Homeschooling Strategies For Raising Children | Jim Kwik & Katie Wells

Welcome back to the Kwik Brain Podcast. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. I'm excited about this conversation. We're going to talk about parenting. We're going to talk about education. We're going to talk about homeschooling. We get a lot of questions around this subject matter, and I'm excited to have an ally of education and empowerment as our guest today. She's a longtime friend, and her name is Katie Wells. She's founder of Wellness Mama. She has a background in research and journalism on nutrition. She's a mom of 6. She's a bestselling author. I mean, she is a Renaissance individual. She's a doula to a speed reader. And, as I mentioned, she's also an ally in empowered education. And so, welcome to the show, Katy.

Thanks so much for having me, Jim. Any week I get to talk to you is a great one and this is one of my favorite topics. I'm so excited.

You're also a podcast host. And, I love this because I've had the opportunity to be on your show a couple times and have this conversation. So, I'm glad we could kind of switch seats and and be able to ask you questions that I've been dying to ask you around this. As I mentioned in our private Facebook group where we have well over 100,000 people there and our app, we have a lot of parents and we live in very interesting times right now when it comes to their education. Our listeners know that because of my learning challenges, my mom actually became a special education teacher because she was so passionate around helping me on my learning challenges with that. And, she went through her whole career until she retired in public school system. For me, it's more of a system issue. I don't think my approach is more complementing the existing and some people choose to make a choice to homeschool. So, I want to talk about that also as well, but things that adults could do to support the children in their life. And so, I'm excited to have this conversation. And, in a recent podcast episode of yours where I was a guest, I was going through some of my routines and advice and suggestions for parents to support their kids. So, I'm excited to pick your brain on this subject.

Well, like you said, I think this could be a topic for hours and hours, but I'm excited to have a quick conversation and hopefully do a Feynman summary of the things I've found most impactful. And, it's always so fun to have a conversation with you, and I know this will be a really, really great one.

Yeah. And, I know you take a first principle approach to this. So, maybe you could maybe give just a couple minutes background on your journey and your perspective when it comes to be able to develop and discover your children's strengths.

Absolutely. And, I think this is the part that actually makes this conversation relevant even to people who aren't parents yet or who maybe aren't homeschooling parents or don't even plan to ever do those things because I in this process with my kids, I learned some things I needed to unpattern in the way I had been taught to learn. And it's been helpful for me in being able to learn more rapidly as an adult. So I think there's some relevance here to all of us.

Yeah.

But for me, it really began when my oldest was approaching school age and I started evaluating what was going to be the best school option for him. Was it going to be homeschooling? Was it going to be public school, private school? And in order to evaluate that, I tried to go back to first principles and think, Well, what are the actual core tenets of what makes education valuable for someone in today's world that will serve him in adulthood? And, when I started looking at things that way, I realized that there weren't any great options out there that actually serve our kids and what they're likely to encounter in adult life because everything is so rapidly changing. And, the things that we can anticipate our kids needing most as adults, things like ability to keep learning rapidly, adaptability, curiosity, problem-solving, those are things that aren't actually prioritized in school systems. And, I would argue actually sometimes the things taught in Schools actively hinder those things. And so I realized even homeschooling, just many of the curriculums were bringing that same school approach home. And so I started asking sort of if I was going to go from the ground up, what would a better approach look like? And what I centered on was more of a— instead of knowledge down, more of a skills up with these core tenets of how do we maintain and enhance curiosity? How do we maintain and enhance children's natural problem-solving? And imagination. You know, there's so many quotes from everyone from Einstein to Feynman and everyone in between about imagination being more important than knowledge. Yet, I feel like often the school system suppresses imagination, maybe not intentionally, but just by the nature of the way it's run. And I thought like, how do we teach kids to think outside the box when often we're putting them in a quite literal box and telling them there's one right answer to every question on a test and failure is bad? Yet, as adults, we learn from failure. And often there's many creative solutions to a problem. And so I started there and built this approach over the span of the next 15 years with all of my kids. And I loosely call it Unstitute, the program that I run with my kids, but it's so different than the school system. And it also has sort of repatterned how I parent because I think when I started looking at this as just an educational system, I realized it's also a parenting methodology because if we're going to work on prioritizing these core skills and enhancing them for our kids to have them as adults, that actually is just as much parenting as it is education. And so our system looks completely different than you might see in an average school system where there's a lot more hands-on, a lot more movement, a lot more curiosity-based learning and Socratic learning, and a lot less bookwork. And I can go into some of the specifics of the way we've built that at different ages, but I think it's a scary approach for a lot of parents because we all came out of, or many of us came out of that system. And so to deviate from that seems difficult. And I've heard parents say, for instance, you know, I don't feel confident or like I'm qualified enough To teach my own kids. And to me, the question back is, so then the answer is to send them back to the same system that made you feel not qualified to teach your own kids? Like, how can we break this pattern? How can we ask better questions? And what if not only can we create something equal, but perhaps better in less time at home? Would it be worth having the conversation then?

