Well This Wasn't The Plan!

16. Life Skills We're Working On: Part 2!

• Carson and Teran Sands • Episode 16

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We share how better sleep, steady routines, and clear expectations made our homeschool days calmer and our evenings useful. Then we dive into kid goal setting, phone etiquette that starts with us, and everyday choices about cleaning products and food that keep balance and sanity intact.

• shifting bedtimes to protect 10–12 hours of sleep
• using mornings with purpose and avoiding late-night creep
• turning big goals into small daily actions
• letting kids’ interests drive effort, not parents’ pressure
• modeling phone etiquette and delaying smartphones
• using a kid watch for safety without the internet
• signing a family phone pact at 16
• safer cleaning habits and reading labels
• choosing organic staples and explaining tradeoffs
• building balance without being rigid

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SPEAKER_01:

Whatever their crazy goal is, okay, what does that take? Don't just tell me like your big, oh, I want to do this. Tell me what you're gonna do to make it happen and be able to have the resilience to stick through it. That is such an important life skill.

unknown:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

We are two full-time working parents who just made a crazy decision.

SPEAKER_00:

After four years in public school, we're homeschooling our three kids and documenting the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Never in a million years did I think we would be homeschool people.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to, well, this wasn't the plan podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm slate, and school's in the kitchen now. I'm Scotty. We saw Scott when I say so. I'm Sailor, and this whole podcast was my idea.

SPEAKER_00:

This podcast is our real-time journey, unexpectedly juggling homeschool, jobs, parenting, and everything in between.

SPEAKER_01:

Follow along each week as we document how it's going and share the good, the bad, and the ugly. Because we know some days are going to be ugly, and we're not holding back.

SPEAKER_00:

We're learning to expect the unexpected. So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_02:

Let's go.

SPEAKER_01:

Good morning. It's super early here. We do not normally record this early, but it's about 7 a.m. and the kids are still sleeping.

SPEAKER_00:

As an added bonus, my voice is very low, like James Earl Jones.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh. Hopefully that gets a little better. So one of the questions that came in this week a lot was about sleeping, actually. So we can talk about that a little bit. How do we get our kids to sleep so late? And then there's been a lot of people that say the opposite: like, why do you wake your kids up so early? So, you know, you can't win, but a lot of people saying that, how do you get your kids to sleep? Their kids get up at 5:30, and how could they possibly get work done? I'm gonna assume that those kids are younger. And we all we have said on this podcast many times that there's no way we could have done what we do now if they were younger. Our kids are older, they s they can sleep in, they have that ability, but they were used to getting up pretty early for school. So them being able to sleep in till nine or ten is definitely a new thing. They were waking up pretty early at first, and then now it's been months since they've been to school. And we've slowly switched that because they've always got up early. They went to bed early and they've got up early.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean, even when they were young, they might wake up at six or seven, but they were going to sleep at six or seven, so they would get a full 12 hours, usually when they were younger.

SPEAKER_01:

So we we have had to change that for sure. We've always done an early bedtime because they've had to go to school and they were kind of stuck in that routine. Now we have been letting them stay up longer so that they can sleep in a little bit because it just it just works better now. They can sleep in and then at night we have a little bit of extra time. We were putting them to bed at like 7, 7:30 for most of their lives. So it's kind of nice to have a later bedtime now.

SPEAKER_00:

For sure. It gives you a little bit more time to enjoy the evening. So especially, I mean, especially when they were in school, it was like we felt like they had to go to bed so early because they had to wake up so early. But then that's also compounded into problems because you're staying out late for sports and you were at school all day, so then it's like you have no time.

SPEAKER_01:

And this is nice because you know, as a society, things happen late. The kids went to a fun Friday and it lasted until 10 last week, and that would have been really hard for them before. But now, you know, they can stay up a little bit later. But we are very sticklers on them getting enough sleep. So we just make sure that whenever they do go to bed, that they get enough opportunity to sleep in.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Or last night, Sailor went with me to a volleyball game, a Texas Tech volleyball game. And when they went to game five, it was pretty late, like past 8 30. And a lot of people I noticed, well, not a lot, but half the crowd, which wasn't very big to begin with, unfortunately. But anyway, about half the crowd got up and left before the fifth game. I was like, that's the most important game now. They went to five games, it's a big deal. But I realized that, you know, those are probably kids that they have to be up at six in the morning to be to school the next day, and their parents said, Okay, enough's enough. We got to go home.

