That Kid Was Me with Dr Amanda Blonigen DC – Chiro Hustle Podcast 811
INTRODUCING Dr Amanda Blonigen DC
5 Alternate Titles
- Chiropractic in the Schools with Dr Amanda Blonigen DC – Chiro Hustle Podcast 811
- A Mission Trip in Our Backyard with Dr Amanda Blonigen DC – Chiro Hustle Podcast 811
- Bringing Chiropractic to the Kids with Dr Amanda Blonigen DC – Chiro Hustle Podcast 811
- Well-Adjusted Students with Dr Amanda Blonigen DC – Chiro Hustle Podcast 811
- Start with the Kids with Dr Amanda Blonigen DC – Chiro Hustle Podcast 811
🧠 Background
Dr. Amanda Blonigen DC entered healthcare believing she wanted to become a pediatrician. Then an experience shadowing a pediatrician forced her to ask a different question: Was there something more?
She watched sick children come through the office, receive prescriptions, and leave. Amanda knew she wanted to work with children, but she wanted something different for them.
That search eventually led her to a chiropractic office, initially through a marketing job. There she discovered something she had never known growing up: children could be adjusted.
That realization changed the direction of her life.
Amanda entered chiropractic school already knowing she wanted to care for children. She became involved with the ICPA, studied pediatric chiropractic, learned Webster Technique from Dr. Jeanne Ohm, and witnessed a birth while attending chiropractic school. Watching that birth became one of the defining experiences of her education. She saw life, birth, and development through the chiropractic principle—the intelligence within the body expressing itself without requiring outside control.
Today, Amanda practices in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and works alongside Dr. Lona Cook with Well-Adjusted Students, a nonprofit bringing chiropractic care directly into schools.
The program began with chiropractic care for school staff as part of an employee wellness initiative. Then the schools asked the question that changed everything:
When are you going to do this for the students?
Nearly a decade later, Well-Adjusted Students serves children and staff across 17 locations, with particular attention to underserved children, children living in poverty, and children with special needs.
For Amanda, this is more than outreach.
It is a “mission trip in our backyard.”
And during this conversation, that mission becomes intensely personal when James Chester realizes that the children Amanda is describing are children like the boy he once was.
🔥 Highlights
- Dr. Amanda Blonigen DC explains why chiropractic philosophy became the foundation for how she views pregnancy, birth, childhood, family, and practice.
- Amanda shares how shadowing a pediatrician caused her to question whether the conventional healthcare path was really where she belonged.
- Discovering that children could receive chiropractic care redirected her professional future toward pediatric chiropractic.
- Witnessing a birth during chiropractic school became a defining experience in Amanda’s understanding of the intelligence of the body and Above-Down-Inside-Out philosophy.
- Amanda discusses the humility she experienced when her own children did not crawl according to the developmental pattern she expected—even though she was both their mother and chiropractor.
- The conversation explores the chiropractor’s role as part of a family’s “tribe”—supporting families without pretending to control every outcome.
- Amanda explains how Well-Adjusted Students grew from an employee wellness program into chiropractic care delivered directly to students.
- Well-Adjusted Students now operates across 17 locations and focuses heavily on children who otherwise may not have access to chiropractic care.
- Amanda calls the work a “mission trip in our backyard,” illustrated by a family that could afford enough gasoline to continue summer chiropractic visits only once per month.
- The episode reaches its emotional peak when James connects Amanda’s mission to his own childhood—growing up poor, struggling with dyslexia, being told he would not become educated, and having a mother who sacrificed so he could receive chiropractic care: “That kid was me.”
From Our Sponsors and Partners
JAMES CHESTER (HOST): You made it to Chiro Hustle! Sit back and learn from the greatest influencers in the profession on the world’s number-one chiropractic podcast. Before we dive into this powerful episode, please remember to subscribe to our channels and give us a 5-star rating on iTunes to continue hustling.
This episode is brought to you by…
ChiroHD – More than an EHR; Practice Management, Simplified
The Chiro Speaking Company – Attract, Educate & Convert
ChiroSpring – cloud-based, user-friendly software with all the essential features chiropractors need
The Chiro Hustle Podcast is sponsored by Chiro Health USA, ChiroScript AI, Chiro Moguls, Pure Chiro Notes, Titronics, Sherman College of Chiropractic, Life Chiropractic College West, and the IFCO.
Do you want to support The Sacred Trust and uphold a Subluxation model without the grind of launching a new project? Visit our Patreon, choose the tier best suited for you. That way we can continue keeping “The Big Idea” strong, supporting speech, medical, and family health freedoms.
