Moms Need A Tribe Too

Yes, guys. Hey, how are you? We are live. Hey, hey, hey, how are you? Welcome to our Wednesday night live chat. If this is your first time on one of my live chats, my name is Monica J., and I'm an early childhood development specialist and a behavior specialist. I've been teaching special education in early childhood for over 16 years in New York City, and I absolutely love helping parents guide their young children to be their best selves in challenging situations, all while using mindful teaching strategies. So welcome to our Wednesday night live chat. We meet here every Wednesday night at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, unless otherwise noted. But I'm so happy you're joining me, whether you're joining me live or even if you're joining me on the replay. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Tonight's topic is a really good one. It is entitled You Are Not Alone. Plus, there's a plus. You Are Not Alone. Plus three reasons why finding your tribe will benefit you, especially when your children's behaviors send you over the edge. All right. So that's our topic for tonight. It's a long one, right? It's a long one, but it's really good. It's really important. And I'm so happy that we are actually having this conversation and we're speaking about this. So before we go on any further, let me just say this. Tonight's broadcast or tonight's live chat is sponsored by the free, the free three part video miniseries called Ten Things I Wish I Knew About Bad Behavior and Young Children. It is absolutely free. It's a three part miniseries. And it's all of the things that I personally wish I knew before I was a teacher about behaviors and young children, because there's lots of things that you can know. There's lots of things, lots of things. And so that is what tonight's broadcast is sponsored by. And if you want more information on that free video series, all you have to do is you can go to my website, MonicaJSutton.com. And at the top in the tab section, you just click on freebies. Okay. When you click freebies, it'll bring you to the page. It'll tell you all about this free three part video miniseries. It's really good, really juicy. And I just suggest that you go and check it out. So guys, whether you're watching live or if you're watching later on, on the replay, if you think that this topic is something that will benefit people, you know, people that follow you, your friends, family, you can definitely share this broadcast out, share it out, share it with the world, let them know what we're talking about over here. And also, it'll also help you excuse me, it will also help you if you want to save this and check this out later, it will be in your feed, it'll be in your post so you can find it really easy. Alright, so that's another benefit of sharing it. Hey, Michelle, thank you. Thanks so much. I just thought I'd look a little decent for you guys tonight. So yeah, I added a few curls. I added a few curls to it. Alright, so let me make sure all my tech is working. I'm assuming you guys can hear me. My microphone is working. Clearly the video is working the camera. I want to do one thing before we start. I'm going to share this video out as well on our other page on our sister page. I'm going to share it out, let them know what we're talking about, and let everyone know that we are live. So what, again, we're talking about not being alone, finding your tribe, and basically finding your tribe means finding your support system. You know, tribe is just a word that everyone's using now, it's really popular, but just finding your support system, especially in the stressful, challenging moments, especially when you're feeling overwhelmed as a parent, as a teacher, as anyone with young children in their lives. I just think it's so important to find that support system, that tribe, a group of people that can get you through it, that can help you get through it. So you don't feel that you are not alone. Also, you don't feel that you are alone. Alright, so let me send this out real quick and share it. We're live. That's what I'm telling everybody. All right, cool. And let's chat. Let's do it. Okay, done. Done, done, done, done, done. Alright, so guys, alright, you are not alone finding your tribe. And also, I want to share three reasons why this will benefit you. Three reasons why finding your tribe and really, you know, finding that support system that's going to support you through and through no matter what, why that is so, so important. So, you know, over here, here on the Monica J Sutton or MJS page, and over on Instagram, we really have been talking about for the last few weeks about you all, about the adults in young children's lives, and how it's so important that you not only find a support system, which we'll talk about tonight, but we also were talking about finding your state of calm when there are challenging situations that present themselves, when you find yourself in a feeling of being overwhelmed, or hopeless, feeling hopeless, or just stressed out beyond, you know, almost beyond repair. At least that's how you feel in that moment. I mean, it is so important for you to figure out how to find your state of calm. We were talking about that two weeks ago, I continue to talk about it this week, finding your state of calm, so, so important. And I know some of you might be saying to yourself, well, I thought we're going to talk about behaviors, but I thought we're going to talk about children and how to, you know, strategize on helping them with these behaviors, and getting them through it, and correcting the negative behaviors. We are. And everything that we're talking about now, while we talk about adults, and we talk about the stressors you go through, and how to calm yourself, and how to find your support, and basically how to take care of yourself first, that comes before anything else, in all actuality. That is more important than figuring