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Parenting With A Purpose
Donna Janel Williams, a Chester native is on a mission to bring back the responsibility, nobility, and beauty back to parenting. Parenting With A Purpose show aims to reach, teach and propel single mom, single dads, married, divorced, adopted, and foster parents all over the world with engaging conversations to help parents raise up successful leaders. Donna Janel believes parents are the bows and children are the arrows and they will land in the direction we aim them.
Parenting With A Purpose
Crafting a Joyful and Meaningful Parenting Experience
Could the key to breaking generational trauma lie in a parent's healing journey? On this episode of "Parenting with a Purpose," join Donna Janel as we explore the transformative power of intentional parenting. Drawing from deeply personal reflections and the poignant film "Divorce in Black," we discuss how unhealed wounds in parents can affect children and perpetuate cycles of pain. As we reflect on our roles as guides and protectors, we stress the importance of parents embarking on their own paths to healing to foster more nurturing environments for their children.
We unravel the complexities of parenting with purpose and joy, especially in an unpredictable world. Personal stories of loss and resilience underscore the need to pour love and intention into our children's upbringing. With references to Tyler Perry's impactful storytelling, we illustrate how unaddressed parental issues can negatively influence young minds. By equipping parents with the right tools and resources, we inspire faith in their ability to navigate parenting challenges while maintaining joy and purpose.
Moving beyond traditional methods, we dive into practical strategies that can empower children for success. From setting firm yet loving boundaries to fostering emotional and financial literacy, we provide actionable advice for holistic child development. Emphasizing love as the cornerstone, we share how it builds self-confidence and fortifies the parent-child bond. Join us as we champion the shift from punitive to educational discipline, highlight the importance of early financial education, and advocate for nurturing children's unique interests and strengths. Let's redefine parenting with intention and purpose for a brighter future.
Parents are the Bows and Children are the Arrows they will land wherever we aim them eventually!
cmpradionet, the people's station. Thank you, bye. Thank you, hey, everybody. Welcome back to Panther with a Purpose podcast. I am your host, the one and only Donna Janelle, where I strive to bring back the responsibility, nobility and beauty back into parenting. Yes, I say beauty into parenting.
Speaker 1:We know it's a hard night life out here for parents and parenting is very challenging. However, there's some beauty in it, right, as our children grow, certain things and situations happen. We see some rough stuff going on, but then there's some beauty. Like sometimes you lay in your bed and you just smile Wow, I created these kids. I don't know how often that is, but it does happen, right, y'all you know so. Uh, as you know, parents are the bulls. We are the bulls, y'all, and our children are arrows and they will land wherever we send them, may not be today, may not be tomorrow. Listen, I'm telling you, I might not even be the next five years. Honestly, think about our life. Did we land exactly the time that our parents wanted us to land, or the exact places that one is or that wanted us to land? No, we did not. Why? Because everybody's their unique individual and everybody has their own journey, right, our job as parent is to make sure that we give our kids the tools so that they can land that, that they can land and be successful, right? So that's all. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:Parents, parents with a purpose, Right. So tonight, y'all, I'm so excited for tonight because we're going to really be talking about some stuff tonight. Yeah, I don't know, I watched the movie. I want to, I want to get into it a little bit. Tonight we're going to be talking about parents with a purpose, right. I feel like we need to get back to the roots of it so we can really understand what it is to be a parent. And on purpose, in purpose and out of purpose, right, you know, there's a purpose to everything. Right, there's purpose to everything under the sun.
Speaker 1:And sometimes, you know, we live this autopilot life where we don't really kind of hone in on what the purpose is Like. Why are we doing this? Like, some of us, you know, became parents just because we had sex, right, or yeah, basically, that's how you become parents, right, Some of us became parents non-intentional, like really, and some became intentional. But I think sometimes, um, when we don't think about or we're not intentional on different things, that, um, we kind of just live an autopilot life with it, and I think that sometimes that's what happened in parenting, right, like we kind of just do whatever we do to make sure that our kids have food, clothes and shelter, and also we start parenting how our parents would parent and parent out of fear, all types of things. So I want to get back to the basics, like what is the purpose in this? Like there's a purpose to everything, that's a purpose for us being here and there's truly a purpose that God has given our children, right. So, but I want to, before I get into the purpose, right, I really want to talk about a movie right now.
Speaker 1:I don't normally talk about movies on here, y'all right, but I want to talk about a movie because I saw that, like I'm not a big TV person, I, you know, I just read my um, my audible, and it told me that, uh, this, within this last two months, I read 17 titles, right. 400, 4,983 minutes, that's 82 hours of reading, girl listening, right. So being very intentional with what I put in my ears. So I'm not a big movie person. Like shows, episodes, every now and then I might get into something, but I don't know, I spend most of my time writing and reading or listening to something that's really going to change the trajectory of my life or really got me thinking, because, honestly, a lot of this TV, tv I watch, and I can already predict what's about to happen. I don't like to sit there. I'm not a good movie person. I sit with my kids and I'm watching a movie. I'm like trying to find lessons in the movies. What is god saying in the movies? And then also I'm telling them what the movie was going on.
Speaker 1:I'm not a great movie person, y'all, but I did watch um divorce in black, right, I want to talk about that for a little bit. You know, a lot of people are getting on, you know, talking about why we see um black people shown in such a negative way. There's such a negative connotation. Can we see anything positive? Right, but when I looked at that movie, right when I was watching the movie, you know what I saw, though. I saw pain. I saw parenting all in there. Parenting was all in there, y'all. Like what I saw was the pain of a mother pushing that pain on her sons and therefore their sons live in that pain.
