Episode 51: No Need to Explain with Amber Wilfahrt

DJ Stutz  0:13  
Just letting you know, the following Podcast is a production of Little Hearts Academy, USA. You're listening to Episode 51 of Imperfect Heroes, Insights Into Parenting, the perfect podcast for imperfect parents looking to find joy in their experience of raising children in an imperfect world. I'm your host, DJ Stutz. And Amber Wilfahrt is one of the people I follow on Instagram. Her post never failed to bring a smile to my face, along with something to think about. She is a mom to three girls, a wife and an entrepreneur for 13 years. And it's her passion to help moms put themselves first without the mom guilt by forming habits in their everyday routines that are going to help them make things easier. Amber lives on faith, gratitude, sunshine, and coffee. And she is full of life and positivity. While understanding that life with kids is difficult and amazing. And like all imperfect heroes, we need to give ourselves a little grace and every chance to succeed. There's so much to learn. So let's get started.

Have you heard the term laughter is the best medicine. Raising kids is very stressful. But how many of those moments will go on to be great stories, Amber gets it. And at 35, she had a game changer with her career and we are now the beneficiaries. In this episode, Amber and I talk about the reality of raising kids messing up sometimes giving yourself some grace, and then making a plan that will give you a little relief, listening and see what I mean. I am here and I generally will call people like imperfect heroes. But Amber, I think you're just a hero. i

Amber Wilfahrt  2:26  
I'll be imperfect, I'll admit that.

DJ Stutz  2:31  
When you make people feel so okay with their imperfections. That's one of the things you've done for me. And so the fact that you would agree to be on my podcast is just like a real feather in my cap. You have enough stuff up there. I see you every day. I mean, it's like we're friends. I'm excited to be here. So everyone who's listening, please follow her on Instagram. It'll make you smile, it'll bring that little moment of joy into your day.

Amber Wilfahrt  3:09  
Yeah, that's what I want. You know, that's what I want for people for moms is to be okay with the fact that they lose their crap once in a while. And we apologize, right? Like we are not we are imperfect. Or that the art on your walls is I mean, it's good art. Like that's those are my walls, Kid art. And just to make moms feel okay with that. We don't have to follow what society tells us to do.

DJ Stutz  3:36  
Please don't write, rather screwed up personally.

Amber Wilfahrt  3:46  
I mean, the message that we get some society is as moms, we're supposed to have it all together. We're supposed to be a perfect mom, but also have a successful business or a successful career, where you have to have the clean house and a great marriage and eat clean. And I mean, we could go on and on, right? And that's just full like that is not realistic, attainable, it's not attainable, especially if we want to have our mental health check. I mean, like you might get to check one of those boxes. You know, and your mental health is the most important thing as a mom because if you're not feeling great, mentally, you're not going to be a present mom and a great wife and just ready to take on life. So forget all those other things that society tells you to do and do the best you can give yourself a lot of grace and, and laugh a lot.

DJ Stutz  4:36  
Yeah. And I think it's the laughter that really gets us through life.

Amber Wilfahrt  4:42  
Yeah, I mean, crying crying is good. I'm a crier, and I know some people are not just last night I was crying. I mean, we are in this struggle with my seven year old with sensory sensitivities. She's out We've had it a little bit, but the last four weeks, it has just spiked to out of control. And so last night, there was a 45 minute battle for her to change her underwear. So you know what? I ended up in tears as well. But today we laugh about it. Yeah, we laugh about this, like saga of how many underwear can she go through in a day or you've got to laugh because otherwise you just feel like, you can't persevere?

DJ Stutz  5:26  
Yeah. And then when you have in those moments to I mean, realize it's okay to blow up, realize it's okay to melt down. And then start asking yourself the questions. So like with your daughter, what's changed? You start going through all of those things, but you have to give yourself a little grace.

Amber Wilfahrt  5:49  
Yeah, a lot of grace. I would say grace upon grace upon grace is like the story of motherhood.

