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Single Moms United
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 TITLE, but, what you do with it!
Single Moms United
Empowering Single Moms for a Brighter Tomorrow
Ever wondered how a single mom can juggle the challenges of raising children while maintaining resilience and strength? Join me on the Single Moms United podcast as I share my personal journey through the ups and downs of single motherhood. You'll learn practical strategies for teaching your kids essential life skills, like social etiquette and personal finance, while ensuring they're prepared to tackle life's challenges. Discover why fostering a partnership between parents and schools is crucial for these lessons, and how addressing disrespectful behavior in children can prevent future problems. We'll also discuss managing finances on a minimum wage, emphasizing that financial education should be personalized rather than a one-size-fits-all solution.
Shouting doesn't solve conflicts, and in this episode, I highlight the importance of maintaining a calm demeanor during disagreements for effective communication and conflict resolution. By setting an example of non-aggressive communication, we can teach our children how to handle disputes. We'll also explore the role of technology in education and how our kids often become our teachers in understanding new trends. Finally, you'll hear why it's essential to instill the value of voting in your children, empowering them to recognize the significance of their voices in shaping their communities. Join me for insights, stories, and encouragement to help you thrive as a single mom, paving the way for a brighter future for your children.
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. And it's not about how you arrived at the single mom title, whether by choice or by divorce. It's all about what you do with the title. Remember this podcast is designed to encourage and motivate you. Single mom, it's not going to be an easy journey that you're on. You're going to encounter challenges, you're going to encounter disappointments, but I got good news for you You're going to get through it. How do I know? That's right. I'm a single mom and I've been where you are in most of your struggles that you're encountering and I can testify I got through it and it wasn't easy. So I'm not going to provide any pretense that oh yeah, it's going to be smooth sailing. Girl, you know what I'm not going to do, that I'm going to keep it real with you. Why do I need to keep it real with you? Because you need to be prepared and really have that mindset that these things are going to happen, and they are. They are, but you're not going to be defeated as a result of what happens. This podcast is here to motivate and encourage you and then also to provide critical thinking as a single mom, as an older single mom, as I look back over some of the things and choices I made, I'm like, wow, I wish somebody would have told me or at least provided the opportunity to make me think about things, because this is not a one size fits all, but it's all about your impact on your children. And speaking of impact, in the last episode I talked about impact and I gave you a few examples of a document I found. It said things that should be taught in school. I started to go through the list, but because it's kind of lengthy, I said I'll just break it up to a two-parter. So today is the second part of impact and I invite you to think do you really understand the impact you have on your child's or your children's life? I don't think we really think about it, because if you're like me, you know you're in survival mode. You're just trying to keep a roof over your head, food in the refrigerator and you're just in survival mode. I'm going to continue part two today, so hopefully I can get through it. If not, then it might be part three. We'll see, but I think I can get through it today and if you did not hear part one, you still have time to go back and listen to that.
Speaker 1:As far as impact and the impact that you have on your children's lives, all right. So what else does society say that schools should be teaching, and again I disagree. I mean, I think it should be a partnership between you and the school. I don't think it should be solely placed on the school to be responsible to teach your children these things, these fundamentals. As it relates to navigating through life, and I hear you. Well, nobody taught me. And guess what, on some of these, nobody taught me either. I just learned as I went through life. And it's like through life, and it's like, oh, that makes sense now. But if you can be proactive and get ahead as far as you teaching your children, because, remember, you're going to have to release them into society, and how you release them into society is going to impact you either negatively or positively, and so we're thinking positive. Again, a good mom is all about teaching their child or their children. Period. That's what a good mom is. It doesn't mean you're a perfect mom. I done got off the exit, y'all know me. All right, let me get back on the road here.
Speaker 1:Society says that the school should be teaching our children social etiquette. That's another word, in my opinion, for manners. Your children should be saying please and thank you, excuse me, those types of things are good manners and they certainly should be respecting adults, older adults, and they certainly should be respecting you, single mom. I tell you what it bothers me. Now, I ain't going to lie. It really, really bothers me to see a child disrespect their mother. The mother doesn't respond Because a child is going to be a child and they're going to do things and say things that they shouldn't. But, mom, it is your, our responsibility to correct bad behavior. And when I see how some children speak to their mothers and the mom just stands there, she don't say like wait till I get you outside, she don't give them the deaf look like my mama used to give me, she just doesn't respond. And I'm like, wow, what just happened and why did it just happen? Guess what, mom, if you're allowing them to disrespect you now, at an early age, guess what happens when they get a little older? Yeah, some things could turn physical, and that shouldn't be. It should not be. I'm not going to spend a lot of time here, because the more I talk about it, the more I feel my blood boiling. But anyway, it's not the school's responsibility to teach your child manners period.
