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Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting podcast, the weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world. Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom. And I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married 20 years and have seen the fruit in raising our eight kids biblically based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from the faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Hey, everyone, welcome to the podcast. It’s gonna be a great Part two episode, Healthy Home Tips during uncertain times.

Yeah, I’m excited to dig into a few different topics that we didn’t cover in the last podcast. And I hope you guys are encouraged, maybe challenged, maybe you learn a couple things. I hope so.

I don’t know how you can listen to that last episode in not be like, I got so much practical information, I couldn’t even write notes fast enough. It was fun to talk about wasnt it?wasn’t It was really awesome.

Did you learn a couple things? yeah!

And skin had an interesting term. It was the what was it again? The epidermis. Epidermis. Yeah. Yeah. I did go to school, but that was long ago so.

Hey, you know what? We all have our strengths right. Just kidding.

My education has been redeemed as I’ve been home schooling and teaching anatomy to kids every year for the last. Like how long?

There’s a there’s another interesting thing about my wife is she has a near photographic memory.

So, yeah, that is actually true. It can. It’s like a database. I my head has a hard time turning off at night.

It’s okay anyway. So we talk until 1:00 in the morning.

Yeah.

Sometimes it’s fun. It’s a fun life.

So hey, if you have not already gotten the Healthy Home Mom Hacks workshop, which is about herbs and oils, supplements and clean homes, you should do that because especially Filson, the last one you felt like, wow, I couldn’t take notes fast enough because that’s where you get the 25 page free download. It’s a free workshop with energy and it’s going to have information even beyond these two episodes, too, which is really cool.

Yeah. We in that workshop, we talk more about herbs regarding like cooking and teas and different things like that, because we used to dry our herbs and make our teas and and it’s a fun project to do with your kids. Even the summer, like you guys, you could go hunting for dandelion root. All right. You could make dandelion root tea with your kids, which is good for digestion.

There’s a little of sugar go. And so where do you get this? In the rest of the resources and everything we talk about CourageousParenting.com

Hit the menu. It’s a little three. They call it a hamburger icon on a mobile device.

It does look like that. Yeah.

So you hit that. And then you hit the podcast and you hit on this episode or the previous one. And both of them will have a link to register for that free workshop and get that free download.

Yeah, that’s right. And all the other resources.

Yeah. So in the last podcast, we thought we’d just do like a short little recap. So you didn’t listen to the podcast. Let’s say people are listening to this one first and they’re sure they both really work on their.

So that’s for sure they do. But I think that the last podcast was I mean, there are some really good stuff in there. Just as we got talking about the importance of knowing your kids and studying them and how when you are being proactive and knowing, like, how they’re the things that are bugging them, for example, you have intolerances or allergies. Right?

If that goes unchecked for a long time, which can happen right now, then, you know, you might not have as much compassion for your kids when they are having a hard time and they’re just losing their cool. Right. Well, have you have we asked, like, do they have a headache? Did they even know how to describe that kind of thing? And so I really believe that the last podcast we talked to is revolutionary for parents. If they have not really thought about maybe that being one of the triggers that is pushing their kids to maybe have meltdowns regularly. Right. Because we did experience that with one of our kids and we didn’t talk about that very much in the last podcast. But we experience that with one of our kids. When he was really young, he had an intolerance to dairy. And when we detoxed him.

It was incredible. The difference.

Incredible. He he literally you guys, he detoxed and lost like 15 pounds in a few weeks because he was drinking a gallon, a half of raw milk a week and he was dairy intolerant. So his gut was just a mess all the time and we thought it was his normal.

He was in pain. It was really disobedient and is really difficult.

He couldn’t make eye contact and that was like the hardest part for me, that transformed like he was able to focus more and look at mommy in the eyes and.

And we were able to talk calmly, your kid might not have that same situation. But there’s lots of different possible diet related things or health related things that a simple fix, a simple change sometimes can make a world of difference. It really can.

I mean, even I have friends whose kids are like supersensitive to certain dyes that are in different things. Right. And if they have them, then their kids get too rambunctious, too. And then they crash.

It’s like so I think, you know, a big thing. And I think you talked about this is as parents, we have to get outside of ourself. Yeah.

Because sometimes we only look at other people through the lens of how we feel about things with our own body in terms of health and what pain is.

And, you know, oh, I can drink milk, no problem. So we naturally think everybody else can.

Well, and some parents might actually be forcing their kids to drink milk when the kids are like, I don’t I don’t actually like it. Right. The reason why they don’t like it is maybe because it actually makes them hurt, like gives them gas or constipation or so we have to take this person in.

The family is unique and being made by God differently than you. And they might have some different issues, different clashes with foods.

Right. I mean, that’s just one example. Environment. So many things. You guys, it’s and today we’re actually going to dive into like clean, healthy homes, which even is about like what kinds of chemicals are your kids exposed to in your home, because that can actually impact them with headaches and stuff like that. Yeah. And so you guys like this is not just one thing. And you guys have been hearing us say that in many podcasts. There’s not just one thing going on. There are many going on simultaneously at the same time. And that’s true in parenting also. And one other what was another highlight from last week’s podcast?

lets share maybe one highlight that you thought of. Honey, are you on the spot again? Yeah, it will have a lot in its way. What time is it?

Yeah, it is late. You guys, it’s like 11:00. We’re shooting a podcast. I don’t know at this point.