DJ Stutz  5:55  
Yeah. It's funny, you mentioned food. Oh, gosh, it's been. It was back in January, I had this really amazing nutritionist that was on and she specializes in eating disorders in children. And she didn't have kids of her own. But she married a guy with two kids. And they're like her own. She loves them to death. And they were five and seven, and had five things that they would eat. And that's it. Seriously, is it? And so she had to learn through life. She's like, Oh, I was feeling this stuff. I was laying on parents. And now she's like, if your kids only have five things that they're willing to eat, make sure one of those five things on the table every meal.

Amber Wilfahrt  6:42  
Yeah, yeah. And not to stress over the rest of it. Like you just you introduce them to new foods and, like my oldest is incredibly picky. And we always like you said, we always just make sure there's something on the table that she'll eat. She doesn't like pasta. So if we have pasta, we make sure we have salad and bread and fruit. Yeah, those are things she'll eat but she probably won't touch her pasta. She'll take her one noodle and eat it but he learned as you go to you know, like when she was a toddler, we were the classic. Hey, try buy it. And if you have like it will make you a peanut butter and jelly. Well, now she like doesn't eat anything. And maybe that's our fault. But you know, with kids two and three were like, forget that we're making one meal. And if you don't like it too freakin bad. That's what you're getting. You know, you live and learn and give yourself grace, you move on and just do the best you can.

DJ Stutz  7:37  
Yeah, well, no, I had with the four that I had going up at a time. We had the booths that came later. But I had one that wouldn't eat red meat, one that would need pork. And another one that wouldn't eat chicken. And so what do you do?

Amber Wilfahrt  7:55  
Now? It makes it pretty complicated.

Unknown Speaker  7:58  
So I made January eat it or don't I don't care. That's right. Yeah.

DJ Stutz  8:05  
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if they wanted to go make something don't make a mess. But yeah, yeah. But there we were. So anyway, so talk to me a little bit about what you have going on. Yeah. Your family?

Amber Wilfahrt  8:20  
For sure. Um, Minnesota born and raised. I don't know why, because it is way too cold here. As everybody knows, his winters gone on way too long. But normally, we we love it here. I've got three girls, they are freshly 11, nine and a half and freshly seven. So they are in fifth, I think Fifth Third in first grade this spring. And so I've got a middle schooler next year, and that scares me to death. But again, we just wait, just do it. That's what we do. As moms, we just persevere. We just keep on doing it no matter how afraid we are. And my husband and I have been married for 12 and a half years actually, our middle daughter was born on our third anniversary. So it was a great anniversary present. But we lost her anniversary for 18 years because we celebrate her. But it's all good. And I have been staying home with the girls. I've been at work at home mom, since my oldest was just a few months old. I was in direct sales for 12 years. And the last few years that I was in direct sales. I was a top 1% performer in the company. And then at the end of 2020. My company did not survive the pandemic. So they closed the doors. And so that was a huge change. For me. I worked that I guess pretty full time. And so I had to figure out at 33 to 33 what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I knew I thought I was going to be in direct sales forever. But you know, it was one of those things that I look back now and I am just beyond grateful that it happened. I still Oh grief, that community because I had the best people in my life and they're still in my life, but just in a different realm. But I look back and I see how hard I was hustling as a mom. And I didn't want that anymore. And so we're very blessed that my husband was like, we're fine. I'm paying the bills with my job and you figure out what you want to do. I started my own podcast at the beginning of 2020. Man right before the pandemic started. So I've been podcasting for a couple of years, and really focused on direct sales, but also moms. I really shifted this last summer into coaching women who coaching moms into developing habits to take care of themselves or focus on their marriage or their faith or whatever, my program has different pillars to it. And I started writing a devotional. At the end of my company, I was just praying to God, like, what am I going to do? What do you want with my life? And I heard the word author. And I was kind of one of those like, you look over your shoulder like me, are you talking to me? I never thought about writing before. And so I am currently writing a devotional for mompreneurs. And I'm, it is a slow butcher project. But that has been a fun project that I'm working on as well. And then DJ, like you said, like, just speaking life into moms and really using Instagram as my main platform. But I also have Facebook and my podcast, but I love Instagram, it is so fun. And just to make moms laugh at the crazy that comes with motherhood, to talk about the things that not everybody talks about. You know, I think I think social media is turning a little bit more to showing the real side of life, the struggles that we all go through, whether it's motherhood or not, but so much of social media as well as here's my picture perfect life. And motherhood is a beautiful blessing. And it is the hardest thing that you will ever do. i You feel so alone in the struggles that you go through. Even the stuff with my kiddo now going through sensory stuff, speaking out about it has connected me with other parents who have been struggling with that with their kids and, and maybe have been for a while and are gonna go giving me help. You know, like, how do I do this? And so it's just been an absolutely beautiful thing to be able to speak, speak, laugh, cry about the struggles of motherhood and to help other moms just not feel alone in this journey. Yeah, so that's me. Well,

