In this week’s episode, I’m answering a question from a member of our own Thriving in Motherhood community about how to handle negative attitudes with her child when it comes to certain things about homeschooling. I’m no stranger to negative attitudes in our home (from myself and the kids), but we are very intentional with addressing those attitudes. Here are seven questions we ask when one of our children has a negative attitude: Have they moved their body today? What is the reason for resistan...
Sep 13, 2023•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast A few weeks ago, I did an episode about my morning routine. I got a great follow-up question about how to do this when you have a baby or toddler that wakes up super early. I remember that season well. A friend and I would meet up at 7:45 a.m. with our two toddlers and baby, each of whom woke up too early and went for a run and talked about how our kids wake up too early! But I’ve learned a lot from that season, and here are my best tips for doing a morning routine in the early years to get the ...
Sep 06, 2023•19 min•Ep 281•Transcript available on Metacast For the first time in 10 years, I recently traveled across the country and left all my kids and my husband for six days. It wasn’t as impossible as I had made it out to be in my mind. In fact, everything went great! In this week’s episode, I’m sharing practical things I did to prepare everyone for a smooth week at home. Next time my husband travels, I’ll be using some of these tips to make things easier for myself too.
Aug 30, 2023•20 min•Ep 280•Transcript available on Metacast As we transition from summer to fall, I like to pause and reflect on how the last few months went as a way to close the tabs and move forward with confidence into the next season. It can be easy to get to the end of the season and wish it went differently. But instead of sitting in a place of discouragement or looking at the things that didn’t go well, we can pause and look for the lessons learned to help us be intentional about the little changes we make in our lives that make a big difference ...
Aug 23, 2023•15 min•Ep 279•Transcript available on Metacast After a summer of different activities and routines (or maybe no routines), I get excited about settling into a new rhythm as we transition into the school year and fall. In this week’s episode, I’m sharing the process I’ve used for years to help our family get clarity about what matters to us right now and how to make sure we make time for it in our daily life. I’m really great at thinking of the ideal in every area of life. But the reality is that things are going to change, balls are going to...
Aug 16, 2023•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast For years I’ve gotten up before the kids (or with the kids and let them play near me) while I do my morning routine to get myself in a good place. This is one of the ways I keep my Soul Pillar intact. When I don’t do my morning routine, I find that it doesn’t take too long before I’m irritable, grumpy, and snappy at everyone around me. Now that I’m aware of that, this morning routine is one of the first things I put back in place when we are transitioning from the novelty and trips of summer bac...
Aug 09, 2023•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast I’m so excited to finally be sharing the conversation I had with Dawn Madsen of Dawn the Minimal Mom. By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of minimalism, but in this week's episode, we are talking about how Dawn’s faith has impacted her journey to having less things to manage. We also talk about the legacy her parents left her that had nothing to do with managing stuff. For me, the biggest takeaway is hope that whatever our weaknesses and strengths are as moms, they can have a lasting im...
Aug 02, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast I’ve gotten lots of questions about our Zone system that we use to have the kids help clean up our main living spaces. In this week’s episode, I’m sharing all of the details of what it is, why we’ve set things up this way, what everyone is responsible for, how often we reset each zone, and how long it takes. Zone cleaning is a long-term game plan. It takes time, and it will require a bit of extra effort on your part to set things up. We’ve divided our downstairs into four zones. Each kid had the...
Jul 26, 2023•13 min•Ep 275•Transcript available on Metacast As we are nearing the end of the summer and getting ready for the new school year, I wanted to share some of my all-time favorite books that inspire me in my homeschooling. 10 Books To Get You Excited About Homeschooling: Educating the Wholehearted Child Life Giving Home Home Education For the Children's Sake The Well-Trained Mind Call of the Wild and Free You Are Your Child's First Teacher Awaking Wonder The Brave Learner Teaching From Rest As I read these books, I’m searching for little bits a...
Jul 19, 2023•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast We have been road tripping since we had just one little baby, and now we are on our third year of driving across the county and back as a family of six. In this week’s episode, I’m sharing everything I’ve learned to make our drive smoother to help set you up for success on your next adventure. We are covering everything from our favorite gear, how we pack and organize, car activities for kids, favorite audiobooks, what we prepare for meals and snacks, how we find hotels every night, our procedur...