out the strategy right now. Figuring out what to do when your child acts up, or what to do when your child, you know, displays a negative behavior. You know, right now, whatever you're doing, fine, you can continue doing that, you can try to change your approach if you want to, but right now, I just want you to focus on you. Because if you didn't know, let me just tell you that you hold so much of the power, so much of what the outcome could possibly be with your child after a negative behavior, you hold so much of that power, because you are the guiding force. You are the one giving them the tools, teaching them, correcting them, helping them along the way. You are their teacher, whether you're a teacher in school, or you're a parent. Parents, moms, dads, you're the first teacher. You're the one who your children will always go to for the guidance. You're the one who always will be guiding, no matter what, whether they're, you know, 10 years old, whether they're 4 years old, whether they're 21 years old, you will be the one guiding, gliding them along the way, right? You're giving them the tools, so your mental health, your physical health, your health, your wellness is truly, truly important, significant in all of this. And so, I want you to be able to see that. I want you to be able to see how important you are, how important not only your feelings are, but your health, your wellness, how important that is. And so, that's why we keep coming back to you, coming back to the adult, and bringing it back around to that. That's why we keep doing that, because it's so, so important, right? It's so, so important. And if, like we're going to talk about tonight, when and if, I don't want to say if, when you find, if you haven't already, find your support system, find your tribe, well, then you will start to feel some of the stressors diminishing, because you'll have people to go to, to talk to, so you don't feel alone, so you don't feel like you're the only one going through things. Because the circumstances that, you know, you have to deal with in life are just that. Those are your circumstances, and how you deal with it, and, you know, can determine the outcome of them. But when you're stressed, and when you're overwhelmed, and when you're going through challenges yourself, and your child may act up, or your child may, you know, disappoint you in a way, or do something that is, you consider to be negative, when that happens, that can sometimes send you over the edge. And we don't want that to happen. We don't want you to burn out. We don't want you to be sent over the edge. We actually want to get the help we need, that you need, right now, right away. I want you to seek out positive help, positive support, encouraging support. And when you do that, you will see that some of that stress will diminish. Some of it, because you'll start to feel just a little better. You'll start to feel as if, you know what, I'm not the only one alone out there. I'm not the only one going through this. I'm not the only one who has kids that act up in school, or at home, or in public, or in family functions. I'm not the only one who stresses about their kids not cleaning up after themselves, or not doing the things I asked them to do. I'm not the only one who has a child who speaks back, you know, talks back when they're not supposed to, or says things that you're just like, oh my gosh, where did you learn that? You know, you're not the only one. But the more you talk about it, the more you seek out that support, the more you, you know, really reach out to others for support, the more you realize that you're not the only one. And that what you're feeling is normal, what you're feeling is valid, it's okay. You have every right to feel what you're feeling. Your feelings matter the same way your children's feelings matter. And so I just really, really, truly today want to encourage you to seek out support, to truly seek out support. And not only support, not any kind of support, because you can find support everywhere. I mean, online per se, this community you can find support in. You know, we've been having some really great conversations. Sometimes on Facebook, we have, you know, really engagement interaction. And, you know, everyone is supporting one another. Sometimes when we have our Instagram live chats, it's the same thing, you see the support. And so if you get the encouragement to speak up and just, you know, rant if you have to rant, you know, share your experiences, share your struggles, share your fears, share your frustrations. And there's a support system here. There's a support system here. And we want to continue to grow that support system here. But you can also find support in other groups. You can find them in Facebook groups. You can find support in mommy groups. You can find support on blogs. You can find support by just, you know, joining clubs. You can find support on the playground when you're talking to other moms, at the bus stop, or in school when you do parent, you know, parent volunteering. You might meet other parents. You know, when you go on playdates with your child, you take them on playdates, you meet other parents. You know, there's so many places to find support. Family, friends, there's so many places to find support. But all I say, and what I want to remind you of, is when you do find that support, make sure that support is positive support. You want positive support. You want positive support from people who really truly care about you, who care about your well-being, and who are going to steer you in the right direction, not judge you, not judge you, not give you negative support, not make you feel drained after you get off the phone with them, not make you feel bad about yourself after you get off the phone with them. No, you're seeking that positive support. So even if it's a family member and they're not giving you the positive support you need, don't feel obligated to always go to