DJ Stutz  12:34  
that's really cool you. Yeah. So I really love the idea of getting ourselves into habits. But I think, for me anyway, when I was with my kids, there's a balance between having habits that we do things and being in a rut that I do this every day, every day or whatever. So I was the mom that had the list. And on Mondays, I cleaned the bathrooms and on Tuesdays, it was changing sheets, then on Wednesdays, you know, I had different jobs for every day that week, I knew what I was going to do. I did the same thing with my dinners, I would plan two weeks out. And because I really don't like making decisions, so for me, when I could look on something. That's what I'm doing today. You know, that was

Amber Wilfahrt  13:36  
how decision fatigue is real.

DJ Stutz  13:39  
It is. Yeah. I mean, my husband even now. Okay, I'm old. But we just had a couple weeks ago, our 44th wedding anniversary. Congratulation. Thank you. Yeah, march 30. Why? I was a child. I'll tell you that. Yeah, I met him actually, when I was 17. So it's awesome. We've just kind of grown up together, you know? Yeah, that's beautiful. Even now we'll get in the car. We usually eat out on Saturday. And he'll say, where do you want to go? And I'm like, I got in the car. Wherever you drive. He knows what I really don't like. Take me to any Chinese or Japanese. Yeah, like that. No seafood. But I'm just like, I'm here.

Amber Wilfahrt  14:28  
Yeah.

DJ Stutz  14:29  
What do you want this, this or this? They all like, I can't make another decision.

Amber Wilfahrt  14:37  
For sure. I think that's where habits can really just come into play to is we do feel like we're making decisions all day long of like, what to make the kids for breakfast, and what time do they need to wake up and who's going to wear what outfit and then we got to get out the door on time. And it's just like all day long. That by the time dinner comes around, even if we've meal planned. I don't want to make a decision. Is this what we're having tonight? I don't know. And so No having habits in place like having just groceries available. So what I do with my meal planning is at the beginning of every week, every Sunday, I just look at our calendar and figure out okay, who can cook one night? Because my husband is the cook in the family. But if you've got, yeah, if he's got like a night meeting or something, or if like the kids have activities, and we need like a crock pot meal, like, anyway, having those things just planned out tentatively, so I can have the ingredients so that we at least have a backup plan. Because then there's no decision fatigue, right? There's no worrying about like, what are we going to have like tonight what our backup meal was tacos, because neither of us felt like cooking. That's our backup meal. And that's what we had. But then you're not like, you know, just like having chips for dinner or something. And we do have nights still are like, here, do this, whatever you want. Get leftovers, get a peanut butter and honey, I don't even yep, yep, we all have those nights. But having those habits in place of whether it's a meal planning, or might be like moving your body, already having a plan in place for the day. For the week, whatever that looks like for you can just make you feel like, okay, I don't have to make a decision of what I'm going to do today, it's already planned for me. And that might be like Wednesdays, I go for a walk with a girlfriend every single Wednesday. Unless it's negative degrees. Even though we did that once this winter, we went for a walk as negative eight degrees. And we were like we are known Artemisia in our face was when burned, frozen bloggers, it was not a pretty picture. But anyway, having those habits in place, but also, I think as moms we hold ourselves to a really high standard sometimes in so it's all or nothing. Right now one of my clients that I'm working with, is working on healthy eating. And we started with like, literally one snack a day, like one snack a day, you're gonna have a good healthy snack. And then it was okay, we're gonna build on that. And then it was two snacks. And then she wanted to incorporate water. And now she's at the point where she's starting to meal plan, which is where she usually falls off. But she's working her way up from like, one day to two days, two days to three days and just taking it as baby steps, you know? Because otherwise, we fail. You know, if we go all or nothing, and then we fail. We go nothing. So starting small is just really key for us as moms busy moms.

