837: How to Raise Kids with a Non-Toxic Lifestyle (and Without Fear) With Non-Toxic Dad

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

Katie: Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com, and I am back today with my friend, Warren Phillips, the visionary force of nature behind the account Non-Toxic Dad for a round two focused on how to raise kids in a non-toxic lifestyle and without the fear-based approach. And I absolutely loved this conversation. We got to go deep on the balance between educating our kids and keeping them safe, while still respecting their agency, the importance of addressing our own patterns and how to do that. A lot of free or very inexpensive habits that we can adopt in our family culture to benefit the whole family. We talk about the importance of gardening, of being outdoors, how to model love and forgiveness, how to nurture creative problem solving, and so much more. I really like Warren’s approach and the practical tips he shares in this episode. So let’s jump in now. Warren, welcome back.

Warren: Yeah, I can’t wait. That was so much fun, that last episode.

Katie: If you guys missed it, our first episode, Warren gave so many practical tips and from a positive mindset approach to keeping your family safe without living in fear. And in this episode, I really want to actually hone in and go deep on the mindset side of this because you’re a parent as well. I know it’s also very important to you to not just keep your kids safe, but to give them the tools to make good decisions throughout their whole life and the understanding of how to do that. And I think this is a very nuanced and balanced topic to really kind of tackle because there’s that trade-off between wanting to give them education and make sure they have the ability to make good choices while still respecting their agency and their autonomy and letting them practice making those decisions. Even though I know as a mom, I wish sometimes I could just make all those decisions for them and keep them perfectly safe. That’s not how the parenting curve works.

And I know this is something you put a lot of thought and foresight into with your own kids and that you are a very involved dad. So I know this is a massive topic. We talked about the practicality side a lot in our first episode, but from the mindset side, how do you navigate this with your kids in that balance of giving them the education and tools they need from a not strictly fear-based approach and also making sure you’re respecting their agency and their ability to make decisions within their capacity at whatever age?

Warren: Yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s the pink elephant in the room or whatever you want to label it. It’s the most important thing, right? Because we don’t want to raise children that just are obedient to what we say and we’re forcing them because it’s not creating this autonomous leader, this child that’s going to go out there and have impact and just feel safe, feel empowered. Like a lot of things that were taken away from me.

So, you know, when we were growing up, it was quite the opposite. So this has been the biggest challenge because I have these patterns of snap, of control. And it’s so hard. And luckily, my wife is absolutely amazing. You know, Rebecca, she’s a badass. And she reminds me, we both have different strengths. So we do appreciate each other so much and the strengths that we have. But hers, she’s always reminding me, she was raised a little differently than I was.

And so, the key to parenting, right? And especially with a non-toxic lifestyle is getting them, and this is leadership 101 anyway, you want others to make the decisions for themselves, then they own it. And then it’s exciting for them. So when I start doing the research on shoes, the kids were involved, right? At some point, I was super frustrated because I want the toxic ones. And I’m like, these are pretty. And I’m like, oh, dear Lord, it doesn’t matter if it’s pretty, you know, but they’re like, they want it to be pretty. But after that, they have limited time on their iPads. But when they have an hour between classes in school, because we homeschool, they’re able to look for things and we allow them. And Tula wound up finding the shoes that I bought her. And she loves those shoes. And now her shoes are famous because I got on the Instagram video.

And so, you know, so getting them to make the decision, start educating them. It’s called incremental persuasion, and just dropping hints. If you do use devices, dropping videos. I have a lot of moms, the kids follow me on Instagram and they’re telling their mom, I spoke at an event, the lady didn’t know me, but the kid did and was like, oh, my gosh, that’s Non-Toxic Dad. So children, I mean, that brings tears to my eyes. The 23-year-old found me at Home Depot. So it’s that generation is what we really want to educate.

So the importance of this is critical to be able to gently integrate some of these things into their life, and you can’t force it upon them. You have to make it their idea. And so you have to drop seeds and we have to be patient instead of, okay, you’re going to do this now. Right. Or you’re grounded. You’re done. You know, so you want to educate your kids because they are brilliant and they remember everything. And they’re geniuses and they’re creative and they don’t need top down to like all the things that I still do as a parent. Right. I know it’s wrong, but I still do it. So you got to have grace for yourself. Forgive yourself quickly. Learn quickly. Ask for forgiveness from your kids and move on. And that’s powerful. Right.

