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 Virtual Character Garden: Respect Edition
Respect is a crucial character trait for fostering positive relationships, creating harmonious environments, and promoting individual well-being by acknowledging others' inherent worth and dignity. We explore the vital importance of teaching respect to children through direction rather than correction to build their self-esteem and develop healthy relationship skills.
• Respect creates stronger connections and improves communication in all relationships
• Teaching respect helps children navigate disagreements without disrespecting others
• Individual respect builds self-esteem, confidence, and promotes emotional well-being
• Respectful interactions in relationships reduce conflict through understanding and compromise
• The difference between teaching (direction) versus correcting behavior without explanation
• Understanding that fear-based compliance is not the same as genuine respect
• Children model their behavior after their parents, making mentorship crucial
If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave feedback and let me know if there's a specific character seed you'd like me to discuss in the future. Share this episode with another mom who might need support teaching their children about respect.
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. These last few episodes that I've been doing for those of you that have been following me know I have been planting a virtual character garden. It's all about using the imagination, right? We don't want things to get boring and I want you to continue to come back, but this should hopefully allow you to use your imagination, and this podcast is all about encouraging your parenting skills. Yes, it's designed for encouraging and motivating single moms, but if you are a mom in general, this is for you too. I'm going to continue down the path of planting virtual character seeds.
Speaker 1:As you know, in the past I've talked about confidence and honesty, and today I want to talk about respect and what that is and what it means, and why we need it and why we need to teach our children. I cannot stress enough we are more than just moms and nurturers. We are mentors. Our children are modeling their behavior after hours. How do I know? I'm a mom and I've seen my kids do some things. I didn't think they saw I was doing, but once I saw it and especially if it was negative, I'm like, oh my gosh, I got to do better. Thankfully they saw. I think they saw more positive behaviors than negative. And that's really the point, moms. We're not perfect. We make mistakes, and it's okay, and sometimes our kids see those mistakes. We just got to try to do better.
Speaker 1:I'm talking about respect again today. What is respect and why do we need it? Respect is crucial for fostering positive relationships. It creates a harmonious environment and promotes individual well-being and it really does. It also acknowledges the inherent worth and dignity of others. It leads to stronger connections or stronger relationships, and anytime you got two people involved, it's a relationship, not just love relationship, but I'm just talking about in general in life that you're going to have to interact with people. It improves communication and provides a greater sense of safety and trust.
Speaker 1:Respect is the ultimate characteristic that will help support a healthy society. Right? If we respect each other, we ain't got to kill and cuss out and all this other stuff that we do when we disagree with each other. Right, we have to acknowledge it's okay. At that point of view, I don't have to agree with you, but I also don't have to hate you. This is where I respect you. It's okay that you believe in this and I don't. That's okay, but we should not take that opportunity to disrespect someone because of their beliefs.
Speaker 1:Why is it important? At an individual level, it builds self-esteem, self-worth and your confidence increases. What does confidence mean to me? Strength right. It promotes emotional well-being. It promotes emotional well-being. It creates a safe and supportive atmosphere where people can feel comfortable. You don't want to go somewhere where you're going to be disrespected.
Speaker 1:It is extremely important that we acknowledge people's differences. We acknowledge that difference without being negative about it. Additionally, individual respect it encourages personal growth. Respecting yourself and others encourages a willingness to learn, adapt and grow as a person. Adapt and grow as a person. It fosters a sense of belonging. It's respectful interactions. It contributes to feelings of inclusion and connection within a community or a group and my assumption is it's mostly moms that are listening to this podcast. Why you feel comfortable? Because I've gone through some of the things you're going through and you can relate, you can identify. So you feel comfortable. You feel respected Because once upon a time ago, because I'm an older single mom, it was pretty rough out here ladies as far as respect is concerned as a single mom, and most of the time.
Speaker 1:I didn't get it because I was looked at as a whore, because I wasn't married, and that's not fair. I was disrespected because nobody knew my story. Let's talk about what respect does in a relationship, and while I present this to you, you can also extract some of these little nuggets for yourself, right? Especially if you're in a relationship now. And while you're learning these things, you can pass it along to your child or your children.
