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Becoming an Investigative Parent {Episode 242}
338 Plays1 year ago
Are you interested in becoming better at mindful parenting? In this episode, Bonnie & Audrey share the what and why on how to use intentional parenting when raising your kids. If you are ready for more conscious parenting, be sure to listen to this episode.
Mentioned in this episode:
Episode 12: Intentional Parenting
Episode 27: Mother's Intuition
Episode 54: Everyday Intention
About Outnumbered the Podcast:
Two moms, parenting a combined total of 19 kids and finding joy in the chaos.
Join Audrey and Bonnie as they share real parenting tips for real people through humor, advice and compassion.
Whether it's tackling how to teach kids to work or discussing where to turn when you're all out of patience, these two experienced moms are here to offer authentic tips for raising children joyfully.
Join us:
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Transcript
Introduction to Investigative Parenting
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to episode 242 of Outnumbered the Podcast, and today's episode is a good one. We're talking about how exactly to be that intentional parent that you're trying to be by investigating all the things that don't seem right for you, whether it's a child behaving in a confusing way or just something that you are really curious about that means doing things against the flow of society. This is what it means to be an investigative parent. We're going to teach you how to investigate something, why you might want to.
00:00:27
Speaker
how to get God involved, how to manage your emotions, and how to bring your kids into the discussion when you start to investigate something new. So let's dive in.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
00:01:06
Speaker
Welcome back,
The Role of Curiosity in Parenting
00:01:07
Speaker
friends. We are excited today to talk to you about being an investigative mom. So we're going to teach you guys how to be spies, sort of. But we're going to explain what we mean here in a minute. It's very important to know exactly why you're making the choices you make in your household and within your family. And that's what today's all about.
00:01:26
Speaker
That reminds me, I just got my six year old who's recently become an extremely avid reader. I got her the daring book for girls from the library. Just check it out and see if she'd like it. And she fell in love with it. And she brought me, she like came into my room the other day and she brought this book with her and she had it open to a page and she looked around and she closed the door and her brothers were knocking the door and she's like, no, you have to stay out. And she shows me this page and it's how to be a spy.
00:01:59
Speaker
One of my daughters actually got that book for her birthday just recently, like a month ago, and I was flipping through it. It's a really fun one. Both that one and the one for boys is really cute.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yeah, she was like, mom, do you think other people know about this? And I'm like, well, basically anybody who checked the book out of the library. But I didn't tell her that because she thought it was so cool. So cute. OK, friends, so we have a couple of episodes that go hand in hand with this one. So if you want to do a little bit of homework after this episode, we recommend episode 12 on intentional parenting, episode 54, which we called everyday intention.
00:02:32
Speaker
And there's another one we're going to refer to later, but those are great ones to put in your notes, put on your saved list to kind of get the whole picture of what it looks like to be a mom who makes those intentional choices. And today we're talking about how you go about deciding what those choices are going to be, right?
Questioning Societal Norms: A Parenting Journey
00:02:47
Speaker
How you go about finding the best option for you and what's going to serve you and your family for the here and now.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. When you start to be an intentional parent, it means you're going to turn into a researcher. Like you're kind of going to be a skeptic. You don't really trust. Well, maybe trust, but you don't take at face value anything that anybody says. Because when you start researching, when you start investigating, you kind of see how basically any study can be kind of twisted to make it say anything that anybody wants to. And so you kind of have to learn how to dig deep and get
00:03:26
Speaker
like bigger information. You learn all sorts of like technical information that you didn't even know you were going to want to learn just to be able to tell. I mean, I'm sure you've been on the internet long enough to know that on any point of view, there are many opposing views and sides and each side
00:03:45
Speaker
can very much believe their own side and try to convince of, you know, whatever it is. And so you've really got to dig deep and investigate and get beyond just kind of what people are saying, but get into like the actual research and studies and all sorts of fun stuff. If you're training to be a spy, like my six year old
00:04:03
Speaker
Yes, exactly. And we don't want to make it sound like we are dissuading anyone from making a choice that other people make, right? If you feel like putting your kid in public school is the right choice, then you put your kid in public school, that's the right choice for you. What we're suggesting here and in these other intentional episodes that we've done is that you make a conscious choice.
