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
The Parenting Blindspot: Why We Must Teach Children About Illness
Mom2Mentor podcast explores the vital role of parents as teachers and mentors, focusing on educating children about physical and mental illnesses. We challenge the excuse of "nobody taught me" by highlighting the abundance of free resources available for parents to learn and then teach their children about important life topics.
• Parents should educate children about both physical illnesses (colds, allergies, fevers) and mental health conditions (depression, bipolar disorder)
• Children need to understand body changes, especially girls entering puberty and experiencing menstrual cycles
• Depression can affect children as young as eight years old, often stemming from negative environments
• Technology and free resources like YouTube make it easier than ever for parents to learn new skills to teach their children
• Parents don't need formal degrees to be effective educators—personal experience provides valuable teaching material
• Understanding mental illness helps children interact compassionately with others who may be struggling
Tell another single mom about the Mom2Mentor podcast to help us educate, motivate, and encourage all young single moms.
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 If you are a repeat listener. Thank you for your loyalty. Hey, I'm back on track this week and really extracting words from the letter I and linking them back to your parenting skills.
Speaker 1:Because, remember, we're more than just moms, we're more than just nurturers, we are teachers, we are mentors. So we don't, or should not, leave it up to different organizations to teach our children about life and what occurs in life and some of the natural things that happen. And I hear you yeah, nobody taught me, I wasn't aware of this and that's okay. That is okay. I'm right there with you that I wasn't taught a lot. Many things I learned by watching, right. But we can't stand on that excuse all the time because with today's technology, the ability to learn is a lot easier than it was when I was growing up. Again, I'm an older single mom, so some of the advantages you all have today I didn't have back then. But I'm always learning as well, even at this age, because a good mom teaches and a better mom learns to teach, and with YouTube and the internet and all of these outlets that you can learn various skills and apply it to your life and guess what? It's free, right? One of the things that I do now is I watch Food Network. I watch various shows on there. Why do I watch it? For technique, cooking different things, right, that I wasn't taught when I was growing up. But now here's an opportunity for me to do better and leverage technology. And guess what, ladies, it works and how much does it cost me just to go buy the ingredients, right, and then I start cooking and practicing different techniques that I see and they turn out for my benefit, and you can do the same. You can do the same. So we can't use the excuse nobody taught me because there's too many outlets for us to learn. And so, moms, I challenge you, take this opportunity and not just say I'm just a provider and a nurturer, but I'm also a teacher, a mentor, someone my child can look up to and be proud of. Right. Another word for mentor is being an example, right. So use your imagination of how you want your child to behave and if you want your child to continue to learn right, outside of the walls of the school, of various organizations, right, because that's what's going to help them get ahead in life, help them, get above and get in position for when people come at them and try to sell them or tell them anything. Now they're in position to be like, uh-uh, nope, I researched this myself, I learned it myself. That's what we want our kids to be. We want them to be alert to various life challenges, and nobody is better to teach them than you are yeah, than you are Mom. All right, let me get back on track. You all already know how I am.
Speaker 1:I get off the exit quite frequently when it comes to discussing various topics. So today we're going to talk about illness, yeah, or sickness, but because I'm on the letter, I we're going to call it illness, right. And so I think that we should educate our children about illness, because it's going to happen to them. It's even going to happen to you, mom. And how do you deal with it? What is it and why do we have to have it right? That's the approach we would want to take as far as educating our children. And guess what, mom? You should not only educate them about physical ailments, but talk about mental illness as well.
Speaker 1:What categorizes mental illness? And I would say depression, right? And you know, I read somewhere a while ago where I believe it was an eight-year-old that was suffering from depression and I was like well, how can that be? They're not even experiencing life yet. How can an eight-year-old suffer from depression? Well, if you think about it, what really leads to depression and it really makes you feel like you don't have self-worth or self-value and you're sad all the time? Well, most of the times that comes from the environment that you're in that leads to that sadness or that feeling of feeling down. So if you come home every day there's arguing and everything's negative in a very negative environment, then, yeah, you probably are going to fall into a form of depression because you don't know how to deal with it right.
