Hey ladies, welcome to the Mom to Mentor podcast. If this is your first time joining, welcome. If you are a repeat listener, thank you for your loyalty. It's a new day, a new month, a new week, and we have some exciting information to share with you today. For my loyal listeners, you know that I've been trying to plant character seeds as it relates to raising our children and things that they need to know and that we should be proactively teaching them and not waiting for the school or another institution to teach them certain behaviors that's required to navigate life. But I'm gonna do something a little different today, and I hope you'll find this as interesting as the other episodes. But I'm talking about things we should not do in front of our children because again, remember, they pay attention to what they hear and what they see, and they absorb that behavior, whether we like it or not. We have to be really careful in what we allow our children to see and hear because they're replicated. And as I mentioned before, there are generational curses, but they're also generational blessings. We want to try to be as positive as possible in front of our children. Yes, it's not gonna be 100% foolproof, but we certainly can try because it's gonna pay off after a while. I'm just gonna go through a few things today, and which be aware of as we are in front of our children and what we expose our children to. It can do more damage than you really think it does. We have to be careful in what we say, what we involve them in. All right. What am I talking about today? One of the things that you should not engage your children is in adult relationship problems. If you have a boo thing and things are just not working out, he ain't coming home, he ain't doing like he's supposed to, you should not be sharing that with your child or your children. I don't care how old they are, there's no age limit here. You say they're in their teens, so I'm gonna go ahead and nope, nope, nope, because now your child is developing and identifying who they are, and matter of fact, they may be even considering a relationship. So you still want to keep that private, mom. That's between you and your boo thing. And personally, after my kids' father and I went our separate ways, I didn't bring anyone else around my kids. Notice I said around them. Now that didn't mean that I wasn't talking to different people, right? But I just didn't bring them around my children. That's something totally separate. And none of the situations that I was in were never serious enough for me to bring them around my kids. So just keep that in mind, mom, when you're out dating and so forth. Just try to minimize any interaction with that person. Okay, that's between you and him. Okay. Leave your kids out of it. Also, any financial stress or unpaid debts. One of the things my mom used to say, she used to always talk about property taxes. Oh, here come those taxes again. It's time to pay the taxes and then finally that started weighing on me. Although I wasn't able to do anything to help her at the time, but I felt the burden of her always saying, Here come these taxes again. And moms, keep in mind, as you're experiencing financial difficulties, try not to put that on your child as well. I and as a single mom, I went through a lot of financial drama, and my kids didn't know. I did not share it with them. Now they saw it when I got my car repossessed or my lights turned off, or one time as I was in the grocery store trying to buy us groceries, and I was going to write a check, and they said my check was no good, those kinds of things. Unfortunately, they did see some things happen, but I did not purposely share with them that I was experiencing hard times financially. Again, we don't want to put that unnecessary burden on them because they will think about that. I know I did. All right. Negative talk about the other parent. Oh my goodness. This is a big one. Ladies, you slept with your child's father and you became pregnant. You chose to keep the child. Period. Now, if he didn't do his part or should have done his part and all of that stuff, okay. But you don't share that with your children. You don't come back and say, that did beat that MF or that so and so on. You don't do that with your children because remember, your child still has his DNA. Yeah. So now you're they're gonna start thinking, oh, if she doesn't like him or she's criticizing him, and I have his DNA, so she's gonna ultimately start criticizing me too, or that translates to, I'm no good either. So see the seat you just planted, mom? Yeah, we have to be careful in what we expose our children to. Yes, if the father is not doing what he needs to, that's between you and the father. Keep your child or your children out of that discussion. We are also talking about self-doubt. If you're always talking negatively, moms, again, that's gonna spill over into your child's consciousness. Because now, when mama's always doubting and saying, I don't think I can, or this won't happen, and that guess what? They're gonna adopt that same mindset, and they're in school. Be careful, mom, in what you allow your children to see and hear. Now, we all have made mistakes in the past, we've all made wrong