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
Building Confidence in Your Child
Can societal expectations around physical appearance really affect our children’s mental health? Join me on this eye-opening episode of Single Moms United, where we tackle the harsh realities of societal perceptions of imperfection and their impacts on self-esteem. Drawing from my personal journey with weight issues, I discuss how negative labels and judgments can lead to severe bullying and depression among school-aged children. I'll introduce a powerful formula aimed at helping parents positively frame their children’s unique traits, turning perceived imperfections into points of pride. This episode is your guide to empowering your children to embrace their uniqueness confidently.
https://singlemomsunitedpodcast.com/
It's not how you arrived at the title, but what you do with it.
Hey, ladies, welcome to the Single Moms United podcast, where we cannot spell United without the letter U or Y-O-U. Hey, it's not about how you arrived at the single mom title, but it is what you do with it, moms. I've been talking about the letter I for these last few weeks, and one of them is uncovering your identity. And if you haven't heard it, girl, you better go back and listen. Some good stuff. Hey, if this is your first time visiting or coming or listening, welcome. If you are a repeat listener, thank you, thank you, thank you. And for the folks that provided kind words to me over the week, thank you. Sometimes the encourager needs to be encouraged as well, because we're all human and so I appreciate that. You just don't know from the bottom of my heart. All right, so let's get down with it. Today there is imperfect or imperfection, and I know you're probably like well, how did you come up with that? Monica Ray, tell you, and I encourage you to stay or listen to the entire episode, because I'm going to present to you a formula that I think will help with talking to your children about what society claims as an imperfection. Great segue Society and others defines, in my opinion, imperfection as a physical quality that doesn't match their expectations. I'll say that again a physical quality that doesn't match their expectations. So, for example, maybe your smile isn't what it should be, maybe a few of your teeth are crossing, crisscrossing each other, right? So society would say that's an imperfection. In reality, it's just uniqueness, because one thing I know as a Christian God doesn't make junk. He made us in his own image. So if you're talking about me or we're talking about others, we're talking about him. We have to learn to acknowledge and embrace our uniqueness. But what happened is society is saying, hey, if you don't look a certain way, you are imperfect. And guess what that leads to? Yeah, bullying, especially if you have school-aged children, leads to yeah, bullying, especially if you have school-age children.
Speaker 1:Now for me, my imperfection that society labeled me with is my weight. Yeah, I'm overweight. I'm tall. The average woman is 5'5 to 5'7. I'm 5'9. In addition to being tall, I actually have a few extra pounds and I always have the way I was talked about.
Speaker 1:You would have thought that I was the candidate for that show my 600-lb Life. But I wasn't that heavy. But I was heavy enough to not meet folks' expectations of what a perfect young lady should look like physically. As a result of that, it impacted my self-esteem. It still impacts my self-esteem, right, and so I try and have suppressed it over the years, but it's still hanging around deep down. And as a result of my own weight issues.
Speaker 1:Guess who else had weight issues? Yeah, my kids. They look great now. They've slimmed down and they've worked on themselves and because society labeling them as imperfect because of their weight, the part that really got me is I didn't know how to talk to them about it when they came to me, about folks talking to them about their weight and that they're fat and they're lazy and they're this and they're that and some of the same feedback I got. And I remember going even to my mom and said mom, they're talking about me. She didn't know how to respond. Here we go with the generational curse. So when my kids came to me, I didn't know how to respond other than to say I get it, I understand, but what is the solution? What is the comfort that needs to be provided in these situations?
Speaker 1:By the end of this episode, I hope to give you a formula Now. You're not going to find this anywhere else. Don't try to Google it. This is homegrown, this is organic. I think that's the word that's being used these days. When your child comes to you and they're saying, hey, mom, they're picking on me because of we want to change the word imperfect to unique. That's the first thing we want to do Now. If y'all need to go get a pencil paper no, just kidding, I know you can rewind it and listen to it again we want to change that word, that negative word of imperfect, to unique.
Speaker 1:When we talk about imperfect, it shouldn't be aligned Our physical features. Imperfection is all about character, and that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it, because nobody is perfect with their character. And again, when we talk about physical traits, god made us after his own image. If we talking about different folks and how they look, we talking about God, but he knew what he was doing when he put our parents together. Yes, he did. There are no imperfections as it relates to us physically. It's all uniqueness and that's why we have different fingerprints right, because we're unique. So if I don't look exactly the way you think I should look, number one, that's your problem. And number two, how I encourage myself and how you encourage your children it's all about you being unique. There's nothing imperfect about you physically. Your uniqueness, that's how you can respond to whoever's talking about you. Hey, you say my smile ain't the greatest, but I got news for you, boo, I'm unique. I have a unique smile because if you notice the different word choices imperfect sounds so negative, while unique has a positive spin on it. And that's what we have to do to turn this thing around, because if we don't guess what mom, your child is going to experience and now it's called depression.