Jul 12, 2023•21 min•Ep 273•Transcript available on Metacast Do you have dreams and goals that you want to go after but haven’t made much progress yet? This week’s conversation with Gabe Cox ( @gabecox_redhotmindset ) will hopefully inspire you to start taking baby steps forward on your unique journey as we discuss the power of letting your kids see you win. When Gabe Cox was a young mom, she had a mentor share with her that her kids had asked her, “What do you do, mom?” She had nothing to tell them except what she did for her children. Her entire life wa...
Jul 05, 2023•40 min•Ep 272•Transcript available on Metacast I’ve been decluttering my house for years, working through all the layers of things we have. A few weeks ago, I opened a bin of extra bags, backpacks, and soft luggage and figured I could let these things go since it’s been a while since I’ve used them. But then I remembered all the times we DID use them, how useful they were, and all the times in the future that they could come in handy. I put the lid back on the box and decided to deal with it later. As I was mulling over the content of the bo...
Jun 28, 2023•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Have you ever heard of a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset? It’s often come up in conversations I’ve had about parenting and helping our kids understand that “if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again.” In this week’s episode with Kate House of the Live By Design Podcast, she shares how this principle applies to our mindsets in motherhood. Two Fixed Mindsets That You Might Experience As A Mom I’m not worthy I’m not a priority Discovering the root of lack of worthiness comes by asking yours...
Jun 21, 2023•32 min•Ep 270•Transcript available on Metacast Do you have a hard time creating a vision of what you want for your motherhood to look like? Or do you feel united in goals with your spouse? A few weeks ago, Andrew and I brainstormed a list of things we could take a risk on. We defined risk as anything that puts us out of our comfort zone - which conveniently puts us in our learning zone as well. It was a fascinating experience and uncovered a lot of things for us. What you might uncover when you write a risk list: Things that are stressing yo...
Jun 14, 2023•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our family recently had a week of me being out of commission for some medical things that we knew were coming. Andrew and I have been in this situation for good chunks or our marriage, so it felt like a familiar glove we slipped on for a few days. In this survival season, we departed from some of our usual standards of ideals - we watched movies every day, ate food that we don’t normally eat, and let go of a lot of the routines or things the kids are supposed to do in the morning. But you know w...
Jun 07, 2023•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over the last few weeks, I’ve shared principles about creating a summer that is positive for the whole family and how to teach kids about habits . This week, I’m sharing what our priorities are for the summer. Here are our priorities for this summer: Improve writing with a daily journal habit Review math with Research Parent’s Minimalist Math curriculum Practice instruments every day and have a family concert every two weeks Go to the library and read lots of books Keep our home tidy with our da...
May 31, 2023•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast Recently, we talked about ten principles for creating a productive summer. Spoiler alert - a central part of a good summer rests on GOOD HABITS! So this week, I’m sharing how I teach my kids about habits. We have these conversations in five-minute increments after we read scriptures at breakfast over the course of the week. It’s meant to be fun and silly while still teaching them important principles that we apply to their lives. These concepts have changed my life as an adult, and if my kids ca...
May 24, 2023•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast One of our priorities since having kids has NOT been the car. My strategy has been to ignore it for six months and then pull out the shopvac and excavate. With our 70 hour road trip approaching this summer, I’ve been watching a bunch of sprinter van conversion videos (turning a van into a motor home), dreaming about the life of ease we would lead with a kitchen and beds in a vehicle as we drove across America. On one build for a family of five, the mom mentioned that they gave a lot of attention...
May 17, 2023•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast I recently got an email asking about how to create summer rhythms with kids - especially for moms that don’t homeschool their kids, so their kids aren’t used to having rhythms I brought this up in our Soaring Mothers Society meeting that we just had because all of these women have gone through the Made to Soar Program and understand the 3 Pillars of Thriving, are very intentional, and have all sorts of different situations with working out of the home, in the home, homeschool, and have their kid...
May 10, 2023•23 min•Ep 264•Transcript available on Metacast Get our family scripture songs: https://cart.thrivinginmotherhoodpodcast.com/bible-scripture-songs/ As a mom, I knew if I could only get one thing into my children’s minds and hearts, it would be scripture. When my oldest was two years old, I decided we would start making up songs to add to our favorite verses because the scriptures I still had memorized from childhood were put to tunes. But, after a few years, we had created a lot of songs and didn’t have any sense or organization to review the...
