Getting Kids to Love Herbal Medicine: 3 Delicious Remedies Every Mom Can Make

Ever struggled to get your kids on board with herbal remedies? In this episode, I’m sharing three easy and delicious ways to make herbal medicine that your kids will actually enjoy! We’ll dive into making kid-approved herbal teas, yummy herbal honeys, and sweet glycerites—all designed to taste great while delivering powerful benefits.

Learn why these forms of herbal medicine are kid favorites, the benefits of each, and how to get started making your own at home. 

Whether you’re new to herbalism or looking to add a few kid-friendly options to your toolkit, this episode will give you practical, tasty tips to make herbal medicine fun and effective.

02:00 – Why kid-friendly herbal medicine matters
03:32 – Making herbal teas tasty & fun for kids
08:30 – Herbal honeys & electuaries
11:28 – Alcohol-free herbal glycerites for kids
13:29 – Benefits of homemade remedies & Medicine Making Mommas
16:40 – Encouraging kids to explore & enjoy herbal medicine

Ready to create remedies that work and taste so good, your family will be asking for more, join us inside of Medicine Makin’ Mommas https://www.theherbalistspath.com/medicine-making-mommas 

Want my daughter’s favorite immune boosting Echinacea Glycerite? Get it here: https://bit.ly/47gxQrS 

 🌿 Ready to become the healer your community needs? Applications are open for the Community Herbalist Certification Program! Starting January 2025, this year-long program empowers you to create personalized remedies, understand herbs and the body, and make a lasting impact.. Apply here!

If you're done struggling to keep your kids healthy as cold and flu season comes about, then you are going to LOVE Oregon's Wild Harvest and their Kids Echinacea with Raspberry flavoring. I know my daughter LOVES it, in fact she asks me for it all of the time, even if she's not sick!
Be sure to get yours w/ 15% off here!

Chapters

• 1:50 Herbal Remedies for Kids
• 12:12 Making Herbal Remedies for Kids
• 19:56 Herbalism Education and Community Support

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:51

Hello and welcome to the Herbalist Path, a podcast where you'll discover how to make your own herbal remedies at home so that you can take better care of yourself, better care of your family and better care of our planet. I'm Mel. I'm a clinical herbalist, environmental educator and mountain-l living mama with this crazy passion for teaching more mamas and their little loves how to use plants as medicine in a safe, effective and tasty way, so that there can be an herbalist in every home. Again, it's an absolute honor to have you on the journey down the herbalist path with me so that together we can make herbalism Hashtag spread like wildflowers. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the herbalist path.

Speaker 1: 2:47

I feel like it has been forever since I have sat down to record a podcast, and that could be because I was down with pneumonia. If you have ever had pneumonia, you know how much it sucks. And if you have not had pneumonia, please, please, please, please, please, do everything you can to never get it again. I so rarely get sick and usually I'm super duper armed. My daughter is really good at knowing when she's about to get sick. She'll tell me two days ahead of time. Hey, mom, I don't feel good and I'm like whatever. I don't see any symptoms. But that's usually when I start loading on the good herbal medicine and boosting the immune system and those kinds of things. But this time around I was silly and for some reason I did not do that. I mean, I took some other people's herbal remedies really, really great companies and thought that it would help and really stimulate the immune system, but it didn't work anywhere near as good as when I make my own medicine and take it right on time. It's so crazy, I swear I do this every time Anira starts to feel icky and we just don't get sick. But the one time that I didn't, I really paid the price. So I wasn't able to work or use my brain or breathe. I was short of breath so quickly and easily it was wild and I didn't really realize. I had pneumonia. It started as bronchitis and I was like, yeah, that's what I've got, and then it just got worse. So anyways, enough of my problems.

