30 years, just retired, and so the new directors only been there for a couple of years. But you wanna look over time? What’s the average tenure of the director? What is the average tenure for the other senior staff, assistant directors, program directors, waterfront directors and how long did the staff who work there generally work there, and that tenure tells you a lot about the loyalty and the spirit and the consistency that will exist at that camp, which I think are all important contributors to a young person having a really positive experience. Next is where do they get their staff and how do they train them? And this is really my wheelhouse because yeah.
Susan Stone: I remember that because the camp I had sent my children to through a lot of counselors that they receive from Australia and England, and I remember because they made my kids eat Vegemite and they thought that was hilarious, but they were great. They really had some really fun and they were learning the fun, cute accents and they love it and I don’t know if you agree with this, but I really like that the camp we ended up selecting had a therapist and staff to deal with the issues and it really was quite helpful.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Yeah, I endorsed that wholeheartedly. And I think that people in that position, a mental health professional who’s part of a camp, often also participate in the staff training. So as I was saying, where the staff from where they how are they hired? How are they trained that that’s really crucial, right? I mean, the centerpiece of the camp experience is gonna be your child’s new relationship with this young adult surrogate caregiver. Will they make peer friends? Yes, of course. But who influences the experience more than anyone else are the young adult leaders. And so you wanna know as much as you can about them.
Kristina Supler: That’s a really great piece of advice for parents out there listening to this though, to look at the tenure of staff and employees, how many come back year after year because that speaks volumes for the nature of the experience, happy staff then hopefully translates to happy campers. So I love that.
Dr. Chris Thurber: It definitely does.
Susan Stone: Now, I don’t want to date myself in my next question. Do you remember the Alan Sherman song? Hello mudda. Hello fada. I won’t sing for everybody. It’s like one of my favorite songs. It’s a really funny song. Alan Sherman. Hello mudda. Hello fada FADDUH. Great song for you listeners out there. I would play it, but it talks about homesickness and you know, I remember when I sent my kids to camp. I I thoughts homesickness was normal, so when I got the first I miss you mom letter. I knew it was temporary and then by the time you picked them up, they’re like, oh, I wanna stay in there crying that they’re leaving. However, my kids were young and went to camp pre COVID and pre the mental health issues that Kristina and I wrestle with every day. I mean, I believe that kids are wrestling with social media. My kids did not have cell phones when they went to camp. It was unthinkable that a young child or a middle schooler would have a cell phone.
Kristina Supler: That’s so interesting that you say that, Susan. I hadn’t thought about that, and imagining well my daughter, I mean, I guess I have a direct experience with this, but I hadn’t really tied it to the context of our practice. When she’s away at camp in the camp experience, she has every summer’s two weeks of sleep away and there’s no electronics or anything like that. And she’s fine. I mean, she adores her camp experience, but for many students who are so tied to their devices, social media, all those connections to then have them ripped away, it makes the transition all the more difficult. And pile on top of that homesickness. It actually is a lot. It’s a tall, emotional order for adolescence.
Susan Stone: So how do you know Doctor Thurber between normal homesickness, that a parent should go, huh that’ll pass, versus something’s curious I need to check in on this and how. What is the appropriate way to check in on this? It is not get on a plane I assume and pull your kid out immediately. But is it?
Dr. Chris Thurber: No, absolutely not.
Susan Stone: I could be wrong.
Dr. Chris Thurber: No, you’re not wrong. Again, you’re right. You’re also again present in, saying that home sickness is normal because it absolutely is. Of course, it varies in intensity from one person to another, but adults miss things about home when they’re away as well, like on a business trip or something like that. So right, so look, the and this is really essential preparation in addition to what I said earlier about some practice time away from home. But letting your child know that you expect that there will be some things they miss about home. Maybe it’ll be home cooking. Maybe it’ll be you, or if there’s another parent in the household, maybe it’ll be the comforts of their room.
The dog, dog, sibling, whatever it might be and you know it’s different things for different people. But with practice time away from home and with an understanding that this is an absolutely normal phenomenon. And I tell kids. Look, there’s something about home you miss that means there’s something about home you love. That’s wonderful. And all those things that you love are gonna be there when camp wraps up. So love this while you’re at camp, love this experience. Make yourself at home here and look forward to what you’re going to return to. You know, it’s fantastic, however. There are instances when you know the intensity of home sickness is getting in the way of that child’s enjoying activities and participating in other ways at camp. It’s getting in the way of their making new friends and it’s getting in the way of their eating and sleeping and well-trained staff are gonna know. How to spot that? Here’s a kid who isn’t eating well, sleeping well, not participating, not making friends. So those sort of primary functions of a camper when they’re, you know, a day or two, we’re going to make it if it’s that extreme on a chronic basis, that camper is not eating well, sleeping well. Connecting participating. The first thing that’s gonna happen again with at a camp with a well-trained staff is someone at camp is gonna contact you and say, here’s the situation. Here’s how we’ve been managing it. Let’s talk about options, but it would be a huge mistake for any parent to preemptively respond to what is in 99.9% of cases, a normative, homesick letter by getting themselves to the camp and robbing their child of such an important developmental experience.