DJ Stutz  17:26  
Right? And I think yeah, we do that. If we make one little mistake, we're so hard on ourselves. Oh, it's all over. It's done. Yeah, sometimes we do that even with our kids and with our own parenting. So we have a child that has 10 meltdowns a day. It happens and, and it's consistent. And so we put some things into place to try and understand them better, and to read them better, and to set them up for success. And I had one mom that I was working with. And she said it's not working. It's just not working. He just has all these meltdowns all the time. And so I said, Well, have you been tracking them? Because we talked about tracking. And she's like, Oh, I'm just too busy. Let's just take some time, I sent her a little form, just to check off kind of thing. And she recognized after a week of tracking that her son had gone from about 10 meltdowns a day to seven.

Unknown Speaker  18:28  
That's a big deal. Yes, yeah. But he would

DJ Stutz  18:33  
have a meltdown. And she'd be almost be like, here we go again. Yeah, yeah. And then when you have that attitude, they pick up on it. And they're like, Oh, I know what to do with this. This is familiar. You know?

Amber Wilfahrt  18:46  
Yeah, for sure. And I think we do that in a lot of ways. You know, like, I love donuts. So like, just because I eat a donut for breakfast, doesn't mean the rest of my day has to be crap, you know, or had a rough morning with the kids. That doesn't mean that the whole day has to go down the two, you know, it is all about that grace that we you know, we talked about earlier, it's just coming back to giving yourself that grace to change your mood. And it's not easy. Like the kids, they can go from boom, to boom to boom, like just their moods back and forth. And you're like, you were just screaming at me five minutes ago. Why do you want to snuggle? I do not, you know, I do not want to know your but just taking those moments of self care doing those small things of self care for us. I've been preaching that a lot on my Instagram lately. I can give it the link but I have a self care challenge in my email list, and that you can grab any time but every day for seven days, you get an email for me and it's small tasks and you don't have to add to your to do list that just kind of boosts your mood. Like for example, wearing a favorite shirt or shaving your legs like those little things that you don't have to add on to your To Do lists, because so many moms think self care is about little bathroom massage or an hour workout. And they can be, but it doesn't have to be. And so just doing the small things throughout the day like here in Minnesota idea with seasonal depression. So for me those small things are a really big deal, especially this winter with it being so long. This week, we have highs in the 30s. And we don't really get to see the sun for like the next five days. And so I'm really having to focus on like my reel today. I recorded it on purpose so that I could dance and be silly, because I knew it would change my mood. I knew that was one thing that I needed to because I didn't want to have a repeat day of yesterday. So those small things of like having a dance party in the living room and or turning on your favorite music and listening to it like jamman, whatever. They make a big difference in the long run.

DJ Stutz  20:48  
They absolutely do. I actually grew up in Los Angeles. And my dad was a professor at UCLA. So the people who went to church with us, we had a ton of studio people, dancers, set designers, costume designers, and one of the ladies that went to our church at a year too young, but you may have heard of it. There used to be this really cool show called Charlie's Angels.

Amber Wilfahrt  21:16  
Oh, I know about that.