SPEAKER_01:

It is really nice because for years we've stressed about sleep, and kids in school just simply are sleep deprived. It it is what it is. They're out at the ball field until nine or ten and then up at six, and that's just not enough time to sleep for kids. Our kids still get, you know, anywhere from 10 to 12 hours, depending on, I guess, if they're in a growth spurt or something, but always 10 to 12 hours.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And it the minimum of any minor, pretty much, it drops down to 10 briefly, right before they become teenagers, and then it goes back up to 11 as they're teenagers because they're going through so many growth spurts. So I I don't know anybody that's getting that much, especially if they're if they're playing sports until nine o'clock, not eating dinner until after that, going to bed after 10. I mean, they're getting up at 6 for school, that's at best eight hours, and they're probably not even getting the eight. But that that's really, I mean, for their growth, for their brains, for everything, all the medical research, all the doctors say that's not enough. They're not getting what they need.

SPEAKER_01:

If you can't tell already, we are very passionate about them getting the proper amount of sleep. I think that everything works better if your kids are getting more sleep. They are less grumpy, obviously, so good for their growth and development, all of the things. So, my advice here is if you're listening, going, well, my kids wake up too early, you know, obviously give it some time and slowly work backward and figure out when is a consistent wake time for them and when is a consistent bedtime. But on the flip side of that, why do we wake them up? I get this question a lot. And that's just simply because we have so many things that have to be accomplished in a day. And I definitely don't want to get into a routine where they sleep in and then they want to stay up later, and then they sleep in a little bit more, and then they want to stay up a little bit later. And our kids will stay up and read in their beds for too long. And it could easily look like they don't go to bed until 11 and then they want to sleep in, and we just don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

And it is a cycle because I did it to myself in college and got on some crazy schedule. It was really hard to break when I graduated.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. And I think a consistent routine is good for everyone, especially children. So that's why we we need to get started on our day. They need to have breakfast, we need to get schooling. We've got all of these things to do before like activities and stuff start in the evening. And if they were to sleep in, we just wouldn't have time to do all that. And I'm super type A. Like I want a consistent routine, it makes me feel good. So I know that other people can make this work a different way where they just wake up when they wake up and then they homeschool whenever it happens. That's just not gonna work for me, but it's also not gonna work for most people, probably, that have to work because there's too many things in a day that have to be accomplished. This is gonna be part two of last week's episode, and we're just gonna talk about the life skills that we're teaching the kids that we didn't get to. And the first one on that list is goal setting for kids. And I think this is a giant life skill. It actually kind of irritates both of us whenever we are around adults that tell us, oh, I'm going to run a half marathon this year. And then the next time you talk to them a week later, the you're like, Oh, how's that going? Are you training? And they're like, oh no, no, I'm not doing that. And then the next time you talk to them, they have another big goal and they tell you all about it, and you're like, oh, that's amazing. And then you talk to them again, oh oh no, I'm not doing that. So we have a huge problem with wanting things to happen and not being really willing to do the things that it takes to happen, or not realizing how important it is to break it up in two small steps.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Now, I would highly recommend if you know us or around us, you don't tell us you're gonna do anything if you're a wishy-washy person. We will hold you to it. We will give you a hard time. Now, if you train for a half marathon and then you get a cramp in the middle or you you hurt yourself and you have to stop. Now, we're not gonna give you a hard time for that. I'm talking about giving up. Yeah, that's not gonna work for us.

