Two Doors to Wellness
Emotional & Physical Paths That Help Kids Thrive—and Adults Stay Steady
Why Now: The Early-Childhood Need
Mornings start early, emotions start big, and many days feel full before drop off or circle time begins. Teachers and families are doing their best inside long days and short margins. Children bring big feelings to small bodies, and the adults who love them are stretched thin trying to hold it all together.
“Behavior” is the word people use most often. But underneath the refusing, clinging, meltdowns, shutdowns, and tough transitions, something else is happening: regulation. Nervous systems can’t quite find their center. When a child can’t settle, the day tilts. When an adult can’t settle, the room tilts with them.
This story is about two doors that families and teachers can walk through to steady things again.
Kind Mind, a regulation-first program for early childhood through grade five, supports the emotional and behavioral side of regulation with simple routines, shared language, and music-supported cues woven into the school day.
Tree of Life, a community-centered pediatric chiropractic practice, supports the physical and comfort side for infants, toddlers, children, and families with gentle care and caregiver coaching that help ease the tension behind feeding struggles, sleep issues, reflux, digestion, and the big feelings that often follow.
Different doors. Same goal: helping children—and the adults who care for them—build the regulation they need for better days and better lives.
Door One: Kind Mind
At 8:15 in a preschool classroom, the day is already full. Children arrive with big feelings. Backpacks drop, tears start, voices rise. The teacher has a choice: push through or pause and reset the room.
Kind Mind was created for moments like this.
Founder Lee Sowles spent years in early-childhood classrooms and public health. She kept seeing the same thing: children carrying stress in their bodies, adults holding a lot in theirs, and not enough support for what everyone was feeling.”
“So many conversations were about managing behavior,” Sowles says. “What I wasn’t hearing was, ‘How do we help kids and adults feel safe enough to settle in the first place?’”
Kind Mind works through small, simple routines folded into a day that already exists. Not a new curriculum. Not a binder. Just practices that fit into arrival, circle time, transitions, and closing.
- A greeting song at the door.
- A chime before moving to the rug.
- A short breathing pattern when the room starts to tip.
- A “try again” phrase that softens a hard moment.
Teachers learn through brief, self-paced modules and earn professional development credit along the way. Each classroom receives the Classroom Resilience Toolkit filled with items that make regulation concrete for young children: a heart chime, breathing buddies, movement pieces, and simple tools that help bring bodies and emotions back to center.
There is also an online community wrapped around the work. Teachers and leaders share ideas, ask questions, and learn from each other. It’s support, not another task.
As the routines repeat, rooms start to change. Children settle more quickly. Transitions take less out of everyone. Preschool and early-elementary teachers reclaim minutes once lost to escalation or recovery. Families notice similar shifts at home—calmer mornings, easier evenings, and less friction between activities.
Kind Mind is built on co-regulation. Adults go first, so children aren’t left to figure it out alone.
“Calm is something we can practice together,” Sowles says. “When adults have simple tools to come back to center, kids learn that they can get there too.”
The aim isn’t perfect behavior. It is a classroom or child-care room where everyone has a way to return to steady. When that foundation is there, the whole day opens up for children, for teachers, and for families.
Door Two: Tree of Life Chiropractic
Across town, another kind of regulation is happening. A mom rocks her newborn in the waiting area at Tree of Life. The baby hasn’t slept more than forty minutes at a time. Feedings are hard. Everyone is tired. Nearby, a toddler clings to a parent’s leg. A preschooler rubs tired eyes. An older child waits quietly with a book. Tree of Life sees families like this every day.
The practice is community-centered and pediatric-focused, caring for infants, children of all ages, and often their parents, too. The goal is the same for everyone: help the nervous system settle so comfort, ease, and connection can return.
Care starts with listening. Birth stories. Feeding. Sleep. Digestion. Transitions. Immune challenges. The patterns parents have noticed but may not have known how to name. Then the team uses INSIGHT scans to understand how a child’s system is taking in and handling stress. Thermal shows where the body is stressed. HRV shows how well the body can handle and recover from stress. EMG highlights the patterns the body is holding onto.
Parents often arrive picturing loud, forceful “cracking,” but learn quickly that pediatric care looks different. Adjustments for babies and young children are tiny, gentle contacts—small signals to the brain and body. As Dr. Conor Campbell explains, “Every time an adjustment's given, what we're doing is adding input into the brain to allow the system to actually regulate itself and override the ‘software’ that's already there.”
Care also shifts over time. Some visits call for the lightest touch; others use a more structural adjustment, always matched to a child’s system that day. “Finding what's right for each person in each moment because that can change, visit to visit, day to day, month to month, year to year,” said Dr. Victoria Campbell.
Families come for many reasons. Babies who can’t latch or take in too much air. Infants who aren’t having regular bowel movements. Toddlers who melt down during transition. Preschoolers who seem constantly sick or on edge. School-age children with headaches, tension, focus challenges, or anxiety. Tree of Life names what many parents feel but haven’t had language for:
“If the system isn't able to regulate itself, then you're never going to be able to overcome any challenges that you have,” said Dr. Conor Campbell.
