Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 111 - 6 Things I Do Every Day to Protect My Kids' Mental Health (What the Research Actually Says)

Transcript

Ep. 111 - 6 Things I Do Every Day to Protect My Kids' Mental Health (What the Research Actually Says) · The Christy-Faith Show

• 0:00
  Christy-Faith: The American Psychological Association declared a national youth mental crisis. The US surgeon general issued a formal advisory. That's something they reserve for things like smoking and opioids. Teen anxiety is up. Childhood depression is up.
• 0:16
  And online searches for kids mental health have nearly tripled since last fall. Tripled. Something is happening with our kids, and I don't think most parents need a statistic to even feel it. We already feel it. We see it in the kids around us.
• 0:33
  Maybe you see it in your own. If you didn't have a reason before to homeschool your kids, today, I might just give you one. And no, I'm not saying that homeschool kids are immune to mental health problems, but there is no doubt in my mind, and I'm gonna hold your hand while I'm saying this, that it does make it so much easier. After twenty years in education and a lot of the kids we worked with were at risk and struggled, what I've noticed is that the things that can help protect a child's mental health aren't necessarily complicated, and they're not expensive either. But sometimes school does make it an uphill battle.
• 1:05
  Because here's what's really hurting our kids' mental health and what I've noticed in twenty years of education and a whole lot of time working with kids who were struggling and at risk. That things can be done to help protect your child's mental health, and they're not complicated, they're not expensive, and they don't require a degree. They require an in tune and intentional parent, and you are already that. Today, I'm going to share the six things that I actively do or at least attempt to do in my home to protect my kids' mental health. And listen, this episode is for every parent.
• 1:38
  Homeschool, traditional school, doesn't matter. Because what our kids need from us doesn't change based on where they learn. And before we dive in today, I wanna be very clear. I am not a therapist. I am not a clinician.
• 1:50
  And nothing I share today is medical advice. I'm a homeschool mom of four who has spent twenty years in education. I've worked with at risk kids and I've done a lot of research. And I've seen a lot of interventions and I've seen stuff work and not work. But mental health can be very complicated.
• 2:05
  So this episode today is simply what I attempt to do in my own home. Attempt. Some of it, I think I'm doing okay at, and some of it, well, we'll just say I need to have a little bit more grace with myself. And look, if you or your child is struggling and needs professional support, please get it. Today's episode is simply about the things that I do actively to protect my kids' mental health right in my own home.
• 2:27
  Let's get into it. Before we dive in, I have to tell you about something because it falls squarely in the category of things I wish someone had told me sooner. Real quick sponsor moment. Don't fast forward. We love our sponsors.
• 2:49
  We need our sponsors. Plus, this one might save you a lot of money. Shout out to Summit HealthShare. It's my husband's company, and I think what they're doing is incredible. Can we just all agree that traditional health insurance is a nightmare?
• 3:01
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• 3:20
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• 3:40
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• 4:00
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• 4:11
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• 4:23
  Make sure to tell them that you're a listener of the show because I want you to have the VIP treatment. Summithealthshare.com. Link is in the show notes. Alright, homeschool mama. I have to tell you about something I'm really proud of that is a resource completely free to all homeschooling families.
• 4:38
  A while back, I built a directory just trying to help homeschool families find doctors and service providers that wouldn't give them a hard time just because they homeschool. It was small, it was scrappy, and it was born out of frustration. But it's grown into something I never expected, a real community. Colleges, businesses, doctor's offices, homeschool graduates who are now in business, young homeschool entrepreneurs who get a free account. Everybody's saying, hey, homeschool family.
• 5:05
  We're in your corner. We wanna do business with you. It's called The Christy-Faith List. I'll put a link in the show notes, and it's completely free for you to search. We are building the homeschool economy.
• 5:15
  And if you're a business owner or part of an organization that loves homeschool families, we wanna give you business. Get yourself on the list. We wanna know who you are. Support the people who support you. Use The Christy faith list.
• 5:28
  Link is in the show notes. Alright. Welcome to The Christy-Faith Show. If you're new here, this is the podcast for moms who take this homeschooling craft seriously. And I'm so glad you're here today.
• 5:38
  On our show, we have conversations that sharpen how we think about education, motherhood, and the life that we are intentionally building for our families. I'm Christy-Faith, twenty plus years in education, homeschool mom of four, elementary all the way through high school, and author of homeschool rising. I'm also founder of thrive homeschool community. If you haven't heard of it yet, it's where moms go from piecing together a homeschool to actually knowing what they're doing. It's not always open and it's certainly not for everybody, but if you're interested, make sure to put your name on the wait list.