Yeah. So I was thinking about just the concept of plants because we talked a lot about oh you plant stuff was amazing.

Oh. You just remember that you actually get better. Your kids could get better grades with more plants around. OK. So I got back and really cool.

So it’s actually a matter of concentration and alertness. So another really cool example when house plants is that plants actually so you water a plant, but you may not know that your plants actually release 81 to 97 percent of the water that you give them back into the air in the form of humidity. Which is phenomenal. That helps with like dry throats, allergies, all kinds of things. Right. It’s very helpful. But in addition to that, it it the though the environment can be effective for people for having alertness. And this is why. So they did a study of a workspace right. And when you have a lot of people crowded it in one area, they’re breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. And I don’t know if you knew this, but carbon dioxide can make you tired and fatigued. Right. It can give you headaches. Right. And so having even just one plant per person in the area that is absorbing. Right. Any particles and compounds in the air mixed with the carbon dioxide, it the photosynthesis process puts out more oxygen, therefore waking up and giving an alertness to the people in the room.

Yeah, that’s phenomenal. Up to 12 percent. They have been able to do studies and record. They’re saying that there can literally be an effective, more productive environment, like up to 12 percent just from having plants in the room. That’s pretty incredible. And so I it I just keep getting amazed at how God created the world and these things for us. But also, we have to take care of them. Right. Like, plants need us to care for them or they die. Yeah. And that can be a really fun project that you can do with your kids. So in the last podcast, at the end, I started sharing a little bit about some of my favorite plants and I think I only went into three. And then I was talking to a friend today and she was like, well, what other plants? And I actually have those three plants. So I thought I would share them with you. Again, in this podcast, my number one all time favorite houseplant that I think every family should have is an aloe vera plant. Oh, yeah, they’re super simple to take care of.

Now, I grew up with my mom having those. Yeah, I did, too. And my grandma. And when your kids get a scrape, you can literally cut off the little part of that Aloe vera plant. You can use the aloe gel directly on the cut.

You can use it. And to make it easy, make it make sanitizer. Actually, you can mix it with essential oils and make salves with it. It’s very soothing for sunburns. Right. It’s used for so many things. But you guys, they’re kind of hard to kill.

They’re awesome because they don’t die. A good place to put an Aloe Vera plant is by a kitchen sink or by your shower or bathtub because they like humidity. And I would just encourage you, if you do start getting the house, plants don’t just go out and buy a bunch of plants, bring them home and not do any research on them. You actually need to know how to take care of your plants. So some other favorites are spider plants, snake plants, ficus plants. These are all the most oxygen producing plants. And you might not know this, but some plants sleep at night. They don’t put oxygen off at night. Yeah, but there are a few plants that do that would be good to have near in your bedroom when you’re sleeping at night. And that would be Alvera or succulent plants. Those ones actually do emit oxygen in the night. So there’s some information.

So what are we talking about today?

So in this podcast, we thought that we would talk a little bit about healthy diets and nutrition and that sort of thing, but also healthy, clean homes that are toxin free.

I think there’s some people that don’t believe that’s possible. I didn’t. The possible. Only now. Yeah. Certain things. Right. The chemicals are actually what? Sanitize and get things clean. But you’ve proven differently to me. I was a staunch believer that you had to have chemicals.

Yeah, it’s interesting because I don’t think you grew up with chemicals. Actually, your mom is so into organic things and natural things.

But when it comes to oil, when it comes to cleaners im like hey Windex works, I think you just would go to the store and just buy what was there.

And that’s the. So can I just say something that you might not agree with me? And that’s fine. This is my opinion. That’s what this part of this podcast is. I’m sharing some things that we’ve learned. But I had to realize that I was just going to the store and getting what was familiar to me, what I recognized from my childhood. We we can. Yeah, but you don’t know if you trust it until you use it. Right. And so sometimes I would branch out and try something new. But that oftentimes gets so disappointed and I would try something that was organic or natural and then it just stunk. I mean, some of them even smelled like urine. It was awful. And I wouldn’t use them. I threw them away. And it’s literally like those bottles, you guys, they’re like four ninety nine to seven ninety nine for a 16 ounce bottle or a 20 ounce bottle. And so about I think it was probably like 12, 13 years ago.

I, I had a friend that was coming to the house and she was helping clean because when our kids were little, we did hire out and get help every month for a while and every week for a couple years as well.

And we had someone come and help us with that cleaning of the house. And I loved this friend of mine. And I was really concerned that she was constantly inhaling bad chemicals and she was getting more educated and trying to use organic stuff. So she’d come and use things and say, hey, how does that smell to you? And this is working. This is not working. She’d we’d have these conversations. And I remember thinking, like, I don’t want her to be putting herself in danger, like using these really harsh chemicals because she was actually starting to get some, like, skin cancers on her arms. And she attributed it to cleaning houses for many, many years.

And so I just watched that and I was like, whoa, I don’t wear gloves. And she is and I clean a lot. And so then I started, like, kind of trying to look into what I could use. And that was when I started buying the organic or natural stuff, which was not 499. It was like seven ninety nine a bottle.

Spend more so much more money, work less. But it didn’t work. So then I would like open it up and I would get essential oils and I’d start adding essential oils to it, which was costing me even more money. And that started working better. Yeah.

And it smelled better whats the solution. Well is there new tech. I mean.

Well actually well for me I just didn’t know about it.