00:04:23
Speaker
that you don't just do what everyone else is doing because everyone else is doing it, because it's how it's always been done. So this is what we notice. When we start being investigators and we start questioning the status quo and we start looking into alternative options, it starts to kind of explode your whole world. So a funny example is when I moved into this house, I met a woman at church who
00:04:46
Speaker
was like a weirdo, did all those weird things like homeschooling and home birth and everything. And so I wanted to pick her brain about homeschool because we had recently decided to homeschool. And so I went over to her house and she was explaining it all to me and somehow we got on the conversation of home birth. And then somehow we got on conversation of something, right? And so she was kind of warning me, just FYI, once you start doing things the weird way,
00:05:08
Speaker
It opens things up because what you're doing is you're investigating the why behind, you know, choosing to homeschool versus public school. And once you start investigating one why, it's a very short leap to the next why. Well, then why am I just showing up at the hospital and doing exactly what the doctor asked me to do? Or why am I eating the food that everyone is eating when we have like terrible obesity rates and other, you know, unhealthy diseases? So it's just kind of, it's kind of like taking, is it the red pill on the major? Because I can't remember the pill that like opens up your eyes. I think that's the one.
00:05:38
Speaker
We use that phrase all the time at our house. Oh, you've been red pilled or they've been red pilled or should we red pill them? Yes. Yes. It's just the opening of the eyes too. Oh, okay. So that is why. And again, you might still choose to do things the way your neighbors are doing them once you understand, but very often not because you see things from a different perspective. So it's very enlightening. It also requires us stepping into a
00:06:07
Speaker
A place of accountability right because once you start questioning these things you become accountable much more accountable for your actions right you have kind of a higher responsibility because you know better now so it's like well if you don't want to know don't look into it because then you might start making different choices so.
00:06:26
Speaker
Basically, what I'm saying is going against the flow means you're going to know why you're doing it. You're going to know why you're doing things differently or, quote, unquote, the hard way because you wouldn't do it that way if you didn't already have a little niggling thought in the back of your head or a curiosity as, why do we do things this way? So just being aware that you're stepping into something that a lot of people don't question and good for you.
00:06:47
Speaker
Oh yes, you know what? You use the word like weird or strange. And it's like once you're kind of weird or strange on one thing, it's like you've already jumped off the cliff and you don't really care if people think you're weird or strange because they already do.
Non-Traditional Health and Education Choices
00:07:01
Speaker
And so you can go ahead and get weird or strange about all the things.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yes. You described it. We're going to talk a little bit more about what it feels like, and I'm excited to jump into that. So things that I felt inspired to investigate. It's funny because when my husband and I got married, I totally got excited about investigative about all the things that were normal for him growing up that were completely foreign to me.
00:07:34
Speaker
Um, his family owns a health food store and I was like, really? Wow. And just, just, um, just start like sitting in there and learning from people that come in and share their experience and, um, you know, learning why people do certain things. And, okay, so here's a really weird one. I'll just share one example. So, um,
00:07:54
Speaker
One year I got gout in my foot, in my big toe, and I just started, instead of just going down to the medical route, which is, I can't even remember anymore what you do about gout, I just started investigating. Why did this happen? Oh, diet-related. Okay, okay, I'll clean up my diet. But in the meantime, how do I get this painful thing out of my toe? Because I have a bunch of little kids running around, and I have to
00:08:18
Speaker
I have to take care of them, right? I can't be off my feet or off of one foot. So I started researching all the weird, kooky, wacky, conspiracy theory, you know, all the, you name it, I just started looking into it. And I found that you can use AP therapy, API, AP therapy.
00:08:37
Speaker
So this is using honey bees to intentionally sting you in a certain spot of your body to say to your body, this spot right here, work on this spot right here. When they, when they sting you and put that in, your body starts fighting at that spot. So I had my, we, we were beekeepers back then and I had my husband go out to the hive and grab some bees and these poor little ladies sacrificed their lives for the gout in my big toe because you know, once a honey bee stings, then they die.
00:09:05
Speaker
So he stung me like twice or he had a honey bee sting me like twice on my big toe. And the next day it was gone. Like my body cleared it up. So I was like, oh, wow. That is crazy. I've literally never heard of that, but it's brilliant.