Speaker 1:It became like a generational thing, like, if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't seen it really, just watch it and think of a different perspective. Think of it as no, not we got another black movie that all this crazy stuff is happening. This doesn't even think about as as a mom, right. Think about as a perspective as a parent. Think about his perspective as a child, right.
Speaker 1:So I'm looking at this movie and I see, like everybody's, like the angry black mom, and I see whatever hurt and pain that she had going on. See, this is why I tell y'all we have to heal ourselves, heal our wounds so that we don't bleed on our children, right, because this is clear evidence that the mother did not heal herself and she bled on her children. And therefore, when you look at the relationship in that marriage, it was a hurt young man. It was a little boy in him, you know. It got into like, if you just saw, like just, I mean the same way she told him to take her son out of the casket and just roll out of the church, it was just like I was appalled, y'all, but I saw like she was so angry when she started taking her clothes off at the church. I was like what is going on, but she didn't want. This is a mother who didn't want to hand out, she didn't want help. Um, she felt, like it looks to me like she wanted to be an island and then, so that she could blame everybody else or why her life was the way it was, and the, the pain and the hurt and the anger that she was dealing with, she really just kind of um bled all over her kids, man, and we talk about like, first of all, it is very difficult for a mom just to raise a son.
Speaker 1:I'm out here, you know single moms out there. Kudos to every single mom. Single mom is not being a flex. It is something that we do because we won't let the situation of whatever happened or how it happened with, you know, the ex-husband or the baby dad or whatever we're not going to let that be an excuse to how we raise our children, right. So we take this single mom and we take it, you know, as a badge of honor and we do what we got to do. It's not a flex, it is a necessity, right? It is a choice that we make and to make sure that our children are going to be successful.
Speaker 1:Particularly, it's very difficult as a single mom to raise young men, though, and I can say that by experience. My son is now 16, and his dad left my ex-husband probably I guess, about he's 16, so probably about 13, 14 years ago. So I've been really raising him Now. He does spend every other weekend with his dad, but his dad is not active in his life, and you know how we are as moms. We we very active in our children's life, so, but I know how hard it is to raise boys, and it's very difficult to raise boys when you're not healed. Uh, raise boys or even girls, that just parenting in general.
Speaker 1:But I just seen so much anger and pain in this mom, like she's raising these young black boys, right, and whatever happened in her life or whatever situation is, um, she was just so angry and unhealed and you know that hurt people, hurt people, heal people, help heal other people. And this situation she was hurt and as you got deep into the movie you can see how much anger that she had in her and how that, how she poured that out on her kids, like she bled on her kids with that because those kids, you know they were grown adults, right, I'm not going to call them kids. But her children adult children was so scared of her to the point where she's showing off and going off in a funeral because she's upset and she's telling them to take the dead body out of the casket and they, like, they was like, nah, we don't want to do that. They, they was like nah, we don't want to do that, we don't want to do that. And because of her anger you could tell she did some stuff to them boys, because they were scared to death in the house of the lord. They were scared to death and they took that, they carried that dead body out of there. Their brother, and you just see, like I just was, like tears began to flow out my eyes because I was like that is a lot of pain, that's a lot of pain and, truth be told, that is what's happening in a lot of our households today. It's that type of pain that, the pain that we don't really address and we don't really talk about. We just, you know, oh, we give excuses because she's a single mom, so she had to do this on her own. So I understand why her children are what they are. No time out for that. No, we're still responsible to making sure that our kids are successful period um.
Speaker 1:So, as the story told, though, you can see the young man that's um, married to um I was just making good right Um, how he had so much hurt and pain in him that he was drinking, he was doing all types of crazy stuff and he was treating her bad. Now the movie it didn't show how bad he was really treating her. The letter was talking about how bad he was treating her, but then, when they get to the root of it, he had to kill his father. He killed his own dad. So imagine you you know walking through life and you had to, whatever situation it is, ended up having to kill your own father for the safetiness of your family. And then you still. Now you're a man and you're married and you're trying to be a man, but you never learned how to really be a man because of the person that was supposed to teach you to be a man you had to kill. That's a little scary right, and it doesn't help that the mom had so much anger that she just kept being like mean and nasty and hurt. So I said all that to say is that we really, really, really got to get healed y'all. We really, really got to get healed because our children become who we are, right, unless, like our children become like the bad part of us, right, the unhealed part of us, and it's not a pretty thing.
Speaker 1:And that movie opened my eyes so much of just how much anger can happen and what's going on with some of our children today. You know, when I talk to a lot of parents, I hear how they're talking to their kids. I hear how their children are responding. I see you know one parent when they talk to their child, I see the child shrink up, look like they saw a ghost or something, cause you know, something's going on in the household because of the anger I said. All I have to say is like it's really important in this day and age. I don't know if y'all see how chaotic the world is and how dark and sinister the world is and how the society has an agenda and they're trying to put it on our children, put it on our households. I don't know if you guys can see that, but we really need to wake up and see what's going on in the world.
Speaker 1:Now I'm not going to get into all the political things of Project 2025 and all that stuff. I'm not going to get into it, but what I do know is that we, as parents, we have to stand up for our kids and we have to stand up for our kids and we have to stand up for parenting, like God has given our children to us as a gift, right? So it's our job and our responsibility to make sure that we take care of that gift well, that we value that gift, that we love and we nurture that gift right, so that that gift can be a gift to the world, can have some type of kingdom impact in this world, not just living on autopilot or just this generational stuff Like we always talk about, like generational curses or, um, bad stuff transferring from generation to generation. Like I really want to have a conversation Like, can we talk about good stuff passing, like generational success, know, uh, inheritance? Can we talk about those things? Can we start to become, uh, so well-rounded that our kids you know proud to say that I'm from this family, or I've learned this from my parents, or I learned this from my great grandparents, or my sisters and my brothers? Like can we change the trajectory of which way it's going? Because right now there's a lot of stuff going on.
