Raising Critical Thinkers

[00:00:00] Intro

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the, just be your bad self podcast, where you are worthy of love, just the way you are. I'm your host, Kimber Dutton. And today I'm talking with homeschool and parenting guru, Julie Bogart. Julie is known for her common sense, parenting and education advice. She's the author of the beloved book, the brave learner, which has brought joy and freedom to countless home educators, her online coaching community, brave learner home, the brave writer podcast, and Julie's popular. Instagram accounts are lifelines for tens of thousands of weary parents all over the world. Julie's also the creator of the award-winning innovative online writing program called brave writer. Now 21 years old serving 191 countries. She home educated, her five children who are now globe trotting, adults. Today, Julie lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, and can be found sipping a cup of tea while planning her next visit to one of her lifelong learning kids. I am so excited to share this podcast with you all. I have been a fan of Julie's for several years now. And I was so thrilled when she agreed to come on this podcast. I hope that those of you who aren't parents or educators aren't turned off by the fact that this is what Julie has made her life's work, because she has such. Gems of wisdom in here that I think everyone needs to hear. If you're someone who's listening who is not an educator or a parent. I recommend, especially listening to the second half of this podcast where we really start to dive into the juicy stuff in Julie's new book. Raising critical thinkers where we talk about critical thinking and why it's so important in all relationships. This podcast episode has something of value for everyone who's listening to it right now. So. Be sure to stick around until the end.

[00:01:56] Welcome

[00:01:56] Kimber: Julie. Thank you so much for being here today. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today.

[00:02:04] Julie: Oh, I'm thrilled to be here. It's great to meet you.

[00:02:07] Kimber: Let's let's give the audience a little overview of who you are and what you do. Go ahead and introduce yourself for us.

[00:02:14] Julie: Oh, wonderful. So my name is Julie Bogart. I grew up in California, but today I live in Cincinnati, Ohio. I have been a writer for pretty much my entire life. My mother is 83 and is written 75 published books. So I grew up around writing from a very young age. And as I got into my adulthood and was raising my children, I discovered because I was in the homeschooling community, that there was a dearth of good writing programs available for parents that really help them understand the self-expression part of writing, not just the rules of grammar and as a result.

[00:02:55] I started sharing those experiences and those tools and those practices that I had been living my whole life. Some of which my mother had led me in and it resonated with our community. And so I launched a company in January of 2000 and I called it brave writer because it does take quite a bit of courage to enter into self-expression and to support the writing of your kids.

[00:03:20] We've been doing that for 22 years. We've got, you know, 191 countries of families that have used our materials and have grown and loved it. And out of that experience, I've had the opportunity to write some really awesome books. My first one was the brave learner, which is all about parenting and education at home.

[00:03:41] And then the second one that is just coming out in February is called raising critical thinkers. So that background really does support the work that I continue to do to.

[00:03:52] Kimber: And I have to say here. I found you. I was raised in a homeschooled family. I was raised in the military. We moved around a lot. It just made more sense in a lot of ways to be homeschooled. And I was lucky enough that my mom was also a writer. She was an English history, major

[00:04:08] Julie: Oh

[00:04:09] Kimber: Are you really, this is why I'm like you remind me so much of my mom.

[00:04:14] Julie: Yeah. I would say history major. I love Shakespeare. I have an acting background. Yeah, very much.

[00:04:19] Kimber: You guys need to be friends, you would love each other. So I yeah, my mom, I, I came from a very strong writing background and then ended up going to public school on and off. And then in high school. And I always had my mom, like my mom was so much like more critical of my English papers than my high school teachers were.

[00:04:39] Because she's like, no, you can do better than this. I know you could do better than this. And so I had, I came from a very strong writing background, but then as an adult, With kids, I'm not an English major. I don't, you know, I don't know all the things, even though I come from a strong background, I majored in music.

[00:04:56] so when I discovered you through a local homeschool group, I was like, this is everything I grew up with, but in a very awesome format that helps me as a parent, know how to teach my kids. It was really cool to find you.

[00:05:10] Red Pen Syndrome vs. Encouraging Creativity

[00:05:10] Julie: Oh, that's so wonderful to hear. I think what's a memory for most people who've been in school is this red pen syndrome of a school teacher where you pour out your heart, maybe, you know, if you want to take the risk to really express yourself in writing, or you put in the work trying to match all the protocols that they've given you.

[00:05:31] and then you get it back.

[00:05:33] And there's no dialogue. All you see are like a squiggle mark under a misspelled word or something like the words vague in the margin. And you're just left with this sort of empty feeling. Like all they noticed were a couple of errors I made and then they give me a B plus. And I don't know why it wasn't a B or an a, I don't know what the plus means.

[00:05:53] I don't know. Is this compared to other people or compared to my last paper, interestingly there are a pair of researchers that I read years ago who wrote a book about writing. And they did a study to see what were the effects of all these red marks on student writing. And so they went through and collated all these papers to see if the next paper the student wrote, if they improved in the areas that the previous paper had margin notes, right?

[00:06:23] So the teacher had said, Hey, you're too vague here. You need to support this assertion. Did they do that better in the next paper? And they discovered that there was zero between the comments the teacher made and the output in the next paper. If that doesn't tell you the failure of the system, the way that we teach writing and brave writer is we read people's writing like we're readers.

[00:06:47] And we dialogue as a conversation throughout the writing.

[00:06:50] So if a student writes a piece, right, and they are saying things like, you know I got up in the morning and I played with my dog. It's a very straightforward sentence.

[00:07:01] But in our class, the teacher, the instructor would comment on that immediately. She would say, Oh, my gosh, I can't wait to read the rest of this writing. You were playing with your dog. I wonder what game you play. Then she keeps reading. The next line might say, I threw the ball, the dog got it. And he punctured it with his tooth.

[00:07:19] And the, the writing coach would write back puncture to such a strong verb. And so what you start seeing is there's this layered effect of affirming what's working, reacting as a reader and giving that sort of support and encouragement. And when they run up against something That's opaque or it doesn't quite meet, you know the reader expectation of clarity, they might even say something like that.

[00:07:43] Oh, I'm very curious about this. You've led me this far now I want to know what else happened. And so instead of it being like unclear, too vague, enough detail, which is more like an evaluator, we engage the writer as a reader, and we have discovered that students really respond to that. Like they get excited.

[00:08:05] To add more detail or correct a misimpression or to celebrate a success and try and have that effect again. that's really the dialogue that should exist between a writing coach and a writer.

