Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Raising Terrain Based Children with Dr. Andrew Kaufman
369 Plays3 days ago
Learn more in the the Beyond Terrain Academy, access free resources!
https://beyondterrain.com/beyond-terrain-academy/
Dr. Andrew Kaufman returns to Beyond Terrain to explore what it really means to raise healthy children in the modern world. From preconception planning to navigating childhood “illness,” this episode breaks down the myths of infection, fertility, and parenting—and reframes them through terrain philosophy.
We cover:
- Why true child health starts before conception
- The fertility crisis and cultural/chemical assaults on family
- Why hunter-gatherers never experienced colds, flu, or measles
- “Infections” as detox: the real role of fever, rashes, and elimination
- The dangers of symptom suppression and how to support natural healing
- Parenting styles, tantrums, and developmental responsibility
- The truth about 'inumizishins' and medicalized childhood
Whether you’re a parent, preparing to be one, or simply interested in natural law and sovereignty, this conversation reveals timeless principles for raising the next generation free and strong.
Keep up with me (socials)
https://www.instagram.com/beyond.terrain/
https://beyondterrain.com/
Our vision at Beyond Terrain is greatly supported by sharing our work!
Learn more from and support our esteemed guest, Dr. Andrew Kaufman
Recommended
![DNA Doesn't Exist & Genomic Nonsense with Dr. Jerneja Tomsic [Part 2] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/652933f3a749dc383eb375de/ce5a5fd9-98c9-44fe-9b4b-3d0cd5abcf29.png)
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Engagement
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Beyond Train podcast. I am your host, Leo Vidal, I'm so happy that you're here listening to this episode today. If you are new around here, consider subscribing or following the show. If you like what we do here, make sure to comment, subscribe, leave a rating or a review.
00:00:17
Speaker
Sharing is always the best way to help support us If you would like to support us further, you should consider joining the Beyond Terrain Academy. First and foremost, it is free to join. You do gain access to Terrain Fundamentals classroom, as well as an introductory course on the true root causes of disease.
00:00:34
Speaker
However, if you do want to go deeper, you can join as a full member to gain access to some exclusive content. Monthly masterclasses, Terrain Wellness Club with Jacob Diaz and Alex Zeck, myself, of course.
00:00:45
Speaker
Q&A and discussions, the terrain studies library, deep dive classrooms, things on parasites, lifestyle, movement, etc. You gain access to so much more.
00:00:57
Speaker
truly unified community walking along the same path and some really, really cool discussions. If you pay for the year, you do gain access to a complimentary catalyst consultation to launch yourself into your terrain-based healing journey as well as a year-end check-in.
00:01:14
Speaker
Regardless, you should go and join the community because it is free to join and there are tons of free resources.
Discussion with Dr. Kaufman on Raising Healthy Families
00:01:19
Speaker
But without further ado, let's get into today's episode. Dr. Kaufman, thank you once again for coming back on the Beyond Train podcast.
00:01:29
Speaker
Nice see you again. ah It's a pleasure to be here, Liev. Of course. So... I really wanted to invite you on. You're you' brilliant. ah You've shared some amazing thoughts on the train, on natural law, on so many topics. Something I really wanted to pick your brain about was, you know, raising healthy children in the modern world.
00:01:52
Speaker
You know, so i guess maybe to kind of open the floor, you know, where where do we start in this conversation of of raising healthy children? You know, because it seems as though it starts far before conception even.
00:02:06
Speaker
Well, I would definitely agree that planning is key because you want to have a healthy child ah come out and you want it to be born into a stable family. But I think if we just, you know, take a step to zoom out a little bit.
00:02:24
Speaker
um You know, you mentioned in your introduction how I talk about a lot of different topics and there's an important reason for that. And this is not necessarily something unique about me, although it may be unique that I do this, but it's not ah because of a unique ability.
00:02:43
Speaker
And this is because we can recognize that the authorities, both not just in government, but in academia and authorship of the current body of knowledge, there are so many things that are misleading, wrong, fraudulent, et cetera, that it behooves us like to take the responsibility to learn about different aspects related to our lives so that we can you know make informed decisions,
00:03:12
Speaker
and not be vulnerable to being taken advantage of or misled or harmed by so many things out there that can do that. And of course, if you think about the hierarchy of where that should begin, it makes sense with the family and with raising the next generation to prepare them to carry on that mission and that way of living where you have self-reliance, independence and responsibility for ah your actions.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, amazing. You know, it's funny, like when I reflect on my own journey and my kind of healing journey, quote unquote, it came with looking into a vast,
00:03:56
Speaker
you know, like a ton of different topics. And it was like building log cabins. I was so interested in that and carpentry and, you know, homesteading. And, you know, now even when I'm, when I'm thinking about, you know, my future family here, you know, building a curriculum and like, what am I going to want to implement and teach my children, you know, beyond even sort of the, the trivium quadrivium, you know, i i want to implement some arts in there. I want to implement like,
00:04:26
Speaker
study of poetry and different ideas like that and I kind of have to come in and learn a lot of that you know take responsibility for that education of myself too to be able to impart that wisdom and um but you know there's so many different things and that's I find where community helps too where you know I have lots of people in my family who are extremely skilled carpenters that if I ever needed any advice in there i I'm able to go to them and um you know hopefully my children can learn from them as well right so that community aspect to offset the burden responsibility, I suppose, in a way where people can specialize in different things
Challenges and Perspectives on Family and Population
00:05:02
Speaker
and we could come together. And, um you know, my wife always says it, it takes a village to raise a family, you know, so I kind of like that saying.
