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
How Teaching Optimism Turns Stress Into Strength
We explore how to teach optimism at home so kids learn to find the good inside hard moments, lower stress, and build resilience. A hospital visit, grocery sticker shock, and simple journaling become tools to mentor rather than only correct.
• defining a good parent as a parent who teaches
• why parents, not schools, must lead character education
• finding good inside aches, bills and bad days
• reframing money stress without denial
• optimism as a stress management skill for families
• journaling examples to teach from later
• simple prompts to help kids reframe
• year‑end mindset check and small rituals
• inviting dads and community to share the practice
If you appreciated this episode, hey, I would love to hear from you. You can go to singlemomsunitedpodcast.com and leave me some feedback there, or you can go to my YouTube channel, Facebook. I would love to hear from you.
https://singlemomsunitedpodcast.com/
As Mom's we are more than nurturers we are Mentors to our children.
Hey ladies, welcome to the Mom to Mentor Podcast. If this is your first time joining, welcome. If you are a weekly listener, thank you for your loyalty. Hey ladies, before I get the game started, I am just so ever grateful at the number of downloads that I've got over today, which is 18,000. So if you are a started that number, thank you, thank you, thank you. It's been three and a half years, or not four, and which I've started this podcast, and there's been some changes and modifications, and I've been two tests that grow this podcast and I'll do mine as you are raising your children. I have two for those that may not know. And I am a little single mind, so I'm just trying to say of four things that I learned along the way that I was gonna do better when I was raising my children. Again, hopefully you are finding value, and I think some of you are, for 18,000 downloads, and I know some folks are like that off. But given I didn't expect even a hundred downloads, yeah, that's pretty significant for me. So again, thank you so much. Can I express that enough? Alright, so let's get the party started. What am I talking about today? Well, my recent listeners might be trying to plant the virtual character cards. Where we're planting character seeds and teaching you how to cultivate those seeds. This is the way a way of preparing them. And nurse towards we are mental, we have to educate our children and not lead to us to other institutions or schools to teach our kids. Because if we're not teaching them, someone else will. And guess what? It may not be aligned to your morals or values of what they're being taught. So this is your opportunity, Mom. This is why I'm doing this podcast. It's to help you with how to teach your children. Because I really wish this was available to me when I was raising my kids. Now I had some strong mentors in my life as it relates to helping me with parenting my kids, like my mom and my kids' grandmother, which would help me as it relates to doing things the right way because they had already been there. So their information and guidance was invaluable, but there was still opportunity as far as not just correcting kids, but teaching them. That's the point. That's what's going to last with our kids, and it's better for it to come from you. That's right, because you're going to be with your child lifelong. Unlike with schools, they get a new teacher every year. And that new teacher is going to teach them something else. They'll remember that teacher. But guess what? They're probably not going to be able to go back and later on in life and say, Miss Jones, I have a question. That's not going to happen. But guess what? With you, they can come back and say, hey, mom, I'm going through this situation. And we really didn't talk about this when I was growing up. But what do you think about this? And I am so happy to say that's where I am with my kids right now, right? Because I did not do a good job with teaching my kids. And again, I define a good parent as a parent that teaches. It's just that simple. And a bad parent is one that doesn't. So yeah, I was in the category of a bad parent. Yeah. So we want to change the dynamics for you. This is your opportunity. You have a whole future ahead of you, moms. This is your opportunity to change your parenting style, right? And enhance it. Because I'm sure you're a good parent, right? But if you want to be a better parent, then you definitely want to get into that rhythm of teaching your children. All right. What am I talking about today? I am talking about being optimistic. And what's that mean? That means you're finding good in every situation, even in bad situations. Let me rephrase. You are finding good in bad situations. Yeah. And that's important. Why is it important? Because you're going to have a lot of bad situations that you're going to encounter. For instance, uh a couple weeks ago, I got up and my body was sore and aching and so forth. Again, I'm an older single mom, and I don't know why my body chooses to ache on certain days. It just does. And so I found myself like, oh my gosh, where's the Tylenol? Where's the Advil? Where's the Bingay? Where are these resources that I can use to help me feel better? And so I had an opportunity to go to the hospital and visit a family member. And as I was walking through the hospital, and I quickly glanced in the different rooms, and I saw people in hospital beds with tubes and all kinds of things happening and the nurses attending to them and so forth. And even with my family member being hooked up to tubes and so forth. And I was like, you know, how can you complain about these little bitty aches and pains? You were able to walk in here, you were able to drive yourself to the hospital and walk in, walk out, nobody had to admit you. And so my whole attitude changed because I needed that visit as a reminder that how blessed I am. Because otherwise, I would have continued through the day saying, oh, woe is me, woe is me, when there are really people out there that