[00:08:18] Kimber: That's so brilliant. As soon as you said, what you did about the red pen syndrome and the way teachers respond to papers. I had the memory of being in my senior year of high school, AP lit class spending. I stayed up all night. I pulled up an all, I pull an all-nighter really working hard on, on a paper on Othello that I wrote.

[00:08:37] I turned it in. I was really proud of it. I had my, you know, my Shakespeare buff English professor, mom, look at it and she was like, yep, this is a college level paper. So excited. Turned it in. Got it back. There was a big B written on it and a line that said reworked. That was the only feedback I got the English teacher was the football coach.

[00:09:00] I was super intimidated by him and I, I was too scared to even go ask him, what does this mean? mom's like, you need to talk to him about this. I was like, Hmm, just take the B. And that was such a, there's such a sad and I think probably very common experience and it really suppresses this creative urge that we all have.

[00:09:23] Right. We want to do good creative work, but when that's the kind of feedback we receive, it's super discouraging and So I think that's so brilliant the way you work.

[00:09:34] Julie: I think we've been misled to believe that the role of a teacher is to have a standard and a set of expectations that they inform. Rather than as a coach who inspires, you know, you had an English teacher who was a football coach. That's not how he coached his players. I can guarantee you when a guy missed a pass, he didn't just say, do better.

[00:09:58] Next time he gave him pointers. He talked to them about where his footwear footwork was being placed and whether his eyes were actually down the field or on the ball and whether or not he had his hands open in the right way. We give feedback when we coach. But when we're teaching, we don't understand that that's actually what we're supposed to be doing.

[00:10:18] We think of ourselves as somehow enforcing a set of standards that a child is supposed to magically know how to meet. So Yeah. that's one of the, one of the challenges. And we've discovered with writing that when you actually activate the writing voice of the child, the same way we activate their speaking voices, they have so much to say.

[00:10:35] So if you have a kid who hates writing, it just means that they're. Has not yet been activated. They don't know that the stuff that lives inside of them is worthy of the page and that you'll be interested in it. So you can start right there. You can jot down their oral expression on their behalf, catch them in the act.

[00:10:54] Don't ask them for it, just listen along. And when they start telling you a little story, grab a piece of paper and a pen, start jotting down their words. say to you, you know, mom, what are you doing? you can just say back, this is so good. don't want to forget it. So I'm writing it down, keep going.

[00:11:11] And that night at dinner pulled that sheet of paper out and say to the family, you know, Tommy was telling me about, you know, Rocky, the dog chasing the squirrel in the backyard. was so good. I was afraid. I'd forget it. So I wrote it down. I just want to read it to you. Start valuing their speech, get some of it in writing, share it with an interested audience.

[00:11:30] And you will literally transform how your kids think about writing instantly.

[00:11:34] Tapping Into Your Child's Passions and Innate Love of Learning

[00:11:34] Kimber: So this kind of leads into what I want to talk about, which is this idea of, I think I told you when I talked to you, I want to talk about authenticity and education and. You know, this term child led learning, tapping into your child's creativity. That's already there kind of letting them lead the way to talk about that.

[00:11:56] Kimber (2): Both maybe in a homeschool setting and in a public school setting, how we can encourage that, how we can tap into this innate sense of wanting to learn and discover more things about the world within education. Can You talk to us a little bit about that.

[00:12:12] Julie: Yeah. So I think it is kind of a buzzword when we talk about child led learning. What we're trying to do is correct the error of the past, which was very. Instructor or teacher led learning. And if we think back to traditional educational models from the early 20th century, most public school was didactic.

[00:12:31] It was a teacher giving information. Students would be tested on it and then they'd move on to the next form. As the decades unwound in the 20th century, there was an awareness that one of the missing ingredients was the actual lived experience of children, their passions, their backgrounds, their experiences, Bellhooks, and are two of these education reformers who have really brought into our awareness that children.

[00:13:00] Have a full minds and have already brought with them rich experiences and vision and desires that influence what they learn. Reggio schooling, Montessori, Waldorf. These are all models that are trying to tap into the innate hunger to learn. That is a part of every child where we can support our children as parents, whether they're at home or they're in public school is taking them seriously.

[00:13:27] When you have a child who tells you that they're really passionate about a video game. It's not discounting that as though it's mere entertainment as a reward for doing the real work of school. It's actually being curious and investigating with them. What they're getting out of it, watch them play, be interested in when they feel triumphant, when they feel despondent, when they think there's a skill they need to learn.

[00:13:53] As we invest ourselves in being curious about our cha children's. We will actually be given windows of insight into how they do learn, which can be used in other places. So example, you've got a kid he's in Minecraft, he's building his world, he's having some failures. He's struggling to master certain techniques.

[00:14:14] When you're doing the math homework with him later. Can you revisit that? Sticktuitiveness that he demonstrated in Minecraft and say, you know what? I know, you know how to do hard things because I watched you building this world. I watched you stick to it. support can I offer you right now to help you stick to this?

[00:14:33] What can I do to help that grow in this area too often, we are focused on child led learning as meaning abandoning parental input. And only focusing on what they like when really it's just child led. It's not child centered. It means that we actually know our children well enough to support their growth and development because we've observed them.

[00:14:57] We know them we've paid attention to them.

[00:15:01] Letting go of our parental fantasy as the standard our child has to meet

[00:15:01] Kimber: As you were talking. It just reminded me back of when we were talking about public school teachers teaching as if there's this standard that needs to be met. And I think that's really rubbed off on to us as parents

[00:15:13] Julie: Oh,

[00:15:13] Kimber: in so many different ways. You know, I there's so much pressure that your kids take music, lessons and dance lessons are straight.

[00:15:20] A students in school are on the football team or whatever. There's all these things that we feel like our kids should be doing to be humans.

[00:15:29] Julie: right.

[00:15:30] Kimber: do we, how do we have a mindset shift and what should that mindset shift even be to get away from that? This is how this is where you need to be two following there.

[00:15:40] And still allowing them to grow and learn.

[00:15:43] Julie: I think part of what happens when we have a child is we give birth to a human being and a fantasy simultaneously. So what we're holding this baby in our arms, it's almost like we can see their future, but it's, it's a fantasy it's idealism. And thank God. The fantasy is what gives us the motivation and energy.

[00:16:03] If we could see on day one, the fits, our teenagers are going to give us or the frustration we're going to feel with our nine-year-old. We might quit before we began. So the fantasy has value. It allows us to imbue the experience with some idealism that supports the hard work that parenting really requires.

[00:16:24] But as our children get older, we have to keep seeding that territory. These are actual living, breathing, human beings, who are different than their parents who have their own aspirations and secret desires. The best families are where parents actually understand and know their children and act as servants to that vision.