SPEAKER_01:

No, it just, I don't know, it rubs me the wrong way. But I'm a person that I'm not gonna tell you or I'm not gonna set a goal if I don't really feel like I am committed to it. And that's big or small, but I'm not gonna tell you I'm going to start a podcast. And then a month later, you're like, how's the podcast going? I'm not gonna be like, oh no, that didn't happen. That's just not the type of person I am. And that's okay, people are different, but with kids, what we were seeing is that, oh, I want to be the best basketball player on my whole team. And you're like, dude, every time I've asked you to, I don't know, shoot some shots in the driveway, you've been unwilling to do that. So I'm not very kind to the kids when it's about that. Like, I'm like, okay, well, you didn't put in the work, and so that might not be very important to you. And that's fine. Like, you don't have to accomplish all of these things. But if something is important to you, you will go through the steps to do it, right? So we need to stop being like, oh, I want to be a millionaire or I want to be the best dancer or these without being willing to do what it takes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's probably one of the things that might be hard about being one of our kids, but we're kind of both like that. So the the cool thing is neither one of us is like, oh, you have to play this specific sport because I want to live vicariously through you, or you have to play a sport at all. It doesn't matter. It could be, you know, singing for a talent show, it could be playing a sport, it could be being in dance, it could be becoming a great artist, learning piano. There's so many things. But if our kids are like, we want to do it, we get kind of super into it, and you know, maybe our kids think maybe sometimes too intense, but it's really not that easy. Like they sign up for basketball and they want to be really good, and they were like, you need to shoot 10 shots a day on your non-practice basketball days, 10 shots, and sometimes it would be like nearly in tears.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, so for that, I'm all about like if you won't put in the work, like why are we doing this?

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Why do we pay for and sign up for basketball?

SPEAKER_01:

And if you're wishy-washy on it, but I feel like I've noticed a lot with the ages that our kids are now that they start realizing, like, oh, somebody's really good at this, or somebody's so good at ninja, or so-and-so can hit the ball so much further in baseball. And they start commenting on that. And I mean, you can either be like, Oh, I'm so sorry, honey, maybe you will one day. Or what I do is I bring it to their attention. I'm like, that's great, but what do you think they're doing in order to be really good at that? And by now the kids are like, Well, they're probably practicing a lot and working hard. Yes, exactly. I tell them all the time, you don't get good at something overnight. You don't, people don't just wake up being able to hit a home run or whatever. Yeah, people might be naturally better at something or come easier to them, but no one, you know, can pick up any sort of thing and be phenomenal at that overnight. They chose to show up and put the work in and be committed to it because it's important to them. And all things won't be important to you, and that's fine. Like you don't have to be the best at everything. And kids, kids start having a lot of issues and confidence and things like that. So I'm trying to teach them that yeah, you you're not gonna be the best at everything, and it really boils down to like what is important to you. And if you put in the work and you do the things that are important to you, that's life, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And that's that's something that the parents should keep in mind too when it comes to, you know, we're not big on putting the kids in something that is all consuming for you know a sport or music or anything that that just or competition cheer that consumes your whole life, takes 50 weeks a year to do and everything. But even if even if we were going to do that, I would say that don't put your effort and time and your family's time into something that intense if you're the one driving your kids practice at that thing. Because it it's not just about whether it's right or wrong to force them to do that. It goes beyond that. They if you have drive that and force it, they don't have it. They're not going to be all stars at baseball if you're the one driving it. They have they they have to have an internal obsession with it. They come home, they get the baseball, they get the bat, they're obsessed with it, or whatever it is. You know, music is the same thing. All these things that are hard to do professionally, if you even want to have a shot at it, they have to have an internal obsession with that thing. And if you're driving it, you're just wasting your time and their time. Just let them do it for fun to a healthy extent.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. We're finally, I feel like, on the same page with like sports and stuff like that, because you can get roped in really quickly to signing your kids up for everything and stealing all of your family time and all of their playtime. And that's just not important to us. Is it important to us that we let them be in some team sports and experience that? Yes. Is it important that that we put it number one priority? Absolutely not. So we kind of learned that lesson the hard way. But if you have kids that are that age, you you know what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00:

You do. And and you might know some kids like that. It might you, your kids might not have anything that's like that yet. And ours don't, I don't think. But you'll know if it's a thing because you won't be forcing them to do anything. You'll be telling them, hey, you gotta stop playing piano. You it's time to read, it's time to do school, you're not doing your homework or whatever. You or or whatever sport. I mean, you'll be telling them they have to stop doing it so they can do a little bit of something else.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And for this goal setting thing, we do have like a chart, of course, shocking. It's also in the show notes, and it just kind of explains to them how to work backwards for a goal. I did a reel that we had worked with Scotty. She was very determined to ride her bike. And okay, I'm like, when do you want to ride it by? And she said by the next family vacation, because she kept being so frustrated that she had to ride in like a bike trailer or something. Like, okay, so that's this long from now. Here's what we need to do leading up till then. And we broke down the steps and we made a list of things that you know she might need or who might need to help her, all the things. So just like a kid version of working backwards to set a goal. And if the kids say that they want to do X, Y, or Z, you better believe I'm piping in, going, okay, well, what does that take to do that? So they can't just have all these like lofty dreams without me being like, okay, let's talk about it. If you really want to do that, what needs to happen? I do think the most important thing they're learning is frustration tolerance. Like you are not good at something, and it's hard at first. And even with washing the dishes, they've all commented to me, like, Mom, you're so fast at washing the dishes. It takes me forever to load the dishwasher. And I just always say, and why is that? And they're like, Well, you've been doing it a really long time. Exactly. You have to get through that, and you have to be okay being frustrated when learning something new.

SPEAKER_00:

And and this goal setting, you'll start to notice if you if you pay attention how the world is trending towards not having the kids do this. I mean, even when we were kids, the video games were different. You know, I our kids don't really play that much, but I've seen some other ones. You know, when we were little, Mario was Mario. There was no adjusting the difficulty. You know, you fall down the hole, you die, you gotta get better, you gotta keep trying. It's really hard. And I mean, it's actually a goal, you know, beat the game. And it's really difficult to do. That's not how they work. I saw a game the other day. When you lose or die or whatever so many times in a row, it pops up a thing. It's like, do you want us to temporarily reduce the difficulty for this part of the game? I'm like, what? That is the most horrifying thing I've ever seen. So we're gonna make an easy button for things that are hard, but there's there's not one in life. So yeah, that's a terrible lesson.

SPEAKER_01:

And I see it with all kids. I've coached, you've coached, we've seen it, and I just do think that our kids are missing that. So I love that they're learning all of these new things, and they have learned the lesson that they're not gonna be good at something that they try day one, and that's the lesson to learn. Now, obviously, we're very passionate about that one because we have a lot to say about that one.

SPEAKER_00:

And it ties into all the other life skills because each life skill is a goal.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's true. But as an adult, my hope is that if they want to do something, if they want to go to college, if they want to become a what is they want to be a rocket engineer or whatever, aeronautical engineer, aeronautical engineer, excuse me, or they want to start a business, or they want to whatever their crazy goal is, okay, what does that take? Don't just tell me like your big, oh, I want to do this. Tell me what you're gonna do to make it happen and be able to have the resilience to stick through it. That is such an important life skill.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, let's move on to the next one. And sadly, we're very passionate about this one also, but we only have a few today. I think the ones on this episode are just so important. So, this one is all about phone etiquette. And this has been a hot topic on my Instagram lately because I think we are finally getting to a point where everyone realizes there's a problem. A few years ago, when I would post about it, people didn't agree with me. The polls would be like, you're crazy. Now it's like I post about, okay, here's what we're doing in our home. You know, we're delaying cell phones, we're doing all this, and people agree and they want more information. Like, what are you doing? How are you doing it? And I've seen a lot of parents switching to non-smartphones because they notice the impact it's making on their kids without you making eye contact, or maybe you're being frustrated with your kid when they come up to you and you're trying to do something on your phone. So there's been a huge shift. And as parents, this is one of the biggest things that we have to tackle. It's not something that our parents had to do. This is all new. So we're just trying to figure out as we go. Now, what I was noticing was that when the kids were younger, we were on our phones a lot because they were playing in the floor or we were feeding them late at night. And, you know, well, I would be like buying things on Amazon or scrolling social media. Carson would be listening to things or, you know, always multitasking because quite frankly, the kids are boring at that age. But once they start talking and interacting with you, we were kind of in this phone trap. We we had really increased our phone usage because like we really couldn't go anywhere, anyways. We were stuck at the home with with kids, and we got more addicted to the phones. And it became this thing where I was like, look, we cannot simply keep telling our oldest, like, you can't have a phone. Here are the reasons why, if we're not modeling what it should look like. So we had to make a lot of changes.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And that goes, you know, along with almost anything that adults can do. You know, okay, alcohol is a great comparison. You know, having a glass of wine is not the end of the world. But we don't give our kids alcohol because it affects their brain differently. It's the same thing with the phones, it does affect their brain differently. Also, we don't because we know that we should have one or two and stop because that's healthier. It's harder for kids to control themselves. So that's another good reason we don't. But on top of all of that, if they see us have, you know, two glasses someday, a whole bottle someday, every single day of our lives, even if we don't let them have it, the second they're adult, they're going to model that behavior for the most part. Some kids go the complete opposite way. They're like, no, I'm not ever having any. But for the most part, the kids whose parents are doing that, then that's what they're going to do when they're adults. It's the same thing with the phone. Even if you're on board with, okay, I'm not giving my kid a smartphone when they're 14, it's not good for them, it's causes a lot of problems. That's good. That's a great first step. But if the whole time they're growing up, they see that you're always on your smartphone the second they're 18, the second they have their own smartphone, whether you finally get them one when they're 18, or whether they buy their own because they're adults now, they're going to do the same thing. They're going to think, finally, I'm an adult. I'm going to do this too.

SPEAKER_01:

It really makes it really hypocritical if you're doing that. If you are saying you can't have your phone at the table, you can't have your phone for all hours at night scrolling on your room. You can't sit on the couch and scroll when it's family time. You can't scroll during the family movie, all of those things if you're actually doing them. And we like proactive parenting. So I just kind of saw the writing on the wall here. Kids are getting cell phones in like kindergarten now, which is absolutely ridiculous. But our daughter, who's 10, almost 11, this is becoming a much bigger issue, especially when she was in school. Her friends are getting cell phones. So I felt like let's lay out the law now. Let's fix our phone behavior and model appropriately, and let's let them know what's to be expected. So, a couple of things that we did. We obviously are modeling behavior by we don't use our phones at the table. I don't sit and scroll social media anymore around my children. And that doesn't mean that we don't use our phones around them. Like I will say, I'm making a Walmart order, like kind of announce what I'm doing. But I did used to sit there on the couch and scroll, and I don't do that anymore. The phone is put away and only used for things that are needed, like pulling up maps or ordering groceries or whatever. And so we we are fixing a lot of things like that. We always put our phones away with adults around and friends around, and that's just not something that we see other people doing, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00:

And if other people don't, when they're hanging out with us, they're not people that we continue to hang out with. It's important to remember, you know, okay, people think so you're not gonna give your kid a smartphone, and whatever phone you do give them, the dumb phone, you're not gonna let them have it at the table. So you're doing that, so you're not hypocritical, but you do you have a smartphone. Are you being hypocritical? And no, it's it is different, it's just like a tool. You know, we're using it to order Walmart groceries because we have busy lives, you know, we're using it to order on Amazon because that's way faster than going to the store. It's a tool. I'm not giving my kids a power drill either. But when they're older, I'll teach them how to use one responsibly, and then I'll let them use a power drill. But I mean, I don't know of anyone that's giving their 10-year-old a power drill and saying, let's go buck wild.

