SR 881: Health and PE: Building a Healthy Homeschool Environment – Monica Swanson, Part 2 (Homeschooling Every Subject)

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When you do all the other things that contribute to a healthy

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lifestyle, emotional health becomes much less of

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an issue. Most of the time, emotional health will be

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the byproduct of a healthy lifestyle. Hey,

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everyone, this is Yvette Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked

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Podcast. I am back with Monica Swanson, and we are talking this

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week about Health and PE. And this has been such

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a fun conversation already, so informative. This is

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part of our Homeschooling Every Subject series. And

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I love doing these series. You guys know that I do. This is, this is

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kind of my new thing. I like doing series where we can just kind of

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group a bunch of things together and get that information out to

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you. And so if you guys missed our homeschooling through the years

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series, that one was fantastic as well, where we talked about homeschooling

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from the, you know, preschool years all the way to the after

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years. And that course, not course, that series has

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been really well received. We’ve gotten a lot of just really great

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comments and feedback on that. And so if you’ve missed that, we will put a

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link to that in the show notes as well so you can go back and

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listen to that. But for this one, we’re talking about all the different subjects

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that we as homeschoolers deal with

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that we have to think through history, science, language arts and

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health and PE. That’s something that, of course, all of the traditional

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schools always have that on their transcripts. And sometimes we forget

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to think intentionally about these things. We, we do

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this on a daily basis. You know, we, our kids get exercise and we

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talk about healthy eating and things like that. But sometimes it’s good to actually be

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really intentional about teaching our kids about health

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and physical education. It’s part

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of them becoming well rounded homeschoolers,

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like Monica’s new course, a well rounded homeschooler, which

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I love. And, and so anyway, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. But

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before we get back into it, I want to say thank you to our sponsor,

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BJU Press Homeschool if you’re looking for great Christian homeschool

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curriculum for any subject, any age, check them

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out at bjupresshomeschool.com. they

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will help you with homeschooling. So if you want parent led, they’ve got something

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for you. If you want video led, they’ve got something for you. And you get

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to direct the course of your child’s education. And so they are there to help

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you do

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that. Bjupresshomeschool.com. Well, Monica, welcome back. You

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know, I’m always jealous of you. I always say every time I talk to you,

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I’m looking at that window behind you and longing to

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be in Hawaii, like you are laying on the beach. Cause that’s what you

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do every day, right? All day. That’s all day. Every day. You just lay on

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the beach and tan. I should do these from the beach, right? You

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should, yeah. Monica’s beach studio. That would be awesome. You set

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up a little tenta, right? And the sound might not be so. Great,

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but, you know. But the picture would be amazing.

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So cool. I am definitely jealous, but that’s okay. It’s a good

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jealousy. I’m jealous of God’s creation and that you get to enjoy

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that part of his creation. It is a little bit of heaven. Sometimes I’m like,

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wow. It’s pretty special, I do confess.

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Yeah. So cool. Well, today I want to talk about health

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and the importance of teaching health, um, to our kids and in our

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homeschool. And so you talked at the end of Monday’s

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episode that you have a new course. It’s called a well rounded

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homeschooler, which, when I invited you, I said this

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on Monday, when I invited you to be part of this, I did not know

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that you even had this new course. And I was like, oh, it’s perfect for

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this. And as a matter of fact, I was. As I was researching for this

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podcast episode, one of the things that I came

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in contact with that I came across was from not

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consumed Kim Sorges Jones. She has a fairly

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new curriculum called thrive health and physical education

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for homeschoolers. And it’s fantastic. It’s a book, it’s

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a curriculum, and it’s such a good curriculum. It

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goes through all the different things about how we are fearfully and

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wonderfully made and teaching our kids that they’re a gift from God. And then she

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goes into talking about how to use your muscles and make your muscles and your

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body strong. And it’s not an anatomy course, but she

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talks about the skeletal system and the bones and how to have healthy bones and

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a healthy cardiovascular system, the importance of exercise and

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strength training and calisthenics and cardio, and then a healthy diet

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and food groups, like, all this stuff having to do with

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health, including sleep, you know, of course, eating well is part

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of that, but she talks about sleep. And so these are a lot of the

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things that you also talk about. And I’ll put a link to that

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thrive curriculum in the show notes.

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But in your course as well. I know you talk about a healthy

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lifestyle and break that into mental, emotional,

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physical, diet, sleep, exercise. All of these things

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combined are what create a healthy lifestyle for our kids.