[00:16:48] I often say parents can provide three things to their kids, and this really is it, you know, love is the umbrella, but then here are the three practical things you could provide. First you can provide money. They can't pay for stuff, their kids, you know, maybe at 16, they start being able to pay for a few things, but they can't pay for those dance lessons.

[00:17:07] So you're going to pay for them or you're going to barter and get them those lessons in some meaningful way. So resource comes from parents, second transportation. They cannot get anywhere. So you're going to drive them or coordinate with someone else or host the thing in your home. You're going to take them places for experiences that they can't get for themselves.

[00:17:27] So, so far we have money and we have driving places, flying them on planes if necessary, the third thing, and this is the most critical piece that any parent can provide. A child is research. We have access to information that kids don't know how to get. So if you have a child asking questions about the stars and the moon, they don't know there's an observatory in their town.

[00:17:50] They don't know there are hobbyist, astronomers. They could meet. That's something you can find out for them and make sure. If your child is showing a lot of interest in a video game, rather than fighting it so much, couldn't you show them e-sports online. Couldn't you expose them to the journey. A person goes through to write a video game.

[00:18:10] What are all the skills and tools? What kind of educational background you can provide for your children, context, more information, more opportunity, and more connections. And that's what it means to be a parent child led only means you're paying attention to your child, but ultimately it is a parent who can make that magic happen.

[00:18:31] I do you have time? I'll give you a story of how this worked with my son, Jacob. So my third child a second boy, he became fascinated with the sky mostly because of big numbers. Like it was. Staggering to him, for instance, that, you know, the Pluto, if we were to use a scaled model of the solar system by a billion factor of a billion, if we were standing in our neighborhood, the next child who was going to stand where Pluto would be, would have to be over three miles away.

[00:19:02] Like I remember him just being like, whoa spaces, huge. Right? So we moved to Cincinnati at that time. And there's like an art, an observatory here that is really well-known nationally. So we went, we looked through these amazing telescopes. We met these old men, you know, these hobbyist astronomers who just want young children to talk to you all day long.

[00:19:23] It was amazing. And then he said to us, one night at dinner, mom, I want to go mom, dad, I want to go to space camp. And we were broke. We didn't have money. And at the time I just said, oh, wouldn't that be nice? You know, we can't afford it. But fortunately he had a dad who actually heard him and his dad said, oh, Jake, I think you could raise the money.

[00:19:43] To go to space camp, how much is it? We figured it out. It was like $850. And he's like, Yeah.

[00:19:50] we'll just start a cookie business. I'm like, what are you guys talking about? And John said, you know, neighbors would love warm homemade chocolate chip cookies on a Sunday night. And you could just go around and take orders and sell them.

[00:20:03] So I immediately said, this is a failing idea. Like everyone will be compassionate one time and he'll make, you know, a hundred bucks, but there's no way he's going to get to $850 on the backs of our neighborhood, how wrong I was John and Jacob got a clipboard. They went door to door. They took a bunch of orders.

[00:20:24] He had regular customers for at least two years. He even back then was able to sell cookies at Walmart and Kroger in the front made a hundred dollars. Each of those days, he paid for his own trip. Flew by himself. We didn't go with him. He was 12 years old, went to Huntsville, Alabama. Experience-based camp thought he had wanted to be an astronaut, not got home and said, yeah, I don't want to be an astronaut and was done.

[00:20:50] But here's the amazing thing. That experience, even though he didn't become an astronaut, taught him that if he wanted something, he could get it. He could actually find a way to fund it. And that kid today is 30 years old and he has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in fellowships and grants and scholarships over his career of being a student as an adult law school and regular school because he had this very early experience of someone taking his desires that seriously.

[00:21:19] Now I'm not saying that every kid will jump on this bandwagon and execute. I have four other kids who never did that. Right. But Jacob did. And I think part of what we need to do is actually believe in their dreams and do what we can to take out the roadblocks and see how far they go.

[00:21:38] Kimber: Oh, that's such an story. I, we're talking about what to provide for them. Us did your, your three things, and then also talk about them seriously

[00:21:50] Julie: Yes.

[00:21:51] Kimber: dreams with them. What are, are there things that we need to let go of that maybe we're taught to hold too tight to as parents.

[00:21:59] Julie: Yes. Oh my gosh. Such a fabulous question. So one of the biggest mistakes we make is that when a child shows any interest in something we value, we expect them to become a pro at it. So for instance, I have a son who loved chess. Well, chess is a prestige subject. I wanted everyone to know he played chess because I got so much validation from my community, right.

[00:22:22] And when he actually joined a chess club and became first board, you know, the top player, I went to every single chess match. Now let me just point out how boring chess is. You stand and watch a game where it's silent and the biggest action is moving a piece two forward and two to the side. You don't know if it's going right or left.

[00:22:41] I mean, literally that's what chess is, but there, I was such a proud parent when my, that same son was a junior in high school. One day, he yelled for me. Hey mom, come here. I need to show you something. And I was like the distracted business working mother. I'm like, I'm busy, I'm typing. And he says, no, mom, I need you to come now.

[00:23:01] And I said, can't you just tell me? And he goes, mom, come now. And finally, my brain woke up. I walked over and he said, I'm in the middle of a video game battle. Right now I'm on a team ranked 10th in the world. And this game is being broadcast in South Korea.

[00:23:21] Kimber: Yeah.

[00:23:21] Julie: me play.

[00:23:24] And in that split second, I was like, wait a minute. How do I not know this about his. How do I not know he is this good at video games? How have I never watched him play? So I sat there and by the way, games far more interesting than chess things were blowing up. There was music, there were sounds, there was like scary moments where I thought he was going to die.

[00:23:47] And then he somehow didn't, it was very exciting. I didn't fully understand it, but I'm like watching him play. When the game was over, he showed me his leaderboard. He was like the top score on all these very meaningful metrics. And it suddenly dawned on me how much parents ignore, what their kids value.

[00:24:07] If it doesn't give them prestige and how much we overvalue, what makes us look good? So one of the things you want to be careful to do is to not assume because your daughter loves ballet or your son plays violin or your other child is into Latin. That that makes those superior. To the kid who really loves making, you know clay earrings or wants to build a great big Lego death star.

[00:24:35] There is no area that a child is interested in that doesn't have value to their growth and learning. And it is up to us to discover the inherent value and to support that child. So we have to let go of our fantasies. That's our bottom line need as parents join with the real let go of the ideal,

[00:24:54] Kimber: And I think, I think part of the reason we hold onto these fantasies, so tightly, at least I'm discovering for myself because when you become a parent, not only do you realize that your kids aren't necessarily going to live up to these fantasies, the way you have them planned, you also realize how much you give up to be a parent, how much

[00:25:18] Julie: uh,

[00:25:19] Kimber: you give up for these kids?