00:05:11
Speaker
Yeah, well, ah there is a lot of wisdom to that. And of course, you can't ah be ah master or purveyor of every single thing, right? What I think it is important to have a level of knowledge and understanding to make you competent so that when you are working with people, you know, you can either learn from them or you can evaluate if they're doing ah doing a proper job, right? Which can be just as important because not everybody out there is, you know, self-responsible in the way we might hold our family to as a standard.
00:05:47
Speaker
um And, you know, we can look at raising children in a lot of different ways. Of course, we could talk about, you know, the educational aspect of it. We could talk about development. We could talk about planning for a family. What are the right ingredients? And we can, you know, talk about health of a pregnancy, fertility, and,
00:06:09
Speaker
even the birthing process, if you like. But all those, you know, obviously it's a lifetime job or responsibility to bring a new life into the world. So there's a lot that goes into it.
00:06:21
Speaker
Of course. Dr. Coffin, what are your thoughts on individuals who don't want to have a family? I'm kind of curious on like what your perspective is on that. Sure. Well, I mean, I think it's important ah for those people to find out the real reason for each individual as to why that is, because it is in our nature.
00:06:45
Speaker
um you know And obviously the survival of humanity depends on bringing future generations into the world and especially in the timing of what's going on at present, because, you know, right now we're actually at risk of extinction.
00:07:04
Speaker
And now I know that the, you know, information authorities out there talk about an overpopulation crisis and such like people like Bill Gates, but actually, if you look at what's going on now, the fertility rates and the birth rates are below replacement levels, substantially below replacement levels in most Western countries, including the United States. And you know this data comes from the CDC. It's not controversial, it's just misreported when it comes to ah you know certain elites in the media.
00:07:38
Speaker
But so if we are going to, you know, if we're good people and capable of raising children, which, you know, anyone without serious ah life problems, you know, obviously if you're struggling with addiction, ah for example, um or other severe problems, you know, with your with your anger and violent behavior, things like that, you should definitely are not ready at that point in your life to have children.
00:08:06
Speaker
ah But you can go through a process to develop yourself and fulfill that destiny if you are motivated and put in the work to do that.
00:08:17
Speaker
But for everyone else, I mean, it's really important, I think, to maintain our population. And there is a point below which it really does lead to extinction.
00:08:30
Speaker
So, um you know, i'm I'm not really exaggerating ah with what I'm talking about. And, you know, in my opinion, there's been not only a cultural assault on the family trying to discourage um pregnancy and procreation, but also a you know, chemical assault that's led to massive fertility issues.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I think about like the psychology of, you know, not wanting to do kind of the most fundamental truth that we, we know is real, you know, we don't, there's no guesswork when it comes to procreation.
00:09:11
Speaker
know, you know you mentioned kind of being in a difficult situation overtly, you know, with addiction or anger issues or whatever it may be and having to kind of put in that great work to be able to get on a path, to be able to, you know, pass on some sort of good and, um,
00:09:30
Speaker
you know I feel like even if it's not overt, there's still something there that needs to be worked through, whether it be a lack of wanting to take responsibility or sacrifice or different psychological factors like that. And I feel like some... like often when I'm interacting with other people and parents that that psychological aspect seems so strong ah in you know, even when it comes to the physical health, you know, even then when it comes to trying to discern what is physically healthy and trying to avoid chemicals, you know, there's like that lack of wanting to take responsibility for the health of the family and the health of ourselves and ah education and all these other things as well. But, you know, even from a very physical level, it seems like that psychological aspect that
00:10:14
Speaker
that putting in the great work yourself, you know, where we we lack that ah as a foundation too.
Health Issues and Natural Healing Methods
00:10:22
Speaker
Well, one way to look at this, Liev, is, you know, as a parent, you're going to be an example, right? No matter what you try to say to your child to, you know, get them to behave a certain way or do a certain thing, they're going to be much more um influenced by observing what you do.
00:10:42
Speaker
So part of the preparation, in my opinion, before you have children is to begin um improving yourself. And you can think about it, you know what is it about me that I would want to impart on my child and give that impression from how I act and the relationships I'm in? Like, of course, ah the father and mother's relationship is important and with any other family members that are involved.
00:11:11
Speaker
and you know set that as a high standard to try to develop yourself. Now, you're not going to attain perfection and you're going to make mistakes you know with your kids and act poorly in front of them, and but it can always be remedied.
00:11:26
Speaker
and the important part is that you're aware of these things and you pay attention, you evaluate yourself, you're not afraid to apologize and or change course so that you can improve and, and, you know, all the, uh, the consensus opinion from the psychologist who looked at parenting and children and what is the magic recipe, you know, for a successful child, uh, rearing and,
00:11:53
Speaker
it comes down to ah being a parent that's good enough.
00:11:59
Speaker
And, you know, that means that you care and you put in the effort. And even if you make mistakes and have shortcomings and have limited resources, if those two things are there in in substance, then you're gonna you're going to be okay.
00:12:16
Speaker
Yeah, very well put. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great magic recipe. It's inevitable that mistakes happen. Right. So that's, that's amazing. Um, so I'm kind of curious along the lines of childhood illness, that's something that is very prevalent in this day and age as well. Uh, it seems to be coming earlier and earlier, and there's all these different theories on how disease develops and, um,
00:12:41
Speaker
You know, I'm really curious about your thoughts on these. Let's maybe begin with the more infectious side of things. Like, you know, do we got to worry about the mumps and the measles and the rubellas and polios and chicken pox? You know, what are your thoughts on the role that even maybe some of these play developmentally for our so-called immune system? Or um maybe we'll start with the infectious side of things. And then obviously ties into the more chronic side. But we'll start there.