Because we’re not going to like if you look at it, most of us have, this generational child stuff is not, it’s from a bunch of white male doctors that weren’t raising families. We’ve gotten rid of the hunter-gatherer family stuff, read Hunt, Gather, Parent. That’s probably the best bible on ancient parenting and using a tribe and how that all got, you know, broken up. And there’s no real science behind a lot of the parenting methods that are being touted today, right? But this consciousness, Katie, is coming back, this ability to respect the child as a soul, as an individual, and watching them. It’s so much fun to see them get it. It’s so much fun to see them making good choices on their own.

It’s way more rewarding than getting obedience, right? You’re getting collaboration. You’re not just getting, you know, obedience. I mean, there’s different words for it, but you’re not just getting compliance. You want collaboration. You want your kids bringing stuff to you, you know? And then it becomes fun in the home, right? Everybody’s learning and growing. Everybody has an opinion, and we’re able to do that. And if you can’t, if you don’t move in anger, even though I still do at times, my daughter’s like, I want to go to, where’s that fast food restaurant? Because it’s fast food to me, not Chick-fil-A, because we would never go there. Sorry if you do, but we would never go there, not even for a special treat. What’s the Mexican-based one that’s…

Katie: Oh, Chipotle?

Warren: Chipotle. And she like tries to twist that knife because you say Chipotle in my house, that makes my my blood boil. But she purposely does it because she wants my attention and she gets it. You know, so I just got to ignore that smile and say, oh, honey, you know, maybe on a special treat we can do Chipotle. I’m glad you love it so much. Right.

But that balance between getting compliance, making them in a non-toxic lifestyle. If you’re one of those moms, I’m one of those dads. My wife isn’t so much that way. She’s more balanced. But that’s the answer. You need to have this balance approach. And they can memorize, they can learn. Even as young as, you know, my daughter is three years old and she’s gathering outside, can I eat the peapods, daddy? Like learning what’s toxic and what’s not, right? So she understands the flowers that can make her sick and the ones that she can eat. Here’s the foods that are healthy for you. Here’s the ones that are not. Here’s the ones we wash. You know, so make sure you’re in a participation is key. Kids are going to be, you know, very high energy, especially when they’re younger, to calm them down, give them something to do. If you’re baking and you’re cooking, teach them about, hey, we’re using organic potatoes and this is why. They’ll remember everything that you say to them, get them cutting up potatoes, and they’re going to be cutting potatoes for a half hour while you just cook breakfast, right? So there’s lots of ways.

So always, what I always say is like, in the middle of it, I’m like, overwhelmed. I’m like, oh, my gosh, I have all this to do. I have to get out the door, you know, the kids are going to tennis, you know, one’s going to parkour, we limit to two things. So we’re not too busy. We got them out of track. You know, I love track, you know, me, I was an all-American javelin thrower. So I’m sad, but they didn’t like track. But I always think let’s focus on the solution and not on the problem in our home, right? So what is the solution? Sometimes I have to do it to myself, what solution, just get them to participate. And then all the whining, all the complaining goes away, because kids, especially young, littles, they just want to help. They just want to be a part. And all kids want to contribute. Me, I’m the controller dad, I do everything. Let me do it for you. Let me let me let me, I can do it faster. That’s my pattern. But really, that’s not what you want, right? Kids want to participate, and they want to contribute. That gives them a self-confidence that allows them to have a voice. Right. And I’m so thankful for my wife and the books she makes me read that keeps that consciousness coming. So, Katie, you got a big family. I want to hear from you now because I want to learn a little bit on this podcast as well.

Katie: Oh, well, so much echo everything you just said. I think you brought up so many important points. And I love, I think it’s Amy McCready who said, you know, kids have these core desires for belonging and significance. And when they can actually contribute in a meaningful way, they get to feel that significance. And hopefully in our spending time with them, they also feel a belonging in our family culture. But I know from a parenting side, those things often require more patience than us just doing it for them. So I feel you on that. That’s my pattern that I’ve been working to break as well.