I mean, so I use young living thieves, household cleaner, and you can dilute it to different levels to make it stronger for certain projects, like if your cleaning a shower or a bathroom or you can make it less potent if you’re just like wiping down a counter or something like that. Right. But before I was using that, I was making my own household cleaner with vinegar, cleaning vinegar and Castile soap. I still use both of those products when I’m mixing my really I make this like really strong concoction. The Angie Cleaner. And I’ll have like two caps of theives household cleaner and a half a cup of white vinegar.

And then I’ll put like three squirts of the peppermint Dr. Bronner’s Castile soap, and then I’ll add some other kind of cleaner like I’ll do Orange Essential Oil and I’ll do like 10 or 20 drops of that. Or maybe I’ll do 10 drops of that and 10 drops of time or rosemary.

Or I think this is awesome. People are probably super interested, but that’s really confusing. So that’s why you need to get. I just remembered that the recipes are in the 25 page download. The work, that’s a good. I’m glad you said they’re all there. So feel free just to talk through as they can go get that later.

Ok. So anyway, I was making my own household cleaners without using theives. And then when I started using theives, I added that to it. And now it’s just like I use theives for everything. I use it for hardwood floors, I use it for walls, I use it for actually everything.

It was baffling how well it works. I bought it. I cleaned the barbecue. Oh my goodness. You were OK. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t think you were truly a believer until you did that. Yeah, it’s true because I mean, I’m actually, um. I don’t do a lot of cleaning.

Well, yes. So I was the barbecue hadn’t been clean for a while.

Pollen hit. And we’ll have the rain and it.

But also had this grease all over it from just not being cleaned. And Vera went for the winter. You were about to use it for the first day. And I and she gave me this bottle that she made.

It goes this is strongest stuff you’ve got.

I’m like, it’s thieves. Just use it. Like, this is all I have Isaac.

It just took it off so easy.

Oh, it was so funny. No, seriously, though, you guys. I hand him this homemade bottle and he goes. Do you have anything stronger? And I go, that’s all I use. And he goes, Ok.

He comes back in and he’s like, whoa!

Totally sold on it. And like, you’re so funny.

But in all seriousness, though, the great thing is, is I know I can hand the cleaner to my four year old and use it and know that he’s safe. And I love that. I love that I can have my kids helping with things. Now, in regards to like there are actually even other tools that I’ve used over the years. And a friend a few years ago introduced me to Norwex cloths, for example, which if you don’t want to even have to use chemicals, they just use hot water. It’s like it’s like magic. It’s crazy. And I use the Norewex. The pink glass one for all of our windows. And that’s great to be able to give just a towel to Eli and the streets are gone. Bam. The windows look amazing.

And so anyway, that’s just another side tip. You could look into that they sell them on Amazon. They’re awesome. They’re microfiber cloths that. There’s a science behind it. Just Google it. Watch a YouTube video. You’re going to be shocked. Must have nanotechnology. You know, there’s something there. It actually does some crazy thing, huh?

I don’t know about nanotech, but anyway, so there’s a joke where we jumped into cleaning and we skipped over eating.

We’ll go back to eating, so we’ll do cleaning first. So the thing that’s important about this is that obviously we want our homes to be a clean, healthy place where our kids can grow up, where we can entertain, practice, hospitality. And one of the things that when we were first married, I, I didn’t really know how to clean. I’m just gonna say it, which some people might go, what do you mean you don’t have to clean? Not hard. And you just get chemicals and paper towels and you wipe things right. But the reality is, is I wasn’t aware of, like, cleaning certain things. Here’s an example. We had these front loading washing machines for like six or seven years. And all of a sudden there was this like mildewy smell that was inside because I had left, like, towels in it for too long or something like a day. I forgot they were in there, but I couldn’t get the smell out of the washing machine. And I was like trying like vinegar, washing it and all kinds of things. I wasn’t using oils at the time. And you know what it was? It’s the little tray that you pull out to put the soap in.

It actually comes all the way out. And there was a bunch of minerals and gunk just all coating over it. It was disgusting. And so I like, got it to an old toothbrush. And I was using dish soap and I cleaned it and I washed it with vinegar and did a cycle and bought Bam Gone. And I was like, wow, no one ever told me that I need to, like, take apart my appliances and like the filter in your dishwasher, periodically and clean them out. Right. And so I didn’t. My point is, I didn’t know how to clean and keep things sanitary truly, because you can think that your washing clothes. But what about what you don’t see that’s behind there? That’s like bacteria mold.

Like there was black mold there, you know? And so there’s that aspect. But then there’s also the aspect of what you’re cleaning with and not realizing that there are synthetic chemicals that are in there. And not only are you getting them on your skin, if you’re not wearing gloves, you’re also breathing in the fumes like, OK, so our bathroom is like this tiny there’s this tiny little room that’s just for the toilet, right? Like, I go in there and I sprayed it with some of those harsh chemicals. I probably gagging and choking. That’s not good for our bodies. Right. And it’s been proven that some of these synthetic chemicals can actually trigger all kinds of things, autoimmune diseases, all kinds of issues. And so, yeah, of course, we shouldn’t be using these. And when you do research on them and you just Google, right. Or just ask your doctor about synthetic chemicals in the air, they will tell you it can take up to two weeks to get the residue from those synthetic chemicals out of the air in your home. So you’re not just breathing it in during that time? No, no, no. You become desensitized to the smell. And it’s still lingering there at lower levels for the next couple weeks. And you’re inhaling that into your lungs. It’s not good. You know, it’s affecting your immune system. And so when we started like becoming more aware, when I started becoming more aware of these different things, it started to become. There was a lot and it could have easily become overwhelming for me. And I remember talking just to a friend about this, and she was like, whoa, Angie, all these things you’re sharing, I’m overwhelmed.