00:09:20
Speaker
Yes. That is awesome. Yes. Side note here that, um, ap therapy, like if somebody has obviously already, um, had huge reactions or allergic or needs to carry an EpiPen for honeybees, you can't go get a honeybee and sting you to fix you. You've got like, I'm not going to dive down that rabbit hole. There's ways that you can get over that, but just like, you know, know if you're already allergic, I could talk about honeybees all day. It's amazing. They're amazing. I want bees. That's so cool. So cool.
00:09:47
Speaker
So a few things that our family has researched include birth, like we mentioned, alternative birth options, homeschool, food, diet, vaccines, so many different things. But in addition to those, which are the pretty typical ones that people start questioning, we've also looked into learning disabilities, the reasons behind those, behind learning delays, seizures due to
00:10:09
Speaker
struggles that my kids have had. So you might start investigating things that everyone does, and then you might also feel led specifically to investigate things that one or two children struggle with because, you know, that's really important to you, obviously. Yes, we have investigated and changed the way that we do all of those things, too. Here's a couple more that I have really had been red-pilled about is dental care. That one has been an amazing one.
00:10:37
Speaker
And then one that I researched recently, I think probably my most lative investigative mom episode was my daughter was going to have her wisdom teeth removed. And so I started researching. We went and had the pre-visit and they gave us the list of all the things that were going to happen during this wisdom tooth removal. And I'm not going to get into it here, but I would highly suggest that you also become an investigative parent.
00:11:03
Speaker
Real quick, I discovered that there was five drugs that they put in an IV to knock them out, to take their wisdom teeth out. When I started individually researching each of these, they're not even supposed to be used together.
00:11:21
Speaker
So, I felt like I even knew more than the doctors knew at that point. It was kind of crazy. And one of them was, anyway, I'm not going to get into it, but if you want to have a kid going to get their wisdom teeth out, I'd suggest starting to become an investigative parent.
Trusting Mother's Intuition
00:11:36
Speaker
Oh, yeah. We just did a couple of wisdom teeth as well. And another thing I would suggest is maybe questioning why there's always antibiotics given prophylactically when we know so much about antibiotics and they just give us a full course of it before there's any infection.
00:11:50
Speaker
So this isn't medical advice. This is just a suggestion to do some research. That's all we'll say about that. Oh, I will also get off the soapbox on that because we could go on for a while. Anyway, if you're interested, send us an email or something.
00:12:05
Speaker
Okay. The other episode that we were talking about is episode 27 on mother's intuition is a great, great, great companion episode for this because it's learning how to trust yourself and your ability to know what's right for you and your family. We cannot stress that one enough. In fact, we would like probably about once a year or every six months just to replay that episode because it is so important, um, mother's intuition.
00:12:32
Speaker
It's a gift from God that you have. Don't neglect it.
00:12:37
Speaker
Okay, yes, we are such big fans of mother's intuition. We think that culturally moms just don't get the kudos that they deserve overall. I don't think this was always the case and I think some cultures do a better job of this, but mothers are the, for the most part, the heart of the home. We are the carpoolers and the negotiators and the planners and the doctor callers and all the things run through us. And if we don't trust our intuition that comes from God,
00:13:06
Speaker
then it's almost like our family is just kind of out in the wind. By whatever whim comes from the professionals, we have to just kind of float along the breeze instead of mom saying, wait a minute. This doesn't make sense. Or wait a minute. Something feels different. So what that feels like is usually just a feeling of something being off.
00:13:25
Speaker
or a little bit of a, like I said, a niggling worry, a thought that won't leave you. For me, sometimes it's just been a curiosity when it hasn't been a problem yet, but it's been something that God wants me to investigate. I'm just super curious. In fact, I remember when I first started looking into homeschooling, that was nowhere on my radar. And if someone had asked me, would you ever homeschool, I would say, under no circumstances would I ever do that. It sounds awful, right? But there was a beautiful woman in
00:13:49
Speaker
my church congregation who was amazing and homeschooled her six kids. So I kept asking her questions. And I would then go home and ask myself, why do you keep asking questions? You don't want to do this. So it's like this talking back to myself, right? Because my natural brain was like, not fun. But there was just that thought saying, find out more, find out more, ask, ask, ask. And then just discovering, uncovering research or things that don't quite sit right with you. Or you keep thinking, there's got to be a better way for this, right?
