Kate Gosselin hoped participation in FOX's celeb boot camp series would earn her 'cool mom points'

Kate Gosselin recently opened up about her ‘intense’ experience on FOX’s Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test reality series in a new interview with PEOPLE.

The Jon & Kate Plus 8 star, 47, says her kids inspired her participation in the celebrity boot camp-style competition and hoped it’d earn her some ‘cool mom points.’

The remark comes a month after her son Collin, 18, revealed he has no relationship with his mother and believes their time on the family’s hit TLC show tore them apart. 

Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test – which premieres January 4 on FOX – challenges 16 celebrities to endure ‘demanding training exercises’ led by a team of ex-special forces operatives.

Due to the grueling nature of the show, Kate told the outlet that she set realistic expectations for herself and focused on making her children proud.

‘I knew I was crazy going into it, but as afraid of it as I was — because I kept trying to be like, “No, no, I can’t do that!” — then I’d find myself awake at night being like, “But what if I could?”‘ she explained.

Kate continued: ‘I mean, obviously if I was in my 20s, I’d have a better chance of whipping it. But I knew, given my age, I mean let’s be real, how far could I go?

‘I knew my mental determination could take me [far], but my physical status, I’m not physically running marathons currently.

‘So that part was really worrying, but at the same time, just even giving it a shot I thought would bring me some cool mom points.’

Kate shares eight children with ex-husband Jon Gosselin, 45. They have twin daughters Mady and Cara, 21, and their 18-year-old sextuplets Hannah, Collin, Alexis, Aaden, Joel and Leah.

She told PEOPLE that she hoped the series would further ‘test [her] mental ability,’ which helped her during the birth of her and Jon’s sextuplets back in 2004. 

‘I mean I had six babies, which that was pure mental, not giving up,’ she explained. ‘I was on bed rest for 24 weeks total and sitting in the hospital for 10 weeks.

‘Every day I [said] out loud to myself, ‘You cannot give up.’ It was a mental and physical game.’

It was through those moments of self-motivation that she learned ‘how really you can talk yourself in or out of anything.’

Kate continued: ‘Your brain is so much more powerful than we give it credit for. So that part, I already had a taste of having been pregnant with them and literally crying because I felt 85 but knew I couldn’t give up because it would be to their detriment really if they were born too early.

‘So that part I knew I had clicked into a little bit and I really wanted to see how far I could take that.’

Other celebrity participants include: Britney Spears’ younger sister Jamie Lynn, Real Housewives alum Kenya Moore, Spice Girls member Mel B, The Bachelorette’s Hannah Brown, reality TV star Dr. Drew Pinsky, famed chef Tyler Florence, R&B singer Montell Jordan, actress Beverley Mitchell and former aide to Donald Trump, Anthony Scaramucci.

It will also feature a number of high-profile sports figures such as: former NFL star Danny Amendala, former MLB star Mike Piazza, NBA player Dwight Howard, Olympic freestyle skier Gus Kensworthy, Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin, and former pro soccer player Carly Lloyd.

Though Kate appears to be doing her best to move forward, her son Collin recently divulged information about their fractured relationship in an interview with ET.

He told the outlet that he is open to reconciling with his mom despite the issues that stemmed from her enrolling him in a live-in educational facility back in 2016.

Six years after Kate told PEOPLE that Collin was in a program to help him ‘learn certain strategies’ to navigate his ‘special needs,’ the teen is opening up about how attending Fairmont Behavioral Health Institute affected their relationship.

‘After being there, I didn’t have a relationship with her,’ Collin told the outlet. ‘Even before [being] there, I don’t think we had much of a relationship and I think that just kept tearing it even more down.’

As to what initially led to their estrangement, he speculates that their family’s hit reality series, Jon & Kate Plus 8, which aired from 2007 to 2010, played a major role. 

‘I want to believe it was because of TV and what being in the public eye does to a family. I think it tore us apart,’ he said. 

Collin continued: ‘It gave us less time to actually be together as a family, [and] more time to be in the public eye.’ 

Jon was granted full custody of his daughter, Hannah, in 2016, then Collin, two years later, who currently lives with him in Reading, Pennsylvania. 

In May, Hannah told ET: ‘I’ve always been closer with my dad and we’ve always had a strong good relationship.’ 

‘It’s a lot, growing up in a very busy household with lots of kids. And there’s not really a one-on-one relationship, for attention, that you have with your parent. I felt like my dad gave me that attention and a feeling like I had a good solid relationship with a parent.’

The former child star added: ‘It was a difficult decision leaving my siblings I did not want to be separated from them or even, like, live in a different household than them. But I just feel like there was unfair treatment in my mom’s house and I just wanted to live with my dad.’

Gosselin remains estranged from his other 18-year-old children – Aaden, Alexis, Joel, and Leah – in North Carolina as well as his 21-year-old daughters Madelyn and Cara attending college in New York.

‘I feel it’s a really poor decision on Kate’s part, because she alienated me from those kids,’ Jon noted. ‘I think it was a poor parenting decision. It would’ve been much better if she would have been more open with them and explained things better.’

He added: ‘Maybe they will realize what the truth is and what has transpired as maturity steps in. Maybe they’ll go discover the truth or they’ll ask Hannah or ask Collin.’ 

After turning 18 on May 10, all of the sextuplets are now able to access the TLC money they earned as kids, and Hannah is ‘going to use it to pay for my college.’

While speaking of his youngest children turning 18, he raved: ‘There’s no more custody court. We’re done today. It’s over. I call today ’emancipation day’… It is just a big relief. This weight has been lifted off my shoulder…Now it’s time for me to move on – dating – moving on with my own life. It’s like starting over pretty much.’