• 6:09
  That's the only way to guarantee your spot. Alright. Today, we are covering the six things I do in my own family to protect my kids' mental health. And number one is pretty obvious. I'm gonna start here and not spend much time because you probably already know what it is, social media.
• 6:23
  Now, I recently did an episode on screens, episode one zero seven, and I did a really deep dive there. So I'm not gonna go over the same ground twice, but I will put a link to that show in the show notes so that you can run over there and find it. And why is limiting our kids' time on social media so important to our kids' mental health? Well, the experts are screaming about it. Teens are now spending more than three hours a day on social platforms, and they have double the risk of anxiety and depression.
• 6:50
  One study found that simply cutting back to thirty minutes a day dropped those symptoms within three weeks. And it turns out it's not really about the clock and screen time, it's about the type of screen. A kid watching a two hour movie is having a completely different neurological experience than a kid scrolling YouTube shorts for twenty minutes. Same device, completely different effect on the brain. And something I go over in episode one zero seven is we've kind of been obsessed with screen time, but the point that the experts are trying to make is that we've been managing the wrong thing.
• 7:21
  It's less about time and more about type. I'll link to episode one zero seven in the show notes. And at the end of that episode, I actually walk you through a four question framework straight from the research that you can actually carry with you if this is an issue in your home. Okay. The second thing I do or try to do to protect my kids' mental health at home, and I promised earlier I'd come clean about this one, is sleep.
• 7:43
  We need to talk about bedtime for a second because I feel like this is one of those things that nobody wants to admit they're bad at. I will admit I'm bad at it. I hate going to bed. I love sleep, but I don't like going to bed. Nighttime in our house is genuinely one of my favorite parts of the day.
• 7:58
  The kids are up stairs, someone's reading, the teenager sometimes wanders in to make his sisters laugh, and it's this soft, easy feeling that just settles in, and I just wanna live in that forever. And if you have a teenager, you know, that's when they come to you with all of their existential crises. So the last thing that I wanna do is to be the one who says, alright, it's over. Everyone get to bed. When my kids were little, I was really good at bedtime, but I've gotten worse and worse as my kids get older.
• 8:24
  A major NIH study tracked nearly 9,000 children and found that kids getting it less than nine hours a night had an actual measurable difference in their brain structure. And those differences were the areas in the brain responsible for attention, memory, and impulse control. And they found that those differences were still there two years later. Two years. The thing that got me though, the signs your kid is struggling from not enough sleep, they don't always look like tired.
• 8:52
  They look like anxious. They look like emotional, reactive, hard to focus. Stuff we might just absorb as part of the week without ever connecting it to the time the lights went out. Does that sound familiar at all? Well, does for me.
• 9:04
  So what I do now, and I wanna be clear, this is recent. Please don't think I have everything figured out. But several weeks ago, I just really felt like my kids weren't getting enough rest. And so what I did is I had my phone alarm go off at 08:30 every night. And that's my cue, to stop what I'm doing and to go upstairs and have everybody start calming down, brushing teeth, getting pajamas on, all the things, with an attempt to have lights out around nine.
• 9:27
  So I'm trying to change our family's rhythm a little bit. And the evening I love is still happening. It's just ending a little bit earlier now. Alright. Moving right along.
• 9:35
  Number three is real friendship. And I mean real. Not screen mandated, not a group chat, not a roster of activity based acquaintances that are adult led, actual friendship. The kind where another kid knows yours and your kid knows them as well. So a Harvard study of adult development, the longest running study of human happiness ever concluded, found that the quality of our relationships is the single strongest predictor of how long and how well we live, relationships.
• 10:05
  And that finding holds all the way back to childhood. A 2023 study published in eLife found that close friendships in childhood are directly linked to brain development and cognitive growth, not just emotionally, but neurologically as well. And a 2025 study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that loneliness increases the likelihood of depression by twenty five percent. Now a lot of us think that loneliness has to do with people in their later years, the elderly, and so people get them dogs and things like that, companions. What people don't realize is how incredibly lonely kids can get.
• 10:39
  I said this in my book, you could be the most popular kid in school and be the loneliest kid in school, feeling like you don't really know anybody and aren't known yourself. School is not socialization. And what we're finding is that our children in this generation are lonelier than any other generation we've tracked. Even though they have more contact with other people, more contact does not mean more connection. More followers and likes does not mean you have more friends.