[00:25:21] And so some of us really, you know, we get our ego boosts and our we live vicariously through our kids. And so when we push him so hard for things so much of our own egos tied up in that, how do you, how do you balance parenthood and wanting to give and support your kids' dreams and also maintain the sense of self that?

[00:25:46] Be an Awesome Adult

[00:25:46] Julie: Oh, my goodness. So let's go on a journey together. Back when you were a child. There were things that you imagined would be available to you as an adult that you could not do when you were 10 or 12 or even 15, right? Like you looked ahead to adulthood as this golden time of life where nobody would limit you.

[00:26:08] Right? No one would tell you it's time to go to bed. No one would tell you, you couldn't have the second Oreo cookie. No one would tell you that that horror movie is too upsetting to watch before you go to sleep at one in the morning, that's what parents do. So when you're a kid, you're looking forward to this future of autonomy and freedom, and maybe even specific things that you could accomplish, whether it's a career goal or an artistic goal, or a social value goal, like doing good in the world.

[00:26:37] And you imagine that you'll have unfettered access to all those things. And then you get married or you develop a partner or you get pregnant and you have a child and suddenly it feels like you are sent back to the beginning of the game board of life. Right? Like go back to go start over. You're going to have to look at toddler toys again.

[00:27:00] You're going to have to learn the times tables again. Like it's, it's a little cruel because you got to adult it and then you never really fully drank at the fountain of adulthood. And so you're right. What we do then is we invest the adult fantasies. We didn't realize in our children. 'cause that's what adulthood now looks like.

[00:27:20] It looks like helping our kids do the things we aren't really doing. So what I tell the women in particular, who follow me, men have less of a problem with this. They're used to entitlement for their interests. Our culture really supports that, but for women we're supposed to be self-sacrificing, we're supposed to love parenting.

[00:27:39] So what I always say is I want you to be an awesome adult. I want you to be an awesome adult. I want you to embrace and own the piece of yourself that you imagined. You'd get to have, whether that's running a marathon, writing, having a job, a part of a volunteer program, playing a musical instrument, whatever it is, travel, developing, you know, some kind of side professional gig going to grad school, whatever it is.

[00:28:11] Keep your foot in the door, make sure there is some part of you that is alive the awesomeness of being an adult. And here's what will happen if you do that, you will actually make adulthood look attractive your kids. If you sacrifice your vision of adulthood and live weary unhappy adult life of responsibility, kids will want to be Peter pan forever.

[00:28:38] They're going to want to be dependent on you and not grow up and not take on responsibility. if they see that adulthood holds this awesome opportunity for them, there are some of these hoops, they have to get through to have that life, they will be more motivated. So if I give you an example from my kids, I always kept room for right. And from a very early stage, I used to go to the library for three hours a week alone in the evening, I would book a room and I would either write, or I would cry or I would take a nap or I would just rest, literally I just use those three hours for whatever I needed them for. And I needed them for all of those at various moments because parenting and marriage are hard.

[00:29:22] And sometimes all I had left was emotion, but I kept some of that writing alive. When I started my business, I started small, it matched the scale of my family, but I always had it to go to as a way to experience the adult that I am. I went to grad school while I was writing business and homeschooling, I did it one class a semester.

[00:29:46] It took me four years, but it was a way for me to stay connected to my intellectual vitality, a group and community of adults with a pursuit that had always been a dream of. I think in the end, we give our children permission to have their dreams. When we actually have our own dreams, otherwise their dreams become our dreams and we are hijacking their journey.

[00:30:14] Kimber: I was lucky enough to find you a few years ago when my kids were still, well, my kids are still very little, but they were even littler. I, I think I listened to a podcast episode when you talk about being an awesome adult and that it was such a relief to feel like it. Cause I think as moms, we need a reason.

[00:30:35] That's not self-serving. To, to be a little selfish, right?

[00:30:40] Julie: Yes,

[00:30:41] Kimber: a relief, to hear that by you being an awesome adult and you following your dreams, help, you're still helping your kids. And,

[00:30:48] Julie: that's right.

[00:30:48] Kimber: nice when my daughter, I have a six year old and sometimes I'll go out with friends or I'll go deuce, I'll, I'll go do something.

[00:30:55] That's just for me. And when she questions it or wants to come with me, it's so nice to have that in my back pocket, to be able to say, you know what, some things you get to do when you're grown up and it's really fun to be a grownup, or it's really fun to be a mom because I get to do this, this, this, and kind of dangle that as like a it's good to grow.

[00:31:14] Cause I do she's one that she wants to be what I asked her, what she wanted to be when she grew up. And she wants to be a mermaid that lives with her mom.

[00:31:22] Julie: adorable.

[00:31:23] Kimber: So I want her to know like, no, it's good to be a grownup. You get to do fun things. And so it was really, it came at a really good time early on in my parenting to be able to.

[00:31:35] To own that. And now I've got this podcast that I'm doing retreats for people, and I'm still a mom and I still get to do that, but I I'm a whole person. I, I don't feel like I've given up who I am to be a mom. And so I don't resent my kids. And in a lot of ways, I think it makes me a better mom.

[00:31:52] Julie: A thousand percent. In fact I had someone asked me today, what do you do when your child just doesn't care about that? It's a team, you know, about the vision for the future that I'm trying to cast and I'm working so hard and he doesn't understand blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, you could care less.

[00:32:10] You could just care less, but you can't care less if you don't have something else to care about. And our kids know when we've hung all our hopes on them. It's a lot of pressure. And some kids will try to perform up to that pressure and have a breakdown, you know, in their thirties when they're like, oh my gosh, I, I never had a childhood.

[00:32:30] I was just trying to fulfill my parents' dream to be the best swimmer I could be. Right. So there's that kind of reaction. But the other reaction is to not try because they do not want to disappoint you. Your children's number one need from you is approved. That's the number one need admiration admire your kids.

[00:32:50] So if you are pressing and not admiring, they will resist more. Cause it's so painful to have your parent not admire you. So one of the ways to care less is to have something else to care about. If you have something you're invested in and let's say your child, you're trying to do homework with them. And they're really being swirly.

[00:33:08] And you just say, you know what? I'm here to be a resource to you. This is your homework already did homework. I I'm done with school. If you need me, I'll be in the other room, editing my podcast. It is a different experience than being petulant. Like, well, if you're going to be that way, I can't help you.