Now let’s hustle!
📖 Summary
What happens when chiropractic stops waiting for families to walk through the office door and starts going where the children already are?
Dr. Amanda Blonigen DC joins James Chester for a powerful conversation spanning pregnancy, birth, pediatric chiropractic, developmental milestones, chiropractic philosophy, and the extraordinary mission of Well-Adjusted Students.
Amanda’s path began with plans to become a pediatrician, but exposure to chiropractic revealed another possibility: helping children from a perspective centered on the body’s innate intelligence and ability to adapt.
That conviction eventually helped lead her into Well-Adjusted Students, a nonprofit bringing chiropractic directly into schools—including underserved communities and children with special needs.
Then the conversation becomes deeply personal.
Amanda describes children whose families simply do not have the financial resources or transportation necessary to access regular chiropractic care. James recognizes himself in them.
Raised by a single mother, struggling with dyslexia and growing up poor, James remembers being told he would never become educated. His mother nevertheless saved what she could so her son could be adjusted.
“That kid was me.”
Episode 811 is about more than pediatric chiropractic. It asks what could happen if an entire generation grew up knowing chiropractic as a normal part of life—and challenges chiropractors to show up wherever they are needed most.
🔍 Diving In
There is a moment in this episode when the interview stops being an interview.
Dr. Amanda Blonigen DC has been explaining Well-Adjusted Students, the nonprofit she operates alongside Dr. Lona Cook. The program brings chiropractic directly into schools, particularly reaching underserved children, children living in poverty, and children with special needs.
Amanda tells James about one family participating in the program. During the school year, the child receives chiropractic care at school. During summer, families have the opportunity to continue care at the chiropractic office.
One mother called.
She explained that her daughter loved coming every week, but the family could not continue at that frequency during the summer.
They only had enough gas money to make the trip once a month.
Amanda describes the work as a “mission trip in our backyard.”
And something changes in James.
“That kid was me.”
For nine years and hundreds of Chiro Hustle episodes, James has interviewed chiropractors about purpose, philosophy, practice, struggle, success, and the future of the profession. Yet this story reaches somewhere deeper.
James grew up poor with a single mother. He struggled with dyslexia and reading. He recalls adults telling his mother that he would never become educated.
But his mother saw something more in her son.
After James began receiving chiropractic care as a teenager, she would save money so he could continue being adjusted.
Decades later, he is listening to Amanda describe children whose families face similar barriers.
And for perhaps the first time in the history of Chiro Hustle, James cries during an interview.
That moment reveals the deeper question running through Episode 811:
Who receives chiropractic when access itself is the barrier?
Amanda’s journey toward answering that question started long before Well-Adjusted Students.
She originally planned to become a pediatrician. During undergraduate school, however, she shadowed a pediatrician and watched children repeatedly arrive sick, receive prescriptions, and leave. She remembers thinking there had to be something more.
A marketing job at a chiropractic office introduced her to an idea she had never encountered growing up: children could be adjusted.
She entered chiropractic school knowing she wanted to care for kids.
Her involvement with pediatric chiropractic deepened, including study through the ICPA and learning Webster Technique from Dr. Jeanne Ohm. Then she witnessed a birth.
That experience crystallized chiropractic philosophy for her.
Birth presented something she could witness but not control: an intelligent process unfolding through life itself. The chiropractic principles stopped being merely classroom concepts. They became a way of understanding pregnancy, birth, development, parenting, practice, and life.
Amanda carries that humility into her discussion of developmental milestones.
Both of her own sons crawled in an unconventional three-legged pattern. For a pediatric chiropractor, that created an uncomfortable confrontation between professional expectations and motherhood.
She could adjust them. She could support them. She could observe their development.
But she could not control them.
That distinction becomes important throughout the conversation.
Chiropractic does not mean the chiropractor becomes the intelligence governing another person’s body. The chiropractor serves, adjusts, supports, observes, and respects the intelligence already present.
That philosophy extends into Amanda’s concept of family practice.
The chiropractor can become part of a family’s tribe—a trusted person families can approach with questions. That does not require pretending to possess every answer. Sometimes leadership means helping families find the right person, resource, or information.
Then Amanda takes that philosophy outside the chiropractic office.
Well-Adjusted Students began when chiropractic was offered to school employees as part of a wellness initiative.
The school staff eventually asked a remarkable question:
When are you going to do this for the students?
That question opened a door.