Those like, yeah, me too. I have kind of a lot, don’t I like this a lot of stuff. Like, I want to go dairy free and I want to go egg free and I want to do all these things. And, you know what it dawned on me is that you just have to pick your battles.

I remember you were grinding your own wheat and making your own bread. And that was one that you stopped fighting.

I did after about six years. And you know what honestly actually there was also a lot of work. There was also I used to drive 45 minutes. One way to go pick up raw milk. Right, because I didn’t want that next to them. But yeah, that one lasted about a while. That was a few years. But I just couldn’t justify it anymore. Take piling all the kids in the car and driving for an hour and a half to get milk every week. And so, like, you just have to pick your battles. You have to evaluate the season of life that you’re in and be OK and and pray about it. Like, I just had to come to that place and go, you know what? Is this really worth it? I mean, I’m doing my best. The Lord knows that. And Walk in Grace, right? You just do your best. And so I just want to encourage you guys, as we’re talking about these things, some of the the the things that we bring up, you might be like, wow, this is just this is a lot maybe to a new mom. And I just want to encourage you pick one thing that we’ve talked about and just start without one thing, whether that’s switching and ditching your chemicals or maybe you, Buy a few houseplants.

And what I often tell our kids is not knowledge by itself is almost useless knowledge with implementation changes. Everything its true. So it’s really important. So you could go to college and get all that knowledge and it’s almost useless unless it enriches your life to enrich other people’s lives because you’re better able to impact people. And so I think that’s what you’re saying here, is that, hey, just a couple things can really make a big difference. Yeah. You don’t have to do everything.

No, you don’t have to do everything. And I would definitely say if this is something that you really do want more mentoring in or educating and like take advantage of our healthy homes. Mom hacks Workshop. Reach out to me, but also try to find some older moms that maybe are living this way in your community in real life that you could ask them questions of.

I Want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already? Is the date night one sheet? It is a beautiful document you can download that will have some key questions on it for your date night. Just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family, no matter what time of year. It’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going to college. Parenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything, a CourageousParenting.com. And I also just want to share real quick about the parenting mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self-paced program with live engagement from us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it. You can find out more at CourageousParenting.com.

Steven, I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children.

What Angie and Isaac have done in creating this is literally phenomenal, this program provided awesome scripture, based teachings and just some really great practical applications. This class has just really rocked my world.

It has given me a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents are trying to raise our kids biblically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of heart.

We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children who have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.

It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in scripture this is.

Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor and just do it.

one of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year. And I could not recommend it more or no longer fearing dark days ahead.

But we’re so excited to raise the lights to be leaders for the next generation.

A lot of people have questions about dishes in the dishwasher in that aspect of cleaning.

So there’s a few different thoughts that I have regarding the dishes. So first of all, I’m just going to flat out admit that doing the dishes is one of my least liked chores. I actually enjoy it now, but for the first, like, really long time, I mean, probably 12 years. I did not like doing dishes. And then our kids started getting old enough to where we were like and there were so many of them that we decided, oh, we need to start like dividing up some of the household chores so that the kids are contributing. And so moms not doing everything and working super late into the night and getting up so early. All like working the whole time. And I was just getting worn out. And so we started implementing different duties and teams and some of the kids were always helping me. But it became this thing was like, okay, put two kids on each meal doing the dishes.

And I realized that, like, they were having a bad attitude doing it. And I was like trying to hold them accountable to having a good attitude. Yet I wasn’t having a good attitude myself.

And so that was like one of those things that right away I knew I can’t actually talk to my kids about having good attitude if I don’t do it myself. So I put myself into rotation with them to model, you know. And I had to pray. You guys, like I prayed and said, God help me to enjoy doing the dishes. Yeah. Would you just help me to delight in it? And so I found that like putting on the worship music, singing while I’m doing the dishes, maybe even doing a little dance every here and now. Like it became fun. And the kids saw me delighting in something that they knew I didn’t like before. And they saw that it was a choice. It was a choice that I was making. And as I was doing it, there was one time, I don’t know if I, I, I don’t know where this thought came from, but I was doing a bunch of dishes and I was like, my mind was going towards. Man, there are so many dishes here. This is so frustrating. I hate this. I literally thought that in that moment I went Preach to yourself.

Angie, you don’t hate it. What can you be thankful for in this moment? And I. Oh, I know it was I had been reading the thousand gifts with the kids. Right. And so, as in this process of trying to look for things I was thankful for and talking to the kids about it.

And I literally went, okay, what can I be thankful for?

Because I’m having a bad attitude inside myself. And I thought all these dishes represent the kids. God gave me. I mean, if I didn’t have all the kids that I have, then I wouldn’t have all these dishes.

And I need to be thankful. And then that that moved into the same perspective towards laundry. Although I’ve always I’ve always actually really liked laundry, but I’m kind of weird like that. But the point is, is doing the things that you don’t like and choosing to have a good attitude are the best lessons that you could teach your kids. But it takes humility. It takes digging in with them and doing it with them versus like just chopping it off and having them do it. All right.