DJ Stutz  21:19  
Everyone wanted to be the girls. Well, yeah. doesn't lead hairdresser for that show went to church with costs. Every one of us girls had our fair Fossett haircut see a picture of that. Oh my gosh, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was funny. Anyway, so we had makeup people that would come and they would come to our youth group and talk to us about clothing and makeup and hair and how to do all of that. So for me, part of my thing that makes me feel better every day, is just getting my makeup on. That's not what some other people do. Right? Having to deal with that was too much for me. When I don't put makeup on. I feel it. I know. I mean, if Russell's, I don't think he's seen me 20 days without makeup.

Amber Wilfahrt  22:17  
You know, what if that's what makes you feel good. So self care is different for everybody. You know, like some moms, some people might not care about makeup. And that's where you have to be careful. Because when you go on Instagram, when you go on the internet, you hear self care preached like everywhere, right? But what self care looks like for me, Amber is not the same for you DJ. And it's not the same for you who's ever listening to this? Right, you have to find what is going to fill up your cup. And that's when I created this challenge for my email at the end of the challenge, you get a list of 30 ideas, some of them might be great for you. And some of them might not speak to you at all. But you don't really know until you try some of those things. And, again, working out is a big thing for me. But it might not be for somebody else. So you just you really have to figure out what fills up your cup, both big and small things because I think those big things do have a place in our life. But the small things are what we can really incorporate into our every single day into our habits.

DJ Stutz  23:21  
Yeah, big time. And I think too, you brought this up. But it really reminded me, we tend to judge ourselves, we tend to judge our kids on the worst 10 minutes of the day. And that was our whole day. And I had an aide that was in my class couple years ago, who was really kind of negative with the kids. And I had a little boy, he's on the autism spectrum. And and he could have a rough moment here and there. Only twice the whole year do we have to clear the classroom, keep everyone safe. But to me with where he was on the autism spectrum to do only twice. That's fine with me. But it's funny. I had to ask her to quit talking to mom at pickup because she would launch into this thing about how hard he was and how he struggled with this and that. And it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad.

Amber Wilfahrt  24:22  
And as moms we don't need that, you know? No, like, I'm like the honest report. But I think about like what I'm going through with my seven year old right now, and it's already so exhausting for me at home and to just try and figure out you know, I've got a referral in for her doctor who's put the referral in for OT and I've contacted her teacher who we're trying to get her set up with therapy through the school. None of this stuff happens overnight and I'm doing the best I can find the new underwear and the new socks and trying to find shoes that are comfortable for her. I don't need somebody harping on me about how hard she is. So I totally risk fact that you did that, because we get enough of that, that guilt ourselves as moms and we just feel so exhausted, that we don't need, we don't need other people speaking guilt into us.

DJ Stutz  25:09  
Yeah. Most of my, I mean, very rarely, well, I need to if it's really egregious, I might have to, but even then I'm kind of like, oh, we just had some choices, we're just going to look at some alternatives. That's kind of how I address it. But I'd say at least 90% of the time, if the parent says, How was he or she today, great day, because there really was so much, and I wish I could get other teachers to do that a little more. But I wish I could get our parents to help with that as well. Oh, here's a bump. But, you know, they ate all their lunch. They didn't run outside naked. You know? Yeah,

Amber Wilfahrt  25:51  
that's what I've been saying lately, with, like, the sensory stuff is, I mean, we were having it was like it started and then it slowly gradually got up there. And then we had bad mornings for like, a straight week, getting ready for school. And since we came, a girlfriend of mine, whose daughter also deals with some sensory stuff, told me that they started having her sleep in her clothes for school the next day, the night before, and I was like, Okay, well, we're gonna try that. And since we've done that, it's not been without hiccups is what I keep saying, like, we have hiccups in the mornings. But we aren't having full fledged meltdowns from me. Neither her nor me. So I'm gonna take that as a positive, right? Sometimes you just have to find the good and the hard.