[00:33:26] Which just feels like you're engaged in this head to head combat. But if you are literally like, you know what? My life is filled with people who enjoy my company. You're not enjoying my right now. All right, well, go do your thing. I've got this other stuff to do. It. It's a different dynamic. It shifts the energy in that interaction.

[00:33:46] Kimber: This is what talking to you just reminds me so much. I have your book, the brave learner. And I love that you talk about finding enchantment and learning and, and bringing the home into homeschool. And you kind of paint this very cozy, warm, and chanting picture of education, but you're also a very real Who's had five kids who know, you know, what it's like to be a para and you know that it's not all roses, but you have such good down to earth ways to approach things. So this is this is a plug from me for your book that

[00:34:20] Julie: Oh, well, thank you. Thank you.

[00:34:22] Julie's New Book: Raising Critical Thinkers

[00:34:22] Kimber: It's, it's just so beautifully written, but I want to talk a little bit more about your book that hasn't come out yet.

[00:34:28] Right.

[00:34:29] Julie: Yes. Right. It'll be out on February 1st, Right.

[00:34:33] Kimber: So

[00:34:33] Julie: So.

[00:34:34] Kimber: about that.

[00:34:35] Julie: Well, thank you. The name of the book is raising critical thinkers. The subtitle is a parent's guide to growing wise kids in the digital age. And I wrote this book partly because of my own journey in adulthood. You know, the internet became a thing midway through my life around 35, 36 years old.

[00:34:56] So I have a very strong memory life before online living. And then I have an adult experience of watching us go from And what I thought was like this koombaya experience of all of us getting to know each other, and it would be billed brotherly love around the world, right? To just it blowing up in a sea of trolling pixels, right.

[00:35:17] People. Bludgeoning each other with their opinions and their other experts and their disagreements. And during the, the internet era, I was a member of many email lists. I did grad school. I had a blog myself. I was running brave writer, social media started, and that.

[00:35:34] really changed the dynamics even further.

[00:35:38] And all that time. What I was witnessing was a loss of critical thinking of seeking to understand and learn just for the sake of learning. Not always feeling like every statement is a voting opportunity. Think what the internet has done is, is it turned all discussion into a zero sum game. You either agree or you disagree and you do it forcefully, and it's either aligned with your community or it is offending your community.

[00:36:07] And there's just this, this intensity and speed of response that is undermining. Good critical thinking and also just healthy self-esteem and a sense of belonging in the world. So as we're raising children, it just occurred to me that there were tools that I've written and created for our online classes that I have used in my own work as an academic, that would really be valuable to parents.

[00:36:34] And, you know, the heart of this book is not like a bunch of descriptions of confirmation bias and the ostrich effect. It's really about how to preserve and protect a relationship with your child when you don't agree when that child is encountering ideas that make you uncomfortable when you are out in the world as a family, trying to figure out how to make sense of disparate information that comes at you like a fire hose.

[00:37:01] And you don't know how to evaluate it, let alone evaluate it with your child. Who's on Tik TOK. Who's on Twitter, who's on Facebook and Instagram and they are being slammed, slammed with all kinds of data points and they don't know how to evaluate them. So this book, it takes a relational approach, but it is very much about the zeitgeists we're in hoping to kind of strip this polarization out of our families because we can only start in our families.

[00:37:30] You know, we're not going to change society at large, but if families change, if the culture that our children grow up in at home changes, it will trickle out into the community.

[00:37:42] Kimber: I'm excited to read this just for me,

[00:37:45] Julie: Yeah.

[00:37:45] Kimber: not I bring my kids into it. I, you know, everybody knows the past years, all the political upheaval and everything with COVID and everything was so polarizing and it definitely affected my family, my husband and I came down on different sides of a lot of issues.

[00:38:03] And I've, I've seen marriages fall apart the last couple of years because of that. And there's not, people don't know how to communicate about it in a loving, respectful way. We, we went to a couple of counseling sessions over

[00:38:16] Julie: Yeah.

[00:38:17] Kimber: it's, it's really tricky. So can you give us a little preview of maybe some strategies or things that you talk about in your book?

[00:38:26] Julie: Yes. So the original title of the book was raising self-aware thinkers and my editor wanted it to be critical thinkers because critical thinking is such a big deal right now. And it is critical thinking, but the essential. Practice of a critical thinker is self-awareness first. We tend to think critical thinking is about figuring out what the other person believes and then examining it for its flaws.

[00:38:51] It's sort of an outward focused way of thinking about thinking, but the truth is until you've done a good assessment of your own background, the things that are shaping and influencing you while you're doing your processing of learning, you will be so invisibly controlled by all of those factors. There will be no room for you to actually think critically about what you're reading.

[00:39:16] So let me give you an example. Several years ago, a couple of decades ago, actually I was looking into an opinion that was different than my husband's. I like that you brought that up because this will go right with it. And we got in a pretty big argument and yet I really wanted to do this recent. And he had kind of in a weird sort of backhanded way, forbidding it by saying, Well,

[00:39:37] if you do this kind of research, I don't know what I'll think of you kind of thing.

[00:39:41] And so we went to bed one night and I waited for him to fall asleep. And I snuck down the stairs of my house and I came in this room and locked the door and I opened up my computer. And by then I was trembling head to toe. I was in a cold sweat and I couldn't even type, I was so nervous because I was worried that I was going to find out something that would really be dangerous to me.

[00:40:07] And yet I had to know the truth. I was tired of other people telling me that this thing was not okay for me to know. So I went, I looked it up, started reading comp, write down. I was like, oh, well here's the information I'm alone. I'm it's the middle of the night. There's no one here to evaluate what I think about it.

[00:40:27] don't have to render a version. I can simply read and let the information sit alongside my current set of beliefs. Just knowing that the information exists and that I've read it in first person was enough. But then I knew I had to go to bed and the thought crossed my mind. This could give you a window of insight into me.

[00:40:48] I thought, what if I die before I wake up? And my husband wakes up and sees that this was the last website I've been on before my death. So I cleared my browser history, completely got rid of even passwords and everything just to protect myself because you're right. have created a culture where the stakes are so high.

[00:41:08] The only way we're willing to relate to people is absolute agreement. And we have completely lost track of the idea that it is okay to both read and consider ideas that you may not even eventually adopt, but just for the sake on the inside of how that viewpoint came to be and what role it plays in the world and what value it has to the people who hold it.

[00:41:34] So the first place we begin with ourselves and with our children is check in with your body. If you're reading a post on Facebook noticed immediately that you're in a hurry get to that fact that you can use to quash the argument. If you notice that feeling of indignation, or fear or anxiety rising up in you, that's a moment to pause and actually ask the question.

