Top Tips for Parenting, Health, Curiosity and Boundaries

In this episode of 'A Magical Life,' host Magic Barclay answers a listener's question on how to healthily raise children. The discussion covers crucial aspects such as nutrition, behavior, and learning. Magic emphasizes the importance of allowing kids to explore different foods, maintaining boundaries while understanding behavior, and making learning fun and interactive. She shares her experiences raising her own children, including two on the autism spectrum, and offers practical tips on managing playdates, encouraging questions, and fostering a lifelong love of learning. Tune in for invaluable parenting insights and advice.

Transcript

Magic Barclay: 0:43

Welcome back to a Magical Life. I'm your host, magic Barclay, and today we have a listener question, and that is, how do you healthily raise your kids? Now, I found this a very fascinating question and I'm actually going to split it up into different parts of our lives. So the first one, of course is nutrition. Why is it important to allow your kids to explore different types of foods and nutrients rather than you telling them what to eat? Now, I was raised in the seventies and eighties. Yes, I'm that old. And it was not a question of what would you like to try, but it was, here's your food, eat this because I said so. I raised my kids very differently. What would you like to try? I took them to the fruit and veggie stores and I said, do you know what this is? And you know, I got the standard for broccoli, it looks like little trees. And I said, great. Let's try the little tree, shall we? Sure. What do Brussels sprouts look like? Oh, they look like little green basketballs. Do you like basketball? No, not really. Would you try it? Yes. Okay. So we tried it. I tried to make exploring fruit and veg fun. Now, when it comes to eating, children are very tactile, and it doesn't matter what age they are. We know that they start as babies and toddlers eating with their hands. So when you are feeding a baby, the hands are always going. They're feeling you. They're. Touching you as they turn into toddlers, they wanna eat with their hands. Cutlery is quite a foreign concept for them. Why is it that we stop them doing that? Is it because in society we use cutlery? Is it because of our own predisposed ideas and intentions? Why do we stop over 23-year-old? And he eats with his hands. Of course, if we go out to a restaurant, he'll use cutlery, but at home he eats with his hands and I'm okay with that because he's using his tactile sensation to explore the food. Now, who said that when we turn into adults, we have to use our cutlery because we're actually decreasing how much we're exploring the food. We are smothering things with sauces, so we are blocking out all the brilliant colors that come in foods, and we're really dampening down our taste buds by overcooking things. So when it comes to nutrition and food for children of any age, it's about the color, it's about the exploration. We've all heard the, the statement. Food begins eating it with your eyes. Eating begins with your eyes. So why do we stop that? Let's encourage that. So there's part of nutrition. Now when it comes to behavior, I. This is a big thing. Both my kids are on the autism spectrum. Yep. Before it became popular, my kids were diagnosed and yes, they definitely have all of those traits. So behavior was kind of off the charts at times, again, by society's rules. Not by mine. What I did for behavior was I gave my children boundaries. Now, again, when I was raised, if you cried about something, I would get told, stop crying, or I'll give you something to cry about. Not good parenting. Other things like, you know, timeouts without explanations or the, because I said, so this is my rule, because I said so. I didn't raise my children like that. When they behaved incorrectly or out of bounds, it was only deemed that if it was dangerous either to themselves or to anyone around them. And there were times that we had those autistic meltdown tantrums and they were quite uncontrollable and unbearable. So with my youngest, I used to bear hug him when he was in this fit of rage. I was safe'cause I was behind him. I would sit on the floor and bear hug him till he calmed down. And the whole time I would say, I love you, you're safe. It's okay when you calm down, we can talk about this. And it worked. And now as an adult, if he's having a moment where he just can't take it all in. I can see that in him and I say, it's okay. You are safe. We can talk about this when you're ready. When it comes to the really lashing out kind of tantrums and throwing yourself on the floor and things like that, when you're a child, you're doing it because. You don't understand what's going on. You have a feeling of lack of safety. So when those meltdown tantrums happened, particularly with my eldest, he wasn't as physical as the younger one. He was more emotional and he was more verbal. So I would say, I can't hear you till you are speaking to me softly and gently. I want to help you, but I don't understand while you're screaming at me, I don't understand. While you are running around like a crazy person, when you're calm, I'm here to help you. And so that would. Stop any of that. Roll on tantrum. Now, my kids had boundaries, and this is the key with behavior. And it doesn't matter if they're a baby, a toddler, a young kid, a teenager, a young adult, or even an adult. When they're your kids. They're your kids, and it doesn't matter what age they need boundaries. And