Over time, the same pattern often repeats. Colic improves, then ear infections start. Ear infections fade, then allergies or asthma appear. A few years later, anxiety takes its place. Different stages, same underlying dysregulation. The point isn’t fear; it’s that early support can make the path gentler.
One story remains close to the team. A three-year-old boy came in having daily seizures. His family had tried everything—specialists, home assessments, four medications—and still had no answers. Tree of Life began with listening and scans. Care stayed gentle and matched to what his system could handle. Within the first month, the seizures decreased. Over time, they stopped. Today, he has been seizure-free for nearly two years. He is tapering medication with his doctors and visits every other week to help his system hold the gains.
As Dr. Victoria Campbell said, “We find that care ripples out into the family.”
Parents often notice changes early. More sleep. Better digestion. Fewer colds. A softer mood. Children try new foods. Transitions become easier. Teachers and child-care providers see more focus and comfort in the classroom.
Care is paced the way regulation is learned—through repetition. Many plans start with a couple of visits a week and taper as the system strengthens. Progress is checked with new scans and ongoing conversations so families can understand the change.
Tree of Life offers a different door into the same goal: a steadier nervous system. The work is simple at its core. Gentle inputs. Clear guidance. A body allowed to find balance again.
Where They Meet: One Nervous System
Kind Mind and Tree of Life work in different spaces but meet in the same place: the nervous system. One supports emotional and behavioral regulation. The other supports physical comfort and capacity. Together, they help children and adults build steadier days.
In preschool and child-care settings, Kind Mind gives educators and children simple routines and shared language to come back to center. At Tree of Life, gentle adjustments and caregiver coaching ease the tension behind sleep struggles, feeding challenges, digestion issues, and big feelings that don’t resolve on their own. Both are paying attention to the same question: how is a child’s system handling the day?
What happens in one setting supports the other. A child who sleeps better has more room for learning and play. A child who knows the rhythm of the school day settles more easily at home. When adults model calm, children match it. When a child’s body is more comfortable, it becomes possible to handle moments that used to unravel everything.
Both offer something better—prevention instead of reaction, support instead of overwhelm, and nervous-system care that shows up in how children feel in their bodies and how they move through their day.
The outcome isn’t perfection. It is a life that feels more workable—for children, families, and the adults guiding them through school, child care, and home.
What Progress Looks Like
Progress rarely arrives with fanfare. It comes in small, steady shifts. A toddler who usually melts down during cleanup begins putting toys away when the chime rings. A preschooler settles onto the rug after a familiar breathing cue. A baby who only napped in short bursts sleeps for a full hour. A teacher notices fewer spikes during transitions. A parent realizes dinner ended without tears.
Over a few weeks, classrooms and child-care rooms take on a different tone. Children move between activities with less friction. Educators gain minutes back in each block—time once spent calming or recovering. At home, mornings carry less tension. Bedtime routines start to feel manageable.
As months pass, the gains build. Fewer big reactions. More repair. More capacity in bodies and in rooms. Children begin to recognize what steady feels like. Adults have tools and partners to help them get there.
This is the heart of both doors—Kind Mind and Tree of Life. Small, repeatable supports that help children regulate emotionally and physically and give caregivers a clearer path through the hard moments. Not quick fixes. Not perfection. Just steadier systems, steadier days, and a little more ease for everyone in the mix.
Small Shifts, Brighter Lives
The heart of this story is simple: when children feel steady in their bodies and their emotions, their days feel different. When adults have tools that help them stay steady, too, the whole ecosystem around them shifts. Small things, repeated, can shift an entire day. And sometimes, an entire life.
For more information
Kind Mind is a regulation-first, prevention-based program for early childhood through grade five. Its routines, shared language, and music-supported cues help teachers, children, and families come back to center throughout the day. More information: kindmindeducation.com
Tree of Life Chiropractic is a community-centered pediatric chiropractic practice co-founded by Dr. Conor Campbell and Dr. Victoria Campbell, supporting infants, toddlers, school-age children, teens, and families. Their care focuses on nervous-system regulation through gentle, individualized adjustments and caregiver guidance. Learn more: treeoflifechiros.com
“We find that care ripples out into the family.”
Mini Visualization:
Here’s a story about a butterfly. Before we start, close your eyes or rest your head. Get comfortable and take three deep breaths.
Let your body feel heavy and relaxed. All you have to do is listen.
Imagine you’re a butterfly. What color are your wings? Mine are orange and black.
You’re perched on a flower, sipping sweet nectar. The air is warm. The sun shines on your wings. A cool breeze brushes by and tickles you. You flutter off the flower and ride the breeze like a wave.
You glide through the air smiling, light and free.
You spot a butterfly bush with purple flowers, your favorite snack. You float down, land on a blossom, and rest on the soft petals.
You sip the nectar until you’re full and sleepy. The warm sun wraps you like a blanket as you drift into peaceful sleep.
>>Pause a few moments<<
Take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. One more time. When you’re ready, stretch and open your eyes.