• 11:04
  So what I do in my home is pretty simple. I protect the conditions for real friendship. We have kids over. We build in unstructured time. We participate in co op that's emotionally healthy.
• 11:15
  I just create environments for kids to be together without a particular agenda. And I pay attention to whether my kids have at least one person who really knows them at any given time. Now, the moms of introverts, I am one. The hibernation craving is real. But I'm a danger to myself, you guys.
• 11:32
  I can disappear into my cave for way too long. And when I come out of it, I am more in my head and not as happy. So this is a tricky one for us introverts because isolation isn't really rest. It feels like rest at the start, but we still need people. And our kids are the same way.
• 11:47
  An introverted kid still needs connection, just in smaller doses with the right people. And an extroverted kid who loves being around people all the time might need a mama who helps them build in some quiet reflective time in their routine, even when they're fighting you on it. This is why I love homeschooling because we can actually curate the socialization that our kids need based on how they're made and how they're wired. You know your kid, and you get to design this in a way that a school schedule never could. When we come back, I'm getting into number four, and I wanna warn you, it might be the most countercultural thing I do as a parent.
• 12:20
  Stick around. Homeschooling four kids means I'm juggling roughly 24 different subjects at any given time. And a few years back during a particularly busy season, I hit a wall. I needed some serious help with the heavy lifting of teaching everything myself and managing schedules for four kids. That's when I found BJU Press Homeschool, and we've loved their courses so much that we keep going back.
• 12:41
  Some families use them for everything and love it. I use them for certain subjects. Either way, total mental load relief. Here's what my mornings look like now. Let us take science for example.
• 12:51
  My three girls do that one together. They fire up the lesson taught by a real teacher, well produced, actual teaching, not just click through busy work. And I sit there with my coffee, watch them, or make breakfast, and we discuss the big ideas. Every BJU Press homeschool course prioritizes critical thinking, a biblical worldview, and hands on learning. I just guide the conversation and pick which activity or pages or projects we want to do, and everything's already planned out.
• 13:16
  They have an online platform included for you called the homeschool hub, and it keeps everyone on track, both me and my kids, without micromanaging or nagging. And when I have questions, I call my homeworks consultant. These people don't just help you get set up. They're available for you whenever you need them. It's like having a homeschool expert on speed dial.
• 13:34
  Go to bjupresshomeschool.com or click the link in the show notes to find out more. People are always curious what curriculum I use for my own family, and honestly, it changes. We've tried a lot over the years. Some work for a season and some completely missed the mark, but there is one that's stuck, CTC Math. It's a full k to 12 online math curriculum, and it's won oodles of awards for a reason.
• 13:57
  It's just that good. I use it for all four of my kids, and they couldn't be more different when it comes to math. Finding one curriculum that actually works for all of them, that's been nearly impossible. You know that pit in your stomach when you realize the curriculum that you just invested in isn't working again? Yeah.
• 14:14
  That was us until this one. The genius behind CTC math is that it's adaptive. The questions adjust to each kid's level in real time, so they're always challenged but never crushed. And mama, it does the teaching and grading for us. Yes.
• 14:29
  You heard that right. That's a homeschool mom's dream. Well, especially for me when it comes to math. I would think it's too good to be true if I hadn't been using it myself. And it's not just me.
• 14:39
  Here's why it's become the go to for thousands of homeschool families. Free diagnostics show you exactly where to start, access to all grade levels so your student can fill in any gaps or move ahead, short video lessons that keep your children engaged, automatic grading with instant feedback, and progress reports so you know exactly what's happening without hovering. Math used to be our hardest subject. Now my kids do it independently. Here's the best part.
• 15:06
  Our listeners get 50% off. Use the link in the show notes to do a free trial or to get that half off deal. Don't spend another year kissing math frogs. This one stuck for us, and I have a feeling it's gonna stick for you too. Welcome back.
• 15:19
  Let's head right into number four. We're talking about the things I do in my own family to help protect my kids' mental health. This is one I feel so strongly about, and in the area that I live in, this is not how other people are raising their kids. No way. What I do is I protect unstructured child led free time, and a lot of it.
