October 16, 2024 • 45 mins
In this conversation, Destini Ann and Dr. Martin discuss conscious parenting and the importance of respecting children. They explore the difference between obedience and discipline, and how conscious parenting focuses on building relationships and fostering respect. They also touch on the unique challenges faced by Black parents and the need to challenge traditional parenting norms. The conversation highlights the importance of allowing children to ask questions and express themselves, while also setting boundaries and ensuring their safety. In this conversation, Destini Ann and Dr. Martin discuss the importance of respectful parenting and empowering children. They challenge the narrative that being tough on kids prepares them for the real world, emphasizing the need to support and uplift children, especially Black and Brown children. They highlight the importance of teaching children critical thinking, problem-solving, and effective communication skills. The conversation also touches on the challenges of parenting in a school environment that may not align with respectful parenting principles. They discuss the need for parents to recognize and address their own internalized beliefs and traumas to create a safe and empowering environment for their children. The conversation concludes with a discussion about the benefits of joining parenting communities and the resources available in Destini Ann's parenting community on the School app.
Takeaways
- Conscious parenting emphasizes building relationships and fostering respect with children.
- Obedience can lead to resentment, while respect leads to relationships.
- Black parents face unique challenges and need to challenge traditional parenting norms.
- Children should be allowed to ask questions and express themselves in a respectful manner.
- Setting boundaries and ensuring children's safety are important aspects of parenting. Being tough on kids does not prepare them for the real world; it is more important to support and uplift them.
Bio
Destini Ann is a compassionate and relatable source for navigating motherhood! She takes the psychology of parenting and turns it into fun, digestible content for her community. Destini challenges the norms of parenting by offering a safe space to have tough conversations. She teaches with empathy and empowers moms to shift the culture of their homes to more intention, grace, and presence.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Steve, Hello everyone, and welcome to Mind your mental
just a reminder that thispodcast is not meant to be a
substitute for a relationshipwith a licensed mental health
professional. I know they arehard to find, and I get that I
have a bunch of resources on mywebsite if you need them, but I
am not your clinician. I am apsychologist, but I am not your
(00:21):
psychologist. So if you need anyspecific help, please look for
the help of a licensed mentalhealth professional. Learn all
you can learn from the podcast.Enjoy the episode. All right,
everyone. And welcome to episodeof Mind, your mental podcast
today. We are joined by destinyDavis. She's an empowered
parenting coach, compassionate,relatable source for navigating
motherhood. You may recognizeher voice from bitch, you doing
(00:42):
a good job. The original. Notall the people who decided to
try to eat off of her, sheactually made it. I still, I
will always, I don't care. Idon't care. I will always have
an issue with it. Okay, this isthe actual person who made it.
Girl, you know, I don't care.
(01:02):
So, if you ever, if you ever,like bitch, you doing a good
job, that's destiny. Y'all
now my Yeah,
they gonna steal.
They don't they doing stealing.
This is, this is a fact. I'mglad to be here
(01:24):
coming
I love Destiny's stuff, becauseshe provides tips about dealing
with tougher parts ofparenthood. So talking about all
things mom, talking about allthings integrated being a person
and being a mom and treatingyour children like human beings,
one of the things she hones inon is the difference between
obedience and discipline, whichI talk about all the time.
Obedience, you know, leads toresentment, respect, leads to
(01:48):
relationships. So she talksabout that all the time. Welcome
to the show. How many kids yougot four? I got two. I got
two. Insane Kennedy is 12, andit is fun. It is very fun for
the fun that it is becausethere's a lot of things, there's
(02:11):
a lot of things. And I like tosum it up sarcastically, it is
fun. It's yeah, it's a lot ofthings. I think I do a good job
at it, but it is very difficultand very challenging. And I
think that that is why Iresonate so much in my
community. Because I gotta behonest, like raising kids to be
respectful and respecting themis not something that comes
second nature for the majorityof us. I have zero models, zero
(02:38):
models. In my childhood, I havemen that were authoritarian, and
I have women that didn't do thebest job in terms of knowing how
to set boundaries. So thispendulum could have went either
way, and so I'm very intentionalabout like you said, there's a
way to teach respect without itbeing about obedience, and
there's a way to becompassionate without being a
(02:59):
pushover. Yeah, yeah. And I lovethat I was always familiar with
your stuff, but I actually gotto meet you in person when we
did our TEDx and records. Ithink it's like two years ago,
and you shared so much aboutwhat made you come to this path
of being an empowered parentingcoach. Can you share a little
bit more about like, how yourparenting journey, like,
started, in terms of your theway that you reared your
(03:19):
children, and how it'stransitioned to where you are
now? Yeah, absolutely. So myoldest, she got the beta
version. She got to,
bless her,
I was apologize, takeaccountability, right?
Very permissive. Not only was Ipermissive, but I was permissive
(03:40):
one from a place of rebellion,like, I'm not gonna do what
happened to me, I'm not gonnaspank my kids. I won't be
complete opposite. But then Iwas also permissive from a place
of grief, because when mydaughter was very young, my mom
passed away, so a lot of mypermissive, like, there's two
kinds of permissive parenting.It's like, very much the Okay,
that's fine, you know, pushover,doormat. But then there's also,
(04:01):
like, neglect that falls underpermissive parenting. And very
much I don't have the emotionalenergy, and I didn't have the
emotional energy for discipline.It was very much not just I
don't want to discipline you. Itwas I can't like I am. I have no
discipline myself. And so as Istarted to, kind of, you know,
pull myself out of that hole andfigure out how to do that. I
(04:22):
realized, Okay,
I've created a dynamic that isnot supporting my child, a
dynamic that is not supportingour relationship, and this needs
like we need to shift. So I havemy background in behavior and in
child development, and so ofcourse, I went to the rules and
(04:42):
the sticker charts and, like,just the opposite in, like, the
trying to fix her and change herbehavior, and that didn't work
either. And so that's kind ofaround the time that I stumbled
upon Dr Shefali and consciousparenting. And like, oh, wait,
like there is more of a middleground, and there's a way that I
can honor.
Are both of those sides of theparenting journey, and that is
(05:04):
kind of how this got started.That's amazing. What were signs
that you realized it wasn'tworking? Like you mentioned, you
were seeing signs that like thisisn't working either. How could
you tell that you needed to makea shift in the way that you
parented?
My all the things that I wastrying to avoid my daughter
experiencing and feeling all thethings I was trying to avoid in
(05:24):
our relationship that Iexperienced, she was starting to
experience them, and so I wasstarting to be in a place where
I didn't know how to handle heranger, she was having self
esteem issues, she didn't knowhow to communicate respectfully,
all of these things that Istruggled with, and I'm like, oh
my god, I'm doing the opposite,like, how are we still winding
(05:44):
up here? What is going on? Sothose are the things that I
started to see, not so muchanything that was maybe huge or
whatever, but it was just thesesmall things where I was like,
Wait, we're still getting thesame exact result. And these
aren't the results that I wantand I desire for my child. So I
need to try something different.Hey, everyone, just a reminder
that mind, your mental is notjust a podcast. It is also a
(06:06):
amazing community. If I do sayso myself, it's phenomenal. I
mean, you get more access to me.What more could you want in this
life? So if you want to join thecommunity, if you're not already
on the community, go to mysocial media. My social media is
the same Raquel Martin, PhD andDM me the word community, so you
can get details on joining thisamazing, flipping community. You
(06:29):
get more access to me. Y'alllike,
I'm a delight. All right. Allright. Hope to see you there.
Yeah. And I would say those arepretty big things, because what
we're doing is providing themwith the building blocks for the
person that they're going tobecome, and if they have
difficulty. Expressing theiranger respectfully or
communications at all, it's justgoing to build into the person
that they are now. Like, I keepmentioning the fact that, like,
(06:51):
it's not my job to prevent mychild from experiencing
discomfort. It's not my job toprovide them with so many
accommodations they don't havediscomfort because entitled
adults aren't. They aren't. Theydon't come out the womb
entitled. They have someone whomakes sure that they bend and
move and and break to make surethey don't experience any aspect
of discomfort, right? And theway that you're talking about
(07:11):
it, like, yeah, those are prettybig things to make sure that she
can communicate. Becauseindividuals who become
perfectionism, that doesn'thappen overnight, individuals
who don't know how to have theirown voice when they're being
treated poorly. That doesn'thappen overnight. So that's
amazing. So I've heard ofconscious parenting, I've heard
of gentle parenting. What arethe main tenants of conscious
parenting?
(07:32):
Yeah, so I would say thatthere's definitely some overlap
there, but they really are twodifferent spaces, yeah, for
conscious parenting, it is verymuch 100% being tuned in, tapped
in, and understanding of this ismy child's journey. There are
ways that I need to managemyself around their journey so
that I can support and grow andbuild them. I think that when it
(07:54):
comes to conscious parenting, itis very much dependent on the
parent and being conscious ofyourself and your journey. And I
won't necessarily say that I'mbest, the best person to define
conscious parenting, justbecause there are certain things
in my path and my journey as agentle parent, that I know that
maybe somebody that's like, I'ma like, Star conscious parent
(08:14):
would be like, I would never dothat. And so I think that it's,
it's very much not in completealignment with just a parenting
that's something I had to findout along this path. And people
are like, No, that's not, that'sdiscipline, that's not conscious
parenting. But like, say, forinstance, if my daughter was
like, Yeah, well, I'm gonnawatch this regardless, right?
And it's something that I knowwould be harmful from my
(08:38):
experience, the consciousparenting perspective would be,
well, we're not going to force,coerce, change that path in any
way. We're going to go alongwith it. We are going to
encourage, but that is thechild's decision, and we are
going to work with that, asopposed to like, stepping in and
(08:58):
being like, we're not doingthis. We're not going to let
this happen. We should have hadbetter boundaries in place. This
is a learning experience, thatkind of thing, where is, for me
as a parent, and gentleparenting, there are certain non
negotiables that I am going tostep in with. There is going to
be some force. There is going tobe a very hard line on certain
things. So I think that that'sprobably like the the one
(09:19):
distinction between, between thetwo, yeah. And I would say one
of the things that made megravitate towards your stuff in
the first place as a parentingcoach is that you look like me.
I don't see many parentingcoaches that are black women
that also mention the aspect ofrespecting their child, that
also mentioned the aspect oflike, no one's putting with
their hands on their child, thatalso mentions the aspect of
(09:40):
like, Yeah, this is a uniqueexperience. And yes, it is
tougher, like, most of the timewhen I was seeing parenting
coaches, none of them were blackwomen. But also there was just
this miscommunication, I think,when it came to gentle versus
conscious versus permissive. Andif I'm being honest, I I've
always had an issue with therewas this one.
Happening on social media at onetime where a lot of black
(10:02):
parents were being attacked,right in this realm of being a
conscious parent, and it wasvery specific to the black
experience. And I remembersaying, It's so interesting now,
you know, I'm shady as hell. Isaid it's so interesting to
attack a community for themlearning to rear their children
when, technically, as a society,as a European American mom,
(10:26):
generationally, you kind of juststarted rearing your own
children because we werewatching yours. So like, I just
had, I just always had such anissue, because it would just be
very unique to attacking blackwomen. And I'm like, You mean
the community that that mate hadto care for your family at the
detriment of our own, or it wasour life. Like, I've always had
an issue with it. So one of thethings that I gravitated to
(10:46):
towards with yours is one it wasobvious, you know what you're
talking about. I liked beingable to watch someone's content
that shared the steps and notjust like, oh, this worked out
perfectly. Like, girl, I triedthis, and my daughter said, No.
