As a single mom, I've made my fair share of mistakes and I'm not shy about sharing them. One area I fell short in is preparing my children for emergencies - but it's not too late for you to avoid my mistake. This episode sheds light on the critical importance of teaching our children how to handle crises. From knowing when to dial 911, understanding their full names, addresses, and phone numbers, to dealing with situations like house fires, break-ins and the disturbing rise in sex trafficking, we cover it all.
My personal shortcomings have led to this frank and heartfelt discussion, serving as a reminder that these crucial lessons need to be an integral part of our parenting, not just for the present, but as a legacy for our children when they become parents. So, whether you're a seasoned listener or a first-time visitor to our Single Moms United podcast, this episode is an essential guide to equipping your children with the knowledge and tools to confront challenging situations. As single moms, we shoulder the responsibility to arm our children for the unexpected. Let's continue to learn and grow together, supporting each other in our journey as single moms.
As a single mom, I've made my fair share of mistakes and I'm not shy about sharing them. One area I fell short in is preparing my children for emergencies - but it's not too late for you to avoid my mistake. This episode sheds light on the critical importance of teaching our children how to handle crises. From knowing when to dial 911, understanding their full names, addresses, and phone numbers, to dealing with situations like house fires, break-ins and the disturbing rise in sex trafficking, we cover it all.
My personal shortcomings have led to this frank and heartfelt discussion, serving as a reminder that these crucial lessons need to be an integral part of our parenting, not just for the present, but as a legacy for our children when they become parents. So, whether you're a seasoned listener or a first-time visitor to our Single Moms United podcast, this episode is an essential guide to equipping your children with the knowledge and tools to confront challenging situations. As single moms, we shoulder the responsibility to arm our children for the unexpected. Let's continue to learn and grow together, supporting each other in our journey as single moms.
It's not how you arrived at the title, but what you do with it.
Speaker 1:
Hey ladies, welcome to the Single Moms United podcast. If this is your first time joining, welcome If you're a repeat listener. Thank you for your loyalty. I so appreciate it and hopefully, as I deliver my thoughts and comments regarding certain situations and previous episodes, that you've been able to absorb that and pay it forward to another single mom and encourage them, because that's what this podcast is all about. It's encouraging the single mom, letting her know you made the right decision you did. At first you were probably frantic like, oh my god, I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant. What should I do? And it probably wasn't easy and he probably said it's not mine, or have an abortion or something to that effect. But you made the decision I'm keeping this child. So listen, ladies, virtual high five, fist bump, all of that. You go, girl right, you made the right decision. You made the right decision, so kudos to you. Alright.
Speaker 1:
So today I want to talk about emergency or crises and how to handle an emergency or a crisis. I watched the news. I watch it faithfully that's how I know I'm old right Because I want to know what's going on and I then there are times I get a little irritated when I miss the news, because I want to know what's going on. When I do watch the news, I do see the crises that are currently happening in our neighborhoods, in our homes and even abroad. But when I look at the news and I see the crises, fires and the gun violence and so forth, how are we preparing our children? Are we teaching them how to handle an emergency, what to do when an emergency happens? Because they will not. Might they will happen.
Speaker 1:
While I'm ashamed to say it, but I'm going to put a comma behind it, I did not prepare my kids for how to handle an emergency or a crisis. I did not, and I own that in my defense. I was never taught and when I was growing up you know you dial zero. That tells you how old I am Did learn like some first aid stuff in school related to choking and things like that. But what happens when the house is on fire? What happens when someone breaks into the house? What happens when you mom gets sick and it's just you and the child or the kids? They are alone. How would they handle that? What would they do if you got sick? Hmm, something to think about, right?
Speaker 1:
Today's episode promises to be brief and to the point. My thoughts are this teach your children what to do in an emergency. When should you start teaching them? I say around the age of five. Now, some of your children are a lot smarter and can be taught earlier. It's whatever you feel comfortable with, but I would say at least around the age of five you should be teaching them how to dial 911. What would constitute an emergency? Not to just be calling, just to be calling, but what would constitute an emergency.
Speaker 1:
They need to know their address. They need to know their phone number and I know we're out of that age of memorizing stuff because everything's in the phone now. But please and I know GPS is out there, but it gets it wrong sometimes. Gps gets it wrong sometimes. So there's nothing like encouraging and making sure your child knows his or her address. They also should know your full name Again your mommy, your mom, mama, whatever you want to go by, but they ain't gonna call you by your first name. At least my kids didn't, right and they knew better, right? But however, your children need to know your full name. So if you're Sally Jones, you say mommy's real name is Sally Jones. So if we ever get into an emergency and they ask you what my name is. Okay, it's Sally Jones. Now, that's the only time you can use my full name and get away with it. It's in an emergency, but they should know your full name. Okay, they should know the address. They should know the phone number.
Speaker 1:
All of these things are important as it relates to a crisis. You know, I also saw in the news this week where complexes or apartment caught on fire and it impacted other apartments right, because they're linked together. Again, what do you tell your children? How do you respond to these crises? Gunfire, why is someone shooting? How do you explain that to your children? Oh, one person's mad at the other and so they're deciding to shoot. Well, those bullets don't have a name on it, so it can hit.
Speaker 1:
What do you do? What does your child do? How do they protect themselves, and not just at school? I think the schools pretty much have it covered now. They have plans in place and hopefully your child can bring that home with them and say can we implement this in our household? Encourage that single mom. If the school is taking the time to teach them of what to do in a shooting situation, some of that can be extracted, applied to your household, because some of the elements that they're teaching children about where to hide and what to do and so forth that still can be applicable in your household. Take it and, matter of fact, I would even go a step further and not even rely on your child to bring it home. I would go to the school, talk to the principal.
Speaker 1:
What are you teaching the children when there's an active shooter? How do they respond to that? And that is important, because this is real life Guns, shootings, murders. They're not happening just at a daily level. They're happening at a minute level, every minute, every minute. Imagine that. How do you prepare your children for that? This is one avenue, just one avenue you can take to help protect your home against gun violence, because the children need to know how to protect themselves and they need to know how to respond. They need to know how to respond in these situations, especially if you are unable to respond. That's pretty much it. Ladies. Teach your children how to respond in an emergency or crisis. It's going to increase their education. They're gonna be able to take this forward with them, not just at a young age, but at an adult age, because, guess what, when they have kids, they're gonna have to pay that forward. They're gonna have to educate them, and if they already know what to do in these situations, it won't be that difficult. So, ladies, I encourage you as an educator yes, you are an educator to educate your children about how to handle emergency situations. And then one final one, and then I really am done.
Speaker 1:
Sex trafficking is real and I don't know why they want to go after the baby so much. I guess because they're innocent. I assume it's something that is wrong. Children are being kidnapped and forced to do things that are just not okay. Period, it is not okay. You need to teach them about sex trafficking and unwanted touches. Again, I would put that up under an emergency, because if you're touching me where I feel uncomfortable, that's not okay, it's not okay. So, mom, please do better than me. Do better than me.
Speaker 1:
Teach your children, educate your children what to do in an emergency, because long term, and even short term, it's going to pay off because, remember, emotional scars will never go away. Physical scars, they heal and you may see it depending on how big the scar is, but emotional scars will always be there. So help your children deal with these type of emotional scars that they may or will experience, because each emergency is going to be different, each crisis is going to be different. Teach them now, mom. And if you don't know, that's okay, that's okay, but there's Google, you can look it up. Everything is out there. You can ask schools again to help fill in some of those gaps that you may not be aware of, and I'm sure they would help you. You can also contact your local fire department, especially as it relates to fires, what to do in those situations.
Speaker 1:
Back when I was growing up, I believe in school, they said it was stop, drop and roll. But they do go through these various activities to teach our children. I remember riding the school bus and we had to do a drill on the bus if something happened, If there was an accident. But we cannot put all of this on this, on someone else. This belongs to you, mom. This belongs to you, all right. I hope you enjoy today's episode. If you did pay it forward, tap that next single mom on the shoulder and say hey, go listen to single moms United podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts Spotify, apple, pandora, amazon that's where you can find single moms United. All right, give your child a hug, encourage them this week. Thank you for joining and we'll talk with you soon. Take care.