And and so, anyway, that’s one of the biggest keys to success in business life. Whatever you’re trying to accomplish is the ability to get yourself to do the things you don’t want to do.

Yeah. And the do has helped me a lot over the years and doing ahead of time and urgently without procrastination and get them done.

Now, as far as like you, when it comes to dishes and soap like, I think it’s important that we recognize that there’s like residues from the soaps that we use that get left on the dishes and different things like that. And of course, there is a season where BPA was like the big thing, like be careful, warnings don’t have plastic. And I remember when that happened, I don’t remember how many kids we had, maybe four. And I remember going, oh my goodness, I need to get rid of all my plastic. It’s bad for my kids and can cause all these health issues. Right. There is this thing. And. And so instead of going out and buying brand new glass, I tried to be frugal because I actually really like it’s like a game to me to try to save money. And I did get rid of my plastic. I donated it, I think. And then we went garage sailing and we found old school pyrex and glass dishes. And we’ve never really turned around. Like we have mainly glass. We have a few of the new ones, new plastics for the babies that are clean.

But that’s an important thing, like just being aware of these different teratogens that can potentially trigger things in your kids, trigger headaches, trigger attitude, mood issues, health issues, all kinds of things. Another big one is laundry. Having a routine for laundry can be really important for moms. This is this is actually something I think every mom needs to have, kind of like dishes. We have a routine for dishes.

You know, it’s so quiet is just seeing how young our kids are when they’re doing their own laundry.

Yeah, that’s actually just been something that from the beginning when our kids were little, I that was how they learned their colors was how to sort laundry. And I remember it was like fun for them when we had the the two story house and they would throw the clothes over the banister to the entryway and we’d have all the kids clothes there and then they’d all help sort it and then we’d do all the laundry.

And one day and that was back and we had two washers and dryers. It’s a little different then.

But, you know, quick story on that. She was on bed rest and I had to take over the lawn.

Oh, my goodness. I don’t know why I tell these stories. They don’t make me look good.

Anyways, I thought, well, I will just do it all once.

And so I had heaps of laundry in the living room.

Just mountains. And I was thinking I could do this, but one washer and one dryer and we had a huge family and I’d been asking for an extra one for a while.

I realized how important was.

And so they I like, whoa, this really doesn’t work. If you don’t consistently do it, you can’t just do it all at once on a big day.

It just doesn’t work. And I got so behind and I was trying to do it and I’m like, that’s it.

And I hired a carpenter to build big cabinets and I bought a new four front loading washer and dryer.

It was like the best looking wonder you could imagine after that. Know.

And then years later, a renters stole our washers and dryers. And that’s a story that’s in an episode, actually. Yeah. OK, so, you know, I just would encourage you guys, though, with laundry. I think that this is something that I know I underestimated for a long time. I thought that we were doing pretty good being a toxin free home and building our immunities and protecting our immune system by not exposing ourselves to extra synthetic stuff. But I’ll be honest, it wasn’t until a few years ago that I actually was like, okay, I’m. Try to get rid of the the fabric softener sheets. I was like addicted to them. I loved those things, you guys. It was so bad I would take fabric softener sheets and I put them underneath my seats in the car because I liked how it’s made the car smell like clean, fresh laundry. Went on a hot summer day. And I would just sit there and I didn’t inhail the fabric softener sent, but I was so full of chemicals and so bad for me. And I had no idea that that was one of the things that was contributing to my migraines, headaches and, you know. And it also was probably I didn’t know. Now, thinking about this, I feel so bad because we have a son that has had migraine headaches and a daughter also.

She has ocular migraines. He has migraines syndrome. I also have migraines syndrome. And you guys, they can be debilitating, like just horrendous headaches. And we had been we had taken years trying to figure out what was going on with him. We tried Chiropractors, Atlas orthogonal chiropractic to to fix his Atlus bone. And so the oxygen is going through the spinal cord better. We tried vision therapy glasses because he has light sensitivity and thought that maybe that was creating headaches. We detox off of Dairy thinking that that was going to help. It took away all blue light exposure. We tried so many taking magnesium. We were doing oils. We’re doing all of these things. OK, now to try to help him and then they’re in. It wasn’t that there was one thing was probably like a little bit of all of them, actually. Can I just say that we keep saying that there’s more than one thing going on. It’s not just one thing that does it. But then the missing piece was when I stopped using frapp fabric softener sheets and I switched over our laundry soap to be toxin free laundry soap.

And over time, it took a while. Took like months. But over time. Then all of a sudden it was like it wasn’t he wasn’t having the headaches at the same degree that he was. And then all of a sudden he was having days without headaches. And it was the same for me. And so I’ve just found and I will say that we’ve also struggled with some of our little kids when they were little, having patches of eczema at different times. And that has completely stopped and gone away since we switched our laundry soap. And so I think that we underestimate how things on our clothes actually are rubbing against our skin. They absorb into our skin and then they’re in our system and our body fights them. Right, because it’s a strategy. And so being aware of these things and realizing, wow, like I have a choice, you know what I put in my body and choosing to not put bad things in, but not just doing this stuff, like, can I just go back to the main thing that we were teaching in the last podcast, which is it’s so important that we teach our kids the why behind everything we do, so that we’re leaving a legacy so that then when they launch from the home, they don’t just go out and get the worst products and then all of a sudden they have headaches.