• 15:38
  And I know how that sounds in a world where the default is a full activity calendar because I feel that pull too. We have that fear that if our kids aren't in every enrichment program, every rec league, every extracurricular, they're somehow falling behind. The pressure is real, especially as homeschoolers because we're always attacked for socialization. In fact, once you enter the homeschool world, most moms say they are exhausted from other kids' socialization. But I just wanna acknowledge that the pressure to have our kids really busy is real.
• 16:08
  And the parents who do that, it comes from love. And I don't think the parents who feel that or want their kids in a lot of activities are wrong for feeling it. It comes from love. But what kids actually need, and the research on this is so consistent, it almost gets boring to sight, is the opposite of a packed schedule. Kids need long stretches of unstructured child led time where nobody is telling them what to do next, where to be, where to go, what to do.
• 16:33
  We're talking forts. We're talking backyards. We're talking books coming to life, problem solving, tinkering, boredom. Now I should probably do an entire episode on boredom because I think parents are scared of it, but we need our kids to be bored because it tips over into something that nobody planned. Let me know.
• 16:50
  Should I do an episode on boredom? That might be a good thing to do before the summer. So turns out that the entire developmental research community agrees that kids need unstructured playtime. Charlotte Mason, you were right. Peter Gray at Boston College, he spent his career documenting what happens when free play disappears from childhood, and the findings were not subtle.
• 17:11
  Jonathan Haidt, and I've quoted him before on the podcast, puts the loss of free play alongside smartphones as the primary driver of the youth mental health crisis. The American Psychological Association calls unstructured play a fundamental necessity for children to thrive emotionally and socially. Now let me ask you this, how much free play is allowed in schools? A longitudinal study following kids from age two to seven found that one to five hours of active unstructured play daily predicted significantly stronger self regulation years later, regardless of where they started. And over scheduled kids?
• 17:48
  Okay. Brace yourself. Increased anxiety, lower resilience, difficulty tolerating boredom, less capacity to just figure something out. All those things we don't want for our kids. So this might come as a surprise to a lot of you, but one of my main reasons for homeschooling is this.
• 18:05
  And don't get me wrong, I am an academically rigorous homeschooler. That matters deeply to me, and I want my kids prepared well for the world, which is exactly why I protect their free play. And when I looked at the hours that kids are in school and then extracurriculars and homework, I realized for me, the only way to really protect that free time that they need was to homeschool. Because we know homeschooling doesn't take seven hours a day to even do a better job. So we generally like to wrap up our lessons close to after lunch so my kids have unstructured free play before afternoon activities.
• 18:35
  And our afternoon activities are not every night either. That's so exhausting. I hope you guys aren't doing that. Now I know there's seasons. I get it.
• 18:42
  Literal and metaphorical. Right? Sports seasons. And we've had busier times than others, but I just try to be mindful of it. Kids need unstructured time.
• 18:51
  Okay. Number five is kind of a doozy. It's something I'm extremely intentional about. Those mamas in Thrive Homeschool Community hear me talking about this all of the time. Another way I help preserve my kids' mental health is taking care of my own mental health and making it part of the language in our home.
• 19:07
  Almost all of us are busy. Many of you work like I do. And in my line of work, I have deadlines. I have responsibilities, and I have days where my brain is somewhere else before my feet even hit the floor. And I just wanna sit here for a second with the moms who are carrying something heavy right now because I know that you listening right now, you might be dealing with more than just a stressful week.
• 19:27
  You could be in a real time right now. Maybe anxiety that just won't let up, that comes out of nowhere, depression that makes an ordinary day feel like waiting through concrete, and the kind of tired that sleep can't fix. Listen, I wanna see you right now, and this point is especially for you. I grew up with a father who struggled with clinical depression, and let me tell you the effects have lasted well through me and my sister's adult years. A parent struggling with mental health does affect their kids, even when you're trying to keep it from them.
• 19:55
  What I've noticed over the years, and you've probably noticed this too, is that the state of my mental health kind of sets the temperature for the entire house. When I'm doing well, things run. And when I'm stretched thin or running on fumes, everything seems to get harder. My mood, their mood. My behavior, their behavior.
• 20:12
  See, the thing is is our kids read us. Now, our kids are not responsible for our emotional well-being. I actually tell my kids that all of the time when I'm stressed out or struggling. I say, you're not responsible for my emotional state right now because I wanna always make sure that my kids don't end up enmeshed or anything like that. But, okay, so I digress.