Speaker 1:All right, personal finance, yep, yep, yep. We got to talk about money Again. It says the school should be teaching our kids about money. No, because that's going to be kind of a one size fits all. If you're struggling in life, like I was, some of the things that are taught in school is irrelevant. I'm just going to call it like I see it. Some of it is irrelevant because if you're pinching and scrounging and moving this around and and trying to make ends meet, they're not going to teach you that in school. They're going to say, okay, well, you got this money coming in, got this going out and this is how you make things work. Well, I disagree. Depending on the job and you make a minimum wage, then the alignment of what they're teaching in school may not be teaching at a minimum wage level. I'm just talking about what I'm talking about. It may not also include the matter of fact that you have two kids in tow, live in an age where you can look up and uncover or find a good way to manage your household finances and really and I'm just going to offer this brief anecdote of how you get there you just pay your needs, mom.
Speaker 1:And where I went left or got off the exit of life and while I got into financial trouble, I was doing a lot of buying a wants. Also, you know, taking my kids out to eat and I tried to do things for them and take them places and so forth, and so a lot of that money was getting shelled out on things that I did not need. Now that I think about it, board games work just as well as you taking them to an amusement park or any other type of activity outside of your home. Learn how to do activities in your home, mom. That's where you save money, because I know I tried to do that with my kids Again. Learn how to cook healthy meals. Do meal preps.
Speaker 1:Took my kids where it was always as somebody's fast food restaurant. Am I proud of it? Absolutely not. But then again, I just didn't know. They all said mommy, I'm hungry. Okay, well, let me drive right through here. I got about two, three dollars on me and then I go to work the next day. I don't have lunch money. So I'm sitting there looking like boo-boo the fool, right, because I don't have any money for lunch. All because I wouldn't take the time to try to fix these meals in advance so the kids will have something to eat, because we did have microwaves back then and so there really was no excuse, other than I just didn't know any better Going through these fast food restaurants. They're just not healthy. All right Again to manage your money, mom. Write out your needs, which is your household, your groceries, your rent, and then, after you take care of those, you have a little bit left over, but try not to spend it on wants, and it's going to be tight. It's going to be tight, but you can do it. All right.
Speaker 1:Stress management why do we need to take stress management as a young age? Well, they're going to grow up. They are going to grow up and this might be more so for you than your children, because now you are carrying that extra and I don't want to say burden, but you're carrying this extra responsibility and raising your children on your own, and it is stressful, hear me ladies. It is stressful because you're trying to raise them appropriately and, if you're like me, you're trying to work and then you're trying to take care of yourself, and then, once you think you got everything in order, then all of a sudden, here comes something else that comes about and it's like wait what? I'm on cruise control. Now I got to take the call for cruise control because now this happened over here, and so now I got to do another adjustment just when I thought I had it good. So, ladies, learn stress management.
Speaker 1:Once upon a time at my job, they used to give us stress balls and we could squeeze onto them and help with that manage that stress. But there's other things you can do. You can take a nice hot shower. There are places out there that have peppermint balls that you can drop in the shower. That's going to help with manage that stress, and they're not very expensive. I've done a couple of these things as well. You also want to bake in for lack of a better term crying time. Why is that important? Because there are just days you are going to be overwhelmed, and so here's good news Now that you know this is coming, you can prepare for it.
Speaker 1:You can prepare for it. Nobody prepared me for it. Yes, I'm a Christian, I go to church and I heard the word and it was good, and I was able to extract those sermons that were given back then and encouragement by others. But how do you really manage the stress that comes about as a single mom? First of all, you got to know what type of stress is going to be headed your way and you prepare for it. You have solutions for how to deal with stress and here's the good news Once you learn how to deal with stress, now you can teach your child.
Speaker 1:Now you can teach your children. You're going to encounter these things and, again, you probably want to start having these discussions, in my opinion, when they turn 10. Because as they start to interact and really understand life and understand things that are happening in the world, you would definitely want to start having that conversation with them, because there's no reason Young kids should be talking about suicide. I'm just going to say it in my out loud voice. And it's all stemming from not knowing how to manage stress voice. And it's all stemming from not knowing how to manage stress. So, ladies, work on you so you can be that example and that teacher to help your child or your children. Okay, it's just that easy. Remember, I'm not only going to talk about these situations, but I'm going to try to offer you solutions to invite critical thinking, right, conflict resolution again, this kind of links back to stress management.
Speaker 1:But your children are going to be challenged as it relates to certain things. Right, you're going to want them to go right and they want to go left, and they don't want to do it this way. Therefore, conflict builds. Well, you have to teach them, and then again, this goes for you, mom, because you can't teach what you don't know. At this point, when it comes to conflict resolution, you should know how to, and I would assume with your baby's father that there's probably a lot of conflict, because if he's not actively participating in their lives, then there's going to be some conflict between you and him.
Speaker 1:Now, how do you manage that? Number one yelling doesn't solve a thing. It solves absolutely nothing. But who can scream the loudest? That's all it does. And then one person screams louder than the other and nobody's listening. So, as a result, nothing gets resolved. So he leaves, you leave, door slam and you just have a whole bunch of noise when you don't have conflict resolution. Bunch of noise when you don't have conflict resolution.