00:14:19
Speaker
And then sometimes we will notice just a behavior on our kids that doesn't seem right. Like, oh, they're sick more than normal, or they're questioning this, or they're having tantrums or something. There's got to be a better way. So listen to that. Listen to that. And you don't have to commit to anything. If I had thought, well, if I ask another question about homeschooling, I'm committing to homeschool for the next 35 years, I probably wouldn't have done it. I didn't commit to anything. I just said, all right, I'm going to keep asking questions. And that was what opened my mind to the beauty of it and allowed me
00:14:47
Speaker
to explore that. So just stay curious, I guess. Yes. My husband sent me this quote by, oh, I'm sorry, I can't remember. It was Thomas Edison or somebody who said the most important occupation in the entire world is that of a mother. And all of society, every other occupation in the world is there to support the mother raising the children. Because without that occupation, humanity would end.
00:15:17
Speaker
Can we get that needle pointed on a pillow or something? We all need that in our living room. That's amazing. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like that is why I would like to encourage all of every mother to just follow that intuition. It's part of the gift that God gave us in this most important occupation that we are fulfilling.
00:15:37
Speaker
as we raise our kids to keep society going, to keep humanity going forward. What mother's intuition feels like me, when there's something going on, I feel restless. I feel not at peace. I can't just sit and read a book or something. It's like at the edge of something you forgot, like the tip of your tongue.
00:15:55
Speaker
often happens when Bonnie and I are recording, like I have this word, it's just like right there and it won't come. And that's kind of like sometimes when there's something going on, something wrong, like you mentioned the kid and you notice, oh, they're always the first one to get sick and suddenly your brain just starts working on this. How can I help this kid? What can I do about it? What's going on? Those are some of the ways that I notice. Mother's intuition is just kind of raising its little fingers and going, hello, hello, notice me.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, I want to mention two things about this. Why you're the expert of your kid doesn't matter how many years of medical school somebody else has. You might not be the expert in neurosurgery. You might not be the expert in, you know, whatever, infectious disease, but you are the expert on your kid for two reasons. Number one, have you ever done any research on
00:16:40
Speaker
the actual biological changes that happen to a woman's body when she gives birth and when she carries a baby. So I'm not saying this can't happen with an adopted child or someone's that you're guardian for, but your biological children especially, there's actual DNA left behind in you. And I feel like it gives you a tie to this child that is impossible to break. So there's that actual biological tie to another human being. And secondly, nobody spends as much time with your child as you.
00:17:07
Speaker
Even if, let's say, your working mom and your kid goes to daycare, it doesn't matter. Nobody spends as much time with your child as you, and nobody understands his or her quirks and personality and what's normal and what's not as you. I recently went through some psychological testing for one of my children, and they gave me just piles and piles of paper to fill out.
00:17:26
Speaker
Because I'm the expert, like they're the expert on the brain, so we're trying to like, you know, in a perfect world, the psychiatrist and my brain would just kind of meld together and we would figure things out because I didn't have her expertise on the subject matter, but I had the expertise on my child. And so I had to somehow figure out how to communicate what was normal and what wasn't for her and what she would do in this scenario versus this scenario. So this is why you're the expert. Don't sell yourself short, okay?
00:17:51
Speaker
Another thing we wanted to mention, yes, yes, that is exactly why on your first pregnancy and birth, your provider will ask you a hundred questions about what it was like for your mother because you have no experience. They'll start asking you about your mother and about her mother and about
Tools for Effective Investigative Parenting
00:18:07
Speaker
your dad's mother because that is who you are most closely connected to. It's whose DNA you have. Yeah, I love that research.
00:18:17
Speaker
This episode is brought to you by our free episode guides. We have done so many amazing episodes that you can use, but we were afraid they might be getting lost in our almost 250 episodes. Yes, so we created these free episode guides so you guys can find everything you're looking for in one spot. We have one for our series on babies and toddlers, teens, on marriage, and so on. But today, we want to make sure you know about the guide we made for you about schooling your children.
00:18:43
Speaker
We both homeschool our kids, and in our episodes, we share tons of information and resources about what has worked for us. In most of these episodes, we discuss the topic like history, math, or science in relation to the seven different learning styles so you can teach your child in the most effective manner possible.