my kids now as young adults, still have boundaries. And the boundaries are, you make a mess, you clean it up, and they've done that since they were very, very young. You know, there would be the accidents that happened in the bathroom, and I don't mean toilet accidents, I mean slopping water everywhere outta the bath. And I'd walk in and go, I'm glad you had fun, but you made a mess. You clean it up when you are dry. I'll give you some towels. I'll give you the mop and you'll clean it up. And they did. And they do now. So they clean up after themselves. Sometimes they need a reminder and that's okay, but they do it. My eldest loves cooking. He's shocking at cleaning up after himself. I walk in, I say, what's the rule? You make a mess. You clean it up, and he does. Now, when it comes to behavior in public, my kids had boundaries. If we were going to a restaurant, I would say to them in the car, just because you want to have fun at a restaurant. It doesn't mean that's the fun everyone else wants to have. Some people are going there to have a nice quiet evening, to have conversation with friends and family, and they don't want kids running around destroying it. You use your inside voices. You use your going out voices. You behave calmly. And politely while we're out. And they did. And many years ago when my kids were 12 and 14, we went to a restaurant and there was someone else's kids, younger kids running up and down the restaurant knocking into the waitresses. Things were going flying everywhere. Their parents weren't doing anything about it, and my eldest turned around and said, can you believe that? That kid has no boundaries? The parents don't care. And so what my kids said to me was, when you give us boundaries, we know that you care. It's not about being overbearing to your kids, it's about giving them room to discover things and to learn things. In an acceptable setting. So there's behavior. When bad behavior happens, first of all, ask yourself, why is it happening? Do I consider it bad by my own standards or is it bad'cause it's dangerous to my child, to someone else, to something else? Always look at the why and the context and what you can do about it. Something else with behavior that I taught my kids was, if you do the thing, whatever it is, throw a tantrum, swear at someone, whatever it is, wreck something. Are you prepared for the consequences now? I was a smacker for my kids when they were little, but only when they got completely out of hand. And that would be if they were about to touch something hot like a fire pit, I would smack their hands. Why? Because I have to get an instant response from them. It's dangerous if I don't, A couple of times if they punched each other, they would both get a smack on the bottom. Now as they got older, that got very hard because they got bigger than me quite quickly. So I brought out the wooden spoon. Each of my boys had one smack on the bum with the wooden spoon. And following that, all I had to do is hold up the spoon. Were they scared of me? No. Were they scared of a consequence because what they were doing was dangerous? Yes, and I would follow that with the wording. I don't wanna do this, but what you are doing is dangerous. And so now when they have a fight and they are young adults and they live in the same house together, they do have punch up every now and then they do. And I'll go over and I will stop it with a wooden spoon in my hand and I'll hold it up and I say, this is dangerous. You love each other. Why are you behaving like this? Are you prepared for a consequence? And they both look at me and look, believe me, they could easily take the spoon outta my hand and hit me with it, but they won't because they look at me, they look at the spoon and they go, right, what we're doing is dangerous. What we're doing is inappropriate, and we're hurting each other when we should love each other. So there's some behavior. Now we've covered nutrition and we've covered behavior. Let's cover learning. Learning should be fun. Schools, I'm gonna be quite controversial here, but schools to me seem like indoctrination camps. Yes, maths is important to learn. Yes, reading is important to learn, but. I'm not a fan of the government telling me what my kids should and should not learn. Now, my eldest son, as an example, very gifted child, was speaking Japanese and doing long division and able to cut fruits and vegetables with a very sharp knife before the age of four. In fact, he taught himself to read. By his first birthday here, I was reading baby books on my knee one minute, and he's reading books back to me. The next. How he did it, I have no idea. Very gifted child, but I sent him to a state primary school. Now here in Australia, we have state schools, which are run by the government. You pay a lower fee. The curriculum is set by the government. We have private schools. You pay a higher fee. The curriculum is set by the government, a private board, and, well, I'm not sure what else'cause my kids never went to one. But anyway, uh, so my eldest son went to state school and he wasn't allowed to learn the way he had already learned. The kids in the class were learning how to count to 10. He was already doing long division and multiplication. They were learning the very basics of another language. And the reason I sent him to that school was because they were supposed to be learning Japanese, but they changed the language after we enrolled. And these kids could not read. They were not on his level whatsoever. Now, what happened was a very. Dismal