Speaker 1: 4:34

I wanted to come here and talk about the best ways to make herbal remedies and medicines that your kids are actually going to take, because here's the reality If your herbal medicine tastes like dirt or worse, like some jet fuel from Everclear or something along those lines, you're going to have a real tough time getting your kiddos to take that medicine. You know what I mean. Have you ever had a picky child? I know I certainly have. And if they're not going to go into compliance, as we herb nerds like to say, or actually take the herbs, the herbs aren't going to work y'all. Then they just become either stuck on the back shelf collecting a bunch of dust or you just don't believe that herbs work. But they do. They really, really, really do. So excuse me if I have to clear my throat or cough, I'll try and edit all of that out, but if some of it gets through, you know why. I'm still in recovery from pneumonia, but I can tell you what it feels really really good to be talking to you right now on this podcast. So thank you, thank you for listening and I really hope that you learn a lot out of this episode.

Speaker 1: 5:53

So my mission in this show is to teach you some of my favorite ways to make these herbal remedies so your kids can just love them. Right? We want them to love them, we want them to enjoy this stuff. So I like to start with herbal teas, and there's quite a few reasons. Herbal teas can be amazing for kids and yeah, I know, I know You've probably tried herbal tea that tasted like butt or something along those lines, because there's a lot out there that do. But it is so much fun once you actually learn how to formulate these remedies, so they're going to work, but just are just delicious delicious, so it can be done. I promise you that. And another reason I love herbal teas with kids is because it's a really, really great way to get them learning about herbal medicine and really get hands on. They get to look at the herbs and pick them up and smell them and taste them. And as you're learning about herbs, you can teach them like, oh my gosh, we're going to put this chamomile in this tea and we're going to do it because it's going to help with your tummy ache and like, wow, that's super cool for kids to be able to grow up with that kind of wisdom and knowledge. If you ask me, other reasons I love to use herbal teas with kids is because or with anybody for that matter if you're here listening to me right now on this podcast, that means you have some type of like phone or device. Whatever you listen to on. You have access to the internet. Hopefully that also means that you have access to water. Water is usually quite easy to access and affordable for most people, so that can be really, really fun.

Speaker 1: 7:48

And like creating that tea time ritual with your kiddos like let's sit down and have our cup of tea and really learn about how it feels in the body. Like when you take that sip, do you feel the energetics or the power of the herbs going through your body? I can tell you, while I was sick, there were multiple times I had a cup of tea. My partner was doing an amazing job of taking care of me so sweetly and I would just be like put these herbs into a tea and bring it to me please, and I would take that first sip and I could just feel it like tingle through every little bit of my body and it just felt like it was coming down and coating everything and saying I am here for you, I am going to help heal you, and it just felt really really cool. So, yeah, nerding out on tea. So the other thing is like it's really easy, if you don't like your tea, to find out different ways to make them yummy A lot of times some of my favorite herbs to put in a tea to make it palatable for children is just things as simple as peppermint.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Fennel like not too much fennel, because I know there's a lot of you out there that are like I don't like fennel. But if you just add a little touch of fennel it can add the perfect hint of sweetness. Chamomile is another one that tastes great. It's got that apple-y flavor. But if you let your chamomile steep too long it's going to get really, really bitter. So don't say I didn't warn you on that one.

Speaker 1: 9:25

Some of the bummer deals with herbal teas really is just that it doesn't last as long. So in general, if you're making an herbal tea, you have about 48 hours before it gets really really funky. The other general, if you're making an herbal tea, you have about 48 hours before it gets really really funky. The other thing is like if you're driving down the road and maybe somebody's got some road rage or something going on, you're not going to like plug in your hot water heater into your car's lighter or something and like brew up a cup of tea, right. That's a time when you want like a tincture or something that can really get into the bloodstream quickly and take care of some of that anger, anxiety or whatever it may be. So, yeah, those are some of my favorite things. And like then you can take your teas with your kids, like all the medicinal herbs you want to put in there, whichever ones they may be.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Don't go overboard, don't go doing shotgun herbalism and just throw all the herbs you know in. Be strategic with your formulas. But I like to turn them into popsicles or all kinds of fun things. And don't forget that a little bit of honey goes a long way with a tea Plus. A good quality local raw honey also has a lot of antimicrobial properties to it so it can fight off viruses and bacteria and fungi. And in my case I use a lot of honey over this sickness because it did a great job of just kind of coating and soothing and cooling my dry, totally harshed on respiratory tract. Like harshed on in such big, big ways. Yeah, it was bad. So, anyways, try making herbal teas with your kiddos.