[00:41:59] Well, where's that coming from? In my case, it was my marriage. It was my community. It was the information I had heard in books. I had read. And it meant that if I were to cross over into considering this information, I was going to get ejaculated very valuable communities. And that's what we're mostly doing.

[00:42:17] We are protecting our relationships. We are saying, I have to agree with these beliefs. So the members of the people's group that I'm a part of will still let me stay. The beginning then of critical thinking is recognizing when that influence is undue pressure and how to start getting brave enough to let yourself have a deeper experience of all the range of views.

[00:42:43] One way we do it with our kids is training them to be deep readers. The internet has taken that away, you know, silent reading for 20 minutes, one book in chronological order each day around the family with your phone in a different room turned off. So it doesn't distract your brain. We need spaces where we're not being called on.

[00:43:04] To render an opinion or reaction the thumbs up thumbs down. That is the cruelest tool. During an attempt to grow your critical thinking skills, you should not be required to agree and disagree. Instantly. Multiple choice testing has caused us to think that there's one right answer delivered by an authority, and everyone will agree and it needs to be done under time.

[00:43:28] Pressure. Let that stuff go. That has nothing to do with life on social media. You are not required to agree to disagree. It's okay to just take in information and we want to help our kids know what to do when they take it in and it causes a panic.

[00:43:44] The interplay between relationships and opinions

[00:43:44] Kimber: I man. So many thoughts going as you were talking, the first one, I love that you talk about relationships and how we think a lot of times of information affecting our relationships. We don't really think about how much our relationships affect the information that we're

[00:44:02] okay with.

[00:44:03] Julie: Yes. That is the core of my book.

[00:44:06] Kimber: Yeah. And, and that's, that's what pulled me through my marriage when we were, you know, on opposite sides, politically, this is what, this is what saved us. We watched some video about when you're, when you're presented with, with information that goes against like some of your core values and beliefs. We treat it as like a physical attack, right?

[00:44:27] Our bodies get all hyped up and, and we go into defense defense mode. And anyways, it was a fabulous video. I'll link to it on the resources of my, of my podcast, because it's really good. I made my husband watch it with me because it's pretty non-biased right. The video is, but it's teaching us why we're biased towards certain things.

[00:44:47] And we were able to, he and I realize that even though we don't agree with each other, a large part of the reason we choose to believe what we believe politically, or, you know, on a variety of my husband and I are very different in many ways

[00:45:01] on a variety of topics. Is because of the social groups that we're in.

[00:45:06] He and I are very different, but the people we hang out with and interact with outside of our marriage are more like us. He has, he's a, he's a lineman. He has very conservative, masculine friends and, and family. His family's different than mine. And that way I have more artsy, liberal friends, and we were able to decide, we were able to say, I see why you believe this.

[00:45:36] Julie: Yeah.

[00:45:36] Kimber: I see that it would put your relationships in jeopardy to believe. I love you enough that we can, can be okay have to feel the same way about this topic. We don't talk about those things very often,

[00:45:53] Julie: Yeah,

[00:45:53] Kimber: least respect each other to understand that there are reasons we believe the way we believe.

[00:45:59] Julie: well, this is so much fun for me to have this conversation with you as this book is launching. That is the kind of insight that I'm really hoping parents can take from this, whether it's with a child, who's going to have a very divergent position from the whole family or the family that takes a divergent position from their religious community or you know, people within my space, homeschooling who suddenly decide to try public school, the pressure of community to be ideological is all defensive.

[00:46:35] It's all. Fear-based, it's all a desire for control in an existential reality where we don't have control. So we start to feel like if I have numbers this group, then I'm safe. But the fact of the matter is we actually deepened. The solutions that we can achieve for families, marriages, schools, society, countries, when we broadened to include everyone what even the people we sharply disagree with.

[00:47:05] And honestly, it's okay to retain your point of view when you are listening to and reading and understanding someone else's getting to the point where you understand, why have you logically coheres for another person is the task of critical thinking. That is the task. The task is not to decide if you agree or not.

[00:47:27] It's to understand all the features and contours that make that view logical and rational for the person who holds it.

[00:47:35] Living an Examined Life

[00:47:35] Kimber: Yes. And I, I obviously feel super passionate about this because that's what my podcast is about.

[00:47:41] Julie: Wow.

[00:47:42] Kimber: just be your bad self. And I, I don't think I had the words really to be able to say, this is what my podcast is about, but I invite people all different religious backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities, because my background and everybody listening to my podcast knows this already is I, I grew up Mormon I'm in Utah.

[00:48:04] I

[00:48:05] Julie: Okay.

[00:48:05] Kimber: the LDS church and I about six years ago, stumbled upon some information that changed my way of thinking. And I was lucky enough to have a community because my family also left. So my relationships weren't.

[00:48:22] Julie: threatened. Yes.

[00:48:25] Kimber: So I had a safe space to go to go to, as I was evaluating this information.

[00:48:30] But since leaving, I found myself examining everything that I ever

[00:48:35] Julie: Yes, yes.

[00:48:37] Yes.

[00:48:38] Kimber: I started this podcast, I, it would have been very easy for me to step into kind of do a little lateral transition from I'm a Mormon. Now I'm an ex-Mormon and I hate all things to do with

[00:48:49] Julie: Right.

[00:48:50] Kimber: And I'm only having people on who have left the church and that's felt so wrong to me because that's, that's not what I'm about.

[00:48:58] I want this idea of an examined life, and has a reason for believing what they believe. Everyone has a reason for doing they do. And so I've had in the church, out of the church, nothing to do with the church on here, because I just, I want people to see what you're talking about, which is.

[00:49:15] Julie: Yes.

[00:49:17] Kimber: Yeah, to the self-aware thinking. And, and just because you think something doesn't mean someone else doesn't have a good reason for thinking the way they do.

[00:49:25] Julie: Well, and once you've gone through a change in belief, particularly one of the scale that you're describing, you also know that that can happen at any time. You start to recognize that just latching on now, let's say to a scientific worldview, doesn't save you either. Like there is, I remember very early on when I was doing some reevaluation about my own religious background, went to a site that was called walk away from faith, and it was showing ex-Mormonsex-Christians, ,Ex-Catholics , like all these different people.

[00:49:57] And so many of them just went from trusting the authority of the church. They had been in to suddenly trusting the authority of scientists when they had no skill or background in science. And I remember thinking to myself, Well, this feels identical.

[00:50:12] Kimber: Mm.