Phoenix said, it's gonna be afirm no. Mom like you don't like
being able to see that,
(11:07):
and seeing someone see it andthrough the eyes of like as a
black woman, because parentingblack children isn't like
parenting anyone. I alwaysmention the fact that I
specialize in black mentalhealth, because your mental
health is inextricably linked tothe way the world treats you,
and black people get treateddifferently, right? And anytime
I talk about parenting mychildren, I typically say, like,
I treat my children like humanbeings, right? And anytime I
(11:29):
talk about why, like you,anybody you know, you put your
hand on my child, I'm gonna putmy hand on you, okay? And then
we really, we really go and youwill lose, okay, I do want you
to know this, like, you know,like you will lose anytime I
talk about that around blackpeople, like, depending on who
I'm around, they're always like,well, that's, you know, your
child's gonna walk all over youand they're not gonna have any
(11:49):
discipline. And it's just, it'sa very different conversation.
And I don't think many people Iforget who it was, it'll be in
the show notes, but she was onthe Tory Roberts show, and she
mentioned that beating yourchildren is the whitest thing
that you can do as a blackwoman, yeah, right, beating your
children is the whitest thingthat you can do. And I'm like, I
think I went over so manypeople's heads about like, the
(12:11):
reason why people had to parentout of obedience, it was
literally life or death. Thereason why there was this
disconnect with your children attimes, because you never knew if
they could be taken away whenyou went to the to the grocery
store. The reason why you don'tunderstand how to parent out of
respect, because you were neverparented out of respect, but
that is something that wasstolen from you, right? Yeah,
and that was one of the reasonswhy I really gravitated to
towards your stuff, because Ilike being able to look at
(12:33):
people who don't have any whoactually have some sense, but I
got rubbed the wrong way for asignificant amount of time,
especially as a psychologist,especially as a psychologist, I
would just be like, this ispermissive. I learned this in
developmental Psych andundergrad guys like, so many
people would be like, so we justlet them vibe. That's what are
we talking like? So many peoplewould say it that way, and it
(12:55):
would be permissive. Or therewas just like, there was just, I
can't it was like, a specificperiod of time where there was
legit, I feel like an attack onblack parents, just like, yeah,
because, you know, they'realways beating their kids. Where
did we learn that? But I likeyou. I like your stuff, or you
wouldn't be here. I appreciatethat.
But I mean, I see it, and it'shard being in this space, yeah,
(13:18):
because we're navigatingsomething different, but at the
same time, I'm still me. I'mstill black, like you're not
going to and it's just aparenting space. Tone police me.
Yeah, we're not doing that.Like, those kind of things are
things that we have to unlearn,like I have to unlearn in my
house, like I have to learn,like you. Tone police to her,
(13:39):
like she's just living her life.She's doing her she's not she
talking to you. She is literallyon the phone with her friend.
Why? Who cares that the tone andculture they have my Judea
business, right? So I alreadyhave to unpack that for myself
and then go online and it's likeI would never say that to my
child in that way. And Iwouldn't. Of course, you
(14:01):
wouldn't. Of course youwouldn't, because that's not how
you talk, just culturally,that's not how you speak, like
the amount of
and I don't know, you know, I'dbe trying to give grace. I don't
know if it's, I know it'sexhausting watching you give
grace. Stop. It's like a 40minute episode, maybe for like,
40 minutes, you know,
(14:24):
alright, for 40 minutes, listen,40 minutes a lot of times. I
know that a lot of times when Isay something in an assertive
way, and I'm speaking in anassertive way or sharing that I
was being assertive with mychildren, it's always somebody
in a comment that's going tosay, this is not just a
parenting or that's aggressive,or that's not respectful, and
(14:45):
I'm just like, In what worlddoes it make sense to you that
it is like children deserve tobe spoken to in a certain kind
of way that only works for youas an individual like it just
does not make sense.
Mean, I think that's why I'm sointentional about at the end of
the day, it's gonna lookdifferent in everybody's house,
(15:06):
just like respect is gonna lookdifferent in every single
relationship. So you can't tellme that something is harmful to
my child, when if I spoke likeyou, ma'am, to my child, that
would be harmful to her. Yeah,people, I think I always feel
like individuals are going toperceive you how they perceive
you, like, for anyone who isintent on misunderstanding you,
who is intent on livingaccording to their biases, your
(15:28):
your behavior is always going tobe aggressive, right? Like, it
doesn't matter. It's it'sbecause the issue isn't like
what you're saying. The issue isyou right? I learned early on,
like, you know you I could actthe same way to multiple people,
how they perceive it is reallymore so about them. So you can
like me for who I am or dislikeme for me for who I am, but
either way, it's going to be me,right? And when it, when it
(15:49):
comes down to it, I do feel likethere's like there's a there's a
discrepancy in that aspect ofwhen it comes to parenting. But
I think it's helpful to be ableto see the combination of how we
parent our youth, becauseparenting out of racism related
fear is a significant thing, youwant to provide your child with
education, but I think I alsodon't want to dehumanize my
child and let them understandthat they're allowed to have
(16:09):
freedoms. They're allowed tohave conversations. It's always
a really dangerous place wherechildren feel as though they
can't advocate for themselves,where they feel like they can't
challenge anything, no matterhow it makes them feel in their
body, no matter how it makesthem feel icky, whether it's
painful just because it's anadult like I tell people this
all the time, my child should ifmy child can go toe to toe with
(16:29):
anybody, it should be with me,because I need them to be able
to model like this aspect ofasking questions and
communicating. Because if youcannot do it with the most
salient relationship that youhave, you definitely are not
going to be able to do it withsomeone that you don't know. No
one can just take it. No one canjust talk to you and don't kind
of wait, treat you in all kindof way just because they're an
adult. Because adults are wrongtoo, and I think that's what
(16:51):
people forget. It's a reallydangerous space to be where
children feel like they can'tsay anything because it's a
parent. My child should becritically thinking, is it
exhausting? Oh, my God, yes. Ohmy god. What? Oh my god,
fighting for you, I know. Doesit trigger you at times? But I
kind of do it as an internalprocess, like I internally
(17:13):
scream probably, like 70% of theday, yeah, because, like,
certain things like, oh, askingextra questions because you got
to talk more. There's also that,that there's also that, and
that's exhausting, because,like, children never stop
talking, and a lot of times youneed silence, and I never really
realized that. So like, I'mconstantly answering questions
(17:34):
because he's comfortable askingthe questions. But not only are
they talking all the time,you're talking all the time, you
also don't feel like it. Youalso become really cognizant.
You become cognizant of stuffthat you don't know the answer
to. So you have to take on thatwork. And some of the things
aren't really you. They're notlike, oh, it's not really, it's
just the way you were reared.Like, why do we do it that way?
(17:54):
Oh, we always have. Why? Huh, Idon't know.
I guess I should change that asthe word that is the word that
is still triggering to me andnot triggering in the sense
that, like, I'm reactive, butlike you said, triggering in the
sense where it's like, ooh, andI have to do an in paternal
process. It's why. It's theword, why. It's literally, last
(18:14):
night, I was like, Ken, comehere. And she's like, why? And I
was like, like, I felt thatinside of me, and I'm like,
yeah, just do it
right myself, right, right? Sothen I said, but here, but then
this is why the curiosity isimportant, right? Because when a
child asks why, specifically,last night, she's asking why, so
(18:36):
that she can make a decision orthat, so that she can express,
you know, a conversation with melike it's not back home. That's
how conversations work, right?So I go, Well, I wanted you to
grab something for me. I'm inthe bathroom. I'm like, Can you
grab I want you to grabsomething for me. And she goes,
Okay, well, I just wanted toknow, because I'm not finished
(18:57):
with my homework yet. Can I comeafter I finish this problem?
Clearly, clearly, prioritizingwhat she was doing. More
important. Period, yeah, period,it was more important. She's in
her train of thought, and I'mjust like, I got irritated
because I want you to bring mesome perfume. And I wouldn't
have known that if you were justin an obedient space, you would
(19:18):
have brought it to me and thenwent back to what you were doing
when, yeah, you're right. Youcan't wait, but, and it would
have been harder for you to getback on the task, because she's
already switched, she's alreadyswitched tasks. That's because
So, so it's already like, well,too much success for that. I
ain't doing this no more that,because that's how the brain
works. But that would have beenseen as disrespectful if I would
have done that as a child, likejust the i You can't ask why,
(19:40):
period, because you'requestioning authority. And I
want my children to know thatthere's a respectful way to
question authority. And so ofcourse, I had that trigger
reaction. I was like, I justneed you to come here. Like, I
need you to bring me something.And she says, Oh, well, I asked
why? Because X, Y and Z, youweren't able to do that in the
beginning as parenting journey,it was very much. It.
Energy, matching energy,matching energy, matching
(20:01):
energy, and that's what I meanby she wasn't able to articulate
those things. But we do have togive them the space to be able
to do that. I want you to beable to come home and be like my
teacher said, X, Y and Z. Isthat okay? Is that normal? I
want you to be able to ask theright questions, and that starts
with us. We either going to bethe bully, like the first bully,
or we're going to be the firstopportunity for them to
practice. The hard part is thatanything that you practice, you
(20:23):
probably not that good at it atfirst, and so you barely, you
know you're gonna feel that kindof like, Who you talking to, and
like, all of those things aregonna come up. They come up for
me, for sure, but it's my job tocheck that. Like, period, it's
my job to check that. That's nother job. Yeah, I have to slow
down a lot. I do a lot ofinternal processing. I'm not
joking y'all when I say I aminternally screaming so many
(20:43):
times, because so many timesI'll just be like, in my brain
just do it. Like, why shouldn'tI have to explain? You know?
Like, I don't have a problemexplaining myself. It's just
sometimes we do have roles withcertain times where we have
certain rules. I always say,like, what's my most important
job? And he says, to keep mehealthy, keep me safe, right? Oh
my Yeah. That's exactly I askedthe same question every single
time. So I was like, sometimesI'm not going to be able to
(21:05):
answer all the questions.Sometimes it's this is having to
do safe like, for example, whydo you have to ask me 20
questions in the parking lot?What's going on? Are you okay?
You know. So, like, we the thewhole thing is, like, you get in
the car, Mama, this, this. Isaid, you know the rule, I don't
answer any questions until youbuckled in, buckle in, and I'll
(21:25):
answer whatever you want to, youknow? And that's like, I talk
about the difference betweenboundaries and rules. That's a
rule, because this little boy,first of all, my son, my oldest,
is a runner, all right? My ownfriend, yeah, my own friend,
darn it. I was like, she's like,Oh, I got them. We got a
trampoline part. I say Russ, arunner. She said, okay, dude
dipped and I knew exactly wherehe was. And then I was like,
(21:47):
hey, Cassie, where's Russell?Oh, he's, where's Russell?
Exactly. Russell's a runner,honey. Okay, running better.
Imma have the job back, becauseI be saying Phoenix is highly
abductible. And I think thatrunner is a runner.
He a runner. He a track star,yeah, but, and I know exactly
where he was, so I was justlike, see, stop acting. Like,
(22:08):
you know, just because youraised somebody, this is my
child, okay, right? He take off.Take off might well be amigos,
for God's sake. But, yeah, so,like, he just know, but, like
certain things, I have rules.Like, all right, you know, you
when you buckle in, I'll answerwhatever question you have. I
say, thank you so much forwaiting. I'm very specific with
(22:28):
my praise so he can understandwhat I'm praising him for, you
know, like, Oh, thank you forextras, for saying that so
nicely. I think there's a betterway to say that. Oh, I think I
think you need to, you know,like just explaining it, because
I want my children to be sosteeped to being in respect, so
steeped in accountability, thatas soon as they're in a space
that doesn't have that theiralarms go off. I want them to
just be so used to criticalthinking and problem solving
(22:51):
that they when they're in anenvironment that doesn't
facilitate that, they're like,oh, this ain't for me. You don't
lost your mind. My mom will talkto me like this. You ain't gonna
talk to me like this.