But my first principle of parenting that some listeners probably have heard me say before is that each of my kids is already from the moment I get them their own infinite autonomous being. They are not some person who will be autonomous and infinite that’s loading or in progress. They already are. And I’m by no means perfect at it. But when I’m able to keep that at the forefront of my mind and my interactions with them, I find they respond so well.

And like you touched on, I have so much hope for seeing this future generation, this upcoming generation, and how capable they are and how educated they are. Even my kids are still in the track world. And so I coach high school track and even outside of my own kids, seeing these high schoolers making really good decisions with what they’re eating and getting enough sleep and being aware of what’s going in their bodies. It’s so, I have so much hope when I see that because they, like you said, they they’re paying attention to this stuff and they’re researching it and they’re bringing it to their parents, which I love to see.

And I love that, it seems like your approach is similar to mine in that, rather than the fear-based side or the focusing on what’s bad and avoiding it, is building that good into our family culture. I think things stick so much better when it becomes part of our culture, which means also we have to model it even more than we have to speak it. Like, yes, they pay attention to what we say, but there’s so many quotes around that, you know, kids can do a great job of ignoring what you say, but they’ll become exactly who you are kind of thing.

And so, to the degree that we can model that, not just in the actions, but in the mindset around the actions, I think that carries so much weight, even if those are, like you said, I love that analogy, even if those are just seeds for now, we don’t plant something in our garden and then go back 10 minutes later and expect it to have grown. We plant it and we expect that it’s going to take time to fully grow, and we have patience and we water it and we nourish it and we protect it, but we don’t control it and we don’t try to force that growth. We let it happen naturally. And I think that applies so much to the parenting world as well.

I think also when we talk about the family culture side, the great part here is, you know, we’ve got to go deep on some of the easy toxins to avoid in our first episode, but there’s also a lot of free or really inexpensive things that we can build into our family culture that can make a big difference for our own health and for our kids’ health, especially. And so in our family, a couple of examples would be things like morning sunlight, which I’ve modeled for years. And now my kids do without me reminding them, encouraging them, or suggesting it. They just go outside first thing in the morning because they know now that they have more energy when they do that or the amount of time we spend outside. Like so much, can be improved by simply spending more time outside in the sunshine, which is free. Exactly. Like, you know, we all have these fancy red lights, but that same spectrum of light is available at every sunrise and every sunset. And if we just go see more sunrises and sunsets, we get that exposure. So I’d love to hear a little bit about your family culture and any of those habits that you guys build in as a family that your kids love or that have become part of your culture.

Warren: Well, the barefoot thing is key because I’m getting more and more barefoot as I age. And I love it. I’ve got nice big calluses on my feet now and I can go about just anywhere. I got a friend of mine who hikes barefoot, been doing it for like eight years. So I’m going to start hiking barefoot. And so that’s part of our culture. Our kids go outside and we garden. I think a garden is a great way to expose your children to microbes, soil organisms, fungus, things that they need. So gardening, and if that’s too much work, I just did a video. I think I’ll release it. We’ll see. But just get those terracotta pots, buy organic soil, buy some Dr. Earth’s that has some of the mycorrhizae fungi in there because that’s really the important part when it comes to healthy food. A different episode, regenerative farming, look it up, the importance of it. It’s not just nutrients. It’s the bugs, nematodes, the fungus, all that that release, make bioavailable minerals for the plants. And that’s what makes the plants healthy and give us the minerals. So a beautiful tomato can be non-nutritious or one that’s from a regenerative farm that had bioavailable minerals to come up into that plant. And that’s the microorganisms inside the soil, like the microorganisms inside of our body is what make us healthy. It’s the genetic switches that they can, we’re more bacteria than we are cells, we’re even more virus.

So all of that’s important. So that’s, that’s a big one for me. I think gardening really checks a lot of the boxes. I get my kids outside. My daughter was unruly last night. Come, you’re going to go water. She just pee-peed on the potty. I wish I could have done the, you know, baby breaking potty change at six months, but our family then, you know, just like some of yours, right? We didn’t, weren’t able to do that. Right. Didn’t have the bandwidth, but so her reward for going pee was, hey, you can get to go water the garden with Daddy. So I’m just get the kid outside she’s watering, getting ions, grounding, you know eating peapods, you know, just getting them outside, which is going to help her sleep, going to give her deeper sleep, which is going to give us more rest. So that’s a big thing that we do. We, we garden as a family. We do a lot of things outdoors.