Amanda points out that schools already interact with multiple healthcare and support disciplines. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech services, dentistry, and mental-health services can all have a presence within schools.
Chiropractic simply had not been part of that conversation.
Well-Adjusted Students is working to change that.
The organization now serves 17 locations, taking chiropractic directly to students and staff. Amanda and Dr. Lona Cook are also helping other chiropractors understand what they have learned during nearly a decade of doing this work.
But the significance may reach beyond the adjustments themselves.
Children in those schools hear that “the chiropractor is here.”
They see classmates receiving chiropractic care.
Chiropractic becomes familiar.
Normal.
Part of their cultural vocabulary.
James compares this with other behaviors introduced during childhood that eventually became culturally normal. His point is simple: changing what children understand can eventually change what entire communities understand.
That is the long game behind this episode.
Imagine children growing up without needing someone to explain chiropractic to them for the first time at age 35.
Imagine a child who has always known what an adjustment is.
Imagine that child becoming a parent.
Imagine chiropractic becoming part of how that family thinks about health from pregnancy through childhood and adulthood.
And imagine some of those children eventually becoming chiropractors themselves.
That future does not begin with waiting.
It begins with showing up.
Amanda returns to that idea repeatedly. Chiropractors need to be in the room. They need a seat at the table. They do not necessarily have to be the loudest person there, but they cannot influence the future of their profession while standing outside the places where families and communities are already gathering.
For Well-Adjusted Students, one of those places is the public school.
For another chiropractor, it may be somewhere else.
The principle is the same.
Show up.
Serve.
Tell the truth about chiropractic.
Protect the principle.
And remember that somewhere in the community is a child whose family may never have the resources to walk into your office.
That child may nevertheless have enormous potential.
James knows.
Because once upon a time, that kid was him.
⚡ Action Steps
- Show up. Get chiropractic represented in the rooms, organizations, schools, and community conversations where decisions affecting families are already happening.
- Know your chiropractic philosophy. Develop an understanding of the principles deep enough that they guide how you practice, communicate, lead, and live.
- Learn pediatric chiropractic. If you intend to care for pregnant women, infants, or children, pursue appropriate education and continually sharpen your clinical skills.
- Become part of the family’s tribe. Be a trusted resource without pretending you must personally possess every answer.
- Respect the intelligence of the body. Support the person in front of you without confusing chiropractic care with controlling every developmental or health outcome.
- Look beyond your office walls. Identify people in your own community who face financial, transportation, or other barriers to accessing chiropractic.
- Learn from Well-Adjusted Students. Explore the model Amanda Blonigen DC and Lona Cook DC have developed through nearly a decade of providing chiropractic care in schools.
- Start conversations with schools. Learn what health and wellness services already exist locally and explore where chiropractic could appropriately participate.
- Support access to care. Consider supporting programs that bring chiropractic to children and families who otherwise might never experience it.
- Think generationally. Every child introduced to chiropractic today could become tomorrow’s chiropractic parent, advocate, supporter—or chiropractor.
📢 Hashtags:
#ChiroHustle #Chiropractic #PediatricChiropractic #ChiropracticPhilosophy #Subluxation #WellAdjustedStudents #KidsAndChiropractic #FamilyChiropractic #ChiropracticForKids #PregnancyChiropractic #InnateIntelligence #AboveDownInsideOut #ADIO #ChiropracticLeadership #FutureOfChiropractic #ChiropracticStudents #Chiropractor #SacredTrust
Chiro Hustle, Chiro Hustle Podcast, Chiro Hustle Podcast 811, Dr Amanda Blonigen DC, Amanda Blonigen chiropractor, Amanda Blonigen chiropractic, James Chester, Well Adjusted Students, Well-Adjusted Students, chiropractic in schools, school chiropractic program, pediatric chiropractic, chiropractic for kids, children chiropractic, kids chiropractic, family chiropractic, pregnancy chiropractic, prenatal chiropractic, pediatric chiropractor, subluxation, vertebral subluxation, chiropractic philosophy, innate intelligence, Above Down Inside Out, ADIO chiropractic, Sacred Trust chiropractic, BJ Palmer, chiropractic access to care, underserved children chiropractic, nonprofit chiropractic, chiropractic outreach, chiropractic mission, chiropractic leadership, future of chiropractic, chiropractic students, developmental milestones chiropractic, ICPA, Jeanne Ohm, Webster Technique chiropractic, Lona Cook chiropractor, chiropractic school programs, chiropractic community outreach, principled chiropractic, subluxation based chiropractic