Yeah. Yeah, yes, absolutelythat. I mean, that's the
conversation that comes up alot, and I was talking about
that yesterday on Instagram.Just this idea of like, being
respectful to your kids is notpreparing them for the real
(23:12):
world, because everybody's notgoing to respect them. It's
just, to me, it's sad,especially for black and brown
children. It's sad that the ideathat we're supposed to be tough
on them, we're supposed to behard on them, just so they know
to expect that. It's a reallyfrustrating narrative, because
I'm like, if anybody, if anykids, need to be empowered and
supported and uplifted in whothey are, it is our kids. And
(23:34):
yet, it's not our fault that wehave this understanding and this
idea that no we have to toughenthem up in order for them to be
able to be prepared. And it'sjust like, I want my kids to be
prepared to face adversity, butI also want them to be prepared
to call it out and say that thisis not okay, like they're not
mutually exclusive. And I hatethat. That's the conversation,
that's the narrative that iseither this way or we're setting
(23:57):
them up for failure. How wouldyou break that conversation down
with someone like say someonelike, say it's someone it's just
being like, this isn't the rightway to parent. I'm not preparing
them for the real world. Whatwould you say to someone?
Because I'm sure you get thatall the time. Yeah, I'm
definitely getting it now that Isent her to public school, and
it's very much like my baby's inpublic school. His school last
year was amazing. The schoolthis year
(24:19):
we in there.
We in there. I mean, I make iton time. We'll see. We'll be
gonna see what it do. But, like,see what else. But I'm sure they
don't get the best. Okay, like,you're a parenting coach. I'm a
psychologist. I know what y'allsupposed to be doing. Okay? I am
not the typical parent, and Iwill always have time. Okay, so,
(24:40):
like they said, What the MNPSguidelines? Who told
you that, okay,
the way, and I love, appreciateand respect the faculty. You
know what I'm saying? I thinkthat teachers are having a hard
time period. I get that, andI'm.
Exactly. But I have also seenfirsthand, not necessarily in
(25:03):
public school, but my daughterwas in like home in Richmond,
like a co op kind of thing. AndI see how very easily
an adult can manipulate a childinto believing that certain
things, certain behaviors, arenot only okay, but necessary for
a conducive learningenvironment, and it's not the
case. And so I think that it'simportant, one for us to our
(25:26):
kids, to feel good aboutthemselves, so that they
recognize not only is this okay,but I actually don't deserve
this, so I need to speak up. Butthen number two, for them to
feel open with communicatingthose things with us. If
somebody is harming me, I don'twant to go to somebody else
that's harming me and confidingthem and explain to them what's
going on. I'm gonna be talkingto people that I care about,
(25:47):
people I feel like care aboutme. And so now y'all kids are in
these bubbles talking with eachother about stuff, but they
don't feel comfortable andconfident coming to you because
you're disempowering them. Soit's very important to me that
we are empowering our kids, butalso teaching them how to speak
up. Ken was in a home school CoOp, and it was just this, like,
huge issue with the kid that wasbullying her, and they asked her
(26:09):
to sign a contract in agreementsaying that she's going to
clearly state her boundaries sothat he understands her
boundaries, so that he doesn'tcross them. I said, Why is my
child signing anything? Right?Yeah,
without telling me.
So the little boy is like, hesigned the contract. And then he
(26:30):
tells her, Well, I only signedit because I had to. And so Ken
goes, Well, I'm not signing it,then you literally just told me,
right? So she has to sit out ofrecess now because she doesn't
sign it. So fast forward, we'rehaving the conversation, and I'm
having the conversation with theteacher, because, you know, I
went up there and Kennedy islike, Yeah, well, this has been
ongoing, like he tried to lockme in the gamer zone. And the
(26:54):
teacher goes, Yeah, well, wedon't. We stopped having gamer
gamer zone, right? You don't.Don't do that to a critical
thinking kid, because my kidgoes,
she said, gamer zone stoppedafter this, not because of this.
Like, don't I'm thinkingcritically. Don't act like y'all
took y'all act like you helpedme out. Yeah, yeah. That had
(27:18):
nothing to do with thissituation. And so I think it's
important that we teach our kidsto think critically, to be able
to step up and advocate forthemselves, because their
cognitive development isn'twhere adults and adults is. And
so if she wasn't able to dothat, if she didn't step in and
say that, and I would have beenlike, oh, okay, something
happened. Y'all rectify thesituation. And kids like, Oh no,
(27:39):
wait a minute. That's not whathappened at all, mom, they just
happen to they just happen tohave done it. But it wasn't
because they were listening tome. They just did it exactly.
And that's important on oncertain levels when it comes to
small stuff. But also, there aregoing to be things that our kids
face, that are abused, that areharmful, that they need to be
able to recognize. Like yousaid, we respect our kids, so
(28:01):
they know what respect is, sothey know how to expect it, not
so that they can bedisrespectful to other people,
but so that they understand whenthey are being disrespected
themselves. Yeah, and it'sreally important, because people
the way they choose theirfriends, the way they choose
their partners, it aligns withwhat they're used to seeing. If
you're used to seeing screaming,why is someone screaming at you
going to be odd to you like,it's never going to be a
(28:23):
situation like that. And it'salways interesting, because
they're like, I don't know whythey chose this partner. They
just like you, and yes, people,parents, parents can bear
children can very much workthemselves out of these things
and and learn better behaviors.But do we want to provide them
with another challenge thatthey're going to have to over
learn. I was looking at thisthreads, Instagram threads, and
(28:43):
this Baking Company was like,what's, what's a favorite recipe
that your parents have passeddown from generation,
generation? And I said, trauma,trauma.
Now, not my family. I we do itpretty well, but it was the
first thing that popped in myhead. As a psychologist. I love
Instagram threads, because it'sjust, like, Twitter only, not
trash and like, I would justalways just put pop up, I say
(29:05):
trauma. And then I said, I'msorry. It's the first thing that
popped in my head. That's therecipe, you know, like shake,
what your mama gave you. How didyou shake? Anxiety, you know
what I'm saying. Like, shake onme, shaking bait my leg, my
disaster. Damn.
But I think it's important. Isit more exhausting? Yeah. But
(29:25):
the thing about that is like,okay, so like, if you're if
you're comfortable with takingthe easy way out, and by easy
way out, it's like, it's theeasiest way for your child to
end up going no contact with youfeel. Just say that. Because
yeah, it does take more energy.Yes, it takes more energy to
answer questions. Yes, it takesmore energy to challenge myself
into thinking like, what is thepurpose of this? Am I just doing
this? Just because did my childdo something wrong, or did they
(29:46):
just do it differently than theway that I would do it, and what
technically is wrong when itcomes to cleaning up your you
know, like I want them to be soused to having conversations and
yeah, it does take longer, butbeing a parent tells me more
about me than it will.
Ever teach me about my child,like, that's just what it is so
important. It's important torealize, like, Oh, I'm
frustrated. Well, they werescreaming, and so I hit them.
(30:09):
Okay, so let's break it downinto steps, like they were
screaming because of what andthen what? Because some things
actually happened before. Likethat is such a less because you
went from one to 27 there was atleast 10 to 15 steps to happen
in between them, just screaming.What were they screaming for?
Did you, you know? Did youanswer them? Were they like,
what? What was it? Well, I wasdoing something else. Oh, okay.
(30:32):
And then they screamed. You hitthem. They couldn't regulate
themselves, and you couldn'tregulate yourself. So you're
expecting them to have a skillthat you don't have at this
point. That's absurd. Thatdoesn't make any sense. Children
don't have emotional regulationskills until children have we
regulate ourselves and then weco regulate them, right? The
number of cleansing breaths thathave to be taken before the 50th
(30:55):
flipping time or stepping away,I tell my child like you've
asked me this already, I'veanswered it, and I'm also had
you repeat the answer to me.You're gonna have to find that
out. I need a minute walk in myoffice, shut the door. I mean,
what you're talking about iswhat you said earlier, which is
the difference between a ruleand a boundary and something
that I always have to like,really coach people back to
(31:17):
coach my clients back to isthat? What are you doing, or
what are you willing to do whenthat is happening? Because we're
never focused on that. We arenever focused on Okay, when I'm
dysregulated, I'm willing totake those deep breaths. When
I'm not dysregulated, I'mwilling to communicate about it.
I'm willing to XYZ. We don'tever stop and sit and ask, okay,
what are my actual boundaries?What am I actually going to do
(31:39):
and not do in this moment isalways, what can that person do?
What can't he do? And I'm goingto do whatever I can to make
sure my child isn't doing this,or my child is doing that, and
it's like you are disempoweringyourself. You're actually giving
away way more control than youthink. When you're being
controlling. You are so out ofcontrol of yourself when you're
trying to control your kids. Andlike you said, you don't even
(32:01):
realize how you got to spanking.You don't even realize all the
stuff that was happening in yourbrain and body, these
conditioned things that arehappening because you so focused
on controlling another person asopposed to controlling yourself,
and you feel like trashafterwards. Any anytime I worked
with a parent in this realm,because trained in Trauma
Center, like family traumaticstress disorder, how can all
that they feel like trashafterwards? And I'm like, don't
(32:23):
you want to stop feeling likethat? Like one of the things
that you need to slow down. Andthe thing is, one of the things
that will never be on a child'sagenda is timeliness. It sucks,
man, because, like, one of thethings, like, the biggest thing
that leads to them gettingflustered and putting their
hands on somebody is, like, wewere late, we were late. We were
late. I have to be somewhere. Sothat was the quickest way for me
(32:44):
to, you know, and I'm like,right? I mean, so the issue is
lateness. Of course, you'refeeling stressed of what you
have to do. Of course, they'removing slow. But timeliness is
never going to be on a child'sagenda. Last year for school, my
son, I woke him up 20 minutesearlier than he needed to be
woken up because he moved slow.Yes, we could have got we could
(33:06):
have gotten to school waking up20 minutes later, but he
wouldn't have been able tododdle as much, which he does.
He also wouldn't have been ableto play. And He's way better if
he gets to like, color orwhatever, before school. So you
getting up earlier? You gettingup with me? I get up at 530 and
like, is it? Is he? It's tired alittle bit, but he also his, his
mood is better. I don't have tostress about fixing him. Like,
(33:28):
eat. You gotta eat quicker. Nah,man, we gotta, like, we gotta,
you know, we got, we got 30minutes for this one waffle. I'm
good.
I mean, Ken school don't starttill almost nine o'clock. She
get up to 645, yeah, get up. Getup. So you have time to get in
the mood. Yeah, pop in
the mirror. Like, because yourhead kicking. It feels to watch
(33:51):
a child completely enjoy andjust like, freedom. And you
gotta be like, Stop doing that.I don't want to have to do that.
I don't, and we don't do itourselves. We need our own, you
know, like we don't do that. Wedrop them off. We probably get
our little refresher energything. We walk in we, you know,
like we don't do that, right? Wesit in that damn car. Okay?
(34:18):
That is our kids sitting in thecar. That's them sitting in the
driveway when they just staringat the wall for a second, yeah?
