How to Teach Kids About Energy: Simple Tools for Spiritual, Highly Sensitive Families

Have you ever stopped to consider how energy flows through your family? Not just the buzzing activity of daily life, but the actual spiritual energy that connects you, your children, and everything around you?

Energy awareness forms the foundation of conscious parenting, yet many of us overlook this powerful concept when raising our children. I share my journey rediscovering energy principles I learned as a child and how teaching these concepts to my own kids has transformed our family dynamics. For highly sensitive or empathic children especially, understanding energy flow is crucial to their wellbeing.

The connection between perfectionism and energy depletion emerges as a central theme. As a recovering perfectionist, I reveal how my obsession with maintaining a spotless home drained my energy and negatively impacted my parenting. Learning to establish energy boundaries and determine where to focus my limited resources became essential to becoming a happier, more present parent. This shift required examining deep-seated beliefs about control and perfection that many parents will recognize in themselves.

Practical energy management strategies fill this episode, from understanding your family's capacity versus demands to recognizing when everyone needs recharging time. I share personal stories about summer adventures with my children and how I've learned to read our collective energy levels. Discover valuable tools for energy maintenance including crystal work, quick meditations suitable for busy parents, family energy clearing exercises, and the profound benefits of nature connection. The simple act of explaining energy concepts to children using visual meters helps them develop self-awareness that will serve them throughout life.

Ready to transform your parenting through energy awareness? Try one of the suggested practices this week – whether hugging a tree, doing a two-minute bathroom meditation, or creating an energy meter with your children. Your spiritual parenting journey begins with understanding that everything, including you and your children, is energy flowing through a connected universe.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Everything is Energy: Our Connection
• 1:45 Perfectionism and Energy Boundaries
• 4:44 Following Energy Levels with Kids
• 8:09 Self-Care and Energy Recharging
• 11:29 Energy Clearing and Final Affirmation

Transcript

Carrie Lingenfelter: 0:00

And so when we talk about energy for ourselves and as we discuss it with our kids, we really need to talk about how everything is energy. You are energy, I am energy. We are all made up of energy. The tree outside is energy. The plant over in my garden is energy, water even has energy and a lot of people are even talking about blessing water with energy. It's really cool, and a lot of people are even talking about blessing water with energy. It's really cool, and as I took Reiki, I learned about how we could bless different things with positive can flow with it, or we can disconnect from it, which is a really important tool to teach our highly sensitive, our empathic kids. Hi, conscious Parents, it's Keri here and I am here with a little info about raising our mindful kids. I've got some tips and tricks about breaking free of the box and becoming who you are and teaching your kids how to do that along the way. Join us. Hi spiritual parents, welcome back. I'm so excited to talk about the foundations of spiritual parenting. So, as we start to grow and learn and continue on our spiritual parenting journey and our journey of awareness and spiritual connection, I want to think about energy. I know that's like a buzzword for me. I talk about energy a lot. Energy is something that I was recently reintroduced to. I heard about it a lot growing up, but as a 20-something, 30-something year old, you just go into your own knowing. So I'm coming back to all of these pieces that I had foundations of as a child, and I hope that you can come back and open yourself up to this as well. So when I think about energy, I also think about the pieces that we have to heal within as parents. So every time we're talking about energy, we can share pieces of energy work with our kids. For sure. Let's do that now. Let's not do that when they're 40. We we also have pieces that come up in our parenting journey and awareness about our healing from within, and so when we talk about energy for ourselves and as we discuss it with our kids, we really need to talk about how everything is energy. You are energy, I am energy. We are all made up of energy. The tree outside is energy, the plant over in my garden is energy, water even has energy, and a lot of people are even talking about blessing water with energy. It's really cool, and as I took Reiki, I learned about how we could bless different things with positive energy and reset spaces with energy, since Reiki deals with energy, so that's a tool that I have used with energy in our house. When we are talking about energy with our kids, we want to think about the flow of energy, how we can feel it, how we can flow with it or we can stop it and put a kibosh on it. We can disconnect from it, which is a really important tool to teach our highly sensitive, our empathic kids A huge piece that I have learned about.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 3:16

It's interesting because I learned it in speech therapy. We talked about capacity and demands when we were talking about stuttering. It was really interesting because we would talk about. Well, actually, let me share a story with you guys, first about capacity and demand.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 3:29

So it is currently summer and I am home with my kids. I've put a little hiatus in some of my parenting podcasts because I want to be present and active with my kids. I'm really lucky I get to do that and so during summer it can get really intense at times in our house. I am fully present, fully active with my kids. They're not in camps. We've decided we just want to be home with them this summer and see what everything, how everything goes in that way energetically.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 3:57

So this summer I decided I need to create boundaries for myself. I am a recovering perfectionist, but I dropped that perfection label a few years ago and one of the things that I had to learn in doing that was allowing my house to be in the state that it is. If you are watching the video, you can see a airplane in the background. That just goes along with where my energy boundaries are. My house is not perfect and I had to learn that I had to follow myself energetically. Do I have the energy to have a perfect house?