them. Seek support other places. Even, hey, you can seek support with me. You can reach out to me in the DMs. You can come on these live chats and, you know, interact. Let's talk. Seek out that support. It's so, so truly important. And so I want to share with you three reasons tonight, three reasons why seeking out your tribe, finding your tribe, finding that support system for you to get through these challenging times, the overwhelm, the stress, three reasons why it's important. Number one, the first reason is because, and I already mentioned this, honestly, the first reason it's important to find the support is because you will start to realize that you are not alone. You are not out there on your own. You are not out there doing it all by yourself. You're not the only one experiencing these things with your child at home. You're not the only one. You honestly are not the only one. So when you seek out support, you start to realize that. You start to see that there are others out there just like you, whether they've been through it already, whether they're going through it currently, just like you. It may look a little different, may sound a little different, but they're still going through it. And so if they've gotten through it or if they've figured out a system that works for them, talk to them about it. What are they doing that's working? How do they get through the challenging situations and times? How do they get through those public meltdowns with their child and when they feel like they're so embarrassed or they're just like everyone's watching them, right? How do they get through that? But so that's number one. You start to realize you are not alone. You're not the only one experiencing what you're experiencing. You're not. Number two, number two is you will start to take away that feeling of not being good enough, not being enough, right? Like I'm not a good enough mom. I'm not a good mom. I'm not doing enough. I don't know enough. I'm not a good enough dad. I'm not a good enough teacher. I'm not helping enough. I'm not teaching. What am I doing wrong? You know, my child is not listening. They're speaking back. They're talking back. They're acting out. I don't know what to do. Is it me? Am I not a good parent? No. Take away that feeling of not being good enough. Give yourself a pat on the back. Have patience with yourself. Grant yourself some grace and understand that you are enough. You are doing your very best and tomorrow's a new day and you can start again. Try again. If this didn't work, you could try something else tomorrow. You know, if that didn't work, you could try something else next week. Next week, you know, it's okay. It is okay. Have patience with yourself. Patience is key. You have to have patience with yourself. I mean, I had to learn that the hard way. You know, just being a teacher, it's really important to have a support system as well. And I had to learn that the hard way that I can't do everything on my own. You know, I grew up thinking, and this comes from a lot of the women in my family, women, especially guys, women, you guys, right? We especially sometimes think we have to do it all, know it all, be it, be all, be the all, be the everything for everybody, right? And that is not the case. We can't. We're only human, right? We can't hold all the burdens. We can't take on all the challenges. We can't solve every problem on our own. We need to seek out support too. We need support for ourselves. And so when I learned that being a teacher, you know, to find support, whether it was in coworkers or, you know, administrators, supervisors, or friends or whoever, or just joining other education groups and things like that. When I, you know, when I really seeked out the support and I started to talk to other people about what they were going through, meaning other teachers, I started to see, like, I'm telling you that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't alone in all of this and that there were other teachers experiencing what I was experiencing or have experienced it already. I was able to get tips from them. I was able to share my experiences and my tips and my strategies. And that all worked out and it lessened the pressure on me. It lessened the stress and it allowed me to realize again, I'm not alone and that I am good enough. And then I'm learning every step of the way. We're all learning constantly, right? And so, like I said, if it doesn't work today, you can try again tomorrow. If this approach doesn't work with the behavior, you can try again tomorrow. It's all good. It's all good. And number three, the third thing, guys, is this will start to, if you start to seek out the support, the positive support, this will start to give you a positive outlook on the future, what your future holds with your children and with the behaviors and with the acting out and the talking back and all of these different changes, the developmental changes that your children go through. It will help you to have a positive outlook on the future that, you know what, I got this. I can do this. I am good enough. And so, looking towards the future and looking towards, you know, continuing to guide them and teach them and give them the tools they need, I know I can do this. And so, when you have that positive support that is constant, that is continuous, that is readily available, then you will start to feel so many of these things. You will start to realize you're not alone. You will start to lessen the stress, lessen the pressure. You will start to feel like you are good enough, that you are doing enough, that you are doing your best and get better from here. And you will continue to learn. And you will start to have a positive outlook on the future and start to realize that, as my mother and my grandmother always said, well, my grandmother said and my mother always says, and this too shall pass. And you may have heard that before, right? And this too shall pass. When