Speaker 1:You know, and I don't know if you guys seen like people are dying left and right at a very early age, um, and I think it's imperative and it's like a sense of urgency for us to pour into our children, um, because we don't know how long we're going to be here. For Right Um, my sister died at 36. Right Um, that's very young. Her husband died at 36 as well. That's very young. I don't think that she thought that she was going to die and have her children. I mean, her youngest child was six years old when she passed away. The oldest was 19. So, and there was five of them, right, so she didn't expect that. So we don't know what's happening in the world whenever God is going to take us home. So it's so important for us to really value life and give it our all. Man, I feel like we just like we gotta give it our all. We can't just be thinking and letting the world just take over us or run us and we just live this autopilot life, right? So the divorce in black, like, really was a wake-up call. I'm telling you, I'm encouraging you guys to see it, don't see it.
Speaker 1:The fact that, oh, tyler Perry got another movie. It's so much negative connotation. No, look from a parenting perspective, right, of how we need to heal, because this is the result of an unhealed parent. This is the result of a parent whose wounds are so deep and so wide and and just continue to bleed, bleed, bleed and they, uh, now it's on our children. I mean, anytime that a parent can watch your children beat up a pastor or reverend or like just just just no honor, right. Anytime that we can let see our kids do that, a parent watch that. You know that there are some deep rooted problems. I mean they beat the crap out of this pastor, right, put them in the hospital, almost die, and in order to do that, that means that you, you, you got some pain that you, you really releasing, right. So I wanted to just get into that a little bit about, um, just being intentional in our parenting, right.
Speaker 1:So tonight we're going to talk about I kind of want to talk about, like I'm going to do a brief description of kind of some things I wrote down about parenting and our purpose, right, first of all, parenting with a purpose is parenting with joy, right, when I think about parenting with a purpose, I think about the joy in it, right, even though there is heartaches and pains and trials and tribulations, ups, downs, ins and outs. It's happened. Life be life, right. But there's still joy in it and I think it's how you look at things. Like you know how you perceive things, because you can either perceive a glass half empty or half full, right, you know that old saying like it's really, what do you perceive and what do you believe. So I think, like with parenting, if we start to believe that there is really joy in parenting, even in the hardness of it, there's really a lot of joy because, remember, like there's a different.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that parenting you always going to be happy, because happy is like an emotion that comes and goes. Happy is what's happening. Right, oh, you got good grades today, so I'm happy. Um, oh, you didn't do the dishes, so now I'm sad or I'm frustrated. Like I'm not talking about those emotions, I'm talking about the deep wood of joy where nothing can shake it, like it's in, it's the center, right, it's the joy. So parenting it is very, um, it's joyful, like it is a lot of joy in it, even in the pain, right, um.
Speaker 1:So like parenting with a purpose, like my aim and my goal is really to encourage parents um, that there isn't. There's joy in parenting. Uh, given proper planting and resources, we can really do it successfully, right, if we have to. Anybody know that if you have the proper tools to do something, you're going to be successful in it. If you have the proper tools and you learn how to use those tools, you're going to be successful, right, because you've learned how to apply it. That's like when you study at school, right? You study and then you take the test. You've applied the tools that you use to study. Right, and then you'll see the end results. And that's the same thing in parenting. You know learning how to do this thing the right way, and there is no one way into parenting. It is just the right way.
Speaker 1:Like, how can I help my children become successful, right, how can I make them better, not make them worse? Like, not cause any problems where they're really? You know, a lot of these kids already commit suicide. Like, I don't want to be the person to cause my kids to want to take their life because I'm not parenting correctly, right, I don't want to be the cause of that. So what can we do?
Speaker 1:Like we got to as parents, you know, setting standards and boundaries and maximizing our potential purpose, like parental purpose, like how do we maximize our parental purpose? Our job is, you know, to empower our children, create a well-balanced children, you know, spiritually, mentally, socially, emotionally, financially, educationally, economically, like every area of our children's life, just like our life, we need to be able to pour into them so that they can be the best that they can be. You know, there's no more just the basics food, clothes and shelter. I mean we need to attend to their mental needs, their, their emotional needs, their spiritual needs, um, their social needs, like really honing in on every area of our children and really being intentional in our parents. All right, we talked last week about being intentional and how important it is because, again, man, I don't know if you guys notice, like if you ever lived the autopilot life, like I've done that, where I wasn't intentional in living and just everything was happening, I'm just here for the day. You know, oh, it is what it is and it ain't what it ain't and all that hung on just a negative connotation about life like it is. You kind of just take the hands, that's dealt with and you, just you, it is what it is right not being intentional, really understanding that we can set the narrative of our life and we can help set the narrative of our children's life right. Parenting, like I said, it's a journey of learning, exploring, growing, loving, crying, crying, crying, laughing, having fun, teaching, caring, making memories, being silly, having joy, fears, caring, making memories, being silly, having joy, fears, dealing with the fears, hard work, happy tears, faith and trust Like that's all inclusive in parenting, like it's all these things that happen as parenting right, and I believe a healthy parent will lay golden eggs. So we really need to be intentional in our parent, and I have wrote down some things that I call the 10 parent responsibilities right, and it's basically kind of just giving us a little guide and you can take this and run with it and recreate it and do whatever you want to do, whatever makes you and your children's life successful, but really just being intentional.