00:13:10
Speaker
Sure, well, ah let me begin by saying that, you know, I've been really trying to understand what are the factors that lead to good health.
00:13:20
Speaker
And in doing that, it's very difficult to look at only modern experiments because everyone practically in the world now is living in the context of the Industrial Revolution.
00:13:37
Speaker
So the predominant, you know, cultures and technologies have really influenced almost all people on the planet. There are very few kind of unspoiled people from the past. and And I'm talking about, you know, hunter gatherer type societies, maybe with some limited agriculture, but not on a mass scale.
00:13:58
Speaker
But there's plenty of anthropological ah research on this topic. And if you look at some of those publications, and Daniel Reutus and I shared some material with each other on this topic, I know you've interviewed him as well.
00:14:16
Speaker
um And it's fascinating because we see that in these cultures that lived a natural lifestyle, right? And their subsistence was based on hunting hunting and gathering.
00:14:30
Speaker
They had really none of these diseases whatsoever. So they had no TB, they had no measles, they had no malaria. They also had no birth defects, no maternal ah mortality.
00:14:48
Speaker
So, you know, mothers dying during childbirth, these things were unheard of. So if we're going to ask this question, I think one of the starting points would be is why do, you know, children in the modern era have these common ah illnesses and really colds and flu are the most common. And in these cultures I'm talking about, they didn't know what a cold was.
00:15:13
Speaker
And so why do they have these, you know, experience them now and not then. And I think, you know, one thing is we don't have a definitive answer. There's no, um, scientific experiment, uh, which proves the cause.
00:15:31
Speaker
We do have a lot of circumstantial and inferential evidence. And some of that is, you know, kind of first, uh, principles, because what is the common thread of all of these, you know, so-called infectious ah illnesses? And, you know, of course, we could look at the etymology of infection as well, which, you know, Sam Bailey has talked about.
00:15:57
Speaker
It is that something is always coming out of the body, right? So if it's one of these um skin eruptions, then it's coming out through the skin, right? Like measles and chicken pox, you have the fluid that comes out into the vesicles and then they rupture and, right, the fluid gets out of the body.
00:16:16
Speaker
You have... um The respiratory infection where you have snot coming out and coughing up sputum. ah If it's the flu, sometimes it can also occur with vomiting and diarrhea. And then you have the GI you know infections that are just vomiting and diarrhea.
00:16:34
Speaker
So in all those cases, stuff is coming out of the body. And when the body is purging stuff, that means there's things that are harmful it needs to get rid of. And you know we we know this from our own experience. For example, if we eat something you know that's spoiled, like that has a poison in it, we're gonna throw up and have diarrhea after that, right? Because our body's just trying to get rid of that poison.
00:17:02
Speaker
So most likely that's what's happening. And we can, of course, look at, the influence of this sort of modern civilization.
00:17:13
Speaker
And, you know, I don't want to say Western because this occurs and in the East as well. But even if we look it back to those hunter gatherer societies, we can see because once the anthropologists came and the doctors to start studying their health, they also started to influence their culture and bring that, you know, modern technological culture to those people. And what happened?
00:17:37
Speaker
they started developing the same diseases that they had in the West at that time, right? Like TB, colds, malaria, et cetera.
00:17:50
Speaker
Those were heretofore unknown among those people until this influence happened. So what is it about, you know, the influence of that modern culture that brought these conditions about? And, you know, what is it? it It's processed food.
00:18:06
Speaker
Right. It's well, at that time, I'm not sure that there were really industrial chemicals. But if we look at their lifestyles of how ah there was piles of dung in the streets, you know, and um really poor air quality and crowded living conditions.
00:18:28
Speaker
Lack of ah good nutrition, all these things, you know, added up to express those types of illnesses. and i think ah one good way of trying to get at what's more specifically might be the cause, like what particular types of environmental conditions would be to, you know, take like the fluid from chickenpox, for example, and do a chemical analysis on it and see, you know, are there environmental industrial chemicals that are in there? And then,
00:18:59
Speaker
Could those be the cause? Then you could do some experiments with animals where you expose them by natural routes to those chemicals and see if they develop similar conditions. And, you know, of course, these experiments could have been done, you know, with quote unquote viruses as well. But, uh, of course they were never, shown to prove anything.
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah. Absolutely. I hope that you guys are enjoying the episode so far. And if you are, you will love the Beyond Terrain Academy. I've taken everything that I've learned from studying the terrain, speaking with the greatest minds in the terrain field, and have distilled it down to the fundamentals, easily digestible content and material, as well as a place to go even deeper and more specific into the terrain as well.
00:19:45
Speaker
Becoming a full Academy member gives you access to monthly master classes, the Terrain Wellness Club, the Terrain Studies Library, Q&A and discussions, as well as deep dive classrooms and things like parasites, movement, terrain lifestyle factors, as well as a space for reflection.
00:20:01
Speaker
There's so much available in the Beyond Terrain Academy. And don't forget, you can pay for the entire year to gain access to that catalyst consultation to launch you into your healing journey. as well as a year in check-in to ensure that you've been putting into practice the terrain principles to keep you accountable.
00:20:18
Speaker
But let's get back to the episode. Yeah, well put. So I'm curious, like on your read of the the anthropological evidence, you know, Was there ever some sort of natural type of illness manifestation? like Like some people say that, you know, the seasonal flu is kind of a natural thing.