May 03, 2023•10 min•Ep 263•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome to the 5-Step Path from Surviving to Thriving for moms! I have been in survival mode so many times over the last ten years of motherhood and began to see a pattern emerge from fighting my way to thriving again and again. This is a framework that I created to help us all see clearly where we are in a hard season and know where to put out time and energy so we can navigate our days confidently. The 5-Step Path From Surviving to Thriving: Survival - circumstances are bigger than you Re-entr...
Apr 26, 2023•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Are you a busy mom struggling with burnout? It can be tough to find time to take a real break when your days are full with the good things of running a home and nurturing your family. That’s why I’m excited to share with you a simple, yet powerful tool that can help you end your day on a positive note and prioritize your well-being. In this episode, I’ll be discussing four questions from the Thriving in Motherhood Journal that will help you end your day from a place of feeling accomplished and e...
Apr 19, 2023•14 min•Ep 261•Transcript available on Metacast In this week’s episode, we sit down with Autumn Kern, a homeschooling mother of three children, to explore the idea of bringing truth, goodness, and beauty into our homes and families. Autumn shares her philosophy behind a classical Charlotte Mason education and how it can help us cultivate these values in ourselves and our children. We also get to hear some of Autumn’s defining moments in her motherhood journey and the lessons she’s learned along the way. Whether you’re a homeschooling mom your...
Apr 12, 2023•43 min•Ep 260•Transcript available on Metacast As a homeschooling mom of pre-K, 1st-grade, and 3rd-grade kids, I’ve tested out a variety of resources and materials over the years. So, if you’re a fellow homeschooling parent looking for inspiration, you’re in the right place! Here’s a list of some of our tried and true homeschooling resources: Rightstart Math All About Reading Story of the World books and activity books Writing with Ease First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind Letter Stories Ambleside Online Kindle In this week’s epi...
Apr 05, 2023•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this week's episode, I'm sharing the story of how I went from waffling between feeling bored and overwhelmed to confidently navigating my days and enjoying motherhood by creating the Thriving in Motherhood Planner. During my first two years of motherhood, I felt completely lost and bored and struggled to make it through each day as I felt guilty for all the things I should be doing but wasn’t. I had also reached the place of desperate determination to figure out who I was and what motherhood ...
Mar 29, 2023•15 min•Ep 258•Transcript available on Metacast This week on the podcast, we are talking about how to design your homeschool room (well, really, any room in the house, but I'm using our homeschool space as the example). Now, this is not going to be how to make it really beautiful - yet - I'm going to talk functional. If you remember, we talked a few weeks ago about the four phases of designing a home that supports you, and I'm in step 3 in our homeschool space. 3 Steps to Design A Functional [Homeschool] Space Decide what you want to do for y...
Mar 22, 2023•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast I love making big goals - and you’ve seen me do some of them here with things like the Soaring Mothers Summit. But this year, I wanted to try something that I read about years ago in Atomic Habits: making 1% Better Changes. Each month of the year, I’m picking one tiny thing to focus on, and so far, the impact has far exceeded my homes. When I’m deciding on what to focus on each month, I start with this question that is found in the quarterly review pages of the Thriving in Motherhood Planner: “W...
Mar 15, 2023•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast For the last few weeks, I had the experience of feeling like I was running in circles without a clear direction - endlessly researching but not sure what to do next. I told myself that I had gotten to the end of the road on my vision. In reality, things weren’t that dire - I just forgot what phase I was in and how to keep myself anchored. There are three phases to creating and living out your vision for the year: Caterpillar: exploring and building systems to support bringing more of what you wa...
Mar 08, 2023•13 min•Ep 255•Transcript available on Metacast I recently listened to a group of mothers share their feelings of overwhelm, and I absolutely identified with their thoughts. The things that they found overwhelming fell into three levels of overwhelm: Getting Things Done Our Homes and Keeping People Alive Our Thoughts When we feel overwhelmed, it can be hard to slow down and identify what is really causing our stress. Over the years, as I’ve peeled back the layer, I’ve realized that there were lots of different skill sets that I needed to deve...
Mar 01, 2023•19 min•Ep 254•Transcript available on Metacast Have you had the experience of committing to a hard goal but found yourself miserable along the way? Arielle shared with me that she had made it through her first semester of grad school as a mom with four young kids, but it was a miserable experience. Instead of seeing it as a failure, I shared the 5-Step Path From Curious To Committed. 5 Step Path From Curious To Committed: Curious - Identify what you would like to try or start (like grad school or a podcast). Consistent - Set a timeframe to t...
Feb 22, 2023•11 min•Ep 253•Transcript available on Metacast 