[00:50:13] Julie: The spirit behind the belief structure was identical.

[00:50:16] It was a craving to be certain and to have authorities confer on them being right. I was trying to leave that behind. That was what I was trying to leave behind was, well, wait a minute, if I don't have the credentials to evaluate this and who does, like, when hear debates about, let's say climate change, my background is history and theology.

[00:50:39] how effective are my evaluations of the arguments being presented to me. So then we have to ask deeper questions. Like, what are the agendas That are behind these presentation of facts? Who are the authorities making these calls? What consensus is there among these people in their peer group, who are the people doing the critiquing and why?

[00:51:00] Evaluating our own skill sets

[00:51:00] Julie: And at a certain point. I may come to a tentative belief that I've put all these pieces together and I'm taking this position, but once I've done all that work, I'm also fully aware that I'm. not qualified actually to evaluate the tools, the records, the studies, the methods, they used to draw these conclusions.

[00:51:20] So it's with some humility and I feel like one of the pieces missing in all of these conversations is a recognition of our own skill sets. We can read, but when we read, we feel like experts reading is not the same as having a direct experience or having the direct education. And then beyond that, it's not the same as having an encounter.

[00:51:43] So just to give you a quick example, I could read a travel guide about Morocco and think that I know all about Moroccan. But without having gone there, wouldn't we say you probably don't really know Morocco. We could say I've read all about violins. I know who makes them, I know what kind of music is written for them.

[00:52:03] If I've never heard of violin, do I know violins? We tend to read information and think, well, I've read a lot. So I know it, but without a corresponding experience, like hearing the violin played or traveling to Morocco, it's insufficient. But now think about the next level. I could hear a violin played or even a blue grass, Fiddler, but if I've never played the violin, do I have any appreciation for the scale of the difficulty or what's involved in the music that's been written and same with Morocco?

[00:52:36] I can experience it as a tourist, but if I've never lived there, I've never encountered Moroccans on their terms without my you know, tourist help where I'm just living there, trying to learn the language, trying to make. That's all a whole different level. That's an encounter with the violin. That's an encounter with Morocco.

[00:52:56] And so when we're talking about critical thinking, if you have not had all three of those reading experience and encounter, you cannot have a complete enough understanding to render a true opinion. You can have some feelings, you can have some beliefs, you can have some ideas. Most of us are spouting off calling these things opinions, and all we've done is read some articles from the side we already agree with.

[00:53:20] We've had no experiences, no education, no encounters. And we're popping off like experts. If I had one hope after reading this book, it's that all of us would take a step back and recognize just how vast the amount of information is that's out there that we're being asked to comment on and to be very selective about when we actually have an opinion and that it's okay to not have one, to simply be interested in more information.

[00:53:51] Getting Comfortable with "I don't know"

[00:53:51] Kimber: That I I'm. I'm curious. Okay. Let me talk for a second then I'll ask you my question. So I'm thinking about my experience leaving the religion of my childhood and the very most difficult thing about leaving. Some of those beliefs behind is that I had to really okay with admitting how much. There's there's so much that I don't know, you know that in, in in a lot of religions, we are taught to say, like, at least I know I can speak from my own experience the LDS church.

[00:54:25] We have testimony meetings where we get up and we say, I know this is true. I know this book is true. I know that I've had this experience from God. I know, I know. I know. I know. I know. to leave that behind realize, I don't know, I don't know anything felt like dropped out

[00:54:45] Julie: Totally.

[00:54:46] Kimber: and that I was just free falling.

[00:54:48] And I, I think, I think that's, what's so important. I almost said earlier, it's, it's like the same as independent thinking, but I think it's different. What you're talking about this self-aware thinking, and you have to maybe be a little bit more comfortable with this idea of, I don't know. Do you address that in your

[00:55:03] book?

[00:55:04] Julie: all the way through that. That's Yes. Throughout. And honestly, none of us can know the interior of another person, all the factors that sort of work together to create the security that a person feels about a certain perspective or belief. One of the reasons that your LDS church or other community groups that are more about faith or even belief systems like ideological groups, like Le Leche League, where I was a leader for 10 years or being a part of a certain educational model, the reason that they have community meetings to reinforce their beliefs.

[00:55:43] Is because they're not obvious, you know, you, you have to go to these group, these Bible studies, these monthly meetings to reaffirm that This thing is true because it's very difficult to find consensus in the world. Most of these things are sort of ephemeral. They don't really have you know, we don't all have a meeting every day to reaffirm that I live in a house, someone drives by they're like, that's her house.

[00:56:10] I'm gonna have to have meetings with people who say I've seen her house. I've been in it. I can prove that our house is really there. The more you're in a group that makes you continually reaffirm. The more you can recognize that there's a faith component here. And so when they're making you double down and say, you know, you are slowly actually brainwashing yourself, you're kind of indoctrinating yourself.

[00:56:34] And that can be true with anything that can be true. I think it was true for me with marriage. My parents are divorced, so I was convinced that I would never get a divorce so that, you know, so then we have rules in our marriage. We will never use the word divorce. We will never say divorce is on the table.

[00:56:50] We will never accept any solution to our difficulties. That includes divorce. When you double down on something like that over time, you're actually foreclosing meaningful options. You become completely skewed against other information, other sources of experience, other ideas that could actually benefit you.

[00:57:12] And of course, eventually I ended up divorced ironically, right. So I think we want to be very careful. To have that humility, you know, I'm married. I don't want to be divorced is different than we will never mention the word divorce. These are. And we do this to our children. You know, we, we indoctrinate them every single day.

[00:57:32] Your child says to you, I hate the feel of water on my hands. And we're like, you have to wash your hands. Invisible germs are on them. That is what science says instead of like spending a minute and investigating with your child. But what is it about the water and why don't you like getting your hands wet and, well, here's what I've learned from science, but you're right.

[00:57:52] We can't see the drums on your hands. They do look pretty clean. Shall we risk it? Should we just risk it for dinner? Like stripping back from this hyper authoritarian mode that we get in, in all of our contexts. I told a story the other day My daughter-in-law had a home birth. I had five home birth.

[00:58:10] Yes, AND

[00:58:10] Julie: So I'm from that sort of cookie side of California too. And that was so gratifying, right? My daughter-in-law chooses to have a home birth fully successful, and we completely expected her to breastfeed. I was a leader, breastfed all my kids, never used a single bottle because I'm an ideologically driven person. And sure enough, her daughter was tongue tied, did not have a successful breastfeeding experience, had to get donor breast milk for a year bottle fed with donor milk, totally foreign to my experience. But you know what, because of all this work I've done over the last decades, I even got to the point where I was like, this is what formula is for.

