Written by: Shirley LeMay
Hey there, I’m Shirley! I am new at creating blog posts; but I’m not new to parenting and communication. Having a plethora of experience with this topic, I am very passionate about about sharing my lived experience and knowledge. Please bare with me as I am learning to create these posts, and will try to stay on track with my racing thoughts. HAHA!
I’m a mom of four. My eldest child just turned 16, and my youngest is almost 8. I can see the importance and influence of each and every person in their life. If there’s one thing that I know can help my children hold on to what’s being said, I would say it’s definitely influence from others.
A lot of influence comes from their peers, and hopefully most of it is good. Other influences include adults, parents, teachers and community leaders. I want to give back into the lives of our youth by being a person they, as well as you, can trust and rely on for support and positive influence on the subject of Life.
When I’m motivating individuals with encouraging words and lived experience, they are more likely to retain that encouragement and knowledge, as opposed to if I become upset or raise my voice. Although, naturally that’s gonna happen when we, as parents, are endlessly challenged to keep our cool during the unfolding of mistakes and trials.
Whether we know or not, it’s happening. We are constantly “putting seeds in the ground”. Hopefully, you know that I’m referring to our kid’s hearts and minds as “the ground”. We are an example for them every waking moment. Often we don’t realize that we could have been planting better seed.
We may say or do things that, alternatively, we would cringe to hear or see our own kids do. We may not realize this since we are not concentrating on our own actions, but instead we concentrate on the many influence around us. Today is a great day to start working towards intentionally planting good seeds in our youths hearts and minds.
One great way to plant seeds at home and in the community, is to seek out the balance of listening and responding versus reacting too quickly. To be most helpful, we want to listen to learn and speak encouraging words to influence others in the most effective way.
Please feel free to reach out to me or anyone else if you are needing specific peer support yourself!
I notice that many kids often prefer to sit quiet instead of speak up about their thoughts and opinions. Which makes our connection with them questionable.. I hope they can learn to find their voice and communicate effectively as they grow in knowledge and understanding.
Being a Certified Peer Specialist and facilitator for our youth, I want to ethically plant seeds from the wisdom of my personal life experiences, and educate others in important life skill. Doing so can give our youth the tools to be successful in life, and a safe place to turn to when struggles pop up (as we all know they will).
So, please join me each week to learn what’s happening at Positive Pathways, and feel free to walk with us and engage in the comment section. I love ideas and topics to share with the youth of our community. I would especially appreciate for people to share some things you wish you would have learned more about when growing up.
We are Stronger Together,
Shirley LeMay, CPS-MH