00:20:38
Speaker
um You know, every year it's natural to kind of detox. And i you hear the as above, so below argument, well, the trees detox and they lose their leaves. And um to me, it doesn't strike me as necessarily absurd as that being kind of a natural part of...
00:20:54
Speaker
our being of the the natural way of life. But I'm kind of curious on your thoughts, you know, is that, is that a part of, of the natural progression of, of health and wellness? Well, look, if our bodies do something spontaneously, it's by definition, it's natural because we are of nature, right?
00:21:13
Speaker
um You know, I was quite surprised to learn that these cultures in North and South America, mostly is what I read about, had not experienced seasonal colds and the not, they were not all in tropical climates, um, as well. So, um, you know, I don't necessarily know the answer. Maybe, uh, you know, it's something that only comes about when the body needs it. I mean, the, the interesting thing, and you can actually see a video of this, um,
00:21:46
Speaker
demonstrated in in you know real cells and in the lung, I believe, is that the cilia or the mucociliary clearance that occurs in our upper respiratory system, once the humidity is reduced, which happens every year in the fall and winter,
00:22:04
Speaker
um it stops, like the cilia stop moving they or they slow down and stuff gets stuck there. And this was actually demonstrated in this video I'm talking about. You can see the particles not moving once the humidity is lowered and it doesn't have to be lowered that much.
00:22:23
Speaker
So if there's a lot of particulate pollution that we're breathing in, and suddenly our respiratory system can't purge it out because this system is compromised because of a natural seasonal change, you know it makes sense that we manifest this type of ah you know illness or a healing crisis, if you will, where our body then can purge out that material. And if we look at what it is that we're breathing in, in the modern day,
00:22:55
Speaker
there's quite a lot of things, right? I mean, and it's different in indoor versus outdoor, but in both places, there are many particles of a variety of different materials and chemicals that you're breathing in.
00:23:11
Speaker
So, and it and it also depends on where you live. In fact, I'm not sure which government agency in the U.S. has this. It may be the EPA.
00:23:24
Speaker
but it could be something under the CDC as well. But they they have a map of the entire nation and listing air quality issues related to factory emissions, like chemical factories and other factories that um in their emissions have ah respiratory irritants or toxins.
00:23:46
Speaker
And you can see that quite a lot of the country is covered with these types of manufacturing facilities. and that many, many people among the population are directly affected with you know higher concentrations of these things that they're breathing in.
00:24:05
Speaker
So, you know, it's actually really a good thing that our body has a way, you know, to deal with this because if these things accumulate in the body, they're gonna bring about much more serious problems over time. And I think for many of the people in those areas that their ah their system becomes overwhelmed.
00:24:25
Speaker
And that's why you have, you know, higher rates of pulmonary disease and cancer in many of these areas. Got it. Very interesting. Yeah, so it seems like on my kind of read of, you know, history, it seems as though chronic disease is certainly increasing, right? Like the rates are increasing quite a bit. It seems that acute illness maybe has been around kind of in the the Western literature for quite a long time. And maybe there were some sort of chronic quote unquote disease.
00:24:58
Speaker
diseases. But, you know, within the last hundred years, 150 years, we've seen like a huge spike. um And we've also seen a huge spike in the suppression of symptoms and the suppression of these acute illnesses, these acute symptoms. And as you're kind of alluding to here, it seems as though, if anything, they're helping us get rid of toxicity.
00:25:18
Speaker
um I'm curious about your thoughts on on that concept of, you know, the symptoms as being the cure, and then the suppression of that kind of leading towards some sort of chronic illness. I know the homotoxicology ah chart sort of talks about that a little bit. And we've alluded to that, but I'm not sure if you're ah too familiar with that. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah, sure. um Well, you know, a couple of things. So one is, you know, I think there are some examples in certain populations of some chronic disease going back in history. And, you know, we could think of actually ancient Egypt, where there's lots of depictions of people with, you know, obesity and they had a largely grain ah based diet.
00:26:01
Speaker
Right. Really, because of the agricultural revolution. And then we also have more famously, you know, the European aristocracy ah who ate lavishly and, you know, suffered from things like gout, arthritis and and such, right, that were really not not known conditions. So there is, you know, some of that, but it's nowhere near what we have today. And in fact, if we just look, for example, at heart attacks,
00:26:30
Speaker
The first time heart attacks were reported in the medical literature and in the United States was not until the early 1900s. So in other words, there you know there weren't heart attacks before that because ah you know that is not going to escape notice by the medical community.
00:26:49
Speaker
or maybe there was ah you know one in a million people had a heart attack or something like that, but ah you know now it's one of the leading causes of death, right? So we created this and contributed to it um in ways that you know we don't fully know yet, although there are many things we can implicate.
00:27:11
Speaker
So in terms of how you know to address ah your health, in my opinion, you know, I prefer ah essentially following nature.
00:27:23
Speaker
So all of the kind of processes and and materials would be, you know, directly from nature with minimal processing, but, you know, no machines or technology or ah synthetic chemicals, even if they're trying to mimic natural ah substances.
00:27:43
Speaker
In terms of the approach that I think is successful is to, you know, identify the root cause of the issue and try to help your body ah mitigate that because, you know, our bodies are always trying to heal.
00:27:59
Speaker
And if we're not healing or we're manifesting, you know, continuing problems, ah we're doing something to prevent our body from healing that we need to change.