Speaker 1:When I was growing up, I just had really bad self-esteem. It literally was difficult for me to look into the mirror because I had been so much put on and reminded daily of my weight. That weighs very heavily. I would the emotional hurt that you experience from bullying and people reminding you of your uniqueness right, or what they would call imperfection. That's long-term, that stays with you and you really never heal from it. I haven't healed from it and this episode is a little bit of a struggle for me because I am having to bring back those emotions that I finally learned how to suppress over the years. This is one reason why I'm a single mom.
Speaker 1:When my kid's father came along, he didn't see me as overweight. He saw me as beautiful, he saw me as smart. He saw all of these other things that people had told me that I was not. Now, did he manipulate me? No, I wouldn't say that. His expressions were sincere and genuine. As a result of that, I was able to develop a real relationship with him. And as a result of the real relationship but other things happen, because now I established trust in him. He was encouraging, he reminded me I could do things, he taught me things. There were just so many different elements made me vulnerable to him. And now I have two kids and I'll leave it at that. And, matter of fact, ladies, I probably will have an episode on intimacy later on in life, because that's an I word, right, but anyway, let me get back on the highway.
Speaker 1:So your children are going to experience people pointing out and again I'm no longer going to say imperfection, I'm going to say unique or uniqueness on them, those physical features. And even you, mom, encourage yourself, you say it's unique, it's not an imperfection, it's unique, and embrace your uniqueness. Because once you start to embrace it, guess what? Because once you start to embrace it, guess what? You are going to be more comfortable as you interact with your children as they come to you about their uniqueness, and that's the key. You have to be able to talk to what they're experiencing and identify with them. This is a critical aspect of parenting. This is going to happen. Somebody is going to point out their uniqueness, whether they're short, tall, skinny, overweight, their skin tone, dark or light facial features, small lips, big lips, small nose, big nose. It's going to be something where somebody feels like, well, you don't match my expectations, so I'm going to exploit it and really bring that out and really taunt you. And that's what it is. It's just a ton Again, mom, you are more than just a nurturer and a provider.
Speaker 1:You are a mentor, you are a listener, you are a leader, and I talked about that in prior episodes. We want to embrace this. We want to embrace it, we want to get ahead of it. We want to give you the tools so you know how to talk to your child or your children when someone comes up to you and starts talking about their uniqueness. Okay, so here's the formula. Are you ready? All right, I'm going to take that as a yes, all right.
Speaker 1:So it's called R-A-R-E, a-r-e. That's how you know this is organic, right, because it's kind of pretty simple. So the A represents accept your uniqueness. Yeah, I have a big forehead, or yeah, I'm overweight. Uh-huh, what about it? I got to carry it around, not you. Wait, uh-huh, what about it? I got to carry it around, not you. Right, think about it. But you have to accept your uniqueness and what you do is again acknowledge it. Yep, I do. Or I'm sorry to the person that thinks it's important to point out your uniqueness. I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm happy with me. I'm sorry you're not happy with me.
Speaker 1:Next letter R reassure. Reassure your children and yourself. Everyone isn't meant to look the same period. Could you imagine how boring this world would be if everybody looked alike? As different fads and styles come out, especially with weaves and lashes, it's almost like, wow, everybody looks the same, nobody looks unique, and that's boring. Reassure yourself, reassure your children. Everybody is not meant to look the same. There's a reason you have different fingerprints than anyone else.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, e. E represents embrace. A better term is hug. Right, if I bring it down to eye level, we're talking about hugging. Remember, emotional hurt is a lifelong burden. It's going to remain there. You can try to suppress it, mask it Again to reflect back. For me personally, to reflect back on my own childhood, how and I will say, taunted about my weight, made to feel less than it had such a negative impact on my self-esteem. And we wonder why kids are talking about committing suicide. To me that's just extremely sad, because children should know anything about that word. And now they're being bullied on social media. And so, moms, you're going to have to turn it up a little bit as far as knowing what's going on in your child or your children's lives, because they're exposed to so much more. So you're going to have to be vigilant and monitoring and observing their behavior. If their behavior changes all of a sudden, it's a pretty good chance to probably being bullied by someone.
Speaker 1:You teach them to accept their uniqueness, you reassure them everyone is not meant to look alike and then you gotta incorporate that physical piece which is giving them a hug as a parent. And one thing I regret I did not do enough hugging with my kid. I admit it, I did not do enough hugging with my kids and I'm so grateful that they have turned out as well as they have because of my lack of intimacy with them and reassuring them, because remember once you reassure them and embrace them. That's the physical reassurance, is that embracing? That's the formula, mom. I challenge you to try it.
Speaker 1:And again, this is all about critical thinking. So you may say, yeah, this is good and or, yeah, this is good, but you can do that. You can tweak this to make it your own, because you know your household, you know your child. We got to do better when it comes to talking to our children about their uniqueness. You can do it All right, ladies, you have a great day, a fantastic week and a monumental month, and if you enjoyed today's episode, that's right. Tap that young lady on the shoulder and say, girl, you better go over here and listen. Ooh wee, this was a good episode. Now, again, if you enjoyed it, the encourager can always use some encouragement. So go to my YouTube page, go to singlemomsunitedpodcastcom. Drop me a note. Would love to hear from you. Take care.
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