there's a storm, it will pass. It will pass. I know sometimes it seems like the storm is never passing or the storm comes to visit every day or every other day with your child, but it too will pass because this is a developmental stage that they're going through and you can guide them through it. You can guide them through it. You can give them the tools they need to get through this stage so they can get to the next stage and get through that stage and get to the next stage. And that's what we're here to do, to guide them, to guide them and give them the tools that are not only going to benefit them today, that will also benefit them in the future, in the future. And so, now you see why I continue to bring the conversation back, back to the adult in the child's life, back to the adults in the child's life because we hold so much of the power. These little people, these young people are looking towards us for the answers. They are looking towards us for the guidance. They are reaching for the tools that we should be giving them because they don't know. They're still learning. They need lots and lots of reminders and lots of positive guidance. And in order to do that, in order to give that to them, we need to be calm. We need to be able to think reasonably. We need to be able to take care of ourselves first before we can take care of them. It's just like they say on the airplane. You guys know, if you've flown before, you know what the flight attendants say when they go through the whole spiel at the beginning before we even take off on the plane. What do they tell you about the oxygen mask? Take care of yourself first. Put on your oxygen mask before you can help anyone else, whether it's a child, a neighbor, someone sitting next to you, an elderly person, whoever, whomever. Put on your oxygen mask first and then take care of your child. So if you want your child to get through this developmental stage and get through these behaviors that may be very negative and that you are just feeling like really overwhelmed with or by, then you need to put on your oxygen mask first. Remember we talked about find your state of calm. Where is it? Where is it? Look at that. Find your state of calm. Find your state of calm first. I should go this way. Can you see it? Oh, there you go. Find your state of calm. Find your state of calm first before you can even guide or serve your child. The same like the oxygen mask. Put on your mask first and then you can help others. Find your state of calm first. Find your support system, your tribe, and then you can support your child and guide them. Take care of you. Take care of your wellness, your health, both mental and physical. So important. It's so, so important. And I want to encourage you to continue doing that and to do it if you haven't started to start. Every little bit counts. Every little thing you do, every little change you make counts. And I'm continuing to take care of myself and do the same thing that I'm preaching to you. The same thing. It takes time, takes practice. We have to have patience with ourselves and we will get through it because this too shall pass. This too shall pass. So thank you guys. Thanks so much. That's what I have for you tonight. Remember you are not alone. And if you missed any of those three reasons, just go back and watch it again. Three reasons why finding your tribe, that support system will benefit you, especially when your children's behaviors can send you over the edge. Right? Right. So thank you guys so much for taking the time to listen. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for clicking on and being a part of this conversation and just really taking it all in and thinking about these things. And I want to also remind you, if you didn't know, if you know, and for those of you who don't know, definitely sign up for my MJS Insiders. You know why? Because I have a lot of good things coming up in my Insiders, which is basically an email community. You guys will get all of that information first. You get all the freebies. You get all the goodies first. You get all the valuable information first because I'm always sharing in there only once a week. Once a week, I reach out to you. I share something that I've learned that I really believe that could possibly help you in your life with your young children. And I also share some freebies and some goodies that I'm giving away that will also help and benefit you in your lives. So definitely join the MJS Insiders. And the way you do that is super, super simple. You go to MonicaJSutton.com. And as soon as you get there, a little box is going to pop up. And as soon as that box pops up, it's going to say, hey, join the MJS Insiders. And all you have to do is put your name, put your email, and you instantly are a part of our community. And I will see you in your email inbox. And you can email me back any questions or feedback that you have. Isn't that great? I think it's really cool. I think it's really awesome. So anyway, guys, thanks so much. I appreciate you jumping on. And I will see you guys again soon, next week, Wednesday, same place, same time. And also, if you want to get a head start on the conversation, you can always join me on Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time over on Instagram, MonicaJSutton. Thanks, guys. Have an awesome, awesome Wednesday night. And enjoy the remainder of your week. Bye. Nice chatting with you. I'm going to start adding some music in here. We got to get this thing livened up like it's a party because this is a celebration, all right? We like to celebrate in this community. All right. That's for next time. Okay. I'm sorry. Next time. Next time. Because look, guys, I have my lantern lights now. You see these lantern lights? Aren't they cute? I have lantern lights now. I'm going to start partying here. What's up? What is really up? Come on. All right. I'll get it together for next week. See you then. Bye. Bye. See you then.