Again, they can’t focus. Maybe they their immune system gets attacked and they’re like, I don’t know what’s going on since I moved out. I’m super sick now. You know what? Like, we want to set them up for success. And so part of that is teaching them and leaving that legacy of how to take care of themselves and how to be clean, you know, making sure that they’re cleaning the bathrooms at least every week, you know, wiping things down. A few mom packs are like keeping a little bottle of peppermint oil next to the toilet and putting A couple of drops in and just flushing the toilet with peppermint oil. Well, that can help to keep it clean on a regular basis. Right. Or even like Dr. Bronner’s Castile soap and squirting some of that in every once in a while. And so there’s like different things that you can do to help keep the maintenance down. So it’s not such a huge project when you’re going to it. Right. OK, so before we continue, we want to share with you guys about the Courageous Parenting Mentor program, the mentor programs.

It’s incredible what God has been doing with it. We listen to God. He wanted us to make this thing. And it’s really an expression of what we learned from his word and what we’ve learned from mentors, books and what we’ve done in the last 18 years is really the biblical parenting program. We’ve seen so much fruit from great kids. And we would love to see your legacy impacted by it. You’ve sent me. And so you can check it out at CourageousParenting.com

All right. So let’s dive in and talk a little bit about preventative health from the perspective of nutrition, vitamins and exercise. Because of the other things that people think about, we can even touch on sleep. But I’ll be really honest with you. Obviously, we’re seeing this podcast at like Midnight Isaac and I are not the best role models for getting sleep and having sleepa priority. I know that that’s something that I’m convicted about getting better at for sure. Definitely not perfect. No. Well, any of anything writing. But that’s just something I just have to say. It’s. That’s a caveat.

Sleep is important, we do know it’s important and and sometimes we’re better than others.

Yeah, I would say, though, that we are good about prioritizing sleep for our kids when they’re younger. Like, yeah, we’re really good at being consistent and making sure that they’re taking naps and that they’re getting the appropriate amount of sleep for their age category, which if you’re listening and you go weight appropriate and asleep for age category, what do you mean by that?

I would just encourage you to look into do a little research and see what sleep studies have said regarding how many hours of sleep kids typically need. They’ll give you a range of about a four hour range, but you’d be surprised to find out that teenagers actually need almost as much sleep as newborn babies. Yeah. Which is insane. But so I just put that out there because you’re probably like wait what.

And so I just think it’s important, though. Again, we know our bodies. We know how God designed us. We know our kids. We know how God designed them. We have grace for them. We help create and stimulate of environment that is going to foster a place where they’re gonna be completely healthy on all levels, which is physical, spiritual, mental, emotional and psychologically, too. Right. And so part of that is getting good sleep. But we’re gonna dive in and talk a little bit about nutritional diet and things like that. So there’s three different categories regarding nutrition in my mind. Okay so you’ve got your actual diet, which is what you eat. Everybody has a diet. And so our kind of philosophy has been good things and keep bad things out as much as possible. So I’m just gonna share with you guys some of our a few of our Tolpin family ways. You by no means have to do these. I’m just going to share with you what some of our things have been with our kids, especially when they were younger. So we do absolutely no sugar with our kids until they’re 18 months, unless Isaac tries to slip them some ice cream. A couple mistakes.

I just like to be the first one to introduce something special.

He’s so funny. But typically we’re like, no sugar until 18 months. We don’t drink juice. We did make that mistake with our first two kids a lot. And then we just realized, like, wow, there’s so much sugar in juice.

I mean, there are some exceptions sometimes, but it’s not a regular.

Yeah. And so what I was going that’s exactly was going to say we have special occasions. But as far as like a daily thing, we don’t do like juice every single day, although we do juice, fruits and vegetables juicing. And we do do that and we do do smoothies. And one of those two things typically does happen on a pretty often basis, like four or five days a week. But that’s different than the juice that you buy that has a ton of sugar in it. OK. Another one of our things is to not eat too many filler snacks, especially when it’s super close to meals. Kind of a stickler for kids not eating like an hour and a half around a meal unless they’re going to eat real food. And even at that, I’m I’m pretty much like, no, we’re gonna eat. So that’s been something that we have had as a Tolpin family way. Another one is we try to stay away from fast food. And I know that, like, obviously that’s that’s a hard one for a lot of people. It was super hard for us, actually, for a while. Isaac probably wasn’t aware of this because he was working so much. But even when I was like out about the kids going to swimming lessons, driving past Starbucks, going to Starbucks and the kids for Mom’s gonna get something. Everybody wants something.

I saw a transactions. Yeah. And so I struggled with that. Right. I didn’t want to get myself something and not get other people something. I didn’t want to be special in that way. I don’t know. I just didn’t want to leave the kids out because they would ask. And it’s kind of a wimp. And that kind of regard you might be thinking. But we don’t do fast food anymore, really, unless you’re travelling.

It’s very, very rare. And I will just share something with you. It was actually on our RV trip about three years ago that my conviction for this grew even more. And you’re thinking, wait, what? She was on three month RV trip, and they didn’t eat fast food. And we did eat fast food a few times. And we were very careful about where we went and we tried to get the healthiest thing on the menu. And even at that, what we noticed, this is why my conviction is pretty strong now.

What we noticed is that when we would eat fast food, somebody would get sick within a few days.

And so their bodies weren’t used to it. And when you’re not used to it, it doesn’t it just it isn’t necessarily the healthiest for you.