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And so let’s walk through that, because for those

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who don’t yet have the course or don’t yet have Kim’s

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curriculum, I want to just provide some really helpful

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information to those. So maybe let’s start with

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maybe the mental part of living a healthy lifestyle. Right?

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And just to clarify for anyone listening, I was able to check out

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Kim’s course as well. Thrive. And

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it’s excellent from what I can see. I would highly recommend,

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and that would be a actual class for kids that you would put

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your kids in and count that as a health or PE credit. My

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well rounded homeschooler course is for parents, and it’s

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really to equip you to make sure you’re not missing anything. You know, most of

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us, especially the newer homeschoolers, are like, well, I want to do this,

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but what if I forget something? Or how do I know that I’m giving my

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kids enough in this area or that? So it’s kind of almost like a way

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for you to just double check, make sure you’re not missing anything, and

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have a lot of fun going through all of these five building blocks which are

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in the course, one of which is a healthy lifestyle. But the emotional health,

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I think, in general health is kind of what you already mentioned,

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just an easy area to take for granted. Like, okay, we’re doing math, we’re getting

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our English in. You know, we’re covering, oh, and then there’s health, okay. And we

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just want to check it off real quickly. But I’m like, no, this is actually

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huge, because what our kids learn about health will

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impact them personally for the rest of their life. So it can be a

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really fun part of your school day, and it just takes a little

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intentionality. Make sure you’re either using a curriculum or at least,

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you know, enough to pass that on to them, point them in the right direction.

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And emotional health is something that people are talking about more and

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more. We know that they say that there’s a mental health crisis in America

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among teenagers. Depression, anxiety. Kids are not

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sleeping enough, and we’re gonna blame that on screens, primarily for good

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reason. But emotional health is super important. And I think,

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as homeschool families, we can give our kids such a great foundation

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in their emotional health. And I think a lot of that is just being aware

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and knowing, um, some of the basics you don’t have to be an

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expert, but just be tuned in and aware of it. And so, yeah, I don’t

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know how, how do you want to walk through this? Yeah, well, I will say

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really quickly, we, we’ve done two episodes in the past. We did one on,

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um, emotional health and walking through, well, I shouldn’t say emotional health.

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We did one on depression for moms and moms dealing with depression with Rachel

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Carmen. And it was fantastic. It was such a good episode because

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a lot of moms today deal with depression. And I think

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I could be totally off base on this, but I think one of the reasons

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that kids and humans in general, moms, dads,

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anybody, deals with depression, it seems more than maybe in the

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past, is partly because of our lifestyle. It’s because we’re not eating right, we’re

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not exercising, we’re not getting sunshine, we’re not living

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life the way that life was lived in past times. Right.

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Um, so maybe park on that for just a little bit and talk about

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how our, what we’re doing as an

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exercise is affecting our health, our mental

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health. Absolutely. Yes. So everything is tied together.

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We know that. And I think in a good moment, most of us can

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kind of zoom out and go, what’s going on here? And when you look at

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kids with screens in their room and they’re up half the night

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playing video games or on social media, hopefully people listening know

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you really need to keep screens out of the bedrooms. But I, if

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kids aren’t getting enough exercise, that’s going to affect their sleep. Not enough sleep is

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going to affect their moods and their emotions. Kids who have a

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junky diet, there’s so much out there now in our world that’s just really feeding

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kids unhealthy foods. It’s not going to fuel them. And so it’s

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really, when you do all the other things that contribute to a healthy

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lifestyle, emotional health becomes much less of

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an issue. It’s so much easier to,

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to be happy and fulfilled and well

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adjusted when you’re getting some good fresh air and exercise, when you’re eating good foods,

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when you’re socially connected, when you’re reading the word every day

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like you do all the other things, emotional health typically falls

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into place. Now, there are times, absolutely, where there’s going to be a unique

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struggle and a time to get help and a time to figure out what’s going

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on here. Is there something more? But most of the time, emotional

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health will be the byproduct of a healthy lifestyle.

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Yeah, agreed. Um, and, and again. Oh, man, it’s something we have to be so

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intentional about because it’s so easy to grab the bag of takis

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or potato chips and, you know, use that as our snack

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instead of cutting up an apple and. Absolutely. With peanut butter, you know.

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Yes. It seems like the healthier

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lifestyle is often harder than they just grab and

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go. Yeah, lifestyle. Yes, it absolutely

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is. But it’s so worth it. And I think we. Whatever habit

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you’re in, you’re going to repeat. So sometimes it just means forging new habits,

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really being intentional about some new patterns, and then that

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becomes your new normal and it pays off. Yep. Yep. Let’s take a break. We’ll

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be right back.

