Teach More, Discipline Less
by the Little Rock Family Care Case Manager, Nitzia David
Parenting is challenging when you are a single mom. You become mom and dad altogether, juggle life, and try to teach and offer your kids more opportunities to become stronger and make good choices in life as they grow up.
At Desired Haven Family Care, one of the areas we encourage our moms to work on is Parenting. We teach TBRI, and invite them to practice simple principles like Empowering, Connecting and Correcting.
But sometimes it takes a village to help our single moms learn something new and different, right? We work alongside church partners in our area that will help our moms find community, a support system. They become the body of Christ to reinforce the things we teach in our program.
Recently one of our church partners, Immanuel Baptist Church hosted a mother /daughter event and invited one of our moms to participate. She was thrilled to attend with her 11-year-old daughter who has never been to an event like this.
This mom listened well and took advantage of everything shared to help her become a better mom! She shared with us one of the highlights that goes along with the TBRI program we teach in our program.
“Attending the mother/daughter “Women of Influence” ceremony I learned the simplest phrase, “TEACH MORE, DISCIPLINE LESS”. This was catchy, easy to remember, and it stuck with me. The next morning, I asked my daughter to wash her face. When I noticed how she was washing her face it hit me.... Have I ever taken the time to actually teach her how? Sometimes I get so caught up in the day to day before learning this simple phrase - it never registered just how much I was asking of them, and I hadn’t actually taught them to do it. Now my main motto is “TEACH MORE, DISCIPLINE LESS”. It works!”
To see our moms being proactive, learning, and willing to try to do things differently for their children is one of the reasons why our program exists. We consider it a privilege and a blessing to have the opportunity to give these families a better future through the love and support of our church partners and volunteers that work with us through the Desired Haven program.