Are you raising interdependent, independent, or co-dependent children? What you decide can have a huge impact on your children. Lori Wildenberg and I discuss why we need to raise interdependent children and how it can reduce their anxiety while increasing family connectedness.
As a mother of four adult children and a licensed parent and family educator, Lori shares her unique perspective on what is happening to families and how parents can reduce their children’s anxiety throughout the parenting journey.
Independent Children
Throughout our years, Lori and I have come across numerous experts who promote the idea of cultivating independence in children. They argue that it equips them with the confidence to navigate the world successfully. While this notion holds some truth, it falls short when considering the significance of maintaining familial connections after leaving home. In fostering independence, there is a risk of inadvertently instilling a belief that an individual can thrive without the support of others.
Co-dependent Children
Conversely, certain parents display an extreme level of protectiveness towards their children, refraining from making decisions independently due to apprehension of making a mistake. This co-dependency often leads to a diminished sense of confidence.
Interdependent Children
Interdependency plays a vital role in our lives. It encompasses relying on others for moral, emotional, and spiritual support. When a child has a strong bond with their parents, this connection often continues even after they leave home. It’s not driven by obligation or guilt, but rather by the reassurance of knowing that someone will be there for them as they navigate the world around them.
Find a Balance
We want our children to be able to make decisions on their own. We don’t want them to be insecure and completely rely on us. That’s why we must consider how we raise our children.
When you focus on raising interdependent children, you can reduce your child’s anxiety and strengthen family connectedness.
About Lori Wildenberg
Helping families build relationships that last a lifetime is Lori Wildenberg’s passion. Lori, a licensed parent and family educator, is a national speaker and award-winning author or coauthor of six parenting books listed below. The Wildenberg home is nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Lori is Mom to four, Mom-in-Love to three, and Mimi to four. A perfect day in Lori’s world is a hike with Tom (her hubby) and their growing family!
My guest, Zan Tyler, shares how parents can make homeschooling easier and strengthen relationships using a few simple activities your children will enjoy.
As a veteran homeschool mom, Zan Tyler believes parents can make homeschooling easier by adding a few simple activities to motivate children on their homeschool journey.
What can we do to make learning fun while making homeschooling easy? Zan shares three ideas and some sage advice I’m sure you will enjoy.
Embracing God’s Call
Embracing God’s call isn’t always easy, but Zan’s story is filled with defining moments where she witnessed God’s hand guiding her through the process. Through these experiences, she realized that her purpose is to support and encourage homeschool moms like enjoy the adventure.
Making Homeschooling Easier
Zan understands the challenges of homeschooling and wants to help you make your homeschool days more enjoyable. Here are a few tips she shared:
Break up the school week by designating a special day that your kids can look forward to.
Focus on the unique gifts that homeschooling offers, such as the flexibility of time, the ability to explore new ideas, and the spontaneity it allows.
Look for serving opportunities that you and your children can do together. Engaging in service activities strengthens the bond between you and your kids.
Plan mid-week outings or activities outside the house to bring excitement and variety to your homeschool routine.
Encourage your family members to embrace their individual strengths and find meaningful ways to redeem each day.
Building Strong Relationships
Zan emphasizes the importance of building strong relationships within your homeschooling journey. She quotes Mother Teresa, who said, “If you want to bring happiness to the whole world, go home and love your family.”
Here are some practical tips to making homeschooling easier
Love each other well by intentionally investing time and effort into nurturing your relationships.
Take the time to truly understand and get to know your children, their unique motivations, and learning styles.
Give yourself grace as you navigate the homeschooling journey. Remember, it’s all new, and mistakes are part of the learning process.
Learn to incorporate your faith into your daily homeschool routine, allowing God to guide you every step of the way.
We must trust in God’s leading to help make homeschooling easier
By implementing these practical tips and embracing the lessons shared in this episode, you can make homeschool easier and more fulfilling while strengthening the bond within your family.
Trust in God’s plan, cherish your relationships and enjoy the adventure of homeschooling. Together, we can strengthen today’s families and create a brighter future.
About Zan Tyler
Zan Tyler’s homeschool journey began in 1984 when homeschooling was illegal, and she was threatened with jail. For eight years, she and other families battled for homeschool freedom and established landmark homeschool legislation in South Carolina. In 1990, she founded the South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools (SCAIHS) and served as its president for ten years.