DJ Stutz  26:37  
Yeah, yeah. And I will tell you from experience. So my little students mean the world to me, there's nothing like, I don't mind putting in extra hours or buying extra things. My husband says it's my hobby. Because I just spend so much on the kids and trying to get things ready for them. But these kids mean the world to me. And I really do miss that time with my kids. When I look back on it. I mean, I know that times were hard. My youngest son is through the roof, ADHD. And we had some struggles with that. And, you know, both my boys are adrenaline junkies, and we were just trying to make sure no one died. You know, or didn't get arrested as they got to be teenagers, not from drugs or alcohol, but they would just do. Boy, mom. Well, it's funny because my youngest son, Christian, he's a cop. Oh, funny. Yeah. But he started out, he was an EMT. And then he got hired on in state prison, and doing triage, and all of that when there's events in handy it out meds. And then he did really well and worked well with the inmates. And so they said, Let's put you through, so you can be a guard. So he went through that training. And then he had some interactions with the Highway Patrol. So then they recruited him. And so then that's where he is now. But it's funny when he was at the prison, we'd see old friends, because my kids grew up in Las Vegas, we can see old friends and like, How's Christian to like, Oh, he's in jail. We're just glad he's not ever an inmate.

Unknown Speaker  28:28  
We knew he'd be involved with the law somehow.

Amber Wilfahrt  28:33  
On the good side, yeah.

DJ Stutz  28:35  
But I do miss those. And I know it's hard for moms. And I'm pretty careful not to say that very often, that there will come a time when you're going to really miss this. I just hope that helping parents just enjoy the moment they're in. And even when it's tough, when your kids are fighting, aren't we glad they're healthy enough to fight with each other?

Amber Wilfahrt  29:02  
And not in the moment? Not as

DJ Stutz  29:04  
in the moment? I need her on. But I mean, to keep it in that whole picture. You're not doing as bad the kids are not as bad as you think. You know, when I took my first child psychology class, and the kids were little, and I was a night class and my husband could watch the kids. And I remember one night I came home and it was after 10 and I'm waking them up and saying

Unknown Speaker  29:30  
they're normal. All the stuff they're doing is normal.

DJ Stutz  29:33  
And it was such a relief to me that I wasn't raising an axe murderer or I

Amber Wilfahrt  29:42  
guess we're also grateful for that to DJ Yeah, it's it's hard when you're in the moment but just to be grateful and know you're doing a good job, even when you don't feel like it even when your kids tantruming all day long or having 10 meltdowns a day or whatever. I've heard is like you're doing a good job. The fact that I keep seeing this thing on her on Instagram, and it just speaks truth, the fact that you care about if you're a good mom or not means you're a good mom.

DJ Stutz  30:12  
Yeah. Yeah. Because I have seen some that don't. Yeah, yeah, that's, and that's hard. That's hard.

Amber Wilfahrt  30:22  
We're all imperfect, you know, just imperfect heroes and raising humans, we are heroes, and we are not perfect at it. And we're, we're human. And that's gonna be so yeah, to give ourselves that grace. And to know that we are doing a good job and trying the best we can, and we will fail and we pick it back up. And I think setting that example for our kids, when we do fail, and saying, I'm sorry that I yell, I should not have done that, and talk it out with them, you know, just being real about the fact that you also make mistakes. I think that's that's a great example for them instead of just telling them to apologize when they fight and they don't really mean it, but they don't ever see it. See that example, in their life. It's such a such a big deal. So I know that that's not an easy thing, either. I know, I, I don't think that was a thing when I was a kid was when my parents made mistakes that we got apologize to, and I have great parents. But it's just one of those things that I look back on and like, had to learn how to do that, as a mom, you know, learn how to be vulnerable enough to say, I messed up, I'm sorry, when you want to feel like you have it all together. And you know, have your kids look at you like you have it all together. But your kids really need to know that you don't. And that it's okay, I have. Well, all three of my girls have anxiety and my two oldest have been in therapy for over a year. And one of them especially is very much like a perfectionist to a tee. And so, you know, I think it's good that she sees her mom and dad make mistakes, because it's something she already battles at nine years old is perfectionism. And to know that you can grow up and in being a successful adult in the world and not be perfect. It's a good thing for her to see. So just practicing it, making those little apologies. And just giving them a hug. They forgive so stinking easily. We need to forgive ourselves, too. They don't like half the time I apologize to them. They're they're like, Okay, ma'am. Like, it's fine. It's whatever, you know, like it's not a big deal to so but practicing that will be big as they grow up and become teenagers. I can't say that from experience. But I would imagine so. Right.