00:19:01
Speaker
And even if you're not a homeschooler, we know these can help you with homework and other projects that your kids bring home. So be sure to click the link in the show notes so you can grab the free episode guide to all our episodes, including the one for homeschooling your kids or educating them in another way. When planning your school year, be sure to listen to the specific episodes pertaining to where you need extra help, depending on the topic. And we know that our amazing resources and tips will help you successfully educate your own kids.
00:19:25
Speaker
So a few of the things that we've noticed a need to investigate are issues with our kids. So not necessarily like medical issues, but rather something's off with our child, right? And things that we've discovered might include bullying or some sort of inappropriate behavior, maybe hidden sin or something that they're doing that they know is wrong, but they're hiding it from you.
00:19:45
Speaker
So, being an investigator in that way is very helpful as well, right? A couple of times I've just felt like something was off and I've known I needed to ask specific questions. And then something comes out and I realize, oh, I needed to intervene there. So, another really, really important aspect of this.
00:20:02
Speaker
Okay, now we're gonna hop into four steps to lead you to be a better investigator. How to do this. Okay, the first step, if you feel it's time to investigate something, trust yourself. Hello. Trust yourself. Yes, you feel something your intuition is talking to, you've got this, yes, trust it. Because I've always said, ever since I've been a parent and starting tuning in, tuning into this mother's intuition,
00:20:29
Speaker
I would rather trust my intuition and be wrong than not listen and have been right. So I would rather be wrong and have listened than have been right and not listened. It's just like something I can't say enough and I do share that with a lot of young women who are becoming mothers.
00:20:48
Speaker
Okay, so then after you trust yourself, talk to someone else. Get it out of just inside your head and start talking to somebody. Your husband is a perfect place to start. You can also talk to a friend, someone in your religion that's a leader, a therapist. There's lots of other people to talk to, but that is one proof of trusting yourself is when you get it out of your head and into someone else's ears and head and consciousness. That's the first step.
00:21:15
Speaker
Yes, that's so helpful. And if you are considering investigating a specific topic, if you can find someone who has already been down that road, so helpful. Like I mentioned, I had a couple of friends who had already been down that road, been homeschoolers or home birthers, and I wanted to ask questions about that. So that's really helpful. However, I will say here that if this trusted source brushes off your concerns or says, oh, that's crazy, I would never do that, then maybe it's time to find a different trusted source.
00:21:38
Speaker
don't ignore your gut simply because your friend thinks it's a crazy idea. Instead, find someone who is either a little bit more open-minded or has gone down a similar path because having that support is really nice. Having someone to confide in is really nice, but it's not necessary for you to do the hard thing of investigating this thing. Yes, that is such a good point. Just keep talking to people. Sometimes it's something really obscure that you're getting this little niggling thought or intuition about. It's okay. Like a bee sting in your toe.
00:22:08
Speaker
It might take a while to find something that agrees with what your intuition is telling you. Keep asking, keep talking. Okay, second step is use prayer.
00:22:19
Speaker
start praying about what direction to head in. This might be more research. It might be confronting somebody. It might be talking to someone else. It might be, you talked about some things in our kids. Okay, so hop on their device or their computer and start looking at the history. Talk to other people who have gone through something similar.
00:22:41
Speaker
If God gave you the intuition, then he will also guide you when you're listening to it on what direction to head in and how to have it best serve your family.
00:22:53
Speaker
Yes, totally. And I think even more powerfully, if we're working on regularly staying connected to God, so regular prayer, regularly studying scripture, then often we're guided to this before we even know to ask. So that's happened to me multiple times. I didn't know there was a problem or I didn't know that I could have looked into a different way of doing things, but I was given a little bit of an insight, a little bit of that curiosity. And I just think it's so amazing how much God cares about His children that are on loan to us, right?
00:23:21
Speaker
And just to remember that he knows way more than we do if we're just willing to listen. Okay, step three, manage your emotions, manage your thoughts. When you discover something, a lot of times it's alarming or different or scary or big or you don't know what to think, fearful. It's like there's all these different thoughts or feelings.
00:23:43
Speaker
It's easy to lose control. I've dealt with anger, disappointment, sadness, frustration, so many different emotions. And it's not possible to really go forward and move on to a problem.
00:23:59
Speaker
move on to a solution when I'm in emotional space because it's okay to be emotional. You just discovered something huge or your intuition when you turned around and looked at it and listened to it kind of slapped you in the face or, you know, whatever. This is a big thing. And so give yourself time to process it before you move on to solution space.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yes, definitely. And allow yourself some space for grieving. I'm going to tell you that I loved school as a kid. Loved it. The freshly sharpened pencils, the backpack. I am so stereotypically type A. It's not even funny. And so the first time I realized that I wouldn't be going back to school shopping with my kids, I mean, we still sort of do that.
00:24:37
Speaker
that I wouldn't be getting them new outfits and dropping them off at the gate at school, it was sad to me because that was a big portion of my life that I really enjoyed as a child. And so I allowed for some grief there to acknowledge that my normal was not going to be their normal. Their normal was going to be beautiful, and it was just going to be different. And that was OK too. So allow for that, especially if things are going wrong or you think they're going wrong, right? Your family needs you to be the calm, rational one, especially if it's like a medical issue that is stressing people out or you discover some inappropriate behavior that is stressing you out.
00:25:07
Speaker
Stay curious, stay compassionate to everyone, and try to get to the root of things without blowing up. Now, if you need to have a meltdown, you can totally do that. But if you do it in front of your children, especially if you're trying to get to the bottom of a cause that is causing them some stress, they're not going to open up to us if they feel like you're making them feel guilty or they feel threatened in any way. Or if your child does tell you something alarming, save that emotional distress for when they're not present. You could go have your meltdown somewhere they can't see you.
Collaborative Family Learning
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah. People are going to think you're crazy at the most or just not take you seriously. If you respond when you're in that emotional state, our emotions are going to heighten the magnitude of our response and we'll just kind of be seen as taken as neurotic instead of.
00:25:52
Speaker
Instead of like serious, like we haven't done a research or we haven't, we're just kind of like this crazy person talking and it's okay to kind of go through the crazy person response. Like my husband and I kind of do that together. Like we kind of bounce all the things off of each other, all the feelings, all the emotions, and then choose a path to take forward. But it's okay to get that crazy stuff out because you're going to feel it.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yes, when you feel the emotions, don't shove them down. Just manage them. Just have the meltdown in the closet, right? For example, one time I learned something upsetting that a child had done and luckily I learned it when the child was not around. So I was able to take a drive and pour out my heart in prayer and do a lot of crying and then I came home calm and collected and I talked to my husband. We created a course of action and we talked to the child and we moved on from there.
00:26:38
Speaker
sometimes you don't always have that that luck of finding out something if a kid isn't around or you know sometimes it just takes longer to process than one two-hour drive or something but managing those emotions and I love what you're saying makes you look a lot less crazy if you're going to confront someone about something that went down you have to be in control of your faculties.
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, I have had experiences where I, one time I can remember specifically, my intuition was just like screaming at me. And I left my cart full of groceries, took my kids and walked out of the grocery store. And to this day, I never know why. I don't know why. Like we just left. I don't know what was going on. But that might've been one of those situations where I was wrong, but I listened to it. And I've never regretted just taking my kids and leaving. Like we got groceries another day, right?
00:27:28
Speaker
Okay, step four, you don't have to be alone on this forever. Bring in your kids or your spouse on the investigation. Pretty soon your entire family is going to be an investigative family. You're going to educate the whole family as to why and what you've discovered and they love you and they're going to believe you. They're going to do their own research. They're going to want to become investigators themselves. I mean, hey, look at my six-year-old, right?
