I take no job or role in my life more seriously than being a mom. Moms everywhere want to give their children the knowledge and understanding they need to succeed. While no secret formula will work for every child, I have found five statements I make to my children regularly that reinforce everything I want them to know and believe in their hearts. Here I will share with you how to support your kids in five simple sentences.

Recently, in a Mother’s Day card he made at school, my 10-year-old son wrote something reinforcing this idea. The question was, “What is your favorite thing about your mom,” he answered, “She will always back me up and support me in everything I do.” That one brought tears to my eyes. This fact is precisely what I wanted him to know and believe in his heart.

Here are the five life lessons I teach to my three kids every day as much as I can to show them that I’m here for them and that there is nothing we can’t do together. 

We want our children to believe in themselves and their ability to make their dreams come true. These five life lessons are my daily tool to reinforce that belief and how you can support your kids too.

1. “I always love you – even when I’m mad.”

It seems almost silly to tell them this, but sometimes young children can’t understand the idea that when a parent is upset with something they did, that feeling is temporary. It’s important to teach your kids that your love for them never falters. Love is more profound than a passing argument over how they didn’t clean up after themselves or lied to you about a mishap.  

Making this statement to them teaches them the depth and permanence of love and how a parent’s love for a child is unconditional. For this reason, it is the first statement in my list of how to support your kids in five simple sentences.

2. “You are never alone. I’ve got your back”.

People are at their darkest moments when they feel they are all alone. Teenagers, especially, may think you don’t understand them or that no one “gets them,” and that’s fine. Remind your kids that you don’t have to know all the answers, or you may not completely understand what they are going through, but that you will be there for them. You might not have all the answers to solve their problems. But, you are willing to sit in the unknown with them, by their side, supporting them as they figure it out.  They will make mistakes and suffer consequences both socially and physically.  

Remind them that nothing they could ever do would make you stop loving them or leave them to sort it out on their own.  I’ve often said, I might not be happy with what you did. But, I will help you fix it.

3. “The most important thing in this life is how you treat your family.”

I tell my kids this every day. Siblings fight, parents yell, heck, in my house, even the dog gets yelled at. But, this daily reminder is to disagree with dignity, argue with respect, and at the end of the day, remember that these people (whoever makes up your immediate family) are in the trenches with you. We are a team and need to act like one day in and day out.

I usually follow this up with how you treat other people (outside of our family) is the next most important thing!

4. “My job is to teach you how to take care of yourself.”

A parent’s job is to take care of their children. However, too many parents leave it there and continue to do many things for their children that, as they get older, they should be doing for themselves. By doing their laundry or organizing their schoolbags every night, I am making my life easier because I know I will do it “right.” 

However, I am not helping my child as I should be. They need to understand that I know they can take care of their things and, by doing so, are caring for themselves. I can help, but they must do it in the end.

This one can be tough because it means pulling back on the reins of control for the parent. If my son forgets to charge his school laptop at night and has to show up to school on low battery and make a plan B, that learning experience is far better than my daily nagging to make sure he plugs it in at night. This small, manageable consequence can be a far greater teacher than my nagging. 

I’ll give reminders, but it’s up to you to do it. 

If you find you are arguing with your child about their laundry being a mess, never getting put away, or doing other chores, it may be a sign that they need to take on more responsibility. 

I used to fight with my daughter about her clothes all the time. She would take the clean clothes I just washed and folded for her and stuff them in her hamper when I wanted her to clean her room. Once she started doing her laundry, that stopped. She knew she didn’t want to rewash her clean clothes. 

Now, her room is often still a mess.  But her clothes are more organized than ever before, and I’ll call it a small win that helps me keep my sanity!

Teaching your kids to care for themselves can also be done using age-appropriate chores. Again, we are a team, and everyone must pitch in to do the work of the household. Everyone can contribute, even in small ways. My youngest, who is just 8, sets the table for dinner each night and always helps me bring in the groceries. You’ll find they like helping and feeling grown up more than you think they would.

5. “We can do hard things.” -Glennon Doyle.

I took this one from one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors. It is a big part of the book “Untamed” by Glennon Doyle, which I highly recommend every parent read. 

Two parts to this statement need to be driven home. The first is “we.” Like #2, it reminds your children that they are never alone. What happens in life can be scary and challenging, but we will always face it together.

The second part of this statement is that life is full of “hard things.” If you aren’t chasing a dream or attempting to do something challenging, you are missing out on gaining experience that can positively impact you in the long run. Hard things will happen to us, and we should be attempting hard things simultaneously. Hard makes us grow. And to quote Jimmy Dugan from A League of Their Own, “The hard is what makes it great”. 

Now that you’ve learned how to support your kids in five simple sentences, I hope you also use them in your daily life. Tweak them to be in your own words and work for your family, or copy them verbatim from here. Either way, teaching these five life lessons will help your family to grow and cope with challenges while supporting each other with love. 

Read more about balancing home and work responsibilities in my post about parental burnout here. It has helpful tips for managing the stress of modern family life.