Some of the other culture is what we try to do is I try to model love and forgiveness, especially, you know these, these years, I just, my heart has softened and I’m like, man, you know, I’ve been a, you know, a quote unquote Christian a long time. And then I go to church and I see some things and I, and I see some patterns and I, you know, it’s just, yeah, I want to go in, you know, I want to live this stuff to its full capacity. Can my heart be sensitive enough? Can I understand and be nonjudgmental enough? And so I don’t want to say the example, let’s just say it was a neighbor that was not being very nice and modeling that forgiveness instead of talking about all the negatives about your neighbors, about other people really pushing that down, telling the facts, right? There’s still facts, but really forgiving and saying, hey, watch, you know, we’re going to forgive this person. Even though they’re still ignoring us, I can see that they hurt your feelings and they hurt Mummy’s and Daddy’s, but let’s love them. Let’s see if love truly can win. See if the bumper sticker’s true, right? See if, you know, if God’s love can flow through us, honey, and see if we can soften the heart of somebody that had a hardened heart. I bet you she had a hard time. I bet you her daddy yelled at her a lot, right? And told her what to do. Like Daddy does sometimes, right? And that doesn’t feel good, does it? No, it doesn’t feel good, right?

So modeling love, modeling forgiveness, and having peace in your home is something Rebecca is really big about. And I didn’t notice it first 13 years of marriage, I’m a whirlwind. You’ve seen some of my spicier side even come out on this podcast, but I’m super high energy, super spicy. I go for it when I’m passionate about something. And but that energy in a home is destructive, right? You want peace in your home. And Rebecca’s like, out, get up, finish your call outside. We want peace in our home. We want to be able to feel and not have this, you know, in our home. So if you can, that is an emotional toxin, right? Right. Unforgiveness is an emotional toxin. Not having peace in your home. You’re going to have conflict, right? But a lot of the things that we’re implementing now is no yelling, just whispering. If you’re yelling at a kid, like across the room, and they’re not paying attention, they’re locked in, man. They’re in imagination mode. And you just, I just, you know, all that. I walk over gently, put my hand on her shoulder. Did you hear, Arayla, that it’s that Mommy asked you to do the dishes instead of the old one? Instead of the old Warren, which was, what the, you know, Arayla, get the, you know, you know.

And but that has been massive. It just creates more peace in the home. You don’t have to yell. A whisper is powerful. Right. And there’s a lot of great Instagrams of educators that are talking about that. I think, you know, letting your kids sleep in. Right. Not doing too many activities, making sure we don’t have to get our kids up early to get on a bus. Right. Because we homeschool. And I think homeschooling, which is skyrocketing, you know, out there. Right. It’s because it’s creating more geniuses. You know, the Montessori method. A lot of the wealthiest people in the world didn’t go to private schools. They were Montessori, you know, trained because it doesn’t you don’t lose the creative problem-solving. And that’s what you want to let your kids do is be creative problem solvers. Right.

If you tell them what to do, they lose their creativity if you put them in a box and in school. And that’s why I love like letting them go outside, letting them, you know, solve problems on their own, whether it be doing artwork and what glue to use and what not to use and making mistakes and cooking in the home. And all of that just creates this solutions based. And it just, our brains are absolutely brilliant. It’s, they’re so suppressed. The school system so suppresses our children. And there’s great schools out there. I’m not hammering that. But a lot of the things that are in our culture really suppress the unique abilities of our child. And it breaks my heart that I was so suppressed, that I was put on the short bus, that all these things. But I’m a creative genius. So are you, Katie. And I go back to that little kid that was told to do it this way. And I can feel that pain. I can feel that squandering of my soul and my spirit. And I still, because it happened to me, I do it to my kids still to this day.