Kristina Supler: Do phone calls help or hurt a child sort of weather the storm of homesickness.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Unequivocally, they hurt until you’ve passed at least the two-week mark and then phone calls, if it’s a four or seven week experience, are appropriate if they are scheduled not as a treatment for homesickness, not you missed your mom or you miss your dad or and so let’s get them on the phone. It’s never a treatment for homesickness and it if it’s ever used by camp directors who don’t know the research, haven’t been to one of my workshops or parents who, you know, haven’t read this summer camp handbook. And again, these are loving, well-intentioned people, but it is absolutely the wrong thing to do. If it’s a scheduled contact after the two-week Mark that’s used simply as a way to keep in touch, great. Even better though, letter writing. Because think about the difference you have to ponder You have to personalize. You have to reflect and then to get a response you have to wait and that’s really good for kids. They don’t have enough practice.
Susan Stone: Delayed gratification.
Kristina Supler: Though I will say that all the the shishi camps now, there’s still some letter writing, but then there’s the there’s emails and it’s not, you know, unfettered access, but you have to wait a day for your response. So there’s a little bit of delayed gratification, but it’s not like a week for the post to be delivered.
Susan Stone: Oh, what about care packages? Because I know that I remember this like it was yesterday. What started out as send a few pieces of candy, then became my kids were saying this one got this and this one got that, and you don’t love me if you don’t send me this and….
Kristina Supler: The status thing, it almost turned into as well. The comparisons who got what.
Susan Stone: And I was always on the bottom. Does that surprise you?
Kristina Supler: I doubt that very much.
Susan Stone: And I’m telling you I sent some good care packages. Thoughts?
Dr. Chris Thurber: Well, if you know if, if you’re bored this summer, you could send me some care packages just to my home because I won’t be. But now I see it it that is the problem you just described it and most camps are moving to a policy of no care packages. Sending your child to camp investing your you know time and your money. Although many camps also offer financial aid, you did a wonderful thing by involving Susan, your child, in the search for what camp is it going to be? It gave Alex decision control. She felt involved in the process. That is a wonderful way to diminish the intensity of homesickness. So without having a conversation, the two of us, you did so many things well. And I would say if the camp now is not allowing care packages, they’re doing something well, because having your child go to camp is a way of showing you care in all caps, bold exclamation point, italics underlined. This is a way of showing you care and the camp has wonderful food and snacks and lots of things to do. So you don’t need to send care packages and that makes it easier for everybody, not just in the name of equity and preventing this kind of comparison, but also in the name of hygiene, you know, camps that allow care packages.
Susan Stone: Or lack thereof.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Ohh. Or exactly?
Susan Stone: I mean, I came back and saw some yellow teeth. I doubt we’re brushed, but you know that’s part of it.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Yeah, well, there’s that. There’s that, but there’s also raccoons and mice and squirrels and all the other, you know, creepy crawlies that also love your chocolate chip cookies.
Susan Stone: Yeah. Who wouldn’t.
Kristina Supler: I’m curious, are there any conversations that sort of come to mind that you encourage parents to have with their children before sending them off? Probably the first time or so to camp.
Dr. Chris Thurber: So it’s it, you know, it’s normal for expect that your child is gonna express some kind of trepidation. It could be, what if I feel homesick? Or what if I don’t like this? Or what if I’m not making friends, but the response that I coach parents to have when there’s some kind of expression of, you know, concern is or anticipatory anxiety? Hey, I’m glad I’m glad we’re talking about this. I think there will be some sort of adjustment because it’s a new place with new traditions, different menu of activities and food. And of course, like that takes some getting used to. It’s also part of the excitement is that it’s different, different from home. It’s different from school and I’ve every confidence that you will be able to push through those periods of adjustment those days when you feel like, ohh, you wish you had another friend or you’re missing something from home or you don’t like what’s served for lunch. That’s part of the experience and then you know, so that’s the conversation to have is one that expresses optimism, optimism and confidence. The conversation not to have at any cost in any circumstance is the pickup deal, so saying, well, if you don’t like it, I’ll come and get you.
Susan Stone: Umm, Nope, not happening.
Dr. Chris Thurber: If you feel homesick, yeah. Because you have, you have just, you know, incapacitated the camp staff, whatever they would say to coach your child through a normal bout of homesickness is immediately surpassed by your offer on the table, which is there something you don’t like? I’m gonna come and get you. What we wanna be doing as loving parents is saying, you know, there’s something you don’t like or if you’re uncomfortable, I want you to learn the coping skills to manage that right. I mean, and you don’t have to use those words, but when you say you can persevere, the camp staff are there to help you write to me about how you feel. And I’ll write back. You know, this is this is what we want to say. Without ever, ever putting on the table a pickup deal it just it it it’s horrible.