decisions and so forth. Again, don't be proactively sharing your mistakes with your child. Now, I do think it is worth mentioning a bad decision you have made if it aligns to a bad decision they have made. Then you want to talk through that and talk about why you made the decision, why it was a bad decision, and how you overcame that decision, what you did to overcome that. That's important because now they understand, oh, mom did it. Okay, I get it. So I don't feel too bad. She got through it, and this is how she got through it. So let me try that method with my situation. So there's a win-win there. There's a win-win. We also don't want to gossip about relatives, neighbors, or friends. And I have to say, double ouch there. I did find myself saying inappropriate things about people in that category of a relative, neighbor, or friend. Yeah. I've done that, and I shouldn't have. That's planting a seed of negativity of them to do the same thing with other people they interact with. And we don't want to do that. And if I had to go back and give my younger self some advice, that's what it would be is don't talk about people in front of your children unless it's positive. Keep that in mind. I just talked about work and working with different people and some of the things you're assigned to do at work. It can be frustrating, it can be irritating, right? Try not to bring work home. Leave work at work. That's one of the core things that I did do, and I think I did pretty successfully. Is I left work at work. I left home at home. I didn't try and blend the two. I knew it was not gonna work out. Anything that happened at work, it stayed there until I got back the next day. When I got in the house, then it was all about the kids. It was all about family. How was your day? What did you learn? Did you do your homework, etc., etc.? And vice versa, on my way to work, depending on what happened at home. And then once I got into work, hey, good morning, everybody. What's on the agenda today? Let's get the party started. Again, the importance is to make sure these two remain separated. All right. Private medical issues. I'm at the stage now that I'm experiencing more medical concerns than I did, I was saying 10 years ago. And no one ever likes to see their parent going through something. My dad, he passed away when I was 12 and he was a diabetic and he was sickly, at least those last five years that I could remember. And while he didn't talk about it, I saw it. And when you see that, that weighs heavily on you. That's extremely stressful. At least for me it was to see him having to go through what he did. He was bedbound. We had to take care of him. And a lot of that caring came from me. But be careful, mom, especially if you've been diagnosed with something, you're going through something physically. Try not to include your kids with an extreme level of detail. Okay. And if possible, don't include them at all. They don't need that kind of stress in their life. Right now, we are living in an environment politically where there's a lot of negative exchange about what's happening. Everywhere you look, there's some type of comment about political issues. Please refrain from having that discussion with your children, any political discussions. And because it can be a distraction. And we don't need that in our lives with so many other things happening. We don't need to have political discussions about these situations that are going on. Just keep it moving, right? Now, if they come to you and ask and say, hey, mom, I saw this, I heard that, then absolutely talk to it and try not to put any specific negative emphasis on it. If you can, try to find a positive spot, but try to avoid any political discussions. Also, as a parent, we go through a lot. We get frustrated a lot. Okay. I'll talk about me. I got frustrated a lot. As a result of that, I didn't try to push it on to my kids, but life is life, right? You're going to have a bad day. And depending on what that frustration is, right? So if you are going through that frustration, mom, try to step away if you can, go into the room by yourself, take a moment of your time for you. If you can go for a walk and come back, then do that. But try not to push that frustration you're experiencing on your child. Take a step back. Take a deep breath. Do a breathing exercise to recoup and regroup your thoughts so you don't take it out on the kids. And don't compare your children to other children. Oh, just absolutely awful. Don't look at little Bobby. Look how little Bobby's behaving. How come you're not behaving that way? You should act. Don't do that. There's a reason why we all have fingerprints because we are unique. And so when we start comparing children to other children, that means we want them to be like them. And your child has a right to be themselves. Now, you still have a right to correct them, okay, but you don't correct them by comparing them, right? Because again, they are unique, they are their own person. So you want to recognize that. Please, as our children are in school and so forth, please do not criticize their teacher in front of them. Yeah. Again, I have to say ouch, because I've had to visit my kids' schools on a few occasions and had to