Mom2Mentor
Encouraging and motivating single mothers, reminding them of their strength and determination. They can succeed as a single parent as long as they remain focused.
Its not about how you arrived at the single mom title, but, its what you do with it!
Mom2Mentor
Honesty: The Path to Respect
As parents, we often find ourselves constantly correcting our children instead of teaching them important character traits. Being a single mom means juggling multiple roles, but perhaps our most important role is that of a mentor who plants and cultivates character seeds in our children.
• Character seeds like apologizing, confidence, and honesty are best taught through both instruction and example
• Children learn more from what they see us do than from what we tell them to do
• Confidence equals strength - knowing who you are and standing by your decisions
• Confidence differs from arrogance, which implies superiority over others
• Honesty equals respect - when you're honest, you earn people's trust
• Once respect is lost through dishonesty, it's extremely difficult to regain
• Teaching children to tell the truth even when they've made mistakes builds character
• Parents should model honest behavior in their own interactions
• Everyone should learn to express truth respectfully, not rudely
• You are your child's first mentor - make sure they see you demonstrating the character traits you want them to develop
Plant the seed of honesty that leads to respect and continue to cultivate that by allowing your children to see you display that behavior.
https://singlemomsunitedpodcast.com/
It's not how you arrived at the title, but what you do with it.
Hey ladies, welcome to the Mom2Mentor podcast. If this is your first time joining, welcome, and if you have become a loyal listener, thank you. I appreciate that. And if you are a loyal listener, that means you are finding value in this podcast. This is all about ensuring that you're encouraged and motivated.
Speaker 1:Mom yes, I say mom because that's who my target audience is. Why? Because I'm a mom, and I'm a single mom, and I'm just trying to pay forward some of the experiences I've learned along life's way. So you ladies can hopefully look to me as a mentor as I try to provide you with parenting guidance. Right, because it's not easy. I'm not going to sugarcoat anything. Being a parent is not easy, and being a single parent is even harder. You're having to adopt multiple roles as it relates to raising your children or our children. So, again, I'm just trying to pay forward some of the things I've learned along the way and some of the wisdom I've captured along life's journey, in hopes that you can pass it along to your children.
Speaker 1:Now I started this new series around mentoring and planting character seeds, or building characteristics in your children, and which I think is an area that, unfortunately, I didn't do very well at. I'm just going to be honest, I did not do well, in my opinion, in building character. What I found myself doing, and maybe some of you find yourself doing as well, is you're doing a lot of correcting but you're not doing a lot of teaching. Because if we get into teaching mode, then the less of correcting mode we have to do, because now we're educating our children, because now we're educating our childrenurer, you're more than a provider, you are a teacher, and that's the mentor part of this right. Because now, as a mentor, you have folks looking up to you, which is your kids, and they're watching you, they're paying attention to you, and not only are they paying attention to you. We have to be on our best behavior. Because of that, we're not only can teach them and tell them things, but we have to show them. Mom, most of the things my kids learned from me and me from my parents, was what I saw. Not what they told me, but what I saw, the behavior I saw them display. The first two episodes one was about apology and teaching your child how to apologize, why that's important. That's a character seed that you want to implant in them and cultivate it, but you can tell them day in and day out about how to say I'm sorry, but they need to see you displaying that behavior, you apologizing for behavior that offended someone, for behavior that offended someone.
Speaker 1:Last week I talked about confidence, and confidence that equals strength. Right, and that's all it is. If you had to ask yourself what is confidence, one word is strength, and that just means you're confident in who you are. But if your child isn't seeing that in you, then it's going to be an uphill climb. Because what does it mean to be confident? What does it mean to be strong? Do they see how you present yourself? Do you go in with your head held down? They're paying attention to you.
Speaker 1:Now I do want to clarify something. There's a difference between confidence and arrogance, right? Confidence means I know who I am. Arrogance means I'm better than you, and when we say we're better than someone else which we really aren't we just hold our head up high and look down at folks like I can't talk to you. No, that's arrogance, and we don't want to display that behavior.