So the things that I’m speaking to you are only the things that I continue to remind myself. That’s why I need to keep listening to podcasts, doing podcasts. And being a part of a community that holds me accountable. We have moms groups and things that we’re involved in just to be like, hey, I screwed up. What do you do? What are the strategies that you use? But unlocking that genius, it’s so fun to watch. And I’ve seen it in parents that. Maybe they were raised right and they’re raising their children the same way. I mean, they’re memorizing books like from front to end. And they’re not, you know, they’re just normal kids. They didn’t have some special wiring. I mean, they’re bright, but they’re memorizing books because they were never told that they couldn’t. Right.

So the capacity of our children to learn, to impact, to, you know, we’re big on problem solving. We’re big on focus on the solution, not the problem. We’re big on showing kindness and love and understanding to be able to someone’s doing things different than we are conflict resolution. These are the skills that I think that we’re going to need in the world to come. Right. And I think our hearts need to get bigger, creating that sensitive part and not slamming it. And again, you know, that’s me. You know, I mean, those are some of my greatest pains of raising my children is just squandering their hearts at times. And, you know, and I just, you know, I’ve, I’ve cried about it, you know, more times than I can even count. You know, anytime I’m meditating and praying that comes up and I just, I just cry out the pain because I’ve done those things. You’ve done those things.

Do some breathwork, mom. Like, let’s wrap up with this. Moms, get into prayer, get into meditation, forgive yourself. You know, this is probably the biggest thing that will make you a better mom. And then you can model it to your children. So take care. Like, I don’t want to say self-care. Because self-care has the wrong thing, but get spiritually grounded, get connected to God. Know that you’re loved, right?

It’s so simple, but it’s the most empowering thing that you’ll ever experience. Knowing that you’re loved, knowing that you’re not judged, knowing that, you know, there’s not a, you’re not being whipped and punished and you need to suffer and have more pain in order to learn. You have pain and mistakes for your greatest teacher, but God wants you to have a good life. You know, he wants you to, you know, be happy. So choose happy things, right? For your life. Don’t always sacrifice. Choose some good. Do some good things. And a lot of these practices that are out there and Katie has podcasts upon podcasts of experts, find something that works for you, whether it’s breathwork, whether it’s meta, breathwork is great for me because my mind gets busy, but I start doing breathwork and man, I open up and that, you know, hormonal change happens from breathwork and the buzz happens and the energy releases. And you’re like, holy cow, like I can’t be in my head, but I have to push through in the breathwork to get there. Cause there’s like, my body’s fighting.

Meditating, you know, prayer also gets me there. Listening to music that you love, just getting free from all the stuff, get it off you so that you can be present for your children and model that. I think moms, if you take care of you, it’s the good flows down. Right. I know that for me, that my parenting skills are a reflection of the learnings that I’ve got, you know, and this podcast is a great place to do it because Katie, you know, you I’m not going to lie. You’re a brilliant woman, a brilliant mom. And you’ve been at this a long time and your heart’s right. So you’re in a safe place here, guys.

Katie: Well, thank you. That’s a tremendous compliment. And I received that with gratitude. And I love so many things you just said. I think that remembering that you are loved and that you are love, like at our core, that is, we are here to love and be loved. And keeping that barometer of peace in the house or my words for this year are grace, ease, and joy. And I’m trying to evaluate as we choose things and activities, like, can this bring more grace, ease, and joy? And also that mindset piece you touched on. I have this belief that really, like, we could be eating the most on paper, because I’ve done this spreadsheet, perfect, quote unquote, diet in the world and taking all the supplements. And if we’re still, if our mindset and our spirit is in a place of fear or guilt or shame, those things are not going to benefit our body as much as they could. And so I love that you speak to that piece as well.

I know we could have so many conversations on this topic and it still would never be enough. And I know I already want to do more podcasts with you in the future if you’re willing, especially we didn’t even get to delve into things that can age us more quickly. I would love to do a whole episode on that. But for now I would love if we could wrap up with anything that you would put that we haven’t already touched on in kind of your own 80, 20 that you do with your family of things you feel that are very important in that sort of 20% category that gives 80% of results or any last thoughts. I know, in our last episode, we touched briefly on zeolite, which I think is a great tool that can be in that category for helping address some of the physical exposures that we have. And I love that this conversation has been in the more mindset and spiritual realm, but anything you want to make sure we leave on this list before we wrap up.