It reminds me of that quote from Mark Twain saying, don't let school get in the way of your education. You know, how do you prepare kids of all ages and stages to be able to be happy and fulfilled and successful in the world outside of when they leave school. You and I have had this conversation where they talk a lot about things on what to learn like math and history and science, Spanish. Maybe there's a deficit on things like how to learn, social learning, emotional learning. So, what would be some of the examples? Maybe we could go through whether you want to do it via, you know, by proxy around age, you know, or grade level. What would be— maybe we could give some examples of or some stories or anecdotes of what that would look like so we can maybe paint a little bit of a picture.

especially at a young age, but really throughout, but when they're really little, my priority is to minimize the amount of time spent just doing repetitive or knowledge-based worksheets, repetitive learning, and to really prioritize as much as possible hands-on problem-solving question-based learning because their brains are so geared toward that already when they're young. And so, we also start with a framework of— I actually got this tip from a friend who has raised several entrepreneurs and his own kids. But with the idea that children are natural pattern recognizers, one thing we do is start every day by watching 3 TED Talks on entirely unrelated topics, with the idea that kids have a natural, built-in ability to connect the dots. And if you give them information on 3 topics that aren't actually related, they're still going to draw correlations and apply patterns. And so it helps them sort of to think in an innovative way and to think outside the box. And plus, I've always told them, you know, sometimes the best, the person who's best in the world at this topic, distilling the entirety of their career into 14 minutes. And So that's often a fun way we start the day together. And then we also build in a lot of practical skills. So every school year, which was a loose term for us, we make a list of about 100 practical real-life skills that they're going to learn over the course of the year, which often a lot of the things you would learn in a traditional school subject are built into these, but the hands-on part makes it so much more fun. And I feel like they retain so much more because they actually have a curiosity around it. So it's things like learning how to wire an electrical outlet or change a tire. Or cook all kinds of different things, or maybe something chemistry-related, but in something that's applicable to them and fun. Or, you know, gardening, things that are hands-on, sewing on a button, things that are going to be real-life skills for them that I can work a lot of these educational lessons into. And then as they get older, where it gets really fun for me with a background in entrepreneurship, I realized kind of living this parallel life of becoming a mom and building a business at the same time, that so much of what we hope to instill in our kids is taught in a hands-on method through entrepreneurship. And these were all lessons I had to learn as an adult the hard way without the background for it. And so I have a contract with my kids that before they can have their own phone or a car, they have to have a profitable business for 1 year. It doesn't have to be wildly profitable. It doesn't have to make millions of dollars, but it has to show a profit. They have to have a business plan and they have to execute. Because to me, this teaches consistency, attention to detail, being able to manage variables, adaptability. So many of these things that are important, I feel like adult skills for them. And it's been really fun with my older ones to see how this is starting to play out. with them. And I think had I just given them the blueprint and told them, do this, learn this this way, they wouldn't have discovered some of these things they've discovered. So my oldest has had several businesses now, including, uh, he has his own cookbook that outsells mine, which I love.

Wow.