Carrie Lingenfelter: 4:57

I did for a while, but then I learned that as I was trying to keep the perfect house, I was starting to come down on my kids. I was starting to get upset with the messiness. I was starting to feel anxious and nervous and then that would bubble up into being short tempered or short with my kids, or being extra perfection. I was pushing this perfection onto my kids because the house it, just it gets exhausting, trying to keep up with it all the time. Raise your hand if you're going through this. I see you parents. So I learned I had to focus my energy into where it mattered.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 5:31

Sometimes that can look like stopping, putting a hand on your heart, tuning within and saying what within me needs the house to be perfect. It didn't happen overnight where I was like, okay, the chaos is the chaos, I'm fine with it, I'm just going to move on. No, it's been a healing, growing journey in that I have learned sometimes people that come over are offended by my mess. Sometimes my parents will come over and maybe they're like, geez, this house is really messy, carrie, you need some help. What's going on? I'm like, well, it is what it is. Guys, I'm a happier mom. I'm a loving mom. I am happier in my skin when I can let certain things go. And so, looking at some of those inner child pieces of why do I have to have perfection? Why does this have to feel controlled? Why do I feel like, why do I have to feel like I can control this perfectly, those were things that I had to look at and it's really cool.

Carrie Lingenfelter: 6:34

Now, as I have learned to follow my energy in the summer, I will. I have learned that I sometimes I completely put down the podcast on a day. I don't do any recording that day because I want to be present with my kids and I know they'll turn on the TV if I'm going to podcast, so it's. It's been really cool to kind of see where I want to focus my energy. I also am learning with energy that I don't just go, go, go, go go. I took them on a really big hike, which was really cool for us, and the kids wanted to go all the way to the top, which I did not expect. But the next day I was like let's go to the beach. You guys wanted to go to the lake. We're going to go to the lake, 're gonna go to the lake, we're gonna go visit our grandma and we're gonna go to the lake. It's gonna be awesome. The third day I was like whoa, carrie, you were going for the best parent of the world award right now and let's tone it down. So we stayed home. We followed our energy levels. I was like I'm exhausted. I cannot pack another lunch and have you guys only eat half of it, because you didn't want that sandwich. But I was trying to do go, go, go and have fun with you guys. No, we stayed home. We heated up some frozen pot stickers and we recharged our energy. And it wasn't just me that needed it. My kids needed it too. So, looking at our energy, seeing if our bucket has enough capacity left in it for the demands that you're going to place on it. So, if my bucket is already really full and I'm feeling exhausted because I've been home with my kids for four days, am I going to plan a giant hike on Friday? No, I'm going to stay home. I'm going to catch up on some of the things. I'm going to re-energize and guess what? Your kids are probably there too, especially if they're sensitive kids. So kids are going to be picking up on our energy, right, when we're talking about energy, the kids feel it. The kids have their own amounts of energy and then they're going to pick up and reflect yours. Right, I'm really intense. They're going to be feeling really intense. So some of the things that we need to do in order to stay in a zen place with our energy, in a fulfilled spot energetically, is self-care right, it's a big buzzword. And self-care. If you're doing self-care and you are not actively present, if you are not spiritually connected with yourself during your self-care, it doesn't count, guys, if you're sitting on your phone and scrolling through and then you're like, oh my gosh, this political thing is going on. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Did you see in the news this thing happened? Oh, so-and-so. I only got one like on my post. Whatever it is, that's not recharging, that doesn't count as self-care. Self-care is when you walk away feeling whole and powerful and connected with the true side of you. That's real self-care. Other things that help with all these pieces of our keeping our energy fresh crystals those can help. I've got my crystal necklace, got my crystal ring. I love crystals and I recharge them in the sun and it helps me energetically. It protects my energy, my kids from my kids energy, because they love to take your energy without realizing it. They love to put their energy on you without realizing it. So crystals are great. Meditations are wonderful Meditations. Even if you can do a bathroom meditation for two minutes as a parent, even if you can do an office meditation as a working parent, and you need that time to connect with yourself. Two minutes, anything you can get. Meditations are wonderful for recharging Energy clearings. That can be one you can do with your kids. When I'm doing an energy clearing guided meditation at night after reading a book with my kids, I'm picturing the same thing myself. I'm walking them through a meditation for themselves and I'm picturing the same thing for myself. I'm releasing that and then when I walk out of their room that night I'm going to dust off my hands as I disconnect from their energy and give myself my own energy back. We're clearing our hands as we walk out. Another amazing way to recharge your energy getting outside, being in nature. If you can take off your shoes, walk in some grass, stand in the grass, open your hands and look up at toward the sun, letting the sunlight shine Cover your face, just feeling that warmth, feeling that golden energy. That's amazing. If you can go hug a tree and ground yourself, be connected with that tree, that's amazing too. These are ways that we can recharge our spirit, recharge our energy. It's so important as a busy parent. So this week it would be so wonderful if you could hug a tree, if you could get out into nature, if you can think of one, if you could get out into nature, if you can think of one of the self-care pieces and try it out, if you can tell your kids about energy, tell them about where your energy is at in that moment. Explain to them. You can show them, you can create like a visual meter, like okay, so before we went to the library, dad's energy was way up here, and then the library got a little loud and a little intense, so my energy is down here. So I think we're going to go read a book for a few minutes and then my energy will be recharged. What about you guys? How is your energy feeling? Those are great ways to model it for our kids. Let's close out with an affirmation prayer today. So we're going to put our hands on our heart. We're going to say thank you, universe, for helping to guide me along this parenting journey. Thank you for helping me to connect with who I truly am inside. Thank you for helping me to see where my energy is at and how to guide my kids so they can know where their energy is at. Thank you for helping me to feel like the best version of myself, to feel recharged and to help me learn when I need to recharge my heart and my soul. And so it is. Thank you. Happy listeners, happy day, spiritual families. Well, that's a wrap. Thanks so much for tuning in change. Makers. This is Carrie, and if you haven't done a review for us, five stars and a little few words about what you've enjoyed in our podcast episodes. We would really appreciate it If you guys would like to ever message me. I would love any questions you have or any feedback at info at heart to heart lifecom, we also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share it's hearttoheartlifecom. Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times, changemaker families. Bye.