Speaker 1: 11:02

The other thing since we were just talking about honey, let's talk about it more Like herbal honeys or electuaries are so easy to get most kids to take. Kids love honey, right, it's sweet, it's delicious. You can add a medicinal honey to some hot water and voila, there's like kind of a tea for you. Again, there's all the medicinal benefits of honey, which is really really nice, though once you heat honey too far this is why raw honey is important Once you heat it too far, you do start to lose a lot of the nutritional benefits and other medicinal benefits from it. But you hear what I'm saying. A spoonful of honey makes the medicine go down. So Mary Poppins was really really close. The sugar just might make us more ill and battle the immune system, but the honey, the honey is going to be a big, big helper. It is important to note and I know there's lately I've heard some contradicting statements on this but children under one don't need honey. They run a greater risk of botulism.

Speaker 1: 12:12

And then, like you got to think about what plant materials you're infusing your honey with. I like to do Ella campaign root in honey, but there's a whole process of making that happen, so it's going to work well. I like to do it with fresh roots and I just need to make sure that there's not going to be too much water left in that honey or you can ruin the honey and get people sick instead, which wouldn't be too much fun. So, yeah, thinking about what herbs are going into that honey to make it so darn yummy is pretty important. Honey can get messy, right, but so worth it. Who doesn't love good, sweet, sticky honey messes? Except for when they're on your counter or on your couch or in the carpet or on the floor. Yeah, we don't like them then. Or when you drop a whole jar of honey and it shatters all over Totally unfun. Okay, I take it away. Nobody likes honey messes. Maybe they do, I don't know. Anyways, I'm getting kind of rambly on that.

Speaker 1: 13:20

Another reason that honeys are nice is like it's an alcohol-free and really great shelf-stable kind of way to make your herbal medicine. Honey makes a great preservative for herbs, so it can last a lot longer and it can mask the more bitter herbs a bit more, so that can be super duper helpful. Again, you just want to make sure that you're making it right and making it super duper. Yum, lum, lum, lum, yeah, so honey.

Speaker 1: 13:55

Another one that I love a lot and that most kiddos are going to love are herbal glycerites, and a lot of people refer to herbal glycerites as tinctures, and I think that's just because they come inside of a similar bottle that you might find a tincture in, but they're not the same. A glycerite is like this very sweet, thick, syrupy substance and kiddos love it. It just really takes away the bitterness. And especially if you're somebody that's still using Everclear for your tinctures, your kids will really thank you for trying glycerites. Now, some of the things to think about when it comes to making glycerides is a very thick, sticky, kind of messy thing to work with. It's not going to extract as many of the medicinal constituents that you might be able to get with an alcohol extraction or a water extraction, and it doesn't have as long of a shelf life as you're going to find with a tincture.

Speaker 1: 14:56

Tinctures pretty much last until you're like, well, maybe it doesn't look so hot. I don't want that anymore. Meaning many years Glycerides you're looking at six months to two years depending upon how it is made. There's definitely ways to make them to where they're going to last longer. It can just be kind of a tricky process to make, but super duper worth it. And if you're not going to make them on your own, buy them from a reputable supplier Organ's Wild Harvest Echinacea Glycerite my daughter absolutely loves. She loves it. They have a raspberry flavored one. I can link to it in the show notes and you should grab it because it is super duper. Good Wish Garden Herbs has a bunch of glycerides. Eclectic Herb out of Sandy Oregon, like right down the road from me, also has some really great kid friendly glycerides to use if you don't want to go through the messy process of making them, through the messy process of making them.