SPEAKER_01:

No, and we are teaching them now. That is the point. We're teaching them by showing, we're not teaching them by giving it to them. So, step one, model the behavior you want to see from them. And that includes like, we don't go to bed and sit there and scroll next to each other because usually that is the only time that you and I have to actually have time together. Right. And so, you know, we honor our marriage by not going to sit and scroll. And I know a lot of people have been open about like that's what they do and they need to stop doing that. So we've changed a lot in those ways. And step two of this is laying out expectations before they get to the actual phone age. So we have been telling them that they're not getting a phone until they're 16 for a while. So, and in no way is this gonna be a shock. We're not like, oh, we're just playing it as it we go. We're we're just we'll just figure it out. We don't know when you're getting a phone. I feel like that's probably the worst thing you can do because there's hope for them, right? They're like, maybe it's when I'm seven, maybe it's when I'm eight. I don't know. So 16. Second part of that is that they will not be getting a smartphone or a phone, I'll say a phone that has social media or an internet browser. I love working with this company called Gab. I love what they're about. They're about making safe technology for kids, and that's what they will be getting. We actually have a Gab phone that is at the house for like a home phone. So the kids have kind of used it here and there. They know that it doesn't have that, but it does have like clean music on it, like a camera, things like that. But the standards of safety are very high. Like you can't send photos back and forth, things like that.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And whenever they're 16, they'll each have one of those or something similar to that. And right now, in addition to that, we do have a watch. You know, if Sailor goes with her friend's parents or something like that, it's a way that it's a gab watch. She can contact us on that, she can call us from that watch, and it also lets us know where she is, which is a nice bonus feature, but she can't do anything else with it. It's not like an Apple Watch, there's no YouTube on there or social media or anything like that. Uh, it's just a way to get in contact with us, and on top of that, we control in the Gab app who she can and can't call from it. So she can call us, she can call grandparents. That's pretty much it. Before we even had it where she could like call her friend's parents' phone, and then that was a bad idea, so we took that off.

SPEAKER_01:

And even the grandparents got her number when she got that watch and they couldn't call her. And my nana was like, I can't I try to call Sailor and I can't. Well, it's because we hadn't approved, so no one can just simply call or text you on that. And I love the watch for the reason that it's a great stepping stone, right? So many people are like, Well, I wanted to get in contact with them because they have a late-night sport or blah blah blah. And I'm like, okay, that is not a reason to hand over the internet and a smartphone to your child. There are so many ways you can do this, and this watch makes that possible, but it also can be used and abused just like anything else. So all our friends got Gab watches and they were calling their parents from race recess instead of playing and saying, Can you bring me Sonic? Hey, mom, this is what happened at school today. Here's my new boyfriend today. Like it was out of control. She didn't wear it to school. I think maybe a couple times she wore it if they were having a field trip in like the city or something, but it's not a daily thing. It literally is a case by case. She doesn't have it in her room, she doesn't use it to chat with her friends, nothing. It's literally just a tool we use to track her if we feel like we need a little extra safety. Like we've been letting them explore the neighborhood. I think that's so good for kids. But I'm also a little crazy. I want to make sure that I know where they are. So we use it as a tool. It is not something that she has daily.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And again, it goes back to anything else. I mean, I feel like I've keep having to use metaphors to other things that aren't phones because technology is still somewhat new to the world. We're we're thinking about parenting the way our parents parented, but these things didn't exist back then. So think about think about this. You could get, if you're worried about your kids' safety, they're way more likely to be, you know, harmed by the phone than saved by, you know, calling you on the phone. And there's a chance you could get them a samurai sword and that that would keep them safe. But we all know 99% likelihood they're gonna use it to like accidentally cut off a finger. So we're not gonna give them a samurai sword to run around with either.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. The benefits of them having one just don't outweigh all of the things that we know now that impacts their childhood, their brain, their emotional state, all of the things. It's not okay. So many things are coming to light. We know these are bad now, and so that is our rule starting out as the 16 rule. So, the other thing that we're doing that's very proactive with them is that they will sign a phone pact whenever they become 16, and they do get a phone, and these are the pacts that they're gonna sign like, okay, before I get my phone, here's all. The rules that I'll follow, and what will happen if I don't follow these rules. And these are things like no texting and driving, no saying something via text that you wouldn't say in person, no being on your phone during family time, not having your phone in your room at night, things like that. But I think it's important for them to know what those rules are before, you know. They you can't just pile these on kids and expect them to overnight be okay with them. But we made the pact already. I went through it with the kids and each role, and they know what they're gonna be signing when they're 16. They also know what mom and dad should and shouldn't be doing, and they will call you out on it if you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01:

And I love that. So I just think that this is one part of parenting. Well, every part of parenting, I think you should try to be as proactive as possible. But being proactive really helps because they I think it eliminates a lot of the fighting about this, you know. We don't have a lot of fights about the phone.