Warren: Yeah, you know, Katie, I, you know, I think we hit on the big one with moms and dads, you know, really taking care of themselves first and finding, you know, that support that they need, finding a community. We kind of talked about that earlier. I know that you’re launching a community, like a biohacking almost community locally. You know, I mean, if you don’t live with family, that’s that this has been hard for us. We don’t have families. So we got to, got to create family, kind of open up to friendships and, and people that can come into your life and love you and be loved.

Getting in relationships that don’t take you down. Right. That, that you know, that if you continue to hang out with this person too much and your kids hang out with this person too much, they’re going to start falling into some of the habits and behaviors you don’t want. Don’t feel guilty about limiting that. And I know that we have had to do that over the years that try to find families that are, that are doing it and doing it better than you, if you will, not that any of us do anything better, but have some, have some learnings that you don’t have and start associating with families like that they’re doing parenting in a gentle and kind way. And so you can learn for them.

We need community. We need each other. I need you guys, you know, hopefully some of the information Katie and I share, that we need you, we need your learnings. We need the things that you’re doing well. And that’s why I need to, you know, share the podcast, but more importantly, share your thoughts. And I noticed that once I opened up to trying to find, you know, better friends that challenge me, you know, some amazing people have come into my life that are, that are challenging me to be better, to be more heart centered, to have a big impact on this world.

And I think that one of the things that that’s been great for me, personally, and even great for Rebecca is realizing the capacity that we do have and stop telling yourself you can’t do something or I’m too tired. And like all those things that just comes down to the mindset is that you as an individual can heal, right? If you have a health challenge, you can and will heal. You will get more energy, right? And knowing that you will, even when you’re in the struggle and being around people that, you know, just say, I don’t worry about that. Follow, here’s the big one. Here’s the one that I want to leave with this, follow that gut instinct as a mom. It is so powerful. Don’t listen to the doctors. Don’t listen to your friends. Listen to God, divine, the universe, what it’s telling you when something’s toxic, when a behavior that you’re doing is wrong, right? And you know you need to change, but you don’t know how to change. Like pay it, pay attention to those, those little, that’s still called, that’s still quiet voice. Sometimes it’s loud. Sometimes it’s screaming and it’s background noise, but this is where when you settle yourself and start listening to that, listening to that intuition that’s within you, that fifth dimensional thing, it is one of the most powerful tools that you can have.

And I know for me personally, when I step into that, that place of intuition, my parenting is better. My Non-Toxic Dad is better. My health is better. And my life just gets better because I’m leading with my heart. I’m leading with my intuition. And I’m correcting myself and forgiving myself quickly and moving into a better place in my life. And it’s so fun to grow, right? And I’ve been at the lowest of lows, guys. Lowest of lows. Unkind, sick, not able to sleep. Chronic pain, you name it, I’ve been through it. And it was only thing that got me through was hope and other people saying, you’re going to be okay, you’re going to get healthy. It’s those words, those languages, they’re, they’re, they’re powerful, right? Negativity is like witchcraft, you know, positivity is God, right? It’s God energy and having people speak life into you and getting around people that speak life and speaking life into yourself, man, it just, it is like, it’s the good magic, right? And it’s so, it’s so important. And so just give yourself, you know, a big hug, a pat on the back. You’re doing a great job. You’re kicking ass as a mom. You’re, and you’re going to continue to do better and better. And we all are just link arms and we can do this together guys. Great job.

Katie: I love it. I think that’s a perfect place to wrap up for today. And like I said, I hope that you’ll agree to more episodes in the future because there’s so much we didn’t even get time to go into, but for today and for this episode, Warren, thank you so much. I am deeply grateful for all that you’re doing in the world, for the amazing dad that you are, for the change that you’re working to create and for your time and all that you’ve shared today. So thank you so much.

Warren: Katie, I’m deeply honored to be a part of your community and to share with these amazing moms that have been with you for so long. So thank you so much. And thank you, everyone, for listening.

Katie: As Warren said, thank you for listening and sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.

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