Speaker 1: 15:55

But I will say, like I kind of mentioned in the beginning, I was using other great companies' herbs like really, really nice formulas. But when I am making my own medicine I have control over the ingredients in there, I have control over the flavors, I have control over the potency and my medicine just comes out better. I love those companies, I love what they do, but hot diggity dog, every time I try and rely on something else I'm like man that's nowhere near as effective as what I make in my own home kitchen. I'm not trying to brag by any means. I kind of feel funny saying it because, again, they're companies that I love and I partner with and I love to share with my students, because the reality is we don't always have time to make the medicine. But gosh, the efficacy is worth taking the time. Plus, you can save a lot of money when you make your own medicine and really, if you are somebody looking to make more of your own medicine, I do have my Medicine Making Mamas program.

Speaker 1: 17:09

It's where I teach you how to make all of those delicious honeys and how to formulate herbal teas so they are really effective medicine but super yummy still and not tasting like dirt. I teach you how to make the glycerides not tasting like dirt. I teach you how to make the glycerides and obviously I go into all of the different ways to make different herbal preparations. And the biggest thing there is really teaching you how to formulate. Formulation is a science. It is also an art and once you get good at it, it is the coolest feeling. It's like being a chef, but cooler because you're making medicine and you're making it really, really good. So I'll link to Medicine Making Mamas in the show notes as well, and we're about to run a little special on it, so hopefully, when you hear this, the special is happening.

Speaker 1: 18:00

I would love, love, love to help you become an epic medicine maker. This is great for those of you that just want to make the remedies for your family, but especially for those of you that are like, hey, I kind of want to sell this stuff at the local market or in my community, but you want to know what you're making is going to work. You want to know that it's going to do the trick. You want to know that it's going to taste good enough that people are going to come back to you and want to keep buying your medicine, because otherwise you're like, oh man, I've got all this stuff, now what do I do with it? So, anyways, that's kind of what we do inside of Medicine. Making Mamas is just empower you to make great medicine.

Speaker 1: 18:41

Okay, hopefully, this episode I know it's a quick one. I actually can't talk too much If you haven't heard very much in my vocal cords. I'm really hoping that this comes out well. I'm just so excited to be able to talk more than two minutes. But I really do hope that you start experimenting, if you're not already, with some of the remedies I talked about. Play with the herbal honeys, play with glycerides, or buy them from another great company.

Speaker 1: 19:11

Have fun making herbal teas with your kiddos. Let them touch every herb, let them smell every herb, let them taste it and let them tell you how much of what herb needs to go into your blend. See what happens. Try it. What's the worst that can happen? You decide you need a little more mint in there. Heckin' A Do it.

Speaker 1: 19:35

Okay, did that help you at all? Did that inspire you? Did that make you like, yay, I now know how to get my kids to take different herbs. I really, really hope that it did. And if it did, please reach out to me on social media. You can find me at the Herbalist Path anywhere. You can email me. Buddingherbalist at the Herbalist Path.

Speaker 1: 19:57

It really means a lot to me to know that you are listening to this show and that you are learning from this show. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much, and if you have a favorite kid friendly herbal remedy, definitely shoot it to me in the DMs and maybe I'll share it with everybody else out there. All right, do me a favor. Keep yourself and your family well during this nasty season of sickness. Thanks again, bye.

Speaker 1: 20:34

Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of the Herbalist Path. Being on this journey with you is absolutely incredible. If you dig this episode, please leave me a review on your favorite podcast player and share it with your friends so that together, we can make herbalism hashtag spread like wildflowers. On another note, I must mention that, while I know you're getting some good info here, it's important to remember that this podcast is purely for entertainment and educational purposes and is not intended to be a substitute for medical treatment. While the information in this podcast is absolutely relevant, herbs work differently for each person and each condition. That's why I recommend you work with a qualified practitioner, whether that be another herbalist, a naturopath or your doctor. So thank you again. I am truly honored that you're tuning into these episodes and on the path with me to make sure that there's an herbalist in every home. Again, don't forget to share this episode with your friends so that we can make herbalism Hashtag spread like wildflowers.