Some places. It’s not even real food. And in addition, you don’t actually know what your food is exposed to. Right. I mean, let’s I’m just gonna be honest. A lot of the people that work in fast food don’t really like their job very much. And so, you know, they try to get them to wash their hands regularly and they do their best. But the reality is, is sometimes people don’t like their job either. Right. And so or maybe they’re there and they’re sick and you don’t know it. And and so I just you put in a lot of faith in people. And if you’re going to fast food in that regard. And we’ve just seen the negative consequences of having done that. Yeah.

Just a few times and then going, OK, we’re not going to eat out, we don’t eat out. And then we’re totally healthy for for a long time. So except for special occasions or like an emergency situation.

So how do you manage that when you’re going here and there and it’s hard, you have to do it right and you just have to be prepared.

I mean, that actually goes to a totally different topic. I wasn’t thinking and talking about, but having the pantries and doing like three month shopping at Costco as your standard, buying things online that are like I buy rice in bulk cash and carry or buy oatmeal in bulk cash Carry, I always have it on hand. Having food, making double and having stuff in the fridge, that’s easy to eat quickly and warm up again. That was a wholesome meal that you can just throw on the frypan or saute pan and heated up real quick. Right. And so also cooking for a large family has been a chore that I have had to grow in and learn. It’s not something that I knew right away.

But even cooking, just cooking from scratch. Sometimes I share recipes on Instagram and I get people asking me for the recipe. And if you have asked me for a recipe, please don’t be discouraged by this. You can keep asking me and I’ll do my best to give it to you. And I just feel so bad that I’m not the kind of cook that follows recipes.

I just kind of do things. And that is it had been a fun thing, actually, to teach my kids to cook with them. Just go, oh, we’re all out of broccoli. Well, let’s just throw cauliflower in and see how that tastes. Oh, we’re all at ground beef. Let’s just throw sausage and let’s throw this chopped chicken sausage in too. And, oh, we have a few pieces of bacon. Let’s fry that up, cut it up and stick it in too, you know, like we’ve just create things that people don’t necessarily think of doing. And it can be a fun thing together. And then the last thing that is going gonna share with you guys is that we as far as a Tolpin family way, we have this thing where we say three to five thankful bites of everything. That’s a little side tip that we have always done with our kids under six years old and when we’re training them to eat what’s been served. Right. And the key is the thankful bites, because I’ve I’ve witnessed a lot of parents over the years try to get their kids to eat what’s on their plate. Right. And the kids are having a bad attitude. They’re having a hard time with it. And so for us, we have talked to our kids about being thankful for what they’ve been given, which I’m sure a lot of parents do as well. But the actual encouragement that they get from us every single meal is you need to eat three thankful bites of everything and thankful is having a smile on your face right or like making a weird noise or not wanting to eat it or whining about it. Right. Though, because if they do that, then they’re going to sit there longer to eat it. And so but again, I have to say that with this rule, we always had grace regarding, like, OK, no, your kids. Are they allergic to something? Do they really genuinely like does something texture wise bother them? Is there a deeper reason why they’re sensitive? Their senses are sensitive to textures. Right.

Or there’s another thing, too, is. Have you ever been overwhelmed by the size of the task ahead of you? Like, that’s such a big mountain of something to do that you just don’t want to do anything. So you procrastinate it and you do all the easy things. So everybody can probably relate to that. But it’s also when you give your young kids too much on their plate. Yes. And they don’t even want to participate in it because they feel an expectation that they’re going to have to eat this. And it’s like, I don’t even want to try already knowing to let my parents down. And so I remember this one time, as you was until the pizza story, the pizza story.

So I’m so glad he’s telling the pizza story.

After I was watching Kelsey when she was a young girl and she was a picky eater and stubborn eater.

And I mean, I made homemade pizza. Yeah. And she wasn’t sure about it.

And she and she didn’t want to eat any. And I gave her some pizza and she didn’t want to eat. And I’m like, OK, I have to get my I have to think about this real good. Now can I work this. So I got I went and I found the biggest weight plate I could possibly find. It was the kitchen. A huge like platter. It was. I got my plate. Cutter and I took a piece and I cut just a little sliver off of it. And I may I put it pristinely in the center of the plate and I said, okay, Kelsey, here’s here’s your pizza. This is about what you can handle.

And she she looked at it, but she just gobbled it right up and says, proving my theory. Right. And then I cut another little piece and I put it on.

Oh, look, a good job. She gobbled up and I kept doing that producing shift to four pieces of pizza. And so sometimes it’s easier to take action in smaller increments. So maybe you’re asking too much. Then do anything he asked less than they do more.

I love this story. I totally remember when this happened. I was so surprised. Right. Because it’s just easier as a mom, especially when you have a lot of kids, you just serve everybody up. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Right. And maybe you’re giving them different sizes based upon how old they are or how big they’re right. But the reality is, is Isaac’s approach is great because she kept asking for more and she wasn’t overwhelmed. And some kids just you know, this was certain foods like especially if it’s a new food that they’re not used to, they’re like, I don’t know if I want to eat this.

And they’re like, overwhelmed just looking at the plate with the food on it. And so having walking with understanding is what I’m hearing from you. I think that that’s a theme throughout both this podcast and last one is that in all the things that we’re doing, we need to be walking with understanding with our children, but also teaching them these things, these whys, so that that becomes a legacy that they are also walking in understanding with their kids. The other thing that I wanted to just talk about briefly was supplements of vitamins, because I think that it’s very important to at least mention them. I think that a lot of people underestimate how deficient our food is today. Yeah.