primary, or I think it's elementary in the US school experience. He ended up acting up. Uh, the education system was not teaching my child. It was babysitting my child. So parents, when it comes to education, you know, the level that your kid is at, my younger son was right at the other end of the spectrum. Very slow to pick up maths and English concepts. High emotional quotient. Very low intelligent quotient as a child. Now, of course, he's caught up and he's absolutely fine. He can read and he can count, and he can do all the things he needs to do. He's actually quite brilliant, but he was a slow starter as a child. Neither of my kids fit the mold of what school teaches you. Now, school teaches to the average. So as a parent, I see your role, not as, I'm only looking after my children and having the fun times and doing the, the discipline and the education is all on the school. Education starts at home, make things fun. My youngest and I are now homeschool teachers. In fact, my eldest, I pulled outta school and homeschooled. My youngest was half homeschooled and half traditional schooled, and now my youngest and I are homeschool teachers. We've just come back from a trip of three days away with some homeschool kids. We learned about the history of gold mining in Victoria here in Australia. We learned about the history of pizza. And what do you do when there's pizza? You do a math lesson'cause it's so good to use pizza as your math cue. We did the wildlife of the world. We compared all the different tigers around the world and why they have different adaptations. We did a whole lot of stuff. We did human rights and liberties. Now this was all crammed into three days. If you ask the students, and we made worksheets, by the way, for each subject, several worksheets. If you ask the students that we taught, have you just done three days of intense school? They'll go, no. We went on this place and we went to this theme park and this wildlife park. We added a pizza restaurant. They don't know that they were. Learning, even though they were because they were having fun. And this is something that is seriously lacking in institutional learning. So parents, your job's not over when you send them to school. When they come home, you need to make it fun. Don't just sit them down and say, here's your homework, here's what you need to be doing. Just go, how can we make this fun if it's maths? Use visual cues. Use fun counters, use food, use plants, use whatever you've got around you. Make it fun with reading. Make it fun. And this is what I learned having two kids on the spectrum. Someone very wise, very early on in the in the picture, told me, play to their strengths. Play to their obsessions now. One, his strength and obsession was animals. The other one was computers. Still to this day, I am in my fifties and I pretend I don't know how to do things on my computer. Why? Because my eldest will come and help me. He'll groan and grumble about it and say, you really should learn this. He has no idea that I know what I'm doing, but that is quality time that I'm lifting him up. I'm making him feel good about himself'cause he knows how to do the thing. It's the small things that you can do to raise your child up and make things fun. So there's just a few tips on parenting now when it comes to other people's kids. I used to hate. Play dates and sleepovers, especially if the kids came to my place, absolutely hated it. Why? Because I have my rules and boundaries that my kids are raised with. Other people's kids would run around crazy, chase the dog, pull the. Cat's tail, whatever, do something inappropriate, run through the house with muddy shoes. My kids didn't do things like that'cause they knew my boundaries and my rules and they respected them and they knew why those rules were in place. Other people's kids don't do that, so parents give yourself a break. Go to a local park, have your play date out of your home. Your home is your sanctuary, not only for you, but for your kids. Now your kids need a safe place that is theirs to call their own. If that's only their bedroom, great. If it's only a cubby house, great if it's the whole house, because that is their calm place. Use it, and it's very important that you have that safe, calm place as well, and that you have your boundaries met and your needs met. Just because you're having a play date doesn't mean it has to be inside. Doesn't mean it has to be loud and messy. Doesn't mean it has to be. Whatever your thing is. Now, for me, I enjoyed an ordered come clean home. That was my thing. If that's not your jam and you want mess everywhere, then have at it, keep it to a controlled area because at the end of the day, the other kids go home and you are stuck cleaning it up. Now here's the other thing that I told my kids. I mentioned you make a mess. You clean it up. If they had kids in their room playing with the Lego, the rule was all the Lego had to be picked up before bedtime. So I would tell my kids, you need to tell your friends. We can play with this, but we have to pick it up. That's the house rule. Why does your kid telling their friends the house rule matter? Because later in life there are rules. You can't just go to a workplace and leave stuff everywhere and expect it to be okay. A manager will come in and say, why is this messy? Why isn't it cleaned up? Why is it in the view of customers or in an office? You know, you're sharing a place, a space with other people. It has to be that you're showing respect by keeping your area tidy, clean, functional, and functional