SPEAKER_00:

Because they have known from way ahead of time. But yeah, Taryn's right, they will call you out on it. I mean, we're not perfect people. There's been a few times that I was playing chess on my phone or something like that when I probably shouldn't have been, and the kids are like, Why are you playing checkers on your phone? That's what they call it. And I'm like, uh, I don't know. I shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_01:

Now you can also find our phone roles. We have 10 phone roles, like the not having your phone at the table and things like that, and our family phone packed that they'll sign at age 16. You can find that in the link in the show notes too, if you want to take a look at that. So the last one on this list here has to do with chemicals and cleaning and the difference in products for food. So we've been learning a lot about cleaning. We talked about Chores last episode, and I think this is a great time to explain to them how important it is to know about like chemicals and things like that, because they were in there spraying something, and then they, you know, were wanting to spray all these things together when they're cleaning their toilets and things like that. And this is a good time to learn because I guess you know, kids don't normally use those type of products that early on, or if you know, your kids start using cleaning products when they haven't, maybe you have something like bleach that's kind of dangerous. And so we've really started talking about that and the difference between them, and it's really helped us like cut out a lot of like the chemicals things. But I think it's so important for them to know about that and how they affect your hormones and all of those things that are coming to light now that we didn't know whenever our, you know, our parents were parents, they didn't know those things, like everything that smelled good was great. And now we're teaching them that like like we don't have candles and things like that in our house, and we don't use like gain or tide, but things that are super smelly, and it's important to explain to them why.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, and I wish I would have known. I remember being in college and having two bottles of Febrize and just going around the house, like sometimes spinning like the lady from what's the what's the musical movie, the old one that Sailor's singing Sound of Music. Yeah, Sound of Music, spinning like the lady in Sound of Music with two bottles of Febriz just spraying up the whole house thinking that I'm doing something clean and healthy for myself.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we had no idea, you know, we had no idea about hormone hormone disruptors and that those chemicals are toxic. So we have been talking a lot about that, showing them labels, reading things. And we also have to do that in the kitchen because our rule in the house is kind of like if it's something that we're consuming every day, we will spend money to get an organic version of that. And we make things like the kids love quesadillas, but they're made out of like almond flour, tortillas, and really clean ingredients. And so I think it's important to tell them, like, this, you know, it's what you buy matters, I guess, is what it boils down to. We make PBJ's and they're actually pretty great because we use Dave's organic bread and it has protein in it.

SPEAKER_00:

So and organic peanut butter and organic jelly, so yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, all of those things. So like two things are not created equal if you, you know, make something really healthy at home or order it in a store. Now, as adults, that might sound obvious, you know, but the kids they didn't get it. They're like, well, we have this at home. So if McDonald's has it, like I don't understand. And so I think this has been something that they've learned over the last few months that has been super important. And the way that we teach this is like when we go to the store, like I tell them why we're picking this bread over this bread, or this cheese over this cheese, or this meat over this meat, and why we don't eat certain things. Like, I don't really buy hot dogs, I just can't with that, or certain lunch meats, things like that. We just don't buy. And I realized that they didn't really know about that type of thing. Like they knew like how to create a balanced meal and that they need to eat their fruits and veggies, but we didn't really go into the other aspects of like healthy eating and things.