00:28:11
Speaker
Now, what you mentioned about you know acute illness or kind of a healing crisis, I think that usually happens early on when we're exposed to something that has a you know detrimental effect on our terrain and our body is trying to quickly purge that. And sometimes, ah and if we suppress it, right it's gonna be manifest in a different way and eventually in and a ah worse way.
00:28:41
Speaker
And i think there's a a nice little anecdote about that that I heard somewhere that you know someone overeats a bunch of junk food and, or maybe has some food poisoning and they feel nauseated, but they try to suppress it because they really don't wanna throw up.
00:28:58
Speaker
And then, right, then they have the next day some diarrhea, but they take you know medicine to turn off the diarrhea. And so it's like your body keeps trying to express it and then, but if you keep suppressing it, then your body will just store the stuff somewhere.
00:29:17
Speaker
And eventually that's gonna cause health problems or more stuff will be stored there and it'll build up. And you know eventually it'll be heart disease or strokes or cancer or ah you know quote unquote autoimmune disease or something like that.
00:29:33
Speaker
The main strategy of the allopathic system with pharmaceuticals is to do exactly that, to suppress the symptoms at all costs and, um you know, or as I would describe it more accurately, turn off the healing.
00:29:50
Speaker
And then the problem is, you know, not gonna go away and eventually it's gonna turn into something worse. And this is why you see with all these drugs ah like monoclonal antibodies and such and even,
00:30:03
Speaker
chemotherapy agents, immunosuppressive agents, that they all have risks of various types of cancers. And I think that's probably the mechanism. Interesting.
00:30:15
Speaker
Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. You know, it's... ah It's one thing when you're sick and you're suffering and you could say, all right, I'm just going to let my symptoms kind of run their course.
00:30:27
Speaker
But then when it comes to seeing your child like sick and suffering and, you know, sweating and vomiting, diarrhea, whatever it is, it kind of comes a little bit different, you know, like so then.
00:30:41
Speaker
you know, is there a time and a place for some sort of kind of more natural or less invasive type of symptom suppression to kind of maybe slow things down while still supporting the body? Like, is that something that you ever consider?
00:30:57
Speaker
So, no, I don't really think there's any appropriate time for symptom suppression per se. I mean, maybe if you ah have some gunshot wounds,
00:31:09
Speaker
you could take a few doses of morphine, but that, but then cut it off. That, but that's about as much as I'm talking about. And, and you know, that doesn't make the pain go away anyway. It just makes you care less about it.
00:31:23
Speaker
So, uh, you know, what, so there's a a lot of things so first time parents this is going to be the hardest for right like yourself because you're not going to have the experience to know that kids are really tough and it takes a lot to actually you know for them to be really sick like emergency sick but they can sometimes look like they're really sick and so you have to like you know take that under consideration and maybe have
00:31:58
Speaker
someone that you trust that you can you know call for advice on this. And that could be you know a medical person. I've certainly had this relationship with several young ah couples, ah some from you know that I know from the community and some of my consultation clients.
00:32:16
Speaker
And you know certainly ah for my own ah you know journey as a parent, ah I'm definitely the one to stay calm in these situations.
00:32:28
Speaker
Now for, for a more detailed, um, you know, discussion of what to do with certain situations and when it actually becomes dangerous, I have a free, um, uh, masterclass called how to avoid the emergency department, which speaks to that. You can find it on my website. We can get you a direct link if you want.
00:32:51
Speaker
And I talk about you know things like fevers and febrile seizures, which is really a ah harmless thing. But so let's take that as an example, right? So now what do they teach you you know about fevers in the in the mainstream is that, well, it means you have an infection.
00:33:11
Speaker
It's dangerous because if it goes too high, you could have you know fatal complications. right that's kind of And then the best thing to do is to take a drug like you know an NSAID, like ibuprofen or Tylenol, acetaminophen, ah to suppress the fever.
00:33:31
Speaker
Now, in reality, what is fever is a ah very powerful healing mechanism. One thing we know sweating ah from you know several different studies allows your body to get rid of a lot of toxic things, including things like PFAS, the forever chemicals, certain heavy metals, um ah BPA, right? Plasticizing chemicals, and probably a whole host of other things that haven't even been tested for yet.
00:33:58
Speaker
And aside from that, heating things up in your body can denature various chemicals and proteins that could cause a deleterious effect. It also makes things more dissolvable or soluble, which makes things easier for your body to excrete.
00:34:13
Speaker
So there's a lot of benefits of fever. And, you know, I look at it as ah an important healing process. So not something you want to suppress, but something you can help your body ah do the function more efficiently so that maybe it doesn't have to give you as many fevers or have the fevers as high as they would be otherwise. And that would be, you know, things like enemas.
00:34:42
Speaker
So an enema can actually, you know, will result in your body, the temperature coming down if you do it during a fever. And if you just do several, ah you know, during the day, then you'll have fewer fevers because it provides an additional way for your body to get rid of that stuff.
00:35:00
Speaker
Also, now that might not be easy with all kids or depending on the age, but and Another thing would be to do, you know, ah chelating or binding baths. So you use like a bentonite clay, like a cup and a half of clay, ah just to whisk it around in a ah bowl with a little bit of water first and then dump it in so it doesn't clump up.
00:35:22
Speaker
and it makes your skin feel great. It's kind of fun to watch the clay in the water. And that will also, you know, it works through the skin, just like the fever. So it'll help pull the toxins out through the skin and help the body do what it's going to do. The only time that, you know, you might want to get the body temperature down is, you know, when it's really in a dangerous range, which is like 105 or higher. Now, it'll they'll say 104 or higher in most websites, but that they're trying to be more conservative because they want you to go to the hospital in that situation.