is the key here. If something was built in Lego that took hours and they didn't wanna put it away, I would say to my kids, you keep a shelf on your bookshelf for Legos or a space on a desk or something for these Legos, you want them built and you want them to stay built, that's fine, but they're not staying on the floor. Because it's not functional. We have to vacuum. We have pets. The dog's gonna run through it. Whatever it was, you find a space for that. This has to be functional. So that's my main tips on parenting. As I said, my kids are young adults now. They live in their own home together on the property, and the place is functional, it's safe, it's tidy. It's not clean. Two guys living in a house, it's certainly not clean. I can go in there at any time and you know, the mummy mode kicks in. I really feel like cleaning it for them. But they're adults and I taught them early. You make a mess, you clean it up. So I'll walk in and I'll go, oh, the floors might need sweeping here guys. And they look at me and I go, so you're gonna do that, right? Yep. They will. They do, but their house is functional and it is safe. They know if they dropped water on the floor or something that's not safe, they'll clean it up. They know that the cat needs her bowl cleaned. That's functional. They'll fix it. So it's what you do early on in the piece that pays off later. As I said, my top tips for parenting are. Nutrition. Let them explore. Let them meet with their hands. That's what we've done for centuries. Who said you have to use utensils every day. Uh, you know, make sure that they're learning and they're enjoying learning and make sure that they have rules, boundaries, and behaviors that are not acceptable to society in general, but that don't offend other people in a public space, but that your kids or your young adults or whatever they age, they are, know that. They can express themselves safely, calmly, and healthily. Now, the the final thing is question asking. I've always encouraged my kids to ask questions. I. I wasn't encouraged to ask questions. I would ask something even into my teenage years and I would be told, don't question that. It's because that's what I said and that's what it is. You just do it. I didn't raise my kids that way. My kids still ask questions. We were outside yesterday and. We had some mushrooms growing in the greenhouse that we didn't know what they were. We tried all the apps. We couldn't identify them. Became a dangerous situation because we don't know what they are. So what are we gonna do with them? And my kids said. Why are you pulling them out? And I said, well, because they, they could be dangerous. I don't know. And then my kids said, why aren't you composting them? And I said, because I don't really want the spores right through my compost. I'm going to throw them out. And then my kids said, but why don't you trust the app? And I said, because fungi can be very, very dangerous, and I'm not risking it. I could have easily turned around and said, listen, just let me get this done because I need to get it done. Because I said so, but I didn't, I answered all the questions and now I've set up the precedent that when these mushrooms grow back,'cause they will, my kids will put some gloves on and get a bag and put them in a bag and put them in the bin.'cause now they know,'cause they ask the questions. So allow question asking. As annoying or as inappropriate at the time as it may be, or as time consuming as it may be, it pays off later because kids are always learning. As I said, mine are in their twenties now. They're still learning. I'm still learning, and you know, I ask questions and so this is something that we need to keep going for the rest of our lives. So when it comes to health. We need to ask questions. We need to learn. We need to explore. We need to be tactile when it comes to our wealth. We need to ask questions. Don't just accept that there's a fee on something. So an example here is we use cash wherever we can because I'm not accepting that there's a surcharge on spending my own money. Because the business has to do their banking. Why should I pay for that? Cash is king. So I've taught my kids that too. When it comes to my weight, my weight fluctuates. My, one of my kids yesterday asked me, you know, you've written books about weight loss and you talk about weight loss, and your weight is still fluctuating. Why? And I said, because. I lost my thyroid because my hormone system is kind of all over the place sometimes. This is why my weight fluctuates. And he said, is my weight going to fluctuate? And I said, well, it will a little as you grow, as you age, as things happen in your life, but you need to keep your stress low. You need to eat well, and you need to invest in yourself. Those fluctuations will be a little less. I also said, don't ever get an organ removed unless you absolutely have to, because I didn't know better at the time and you know, so we discussed that. So when it comes to health, when it comes to wealth, when it comes to weight loss and anything in life, ask questions. Be curious. You are still a kid, they're still kids. We never stop learning. I hope that answered the listener question. But if you have any other questions about any topic whatsoever, contact us at a Magical Life Podcast on Facebook and send through your questions or visit our website at www.holisticnaturalhealth.com. AU and we look forward to seeing you in episode four coming up of season two. Until then, please review, like, share this podcast and have a magical life.