Um, but he pitched it to the publishers and he worked on this with his friends and they like did the whole book, the photo shoot, everything. And then now it's selling on Amazon. The royalties continue to come in for them. So he has his profitable business and he now has a phone and he just started driving. But I feel like he learned more in through that of financial management and having to show up consistently and in motivation and self-motivation than I could ever have taught through a book system. And now, it's something that now that he's done it, the younger ones look forward to a lot too.

And I would remind our listeners that even if they have kids or children in their lives as students and they're going through traditional education, this is something that we could do outside of that to complement and be able to supplement, to be able to prepare kids. And I think that relevance is so very important. I've had Parents and students even ask me, you know, why they had to learn the Pythagorean theorem because there's no Pythagorean theorem season, but there's like a— there's a season of accounting. Like, and we never— we don't— we never learn anything about things like taxes and maybe personal finance. And the other thing about doing these experiments, you know, with your kids, it's very playful, but it also teaches them personal responsibility. It helps to maybe cultivate a sense of And, you and I have talked about this in previous podcasts, the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset, how you encourage and support your kids so that they could live more from their element.

Absolutely. And, I think that to your point is another huge key. In fact, that's something even at a very young age I start with my kids. One of my core tenets is I don't do anything for them that they're capable of doing themselves. And, that's one of my few hard and fast rules because my goal is To make them empowered and autonomous as adults one day. And so this doesn't— of course, I'm going to help them learn these things. I will support them. I will answer questions. But once they're capable of doing something, I'm not going to do it for them, which means by age 4 or 5, all of my kids have done their own laundry. They're all capable of cooking. They can handle most of their household responsibilities. They even now, to your point, even do their own taxes with the help of either me or their grandmother because those are real-life skills. And I see those memes all the time of like, I'm sure glad I learned how to play the recorder in school now that it's tax season or whatever. But to the degree that we can give them these real-life skills. And, you're right, that doesn't mean you have to homeschool to do these things, especially the way I've sort of built this out in our life. Even with the schooling side, it only takes a couple hours a day, but that means parents could absolutely do this supplemental to kids being in school and they could get both. It doesn't have to be an either-or at all.

When you and I grew up more in a 20th-century education that prepared us for a 20th-century world, I talk about how we live in an age of autonomous electric cars and spaceships that are going to Mars. But our vehicle of choice often is more like a horse and buggy that if Rip Van Winkle woke up today, the only thing he would recognize as more and more classrooms. And again, it's not necessarily a slight against teachers. It's an incredibly demanding job. Some of the teachers that I know and I get to train, I get to work with around the world, they're some of the most caring, competent, capable individuals. It's just the world has changed so much, right? Kids are growing up on these joysticks and screens and information flying at them. And sometimes it's hard just to maintain and manage a classroom. There's not an easy solution. Sometimes learning, like life, is a little bit messy. We also now, as opposed to when we were growing up, kids have unfeathered access, as you mentioned, to the world's information. So, they could, as you watch TED Talks or podcasts, they have access to some of the world's experts globally, which is not something that we necessarily had easy access to growing up back in elementary school or junior high.

Yeah.

And so I love the way you work that in there. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about is like starting steps because it can be overwhelming. Single parents, parents who have many jobs, you know, they're tired at the end of the day. And what would you say your message would be to them? Because part of it is their own self-care, right? Helping them to be able to have the wherewithal, the mental endurance, you know, a certain level of temperament to be able to like, oh, you know, like so much of it wants to like, hey, that's a teacher's job. But, you know, I have, I have, my plate is already full with the things that I need to do. So what would your message be? Because it's not necessarily easy. It's definitely worth it, but it's not, you know, easy. So it's that simple, but it's also that difficult sometimes.