00:36:01
Speaker
But the the fastest way to bring the body temperature down is ah wet blankets and a powerful fan. So all these things you know you can be prepared for. i mean, most people have at least a fan in their house somewhere.
00:36:15
Speaker
They're not expensive. And everyone has blankets and a sink where you can get them wet. And you just put you know wet sheet or blanket below and above the patient.
00:36:27
Speaker
and blow the fan on them and that'll cool them off super quick, even even faster than in an ice bath and you know be probably a little more comfortable for them.
Child Psychology and Parenting Techniques
00:36:40
Speaker
so you know So there's ways of just using, you know water is natural, you know a fan would be like the wind, so it's simulating the wind, but it's pretty natural, evaporative cooling, obviously clay is dug up from the earth,
00:36:54
Speaker
Enema is just water up your butt. So all these things you know are very ah doable, even if without technology. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing.
00:37:06
Speaker
Amazing. No, that's that's really great. That's really helpful. you know And just rather than suppress, it's support. Kind of support your body and what it's trying to achieve.
00:37:17
Speaker
Exactly. Body's intelligent. I think that's one of the fundamental things that... I'm sure you would agree that, you know, I disagree with about the modern approach, right? Is that, you know, we are, our body's brilliant. It knows what to do and supporting it rather than suppressing it ah is the, is the proper way to, to go about it.
00:37:39
Speaker
um On the topic of suppression, something that just popped into my mind is, you know, ah like a ah child who is like difficult, like tantrums or defiant or whatever it may be. Maybe this roots a little bit deeper, but are we supposed to suppress them psychologically when they want to scream and shout and, ah you know, let it all out? Is that...
00:38:05
Speaker
Is that the adequate method of of going about kind of the psychological side of of these quote unquote symptoms? Well, now this is an interesting ah topic. And, you know, I think you can look at this in a couple of ways. So one is, you know, if a child is in an unstable or a hostile ah family or, you know, parenting ah ah unit, then that behavior certainly can occur and it'll be worse.
00:38:33
Speaker
And so it's important to just, you know, like say, you you know, is this a peaceful household? Does everyone generally get along? Is there, you know, some degree of harmony and order? I mean, even things like, you know, a really cluttered or dirty home,
00:38:48
Speaker
right can result in behavioral outbursts. So you know think about, and and I think for most of ah the audience, I'm expecting that those are not issues, right? But it's just important to consider that.
00:39:02
Speaker
But it's you know the other main issues are the normal child development and then socialization. So of course, you don't want your kid to go out in public and hit and bite people.
00:39:18
Speaker
Right. No one wants that. But you also don't want your child to, you know, develop a self image that they're a bad person because they have the urge to do these things. So that's why you need to understand a little bit about child development. And, you know, you don't have to study this at an academic ah level ah because you can boil it down into some general principles. And some of these things you could just sort of think about, like, for example, when the you have a newborn, right? They're completely dependent. They can't even roll over, right? They can't do anything for themselves.
00:39:54
Speaker
And you are putting, you know, all your effort to meeting every need. And if, you know, they can't clearly communicate until you learn, you know, baby language. So you're like trying everything under the sun and they see, they observe all this effort and swooning around them. And have this kind of worldview, I imagine, you know, we can't interview a newborn to know for sure, but that the whole world revolves around them.
00:40:23
Speaker
So if that's true, then they would make all the rules. So if they think it would feel good to sink their teeth into your spongy flesh, why not?
00:40:36
Speaker
You're there, you're there to serve them anyway. Right? now, now Of course, you know you you may not think about it that way in the moment when you know they're putting their teeth on you, but that's close probably close to where they're coming from.
00:40:54
Speaker
So you have to say, well, okay, if they're coming from that perspective, you know how do I explain this without shattering their world and kind of letting them develop to the point where they understand the other versus the self and that, you know, not everything is about them, that there's other people involved too. And this, you know, comes in with, you know, saying please and thank you and apologizing and all of this kind of behavior.
00:41:22
Speaker
Excuse me. Sure. So you need to put these things in the developmental context and not sit, you know, not think, oh, my kid is difficult or, a bad kid or like, you know, use punishment per se. Now, of course you have to also communicate at a level that they can understand. But I actually, my opinion on that is that you should talk to a child in a level above which they could immediately understand.
00:41:53
Speaker
And then one reason for that is that you probably underestimate what they can actually understand. And two is you want to always show them that they should rise up to the level of, ah you know, the people around them.
00:42:08
Speaker
um And that there, there should, you know, it's like they should always be striving to be a better man or woman throughout their life. Like I don't think complacency is really a good human aspect. I think it leads to a lot of emotional turmoil.
00:42:25
Speaker
And so, you know, of course, there's a lot of different, you know, a lot of nuance and a lot of different things that can happen from child to child. But if you just think of those, you know, principles about, you know, how do I communicate effectively? How do I account for the child's developmental experience and the stage that they're at?
00:42:45
Speaker
um And, you know, teach them to properly socialize and, you know, interact with others and to you know, value learning and to have, you know, safe play and safe ways of getting their physical.
00:42:58
Speaker
And, you know, that also involves giving them freedom and places where they can go a little bit more crazy without, you know, having to have the, uh, the boundaries as much.
00:43:11
Speaker
Right. But the boundary of born be like, oh, you're going to do that for a limited period of time. Are you going to do it only in this place? You know, like, uh, like we, my, uh, young, a two and a half year old son loves to play ball.