are going through some things, not just physically, but mentally. And so I'm so grateful and a reminder just to be optimistic that I could be the one that's in the hospital. I could be the one with tubes. And I have been there, and it's not fun. It's not fun. But that's what being optimistic is all about is seeking or identifying the good in a bad situation. Oftentimes in where we are now as it relates to the economic issues that we're encountering and the high grocery prices and so forth. And I go in and I'll see something for$5. And I'm like, wow, that's a lot of money when this used to be$3. So the cost are up. But then I have to go back and say, you know what? While it's expensive, I have money to buy it. So that's what's being optimistic is all about is finding the good because it could be worse. It could be worse. And now, moms, once you start identifying the good in your situation or situations, now you can start educating your child or your children. Because guess what? When you start identifying the good in these bad situations, it's gonna help alleviate stress. Yeah. Because now you are learning and developing a behavior that manages stress because you're looking for the good. Yeah, you are looking for the good and it makes a difference. Ask me how I know. After that hospital visit, oh yeah, I was skipping. I was excited, I was elated because it that could have been me. And all of it, all it takes is an accident. And I got the nerve to sit here and talk about, oh, my knees hurt, my back hurt. No, I had a whole new mindset, a fresh perspective. And all of a sudden, my whole attitude changed for the positive. That's what being optimistic looks like. Yeah, so we don't want that negativity to hover over us and be absorbed in our system. Yeah, we want to take this opportunity and say, you know what, I'm not gonna let this get me down. I'm not. It's just that easy. Now, how do we cultivate this? How do we cultivate this? You would want to journal your situation and look at the positive side of it. So I gave you the example of the grocery store in the hospital, right? So as you're journaling, so you can either do this in a hard copy, a book, or I like OneNote, the app OneNote, and I can go in and I that's my lifeline. I go in, make notes, I can make different file folders for different issues and so forth. And again, as I'm older, I have a tendency to forget. But with OneNote, I just open it and I quickly jot things down in there that I need to remember. I want to talk about. Like today's podcast, I put all my notes in OneNote and I create my tabs on what the topics are gonna be about. So even if I couldn't have recorded this episode today, the information is still there that I can go back and record later. And so you can use OneNote. And here's the other good thing about OneNote you can access it from your desktop, or you can access it from your phone and it syncs up. Because again, I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll have an idea because I'm an overthinker, and I'll quickly open OneNote, jot down my idea and go back to sleep. And then when I get up, now I know, yeah, you weren't dreaming that you did actually make a note of this. But either way, capture your situation, whether it's digitally or you want to write it down. Why is that important? Because you want to go back and share with your children as you're mentoring your child and educating them that this is why you gotta think positive in all situations, not just one, all situations. If you're in an accident and you didn't get hurt, but your car was total. Guess what? That could have been much different. And you gotta learn to be thankful that you made it out of that accident without issue. Be thankful that you can go into the grocery store. Yes, prices are high, but if you have money to still pay for your items, that's being optimistic. So start jotting down these examples, mom. Again, whether in book form or OneNote or however you want to do this digitally as a reminder that although it looks bad, is not as bad that it looks, right? You still have something to be thankful for. And as we finish out 2025, this is the perfect opportunity to start changing your mindset and start really getting in position to help your children and teaching them. Yeah, it's so important because there are gonna be some bad days. There's gonna be some tough days, and how do you get through it? Yeah, you think about the positive aspects of it, right? It's easy to look at the bad pieces of the issue, and but once you start looking at the positive, it really does change your attitude. Ask me how I know. All right, ladies, that's it for me. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. And if you did, hey, come on now, let me move over to 19,000 and 20,000 downloads. Help me help you and tell another mom and tell another parent. Because I know some fellas may be listening as well while this is designed for single moms. But fellas, if you find value in your parenting, because you can do this as well, and if you're visible in your child's life and they're uh again looking to you as also a mentor, then absolutely take this knowledge, share with your child, and then maybe share with another dad, right? Because that's what parenting is all about, it's not perfect, there really is no rule book around it, how to be a parent, but you can do this, you can do this. How do I know? That's right. I did it, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity in my life that while I'm not a perfect parent and at times I was a bad parent, but I'm so thankful that I'm able to share with you for you to get a head start to try to change your mindset, your approach to parenting when it comes to your children. All right. If you appreciated this episode, hey, I would love to hear from you. I'd love to hear some fake some feedback from you. You can go to sing a mom's united podcast.com and leave me some feedback there, or you can go to my YouTube channel, Facebook. I'm all over. I would love to hear from you. All right. Have a great day. Take care.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