SPEAKER_00:

And this is where another one of those issues where we get attacked from both sides. So that's fun because Taryn posts about this stuff a lot, and we have people that say we're that's way too strict and we're ruining our kids' childhood and all that stuff. We're gonna give them an eating disorder, which no, because we don't talk about it from a perspective of calories or weight or anything. We talk about it from a perspective of that's not food, and those are chemicals that are bad for you. Now we get attacked from the other side because yes, we do go eat raisin canes and Chick-fil-A, and when we go to the football game, we get corndogs sometimes, and yeah, that's all the stuff that we don't get. We are all about reducing exposure to that, and we eat probably 90% of our meals at home, which means that 90% of our meals don't have that stuff because we don't buy it at the grocery store. If we eat a corn dog at the football game, yeah, I know it's got all that crap in it, and it's very limited exposure to that. So, yes, there are people on the other side that are attacking us saying you shouldn't feed your kids that, and we don't usually, but I'm sorry, we we're gonna live our lives too.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think being super, super strict with anything is not a good idea. We have a lot of rules in our house, and people will be like, Well, what if this? So, for example, we don't let our kids watch TV or do any type of screens until like the end of the day, whenever all the important things have been done. Like, well, what if they are sick? And I'm like, obviously, there are exceptions to every rule. Now, if they're sick, we do like try to get them outside and not run around, but just like in the sunlight, and we give them vitamins and we don't let them eat like crap. So we might be doing some weird things there. But absolutely, if they have the flu and they need rest, we turn on movies, we do a movie day. Like we're there has to be a balance with everything and with the eating. I think that we're doing a really great job with that because being super rigid where we never go out to eat and we make everything from scratch, that's yeah, that's gonna result in them like rebelling against it. But now it just results in them asking the good questions. Like they'll be like, Slate will be like, Well, isn't this bad for you if we get like a burger or something out? And I'm like, but it's not bad for you, it's just not a food you can have every day. That's why we have it sometimes. And he's like, Oh, yeah, okay, yeah, that's true. That makes sense, right? Things like that, you know. So if we go get ice cream, you know, Slate's all he always has all the questions. He'll be like, Well, can't ice cream will make you fat, which we have literally never told him ever, but they will pick up stuff like that at school for sure. And I'm like, honey, ice cream's not gonna make you fat. You can have ice cream sometimes. Now, if you had it every day, that would be an issue for so many reasons. So the thing that they're learning about balance, and I feel like that's really the only way that you can live in the world we have today is figuring out a good balance.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, that's the only way.

SPEAKER_01:

So that is all that I have on the list today. Those are some that I feel feel like we are pretty passionate about. So if you have any questions, definitely reach out. We love to hear from you guys. We were just talking about how the podcast was supposed to be a weekly update. Like, how's it going? And I think, or at least in my head, it was like we're gonna be like, oh my gosh, this week was horrible. We don't know what we're doing, we need a new curriculum. Somebody's asking to go back to school, or we were at our wits' end, or whatever. I just thought that it was gonna be a lot of figuring it out, and it just hasn't been that, actually.

SPEAKER_00:

No, it's running really smoothly now, which could make for a somewhat boring podcast. So we're trying to go into other areas. Some of these are things that we're able to do because we homeschool, some of these are just things that we have more time to think about because we're not in the constant barrage of being a carpool, basically. And so they're still all related, and we will still update you on our wins and our losses, things that do and do not work for us. That's that's still going to be a part of it, but we do want to talk about other things too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we're having to make a little bit of a pivot so this won't be a boring podcast. We're having to open this up a little bit into some of our parenting and you know things like that that actually make it possible for us to do this. So if you're enjoying this podcast and you want us to continue doing it, we're happy to, but please leave us a review, and that is what's going to be our decision to keep going once we hit the one-year mark.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And you can still find out things about homeschooling if we're not talking about it by sending us those questions. You know, we do get those questions and we will answer those to the best of our ability every single time. So please keep sending those.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. We love the fan mail too. I got a few this week that were just like, we're doing the same thing. We love the podcast, we're working it out. So thank you for sending those. And if you have time, please, please, please leave us a review.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, five stars only.

SPEAKER_01:

We need some more reviews, guys. Come on. So I think that's all we have for you today. So until next time, thank you so much for listening to Well, this wasn't the plan podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

We will do really hard on this podcast. Make sure you don't miss a single podcast ever. Thank you, have a good day.