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We are back with Monica. Monica, talk with us about, we were

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talking before the break about emotional health, but I want to talk specifically about how

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we can really foster emotional health in our kids

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and in our families, including us as adults. Absolutely. I

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love this topic. And I’m just kind of drawing from some of the guidelines I

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share in my well rounded homeschooler course. And of course,

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I start with prayer. I mean, we need to be praying for our kids. And

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with our kids, prayer is our first line of defense. So we want to cover

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our kids in prayer and ask God, too, to just show us if there’s

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any area where something’s off, because he really will be faithful to do that.

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And then with that reading, praying and speaking scripture, I think

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our kids will grow up learning how powerful the word of God is

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when we model that and when we bring it in throughout their days.

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Scripture applies to every area of life, so take advantage

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of that, that it’s so powerful and effective. But then in

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addition to that, I think it’s really helpful to give our kids an emotional

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vocabulary. I’ve talked to mental health

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experts who say that in today’s culture, interestingly,

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everything is extreme for kids. Kids rarely

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will say, I’m feeling down. They say I’m depressed.

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Apparently, kids don’t talk. You know, a therapist has told

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me kids don’t, like, talk about running away or

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those things that we used to threaten our kids, our parents with.

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Now kids will say, I want to kill myself. So there’s this

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extreme tendency kids have to just, everything is a

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ten. So for us to be able to teach our kids, hey, listen, there’s a

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scale, one to ten. Like, you might be frustrated. It doesn’t mean you have

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to throw things or get all out aggressive and angry. Let’s talk

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about what it means to have a feeling, to acknowledge that feeling as

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normal, and then to do something about it. I give an

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emotion chart where kids, when they’re real little, might be able to point and say,

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well, that’s me. I might be feeling a little sad, I might be feeling a

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little frustrated. But helping them to understand that is part of our human

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experience. And it doesn’t always have to be a ten on

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that scale. We can do something about it. And then

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modeling and teaching emotional regulation. Hey, moms, how about

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us? I know when my boys were little, I struggled with my own temper,

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and I was modeling some bad responses to my own

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emotions. I would get angry and yell, are we modeling

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good emotional regulation? And maybe that’s an area some of us need to

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work on, get some prayer for, find some help in, because

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our kids are always going to be more likely to be like us than just

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do what we say. In addition to that, I love to geek

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out on brain science. I love that the Bible and brain science go hand in

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hand and just teaching kids. I was just having a conversation with my 14

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year old yesterday about how we do have these neural pathways in our brain.

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And whatever we think or speak over and over becomes so

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automatic. And if you say things like,

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I’m dumb or I’m bad at this or my life is

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awful, you say that over and over. It becomes this neural pathway.

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So sometimes what we need to do is simply script a

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new message to ourselves, speak it out loud, align it with

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truth. And over time, you do that enough, you’re going to form

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new neural pathways. Kids need to understand this, that they have

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power in their thoughts, power in their words. Speak truth.

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Stop yourself from saying those negative things, because they do create

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powerful pathways. And then things just like teaching our kids

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gratitude, the power of gratitude. You can’t be anxious and grateful at the

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same time. So the more you’re grateful, the less anxiety you’re going to deal

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with. Teaching kids to serve others, my goodness, it puts things in

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perspective. When you’re making a meal or doing something to help somebody

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who has a serious problem in their life, it really helps you have

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perspective on your usually smaller problems. So

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all these things, they’re things we know. But sometimes we just need reminders

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that, hey, today, what can we do for a neighbor? What can we do? Can

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we write a letter to grandma and grandpa? Can we do something nice for somebody

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in need? And I think all those little daily acts add up over time.

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Yeah, for sure. You know, I have Abby who co hosts the

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podcast with me sometimes. I remember going to her house and she has

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on her refrigerator a bunch of post it notes, and they have different scriptures and

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encouraging sayings and quotes and stuff. And I was like, that is the coolest thing.

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And just having things like that in your house, that will just bring encouragement, you

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know, obviously spending time in God’s word each day alone and with our

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kids, but just, you’re just kind of surrounding

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yourself with truth. Yes. That’s so important.

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Absolutely. The other thing I’ve realized with my girls especially, is how

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important their friendships are to their emotional health.