• 20:29
  The research actually backs this up. Parental stress affects kids. A 2024 systematic review published in the journal of pediatrics found that parental stress directly predicts emotional and behavior problems in school aged children, and those effects follow them into adulthood. We are supposed to be their safe base, and they track us the way sailors track the horizon. Now if you are a mama struggling with this right now, the message that I am not sending you because I am really only sending you love and support is what can happen is because you struggle, you can fall into a shame spiral right now.
• 21:04
  Like, oh, great. Now I'm ruining them in a new way. K. Stop. No.
• 21:07
  That's not helpful. That voice is a liar. Shame makes it worse, not better every time. So if you're in a season right now where taking care of yourself means getting outside help, a therapist, a counselor, psychiatrist, medication, a doctor. Please do that.
• 21:23
  Make the time. That is not a detour. It's not an extra to do when you have time. Taking care of yourself literally is taking care of your kids, full stop. So if all that you can do today is one minor thing to move yourself towards that, please do it.
• 21:37
  Also know that I am praying for you, and I care about you, and I want you to be well and healthy so you can break all those cycles, and you are worth it. So please get the help you need. So back to the things that I do in my home, something that I personally do just every day, kind of no matter what, is I take care of myself out loud. When I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'll say something like, you know what kids? I'm feeling a little stressed today.
• 22:01
  I'm gonna go do my pilates machine downstairs. I'll see you in forty five minutes. And then I go do it. Social emotional learning is such a high priority in my home that we just talk about it. It's just in our language, and something's happened along the way that I didn't plan for.
• 22:15
  My kids were learning that you can name what you're feeling, that stress something you notice and respond to, that taking care of your mental health isn't a secret that you keep. It's just something that you do, like making dinner. We talk about mental health in our home the same way that we talk about math, reading, and literature. It's a negative language, and the only one that can drive that priority is me and what I model and what I name out loud and how I take care of myself in front of them. That's the practice, and that is number five.
• 22:42
  Okay. Real quick before we move on to number six, and this is just me being real with you. I hope you know that it's sponsors that make this show possible. I love doing this show and doing all this research and bringing it to you week after week. It is so fun and it's meaningful for me.
• 22:56
  And I love that it's free to you. So if you've gotten any value out of today's show, would you do something for me right now even while I'm talking? Would you engage in some subscribe button so that you get notified when my show drops. Maybe give me the five stars, of course, if I've deserved it. Please comment, ask a question, encourage another mom.
• 23:14
  And why am I asking you to do this? Well, it's because the robots, the algorithm is what decides if a show is worth pushing out, and engagement is their currency. I know you guys out there, some of you make sure to engage in two or three ways every single show. Girl, I see you and I love you for it. Thank you so much.
• 23:32
  Alright. On to number six, Things I do in my home to protect my kids' mental health. And I'll be honest, this one I was already doing long before I had any research to back it up, which was either good instincts or dumb luck. I'll let you decide. See, most kids, at least most homeschool kids have chores, real ones.
• 23:50
  I taught my kids knife skills as young as it was safe. So they cook, they help their aunt when she needs it, and they volunteer in our community. The commitments shift depending on age and season. What my 10 year old carries looks a lot different than what my teenager does, but the thread running through all of it is the same thing. I want my kids to feel like they belong somewhere and that they contribute to it.
• 24:12
  Those two things together, that's what I'm after. See, it's pretty normal in society to tell our kids that they're special, that they're loved, that they matter, and that is all true and good. I hope you're doing that. But I think we underestimate what happens inside a child when they actually experience their own significance. When they live it.
• 24:30
  When they cook dinner and the family eats it, and everyone comments on how delicious it is and thanks the child for doing it. In our case, when my sister was recovering from a surgery, when they go over there and they help their aunt, and they see that she's genuinely grateful when my kids volunteer somewhere, and they realize that someone's day is actually different and better because they were there. See, something registers that no amount of affirmation can replicate. They didn't just belong to something, they contributed to it. And that distinction is really important.
• 25:01
  A researcher named Marty Rossman tracked kids over twenty five years, started when they were small, followed them all the way into adulthood, and found that kids who did chores from an early age had a greater success in their careers, relationships, and overall well-being. And he studied other factors too, but chores were the most important factor. Chores. Why? Well, purpose.
• 25:22
  Okay. So there was another research study from UCLA that found that kids with a strong sense of purpose are less likely to be depressed, less likely to engage in dangerous risk taking, and less dependent on external validation. They feel important. They feel better about themselves. A kid who is needed, valued, and connected to something beyond themselves has less room for that kind of inward spiral that anxiety lives in.