[00:58:49] okay. If you get formula, but also I'll drive and get you donor milk. And also, I love feeding this baby with a bottle and also you're not a failure. Like I think that's where we want to go. It's okay to say, well, we know scientifically breast milk. But it is not okay to so strongly die on that hill that you alienate, the people you love and you don't take advantage of other solutions and resources and opportunities that exist in the world.

[00:59:17] We've got to stop with these like doctrinaire ways of thinking where there's heresy and orthodoxy and nothing between

[00:59:25] Kimber: Yes.

[00:59:26] Julie: complicated than that.

[00:59:27] Kimber: This new phrase came into my awareness this last, like the last five months, which is yes. And, and I, if, if there's anything I get tattooed on me, that's what I want tattooed where I can see it because we, we have this culture of either or either you're right. Or I'm right. you know, either, either

[00:59:45] Julie: Yep.

[00:59:46] Kimber: best or, you know, and to be able to say, like you were saying in this experience, yes.

[00:59:52] I'm a big proponent of breastfeeding this

[00:59:55] Julie: Yes.

[00:59:56] Kimber: is for. And it's both, they're both. Okay.

[00:59:59] Julie: Right.

[01:00:00] Kimber: huge perspective shift for our culture.

[01:00:03] Julie: It is. And when we're talking about some of these big issues and they're huge, you know, whether we're talking about climate change or voting rights or things like gun rights or abortion and those are scary topics for

[01:00:13] Kimber: Hmm.

[01:00:14] Julie: with their children, with their friends, with their marriages, with their religious communities, because there are positions help people know you deserve to be a member.

[01:00:23] the problem. We use these as like membership

[01:00:25] Kimber: Yeah.

[01:00:27] Julie: one of the things that I, I suggest to my book is imagine like a 10th grade class and your teacher says let's have a debate on gun control. I suggest instead of having a debate, divide into two groups and first identify people who have experience with guns.

[01:00:46] So there might be someone who's from a family that has. There might be someone who's from a family whose sibling was killed in a school shooting. might be someone whose dad is a police officer. There might be someone whose life was saved because the security guard killed a robber, right? Like there are lots of gun experiences hiding in that classroom.

[01:01:06] And when we say let's just have a debate, we aren't unearthing any of those. What we're doing is we're telling kids to take a premature position before they've heard from all these views. what I recommend is putting these kids into two groups with a variety of experiences in each group, give them a list of meaningful questions to consider, not position to take.

[01:01:29] So

[01:01:30] Kimber: Yeah.

[01:01:30] Julie: should we do about X? should we do in this situation? How do we think about hunting? How do we think about the law and protection? How do we think about How do we think about th the age and background checks for gun owners? And let both groups brainstorm and troubleshoot and problem solve.

[01:01:49] Make sure you give full floor to each person who has a personal experience and challenge the groups to include everyone in your solutions and in your opinions. And at the end, have both groups share and then ask the question. What are the essential features we've discovered that we need to consider whenever we talk about guns, not which physician do you take, but this is a completely different way of engaging in critical thinking.

[01:02:20] I put it as this, the danger is we keep thinking the goal is to get it right. And I hear this in all the critical thinking literature, think like a scientist, try to get it right. Be more interested in getting it right than being right. That's all bullshit. I don't agree with any of that. Our goal is to get.

[01:02:38] Not to get it right, just to get it, get this issue matters to that person, for these reasons. And to account for that when we're discussing, when we're problem solving, when we're troubleshooting, if we could generate insight more than we focus on who's right or wrong, would get so much further in our families, in our religious communities and in our, our culture.

[01:03:02] And that's why I wrote this book.

[01:03:04] Pre-Order the Book

[01:03:04] Kimber: Dang. It's so powerful. That's so powerful. I can't read, I cannot wait to read it. Can we? Pre-order it.

[01:03:11] Julie: Yeah, do. I would love it. If you would. You can go to raising critical thinkers.com. We've got all the buttons from the array of places you can purchase it. you do pre-order before February 1st you will get my annotated bibliography. So all the books that I use for research in my personal

[01:03:27] Kimber: Well,

[01:03:28] Julie: thoughts, then an explicit conversation with the woman who wrote the foreword, her name is Dr.

[01:03:33] Barbara Oakley and she's well-known for the book, learning how to learn, and she's a neuroscientist. So we have a really great conversation about sort of my philosophical way of approaching it and her neurological background that supports the conclusions I've drawn. So.

[01:03:49] Kimber: I'm going to go pre-order it. As soon as we get off this call, I'm so excited.

[01:03:53] Julie: glad you do it would be great. And we're talking about all these things over on Instagram. My Instagram account is Julie brave writer. And then of course, if you are interested in brave writer, you can go to brave writer.com for online classes and materials. If any of that caught your interest, we support both homeschoolers and kids in traditional schools.

[01:04:13] So don't feel like you have to be a homeschooler to use our materials or classes.

[01:04:18] Kimber: And I use, I use your Brave Writer program and love it. It's just an easy, fun, it's fun for parents. And for kids, it takes so much of the and this is also what I'm about, right. Letting go of perfectionism. It takes so much of that out of it and brings so much of the joy and creative process back in. So I can't, I can't recommend your stuff highly enough.

[01:04:36] I love it all. So

[01:04:37] Julie: Awesome.

[01:04:39] The Take-Away

[01:04:39] Kimber: if there's, is there one takeaway, we talked about a lot of things today, but if there's one like big takeaway that you really want to leave with the listeners today, what would.

[01:04:48] Julie: Your relationship with your kids is more important than any position you hold. Any belief you have any fantasy about their future, you cherish, and your relationship is only as good as there is room for both of you to be in it. So it matters that you show up as yourself and it matters that you allow your kids to be who they are.

[01:05:11] You cannot be the community that excludes your child from membership.

[01:05:17] Kimber: That's a beautiful summary. Okay.

[01:05:19] Outro

[01:05:19] Thanks for joining me today to get more nurturing around living an authentic life, you can follow me on instagram @justbeyourbadself or subscribe to my weekly newsletter at justbeyourbadself.com. Your invitation this week. See, if you can get a little more comfortable with the phrase. I don't know. Next time your body goes into fight or flight mode over an opinion piece on social media. Don't respond to the post. Go journal about it instead. This may be the hardest invitation. I've ever issued on my podcast. So good luck. If you enjoyed this podcast and want to leave a review, subscribe to the podcast or share it, you have my heart.

[01:06:08] Remember you are enough right now in this moment.

[01:06:13] That's it from me. Now just be your bad self.