Kristina Supler: But what’s interesting is that essentially what I’m hearing you say, reading between the lines are listening between the lines. It is parents don’t insert yourself in the process. So no, I’ll come get you if you’re miserable. Don’t insist on phone. Let your child have an opportunity to excel and navigate conflict and emotions on on the child’s own footing.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Yes, PS:, we deserve a break. As you know from full-time parenthood, so enjoy yourself.
Susan Stone: Amen. Well, if you can’t do the pre summer before the summer tour, which I have to say I could do for my first child. But then two and three didn’t have that luxury. What is the advice you give parents right now, end of November, early December, to help give students the choice of camps. Would it be helpful because you really can’t do a camp visit now? Camps are closed. So would you say have them look online and watch those great videos and then maybe have a call with the camp director?
Dr. Chris Thurber: That would be perfect. I think they’re probably some things you can do before you go online, such as, you know, open ended conversation about what do you imagining you’d like to do at camp and are you imagining that you would like to be at an A Coed camp or an all gender camper or voice camper or girls camp? Are you imagining you would like to be in the mountains close to the shore on a lake. So you can throw some of those parameters out there, and if you have camp experience, you can also describe the camp where you at and what that was like and then you can go online and do a bit of a virtual tour, but the American Camp Association website and kids camps and a few other places, if you Google databases of summer camps, you’re gonna be able to find keeping in mind that the American Camp Association database and the provincial camps associations databases are the only ones that camps are not paying an extra fee for to advertise. So yes, it’s all marketing. Yes, it’s all advertising and yes, you have to pay to be a member of the American Camp Association or the Ontario Camp Association, but you don’t have to pay anything extra to be listed. You do have to pay extra to be listed in these other online listings, so you may not get a complete list, but you can narrow it down and then you can start as you said, going on to the websites and taking a peek. And it’s wonderful to be able to talk to the camp director. One other thing that I would ask the camp director is could you give me the names of some families local to me who have kids at camp right now or have in the last few years. And the reason I would phrase it like that families local to me is twofold. One, if you say give me the names of some families, they’re going to give you the names of the two families that are their personal friends who loved camp the most and are an extension of the marketing. If you say families local to you, that means that they can’t hand pick the two families to zoom with, their local to whatever town you’re in. Plus, if they are families local to you, this is the best thing getting families together, whether it’s during this winter break or you know sometime in January, February or maybe the March or April break. But you know, so the kids can talk camp. You know, I’m talking about a returning camper and the parents can chat about what helped their child and what helped their own adjustment, because of course they’re gonna miss their kids. But I think that’s wonderful. So just add that as the cherry on top to your virtual tour idea.
Susan Stone: I remember doing that by the way, calling the parents were local. I did and I also used, they were great, a camp advisor where I spoke to the person and said what I was interested and they generated a list and it was free. So parents should know. You know, I don’t know how you feel about camp advisors. There are people who take their fees from the camps and not the parents.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Mm-hmm. Right.
Susan Stone: Umm. Is that something you would recommend as well?
Dr. Chris Thurber: I think that as long as you recognize what it is that is being paid for, either by you or the camp which is access camp advisors can be enormously helpful in meeting a family, meeting a child, helping that child cull down you know their interests or listen to what their interests are and cull down the list of camps, knowing that you’re going to be getting a choice or be offered a few camps that are already on that camp advisor’s list. The pro being that camp advisor has personally vetted those camps, so they’ve done some of the background research for you. The downside being the list is limited to the camps that paid to work with that advisor or you know it’s a limited by the advisor’s geographic scope, but it can be enormously helpful and wonderful dimension to finding camps. You do your virtual camp tour and then talk to a camp advisor. You start to get some like convergent validity if you’re coming up with the same two or three camp names, right?
Kristina Supler: Absolutely. Look, Doctor Thurber, this has been a real treat. I think that you’ve given us some really, really great information and food for thought.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Oh good.
Kristina Supler: For parent listeners out there and I’m glad that we were able to talk summer camp, but gives us something to look forward to on this cold snowy day.
Susan Stone: Kristina, do you think that we could go to summer camp?
Kristina Supler: I wish. Spa weekend. That’s our summer camp, right?
Dr. Chris Thurber: There you go, Club Med.
Susan Stone: A spa hour, if we’re lucky.
Susan Stone: Thank you, Dr. Thurber. We really loved having you.
Dr. Chris Thurber: Thank you both.
Susan Stone: We really loved having you.
Dr. Chris Thurber: I love being here. Happy holidays.
Kristina Supler: Thanks for listening to Real Talk with Susan and Kristina. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our show so you never miss an episode and leave us a review so other people can find the content we share here. You can follow us on Instagram, just search our handle @StoneSupler and for more resources, visit us online at studentdefense.kjk.com. Thank you so much for being a part of our Real Talk community. We’ll see you next time.