Like, yeah. And I know that. Soyou really do have to be, like,
understanding, aware of wherethey are cognitively. And I just
understand that executivefunctioning situation ain't
functioning. It don't befunctioning for me half the
(34:39):
time. But I do recognize that ifI'm productivity focused, which
is a whole nother conversation,whole other conversation on how
these really ain't even ourparadigm, that we are punishing
our kids within but anyways, I'mproductivity focused. I'm job
work, everybody outside of myhouse focused. Yes, it is so
much easier to get.
(35:00):
Gets regulated, and so you dohave to have those systems. We
are going to wake up earlier.You need an hour and a half,
almost two hours, to get readyfor school. It is what it is
that's parenting the childthat's in front of me, that's
not bending to her, that isscaffolding that is setting her
up for success, and that'ssetting myself up for success,
because I know that I can gothere and I don't want to go
(35:20):
there because, like, I don'twant to, yeah, it don't feel
good. And I also, like, I don'twant him to be going into school
in a bad mood. That's the worstthing, because I don't like,
because, you know, when hisroutine is bad for the morning,
he don't put me in a crappy moodin my entire morning. You know,
I want to go we're gonna go towork. We're gonna go to school,
jamming and Mickey Mouse,whatever the flip. Like, I want
you to be in a good mood whenyou go to school, because it is
(35:42):
still school is still work, likehe he used to kicking it all
summer. It is a big transition.He's not a fan. It just is what
it is. I wake him up earlier,like it just used to be me,
let's go brush your teeth,
like all this. And I'm justlike, You know what? You gonna
wake up with me? And like, he'sa slow wake her up anyway. But
like, Oh, you got, like, 20minutes to do this waffle. Go
(36:03):
ahead, honey. I'm good. We'regonna be on time either way. So,
like, go ahead and color whileyou eat the waffle. I don't I
ain't worried about this. Like,you good. It's a comedy as well.
My daughter
can ask for five more minutes,and I can give her 10. I can
give her 20 more minutes, and westill not gonna be late. Like,
it makes a difference how we'resending them into these schools
(36:24):
and then we're sending them offinto their day again, it's at
the end of day. It's aboutempowerment, and if I have to be
controlling or cause harm to getyou to do something that is so
disempowering and that's goingto have negative impact in the
long run. Yeah, you might beobedient right now. You might be
compliant now, but there's somuch other stuff that's going on
in terms of your development andyour well being that eventually
(36:45):
is going to come out, and it'sgoing to be a negative thing,
and it's just like, it's notnecessary. It's genuinely not
necessary. Yeah, wheneversomeone talks about the aspect
of obedience, I was, I'm not thepolice. We obey the police. Is
that how you that's who you'retrying to be like, Oh, the world
is a tough place to be tougher.The world is a tough place for
black youth. I'm always going tobe a safe space for them to
(37:07):
land. I will be damned if Itreat my black children, my
husband, all of them, the waythe world treats them. Can we
not acknowledge the fact that wehave and will always deserve
better than the world treats us?And that's what you want them to
have in this house? No, I'm notthe police. I want them to
understand that this is thespace where you can communicate.
You always get these talks withpeople about, how do I get my
child to talk more? You stop byfostering an environment where
(37:30):
they want to talk to you. Wantto talk. Want to talk. It's not
about the best questions. Ifthis environment is trash, you
could ask the best questions,and they will be like, No, thank
you. You're insane. Last time Italked to you, it turned into a
15 minute lesson about how mygeneration don't know how to do
work, lecture.
My daughter will call me so faston, like, you starting to, like,
(37:52):
lecture. You losing me. Youlosing the plot, mom, like I
literally was just trying totell you about my day. You
losing the plot. Like she isvery much going to, going to
clarify that and let me knowlike, I guess I'm glad that we
had the point where she let meknow when she's about to shut
down. But kids absolutely will.Don't matter how you phrase it
doesn't matter how you ask thequestion at the end of the day,
if you don't have relationship,especially as they get older,
(38:15):
little ones are so forgetting,they kind of reset, and your
mommy all over again the nextday. But you do that for long
enough, and you wonder why thepreteen is in their room all
day, or the teenager is nottelling you about the harmful
stuff that's happening to themis because you haven't created a
safe space to communicate. Andthat's hard. I'll be having to
count to 10 in my head all thetime, and she's saying stuff,
(38:36):
and I gotta keep my poker facein my
okay. Yeah, I understand. I haveto empathize and recognize that
when she's being open with me,that is not my time to come in
with this like sitcom lesson.Hey, the teacher, Phoenix, I
heard you were having a bit ofan issue. You know, literally
(39:00):
just shut up. We gotta learn toshut up, yo. Because I just be
like, which is hard for it'shard. It's hard because, of
course, we, we have that extralevel of it's not just
parenting, it's parenting ablack child. So like, it's
parenting out of racism relatedfear. Like, y'all need to
understand this. But like, we,you know, figure it out
internally screaming. People belike, Oh, you move so, you know,
(39:22):
I don't know how you do it. I'mscreaming in my head, black
woman raising black daughters,like that happens to me all the
time, where I get, like,triggered by something, and I
have to recognize, like, anyinternalized racism. So much of
that has come up being a blackwoman, black raising a black
child, and I'm like, hold on,you're just treating her like
(39:44):
the angry black girl. You needto go back in there. Yep, that's
not cute. That's not cute. Youwere wrong in that situation.
You need to undo that. And so Ithink that it's important for us
to recognize and acknowledgethat some of the stuff that we
are carrying around is actuallynot our stuff. And.
Honestly, outside of the parentchild relationship, you are a
better person because of it. Ifyou stop and just acknowledge
(40:05):
like, this is not okay. Itwasn't okay that it happened to
me. It's not okay that I havethese internalized beliefs about
myself, but I see how it'sstarting to impact my child. So
I have to navigate that, and Ihave to work that out, because
actually, I didn't deserve it,and neither does she, and so
it's a very healing process forme as well to be a black woman
raising black daughters outsideof the context of how we should
(40:26):
be raising them. Yeah, you canacknowledge that your parents
gave you the best that they had,the most that they had, and that
still wasn't enough. There'snothing wrong with that. I love
the fact that you said two verybig things that either I don't
know which one's going to be thetitle of the episode, stay
tuned, either. So empathize andrecognize and parent the child
in front of you. I like thatbecause I just did a talk about
dei being belonging, and they'relike, Oh, well, how do we add
(40:47):
belonging? And I was like, youtreat people like individuals,
belonging to individuality, orsynonyms, parenting the child in
front of you is parenting theindividual in front of you, not
going according to like aspecific technique. You know, my
child may need 20 minutes. Yourchild may not, may only need 15.
That don't mean that they onlyget like 10. That means my child
do 20, mine do 15. You're gonnabe five minutes late. I'm gonna
be 10, you know,
(41:11):
but I'm gonna be there, though.Girl, appetizers on me. Okay? I
totally get it. Your time isvaluable. It's my time. That's
not that's what my child istelling me. You know,
they got different priorities.They have. That's right.
Timeliness is never going to beon the agenda. Food and fun,
but, like, that's, that's and soI try to make the stuff more
(41:31):
fun. I try to in choices. Try tomake sure he has more choices.
All of that, if he has a choicein it, he's going to be more buy
in but like, being on time,anytime I mentioned something
like being late, he'd be like,what is what does that have to
do with me? Like, what are wetalking about here? But you
know, what is crazy and that wemiss is that by doing that, you
said something earlier in termsof what even is wrong is that
(41:53):
we're teaching our kids how tobe in community with people. And
yep, you're not always going tohave the same preferences as the
people in community with you.And so even in how I articulate
things, very few things Icommunicate with my kids are
about right and wrong. It'sabout we are in community
together. This is my preference.I'm expressing to you. I don't
like a messy space. Okay, thatfrustrates me. How can we work
(42:17):
together? Do you have awillingness to work with me on
that the same way that I have awillingness to work with you on
the things that you prefercoming from that angle,
especially when they're older. Iget so much more buy in from my
daughter. I could just be likemy oldest, right? Just be like
somebody who will go to herdaddy house and he's like,
she'll never want to clean upwhat's going on. All I can say
(42:38):
is, hey, can you do a quicknotice and do in the living
room. Why? Because I respectyour preferences. You're not
wrong that you don't give aabout the living room being
messy. You just don't but hey,you respect me, you love me, you
care about me. We care abouteach other, and you meet me in
the middle. It's a verydifferent conversation than
because I said so, than becausecleanliness is next to godliness
(43:01):
and because of a right and awrong, just express your
preferences and teach yourchildren that you're growing up
in this environment where peoplehave certain preferences, you're
going to choose people that havedifferent preferences. This is
how you work together incommunity. So this is a
community. Your house is acommunity, and you're teaching
them how to be in community withother people by how you are in
community with them. Yeah, Ilove that. Well, thank you so
(43:24):
much for joining us. I want to,before you leave, I want to hear
more about your parentingcommunity, because I'm a member
of your community. It's onschool, just like my community
is on school. Tell me all aboutit. And like, what kind of
things you offer all of that,because you do a lot. Why did
you do a lot? Workshops,prompts, like, I just be like,
oh, you know, you won't listen.There's no way not to make
(43:45):
progress
on school, overall. School,like, very intentional
parenting, the group, it wasvery much birthed out of an idea
and a need for community. I feellike a lot of times I talk about
tools and I talk aboutawareness, but it is a lot
easier to work certain thingsout when you actually have
support and you haveaccountability. And so that's
(44:05):
the basis of it. But inside ofthe group, I do classes, I do a
lot of prompts. We just starteddoing skill building sessions,
which are, like, basically anopportunity. We this 30 minutes,
is very intense, and we're like,we're not just going to talk
about the tools, we're going topractice them together, like
we're going to sit here with apartner and we're going to
practice what active listeninglooks like, what reflective
listening looks like, whatsports casting is practice, what
(44:27):
is a boundary statement? That'sthe last thing we did. We worked
on our boundary statements andhow we would express them to our
children. So we have that. Wealso have opportunities for one
on one coaching. It's a lotgoing on in the group, but
basically it is just aboutaccountability. It is working
through an actual program,something that is sequential,
that you can work through withmyself and then coach my Kia
Davis as well, who is also gianttrained. And yeah, that is,
(44:49):
like, that's my little my heartand my little baby. I love it
over there. I feel so warm andnourished from the parents that
are over there. And it's just agood time. Yeah, it's fantastic.
One of the.
Things I like about the aspectof the community space, creating
your own community space. Andthe reason why I created mine as
well is because it's hard to getI think you have over 2 million
followers across platforms atthis point, so And there's
(45:11):
always people who want more whowant more directives, who want
more engagement, who want moreof an investment. But it's not
really possible to provide thatlevel of investment across the
platform, because things arevery specific. So creating your
own community like you did inschool provides you the ability
to do those skill buildingsessions, and it also helps to
weed out people who aren'twilling to put in the time and
the energy and the investment.And that's what it should be
(45:33):
like. The same way you areinvesting time and energy into
the workshops and the skillbuilding and the accountability
practices, the people who are inthe community are there to put
that investment in as well. So Ialways feel like, you know that
is one of the best things outthere, because, yeah, you can
get my videos on social media,but you're not gonna get my me
live. Don't nobody listen. I'mnot even DM I go live in my
(45:53):
community. DMS, I'm gonna readthem. Johns, you know, I'm
saying like, I just always belike, people, be like, I DM you.