Absolutely. And I would say over time, once the transition can be difficult, but it actually, I would argue, can be easier once you have developed that habit, um, just because you're removing some of the stress variables. But I also wanted to just briefly before I answer that, speak to the, your point about teachers, because I make this I make this comparison a lot of— with teachers and with doctors. You know, in the health side of my work, we often think of alternative health things and many of us become our own advocates for health. And I always am careful to say, you know, I have nothing against doctors. In fact, I think doctors are some of the most caring, huge-hearted people I've ever met. It's just they are working within a system that is not adapting as fast as they would like often or that doesn't— and so we each become our own primary healthcare provider. And I say the same is true with the education system. Teachers, you know, their heart is in the right place. They really truly desire to help these kids and often they're as frustrated by the system Well, so I never want to ever speak poorly on doctors or teachers. I think those people— everyone I've ever met has been amazing. However, we each at the end of the day are our own primary healthcare provider and we're each first and foremost the teachers of our kids and ourselves. That responsibility lies with us. But speaking to first steps, if this is a new concept for people, I think one of the big ones is to not try to recreate the school system at home. That's the thing I see people make when they want to start teaching, even if it's supplemental to the school system, they want to start teaching more at home. They'll try to create the same type of atmosphere.

Mm-hmm.

At home. And to me, the first principles approach is to really evaluate, is that actually the most conducive to learning? And I would argue no. And so I think a lot of parents are resistant to teaching their kids at home because it seems like they need to sit down for 8 hours a day and have structured work that fits into this kind of algorithm of what it's supposed to look like. And I would argue it can all be done if you 80/20 it and actually look at what's effective versus just what's typically done. You can get in the same amount of learning or more. And a couple hours a day and leave a lot of extra time, which I think is really the valuable part. When kids have more of that free time, for one, to get to be bored and get to feel what it feels like to be bored and learn how to solve that problem. I've worked with many young adults and even had employees who've never had to face that until adulthood necessarily. And I think it's actually a great time for creativity when we have the ability to be bored and have to solve that problem ourselves. I think it also removes that idea that we need to entertain our kids. All day, every day. I know that school actually serves that purpose often, or at least keeps them busy. But, the idea that we are supposed to be our kids' entertainment is a relatively new phenomenon. It's certainly not something that my grandmother felt pressured to do, for instance. I think social media and modern pressure has really put that especially on moms. But, my encouragement would be not to try to recreate the school system at home. And, actually, when you look at the data, kids actually really only need 10 to 20 minutes of focused parental attention per day to feel connected and safe, which is one of the things I think as parents, whether However our children are educated, we do want them to feel connected to us and safe. But, that seems much less daunting for me even with 6 kids realizing each kid only needs that 10 to 20 minutes of one-on-one time where I'm not on my phone, where I'm engaged with them. And, that when you fill that bucket for kids, they often are much more content and happy and willing to play the rest of the day. And then, I think beyond that, it's creating an environment that's really conducive to sort of that hands-on free learning. So, in our house, for instance, we have a climbing hangboard in the kitchen. We have gymnastics rings in their room. We have art supplies and books everywhere throughout the house. There's a gymnastics tumbling track down the hallway. Um, there's always stuff to build projects and they have access to power tools. And so it's kind of creative endeavors that they can really just pursue on their own. And I think that free time and, and often even that boredom is a great impetus for them to actually consider doing those things without pushing. But I think the other key that really comes into play here for parents is to think about modeling it first. before we even push it. I, you know, I've heard from lots of parents who really want to push their kids into music lessons and push their kids into sports. And just like with education, if the desire is not there for the child, there's going to be resistance and they're not going to get the benefit they could from those activities. I used to always hope my kids would, for instance, want to take voice lessons because I always wished I had learned how to sing when I was young. And so I kept suggesting that. And eventually I realized, oh, I want them to do this because I actually wish I was doing this. So why don't I take the voice lessons? And, I did that as an adult, which was scary for me, and it was one of my great out-of-comfort-zone activities for the year. And, the irony is when I started doing that, they started caring more about music because they saw me doing it. And, they actually picked up piano, bagpipes, and guitar on their own. Different kids picked up those without me pushing it. And, it really just cemented for me the importance of modeling. And so now, another thing we do within the family that I think any family can do is to take on either quarterly or monthly challenges. that are often just led by me modeling. It's not like it's a, you know, firm set in stone, you must learn this skill in the next 30 days. But if I sit down and start learning to solve a Rubik's Cube, suddenly all the kids are hanging out with me and we're all solving Rubik's Cubes. If I'm, if I sit down and start painting, often at least some of the kids end up painting with me. And I think modeling is so much more powerful than just trying to set that as a goal for them.