00:43:24
Speaker
He loves to, you know, throw balls and he loves to hit balls like with a bat or a golf club. But of course, when he's swinging a bat or a golf club, it's like tempting to just swing it at anything.
00:43:36
Speaker
Right. Including mommy and daddy and the house, you know, the walls. Right. So, so having the limit, you know, like, okay, you can hit with this, but you can only hit a ball.
00:43:49
Speaker
And kind of teaching that lesson or, you know, we can play this, but only outside, right? Because if we throw the ball in the house, we'll break the chandelier or or the base or whatever.
00:44:02
Speaker
And so that you recognize, okay, they need to have, you know, limitless or, you know, Um, so you go outside or you go to, you know, some gym for kids or, or other facility like that, where, you know, that that's what you're supposed to do. You know, i mean, you don't want of course, be completely reckless, but the child, you know, they'll know their own limitations, you know, can they handle something physically and they push it a little bit and, uh, you know, it'll be fine.
00:44:33
Speaker
So, and that's, you know, another thing that in our current culture has really limited children's ability to develop is this, you know, sort of helicopter parenting.
00:44:46
Speaker
And, um, you know, it's important, I think, to give more freedom, autonomy and responsibility to children at younger ages. And, you know, this can be carried out a variety ways, like, you know, learning, uh, uh, a trade or a craft where they can do independent projects, for example, like carpentry, you mentioned before.
00:45:09
Speaker
Because that's something you know that kids could do at a pretty much younger than you might think they could do it. you know They might need to learn how to use the tools safely and and such, but that's not gonna be that difficult.
00:45:22
Speaker
Sure, sure, amazing. you know Something I wanted to ask about more specifically, kind of popped my head here was sleep training, you know allowing you know the kid to kind of cry themselves to sleep. I'm kind of curious about your thoughts on that philosophy.
00:45:37
Speaker
Oh man, this is a controversial issue. And, um, and, you know, I don't know that there's any hundred percent right answer. There is one book that, that I do like because the techniques in their work and they, the author gives you a lot of flexibility of you know,
00:45:57
Speaker
If you want to let them cry it out or if you don't want to let them cry it out, here's a way to do it depending on what the preference and here's, you know, what are the differences and how it's going to work.
00:46:09
Speaker
And that's called a Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. I think Weissblut or Weissblatt. But, you know, and then there's also and I've done it with different children. I've done it different ways, you know, like co-sleeping or not co-sleeping. When you know, when do you put the child in their own bed?
00:46:32
Speaker
What about the, you know, the bedtime ritual, nighttime nursing? You know, how do you get them to sleep through the night? Overall, all you know, the most important thing is that the the child gets enough sleep because, you know, they grow in their sleep.
00:46:49
Speaker
They also consolidate learning in the sleep. So it's important that they get enough sleep. And it's also important that you as a parent get enough sleep because but you might have to compromise on how you get that sleep when you have a young baby, at least until these issues like sleeping through the night and and such are worked out.
00:47:13
Speaker
And so if it's really disruptive and you wanna be that to be worked out as quickly as possible, you might take one path. And if you wanna be more laissez-faire and and flexible about it, you can take you know a longer road. and And I've done both with different kids.
00:47:29
Speaker
The important thing is that the child becomes able to self-soothe to sleep because that's something that will impact their lifetime of sleeping.
00:47:41
Speaker
Absolutely. So, um, and of course that is the natural thing for a child. So, um, it's not something that will be that hard to obtain, but there are some things that can interfere with it. You want to be, uh, aware of some things, you know, I never knew about can be detrimental. Like actually having a nightlight on, uh, has a much higher incidence of children needing reading glasses.
00:48:08
Speaker
Yes. So better to sleep in, you know, the the full dark or, you know, moonlight only, which is, you know, natural, I would say. So, you know, there are certainly some things like that.
00:48:23
Speaker
I've always, you know, really loved the bedtime ritual because, you know, it's a real awesome chance to bond with your child. I've done tons of, you know, reading books and ah you know, singing songs and things like that to help them, you know, get into a state where they're ready to soothe themselves to sleep.
00:48:43
Speaker
And, you know, so in other words, there's a lot of different ways. And and with respect to the sleep deprivation, one thing is that, you know, you you need to expect that when you have a newborn starting right after the birth, your sleep is going to be different.
00:49:01
Speaker
friend For the nursing mom, you know it's really gonna fall mostly on you unless you pump and bottle feed. And you you may not if even if you're gonna do that, you may not do it right away because you're the only one who can meet the needs of the newborn.
00:49:20
Speaker
But if you just to kind of accept that and say, I'm gonna sleep when the baby sleeps, you won't need to sleep as much as the baby, so you'll get enough sleep that way that you won't feel sleep deprived. Now your schedule is gonna be all off and you're not gonna feel perfect, but you'll feel way better than if you really were sleep deprived, like trying to just sleep during the normal nighttime hours and then end up that's when the baby gets up Um, and you have to be awake.
00:49:52
Speaker
So having some flexibility and, you know, the dad can do that also once they're able to be, you know, depending on how you do things, able to be involved in, uh, you know, those wake ups and, and, you know, you can negotiate between, ah yourselves in terms of what works with respect to your other obligations. You know, if you're both working parents or, uh, you know, that kind of thing.