I don't, I don't. Are youspeaking? I don't know what that
means. You email you email melike an adult. Do you know how
absurd?
Yeah, because it's ridiculous.You know how absurd my DMs get.
Let me mention anything someonedoesn't like. Anytime I mention
(46:13):
anything like, Oh, you just aterrible person. Sharam, was
there a question, you know?
Like, like, so I like the factthat you create a community
where people get to be moreintentional with their
parenting, and they get moreaccess to you because they're
making the same investment inyou that you are making in them.
I love that, and it's okay. Soname it again, so everyone knows
(46:35):
it's also going to be in theshow notes. It's very
intentional parenting on theschool app, yeah, and I called
it VIP parenting. Is it VIP, oris it VIP? Okay, that's what I
thought. That's what I was like,depends parenting, yeah, that's
what I was like. I was like,it's the VIP group. Like, that's
why we're calling it. And
tell everybody where they canfind you on social media as
(46:56):
well. I am destiny, and acrosssocials, every single one. Which
ones are you on? All, I'm onall, I'm on all up. No, I'm not
all on. I'm on Instagram,Youtube and Tiktok, perfect. All
right. Well, thank you so muchfor coming on to the show.
Everyone, remember to be kind toyourself. Two steps forward and
one step back is still one stepforward. That is just math. And
(47:16):
have a good rest of your day.
Steve, Hello everyone, and welcome to Mind your mental
just a reminder that thispodcast is not meant to be a
substitute for a relationshipwith a licensed mental health
professional. I know they arehard to find, and I get that I
have a bunch of resources on mywebsite if you need them, but I
am not your clinician. I am apsychologist, but I am not your
(00:21):
psychologist. So if you need anyspecific help, please look for
the help of a licensed mentalhealth professional. Learn all
you can learn from the podcast.Enjoy the episode. All right,
everyone. And welcome to episodeof Mind, your mental podcast
today. We are joined by destinyDavis. She's an empowered
parenting coach, compassionate,relatable source for navigating
motherhood. You may recognizeher voice from bitch, you doing
(00:42):
a good job. The original. Notall the people who decided to
try to eat off of her, sheactually made it. I still, I
will always, I don't care. Idon't care. I will always have
an issue with it. Okay, this isthe actual person who made it.
Girl, you know, I don't care.
(01:02):
So, if you ever, if you ever,like bitch, you doing a good
job, that's destiny. Y'all
now my Yeah,
they gonna steal.
They don't they doing stealing.
This is, this is a fact. I'mglad to be here
(01:24):
coming
I love Destiny's stuff, becauseshe provides tips about dealing
with tougher parts ofparenthood. So talking about all
things mom, talking about allthings integrated being a person
and being a mom and treatingyour children like human beings,
one of the things she hones inon is the difference between
obedience and discipline, whichI talk about all the time.
Obedience, you know, leads toresentment, respect, leads to
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relationships. So she talksabout that all the time. Welcome
to the show. How many kids yougot four? I got two. I got
two. Insane Kennedy is 12, andit is fun. It is very fun for
the fun that it is becausethere's a lot of things, there's
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a lot of things. And I like tosum it up sarcastically, it is
fun. It's yeah, it's a lot ofthings. I think I do a good job
at it, but it is very difficultand very challenging. And I
think that that is why Iresonate so much in my
community. Because I gotta behonest, like raising kids to be
respectful and respecting themis not something that comes
second nature for the majorityof us. I have zero models, zero
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models. In my childhood, I havemen that were authoritarian, and
I have women that didn't do thebest job in terms of knowing how
to set boundaries. So thispendulum could have went either
way, and so I'm very intentionalabout like you said, there's a
way to teach respect without itbeing about obedience, and
there's a way to becompassionate without being a
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pushover. Yeah, yeah. And I lovethat I was always familiar with
your stuff, but I actually gotto meet you in person when we
did our TEDx and records. Ithink it's like two years ago,
and you shared so much aboutwhat made you come to this path
of being an empowered parentingcoach. Can you share a little
bit more about like, how yourparenting journey, like,
started, in terms of your theway that you reared your
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children, and how it'stransitioned to where you are
now? Yeah, absolutely. So myoldest, she got the beta
version. She got to,
bless her,
I was apologize, takeaccountability, right?
Very permissive. Not only was Ipermissive, but I was permissive
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one from a place of rebellion,like, I'm not gonna do what
happened to me, I'm not gonnaspank my kids. I won't be
complete opposite. But then Iwas also permissive from a place
of grief, because when mydaughter was very young, my mom
passed away, so a lot of mypermissive, like, there's two
kinds of permissive parenting.It's like, very much the Okay,
that's fine, you know, pushover,doormat. But then there's also,
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like, neglect that falls underpermissive parenting. And very
much I don't have the emotionalenergy, and I didn't have the
emotional energy for discipline.It was very much not just I
don't want to discipline you. Itwas I can't like I am. I have no
discipline myself. And so as Istarted to, kind of, you know,
pull myself out of that hole andfigure out how to do that. I
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realized, Okay,
I've created a dynamic that isnot supporting my child, a
dynamic that is not supportingour relationship, and this needs
like we need to shift. So I havemy background in behavior and in
child development, and so ofcourse, I went to the rules and
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the sticker charts and, like,just the opposite in, like, the
trying to fix her and change herbehavior, and that didn't work
either. And so that's kind ofaround the time that I stumbled
upon Dr Shefali and consciousparenting. And like, oh, wait,
like there is more of a middleground, and there's a way that I
can honor.
Are both of those sides of theparenting journey, and that is
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kind of how this got started.That's amazing. What were signs
that you realized it wasn'tworking? Like you mentioned, you
were seeing signs that like thisisn't working either. How could
you tell that you needed to makea shift in the way that you
parented?
My all the things that I wastrying to avoid my daughter
experiencing and feeling all thethings I was trying to avoid in
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our relationship that Iexperienced, she was starting to
experience them, and so I wasstarting to be in a place where
I didn't know how to handle heranger, she was having self
esteem issues, she didn't knowhow to communicate respectfully,
all of these things that Istruggled with, and I'm like, oh
my god, I'm doing the opposite,like, how are we still winding
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up here? What is going on? Sothose are the things that I
started to see, not so muchanything that was maybe huge or
whatever, but it was just thesesmall things where I was like,
Wait, we're still getting thesame exact result. And these
aren't the results that I wantand I desire for my child. So I
need to try something different.Hey, everyone, just a reminder
that mind, your mental is notjust a podcast. It is also a
(06:06):
amazing community. If I do sayso myself, it's phenomenal. I
mean, you get more access to me.What more could you want in this
life? So if you want to join thecommunity, if you're not already
on the community, go to mysocial media. My social media is
the same Raquel Martin, PhD andDM me the word community, so you
can get details on joining thisamazing, flipping community. You
(06:29):
get more access to me. Y'alllike,
I'm a delight. All right. Allright. Hope to see you there.
Yeah. And I would say those arepretty big things, because what
we're doing is providing themwith the building blocks for the
person that they're going tobecome, and if they have
difficulty. Expressing theiranger respectfully or
communications at all, it's justgoing to build into the person
that they are now. Like, I keepmentioning the fact that, like,
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it's not my job to prevent mychild from experiencing
discomfort. It's not my job toprovide them with so many
accommodations they don't havediscomfort because entitled
adults aren't. They aren't. Theydon't come out the womb
entitled. They have someone whomakes sure that they bend and
move and and break to make surethey don't experience any aspect
of discomfort, right? And theway that you're talking about
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it, like, yeah, those are prettybig things to make sure that she
can communicate. Becauseindividuals who become
perfectionism, that doesn'thappen overnight, individuals
who don't know how to have theirown voice when they're being
treated poorly. That doesn'thappen overnight. So that's
amazing. So I've heard ofconscious parenting, I've heard
of gentle parenting. What arethe main tenants of conscious
parenting?
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Yeah, so I would say thatthere's definitely some overlap
there, but they really are twodifferent spaces, yeah, for
conscious parenting, it is verymuch 100% being tuned in, tapped
in, and understanding of this ismy child's journey. There are
ways that I need to managemyself around their journey so
that I can support and grow andbuild them. I think that when it
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comes to conscious parenting, itis very much dependent on the
parent and being conscious ofyourself and your journey. And I
won't necessarily say that I'mbest, the best person to define
conscious parenting, justbecause there are certain things
in my path and my journey as agentle parent, that I know that
maybe somebody that's like, I'ma like, Star conscious parent
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would be like, I would never dothat. And so I think that it's,
it's very much not in completealignment with just a parenting
that's something I had to findout along this path. And people
are like, No, that's not, that'sdiscipline, that's not conscious
parenting. But like, say, forinstance, if my daughter was
like, Yeah, well, I'm gonnawatch this regardless, right?
And it's something that I knowwould be harmful from my
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experience, the consciousparenting perspective would be,
well, we're not going to force,coerce, change that path in any
way. We're going to go alongwith it. We are going to
encourage, but that is thechild's decision, and we are
going to work with that, asopposed to like, stepping in and
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being like, we're not doingthis. We're not going to let
this happen. We should have hadbetter boundaries in place. This
is a learning experience, thatkind of thing, where is, for me
as a parent, and gentleparenting, there are certain non
negotiables that I am going tostep in with. There is going to
be some force. There is going tobe a very hard line on certain
things. So I think that that'sprobably like the the one
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distinction between, between thetwo, yeah. And I would say one
of the things that made megravitate towards your stuff in
the first place as a parentingcoach is that you look like me.
I don't see many parentingcoaches that are black women
that also mention the aspect ofrespecting their child, that
also mentioned the aspect oflike, no one's putting with
their hands on their child, thatalso mentions the aspect of
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like, Yeah, this is a uniqueexperience. And yes, it is
tougher, like, most of the timewhen I was seeing parenting
coaches, none of them were blackwomen. But also there was just
this miscommunication, I think,when it came to gentle versus
conscious versus permissive. Andif I'm being honest, I I've
always had an issue with therewas this one.
Happening on social media at onetime where a lot of black
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parents were being attacked,right in this realm of being a
conscious parent, and it wasvery specific to the black
experience. And I remembersaying, It's so interesting now,
you know, I'm shady as hell. Isaid it's so interesting to
attack a community for themlearning to rear their children
when, technically, as a society,as a European American mom,
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generationally, you kind of juststarted rearing your own
children because we werewatching yours. So like, I just
had, I just always had such anissue, because it would just be
very unique to attacking blackwomen. And I'm like, You mean
the community that that mate hadto care for your family at the
detriment of our own, or it wasour life. Like, I've always had
an issue with it. So one of thethings that I gravitated to
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towards with yours is one it wasobvious, you know what you're
talking about. I liked beingable to watch someone's content
that shared the steps and notjust like, oh, this worked out
perfectly. Like, girl, I triedthis, and my daughter said, No.
Phoenix said, it's gonna be afirm no. Mom like you don't like
being able to see that,
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and seeing someone see it andthrough the eyes of like as a
black woman, because parentingblack children isn't like
parenting anyone. I alwaysmention the fact that I
specialize in black mentalhealth, because your mental
health is inextricably linked tothe way the world treats you,
and black people get treateddifferently, right? And anytime
I talk about parenting mychildren, I typically say, like,
I treat my children like humanbeings, right? And anytime I
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talk about why, like you,anybody you know, you put your
hand on my child, I'm gonna putmy hand on you, okay? And then
we really, we really go and youwill lose, okay, I do want you
to know this, like, you know,like you will lose anytime I
talk about that around blackpeople, like, depending on who
I'm around, they're always like,well, that's, you know, your
child's gonna walk all over youand they're not gonna have any
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discipline. And it's just, it'sa very different conversation.
