Your Children Are Watching More Than They’re Listening

Your Children Are Watching More Than They’re Listening

As parents, we spend so much time trying to teach our children the right things to do, but what if the biggest lessons they’re learning aren’t from what we say at all?

In this episode of The Quiet Reset, I explore why children learn more from our actions than our words, and why looking after yourself isn’t selfish it’s one of the most important examples you can set.

From fitness goals and wellbeing to career changes, confidence and creating a life you genuinely enjoy, this episode is a reminder that your children are always watching how you live.

If you’ve ever felt guilty about taking time for yourself, this episode will encourage you to see it from a completely different perspective.

Connect with Me:

Website: www.thesecretmumclub.com

Email: kerry@thesecretmumclub.com

Instagram: @thesecretmumclub

The Quiet Reset is created by The Secret Mum Club.

You can find more gentle guidance and resources at www.thesecretmumclub.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Carrie Hart and I'm from Secret Mum Club, a professional organizing company built on understanding, judgment, free support, and real help. I'm that extra pair of hands you've always wished you had. And this podcast is here to help your life feel lighter and calmer and more manageable. One honest conversation at a time. Hello and welcome back to the Quiet Reset. Has it been a while since I have been here? It has indeed, but I'm coming back to you with so much more content now. I am completely refreshed and ready to go. So let's get into today's episode. Today I want to talk about something that's been playing in my mind a little bit recently, and that's this. As mothers, we spent a lot of time teaching our children, or trying to teach our children at least. We teach them manners, kindness, confidence, resilience. We teach them to work hard, teach them to look after themselves, not always successfully. Um, but recently I've been wondering whether the biggest lessons our children learn aren't actually from what we tell them but actually from them watching what we're doing. I follow this amazing man on Instagram, he's totally inspirational. It is worth going to give him a follow for sure. His name is Peter Crone, and he said something recently that's really stuck with me. He said that children may not listen to what you say, but they'll become who you are. I'm gonna say that again. He said that children may not listen to what you say, but they become who you are. That is so true, isn't it? If I look at myself and look at my mum and dad, I see so much of them in me. Like the way I think, the way I react to situations, approach problems, my habits for sure, uh, my routines, my beliefs, my OCD, definitely from my dad. Um, some of them I didn't even realise I had until I become an adult, and then you start looking back at where you learnt these things and where you pick them up, and that's because children are always watching what adults are doing, so they're learning like miles before we even realise they're learning, and they're watching how we talk to ourselves. I know so many women that give themselves such a hard time about the way that they look and the way that they feel about themselves in their own body, and your children look at you all the time, and if you don't want them to have the same anxieties as you have, then you have to learn to accept yourself. Um, it's really interesting. My daughter is leaving year two soon, and she's having a year two school disco, and there's oh, I'm so excited for her, and there's like a little yearbook and in the year two had to write. So the reason why this afternoon I'm going to get microling done. I've never had it done before. Beautiful nervous about it and um funny. But before anyone thinks this podcast is going to be turned into a beauty podcast, I don't know if the point is. The point is that I'm having it done, but when you're retrying, every time I've looked in the mirror, I've got the same thing. And how lovely can I say out there? However, all of our children don't know. Whether we like it or not, and it's how we feel about it's not that we don't encourage that, it's because they're listening to the outside world. Every time you catch a reflection, you're telling yourself you look exhausted, eventually you start carrying that feeling into the rest of your life. You feel less confident and energized, and a little bit less of yourself, and that's exactly how I've been feeling recently. And I think mums are often made to feel guilty for caring about themselves. I do feel like we were well, especially me, so I'm 43, and I was brought up in the era of girl power, you can do it all, believe in yourself, and all of that is amazing. But I'm one person, I'm not a superhero, and I'm doing the best that I can. And so I think it's important to remember that looking after yourself is not selfish and it's not vanity, it's it's maintenance to a degree, but it's also about doing something for you to make you know you'll be a better mother if you feel happier, if you feel more energized. So, although you feel like you could probably spend that time or that money doing something else, it is definitely a boost for you, and that will you know rub onto the whole of your household, and everybody around you will absolutely benefit from that, your children and your partner and your friends, and you benefit too, because hopefully it's gonna make me look a lot younger, but we'll see. Anyway, um, the version of yourself that everybody gets is affected about how well you're looking after yourself, and I think we've definitely created this strange culture where exhaustion has become a badge of honour, and we're expected to be tired and busy all the time and have nothing left. And though being completely depleted somehow makes us a better mother, but it doesn't, does it? It makes us less patient and snappy and exhausted, and you're just struggling, and there's got to be a better way. So, one of the things that I think's really enforced this for me is another thing that I'm doing for myself as well, which is the six pack revolution. Now, for those of you that haven't heard about this, it's I did it when I couldn't lose the weight after having my daughter and my second child. Uh, I think I was like maybe a year, maybe she was a year old, and I just couldn't lose the weight that I wanted to lose. So I signed up for the six-pack revolution, which was 90 days of this specific diet that they give you. It's super super healthy, very clean. I don't take any protein shakes on it. Um, I take like a handmade smoothie, homemade smoothie that I make myself, but none of the protein shakes or anything like that. It is pure, healthy, energizing food, and then they give you like some exercise to follow. It's not crazy, it's not impossible, it doesn't, you know, dig into your life too much. It's amazing. Anyway, I did this when I couldn't lose the weight with my daughter, and I did cheat right at the end, and I wish I hadn't have because my final picture would have been better. However, I did get down to the weight that I wanted to be, and I was so happy. But throughout the process, because I felt like I was getting somewhere and I was doing something for me, I felt better, and it took up minimal amount of my time, and I had more energy to play with the kids, and I was just happier. And so I've decided to do that again now because I felt really groggy, not