And there is a need for us to actually be proactive and figure out what we are lacking. And then to fulfill what we’re lacking in. And sometimes you can figure that out on your own. Right. If someone is anemic, they usually have some anemic symptoms. And so they can if they’re having those symptoms, they can go easily, get a blood test, find out they’re anemic, told the doctor. And then there’s easy supplements. Right. Like Clora Oxygen with the coconut milk. Mix that together, maybe juice, some green leafs. Have some red meat. There’s lots of awesome options for helping people who are anemic, but there are many different things that could be potentially deficient issues. Right.

And so I just want to take this moment to say I think that it’s really important that we seek out wisdom from the health care professionals that can actually get to the root of the problem and not just try to mask it with a pill.

We live in such a pop a pill culture that it doesn’t actually help you get to the bottom as to why you’re having the issue. And that that, my friends, is the problem. You know, like we need to be preventative. But we also need to figure out and do research and find people who are going to be advocates with us and help us gain the tools and the knowledge that we need so that we can actually be taking care of our bodies holistically because God gave us our bodies to steward. And it’s a really important task. And we don’t want to be like, I don’t know about you guys, but I think about my future as a grandma. Like, I want to have energy to be running around my grandkids. I want Isaac to be able to. And so for us, like getting a good naturopathic doctor, seeing them, getting tests done, why their advice is risky and uncertain.

World, which is the theme with their whole ministry, really is how to how to equip your kids in uncertain world, how to parent. It’s super important. And it’s even more uncertain right now. It feels that way. But you know, what is certain is God’s. We know that. But so we do not have fear. But there’s new viruses, right. So we’re in the age of weird viruses, new viruses, increasing numbers of these things. And, you know, we need to be preventative. We need be ready. We need to optimize our bodies and have them as healthy as possible, not as an idol.

Right. For the purpose of being equipped and ready for the viruses and challenges that come. That’s right. Why not? Why not give her best to stand up against these things?

That’s right. And it’s really giving our kids the best to. Right. Because we know that the family suffers when mom and dad are not doing well. Right. And you brought up something that’s super important that I that I think is just that. We talked about this in the first podcast, not making idols out of any of these things. Right. But people can easily make an idol out of their health, out of exercise and diet. And that is actually something we need to evaluate in ourselves and go, OK. What are my kids watching like? Did they think that it’s more important for mom to go workout at the gym than it is to meet with them and read the Bible? Like, is it this thing like they get angry about if they miss it? Because if if those are if there are any symptoms like that, we need to be honest. We need to actually. We need a. Crucify that idol because God is a jealous God. We need to keep our priorities straight and also recognize that we need to evaluate things and go, hey, is this eternal? Yeah, right. And so having that perspective and I know that for me, like, I’ll be honest, like I really struggle with right now in the last like six or seven years, I’ve struggled with making workout time a priority for me. And I appreciate that it became a priority for my husband because he was my accountability and my encouragement to be able to do that in the sense of going, hey Angie I know that you used to love to do this. I know this is helpful for you. I want to help you to be able to do this. And I think that it’s important that we do that for each other. But one of the ways that Isaac helped me to do that was to find someone that could come over and work out with me at home and teach me things that I can be doing at home everyday. And so, you know. And there are many personal trainers that are out there.

But I think finding some way that you can meet with locally is a really cool thing. So if you are local to central Oregon and you’re looking for someone, just reach out to me. I’m happy to point you in the right direction. But I think that that’s been a huge thing for me. And regaining strength. Yeah.

But also, like, it’s good for my kids to see me working out, actually. It’s huge for their future. Right. Like. And, you know, I did. I used to do it when they were young. Teaching Aquarobics. But then also I would go to the gym like four or five days a week and we would get a babysitter. And we were able to afford that. We some people are not able to afford it. Right. But maybe they have family that lives nearby. You know, there are things that you can do, but you just need to communicate with your spouse, make priorities, check your season of life, count the costs and pick your battles right. And then be really purposeful with those battles. And it’s God will bless your efforts. I just know he will. And you guys, I can just encourage you that over the years, as we’ve been pursuing and being trying to be wise about picking our battles and like Isaac said, there was a season where I was grinding my own wheat making bread. I don’t do that anymore. I haven’t done that for years. There were a few years where I wasn’t doing it, but Kelsey was doing it for our family. But that was because she absolutely loved it, you know? And so, like, I just think that there there is a need for us all to be walking in grace with ourselves. Yeah. I’m going to try one or two things that I haven’t been doing, and I’m going to do a little research so that I have some conviction behind my decision. Yeah, right. And I can talk to my husband so he knows we’re on the same page. We’re in alignment. He can hold me accountable if I have hard time. And then you just take the next step.

So thanks for joining us today, you guys. I hope this podcast was an encouragement to you if you are looking for more. I don’t know, mentoring or encouragement on this kind of stuff. I really want to encourage you to join me for the Healthy Home Mom Hack’s workshop, which is free. You can find the show notes or reach out to me on social media. And I’m happy to connect.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. We wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program.

Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it works. Each week, Isaac and I release a video with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you and your spouse to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

It’s an incredible program where we cover everything from obedience training to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that. It’s an incredible community. You’ll have access to a private online group live Webcast and the Courageous Parenting text message line where Angie and I weekly encouragements straight to your phone.

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