And I don't think many people Iforget who it was, it'll be in
the show notes, but she was onthe Tory Roberts show, and she
mentioned that beating yourchildren is the whitest thing
that you can do as a blackwoman, yeah, right, beating your
children is the whitest thingthat you can do. And I'm like, I
think I went over so manypeople's heads about like, the
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reason why people had to parentout of obedience, it was
literally life or death. Thereason why there was this
disconnect with your children attimes, because you never knew if
they could be taken away whenyou went to the to the grocery
store. The reason why you don'tunderstand how to parent out of
respect, because you were neverparented out of respect, but
that is something that wasstolen from you, right? Yeah,
and that was one of the reasonswhy I really gravitated to
towards your stuff, because Ilike being able to look at
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people who don't have any whoactually have some sense, but I
got rubbed the wrong way for asignificant amount of time,
especially as a psychologist,especially as a psychologist, I
would just be like, this ispermissive. I learned this in
developmental Psych andundergrad guys like, so many
people would be like, so we justlet them vibe. That's what are
we talking like? So many peoplewould say it that way, and it
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would be permissive. Or therewas just like, there was just, I
can't it was like, a specificperiod of time where there was
legit, I feel like an attack onblack parents, just like, yeah,
because, you know, they'realways beating their kids. Where
did we learn that? But I likeyou. I like your stuff, or you
wouldn't be here. I appreciatethat.
But I mean, I see it, and it'shard being in this space, yeah,
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because we're navigatingsomething different, but at the
same time, I'm still me. I'mstill black, like you're not
going to and it's just aparenting space. Tone police me.
Yeah, we're not doing that.Like, those kind of things are
things that we have to unlearn,like I have to unlearn in my
house, like I have to learn,like you. Tone police to her,
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like she's just living her life.She's doing her she's not she
talking to you. She is literallyon the phone with her friend.
Why? Who cares that the tone andculture they have my Judea
business, right? So I alreadyhave to unpack that for myself
and then go online and it's likeI would never say that to my
child in that way. And Iwouldn't. Of course, you
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wouldn't. Of course youwouldn't, because that's not how
you talk, just culturally,that's not how you speak, like
the amount of
and I don't know, you know, I'dbe trying to give grace. I don't
know if it's, I know it'sexhausting watching you give
grace. Stop. It's like a 40minute episode, maybe for like,
40 minutes, you know,
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alright, for 40 minutes, listen,40 minutes a lot of times. I
know that a lot of times when Isay something in an assertive
way, and I'm speaking in anassertive way or sharing that I
was being assertive with mychildren, it's always somebody
in a comment that's going tosay, this is not just a
parenting or that's aggressive,or that's not respectful, and
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I'm just like, In what worlddoes it make sense to you that
it is like children deserve tobe spoken to in a certain kind
of way that only works for youas an individual like it just
does not make sense.
Mean, I think that's why I'm sointentional about at the end of
the day, it's gonna lookdifferent in everybody's house,
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just like respect is gonna lookdifferent in every single
relationship. So you can't tellme that something is harmful to
my child, when if I spoke likeyou, ma'am, to my child, that
would be harmful to her. Yeah,people, I think I always feel
like individuals are going toperceive you how they perceive
you, like, for anyone who isintent on misunderstanding you,
who is intent on livingaccording to their biases, your
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your behavior is always going tobe aggressive, right? Like, it
doesn't matter. It's it'sbecause the issue isn't like
what you're saying. The issue isyou right? I learned early on,
like, you know you I could actthe same way to multiple people,
how they perceive it is reallymore so about them. So you can
like me for who I am or dislikeme for me for who I am, but
either way, it's going to be me,right? And when it, when it
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comes down to it, I do feel likethere's like there's a there's a
discrepancy in that aspect ofwhen it comes to parenting. But
I think it's helpful to be ableto see the combination of how we
parent our youth, becauseparenting out of racism related
fear is a significant thing, youwant to provide your child with
education, but I think I alsodon't want to dehumanize my
child and let them understandthat they're allowed to have
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freedoms. They're allowed tohave conversations. It's always
a really dangerous place wherechildren feel as though they
can't advocate for themselves,where they feel like they can't
challenge anything, no matterhow it makes them feel in their
body, no matter how it makesthem feel icky, whether it's
painful just because it's anadult like I tell people this
all the time, my child should ifmy child can go toe to toe with
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anybody, it should be with me,because I need them to be able
to model like this aspect ofasking questions and
communicating. Because if youcannot do it with the most
salient relationship that youhave, you definitely are not
going to be able to do it withsomeone that you don't know. No
one can just take it. No one canjust talk to you and don't kind
of wait, treat you in all kindof way just because they're an
adult. Because adults are wrongtoo, and I think that's what
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people forget. It's a reallydangerous space to be where
children feel like they can'tsay anything because it's a
parent. My child should becritically thinking, is it
exhausting? Oh, my God, yes. Ohmy god. What? Oh my god,
fighting for you, I know. Doesit trigger you at times? But I
kind of do it as an internalprocess, like I internally
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scream probably, like 70% of theday, yeah, because, like,
certain things like, oh, askingextra questions because you got
to talk more. There's also that,that there's also that, and
that's exhausting, because,like, children never stop
talking, and a lot of times youneed silence, and I never really
realized that. So like, I'mconstantly answering questions
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because he's comfortable askingthe questions. But not only are
they talking all the time,you're talking all the time, you
also don't feel like it. Youalso become really cognizant.
You become cognizant of stuffthat you don't know the answer
to. So you have to take on thatwork. And some of the things
aren't really you. They're notlike, oh, it's not really, it's
just the way you were reared.Like, why do we do it that way?
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Oh, we always have. Why? Huh, Idon't know.
I guess I should change that asthe word that is the word that
is still triggering to me andnot triggering in the sense
that, like, I'm reactive, butlike you said, triggering in the
sense where it's like, ooh, andI have to do an in paternal
process. It's why. It's theword, why. It's literally, last
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night, I was like, Ken, comehere. And she's like, why? And I
was like, like, I felt thatinside of me, and I'm like,
yeah, just do it
right myself, right, right? Sothen I said, but here, but then
this is why the curiosity isimportant, right? Because when a
child asks why, specifically,last night, she's asking why, so
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that she can make a decision orthat, so that she can express,
you know, a conversation with melike it's not back home. That's
how conversations work, right?So I go, Well, I wanted you to
grab something for me. I'm inthe bathroom. I'm like, Can you
grab I want you to grabsomething for me. And she goes,
Okay, well, I just wanted toknow, because I'm not finished
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with my homework yet. Can I comeafter I finish this problem?
Clearly, clearly, prioritizingwhat she was doing. More
important. Period, yeah, period,it was more important. She's in
her train of thought, and I'mjust like, I got irritated
because I want you to bring mesome perfume. And I wouldn't
have known that if you were justin an obedient space, you would
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have brought it to me and thenwent back to what you were doing
when, yeah, you're right. Youcan't wait, but, and it would
have been harder for you to getback on the task, because she's
already switched, she's alreadyswitched tasks. That's because
So, so it's already like, well,too much success for that. I
ain't doing this no more that,because that's how the brain
works. But that would have beenseen as disrespectful if I would
have done that as a child, likejust the i You can't ask why,
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period, because you'requestioning authority. And I
want my children to know thatthere's a respectful way to
question authority. And so ofcourse, I had that trigger
reaction. I was like, I justneed you to come here. Like, I
need you to bring me something.And she says, Oh, well, I asked
why? Because X, Y and Z, youweren't able to do that in the
beginning as parenting journey,it was very much. It.
Energy, matching energy,matching energy, matching
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energy, and that's what I meanby she wasn't able to articulate
those things. But we do have togive them the space to be able
to do that. I want you to beable to come home and be like my
teacher said, X, Y and Z. Isthat okay? Is that normal? I
want you to be able to ask theright questions, and that starts
with us. We either going to bethe bully, like the first bully,
or we're going to be the firstopportunity for them to
practice. The hard part is thatanything that you practice, you
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probably not that good at it atfirst, and so you barely, you
know you're gonna feel that kindof like, Who you talking to, and
like, all of those things aregonna come up. They come up for
me, for sure, but it's my job tocheck that. Like, period, it's
my job to check that. That's nother job. Yeah, I have to slow
down a lot. I do a lot ofinternal processing. I'm not
joking y'all when I say I aminternally screaming so many
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times, because so many timesI'll just be like, in my brain
just do it. Like, why shouldn'tI have to explain? You know?
Like, I don't have a problemexplaining myself. It's just
sometimes we do have roles withcertain times where we have
certain rules. I always say,like, what's my most important
job? And he says, to keep mehealthy, keep me safe, right? Oh
my Yeah. That's exactly I askedthe same question every single
time. So I was like, sometimesI'm not going to be able to
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answer all the questions.Sometimes it's this is having to
do safe like, for example, whydo you have to ask me 20
questions in the parking lot?What's going on? Are you okay?
You know. So, like, we the thewhole thing is, like, you get in
the car, Mama, this, this. Isaid, you know the rule, I don't
answer any questions until youbuckled in, buckle in, and I'll
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answer whatever you want to, youknow? And that's like, I talk
about the difference betweenboundaries and rules. That's a
rule, because this little boy,first of all, my son, my oldest,
is a runner, all right? My ownfriend, yeah, my own friend,
darn it. I was like, she's like,Oh, I got them. We got a
trampoline part. I say Russ, arunner. She said, okay, dude
dipped and I knew exactly wherehe was. And then I was like,
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hey, Cassie, where's Russell?Oh, he's, where's Russell?
Exactly. Russell's a runner,honey. Okay, running better.
Imma have the job back, becauseI be saying Phoenix is highly
abductible. And I think thatrunner is a runner.
He a runner. He a track star,yeah, but, and I know exactly
where he was, so I was justlike, see, stop acting. Like,
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you know, just because youraised somebody, this is my
child, okay, right? He take off.Take off might well be amigos,
for God's sake. But, yeah, so,like, he just know, but, like
certain things, I have rules.Like, all right, you know, you
when you buckle in, I'll answerwhatever question you have. I
say, thank you so much forwaiting. I'm very specific with
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my praise so he can understandwhat I'm praising him for, you
know, like, Oh, thank you forextras, for saying that so
nicely. I think there's a betterway to say that. Oh, I think I
think you need to, you know,like just explaining it, because
I want my children to be sosteeped to being in respect, so
steeped in accountability, thatas soon as they're in a space
that doesn't have that theiralarms go off. I want them to
just be so used to criticalthinking and problem solving
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that they when they're in anenvironment that doesn't
facilitate that, they're like,oh, this ain't for me. You don't
lost your mind. My mom will talkto me like this. You ain't gonna
talk to me like this.
Yeah. Yeah, yes, absolutelythat. I mean, that's the
conversation that comes up alot, and I was talking about
that yesterday on Instagram.Just this idea of like, being
respectful to your kids is notpreparing them for the real
(23:12):
world, because everybody's notgoing to respect them. It's
just, to me, it's sad,especially for black and brown
children. It's sad that the ideathat we're supposed to be tough
on them, we're supposed to behard on them, just so they know
to expect that. It's a reallyfrustrating narrative, because
I'm like, if anybody, if anykids, need to be empowered and
supported and uplifted in whothey are, it is our kids. And
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yet, it's not our fault that wehave this understanding and this
idea that no we have to toughenthem up in order for them to be
able to be prepared. And it'sjust like, I want my kids to be
prepared to face adversity, butI also want them to be prepared
to call it out and say that thisis not okay, like they're not
mutually exclusive. And I hatethat. That's the conversation,
that's the narrative that iseither this way or we're setting
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them up for failure. How wouldyou break that conversation down
with someone like say someonelike, say it's someone it's just
being like, this isn't the rightway to parent. I'm not preparing
them for the real world. Whatwould you say to someone?