energized at all, and just tired looking. I'm hit well, I'm into my 40s now, and I wasn't feeling my best, so I thought I'm gonna do it again. They've cut it down to 75 days now, and they had a hundred pounds. I think the whole thing was a hundred pound because it was their 10-year anniversary. So um, I've pretty much been following them since the beginning. But go and check them out, they're amazing. So at the moment, I'm feeling like I'm on top of everything. I feel like the kids are happier because I'm playing with them more, because I've got more energy, my food is better, I feel better about myself internally because I'm healthier, and I just feel better about life. And at home, everything seems a lot calmer, everyone seems a lot calmer, and I didn't realise how much of an impact it would make. I want to be really clear here as well. It's not about getting a six bag. Oh, yeah, it would be amazing if I had a six pack, but I'm not trying to look like a fitness model, it's not even really about how I look, it's about how I feel. Um, I'm sleeping better as well, which is incredible, and I definitely feel stronger. Um, and I always get up in the morning and do it first thing when the kids are still asleep, so I've done something for myself before spending the rest of the day doing things for everybody else, and that feeling carries it through. I am so much more patient, I'm more motivated, and more importantly, my children are watching me, and they're not just watching me eating healthy and doing exercise, but they're watching me commit to something and show that you know what, not every day is easy, but I can do this, and they're watching me keep promises to myself, and I absolutely love that. You know, I've spent my entire life loving exercise and healthy eating. Um, I have I think I was the first person when the fitness first gym opened up near my mum and dad's house when I lived at home. I think I was one of the first people through the door, and it was just before my 16th birthday, and I went in and I said they showed me around the gym, and I was super excited. I was like, Right, I'm not 16 yet, but I'm almost 16. Can I can I join? And they said, You can join when you're 16. And I waited and waited and waited until I was 16, and I was on that day, I was through the door. Like, I just enjoy exercise, I love the way it makes me feel. Anyway, getting back to where I was. Um, one day I hope that they remember this and they grow up believing that they're absolutely capable of doing hard things because they saw it at home. You know, my husband works incredibly hard, he wakes up incredibly early, he gets in, and he will still carry on working on the house. And I love that. I feel like and he enjoys doing it as well, and so do I, and we're quite busy people, but we make ourselves busy, so that means we can have that free time as well. So I feel like at the moment we're in a really, really nice place, and it's not just work, it's not just fitness, sorry, it's work as well. Uh, as I've mentioned, I think in previous episodes, I worked for 20 years working in reinsurance, and although it definitely was so much fun in the beginning, and I loved it, it didn't work when I had kids, so I realised that it wasn't where I wanted to stay. So after going back and having my daughter, I left because I wasn't excited about it anymore, and it wasn't the future I wanted. And I remember telling the children that you know mummy's not gonna be working in London anymore, and they were really excited about it. Um, I said no more before school clubs, there was only two, but no more before school clubs, and you know, I'm gonna show you that I'm gonna start something and I'm gonna succeed in it, and watch me go, and that was so it fit around my family 100%, 100% why I did that. Fit around my family, everyone was instantly happier. My daughter used to write little notes. Um, she was only like six, and it used to say, I am sad, I am sad with a little unhappy face. The second I stopped working, those all changed, they were all happy face. I'm happy, happy, happy, happy, happy. And I remember taking a picture going, This is what I should be doing. So I fit all of this and everything that I do around the children. I'm very rarely heavily working, or I can't do that, or wait a minute. I feel like I've got that middle ground at the moment that they see enough that I work hard and they know that I am, but enough that I've got time for them, and I feel like that's a really hard position to get yourself get that balance right. When I left, or when I thought when I thought about leaving, there was so many risks, you know. The money, would I go back in the industry again? Am I gonna make it? So much uncertainty. But and it would have been much easier to stay exactly where I was, but I kept coming back to the same thought. What example am I setting? I don't want my children to know it's okay to stay in a job that you hate, you know, to be miserable just for the money from nine to five, five days a week. Like that's that's not what I want. I want them to know that it's okay to change direction, you're never stuck, and that work can be something that you really enjoy. And I want them to know that if something isn't right anymore, they're allowed to create something different. And one day I hope they look back and think, Mum did it, she built something from nothing, she took a chance, and maybe I can too. So I think that's one of the greatest gifts we can give our children, and that's not advice or lectures or endless reminders, but because people don't become what we tell them, they become what we see, and this re applies to relationships as well. When we're running on empty, our relationships feel it, and we're exhausted all the time, and our partner gets all of the crap that's left over at the end of the day, and it's not because we don't love them, but because we're giving everything away already, and that's another reason why I think looking after yourself matters so much because when you've got energy, anyone everyone benefits, and you're calmer and happier, and looking after yourself isn't taking something away from your family, it's giving something back. So maybe start with something small, maybe joining a class is for you, or you know, once a week, every Thursday I'm going to a yoga class, you can put the kids to bed, or going for a long walk after school run, or before school run, or doing a few press ups, or I don't know, protecting just one evening a week for you. Maybe asking your partner to do bedtime every Wednesday so you know that that time is allocated to you and you've got that time to do whatever you want to do. What matters is that you're showing yourself the same care that you show everybody else because if your children are watching, what do you want them to learn? Do you want them to learn that being a good parent means completely abandoning yourself? Or do you want them to learn that it's impossible to care for others while also caring for yourself? Well, personally I know exactly which lesson I'd rather leave behind because the truth is our children are learning from us every single day. And these this is not the advice that we give them or the lectures or the you know, f it's exactly from what we do. And if that's true, then perhaps one of the most important things that we can do as parents is build a life that we'd be really proud for them to copy. Anyway, that's my little clip it today. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you in the next episode.