Speaker 1:But practice talking in a calm voice. Bring your tone down. This is how I've managed conflict resolution, and in my job I have to do it on a daily basis because I deal with folks that have that tendency to raise their voice, to be irate. But I have to bring it down. I can't match their energy if I'm trying to resolve an issue, so you have to bring it down I guess they call it your inside voice and talk to them in a calm manner. And if you cannot talk to them in a calm manner, at that time step back, walk away and come back.
Speaker 1:When you can Paraphrase the situation. Why are you all upset? Let's take, for example, he was supposed to come to one of the kids or the child's event and he doesn't come. He promised he was going to be there for the child at the event and he didn't show up. And if you're like me, you you beside yourself. You've hurt the child, your excuses or your immaturity of not to show up. So as a result of we get upset. It's easy to elevate our voices in that situation because you already lit, you're hot, you're mad, let's talk about this tomorrow. Okay, this is what this means when you did this and this is why I was upset.
Speaker 1:Now, when you approach it in that manner, now you're y'all communicating with each other and then you're listening versus yelling at each other. That never accomplishes anything. So, mom, I would encourage you, learn how to develop a routine, a plan on how you're going to engage and talk about a situation. Yelling at each other accomplishes nothing. It's just who can scream the loudest, but neither one of you are hearing anything. So now that you develop your plan on how to manage conflict resolution that's right. Now you can effectively teach little Ruthie and little Johnny how to manage conflict resolution.
Speaker 1:And sometimes it is just walking away, sometimes it is just not matching that same energy, sometimes you just got to take a deep breath. Okay, because nothing gets accomplished if both of y'all are yelling at each other, just a bunch of noise. And heaven forbid if all that noise turns physical. We don't need that, and that's why some boys, because of what they see and hear their parents doing and as a result of that, they mimic it and even and on that note, nobody should be laying hands on anybody, and I'm talking about or women as well. So, mom, if you can't control your anger when it comes to the baby's father and you feel the need to slap him, stop it. Keep your hands to yourself. Learn we agree to disagree. There's some things that happen. Learn to practice or incorporate that phrase in your life. Okay, we just gonna disagree.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of times, once upon a time ago, when I used to lead teams and folks would disagree with me and guess what. Early on in my career, I used to challenge it and try to prove my point. For what Right? They made up their mind, I made up my mind. So what I've learned to help continue to move on through the meeting. Ok, that's fine. We just have to agree to disagree and guess what. You move on. So learn to adopt that. And when it comes to conflict resolution because it's so important you will find out what is not productive. And when you just constantly arguing, arguing and think you're going to try to sell somebody on your point, and they've already made up their minds, take that phrase we're just going to agree to disagree and move on and move on. And here's the good news Now both of you know which side you stand on, so you don't have to go through this same scenario again. Because, again, that helped me get through a lot of meetings and I had to learn the hard way. But the good news is I learned.
Speaker 1:And that's where we are, mom. We are still in the learning process, and it's continuing, because now we have children that we have to teach. So in order to teach them, we have to learn. All right, let me move on Technology. Artificial intelligence is a big one. I don't think there's a whole lot of teaching we need to do. They'll probably be teaching us or teaching you, because kids are really smart. They grasp things very easily. They will probably be teaching you on the latest trends and things that are going on, and accept it. Accept it. And, matter of fact, I think this is really when the tables do have to turn right, because now you'll know what they're into. You know the latest technology, technology that's out there. You know some of the word choices that are now being used, kind of know what they're talking about when they say certain things. This would be a reverse situation, in my opinion, but definitely make sure they're exposed to it, and once they're exposed to it, you start learning from them. Okay, because that's just where we are this day and age.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, we are in the election season. Now this is one I'm adding about voting. Have you taught your children what it means to vote? Because if you think about what voting is, it's really just your voice. So whenever you're being asked to vote, they're asking you to share your opinion, your voice. Once we change the word, choices around things make more sense, because if you just say vote, that doesn't mean a whole lot in my opinion. Vote, vote for what Vote? Why Blah, blah, blah. But really what we're talking about is this is your opportunity to share your voice about a candidate, about a person. As a result of sharing your voice about this particular person, it's going to drive change right. It's going to support your values and that's how you will share that with your child. You know, if you have certain values that you rely on and you want someone else that match those values, then you exercise your voice and which turns into a boat. How you like that, all right, ladies, that's it for the day.
Speaker 1:I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, you know what to do. Tell another single mom. And for all of you that are following me on YouTube channel you're using to listen to this podcast, thank you so much. Again, I would love to hear from you. If you have found value in this podcast, then please let me know. You can go to my YouTube channel. You can go to my website, which is singlemomsunitedpodcastcom. I know it's a long one. I promise you you can do it. Okay, all right, ladies, have a great day, have a great week and have a fantastic month. I hope to talk with you again real soon. Take care.