Speaker 1:We want to talk about confidence, being strong, making decisions, stand by our decisions, owning our decisions. That's strength, that's confidence, because we're going to have to make decisions. Your children are going to have to make decisions and you know what. They're not always going to have to make decisions. Your children are going to have to make decisions and you know what. They're not always going to make the right decision, but the key is they're going to have to learn from it. Just like you, mom, just like me, I haven't always made the right decision, but I own the decision that I made. That's confidence and that's what we need to instill in our children or our child. So this week I know I took the long way around, but this week I want to talk about honesty and the importance of honesty.
Speaker 1:Now, keep in mind, because we want to think about the word choices we are using, because I could have said we're going to talk about lying. No, we're talking about honesty and dishonesty. One of my own pet peeves is I hate to hear young kids say the word lying or liar. I don't like that coming out of a young child's mouth. I prefer but this is just my own pet peeve is, if we have to refer to dishonesty or not telling the truth, that we use the word dishonesty. That's just my own pet peeve.
Speaker 1:Everybody's different. The opposite of dishonest is honest. The opposite of dishonest is honest, and we need to teach our children what it means to be honest. And really it's just telling the truth. But here's the bigger picture, ladies when you are honest, you earn respect. So if you had to equate that with another word, just like I said, confident and strength, honest equals respect.
Speaker 1:If you don't believe me, when someone lied to you or were dishonest with you, did you lose respect for them? Yeah, because now the trust is gone. That's how we teach our children to be honest. Just tell the truth, you know. I remember when my kids were growing up, and a few times I would say they were disciplined, not because of what they did, but because they didn't tell the truth. Yeah, yeah. So the discipline they received was because they were being dishonest. So we need to teach our children about honesty, because honesty leads to respect, and if you're going to navigate in this world and be successful at it, you want to garner respect from people, right? If the first time you tell an untruth, people see you coming here. She come, yeah, they'll listen to you. But guess what? It's going to be at surface level only. If you have been found to lie or not tell the truth, then the respect is gone and it's hard to earn that back. Ladies, it's hard to earn that back.
Speaker 1:This is the time now for you to teach your children how to be honest and how to deliver it in such a way that it's not rude or crude, but they should be able to tell the truth. For example, they broke something. Yes, mom, I broke it, I apologize, and what's my punishment? And at that point you can say you know what? I appreciate you acknowledging that you broke the vase. Okay, this is what you're going to do If they get an allowance. You're not going to get an allowance because I need to replace my vase. Yeah, and now everybody's happy-go-lucky and so forth, and maybe little Ruthie and little Johnny not so happy because they're getting punished for breaking the vase and they're having to give up their allowance if they're getting one right or there's some other punishment that you can incorporate as a result of that behavior. But at least they were honest and that's what we're looking for. That's what we're looking for.
Speaker 1:Honesty leads to respect and everybody should be respected. Yeah, and they're going to need that as they leave your home, as they continue to mature, as they enter into relationships, various relationships, not just that love relationship. But they're going to go to work, they're going to have coworkers, they're going to be interacting with different people along life. Learn how to tell the truth right, because people will appreciate that. I have friends now that I know will tell me the truth. I may not like it necessarily, but I respect them for telling me the truth. And guess what? I have a friend right now. I sent her something and I said can you look this over and just be honest? If it's horrible, then let me know. I'm okay with that. I'd rather you tell me the truth than skirt over it and say yes, all right, and then go tell somebody oh girl, honey, she sent this and it was a mess. No, I don't need people like that in my life, I don't. I want somebody to be honest with me. Just tell me the truth. And so that's today's character seed.
Speaker 1:Long story short. I know, too late, too late. We're planting the seed of honesty. And why it's important? Because it leads to respect and everyone should have or earn respect. Because, remember, once you lose that respect, it's hard to gain it back. Ladies, I hope you enjoyed today's brief episode. I hope you plant the seed of honesty. And again, how do we cultivate that? They have to see you being honest, giving someone some feedback in a polite manner. They have to see you doing that. That's how they're going to learn, because you're more than a mom, you're more than a provider, you're a mentor. You have children or a child looking up to you. Mom, yes, you, you're their first mentor they'll ever encounter. So make it work, Make it happen. All right, you have a great day, a wonderful week, and again, plant the seed of honesty that leads to respect. Continue to cultivate that by allowing them to see you display that behavior. Have a great day.