Mm-hmm.

When it becomes a family activity, and then you're getting that presence, that time together, and you're getting to tackle a new skill. Um, and that often leads to a lot of fun conversations about getting out of our comfort zone and getting comfortable with failure, which is Another of the core tenets I think of education is as adults, we know we often learn the most from failure, but school doesn't really set up safe avenues to fail without it being a pretty high-stakes game. So I want to set up fun games in which kids can fail and learn and realize that's a good thing. And then also whether kids are in school or homeschooled, I think as much as we can give them and build their skills and autonomy around certain areas, for me, that's— I think of things like food, finances, the activities they choose to participate in, and their technology because those are all things that as adults, they're going to have to manage on their own. And so I think to the degree that as young as possible, we can give them the foundational tools for good decision-making and the freedom to make bad decisions sometimes in those areas. It's a lower-risk way where they can learn in those areas before they're an adult and it's a higher-stakes game. And so I think it often surprises people with an online name like Wellness Mama that I very much don't try to control, for instance, what my kids eat. So—

Yeah.

The way I look at it is there's this sort of division of responsibility, which is it's my job as a parent to make sure that there is nutritious food available at all times. In our house and to cook it most of the time, although often they do the cooking now. Their responsibility as autonomous humans is to pay attention to their bodies and know when they're hungry and eat when they're hungry, or they can choose not to eat even if they're hungry. That is within their scope of autonomy. And so, I'll often cook and I don't force them to eat, but they also just don't get to eat junk food because it's not in the house.

Right.

But, the other side of that is if they're not in my house, I do not impose strict rules on them of what they should or should not eat. That is entirely their decision. And that's meant in the past, of course, sometimes they'll go to a birthday party, they'll eat a lot of cake, but then they also realize they don't feel great when they eat a lot of cake because that's not what they normally eat. And then they choose not to do it the next time, and that's their lesson that they've now internalized, not me as an outside force saying you shouldn't eat sugar, which then could become a point of sort of forbidden fruit rebellion.

Mm-hmm.

Instead, it's a lesson they've learned internally. Same with managing on a small scale their finances. That's something we work together on. And I help them with their investment side and the IRA side, but their own money, they get relative freedom in how they spend. And of course, often go through phases where they want to spend a lot on toys when they're little or go through saving, or now my older one's wanting to invest more. And then technology, I think, is a big one because as you said earlier, this is— we have the entirety of human knowledge at our fingertips. And I think back to in school so many times when I asked why we had to keep learning certain things. Like in math, for instance, they'd say, because you won't always have a calculator. And now I laugh because I'm like, well, we do right here all the time. And our kids have that even to more of a degree than we do, and they've had technology their whole lives. And so it's not— they don't need the ability to memorize knowledge in the same way, but they need to know how to curate knowledge, to sort through it, and to not get overwhelmed by the amount of it available to them. And also how to create their own boundaries around technology use, because how many of us as adults even struggle with overuse of technology or social media or just being on our phones all the time. And so I wanted to create systems for them that even from a young age, technology wasn't a forbidden fruit, but that they had the understanding that this is a very, very valuable tool. And just like any valuable tool, it can be misused. And so I wanted them to develop their own sort of internal boundaries and systems for using technology responsibly with the ability to still fail once in a while and hopefully learn those lessons before they become really higher stakes lessons as adults.

That's amazing. You know, it's one of those things where we all want to change people. We have this impetus to be able to want to change them, to get them to change their behaviors or something or their habits or routines. And, you know, children are incredible role models and it's really hard to tell them not to eat something if we're eating it, right? Or to tell them not to be on their— you know, my kids are always on their iPad doing this and then you look at the parent and they're on their screens all the time. So, it's definitely better well done than well said. And when it comes to technology, it's interesting because you're right, there's an influx of information and it's not going to teach you like what to learn but also teaching you what to think as opposed to teaching you how to learn and how to think about things. Because sometimes with algorithms and everything, it's just they feed you whether it happens to do with world events, happen to do with our point of view on certain subject matters and it's wonderful to be able to cultivate You know, things like critical thinking and logic, you know, with kids. My final questions would be— I mean, I have a couple rapid-fire ones also inspired by your podcast. I've never asked these before, but I wanted— again, because I get to wear the interviewer hat today. I want to go back to wellness because I really appreciate your blog post, your podcast specifically for kids. And so, are there certain things, you know, you and I talked about on your show and I will link to your show and your And your website in the show notes at jimkwik.com/notes. Are there certain— what's your approach in terms of routines? Like, you hear a lot about morning routines, evening routines. What's your approach towards getting your kids to go to bed so that they're not sleepy and they're functional the next day? How do you generally approach it?