Because I'm sure you get thatall the time. Yeah, I'm
definitely getting it now that Isent her to public school, and
it's very much like my baby's inpublic school. His school last
year was amazing. The schoolthis year
(24:19):
we in there.
We in there. I mean, I make iton time. We'll see. We'll be
gonna see what it do. But, like,see what else. But I'm sure they
don't get the best. Okay, like,you're a parenting coach. I'm a
psychologist. I know what y'allsupposed to be doing. Okay? I am
not the typical parent, and Iwill always have time. Okay, so,
(24:40):
like they said, What the MNPSguidelines? Who told
you that, okay,
the way, and I love, appreciateand respect the faculty. You
know what I'm saying? I thinkthat teachers are having a hard
time period. I get that, andI'm.
Exactly. But I have also seenfirsthand, not necessarily in
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public school, but my daughterwas in like home in Richmond,
like a co op kind of thing. AndI see how very easily
an adult can manipulate a childinto believing that certain
things, certain behaviors, arenot only okay, but necessary for
a conducive learningenvironment, and it's not the
case. And so I think that it'simportant, one for us to our
(25:26):
kids, to feel good aboutthemselves, so that they
recognize not only is this okay,but I actually don't deserve
this, so I need to speak up. Butthen number two, for them to
feel open with communicatingthose things with us. If
somebody is harming me, I don'twant to go to somebody else
that's harming me and confidingthem and explain to them what's
going on. I'm gonna be talkingto people that I care about,
(25:47):
people I feel like care aboutme. And so now y'all kids are in
these bubbles talking with eachother about stuff, but they
don't feel comfortable andconfident coming to you because
you're disempowering them. Soit's very important to me that
we are empowering our kids, butalso teaching them how to speak
up. Ken was in a home school CoOp, and it was just this, like,
huge issue with the kid that wasbullying her, and they asked her
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to sign a contract in agreementsaying that she's going to
clearly state her boundaries sothat he understands her
boundaries, so that he doesn'tcross them. I said, Why is my
child signing anything? Right?Yeah,
without telling me.
So the little boy is like, hesigned the contract. And then he
(26:30):
tells her, Well, I only signedit because I had to. And so Ken
goes, Well, I'm not signing it,then you literally just told me,
right? So she has to sit out ofrecess now because she doesn't
sign it. So fast forward, we'rehaving the conversation, and I'm
having the conversation with theteacher, because, you know, I
went up there and Kennedy islike, Yeah, well, this has been
ongoing, like he tried to lockme in the gamer zone. And the
(26:54):
teacher goes, Yeah, well, wedon't. We stopped having gamer
gamer zone, right? You don't.Don't do that to a critical
thinking kid, because my kidgoes,
she said, gamer zone stoppedafter this, not because of this.
Like, don't I'm thinkingcritically. Don't act like y'all
took y'all act like you helpedme out. Yeah, yeah. That had
(27:18):
nothing to do with thissituation. And so I think it's
important that we teach our kidsto think critically, to be able
to step up and advocate forthemselves, because their
cognitive development isn'twhere adults and adults is. And
so if she wasn't able to dothat, if she didn't step in and
say that, and I would have beenlike, oh, okay, something
happened. Y'all rectify thesituation. And kids like, Oh no,
(27:39):
wait a minute. That's not whathappened at all, mom, they just
happen to they just happen tohave done it. But it wasn't
because they were listening tome. They just did it exactly.
And that's important on oncertain levels when it comes to
small stuff. But also, there aregoing to be things that our kids
face, that are abused, that areharmful, that they need to be
able to recognize. Like yousaid, we respect our kids, so
(28:01):
they know what respect is, sothey know how to expect it, not
so that they can bedisrespectful to other people,
but so that they understand whenthey are being disrespected
themselves. Yeah, and it'sreally important, because people
the way they choose theirfriends, the way they choose
their partners, it aligns withwhat they're used to seeing. If
you're used to seeing screaming,why is someone screaming at you
going to be odd to you like,it's never going to be a
(28:23):
situation like that. And it'salways interesting, because
they're like, I don't know whythey chose this partner. They
just like you, and yes, people,parents, parents can bear
children can very much workthemselves out of these things
and and learn better behaviors.But do we want to provide them
with another challenge thatthey're going to have to over
learn. I was looking at thisthreads, Instagram threads, and
(28:43):
this Baking Company was like,what's, what's a favorite recipe
that your parents have passeddown from generation,
generation? And I said, trauma,trauma.
Now, not my family. I we do itpretty well, but it was the
first thing that popped in myhead. As a psychologist. I love
Instagram threads, because it'sjust, like, Twitter only, not
trash and like, I would justalways just put pop up, I say
(29:05):
trauma. And then I said, I'msorry. It's the first thing that
popped in my head. That's therecipe, you know, like shake,
what your mama gave you. How didyou shake? Anxiety, you know
what I'm saying. Like, shake onme, shaking bait my leg, my
disaster. Damn.
But I think it's important. Isit more exhausting? Yeah. But
(29:25):
the thing about that is like,okay, so like, if you're if
you're comfortable with takingthe easy way out, and by easy
way out, it's like, it's theeasiest way for your child to
end up going no contact with youfeel. Just say that. Because
yeah, it does take more energy.Yes, it takes more energy to
answer questions. Yes, it takesmore energy to challenge myself
into thinking like, what is thepurpose of this? Am I just doing
this? Just because did my childdo something wrong, or did they
(29:46):
just do it differently than theway that I would do it, and what
technically is wrong when itcomes to cleaning up your you
know, like I want them to be soused to having conversations and
yeah, it does take longer, butbeing a parent tells me more
about me than it will.
Ever teach me about my child,like, that's just what it is so
important. It's important torealize, like, Oh, I'm
frustrated. Well, they werescreaming, and so I hit them.
(30:09):
Okay, so let's break it downinto steps, like they were
screaming because of what andthen what? Because some things
actually happened before. Likethat is such a less because you
went from one to 27 there was atleast 10 to 15 steps to happen
in between them, just screaming.What were they screaming for?
Did you, you know? Did youanswer them? Were they like,
what? What was it? Well, I wasdoing something else. Oh, okay.
(30:32):
And then they screamed. You hitthem. They couldn't regulate
themselves, and you couldn'tregulate yourself. So you're
expecting them to have a skillthat you don't have at this
point. That's absurd. Thatdoesn't make any sense. Children
don't have emotional regulationskills until children have we
regulate ourselves and then weco regulate them, right? The
number of cleansing breaths thathave to be taken before the 50th
(30:55):
flipping time or stepping away,I tell my child like you've
asked me this already, I'veanswered it, and I'm also had
you repeat the answer to me.You're gonna have to find that
out. I need a minute walk in myoffice, shut the door. I mean,
what you're talking about iswhat you said earlier, which is
the difference between a ruleand a boundary and something
that I always have to like,really coach people back to
(31:17):
coach my clients back to isthat? What are you doing, or
what are you willing to do whenthat is happening? Because we're
never focused on that. We arenever focused on Okay, when I'm
dysregulated, I'm willing totake those deep breaths. When
I'm not dysregulated, I'mwilling to communicate about it.
I'm willing to XYZ. We don'tever stop and sit and ask, okay,
what are my actual boundaries?What am I actually going to do
(31:39):
and not do in this moment isalways, what can that person do?
What can't he do? And I'm goingto do whatever I can to make
sure my child isn't doing this,or my child is doing that, and
it's like you are disempoweringyourself. You're actually giving
away way more control than youthink. When you're being
controlling. You are so out ofcontrol of yourself when you're
trying to control your kids. Andlike you said, you don't even
(32:01):
realize how you got to spanking.You don't even realize all the
stuff that was happening in yourbrain and body, these
conditioned things that arehappening because you so focused
on controlling another person asopposed to controlling yourself,
and you feel like trashafterwards. Any anytime I worked
with a parent in this realm,because trained in Trauma
Center, like family traumaticstress disorder, how can all
that they feel like trashafterwards? And I'm like, don't
(32:23):
you want to stop feeling likethat? Like one of the things
that you need to slow down. Andthe thing is, one of the things
that will never be on a child'sagenda is timeliness. It sucks,
man, because, like, one of thethings, like, the biggest thing
that leads to them gettingflustered and putting their
hands on somebody is, like, wewere late, we were late. We were
late. I have to be somewhere. Sothat was the quickest way for me
(32:44):
to, you know, and I'm like,right? I mean, so the issue is
lateness. Of course, you'refeeling stressed of what you
have to do. Of course, they'removing slow. But timeliness is
never going to be on a child'sagenda. Last year for school, my
son, I woke him up 20 minutesearlier than he needed to be
woken up because he moved slow.Yes, we could have got we could
(33:06):
have gotten to school waking up20 minutes later, but he
wouldn't have been able tododdle as much, which he does.
He also wouldn't have been ableto play. And He's way better if
he gets to like, color orwhatever, before school. So you
getting up earlier? You gettingup with me? I get up at 530 and
like, is it? Is he? It's tired alittle bit, but he also his, his
mood is better. I don't have tostress about fixing him. Like,
(33:28):
eat. You gotta eat quicker. Nah,man, we gotta, like, we gotta,
you know, we got, we got 30minutes for this one waffle. I'm
good.
I mean, Ken school don't starttill almost nine o'clock. She
get up to 645, yeah, get up. Getup. So you have time to get in
the mood. Yeah, pop in
the mirror. Like, because yourhead kicking. It feels to watch
(33:51):
a child completely enjoy andjust like, freedom. And you
gotta be like, Stop doing that.I don't want to have to do that.
I don't, and we don't do itourselves. We need our own, you
know, like we don't do that. Wedrop them off. We probably get
our little refresher energything. We walk in we, you know,
like we don't do that, right? Wesit in that damn car. Okay?
(34:18):
That is our kids sitting in thecar. That's them sitting in the
driveway when they just staringat the wall for a second, yeah?
Like, yeah. And I know that. Soyou really do have to be, like,
understanding, aware of wherethey are cognitively. And I just
understand that executivefunctioning situation ain't
functioning. It don't befunctioning for me half the
(34:39):
time. But I do recognize that ifI'm productivity focused, which
is a whole nother conversation,whole other conversation on how
these really ain't even ourparadigm, that we are punishing
our kids within but anyways, I'mproductivity focused. I'm job
work, everybody outside of myhouse focused. Yes, it is so
much easier to get.
(35:00):
Gets regulated, and so you dohave to have those systems. We
are going to wake up earlier.You need an hour and a half,
almost two hours, to get readyfor school. It is what it is
that's parenting the childthat's in front of me, that's
not bending to her, that isscaffolding that is setting her
up for success, and that'ssetting myself up for success,
because I know that I can gothere and I don't want to go
(35:20):
there because, like, I don'twant to, yeah, it don't feel
good. And I also, like, I don'twant him to be going into school
in a bad mood. That's the worstthing, because I don't like,
because, you know, when hisroutine is bad for the morning,
he don't put me in a crappy moodin my entire morning. You know,
I want to go we're gonna go towork. We're gonna go to school,
jamming and Mickey Mouse,whatever the flip. Like, I want
you to be in a good mood whenyou go to school, because it is
(35:42):
still school is still work, likehe he used to kicking it all
summer. It is a big transition.He's not a fan. It just is what
it is. I wake him up earlier,like it just used to be me,
let's go brush your teeth,
like all this. And I'm justlike, You know what? You gonna
wake up with me? And like, he'sa slow wake her up anyway. But
like, Oh, you got, like, 20minutes to do this waffle. Go
(36:03):
ahead, honey. I'm good. We'regonna be on time either way. So,
like, go ahead and color whileyou eat the waffle. I don't I
ain't worried about this. Like,you good. It's a comedy as well.