00:50:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, well, there's obviously a lot of controversy when it comes to different parenting styles in general and different approaches to homeschooling and what you should do about this and what you should do about that. And it kind of comes back to this original idea of, you know,
00:50:36
Speaker
learning yourself and making the right decisions for you you know yourself and your family and doing your best you know and if inevitably we'll make mistakes and trying different things here and there is going to be ah really helpful you know there's a certain amount of scientific method that you can use with your own family i suppose in a way right control different things and try different things out and um learn from others you know and uh but but at the end of the day you kind of got to do what's best for you right and got Yeah, there's no single, you know, parenting style that's superior because they're, you know, we're all unique individual people and we have different, you know, um cultures and and values and such. And that's going to enter into our parenting.
00:51:18
Speaker
So I agree with you you, know, just go back to the basics, you know, do you care and are you putting in the effort? And, ah as long as you're continuing to have both those things, like you'll work at, you'll work it out.
00:51:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Are there any like non-negotiables when it comes to child rearing, when it comes to their physical health or their mental health or whatever it may be? What are the things that stick out to you as like, there's no doubt about it. This is harmful. We shouldn't do this.
00:51:51
Speaker
I can think of a couple. people i mean, and obviously immunizations. yeah And by the way, all those, you know, well baby visits are just about getting immunizations. They're not doing anything else. You can, you know, weigh and measure the height at home if you think that's important, but you'll know if your, you know, baby is not growing right, so to speak.
00:52:18
Speaker
And there's a lot of individual variation. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I remember talking to Dr. Mark Bailey about this, you know, and I think if he brought up Ivan Illich, who was an author and spoke about a little bit this topic here and, you know, how we over medicalize birth and even child development and child rearing, you know,
00:52:38
Speaker
it's a natural process. It's not a disease. You know, you don't need to necessarily monitor the way you'll, like you mentioned, you know, if something's going to be off, you know, like consistently measuring things, it just gives us the reason to worry and want to seek, you know, counsel with a practitioner. And it it kind of just feeds this whole system of,
00:53:03
Speaker
of externalizing your own responsibility and sovereignty, you know, like constantly looking at the weight and the height and the this and the that, and that going in for every cough and little skin rash or whatever it may be. And God forbid that happens, you know if you adhere to the natural principles, but you know, it's, it all feeds this kind of system, right?
00:53:22
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. um That's, that is part of, you know, the initiation ritual, if you will, that's, you know,
00:53:32
Speaker
You go and check those things and something is always going to be slightly off, even though that it's just an anomaly and and then that keeps you coming back and then they suggest more and more things.
00:53:46
Speaker
And you know you you don't you're going to miss the important ah points with that. you know Like the Baileys were talking about that one of their children developed you know an acute illness for the first time and they hadn't been ah ill before and then they remembered that they gave him or her some junk food.
00:54:08
Speaker
I think it was M&M's specifically. And the timing was M&M's and then sick. So if you go to the doctor and you know get some pills or whatever they tell you it's ah you know it's a bug that's going around, then you're not going to think, oh, yeah, well, my kid just went to a birthday party and you know had sheet cake from the grocery store.
00:54:31
Speaker
and now they're sick. Right. And then it's like, Oh, we don't need any pills for that. This is good. This is like his, you know, body's getting the toxins out and, and we'll next time, you know, think twice about it.
00:54:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Yeah, no,
Resources and Conclusion
00:54:51
Speaker
that that's it. Then it comes back again, like these central concepts of responsibility and, and learning and educating oneself on on the vast majority of the topics that we're talking about today and um so far beyond this as well. So I do really appreciate Is there anything Kauffman you'd like to leave the listener with?
00:55:11
Speaker
ah Well, I think ah just to let you know that I um have a number of workshops, some of them free and some of them for a nominal fee, ah teaching about all the principles of healing of natural healing, with respect to, you know, all the various types of issues you could be dealing with.
00:55:33
Speaker
And also, i have a membership group called the True Living Fellowship, where we actually talk about these issues of family and parenting. We also go into relationships of, you know, various ah types. And because the the mission of that is like, how do we take this knowledge of what is truthful, and then actually implement it in our lives. And family, of course, is a big part of that.
00:55:58
Speaker
So if you want to you know get deeper into these ah subjects, I do offer a lot of resources that you can take advantage of. Absolutely. You absolutely do.
00:56:10
Speaker
Well, I appreciate your work. I know we all appreciate it. And we appreciate your time for coming on here today. Dr. Coffman, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. All right. You're welcome. And good to see you again.
00:56:21
Speaker
Of course. Nice see you too. All right. And i want to thank you all so much for listening. Before we wrap it up, we all need to remember that this is for informational purposes only. And this does not constitute medical or therapeutic advice and will not replace the advice from a qualified practitioner.
00:56:38
Speaker
But also remember this, that we are sovereign beings capable of thinking, criticizing, and understanding absolutely anything. We are self healers, self teachers, self governable and so much more.
00:56:50
Speaker
And together with each other and the greater forces, we can regain our natural vitality, meaning, clarity, purpose and health. I do really appreciate you all for taking the time to listen to the podcast today. If you want to support what we do, make sure to like, share, comment, subscribe, leave a rating or a review.
00:57:08
Speaker
and follow the show. Sharing is the extra step. Let a few people know about the podcast. And if you do want to go deeper and you do want to deeply support what we do here at Beyond Terrain, join the Beyond Terrain Academy. There is a ton of value in there available for you all.
00:57:24
Speaker
There is free resources as well. So do not miss out on those. If you have any questions, criticisms, comments, concerns, please reach out to me. Instagram is a great way to do that. Email works as well. But just remember, there are two types of people in the world. Those who believe they can, those who believe they can't, and they are both correct.
00:57:40
Speaker
Thank you all for listening. Take care.