Yeah, this is a great question. I take probably an 80/20 type approach to this because I think Talking about the amount of information available out there, there's so much information about all the things we could and should be doing with our kids for them to be optimal. And, I think we have to sort of step back and take the approach of what are the most effective things that they're willing to do and that I can integrate in a way that's not going to overwhelm the family. And so, in our household, what that looks like is as soon as possible after waking up, which is at different times for all of us, we all try to go outside for 10 to 15 minutes with the idea— the science I know you know is That early morning light exposure, even if it's a cloudy day, is so much more intense light than we would get inside. And, that starts the clock for our circadian rhythm. And, kids are especially sensitive to light. So, even as babies, I did this with them. And, I think it really helps to set their sleep schedule. And, we know that that light signaling in the morning begins the cycle that will create melatonin at night and leads to better sleep. And, I think as parents, to the degree that our children sleep well, it's It's a less stressful life for all of us. And so, that's one thing I really, really prioritize. Same thing with— to keep it easy, I meal plan and I just have nutrient-dense, especially protein-dense foods for them available at all times. And, I let them have freedom of when and how much they eat within that, but just making sure that fuel is always available because I think when kids are grumpy or having trouble, the first things to check are, are they tired? Are they hungry? And, 80% of parenting problems can be solved by, are they tired? Are they hungry? And then as they get older, there are some key ones unfortunately that I think even kids can benefit from supplementation at this point. Even Chris Kresser, a friend of mine, has— he used to say, you know, get everything from food. Now says we're— we're now in a point where the food supply is to such a place that we actually need to supplement with certain things. And for kids, magnesium seems like a big one. But even for babies and toddlers, it can be as simple as putting magnesium into their bathwater or using it topically on their skin if they're too small to take supplements. For teenagers, that's a game changer. When they get enough magnesium, they sleep better. It seems to help with With hormones, digestion. It really is— we know magnesium is used for almost 600 reactions within the body. So to me, that's one of the easy 80/20 ones. Um, beyond that, I think it gets a little bit more personalized, uh, when it comes to nutrition, but I think that's a good blanket recommendation. And then when it comes to evening routine, we try to all— and again, this is a modeling thing— be off of our screens when the sun goes down. We also have bright lights in our house that are in the ceiling that are more daylight bulbs, and then all the lamps have a more amber color, no blue light bulbs. And when the sun goes down, those switch based on timers. There's also— it's a key of the bright light being overhead in the signaling mechanism and the lower, more reddish lights being eye level because that's what we would encounter in nature. So that's the thing I feel like people often miss is they'll switch to lower light at night, but it's still coming from overhead. Um, so changing it to the eye level light can make a big difference for sleep patterns.

Uh-huh.

And then we try to do, um, like I like to do a lot of fun conversations with them at night, storytime with the little ones. We talk about gratitude and do gratitude journaling at night.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and then they have sort of staggered bedtimes. But my approach to bedtime is that I obviously can't, within that idea of what is in my control, what is in their control, I can't force them to sleep. All I can do is facilitate them being in bed. And so they have an understanding that that's the time at which they're in their beds and they often will stay up and read. And that's an area where I let them experiment and fail. So if they get involved in a great book, I did this at their age too, I would stay up till 4 in the morning reading. And then regret it the next day, but it still be— I was glad I read that book. I'd rather them try that and fail it with a great book at this age than not have time management and sleep management when they're adults. So, um, I'm not as strict on them sleeping, just on when they're in their bedtime kind of winding down. Um, and then beyond that, each day is pretty varied based on each individual child and their nutrient needs and their activities. But those are kind of the sort of base routines that I think are helpful for all parents.

