Teaching Heritage: Why Your Child's Family History Matters

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We need to be proactive about teaching our children important character traits and family heritage instead of constantly correcting behavior after the fact. Understanding where we come from helps our children uncover their identity, drives purpose, and provides answers to behaviors they'll encounter throughout life.

• Teaching children about their heritage helps explain behaviors passed down through generations
• Schools teach history, but parents must teach family heritage and dynamics
• Heritage gives context for certain tendencies and behaviors your children display
• Understanding inherited traits helps you address challenges more effectively
• Try to maintain relationships with both sides of the family for the children's benefit
• Attend family reunions and connect children with extended family when possible
• Collaborate with siblings who may face similar parenting challenges

If you enjoyed today's episode, tell another single mom. Come back next week when I'll be talking about disappointment, how to address it, and how to teach children about this inevitable life experience.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Hey ladies, welcome to the Mom to Mentor podcast.
If this is your first timejoining, welcome.
If you are a Repeat listener,thank you for your loyalty.
Hey, I'm back in the saddleagain, ladies.
As you know, for these past fewweeks, I've been talking about

(00:22):
planting character seeds in yourchildren because it's up to us
to teach our children.
And if we don't do it, somebodyelse will.
And that's why we get intocorrecting mode.
It's not teaching our children.
It's just correcting behavior.
But if we're proactive and startteaching them ahead of time the

(00:47):
things that are important inlife, it's going to save us a
lot of time in correcting mode.
I'm just saying, with raising mychildren, I found myself just
being always in correcting mode.
Don't do this, don't do that,don't say this, don't say that.
But had I taught them inadvance, I wouldn't have had to

(01:08):
come back and do as muchcorrecting.
That's still a part ofparenting.
But if you take the time toteach them, you have minimal
correcting that you will need todo.
All right, so what am I talkingabout today?
It's not necessarily planning acharacter seed, but it is

(01:31):
something that I believe thatyou should teach your children
that is extremely important.
And that is their heritage.
Now, when we send them toschool, and what the school is
responsible for doing and doesis they teach history.
Okay, and that's fair.

(01:52):
I mean, does it really add valuelater on?
Display as they were growing upand still displaying.
You know, for instance, my mom,she liked to keep everything.
No fault with that, right?
As long as she didn't become ahoarder per se, and she kind of
managed it.

(02:13):
But I know that me myself, Ialso am not a fan of getting rid
of stuff.
I'd rather buy another bin andput stuff in it than to get rid
of it.
That's not a good thing, right?
Because now I have a whole lotof bins of stuff that I don't
use.
But I acquired that because ofmy mom, because that's what she

(02:35):
does.
That's what she did.
She she held on to stuff for along time.
She reused it, she recycled it.
And again, there's nothing wrongwith that, but now I understand
why I have a tendency to not letgo of things.
You know, another example is mymom likes nuts.

(02:55):
She ate pecans, cashews, and allother kinds of nuts.
And I am the same way.
My dad, he was a numbers person.
And so it's no mystery, nosecret.
Why I'm really in tune withnumbers.
I'm always looking at my numbersas it relates to this podcast.

(03:19):
I'm looking at how many peopleare listening, how long they're
listening for, are there newlisteners?
He was a numbers person.
So where am I going with this,ladies?
Heritage issues or hereditaryhanded down to us.
So you have to explain that toyour children.
And that's why that's important.

(03:39):
And also, it all helps themuncover their identity and it
drives purpose.
And you will understand thosecertain behaviors and how to
address them.
It's preparation for physicaland mental challenges you're
going to encounter.
You're getting ready to getanswers to questions you haven't

(04:03):
even asked yet.
Think about that.
Like, why am I acting this way?
Okay.
And again, the example I gave asit relates to my mom.
Why can't I get rid of stuff?
Right?
And some of it is mental, butmost of it is because I acquired
this behavior from her.

(04:24):
Now, how do we educate ourchildren about heritage and what
do we do?
How do we cultivate that?
You know, with my kids' father,you know, we didn't make it, but
I maintained a relationship withhis mom.
And so I was able to get familyhistory from that side.

(04:49):
And so as a result of that, nowit's no mystery to me if my kids
displayed a certain type ofbehavior, and I know it didn't
come from my side of the family,then it probably came from his
side.
And so again, I could sit andtalk with his mom and say, Well,
how did you handle thissituation when he behaved this

(05:11):
way?
That's why it's important thatwe talk to our children.
We educate our children aboutwhere they came from.
If there were relationshipissues along the generational
line, then guess what?
You will want to educate themabout that.

(05:31):
If they struggle with anger, Ipromise you, it probably has
appeared somewhere else alongthe line that you can talk to
someone about that and say, Howdid you handle this?
Or what was the outcome of this?
Or what would you dodifferently?
These are things you have to askyourself because you are now the

(05:54):
teacher.
You are the mentor.
We can't, the schools are notgoing to teach this.
They're not.
They'll teach history, they'llteach American history, how
Columbus found America and whothe 21st president was, and what
this president did and when thiswar happened, they're going to

(06:15):
teach that.
That's okay.
But now it's up to you to teachabout family heritage, family
dynamics, because they're goingto need it as they navigate this
life.
If you don't have a relationshipwith your father's or your

(06:36):
baby's father's side of thefamily, I would encourage you to
try to get in touch with themand start having discussions,
ask questions, right?
For the sake of the kids.
You know, I would approach itas, you know what, you don't
have to like me, but kids areinvolved.
And I would just like to know alittle bit about your family

(06:57):
history, some of the challenges.
And also not just thechallenges, but some good things
that come out of their family.
You just never know what you'lllearn, but you have to sit down
and talk to them.
You should also, if you havefamily reunions, participate.
Yeah.

(07:17):
If you can, if you can affordit, go to your family reunion.
Take your kids, let them meettheir cousins.
And again, if you have brothersand sisters, they may be
experiencing some of those samebehaviors that you need to teach
your children, right?
And now you all can worktogether.

(07:40):
Oh, imagine that.
Working together to solve someof these issues or behaviors
that have been encountered inthe past.
And now with today's technology,you could possibly overcome that
just by researching it andcoming back and developing a

(08:00):
plan to address some of thoseissues.
Yeah, imagine that.
So, ladies, long story short,leave it up to the schools to
teach American history, culture.
But you as a mom take onteaching heritage, it's gonna

(08:22):
pay off in the end.
Some things are gonna make senseversus assuming, okay, I'm not
sure why you're behaving thisway, but this is what I'm gonna
do to correct it.
But if you know that this issomething that comes along with

(08:43):
family generations, you're gonnaapproach it differently.
I hope you enjoyed today'sepisode.
If you did, tell another singlemom.
This is the mom to mentorpodcast where it's designed to
encourage, motivate, and guesswhat?

(09:03):
Educate because we're more thannurturers, we're more than
providers.
So, ladies, I would ask you tostep up your game, step it up,
take the challenge and say, youknow what?
I'm gonna teach my child orchildren about heritage and what

(09:26):
it means and why it's important.
All right, again, if you enjoyedtoday's episode, tell another
single mom.
Next week, I'll probably betalking about disappointment and
educating our children aboutdisappointment, why is that

(09:47):
important?
Because they're gonna experiencea lot of it through this life,
and even you.
So come back, come back, yougotta come back, and here next
week's episode as I talk aboutdisappointment, how to address
it, and how to cultivateteaching it, and what some of

(10:09):
the expected outcomes will be.
All right, have a great day.