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How to Raise Children Who Know Their Value · 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids.

• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Five Minute Parenting.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Today I have a special guest, Patty LaRoche.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: She's a former high school teacher whose number one goal is to help students understand their immeasurable value.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: She speaks to Christian educational and business groups, and she's certified to speak about the fight against sex trafficking, as well as a weekly columnist for three area newspapers.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Patty's a wife, mother, stepmother, great-grandmother, writer, speaker, and athlete athlete coach.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: She's written a book, A Little Faith Lift.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you can find that book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And be sure to check out her website in the show notes so that you can find all of her books and any and a lot of information on her site.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Patty.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Sandra.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's a privilege to be here.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you're going to share with us today about how to raise children who know their value and do not look to others for approval.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's such an important thing today for our kids because so many of them are lost and they just they don't have a good self-image.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for sharing on that.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: You're very welcome, my privilege.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And in it I write that God is the audience that counts.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because as a former teacher, I was alarmed at what I saw happening over the last few years with the lack of confidence in our students and how they never felt that they were good enough.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up, and I write about this in my book, being invited to lead a Bible study for eight of our high school senior girls.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And they were kind of the elite of our school.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: They were the cheerleaders and the homecoming queens and the singers and all that.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I quickly found out that they never felt good enough.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: They always compared themselves to other students and even talked about how they feared walking down the hallway at school because they knew that they were being judged.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I said to them, you guys, you're the you're the ones that people look up to if you're thinking that.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think they're thinking?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So it kind of changed my way of teaching, and I started opening my classroom to much more dialogue.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I quickly noticed that this was an epidemic.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's very interesting that there was just, I think two weeks ago, a big leadership summit at Willow Creek in Chicago.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the Harvard professors that spoke, my friends were actually there.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: One of my friends was on the panel to speak.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: The Harvard professor spoke about how he has a class on happiness, and he has 400 students waiting to get into that class.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not surprised because my friends in psychology now are talking about the hopelessness of people, and they've never seen it, especially in the youngsters, the teenagers, those in their early 20s, they've never seen so much despair and anxiety.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, you know what?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: If we stopped placing our faith or our values or our comparisons in other people and just said, okay, God, are you pleased with me?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Am I using the gifts that you're giving me?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Then we are in such a better position.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: They part of my book deals with bullying.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what's really interesting is that in April of this year, I was substitute teaching in a class in middle school.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I was alarmed when I noticed these four young boys, I they're seventh graders, and they were picking on a student who was kind of oh, kind of not exactly what you would consider the in the cool group.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: You could tell that.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I went after him and I said, What's going on here?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, this is my first day in that class.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, They they pick on me all the time.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: They make fun of me and tell me that I'm worthless and I'm stupid.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I walked back in the classroom.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I left him in the hallway and I went back to the classroom and I got those four young men together.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I said to them what I had told my students for years, why do you think you have the power to make somebody feel less about themselves than God ever designed for that individual?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And who do you think you are?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And how would you feel if somebody made fun of you?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: I could do that.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I could do that all day long, but I choose not to.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I went back to the hallway and I spoke to that young man.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, you know what?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: You have a choice.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can either give them the power to make you feel less about yourself, or you can understand that you've been created for something pretty extraordinary.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you need to figure out what that is, because we all have been given gifts.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: When he walked back in the classroom, I was shocked to hear one of the first boys say to him, I'm sorry for what I said to you.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other three did the same.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I said to those four in front of the class, don't you feel better about yourself because you just apologized for mistreating a classmate?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really proud of you for doing that.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: About oh, a month later, I was in the beauty shop and this former student of mine came in with her four children and we started talking.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: She said, I hear you've gone back to substitute teaching.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, it's been very interesting.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's not what it was when I was teaching.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: That the children, the students have so much less value than they did even then.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Well, like, for what, for, for, can you give an example of that?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yes.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I talked about that incident at middle school.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And her son, who was sitting there, said, That was me.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I looked at him, he just got his haircut, so I didn't recognize him.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, You took me out in the hallway and you told me not to give those boys any power to make me feel bad about myself.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, there is mother was sitting saying, You never told me that story.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously the words had meant something to him, but I had spent years with my students.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: We had talked about their examples of being bullied.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: We had talked about what they could do if they were being bullied or if they were, if they found somebody else being bullied.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a great story in my book about a student who took that to heart and on the school bus noticed a little 12-year-old was picking on a six-year-old, and the six-year-old was crying.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And she was calling the little six-year-old fat and stupid.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: So my student got out of her bus seat and walked up to the 12-year-old and said, Who, who gave you the power to try to make this little girl feel bad about herself?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: And she told me, she actually came in my classroom the next morning and said, Mrs.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: LaRoche, I have to share this story.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, But I couldn't believe what happened that night.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was at home and my phone rang and it was the bully's mother.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the bully's mother told me I didn't have the right to tell her daughter that she couldn't speak the truth to this little six-year-old, that that little six-year-old was fat and ugly.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Oh my gosh.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: The mother defended her daughter in bullying.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And my students said yes.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Oh, but you gave that little six-year-old somebody, somebody that she knew would defend her, and somebody in her corner.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And doesn't that make you feel good about yourself?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And my student said, Oh, yes, and I would do it again over and over and over.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I write my book with the with the primary consideration of telling people nobody has the right, no parent, no coach, no uh pastor.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've even heard stories about pastors doing that, because God created all of us uniquely, wired our DNA differently, and has great purpose for our lives.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if we can teach our children that, because they are going to be bullied, they are going to be told as it's so sad because it's happening all the time.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned that I do speak on sex trafficking.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: My son is very active in the fight against sex trafficking and actually has, on multiple occasions with his team, recovered several girls.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the story is always the same.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: They got on the internet.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't happen in the Walmart parking lot, it happens on the internet because something had happened at home and they didn't feel worthwhile.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: And a predator was there waiting for them.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how they got snared into the sex trafficking industry.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not, it's not just a minor little, oh well, get over it.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Parents need to be very cognizant of the fact that God gave them a role as a parent to um to bless their children with incredible confidence and self-worth.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they have to have consequences for their actions, but they need to be told that they're valued.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what my book's about, and that's what I speak on.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's just it's just a privilege to be here with you, Sandra, and to be able to share just some of the nuggets of what I have learned and what I have written about.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for this opportunity.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was such good advice.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a former teacher too, and it was not as bad as it is now for sure when I taught.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's been a lot of research just showing how incredibly um bad social media is, that it it, you know, it makes kids feel they don't measure up.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's a big part of today's problem, I think, with with kids and their us, you know, realizing how special they are.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: I totally agree.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I totally agree.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, couldn't have said it any better.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So well, thank you so much.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just it's a pleasure.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I encourage everyone to go to Patty's website, which I will list in the show notes and check out her website and her book.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you, Patty, for being with us today.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Sandra.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: My privilege.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great day.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.