Speaker 1:Number one that I wrote, though, is you got to give your child love, right. How do we become intentional in our parents on how do we raise successful children right? How do we make sure or assure that our kids have everything in their toolbox to be successful right? In order for that, we're the ones that's filling up their toolbox while they're growing up, because we're helping them grow and develop. And the younger years are the most vital years in our children's life, because the brain is growing rapidly and kids are sponges. So, as you pour in it um I think it was charles a swindell says that um, about pouring into our children's memory bank right, pouring into them, because that stuff will be stored in their memory brain bank and then they'll be able to carry that throughout their life. I mean, there are certain things that I definitely carry throughout my life that I learned as a child good, better and different. But taking those good memories and being able to use them, what I call, flip them and use them in different areas of your life, right, all right. So I say, give, give um your child love.
Speaker 1:Your number one job as a parent is to give your child love, like children need love so that they know what it feels like and what it looks like, so they can build self-confidence, self-esteem, self-value and self-love. Uh, love should be the primary source of bond between a parent and a child. If anything fails at parent, if you fail at anything else that parenting entails, this is the one saving grace that could keep you from being a total disaster as a parent. Let me talk about that. If you mess up with anything else in your life like listen, y'all know I'll be snapping out sometimes y'all stuff. But anything else in your life like listen, y'all know I'll be snapping out sometimes, y'all.
Speaker 1:If you, if you got it wrong one day you snapped out for the wrong reason, if anything, that child know that you still love them. Like, love is the saving grace to everything. Right, you love me so much that I forgive you. Right, because because love it bursts out forgiveness, right? So if there's anything you mess up in your parents and you don't get it right, that day, you, you just be cutting up, you dealing with your own issues and, um, you upset at your kid. The same and grace is love, though, because out of love bursts forgiveness. So that's that has to be the foundational thing, because when our children know that we love them, they love themselves. They have this confidence and stuff.
Speaker 1:And saying I'm telling you the one, let me tell y'all that one that test my inner gangster. I talk about her all the time out of the four. Test my inner gangster, but let me tell you that's a confident young lady. She's 16 now and you know I used to call her small but fierce because she's the smallest one out of the batch and she's the youngest one. But let me tell you something as much as she tested my inner gangster, she confident, she got some. She ain't got no problem, she got some self-love going on and, uh, she, she got some great self-esteem and some self-confidence. Yo, because this girl walking around this world, bold, like it ain't no joke, like sometimes I'll be in a house, like yo fall back a little bit, but really understanding, like this is who she is, her personality, and that's what she's grown to be just confident and that's what we want our kids to be confident, right. Sometimes it's a little challenging because they'd be like a little too confident when they're trying to have conversation with you.
Speaker 1:It causes some conflict. That's why me and her I'm telling you she touched my inner inner gangster, but it's all love and um, I'm learning even now of how to value her confidence, how to value who she is as a person and her uniqueness and not looking at as a weakness certain things that we look at people and we look at things that at certain weaknesses, but just, it may be a weakness for us, but not a weakness for them. That's a strength for them, right and um. So we um sometimes walk around with this strength and weakness meter, right, uh like, and it's really judging people and not accepting people for who they are and really devaluing what they bring to the table. So I'm learning how to really value her and and her, um, her ability to test my inner gangster, y'all.
Speaker 1:I, um, I'm looking at it as as a plus and not a negative, something that's really, um, that's really honorable though, like, because when I look at her, like she, she got it together like this, this stuff, this stuff, that love thing is on her y'all. So, um, that's what happens when we, when we, love our children, they know that they love, they begin to have it deep rooted inside and nothing can shake them Kids, they forgive our shortcomings and our mistakes and stuff, but as long as they know that we love them, that's why they're able to forgive us, right. So that's number one Give your child love, right, um, if you don't know how to love, I I suggest you seek um a circle that that generally love you, or seek out some type of counseling, because, um, if you lack love, your children gonna lack love and then it's become a generational thing, and that's one of the things that we don't want to pass on. We want to pass love on, right, um, the other thing I have here is make your child a good and moral person. Now, in a climate we live in, the craziness that's going on, everything is accepted, right, everything is accepted. But as a parent, we got to have like, such a good moral, ethic and integrity and and just being a wholesome, good person that we teach our children to be that way. Because in a world where people are doing whatever they want, whatever they want, however they want, we have to teach our children that's not the way. So if we teach them, um, just to be good, um, whether it's, um like, just teach them moral, uh, moral principles, I think when we don't teach them how to be good people, we do a disservice to them in the world. It is important teaching them how to think critically, how to love, how to honor people, how to respect people, how to value people, how to appreciate people, how to not judge but hopefully, be a person where things flow. Having good substance, strong morals really will help you, not help our children not look like society has dressed them, honestly, right.
Speaker 1:Other thing, number three I told you I got ten of them y'all. Number three is protect your child. Like when we, when I talk about parenting with a purpose, these are some tools that I believe that, um, that will help us help our children become successful and help us be successful in parenting, right? Um, these are just some things that I, over the years, that I wrote down um that, and there's a lot of words behind some of these topics, but I'm just giving you, you know, a synopsis of a little summary of some of the things that dive into it. Um, and then, like I said, you can take that and do whatever you want with it, add to it, subtract from it and just um, just just. Really, I suggest that you um kind of think about some of these things, because we really got to um parent, to a way where we close and give our children tools that the world can't dress them, period. So, protect your child, right.