DJ Stutz  32:33  
Yeah, boy. And when they become adults, it's not that

Unknown Speaker  32:37  
much easier.

Amber Wilfahrt  32:38  
I'm sure it's not because then they know they know better. Right?

DJ Stutz  32:42  
Yeah. Right? Are you see your child marry the wrong guy. And you're just thinking? So I was wondering, though, do you ever talk about prioritizing? So what is the super important thing that you have? That's really important to you that your family does this or your kids do this, and then letting some of the other stuff go? So this is the stuff I really want to concentrate on. And for me, it would change as the kids grew. And as we had different experiences, and whatever, some of the times those priorities would move in and out with what's appropriate for that time. But do you ever work on that?

Amber Wilfahrt  33:21  
Yeah. Do you mean like activities and things that we do as a family?

DJ Stutz  33:25  
Amongst that? Yeah. And for me, trying to teach kindness, and trying to teach the value of work, and honesty, and some of those things? Were super important to me. Sure.

Amber Wilfahrt  33:40  
Yeah. I mean, for us, If faith is number one, I just I pray every single day that my kids always know that their worth is in God, and God alone, especially has my oldest is getting into middle school. And we've already talked about really heavy stuff this year with her in fifth grade. And I'm like, Ah, and so just really just teaching them that no matter what your friends want you to do, you need to know your own right and wrong, and right and wrong in God's eyes, right, like, not right and wrong in the world's eyes. But what is right and wrong with your faith, and kindness and love, like talking about, especially in today's society. Everybody has different beliefs. And now it feels like in this world, it's not okay to be in the gray area anymore, that you need to be in the black or white. But that doesn't mean it's right or wrong. But also it doesn't mean we don't like those people who if we are in the gray and they're in the white, or we're in the black and they're in the white, that doesn't mean that we don't respect them. We still love them, and respect them and love them as as God would. And so teaching them that the value of hard work, like you said that hard work looks different for everybody. If you want to do something, we figure it out and do it. And I think with my mom, two of the girls have a little bit of perfectionism too. I'm teaching them that they've had meltdowns about not being the best. And it's okay to not be the best. It's okay to make mistakes. But we try, we don't give up. So I feel like a lot of those values that we teach kind of faith is like, imminent. And also, you know, as they come up, there are things that you don't know that you're going to have to teach your kids until they're in that situation, you know. So just always being open and talking about everything with your kids. I actually have a podcast episode about this, because we, in my house, like my two oldest say, know what sex is. And we've talked about periods for years, and we talk about everyone in our house has mental health struggles, and we we kind of normalize it for them, because my husband grew up with anxiety. And he felt like he was odd. No, no, no, let me let me say that he thought he was like the everybody dealt with this. And so we've come to find out that not everybody deals with the certain fears or anxieties that he dealt with, was a big game changer for him as an adult. And so just normalizing mental health struggles. We talked to him, I have colitis, and we talked to them about that in probably too much detail. But like, they asked us a question when I they were asking us at dinner about marijuana and alcohol, and they asked me how old I was when I started drinking. And I was honest with them. And I think just having those open, honest conversations can lead to a lot of really great, really great conversations, and then being able to then be comfortable coming to you and saying whatever is on their mind, whatever they're going through with friends, that you're their number one person that they want to talk to.

DJ Stutz  36:45  
I love that. That's so important in building that. It's so great. So Amber, where do people go to find you?

Amber Wilfahrt  36:53  
Well, like we said, Instagram is my favorite place to be. And I'm just that Amber Wilford. You can also search for raw mom life that is kind of my my new tagline that I've started using number welfare.com. My podcast is the live your sleep podcast.

DJ Stutz  37:09  
Love it. And we're gonna have all of that in the show notes so they can all just drop down into that. Now I'm gonna surprise you.