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And I think we’ve all been through this. You know, anyone who’s lived more

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than five years has had a friend who is just

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toxic in one way or another. And then we’ve had other friends who are

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not, who are just encouraging. And not that our friends are always going to be

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perfect and meet every need, but it’s so important

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for our kids to have good, godly friendships. And with

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my girls, you know, I’m trying to teach them this is what it looks like

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to be a godly friend. Absolutely. And when they’ve been hurt by their

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friends, it’s always an opportunity to say, this is how to not

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be a good friend. You know, don’t do what they’ve done, because you see how

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hurtful it is. And so surrounding themselves with

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other christian kids, and that’s sometimes really hard to do. It depends on where

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you live, too. You know, some of us have lots of opportunities to

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surround ourselves with christians, and some people live in very small communities where they’re

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very isolated, and it’s really hard to find strong christian friendships. And

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so I have a friend right now who her daughter is.

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She’s been part of the national Bible Bee for many years,

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and she’s made some really good friends that are completely across the country.

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I mean, she lives in California, and her good friends, some of her closest friends

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live on the east coast. And so for her graduation gift,

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her parents flew her to West Virginia to be able to spend a week

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with one of these friends that she made. And it’s so sweet that

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because of technology today, if you don’t have someone in

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your local area who’s a really good, encouraging friend,

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you can make friends in other ways. Yes, you gotta be careful with that.

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Right, right. But, yeah, it’s so important to get rid of those toxic

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friendships and bring those encouraging friendships into your

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life because emotionally they can destroy you. You become like the company you

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keep. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. That’s true. Bad company

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corrupts good morals. Walk with the wise and be wise. But if you can, you

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know, fools suffers harms. I say that to my girls

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quite often. I do, too. And like one of my friends said years

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ago, show me your friends and I’ll show you your future. So that’s

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a simple way to say it. It is so true. And I think that in

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this area of teaching health, I mean, I know there’s curriculums out there that cover

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health and they’re going to cover all of these things and a lot of

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just more the academic side of health. But I think it’s important for us as

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parents to be tuned into, like, we’ve already covered the importance

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of sleep, how diet affects your health, how exercise affects your health, and

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then give your kids kind of that big picture view. And I love when they’re

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young to cast a vision, to show them people who are young adults, like,

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look at what a healthy lifestyle looks like. That’s what we’re aiming for. Now let’s

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break that down and walk step by step how we can live a healthy lifestyle

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to get us where we want to be as adults. Yeah, for sure. And

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I actually want to dig into that a little bit more tomorrow. We’re, we’re out

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of time for today, but I want to talk more about physical health and how

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we can help our kids to be physically healthy with diet and sleep and

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all of those things that really, really do matter. So we will be back

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tomorrow to talk about that. Tell us one more time about your course.

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And also, I’m pretty sure I said this on Monday,

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but you were on, I did say this on Monday. We had you on a

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few months ago talking about your new book, Becoming Homeschoolers. And then you’ve got, what’s

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your boy book? Boy Mom. Boy Mom. And then.

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Yes, and then last year I had my book raising amazing

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release. And that’s for boys and girls or parents of boys and

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girls and then Becoming Homeschoolers. So. Yes, yes. And you have a podcast as

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well. I do the Monica Swanson podcast, and I love to talk about all these

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things. In fact, over the last summer, my husband and I did a

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three part series on youth sports. So talking about

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navigating some of the tricky things from a christian perspective on youth sports.

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And the favorite interview in that series was an interview with

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my 20 year old son, who talked for an hour and

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45 minutes. And I have a typically 30 minutes podcast. Well, he talked a

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long time sharing his surfing journey, but how faith played a role in

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that and about the mindset aspect, confidence. People

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loved hearing Luke share his story. So maybe we can link to that

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series because I think for those sports loving families out there, that might be fun.

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Yes, definitely. We’ll put a link to that in the show notes as well. I

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love, Monica, that you are so passionate about the Lord, and

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it. It comes out in everything that you do in the books that you write,

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in your podcast, and, you know, just speaking to you. I love that you are

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passionate about your relationship with Jesus, because it’s the most important thing. It is what

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we need most. I mean, if your kids sit on the couch for their entire

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life but love Jesus, okay, I’d rather have that than the most

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athletic kid in the world. Amen. Who doesn’t? So true. Yes.

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But don’t let them sit on the couch through their whole childhood. They

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need to be up and moving and active so that they can serve the Lord

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and impact his kingdom, because we can’t do that if we’re sick and

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unable to. So, anyway, have a great rest of your day. Stay tuned to

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the very end to hear what’s coming up next on the podcast, and we will

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see you back here tomorrow. Bye.