Speaker 1:So what does that mean? That means don't let any physical or psychological harm come to our children. We always talk about when we protect our children protect them from physical, like something we don't want nothing bad to happen to our children. Like physically, like don't hit my kid, don't harm my kid, whatever. But we don't think about the psychological harm to our children, right? So protecting our children means physically and psychologically away from harm. You know meaning that we're protecting them from people who don't mean no good to them, right? Negative words that are speaking to our children, even for ourselves.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we got to protect our kids from ourselves because when we're at a certain level where we're upset or we're really mad or pissed off, really sometimes parents say anything to their kids and you got to take a pause for the cause and walk away because you don't need to be spewing that on our kids, right? So protect your children from yourself, right on our kids. Right? So protect your children from yourself. Right, but like, really like as parents, like we will, if we see danger, we will throw ourselves in front of a car so our kid don't get hit, right, but we will allow everything from the world to get to our kids, like social media, music, movies, all these things. Right, that's really doing psychological damage to our children. Right, we will throw ourselves in front of a car, but we won't throw ourselves in front of a TV or we won't shut down that social media site or we won't do stuff to their phone, like there are so many apps where you're paying a phone bill, you're able to block certain things for your kids to see. Now, if they're going to see it, they're going to have to work very hard to sneak and see it. But not on my watch, right, as long as I know that I'm protecting in front of things and I'm not saying that we have to isolate our kids because they still have to live in this world. Right, but protect them by teaching them how this stuff works. Right, but it blows my mind Sometimes.
Speaker 1:It's like we always think about physical protection, but that's psychological. You know kids are committing suicide at an alarming rate and that it's all psychological. You know, low self-esteem, not feeling like they're wanted, being abandoned and rejection, all these emotional feelings that they can't handle or don't know how to handle because they're young and they and they haven't had any resources or any tools to help them. How to deal with emotions? Right, Because, honestly, this is a new age where we're talking about emotions and stuff, because for for a long time, nobody talked about emotions. Everything was kept inside, right, but this is a new age. We need to open up and be exposed so that we can be able to best deal with it, right? So what I'm saying is that, like we had to really think about how protecting our children mean. What does it really mean to protect our children Right From harm so I'm saying physical and psychological harm, right? So protect our children by any means necessary, protect our children from negative people.
Speaker 1:Like you got to watch who you let speak to your children, you know, or what they say about your children. Man, I don't let my listen when I, when I talk about my kids like princesses, prince, you know, I'm always saying prince, princesses, my royal crew, everybody knows when they they be like how your royal crew doing, because that's how I address them. So other people address my kids that way How's princess Donny, how's prince Josh, how's princess Faith, how's princess Lizzie, how's your royal crew, even down to the dog y'all, princess Lovey, like how are everybody, how's everybody doing? And they address them because the way I address them, so protecting them from people speaking negative over their life or speaking something into them, that's just not really them.
Speaker 1:Like you know, one of the things that I talk about is like stop calling kids bad. We need to protect them from that word like kids aren't bad. They may be misguided, they may get in some stuff, but like bad, like God didn't make anything bad. So why are we even calling our kids bad? Now, they may have some behaviors that's unsettling. I'm not going to front like who behaviors are unsettling, but to actually say you're bad. That means that when God created you he didn't like what he created. It was a bad thing. And last time I checked, the word says that everything he made was good and he saw it and he said it was very good. So everything and every creation is good.
Speaker 1:So stop calling your kids bad. They do some stuff, some things like we could. We need to tweak their behavior. But again we got to understand that's part of growth and development too. They're going to test the waters they don don't know, like they just came in as well. They came in the world not knowing anything. That's why it's called growth and development. Right, we're constantly growing and developing into the person we need to become.
Speaker 1:So we need to give our kids some grace and stop calling them bad, because if a kid has that bad all the time, they're to be like, yeah, I'm bad. I'm bad next thing, you know they're bullying. Next thing, you know they're doing all this type of stuff, or they just thinking about their stuff in such a bad way. I'm so bad I don't even know why I'm here in this world, right? No, your kids are good, period. They're good thing, right. So we just have to tweak how we address them or or deal with their unsettling behavior, because they do have some behaviors. That's a little out there, y'all I'm not gonna front. So it's a certain way to handle that, so that we don't crush their spirit, right, we don't put any negative into them, and I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1:You know we have to be perfect parents, but I feel like, in order for us to, in order for our kids to be successful, we as parents have to say what we're going to do, what we're going to accept. As for me and my house, this is what I'm going to do, right? So that's protect your children, all right. The next one is educate your child. Now. Parents are the first teachers period. I don't care how you slice it, parents are the first teachers period. I don't care how you slice it. Parents are the first teacher. Your child is in your house, or even, if it's a foster parent, if it's a biological parent, adoptive parent. It doesn't matter if you're responsible or raising a child, you're a parent period. So if, uh, parents are the first teachers, like we teach them, say hi, uh, say bye, say my, say my mom, say that that's teaching right. We're teaching them what's good, what's not so good, what's dangerous, what's happy, like, by everything that we do we really teach them how to respond to life, right. So educate. Educate them on emotions early on them, on um, academics, right. Um, don't wait until your kid go to preschool and then say, oh, I need you to teach them a, b and c. No, we're teaching from the beginning.
Speaker 1:I remember when my sister was pregnant, right, and um, and she's now, I guess, grace tony, probably about 17 months now. I remember when my sister was pregnant, like I was talking to her belly and she used to be like Donna man, why you keep doing that? I would talk to her and I would tell her who she was. I didn't even know if it was a girl or a boy, but I was speaking so much life into her belly that when I tell you this girl came out. I think she must have heard everything I said, cause she's something else y'all, she's something else. She bold, she confident, she's strong, she's fierce. Um, she's a piece of work, but just teaching them. I was, um, telling her who she was and then also singing the ABCs to her, uh, speaking words of encouragement. It's like um just doing whatever I can to while I have that time, um sitting there talking to my sister belly.
Speaker 1:So don't wait until our children get to the school system to feel like the school's supposed to educate our kids. Uh, that's, that's a note and matter of fact. How is that working? Let's look at the world. How is that working?
Speaker 1:A lot of stuff, um, one of the things that I was doing with my kids at a young, early age, because they wasn't teaching these things in school. Just about history, you know, I know. I remember growing up in school I thought that our history began with slavery. Right, I thought black history began with slavery, not true. By doing research and things like that, knowing that where we actually came from. So even teaching our children the royalty of it, the um, the uniqueness in um, who they are, and so that they can accept who they are before they even go out to the world. They can know who they are. So just educating them on that, um, educating them and, like I said, academics, um, because you don't want, uh, your children to be behind the eight ball or just trusting that these schools are just going to teach our kids everything they know. No, no, no, that's my job as a parent. I know it seems like it's a lot that we have to do as a parent, but it's. We really do have another human being that we brought in the world that we're responsible for. We are responsible, right, um. So educate our children um, teaching them um how to like giving them knowledge, but then teaching them how to apply it so that they can have the wisdom and understand that, uh, how to do certain things, um. So education, right, um.
Speaker 1:Here's the one that y'all know that um is a sore subject with me disciplining our children. So that's the number five we talk about that. You know, on the show I'm not um. Corporal punishment is not my, not my thing. Uh, yelling and screaming at our kids is not my thing, um, but as I've grown, in these 25 years of parenting, have I yelled and screamed at my kids? Absolutely, absolutely does it hurt me to do it sometimes? Sometimes it don't, um, but I know when Does it hurt me to do it Sometimes. Sometimes it don't, but I know when I I don't.
Speaker 1:I haven't, like I didn't beat my children, but I do remember my oldest. She was writing. I think she was like five or six. She was writing on the bathroom wall and I told her stop writing on the bathroom wall. She was writing different words or whatever, I don't know. Maybe she was trying to remember the words, whatever, I don't know. But I remember telling her don't write in the bathroom wall. And then I remember her doing it like three or four times, right, and after I told her not to, and um, I remember smacking her and that was like it was devastating to her and it was devastating to me. And then not only did I smack her, she cried, she was shocked, right. Another thing I took her books away from her and she was an avid like. She loved to read, like reading was her thing, right. I took her books from her and you would have thought that me taking her books was the worst. The smack itself wasn't even that bad, y'all. Me taking her books away like she screamed for bloody murder, that she could not read for a night. She could not read for a night and I'm telling you that would hurt me more is the fact that the way she was crying as if somebody was killing her because she could not read for a night.
Speaker 1:So when we talk about discipline, there's different ways that we get disciplined in our children, where we don't have to cause them physical harm right, but discipline is necessary. I don't want you to get this misconstrued. Discipline is necessary because we don't want any waiver children. We don't want any children out here not understand what authority is and responsibilities and right things to do. Right, we need to discipline. So, but discipline in a way of education, not in a way of necessary punishment.
Speaker 1:I know that might sound crazy, like why are we not punishing our kids? Because, like, honestly, punishment doesn't equal success, like it doesn't equal a changed life or understanding of why I did a certain thing. It's that punishment is like I'm not going to do it again because I don't like that punishment that I received, right. But I'm talking about disciplining them in a way that it becomes education, so that morally and ethically and deep down rooted in their heart, they don't want to do a particular thing, not just because I said don't do it, but I'm teaching you why you shouldn't do it Like we really.
Speaker 1:You know, back in the day, kids aren't supposed to ask why or what's going on, but we really should teach them and be open about the why Because I don't know about you is, if I know why I'm doing something nine times out of 10, it's going to yield better results If I know why I'm doing it. If I'm just doing it to do it, I'm just doing it to save face or whatever, but if I know the reason behind something nine times out of 10 is going to come out better Right. So we really need to teach our children a why and it's not everything is a why. I mean you don't have to ask me everything, but really being intentional of how we're teaching our children right and how we're disciplining them. And it's so important because we really, in this world where children are being disrespectful to adults or either other children or even their own parents, it's important to teach them how to respect people and honor people, and part of that is through discipline, though, because even my, even sometimes my kids I'll be like who you talking to, who? I ain't one of your little friends, and that's not to say that your friends a little. That's just saying that the conversation that you have with your friends you can't have with me. Like, I'll put some respect, I'll be walking around the house, put some respect on my name, right? Um, and it's only really as they got older, y'all teenagers, when they were younger I ain't had none of these issues, but now they'm just 16 to 18, I'm like yo, put some respect on my name, like don't, don't talk to me, like don't, don't talk to me like that. Or when they start talking to me, like out of pocket, like with this, uh bro, yo bro, I give them the blank stare like then, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, you better be sorry because don't talk to me, I ain't your bro, I ain't even a male. Stop talking to me like that. Another thing so we at number six y'all I know that was a lot already, but help plan for your child, right. So help your child plan for the future. Basically, just like we have to be intentional with our own life, I think we really need to be intentional of helping our children plan for the future.
Speaker 1:I went to this conference. It was called Life Search, right, and it was about having a kingdom impact, and they talked about work, wealth, wisdom and worship, right, and one of the things that I've learned from that is that how we really need to set our children up to be successful, right, teaching them about finances, investments, um, whether it's stock or, uh, real estate or whatever it is. Teaching them at an early age to how to be successful, like you don't have to wait till you're like 65, 70 and, by the time, this stuff done, probably 80, retire. Like you can set your children up now, at such a early age, so that they can start thinking about finances, um, they can start thinking about investments and things like that, because we don't want our children to have to work until they like 90, right? Um, but really helping them plan their future. If your child wants to go to college, or if your child wants, like mine, the marines, right. Um, if your child wants to just do a vocational school, if your child wants to start a business, like, help your child plan and start at an early age, age appropriate, right.
Speaker 1:What do you want to be with your girl? Will you see yourself in five years? What do you want? You know, really having these engaging conversations with our children so that we can help plan for their future, like, if you want to go to college and you're not getting good grades? Now, okay, we need to get a tutor. So we need to in order for you to get to your goal right. What do I need for you? What do I need as a parent to give you? What tools do you need to be successful? So, if you have these conversations with our children, they will be able to share with us.
Speaker 1:Like you know the one, the 16 year old. She wants to be a chef. She cooks. I let her cook in the house. Now, what do you need to cook Like she cooks these gourmet meals. Everything like helping our children plan for their future. Give them the tools. My niece right now, like we know this, like she's 17 months, but we noticed that she likes to do some gymnastics like stand on her head. She she's learned how to balance on a bike, just standing there, like no hesitation or nothing.
Speaker 1:So we know that there's things that our children are doing early in life that if we just really hone into and we really, we can help plan for the future. So, whatever it is your kids like to do, like, really start looking at that and investing and help them plan for their future, like so that we can um, so they can be successful. That's part of parenting, that's part of our responsibility. Our job is to make sure our kids are successful, right, so just giving them the tools, right? Um, they want to play basketball? Put a basketball in their hand early. Put baseball there, whatever it is. If they want to be a doctor or expose them every time they go to the doctors, have them talk to the doctor. If they want to be a nurse, have them talk to the nurse. Like, whatever it is that your child wants to do, that you start seeing and it may change when they get older. It may change and it may not change. But I think just exposing them and planning for their future is is a good thing.
Speaker 1:So many times we don't really plan for our children's future. I think sometimes we just kind of own this autopilot life, like we, we plan for ourselves. Well, sometimes we don't even plan for ourselves, honestly, um but um, planning for our children. I think this parenting thing sometimes it's just an autopilot life, all right. So the next thing is help our kids explore. So that's kind of the same thing about planning for our children, like help our kids to explore, so that's kind of the same thing about planning for our children. I help our kids explore, like explain different things on different travel with your kids. Like my goal ever since my kids would take them to every state in the United States so that they can see every state and what's important in that state and the value Right, so that they can be well versed and well knowledge of each state. And it wasn't just, oh, I need you to go sightsee this, that and the other. No, I need you to go learn, right. So have our kids explore.
Speaker 1:I know I remember growing up, right, our parents, let us play with dirt in the backyard. God, if a big kid played with dirt. Now, like we all trying to clean them up, sanitize them and all that. Let them kids play in that dirt. Let them kids explore. I remember being young, yo, we was digging for China. I remember we used to dig, dig, dig. Oh, we're going to go to China, we're going to dig a hole down there in China.
Speaker 1:But just exploring, like letting our kids explore the world, different foods, like different cultures, different activities. Like I mean my daughter, I wanted her to play basketball. You know I was a basketball player, so that's a high, my daughter. When I was coaching basketball she wanted to sit on the bench. The whole time I was so confused why is the coach daughter sitting on the bench? She didn't like it. You know what she wanted to do? Soccer. I ain't playing no soccer, but I wanted her to play ball, because that's just what I did. But she wanted to play soccer. So I had to release, let go and let her play soccer.
Speaker 1:So let our kids explore different things, try new things, take them out of the country, take them around the world, let them try different food, let them try different activities, just so that they be well-versed, well-rounded. Because a lot of times I know, growing up, like we didn't travel, like we didn't go anywhere. I mean, I remember going to New Jersey because my family was over there, but other states and stuff like that we didn't visit, we didn't travel. So I think it's really important to allow our kids to travel. And parents of those toddlers, let them kids play in that dirt, stop cleaning them up. Let them play in that dirt, let them explore, let them feel the texture of it, let them let the kids be okay, like I said, the 17 months she's standing on top of a bike right now Let her be making sure that she, you know you're there if they fall. But we got to let our kids be right. Um, all right, number eight. We almost done y'all, number eight.
Speaker 1:Uh, pass along your strengths to your child. I said that earlier, right, I said um, a lot of times we pass along weaknesses, right, or, um, the the parts of us that are not so great, like a stank attitude, or like I said, in the movie Divorce in Black, that woman passed that anger down to her kids. Right, she was so angry for life that she passed down to her kids. Like what if we pass down love, joy, peace, self-esteem, all those things to pass down to our kids, all those things to pass down to our kids and just giving them a special or unique look at life, because life be out here, life and there are so many things that so dark upon our children that we don't want to pass like that dark stuff on our shortcomings. Like, if we got a stank attitude, if we always getting smart with somebody or cursing somebody out, don't pass that down to your kids. Don't pass cursing people out to your kids. This is not, that's a no Bad habits, like we're not really trying to pass bad behaviors down. We're trying to pass good behaviors. So it's important for us to identify our own weaknesses and overcome those deficiencies so that we help our children not become those things that we are shortcomings right. So we really got to identify our own weaknesses and deficiencies so that we can better parent.
Speaker 1:If you're an alcoholic, right, or if you you drink alcohol, I'm not going to say you're alcoholic, but if you drink alcohol, even if your children see that, make sure they know the potential dangers of it, right, um, that they understand and know, listen and I know we talked about do as I say, not as I do. But in this case you're going to do what you do, but at least tell your children the dangers of it right, the dangers of alcohol, the dangers of drugs and the outcome and stuff Like. For me, when I see something, everything is a teachable moment for me. So when I see something that's like a person that's on drugs or a person that's alcohol and they behave in a particular way, an unpleasing way, I tell my children this is why you don't do these things, because it takes over your mind. You have no control. So using those as teachable moments, but really explaining the dangers of drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 1:If you're a parent that have low self-esteem, make sure that you improve yourself in this area. Parent that have low self-esteem, make sure that you improve yourself in this area. If you got low self-esteem, you have to build yourself up because it will fall on your children. It will literally become a blanket for them. Right the curtain closed. It's going. You're going to close them with them, because if you fail to deal with your self-esteem and our children growing up in this type of world, the world is going to chew them up and spit them out. So it's important for you to have high self-esteem. Like love yourself and really think about how important you are, right. Also, like make sure that we become a role model of positive self-image, self-esteem, pride. That way our children aspire to be.