• 25:46
  We were created to contribute. Now, I wasn't thinking about any of that when I started giving my kids chores. I just wanted kids who would help around the house and show up for the people around them. So when I found the research, I was relieved. Like, okay.
• 25:58
  Yeah. This actually matters. Keep going. Okay. That was number six, but stick around because when we come back, I have a quote from someone every single one of you knows.
• 26:07
  But I promise you, you haven't heard him say this, and it is worth staying for. I'll see you on the other side. Anyone else notice the quality of grocery store food getting worse? I'm not talking about prices. I mean the food itself.
• 26:20
  Strawberries that taste like nothing, lettuce that's slimy by day three, chicken that looks grayish, and you're standing there thinking, I'm paying more for this? Listen. I promise you are not going crazy. We've been feeling it too. And for years, I thought there was just nothing we could do about it.
• 26:37
  That's just how groceries are now. But then I started ordering from Azure Standard. They're a family owned company. They happen to be homeschoolers as well. Real Farms Organic Standards delivered to a drop point near you.
• 26:50
  And I have to tell you the story. We ordered a box of oranges, and the first orange I pulled out of the box, I peeled it, I pulled off a wedge, and I stopped. Time machine, Granny and Gramps' backyard, their orange tree, I forgot food could taste like that. And the chicken from Azure Standard, I've never had chicken this good. It's scary how accustomed I got to fine.
• 27:11
  Visit azurestandard.com. I'll put the link in the show notes. Real whole food without the bougie health food store price tag. One bite, that's all it'll take. Alright.
• 27:21
  I'm so excited about the quote of the week, but we have covered six things. Screens. Well, not screens really, but social media in particular. Sleep, friendships, free time, our own mental health, and purpose. Six things I'm intentional about.
• 27:35
  They don't require a perfect home or a perfect parent. No. I'm not a perfect parent. But what our kids do need is an in tune intentional parent, someone who's paying attention. And the fact that you haven't listened to the show to become a better homeschooler, that's you.
• 27:48
  Now I wanna leave you with something from Fred Rogers, a man I deeply respect and one of the greatest child advocates I've ever known, he said, the roots of a child's ability to cope and thrive regardless of circumstance lie in that child's having had at least a small safe place in which in a companionship of a loving person, that child could discover that he or she was lovable and capable of loving in return. And isn't that what we want? We want children who know they are so deeply loved that they turn around and love others. And that safe place for them right now is in your home, and that loving person is you. Now if you love mister Rogers, I've got this quote on a beautiful note card for you today, totally free.
• 28:32
  It's a printout that you can cut out, put it on your bathroom mirror, your coffee pot, or your car dashboard. Somewhere you'll see it on the hard days when you forget. The link to that is in the show notes. If today's episode resonated, I've also done full episodes on two of these topics. Episode one zero seven, I mentioned earlier, goes deep on screens.
• 28:52
  Episode 99, that one's on the youth sports machine and what over scheduling actually costs our kids. And episode 54, that covers social emotional learning and why homeschooling does it better than any school could. You can find all three of those episodes right in the show notes so you don't have to hunt. And one last thing, which one of these six is the hardest for you right now? Mine is the bedtime.
• 29:12
  I genuinely wanna know. We're in this together. Right? Maybe it's your own mental health and you needed someone to say it out loud today that taking care of yourself is taking care of your kids. Tell me in the comments.
• 29:23
  And if you have wisdom from your own home on any of these, please share it. Someone listening needs to hear what you figured out. This is a place where we share each other's wisdom. I do not purport to know everything, please. And if today's show made you wanna go deeper, not just on this topic, but on homeschooling well in general, you should know that is what happens in Thrive Homeschool Community.
• 29:45
  If you're exhausted from piecing together your homeschooling all by yourself, the late night searches, the conflicting advice everywhere, wondering if you're even doing this right, Thrive Homeschool Community is where all of that ends. It's where you learn to homeschool well, and I think it's the best thing to happen to homeschooling in the last decade. It's what I wish I had when I was in my early years. Thrive is not for everybody, and we're not always open. So if you're interested, make sure to get yourself on the wait list because that is the only way to guarantee your spot.
• 30:13
  I also put some other really cool freebies in the show notes that kind of relate to today's topics. So make sure to check those out. Please check out the sponsors. If you're gonna spend that money anyway, you might as well see what they're all about. Thanks for listening today.
• 30:24
  Now go love on those kids of yours, and I will see you next week.