Katie Wellness Mama, Katie Wells, thank you so much for being on the show. I, I've, I have 3 more questions to ask you, but before I do, what's What's the best way— I know this is just the beginning and tip of the iceberg of this conversation when it comes to children, childhood development, parenting, homeschooling, education empowering. How do people stay in touch with you? Where is a good place for people to connect with you? Is it social media, websites? You could list them all. Obviously, we'll put all these in the show notes.

I'm Wellness Mama pretty much everywhere online. WellnessMama.com is the hub where they can find everything else, but the podcast is hosted there as well. And anybody who gets on my email list, I'm actually working on creating this framework called Unstitute as something that other families can use whether their kids are in school or out of school. So, it's a work in progress, but when that's available, I will let my email list know. So, if anybody's interested in that, they can hop on the email list.

I encourage everyone also to take a screenshot wherever you're consuming this conversation, whether it's on YouTube, on Spotify, on iTunes, and share something that works that maybe something you learned from this conversation or something that your suggestion in terms of working with your children that's been extremely helpful for you? Because when you teach it, you get to learn it twice. You take advantage of something called the explanation effect. I'll repost some of my favorites also as well if you tag us both so we get to see it. 3 questions I want to ask you because you've asked me on your show. You kind of did the kind of rapid fire. What is just one thing that people don't know Well, there's so many directions this could go.

I guess from the parent education side, I would say the big one that comes to mind is just that it doesn't have to be this hard. I think society tells us that it's supposed to be really difficult and complicated and that often when we go back to the first principles approach, we can find a way that is simpler and more effective. It doesn't have to be an either/or. And so, no matter how children are being educated, I always just encourage parents to take a first principles approach to how they're approaching parenting and how they're approaching education because I think it simplifies life for everyone.

Another question that you've asked on your show is a book that's had a big influence on your life.

Oh, definitely the top one that comes to mind, I think, that I reread every year is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. And I start the year with a 7 to 10 day water fast, which, not giving that as advice, I think it's actually not super healthy to do it that long as a woman. But for me, it's a mental and spiritual reset. And I like to reread that book on about day 6 or 7 because when I'm in the sort of woe is me, I'm hungry, reading his perspective about finding joy way and choosing his own reactions and emotions in a circumstance much more difficult than anything I've ever experienced is a good mental reset for me. I also really love and read with my kids often The Four Agreements, which I think is another good one. And I also love Mindset that you mentioned by Carol Dweck.

Oh, those are 3 amazing books. We'll put links again in the show notes. And then finally, a question that you asked that is very thought-provoking is just one piece of advice maybe that we didn't talk about in this conversation that you'd like My advice would be to learn within yourself and outside of yourself to ask better questions.

And I know this is something you talk a lot about as well, but I would extend it to also encourage your kids, be their advocate in asking better questions. Um, one of the things I'm perhaps most proud of as a mom is that I've never used the phrase because I said so with my kids, because I actually want them to ask questions. And even on the days where it's super exhausting, I try to always show up and answer their questions if I know. But also let them hear me say, I don't actually know the answer to that question. Let's find out together. Um, and just sort of model that, like, that curiosity, that finding out together, and then encouraging them to really question everything. And, um, I think back to my oldest, from the time he was born, I would tell him, question everything, always ask good questions. And when he was about 2 and a half, he looked at me in the eye and said, even you? And I said, even and especially me, because I want them to be comfortable questioning even things they consider authority. If there's perhaps something that's going wrong there. And so, I also think we as humans in general, separate of parenting, are largely directed by the internal questions we ask ourselves. And there's so much information out there about how many of our thought patterns are repetitive and negative. And I think if we learn to curate and ask better questions internally, and you and I talked about this in our episode, I think that changes our mindset and by ripple effect, our interactions with everyone we meet.

I'll link also to the episodes that I've done on your show also as well. Katie Wells, thank you so much for being on our show, and I hope everyone enjoyed this episode.

Thank you so much for having me, Jim. It's always a pleasure.

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