Speaker 1:Or if people are talking about you and you don't know how to respond to that, especially if some of it is true. I know when I was growing up I had self-esteem problems. Yes, I did. Did it make me sad? No, but I didn't feel as confident in my appearance because I was a big girl and I didn't feel confident and so it was easy for folks to continue to leverage that or talk about me. About that, again, I don't recall being sad, but I do recall just not being motivated or not being confident with who I am, and I wish someone would have told me back then that it's okay, people are going to talk about you, but you don't have to accept what people say about you, and that's how we have to educate our children. People are going to talk about you. Not everybody is going to like you, but you don't allow this to interrupt your purpose in life. Keep moving, keep going on. Do you like you? That's all that matters. That's all that matters.
Speaker 1:And to help you get around those feelings of depression. You know clothes or buying new clothes always help me, but you know these are things to help compensate for that Getting a new look, a new style, how you carry yourself, using different word choices, just different things to uplift you. But Still, mom, we got to explain that you're going to have physical challenges like allergies, and why that happens. Right, the pollens, flowers are growing and now, all of a sudden, all of those and for lack of a better term ingredients and flowers and is sparking you to sneeze all the time, and that's normal. But this is how we address that. Right, you got to take allergy pills. We got to keep Kleenex on hand, you know, because you're going to have the runny nose, the watery eyes All of those things are going to happen when you experience allergies, even when you get a cold or a flu or a stomach ache.
Speaker 1:All of these things we have to explain to our children are natural things that happen. Your body is going to transition as you get older and as the environment changes and you're not going to start feeling well for whatever reason. But that's okay. But now this is how we solve for that. We have medicine that you can take to help heal your body right, aspirin. You'll get a fever every now and then. These are things you have to do to help out with that. There are some foods out there that will help with some illnesses that we encounter.
Speaker 1:But, mom, it's up to you to explain that so your child doesn't be blindsided like, oh my God, why do I feel so bad, especially with young girls as they enter into puberty and they start their menstrual cycle? They're not going to know what's going on with their body and why they all of a sudden feel depressed and bloated and ugh. Right, I think we've all been there. But it's up to us, mom, to explain that. And who better, who better to explain that other than you? Because she's going to go through the same thing you went through when you started your menstrual cycle. She's going to go through that same exact process and that feeling. So you can't rely on schools to educate about this, because they're not going to know about the cramps and all of that that comes with it. But you can, and you can educate her on what you did to solve for your issues each time of the month, right? So let's start educating our children. Let's start being that mentor and being that example and owning that education. You don't have to have a four-year degree to educate your child about life, because a lot of it you have already experienced it and experiencing currently. You're still going through some things.
Speaker 1:But, moms, I challenge you, I challenge you take this time and talk to your child or your children about illness, not just physical illness, but mental illness, because I guarantee you they are going to encounter somebody that has mental illness and they're not going to understand what is happening and why this person is acting so different from the rest of the people. They may have something that's going on, they may be dealing with depression, they may be bipolar. There's an abundant of things that can fall under mental illness. So I challenge you do your research, do your research and have that conversation with them, especially if they're school-aged children, because they are interacting with so many other people, so many other kids out there that may be suffering from some form of mental illness, and how they prepare for it. And how do they interact with these people? And talking about them doesn't help anything, right? So learn what it is and how you address it, and maybe you don't need to address it, maybe you just need to understand what that person is going through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, ladies, I am done for the day. I surely hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day and I wish you all the best. Please take time to spend with your children. And again, this is the Mom to Mentor podcast, formerly known as Single Moms United. Same concept we're educating, we're motivating and we are encouraging all young single moms. And if you enjoyed this episode, please, please and please Now I don't beg, but I'm begging today Tell another single mom, encourage another single mom. Have a good day, ladies, take care.