Amber Wilfahrt  37:18  
I can handle it. Okay, good.

DJ Stutz  37:20  
I asked the same question of all of my guests at the end of every episode. And it is how do you define a successful parent?

Amber Wilfahrt  37:30  
Raising humans that aren't axe murderers? Um, oh, yeah, that that is a tricky question a successful parent. I think he's one that does the best she can before he can. Because I don't remember if we were even recording when we had this conversation if it was before we hit record. But we were talking about how you can try and do everything perfectly as a parent. And you still end up with a child who's addicted to drugs, or you still end up with a son who's in jail. You can't control their future and their future decisions. But you doing the best you can. That's that's what we're called to is just doing the best you can lead them to water the water and hope that they drink it. And just striving to be better. striving to be better and giving yourself grace when when you screw up. Because we will.

DJ Stutz  38:27  
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's part of the program. That's right. screwing up. Yeah, that's why we have the atonement. Yeah, yep. Well, thank you so much. Amber, I love talking to you. You have a lifelong fan in me. And I just wish all the best to you. And hopefully we'll get to work on some things down the road together.

Amber Wilfahrt  38:55  
Yes, please. That will be great. Thanks for having me. DJ, you bet.

DJ Stutz  38:59  
Talk to you later.

Summer is lots of fun, but it can also be very stressful. And that's why I'm offering your guide to an amazing summer. And this includes a workshop and lots of fun resources to help you keep your kiddos busy and inspire curiosity and even make summer travel so much easier. I also share some activities that will help you to make sure your children are ready for school without losing too much of that great knowledge. You and your child's teacher have worked so hard to give them. So go to www.LittleHeartsAcademyusa.com and just scroll down to your guide to an amazing summer and you'll be able to download that and have access to the workshop as well. as well as a ton of resources that are going to help you enjoy your summer with your kids, and reduce the stress that you are dealing with. Just being around your kids all day, traveling with your kids going on vacation. All of those are fun things, but they're also stressful. Amber is right in that there are things you can have in place, little habits that can make your life easier. And getting in the habit of doing small things that help you with self care. Setting up things for your kids planning for chores, or food can make a big difference. And don't forget to get in the habit of doing things for the relationship with your sweetheart, be sure to be flexible and willing to go to plan B when things go awry. And you know, they will be willing to laugh when things go wrong. I know it doesn't feel like it now. But believe me when I say they grow up all too soon. And before long, you will be missing the ridiculous problems. And the joy of watching your children become these amazing humans. And I think this is what has kept me teaching for so long. And now doing the work that I do, it feels so good to still be a part of the lives of children, even if I'm helping them by helping their parents. And if you want to know more about Amber, all of her information is in the show notes. And you know, of course, I'm going to ask you, while you're down there, just click on leave a rating and review and follow the podcast. It really does take just a little bit of time to leave a rating and review. And it makes the podcasts easier to find. And then we are able to help more families. And when we're trying to track information and see what's going on with the podcast. We can only track the downloads. And I know most people don't download we stream right I do. And so if you follow that helps us see how many people are listening in and who you're reaching and who we can better reach. And just one more reminder that I have a new Facebook page just for the podcast. So now you can find me on Facebook at Imperfect Heroes Podcast. And so my Tuesday night live events that have been on Little Hearts Academy will now be on the Imperfect Heroes Podcast. And that's because when we're talking on Tuesday nights, I usually have the topic that is the same as the podcast for that week. And so this is a chance for people to put in a question, to make a comment to share a story. And we can really have an interactive time with the same topic as the podcast. I'll still be doing things on the Little hearts Academy. But that's going to be more from my coaching my workshops and the events and resources that I have for parents. So be sure and check me out on Imperfect Heroes Podcast at Facebook, seven o'clock pm Mountain Standard Time every Tuesday. And coming up next week is Breanna Leach as we talk about keeping mom's mental health in check as we work through the summer, and until next time, let's find joy in parenting.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai