As a wife, mom of 5 beautiful children and one granddaughter, I am aware of the influence I have both in my home and my marriage. In this post, I want to focus on my influence as a mom.

My awareness has grown ever so deeply as I watched my 5 kids mimic me in our everyday interaction. My husband often tells me, “they get that from you”and I can not deny it as I hear them speak, they sound just like me. I want you to know, I have days when I am not always displaying Christ like behavior.

We are not talking about using foul speech and deliberately acting out of character but there are days when I loose my patience and my voice get elevated. Ok y’all, lets be real, when I yell. My kids are taking in everything I display in front of them. I should know better right! This is not an excuse for my behavior because I am past the age of accountability and I fully take responsibility for my own actions, but I am doing what was past down generationally. That’s right my mother yelled and all of my sisters have yelled in the heat of the moment. But that is no excuse for me.

I notice when I am feeling overwhelmed or out of control, I use my elevated voice to be heard. I constantly ask myself what am I teaching my children by displaying such emotions. I am constantly in prayer about this character flaw because I do know it is influencing my environment and not for the positive.

There are 2 scriptures that I mediate on to help me keep my emotions in check. Those 2 scriptures are found in Proverbs 14:29, Proverbs 22:24.

People with understanding control their anger; a hot temper shows great foolishness and

Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered.

You guys, my kids ages are 2, 4, 5, 10 and 26. My granddaughter is 7. It is a never dull moment at my house, we are a loud family. I have 6 girls and 1 boy in my environment and there are a lot of emotions and personalities going on. I love my kids so much and wants nothing but the best for them. My husband says, I am too hard on myself.

Moms, I do think we are to hard on ourselves. We are the incubator in our environment. Not to discredit our husbands, but I believe we are way more emotionally invested in the care, support, love and protection for our kids emotional wellbeing.

I do know God can give them much more love and protection than I can. So when I mess up, I also influence them by going to them and sincerely apologizing and asking them to forgive mommy.

My goal is to make sure I keep a peaceful and fun environment for my kids to feel loved and thrive. I intentionally work on keeping my environment at home very positive.

My kids ears are sensitive to wrong words spoken in their environment and they will tell you it a minute, do not speak those kinds of words to me or over me. I guess I have influenced them to speak nothing into the atmosphere that they do not want to see come in.

I know I am not perfect, but I do have high standards for myself when it comes to giving my family the best love and care that is within my power.

I am aware that my kids are watching me because they remind me often by saying, “Mommy you did that or you said that.

The Bible tells my husband and I in Proverbs 127:3-4 that our children are a gift from the Lord and they are a reward from him. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are children of they youth.

I don’t know about you, but I have a great obligation to both God and my children. He blessed me with these wonderful blessings and just like the mighty skilled warrior, I can shoot my arrows by making sure I follow Gods instruction on how to raise them and aim them in the direction of their bullseye.

Just know, that what ever we choose to speak in our environments and over our children are forming their characters and shaping their future. As an influencer, and their mom, it is my responsibility to make sure I keep them in an environment that is biblical sound, healthy, loving, stable, positive and forgiving.

What I’m realizing is, it is not so much what we teach them that matters, but what we actually live out and do in front of them that has the most impact!

It is not always what’s being taught but what is being caught!

I hope this blog post have been helpful to you. I would love hear from you, don’t be shy, leave a comment and subscribe to Breakthrough Blog 4 Women. Follow me on my social media links down below to get to know me better. Click here to follow me on Instagram.

Coach Angie!