Speaker 1:Like in this area. Oh, my mom, you know, was strong in this area. I saw her like take a whooping and keep on ticking. Like you know, being positive about even negative situations. Like we want our children to be strong in those areas. So our weakness, we want to give them strength. So teaching them even why things are a certain way.
Speaker 1:Like I'm very open with my kids. Like if I'm having a moment when they were younger, I used to be like I'm overstimulated. What does that mean? That means there's a lot going on right now and everything and every cell, every nerve is firing in my brain. Right now I'm overstimulated. Right, and they even say it to this point. It's that 16-year-old that test my end of game set. Ma, I'm overstimulated, I'm in the game set, mom, I'm overstimulated, I'm overstimulated. So then I got to respect that right.
Speaker 1:And then the last one save money for your kids' education. Again, we don't know what our kids want to be right? So, having that conversation when I talk about planning for your kids' future, save money, invest money for their education. Or say, your child, they don't want to go to college, but they want to start a business. Well, you could use that money that you were saving for college to help them start a business, help them take some business classes, like not necessarily have to get a degree, right, but giving them the tools. Ma, I don't want to go to college, I don't want to do all that. Listen, 12 years of school was enough for me and I really don't feel like I learned with that. Okay, what do you want to do? I want to start a clothing line. I want to start a perfume company. I want to do this. I want to do that. Okay, here's some money that we can. You can go into this venture Now. We're going to get you some business classes because you, you want to run your own business, right. So we're going to do some business classes. I'm going to connect you with some people who have their own businesses, like um or uh, connect you Like.
Speaker 1:I saw on the internet the other day that this young lady, her son, decided he was a straight-A student, 4.0 honor roll right in high school. When he was in school he decided not there were so many colleges coming after him. He decided he didn't want to go to college. He wanted to start his business. He wanted a business in exotic cars, right. So what his mom did was she encouraged him, got him prepared to go to an exotic car dealer and present himself and say listen, this is what I want to do in my future. Do you mind if I come and learn under you? You know the job, whatever job you give me, but this is my goal. This is what I want to do. I want to learn how to do this. And he got the job. Y'all, he got a job fresh out of high school in an exotic car business Like what Billion dollar business. He got the job and he's going to be able to learn and glean from these people, right?
Speaker 1:So, again, not every kid want to go to college. They tired of college. I mean, they tired of school. Okay, I get it. They want to start their own business. Why do they have to wait till they get out of college to start their business? No, give them the tools now. So it's not a waste of time, it's not a waste of money. Use that money to fund their business period and then get them exposed to people who they want to become, not necessarily to duplicate who they are, but really getting them around, people that can pour into them so they can help bring their dream to fruition. So there you have it, y'all.
Speaker 1:I mean again, number one was give your child love. Right, that's the basic thing is, when all else fails, love is always there. Make sure your child is a good, moral person. Protect your child again, physically and psychologically right from physical and psychological harm. Educate your child, discipline your child. I know some of y'all are going to call me about this because y'all know my takes on discipline. Help plan for your child, help your child explore, pass along your strengths to your child. Where you have weakness, give them strength. Right, save money for your child's education or whatever they want to do in their life. So that's our job as parents.
Speaker 1:Right, when I talk about being a parent with a purpose and really not living an autopilot life, but understanding that every situation, every, every child, there's a purpose in every child's life, and God just didn't just give us kids just to give it to us, like he. Really there was a purpose for him allowing us to be their parents. Right, there's a clear purpose. We just got to get to understand what the purpose is. But these are some tools that we can use to help fulfill and make sure our kids are successful, right, so I.
Speaker 1:So I encourage you to again watch the Worst in the Black from a parenting perspective, right? Not the fact that Tyler Perry then did another movie, this, that another and it's a negative connotation behind it. And while we keep seeing the same narrative, I want you to look at it from a parenting perspective. Right Again, how hurt this mom was and how she bled over her children, right, and then her children got married and did the same thing. So I want you to look at that. That's your assignment. Watch Divorce and the New Black from a parenting perspective. Right Again, we just need to.
Speaker 1:I just believe that God has given us our children to make sure that he knew that we can make them successful. He knew that we're going to do whatever it takes to make sure that our kids have a future right. So, as a parent again, whatever area that you're not so strong in, start to get some help in that area so that we don't transfer those shortcomings or those mistakes or those negative things around our children. So there you have it parenting with a purpose. Why are we parenting with a purpose and what do we need to do in order to parent with a purpose? You got the 10 tools that I sent you. You could take them, do whatever you want with them, tweak them, however, but just make sure that we're giving our kids love, like again, if we don't do anything else, that love will cover stuff right.
Speaker 1:So, again, thank you for joining Parenting with a Purpose. I am your host, donna Janelle. I look forward to seeing you in another week. Stay humble, stay faithful and trust your ability in parenting, though that's what I want to leave with you. Make sure that you start to really believe that you could be the best parent that you could be and that you're the best parent for the job. So start investing in yourself and your parents and and just know that you're it like you lit you the parent. Thank you for joining parents with a purpose.