Zan loves to empower parents as they answer their God-given calling to homeschool. She is an inspirational speaker and author. For sixteen years, Zan worked with Christian publishers developing homeschool curriculum and resources. She is now a consultant with BJU Press Homeschool. Zan’s greatest privilege in life was homeschooling their three children through high school. Zan is the host of the Zan Tyler Podcast, sponsored by BJU Press Homeschool. Join Zan and a special guest each week for real encouragement, engaging stories, and practical wisdom for surviving and thriving on the homeschool journey.
Get ready for a few tears with this episode! I finally convinced my podcast editor to join me on the show. It’s part thank you and part farewell as she moves on to what God has for her in this next season of her life. Amanda and I have known each other for over 10 years, worked together in several ways over the years, and have become great friends over that time. She helped me launch the Equipped To Be Podcast and do a lot of other technical stuff behind the scenes with the support of her husband Josh and their company The Pelsers Media. After battling chronic illness for many years and overcoming through much prayer, research, and the use of homeopathy, she has now launched Rooted Homeopathy, LLC to help other moms find wellness breakthroughs and care for their families in a natural, Biblical way by using homeopathy.
Disclaimer: Amanda is not a doctor or licensed medical professional. Nothing stated is meant to diagnose or treat disease. Amanda is educating you on the specialized area of homeopathic remedies and their possible uses for wellness support.
In this episode Amanda and I discuss:
Background on how we met and our friendship
Amanda’s health journey story through chronic health issues to find diagnoses
What is medical “gaslighting”?
How Amanda found homeopathy and used it to regain her wellness
How do faith, the Bible, and homeopathy intersect?
Being content to use education and experiences for discipling her children if for nothing else
The road to starting Rooted Homeopathy
How God gives us gifts and talents to use for His glory
Wellness consults and study groups offered at Rooted Homeopathy
Encouragement to take charge of your own health
I hope you found encouragement and hope in Amanda’s story and testimony!
About Amanda Pelser
Amanda Pelser is a wife, mom of four boys, RVer, and aspiring homesteader. Amanda’s journey to natural and alternative health education began with poor experiences with allopathic/conventional medicine. She had to take responsibility for her own health when doctors failed her. She’s tackled her own autoimmune conditions and the acute and chronic wellness care of her own family using homeopathy.
Desiring to learn more and serve others with this knowledge, Amanda obtained her PHom and is a Certified Practical Homeopath through the Academy of Practical Homeopathy®. She has also completed Lotus Wellness Cottage Certifications (the program established by the late Dr. Robin Murphy) in Home Use Home Homeopathy (H.Hom) and a certificate in Planetary Bioenergetics. Always a student, she is currently pursuing the C.Hom and I.Hom certifications at Lotus. She now offers personalized wellness consults for acute and chronic concerns and teaches others how to use homeopathy through Rooted Homeopathy.
Amanda also has a BA in Bible and MA in Old Testament Studies and is uniquely equipped to address the intersection of faith and the use of homeopathy. As a homeschooling mom of over 13 years, she also has a passion for teaching homeopathy and natural wellness to kids.
I want to introduce you to Tina Yeager. She’s a mental health professional, coach, speaker, and podcaster. In this episode, she helps me tackle some tough topics that are affecting families these days. There’s so much tension, anxiety, and depression affecting our kids and it just continues to trend upwards. She helps us understand how to help our kids find identity in Christ in this crazy world.
In this episode Tina and I discuss:
How we are being systematically distracted from connecting with one another and the priority of the urgent.
How screens are dehumanizing our kids and leading to violent behavior.
How kids are looking for acceptance and approval and that must come first from God.
How parents can handle their own stresses and still keep a watchful eye on their kids.
Learning to put the important first over the urgent and make connections with your kids.
Making time to connect with God and letting the Holy Spirit be the manager of your time.
How to overcome developmental and academic delays caused by the disruptions of the last few years.
How the best things you can do are free and not extravagant.
The need for firm safety guidelines for your kids so they are not bullied or manipulated.
Instilling the understanding of finding identity in Christ in your kids
I hope you’ve been encouraged and equipped by these thoughts and tips from Tina. As you start a new school year with your kids, I challenge you to help your kids find identity in Christ and to work towards building solid relationships with them.