My daughter
can ask for five more minutes,and I can give her 10. I can
give her 20 more minutes, and westill not gonna be late. Like,
it makes a difference how we'resending them into these schools
(36:24):
and then we're sending them offinto their day again, it's at
the end of day. It's aboutempowerment, and if I have to be
controlling or cause harm to getyou to do something that is so
disempowering and that's goingto have negative impact in the
long run. Yeah, you might beobedient right now. You might be
compliant now, but there's somuch other stuff that's going on
in terms of your development andyour well being that eventually
(36:45):
is going to come out, and it'sgoing to be a negative thing,
and it's just like, it's notnecessary. It's genuinely not
necessary. Yeah, wheneversomeone talks about the aspect
of obedience, I was, I'm not thepolice. We obey the police. Is
that how you that's who you'retrying to be like, Oh, the world
is a tough place to be tougher.The world is a tough place for
black youth. I'm always going tobe a safe space for them to
(37:07):
land. I will be damned if Itreat my black children, my
husband, all of them, the waythe world treats them. Can we
not acknowledge the fact that wehave and will always deserve
better than the world treats us?And that's what you want them to
have in this house? No, I'm notthe police. I want them to
understand that this is thespace where you can communicate.
You always get these talks withpeople about, how do I get my
child to talk more? You stop byfostering an environment where
(37:30):
they want to talk to you. Wantto talk. Want to talk. It's not
about the best questions. Ifthis environment is trash, you
could ask the best questions,and they will be like, No, thank
you. You're insane. Last time Italked to you, it turned into a
15 minute lesson about how mygeneration don't know how to do
work, lecture.
My daughter will call me so faston, like, you starting to, like,
(37:52):
lecture. You losing me. Youlosing the plot, mom, like I
literally was just trying totell you about my day. You
losing the plot. Like she isvery much going to, going to
clarify that and let me knowlike, I guess I'm glad that we
had the point where she let meknow when she's about to shut
down. But kids absolutely will.Don't matter how you phrase it
doesn't matter how you ask thequestion at the end of the day,
if you don't have relationship,especially as they get older,
(38:15):
little ones are so forgetting,they kind of reset, and your
mommy all over again the nextday. But you do that for long
enough, and you wonder why thepreteen is in their room all
day, or the teenager is nottelling you about the harmful
stuff that's happening to themis because you haven't created a
safe space to communicate. Andthat's hard. I'll be having to
count to 10 in my head all thetime, and she's saying stuff,
(38:36):
and I gotta keep my poker facein my
okay. Yeah, I understand. I haveto empathize and recognize that
when she's being open with me,that is not my time to come in
with this like sitcom lesson.Hey, the teacher, Phoenix, I
heard you were having a bit ofan issue. You know, literally
(39:00):
just shut up. We gotta learn toshut up, yo. Because I just be
like, which is hard for it'shard. It's hard because, of
course, we, we have that extralevel of it's not just
parenting, it's parenting ablack child. So like, it's
parenting out of racism relatedfear. Like, y'all need to
understand this. But like, we,you know, figure it out
internally screaming. People belike, Oh, you move so, you know,
(39:22):
I don't know how you do it. I'mscreaming in my head, black
woman raising black daughters,like that happens to me all the
time, where I get, like,triggered by something, and I
have to recognize, like, anyinternalized racism. So much of
that has come up being a blackwoman, black raising a black
child, and I'm like, hold on,you're just treating her like
(39:44):
the angry black girl. You needto go back in there. Yep, that's
not cute. That's not cute. Youwere wrong in that situation.
You need to undo that. And so Ithink that it's important for us
to recognize and acknowledgethat some of the stuff that we
are carrying around is actuallynot our stuff. And.
Honestly, outside of the parentchild relationship, you are a
better person because of it. Ifyou stop and just acknowledge
(40:05):
like, this is not okay. Itwasn't okay that it happened to
me. It's not okay that I havethese internalized beliefs about
myself, but I see how it'sstarting to impact my child. So
I have to navigate that, and Ihave to work that out, because
actually, I didn't deserve it,and neither does she, and so
it's a very healing process forme as well to be a black woman
raising black daughters outsideof the context of how we should
(40:26):
be raising them. Yeah, you canacknowledge that your parents
gave you the best that they had,the most that they had, and that
still wasn't enough. There'snothing wrong with that. I love
the fact that you said two verybig things that either I don't
know which one's going to be thetitle of the episode, stay
tuned, either. So empathize andrecognize and parent the child
in front of you. I like thatbecause I just did a talk about
dei being belonging, and they'relike, Oh, well, how do we add
(40:47):
belonging? And I was like, youtreat people like individuals,
belonging to individuality, orsynonyms, parenting the child in
front of you is parenting theindividual in front of you, not
going according to like aspecific technique. You know, my
child may need 20 minutes. Yourchild may not, may only need 15.
That don't mean that they onlyget like 10. That means my child
do 20, mine do 15. You're gonnabe five minutes late. I'm gonna
be 10, you know,
(41:11):
but I'm gonna be there, though.Girl, appetizers on me. Okay? I
totally get it. Your time isvaluable. It's my time. That's
not that's what my child istelling me. You know,
they got different priorities.They have. That's right.
Timeliness is never going to beon the agenda. Food and fun,
but, like, that's, that's and soI try to make the stuff more
(41:31):
fun. I try to in choices. Try tomake sure he has more choices.
All of that, if he has a choicein it, he's going to be more buy
in but like, being on time,anytime I mentioned something
like being late, he'd be like,what is what does that have to
do with me? Like, what are wetalking about here? But you
know, what is crazy and that wemiss is that by doing that, you
said something earlier in termsof what even is wrong is that
(41:53):
we're teaching our kids how tobe in community with people. And
yep, you're not always going tohave the same preferences as the
people in community with you.And so even in how I articulate
things, very few things Icommunicate with my kids are
about right and wrong. It'sabout we are in community
together. This is my preference.I'm expressing to you. I don't
like a messy space. Okay, thatfrustrates me. How can we work
(42:17):
together? Do you have awillingness to work with me on
that the same way that I have awillingness to work with you on
the things that you prefercoming from that angle,
especially when they're older. Iget so much more buy in from my
daughter. I could just be likemy oldest, right? Just be like
somebody who will go to herdaddy house and he's like,
she'll never want to clean upwhat's going on. All I can say
(42:38):
is, hey, can you do a quicknotice and do in the living
room. Why? Because I respectyour preferences. You're not
wrong that you don't give aabout the living room being
messy. You just don't but hey,you respect me, you love me, you
care about me. We care abouteach other, and you meet me in
the middle. It's a verydifferent conversation than
because I said so, than becausecleanliness is next to godliness
(43:01):
and because of a right and awrong, just express your
preferences and teach yourchildren that you're growing up
in this environment where peoplehave certain preferences, you're
going to choose people that havedifferent preferences. This is
how you work together incommunity. So this is a
community. Your house is acommunity, and you're teaching
them how to be in community withother people by how you are in
community with them. Yeah, Ilove that. Well, thank you so
(43:24):
much for joining us. I want to,before you leave, I want to hear
more about your parentingcommunity, because I'm a member
of your community. It's onschool, just like my community
is on school. Tell me all aboutit. And like, what kind of
things you offer all of that,because you do a lot. Why did
you do a lot? Workshops,prompts, like, I just be like,
oh, you know, you won't listen.There's no way not to make
(43:45):
progress
on school, overall. School,like, very intentional
parenting, the group, it wasvery much birthed out of an idea
and a need for community. I feellike a lot of times I talk about
tools and I talk aboutawareness, but it is a lot
easier to work certain thingsout when you actually have
support and you haveaccountability. And so that's
(44:05):
the basis of it. But inside ofthe group, I do classes, I do a
lot of prompts. We just starteddoing skill building sessions,
which are, like, basically anopportunity. We this 30 minutes,
is very intense, and we're like,we're not just going to talk
about the tools, we're going topractice them together, like
we're going to sit here with apartner and we're going to
practice what active listeninglooks like, what reflective
listening looks like, whatsports casting is practice, what
(44:27):
is a boundary statement? That'sthe last thing we did. We worked
on our boundary statements andhow we would express them to our
children. So we have that. Wealso have opportunities for one
on one coaching. It's a lotgoing on in the group, but
basically it is just aboutaccountability. It is working
through an actual program,something that is sequential,
that you can work through withmyself and then coach my Kia
Davis as well, who is also gianttrained. And yeah, that is,
(44:49):
like, that's my little my heartand my little baby. I love it
over there. I feel so warm andnourished from the parents that
are over there. And it's just agood time. Yeah, it's fantastic.
One of the.
Things I like about the aspectof the community space, creating
your own community space. Andthe reason why I created mine as
well is because it's hard to getI think you have over 2 million
followers across platforms atthis point, so And there's
(45:11):
always people who want more whowant more directives, who want
more engagement, who want moreof an investment. But it's not
really possible to provide thatlevel of investment across the
platform, because things arevery specific. So creating your
own community like you did inschool provides you the ability
to do those skill buildingsessions, and it also helps to
weed out people who aren'twilling to put in the time and
the energy and the investment.And that's what it should be
(45:33):
like. The same way you areinvesting time and energy into
the workshops and the skillbuilding and the accountability
practices, the people who are inthe community are there to put
that investment in as well. So Ialways feel like, you know that
is one of the best things outthere, because, yeah, you can
get my videos on social media,but you're not gonna get my me
live. Don't nobody listen. I'mnot even DM I go live in my
(45:53):
community. DMS, I'm gonna readthem. Johns, you know, I'm
saying like, I just always belike, people, be like, I DM you.
I don't, I don't. Are youspeaking? I don't know what that
means. You email you email melike an adult. Do you know how
absurd?
Yeah, because it's ridiculous.You know how absurd my DMs get.
Let me mention anything someonedoesn't like. Anytime I mention
(46:13):
anything like, Oh, you just aterrible person. Sharam, was
there a question, you know?
Like, like, so I like the factthat you create a community
where people get to be moreintentional with their
parenting, and they get moreaccess to you because they're
making the same investment inyou that you are making in them.
I love that, and it's okay. Soname it again, so everyone knows
(46:35):
it's also going to be in theshow notes. It's very
intentional parenting on theschool app, yeah, and I called
it VIP parenting. Is it VIP, oris it VIP? Okay, that's what I
thought. That's what I was like,depends parenting, yeah, that's
what I was like. I was like,it's the VIP group. Like, that's
why we're calling it. And
tell everybody where they canfind you on social media as
(46:56):
well. I am destiny, and acrosssocials, every single one. Which
ones are you on? All, I'm onall, I'm on all up. No, I'm not
all on. I'm on Instagram,Youtube and Tiktok, perfect. All
right. Well, thank you so muchfor coming on to the show.
Everyone, remember to be kind toyourself. Two steps forward and
one step back is still one stepforward. That is just math. And
(47:16):
have a good rest of your day.
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