have some discussions on a few occasions. And after I had those discussions, some things were shared with my kids that shouldn't have been related to the teacher. When we do that, the respect for the teacher goes out the window. Yeah, it can make a long school year, it can make it uncomfortable because they can go back and say, my mom said this when she talked to you. Or my mom said I didn't have to, or my mom said she thought it was unfair. My mom said, Yeah, we don't want to do that. We don't want to do that. And again, if I had to go back and give myself, my younger self, some advice, that would be one of the pieces of advice I would give myself. Any conflict or concerns that are shared with your child's teacher, you keep that between you and the teacher. And as it relates to the child, your response is, I handled it. Yeah, it's resolved, it's done. And that's it. And we move on. But definitely do not add any negative criticisms regarding the teacher with your child. Jealousy and rivalry with others, again, try this is natural, a natural emotion, a natural response to some things. If you see something that someone has that's better than you and you want it, there's a way to handle jealousy. I know when I was raising my kids when I first moved, had all used furniture. And when I went to my other friend's house and I saw they like, oh, they got brand new furniture. I've used furniture. In reality, I turned out better because when you have small kids, yeah, they're not gonna take care of stuff. So actually, I was the winner in that one, but I was still envious of what I saw other people having as far as newer furniture and things. And I was like, oh wow. And you never want to go back and share with your child any type of jealousy or envy you're expressing of what someone else has. So just keep that in mind. Try to avoid, as a matter of fact, just don't do it. Any negative comments about your child's appearance. I mean, anything like if they're overweight, I would say that was one of the things that really hindered my self-esteem as I was going up because I was a big girl. I still am. But back then, people really shamed you for your size. Or let me rephrase, they shame me for my size. And that resonated with me, and it still does today. I thought I was less than because everybody would talk about my size, my weight, and as a result of that, it left an imprint on my self-esteem. Not embracing that I'm a big girl, but a big girl negatively. So the good news is I've been able to overcome it somewhat. But just keep that in mind, moms. If your child is overweight, if they want to lose weight, then try to help them. Let them go walking, let them go outside and play, let them do things to help with that weight versus say, ooh, wee, you don't need nothing else to eat today, which was also told to me. You done had enough, put it down. Uh-uh, no. So don't do that to your child. Please and thank you. And then finally, don't blame your child for family issues. Yeah, don't do that. Why is that important? Because again, that's gonna impact their self-esteem. They think the reason why the family isn't functioning as it should is because of them. They're gonna carry that on into a potential relationship that they may have. And there may have they may have kids one day. And so again, you're starting to develop these generational curses unknowingly. And so we don't want to do that because it'll just get passed along and passed along, and we will never recover from it. In conclusion, ladies, while we want to plant positive character seeds so our kids can grow and navigate life, we also want to create an awareness of bad behavior that we may be sharing with our children unknowingly. Unknowingly, because I did. I'm guilty. I am guilty. And my kids will come back and tell me things, or I will see behaviors as a result of my bad behavior, of including them in some things when they should not have been. Finally, just let kids be kids. Don't let them grow up too quick. You, me, anyone of as an adult knows this life is not easy. It's not easy at all. And our parents made it look like it was easy. At least my mom did, and my mom and dad did, but it's not easy at all. All right, ladies, if you enjoyed today's episode, that's right. Tell another mom and also leave me some feedback. I would love to hear from you. I would love to get your thoughts. If you're interested in coming on the mom to mentor show, make sure you complete the guest form on my website, which is SingleMom's United Podcast.com, and let me know what you taught your child or your children so we can pay it for it to other moms. Yeah, because this is something you're teaching your child, something many of us may not have thought to teach our children. So we want to hear that. So complete the form, and hopefully, very soon I'll get everything up and running on what the interview style will look like, and then you'll be my first guest. Don't forget to visit me on Mom to Mentor, Facebook, social media. I'm also on Instagram. Go to my YouTube page. I'm there. However, you want to share this podcast, anywhere you can find podcasts, you can also share that way as well. I certainly appreciate you all. You have a wonderful day, a wonderful week. Take care.