About Tina Yeager
Award-winning author, inspirational speaker, and life coach, Tina also hosts the Flourish-Meant podcast and publishes Inkspirations Online, a weekly devotional for writers. She has won over thirty writing awards, including a 2020 Golden Scroll Award and 2013 FCWC Writer of the Year. Her fiction and nonfiction strive to clarify how we might relate better to others, to ourselves, and to God. Licensed as a counselor since 2005, she has over twenty years of experience teaching parenting to at-risk families, writing skills, communications, inner healing, and spiritual growth. She has counseled and taught adults, teens, and children in academic, clinical, and faith-based settings. Tina enjoys working with diverse populations and has practiced in community mental health settings and private practice since 2000. She specializes in ADHD, stress management, purpose definition, abuse recovery, and esteem-building, and currently runs an online life coaching practice, Divine Encouragement, LLC. Yeager holds a BA in creative writing and an MA in counseling. Yeager serves on the steering committee of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, as director of traditional groups with Word Weavers International, and as an active member of the Christian Authors Network and Christian Women in Media Association. Her courses on Subdue Stress and Anxiety, Psyched Characters and Kindle your Creative Spark are available online. Though currently a life coach, author, speaker, and podcast host, Yeager is also familiar with shame’s oppression at a personal level. Tina wrestled with isolation from peers, body image, and low self-esteem issues, even trending into eating disordered behavior. The Lord sustained Tina through a desert-like journey of character transformation, training, and effort.
It’s that time of year again – the start of a new school year! Whether you’re a seasoned parent or you have a new kindergartener, the mixed feelings of nervousness, excitement, and anxiety are likely familiar. In this episode, we are going to talk about transitioning smoothly into a new school year and the importance of easing kids back into school.
Let’s just first acknowledge now that there’s a bit of upheaval that happens at back-to-school time. Your kids are learning new things and adjusting to new schedules. Be mentally prepared for this.
Easing into the School Year
Here are my suggestions for ways of easing your kids back into school and setting them up for a great year:
Be sure to talk to your kids about any anxiety they may have.
This might be anxiety about the challenges of new things or it might be social challenges. Connect with your kids about how to process their emotions. Temper your expectations of your children, and yourself.
Be prepared and reduce stress by meal planning.
Having the groceries in the house and at least a rough plan of what you’re going to cook will make your days run more smoothly. Don’t forget to think about nutrition! Your child’s brain is developing rapidly and they need healthy fats and proteins in addition to good carbs. Set consistent meal times and set your day by working backward to make sure that meals happen on time and avoid children becoming hangry.
Help your kids develop good study habits and related routines.
Show them how to focus. Give them a space in which to study. Provide organizational systems and skills.
Include physical exercise and free play in your days.
Create margin in the schedule for these activities. Don’t give up this time in order to get other things done!
Create an atmosphere in your home that your children will want to remember.
An atmosphere of warmth, excitement, and enthusiasm is contagious. Write down the words you want your kids to use to describe your home after they’ve left your home as adults. Be and do the things needed to embody those words.
Remove distractions and provide the resources they need to be successful.
What is in the way of your child achieving their goals? Determine what is needed of you to reach those goals? What is keeping you from being available for your child?
Make It a Great Year
Every school year brings its own set of unique joys and excitements and challenges. I hope your children look back on this school year as a year of blessings and call it a great year!
Do you worry? Seems like every time you turn around, there’s another headline that strikes fear and causes worry these days. What about your kids? Do you worry about them? Do you worry you will ruin them? Do you worry about the things they will have to face? What can you do about worry? Well, Keri Eichberger is with me in this episode to talk about these big issues surrounding worry. Keri offers encouraging insights and reminds us of the power of God’s truth in conquering worry and finding peace in all seasons of life. You can win over worry!
In this episode, Keri and I discuss:
Keri’s family dynamics with five children and how that lends itself to an environment of worrying
How you can help someone if you are just one step ahead of them
The distinction between genuine concern and worry
Understanding the root fears behind worry, which often include a fear of helplessness and a fear of being unloved or unworthy
Understanding God’s unconditional love and his power
Overcoming worry by seeking God’s truth, turning to prayer, embracing community, studying the Bible, and other spiritual practices
Acknowledging that some individuals may be more predisposed to worry due to their wiring, but still emphasizing the same things work for those people
Keri’s example of a fear of flying and trusting God
Worry is common and we all face it. But, worry is not from God and you can overcome it through the power of God who lives in you!
About Keri Eichberger
Keri Eichberger lives just outside of Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband Mike and their five kids. Her own roller coaster of life trials, redeemed by a relationship with the Lord, fueled her desire to help others discover and experience the fullness of life found in Jesus. After years of writing for an online audience, she became ordained through Southeast Christian Church, giving her life to full-time ministry. She continues to follow her calling to bring faith-filled encouragement to others around the world through her social media influence, devotionals, Faith Fueled podcast, and Christian nonfiction books.