Speaker 1:What does respect do for a relationship? It strengthens bonds. It's essential for building and maintaining a healthy relationship with your boo. You have to respect each other. You can't call each other out of your name and think that's okay. You can disagree, just do it in a manner that it doesn't go to a level of disrespect. It facilitates effective communication. When individuals feel respected, they are more likely to be open and honest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's important in a relationship, and many relationships die because of the disrespect and dishonesty. It also helps reduce conflict dishonesty. It also helps reduce conflict. Respectful interactions can prevent and resolve conflicts by fostering understanding, empathy and compromise. But if we're not willing to do that, then guess what? That lack of conflict resolution is going to create an uncomfortable environment for both of you all. And then if your children are involved, oh my gosh. This is why they stressed out because of the environment. They're in right. Because of that negativity, they're seeing and hearing All right.
Speaker 1:So what does respect do? As it relates to society? It creates a fair environment. It ensures everyone is treated equally. I don't care if we do see a young man, older man, on the side of the highway with the sign saying homeless or can you give me a dollar, two dollars. We still want to respect him, just as if someone was walking in the building next to us without the sign, asking for help. It promotes equality and that's what you have to explain to your children. And it doesn't matter our culture, our sizes, gender. We respect everyone the same equally, and that's how you explain that to your children. You don't disrespect someone because they look different from you. It also fosters a positive environment and we need that. There's just so much negativity going on right now that if we can be that change agent as it relates to being positive, then we need to do it, and then it encourages moral behavior to treat others with kindness.
Speaker 1:The long story short is you treat everyone with kindness, no matter who they are one with kindness, no matter who they are, and especially you, mom, because you deserve respect as the mom, as the nurturer and now as the mentor. Your children shouldn't talk to you any kind of way. You know one of the things as I was raising my kids. You know one of the things as I was raising my kids, I did not do a good job with educating them and teaching them because I didn't know any better. So often their teaching came from me correcting them or correcting a bad behavior, but this is what we need to adopt, mom. A bad behavior, but this is what we need to adopt, mom.
Speaker 1:Instead of focusing on correction, let's introduce direction. When I say direction, I'm talking about teaching mode. Right, because that's what this podcast is all about is mentoring, teaching, learning and paying it forward. Learning and paying it forward Because had I done more direction slash teaching, then there probably wouldn't have been much correction involved. And really, when you get in the correction arena, you're just correcting that behavior. You're still not teaching. At least for me, I still wasn't teaching. I was just in that setting of just correcting the behavior. Hey, you don't do that. Don't ever do that again. That's not right. But I never said this is why it's not right. Okay, and as a result of not explaining a why it's not right, then guess what?
Speaker 1:There was more of a sense of fear with me because, depending on what I had to do to correct the behavior, versus them saying, oh, I get it. Now I shouldn't do this because when we get into teaching mode, that's what's going to help build their self-esteem, that's what's going to help develop them to be more respectful to you and to others, because now we're teaching versus correcting. Now am I saying don't correct? No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying we should get in position to teach first and then follow up with correction as needed. And the problem with me, the gap with me, was I wasn't teaching.
Speaker 1:I was in correcting mode and hoped that would teach, but actually what it did was instill fear into my kids, and I really didn't want that, because I needed to be respected. What I thought they were respecting me, and actually they were in fear of me. Hmm, think about that. Now, is that what you want for your kids? No, you want them to fear you or do you want them to respect you? Yeah, because if they do something and to go back, engage with them about the bad thing they did. Wouldn't you prefer to have a discussion of why they did it? If you do it again, here are the consequences of your behavior. That's teaching, that's directing, and I wish I knew that back when I was raising my kids. Now I'm not saying I was a horrible mom, but there was opportunity to do better.
Speaker 1:So, moms, I'm pleading with you and I rarely do this, I rarely plead with people, but I'm pleading with you. Please take the time to sit down and educate your children or your child. At the end of the day, they are going to need to have that strong self-esteem as they navigate this negative world. They're going to need that. You're going to need it. They need to know what respect is. They need to know what disrespect is. They need to know what disrespect is. Let's start with respect first, right Now, when they get into these relationships love relationship or when they start school or while they're in school, to treat people with kindness and learn how to resolve conflict in a positive manner. That's respect. I respect your opinion. I don't agree with it, but I respect you and that's fine, and we move on and we live happily ever after. Now. We're not taking that conflict with us. We know what side you stand on, what side I stand on, and we can still be friends. Again, moms, teach your children or your child about respect.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed today's episode, leave me some feedback. I would love to hear from you and I would like to know if there's a character seed you want me to talk about in the future and I can do my research on that and put something together. If that's what you need and, again, if you did enjoy this episode, tell another single mom, or tell another mom, right, because you don't know what people are going through. They may be encountering some issues with their child or their children when it comes to respect and maybe something that was said today might help them get over that hurdle. All right, you have a wonderful day, a fantastic week, great month. Take care.