00:27:53
Speaker
Yes, and this turns into a beautiful family venture, right? Where everybody gets to discuss and to learn. And very often,
00:28:01
Speaker
Quite often, you will have kids that maybe don't agree with you and maybe even a spouse that doesn't agree with you, but still listen to your gut and do your best to show them what you've learned, right? I have teenagers now and one adult child and what's so interesting is how much of the different stuff we've done that they just totally run with and love the idea and want to do the same thing when they grow up. But they might not always, they might marry somebody who thinks that's crazy and they're not going to try it and that's fine. They're entitled to do that too. But when everyone is at home, it means that
00:28:30
Speaker
having them be involved means they get to come up with solutions too. If things aren't working, right, you can say, hey guys, this doesn't sit well with me. Do you have any suggestions? And instead of just one investigator, you have a whole team, a whole team of PIs looking for the solution, right? Everyone's working for that common goal together and it's a beautiful thing. Yes. I remember when one of my kids brought me their science textbook and they said, mom,
00:28:55
Speaker
read this. This is different from what you've taught me about vaccines." And I said, okay, all right, cool. I invite you to become an investigator on this. Here are the books I read. Here are some articles that I read. Here are some research papers. You investigate it and see what you come up with. And that was really cool that they were like, they wanted to investigate it too. They wanted to know more. I guess they'd been red pilled and they just
00:29:18
Speaker
They just wanted to know they couldn't sit. They just couldn't sit there. It also means if they have an intuition or an idea or it's something they want to investigate, you get to join their investigative team. I have had my husband tell me several times, listen, I listened to your, he'll say, listen, honey, I have listened and we have acted on your intuition so many times. Sometimes I have a feeling about something too or a perception and you need to listen to me and I'm just like, oh,
00:29:48
Speaker
Yes. Hello. Let me help you. Let me get on your team. Cause I really appreciate his a hundred percent backing up what I believe, you know, what my intuition tells me. And I want to do that to him too. And then I have kids too that are starting, you know, the older ones, the teenagers, adult kids, and they'll start coming to me with, with their things that they want investigated or researched or their ideas that they have. And, and it's pretty amazing. Pretty fun.
00:30:12
Speaker
Yes, I love that. I love that being the team effort. What's interesting in my marriage is I've noticed that when I feel very, very strongly about one thing or another, that my husband most times does not feel very strongly about that. He doesn't actually seem to care that much. But then I explain my side of things and he goes, okay, yeah, sounds great. And then other times he's felt very strongly about something and I just think, oh, I didn't really have an opinion on that. But if you feel strongly about it, right? I'm not going to say it's always going to be like that. There may be times that you have a very strong intuition about something and he very strongly disagrees.
00:30:41
Speaker
And that's the beautiful part of marriage. You get to just figure it out, hash it out together and look at some research together, talk to some trusted sources and come up with an agreement. But that is how a family is supposed to work, is we're supposed to trust each other and work to come to a common
00:30:57
Speaker
common understanding in these things that are really important. And I love what you said that you trust your children to get their own intuition as well because what we're doing by not following the status quo is giving our children courage to do the same. And we're raising families in a
00:31:12
Speaker
terrifying world. In so many ways, it's terrifying. And I want my children to be so confident in their own ability to research and to discover and to listen to intuition and God's whispering to them that they are not afraid to do things differently. They're not afraid to investigate and look into things because they know, well, my mom taught me, if this doesn't feel right, I'm just going to look into a different option. I think that's one of the greatest lessons we can teach them.
00:31:38
Speaker
Yes, that is so wonderful to turn out investigative kids into the world. Because then you know that whatever those kids do, that they're doing it from a place of intentionality and confidence because they have researched it. And even if it is not something that you agree with or you did it, you did it a different way, you know that they are not just doing it because everybody else is doing it that way. They have researched it and they know and that's really, really
00:32:08
Speaker
grown up adult way for your kid to go through their life is just intentionally with this investigative outlook on life, it's going to serve them well. And they're not going to be taken unawares by anything in life because everything that they come up against, they're going to see as an opportunity to investigate and research and have an intentional path forward. And that's really something that we can trust and send them safely into the world.
00:32:34
Speaker
What's interesting is as my kids grow older, I tend to get a little bit nervous about the choices they're going to make and think, I'm going to have something to say about those choices, for sure, as they're adults, right? We talked about raising adult kids a little while ago. But sending kids out in the world with this mentality, like you're saying, means that I don't have to agree with their choices, but I get to know that they made them intentionally because I taught them to do that. And that is a lot more peaceful place to be, even when we disagree with our children's choices. So that's a pretty cool insight.
00:33:03
Speaker
All right, friends, we hope you love this episode. We will talk to you next week. I'm Bonnie. I'm Audrey, and we're Outnumbered. Thanks for listening, friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week. Hang on, you're on mute.
00:33:31
Speaker
both Dean and Alice were hiding in here being as silent as little church mice. My goodness. Maybe I should have just left them. That is so cute. Well, the kitty cats like to hide in my closet and just curl up in there. So very often they go in and just pet him. He just locked himself in there just petting the kitty. I was like, okay. Whatever works keeping you quiet. Oh, I know. Cute.