March 13, 2024 • 18 mins
And that’s a wrap! In this Season 5 rewind Carol shares some of the highlights of the season and reveals some parenting principles–practical, helpful, parenting concepts–that came out of these conversations. Tune in for a sampling of some of the great stories, advice and resources Carol and her guests shared this season. And stay tuned for more parenting conversations about the joy and the real work of parenting Black children in our next season, coming soon!
Follow us @GroundControlparenting or at groundcontrolparenting.com
Follow us @GroundControlparenting or at groundcontrolparenting.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hello, and welcome to the seasonfive rewind of Ground Control Parenting, a
podcast creative for parents raising black andbrown children. I'm the creator and your
host, Carol Sutton Lewis. Inthis podcast series, I talk with some
really interesting people about the job andthe joy of parenting. We have come
to the end of season five.This has been our fifth season of bringing
(00:26):
you helpful ideas, thoughtful reflections,and trustworthy advice, helping you fully realize
your potential for parenting with effectiveness andjoy. This season, we had great
guests offering their unique insights, advice, and inspiring stories to help us raise
our children to be curious, confident, and resilient. We also heard from
guests about how they navigated some realparenting challenges. In this rewind, I
(00:51):
want to talk about the parenting principlesthat came out of these season five conversations
that I believe can be useful tous. All these principles can give us
direction and support on our parenting journeys. And by the way, I'm only
mentioning a few highlights from each ofthese episodes. You'll have to listen to
the full episodes to get all thegood stuff. So let's talk about the
three parenting principles that are coming outof this season's podcasts. First, the
(01:14):
power of pivoting. I've talked aboutthe power of pivoting with guests in all
of our seasons, and I keepcoming back to it as one of the
core strengths of successful parenting. Now, there are two ways that parents may
need to pivot. You can pivotaway from the expectations you have for your
kids and towards who they are andwhat they want. That's really important to
know when to do that. Andthe second way is pivoting away from your
(01:37):
parenting mistakes, owning up to them, and changing your behavior moving in a
more positive and productive direction. Inseason five, several of our guests talked
about that second pivot, how toswitch it up when you make a parenting
mistake. In my conversation with actressdirector producer Sally Richardson Whitfield, we talked
about how to pivot from a badparenting call and apologize to your kids for
(02:00):
it and why this can be toughto do. I think that everything for
me is just being honest with myselfand honest with my children and always being
willing to apologize. Probably not thebest apologizer to my husband, but with
(02:23):
my kids, because we can't beperfect and we are who we are and
we respond the way we respond,which sometimes can be hurtful to them.
But I'm always willing to come backin the room and go, hey,
I'm sorry. Shouldn't have yelled atyou, shouldn't have responded that way,
(02:46):
And I just feel like that's thebest for me, that's the best approach.
I don't know if I've healed everythingthat are my issues, but I
know what my issues are. Sometimesnot every I don't know. I may
be wrong. I don't think everythingis healable, but you can know what
(03:07):
the problems are and why you areresponding a certain way, and when I
respond that way, which is notmaybe the most appropriate, I can then
apologize for it and go, yes, you're absolutely right, You're absolutely right.
I wasn't and I'm okay. Likemost of our I think we grew
up with our parents, they didn'tfeel like they needed to apologize to us
(03:29):
about anything, And you know it'syou know, you get that I did
the best I could. I didthe best I could, Like, yeah,
you did, but your best maynot have been right all the time,
and it's okay to say, youknow what, I was wrong at
that time, or maybe guess what, Maybe it wasn't the best you could
(03:51):
have done. You know, thereare times when we are selfish as as
just beings as a person, andwe're selfish with our children, and so
maybe, yeah, you're right,it wasn't the best I could do,
and I made that decision for myselfsometimes. But I think being willing to
(04:11):
be wrong and apologizing for it goesa long way with your children, you
know, I think that is sowise. People get very defensive about parenting
because there's no rule book and theyfeel as if they have to answer for
the way that they are. Andif your ego is wrapped up in whatever
you're doing, you can't really stepback and apologize, because you know,
(04:31):
you want to be that mom thatis always right or that dad that you
know doesn't get challenged. But it'sso much more effective if you can just
take a beat and say to yourchild, you know that I didn't do
right. Now. The interesting thingis you have to you have to say
that to your child. What youdon't want your child to expect that of
(04:54):
you. I mean, every timethat you reprimand them. They can't come
back and say just guess what.Sometimes I'm not I'm not sorry, and
you in trouble, right, Butit wasn't like I didn't do it in
an appropriate way. You can stillbe in trouble that I didn't need to
curse you out. Lee Daniels,director of producer Extraordinaire, talked with me
(05:15):
about the time he had to pivotaway from his instincts about how to punish
his young daughter and how that pivothappened. I moved to Harlem. I
got a place one hundred and thirtyfifth in Madison, and Clara it was
a McDonald's some twenty fifth and shefell out on the fell out on the
(05:38):
floor of McDonald's because she wanted somethingthat she couldn't let me. And I
said, oh, and I saidwould you please? And then all the
black mothers were like, how isshe getting away with this? I was
so embarrassed. I took her homeand I took my belt off and I
gave her two licks. Then itwas a third lick, and she looked
(06:00):
at me because I hadn't beat herever. I mean that one time I
hit her, and then I hither this time and she looked at me
like I was insane. And thatwas the other light bulb moment. I
realized that I was trying to breakher spirit, which had happened to me,
but I didn't know any better.It wasn't intentional, right at all.
It was just and then right,and we just looked at each other
(06:23):
in the living room and I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. It was crazy.
Yeah, yeah, because she wasso smart. She was smart even
at that age. She was soevolved that she understood what I was trying
to do, and so she didn'tneed to have a conversation. She looked
at me because she knew exactly howto look at me. Now, the
(06:46):
pivot you're making is not just theact of saying you're sorry to your child
when you make a parenting mistake.Sure, acknowledging that you made a mistake
and telling your child this is important. But once you tell your child that
you're sorry, figuring out the rootof your reaction and what it takes to
avoid making that mistake again, that'sthe full pivot, and that's the harder
work of parenting that benefits us all. The second parenting principle that came up
(07:10):
a lot this season is the importanceof knowing your history. I believe,
and I mentioned a lot in thispodcast, that we must give our children
a strong sense of their history,both their family's history and their African American
history. This gives them a morecomplete sense of themselves, where they come
from, and it can help thembuild their confidence. This came to light
in an interesting way through two gueststhis season, art collector and patron Bernard
(07:34):
Lumpkin and art curator Stephanie Sparling Williams. Both guests are biracial, and both
of them, as they talked abouttheir own childhoods, mentioned how they were
deeply impacted by learning about their blackhistory. For Stephanie, it didn't happen
until she got to college. SoI'm really interested then in your discovery and
(07:56):
your deep dive into African American studies. I mean, coming from a background
where you start knew who you were, but you did not grow up in
a household steeped with discussion about thishistory. Tell me about what happened when
you got to college to really makeyou focus on this area of study.
Yeah, and I love this story. So I'm glad you asked me this
(08:16):
question because It's such a testament andwhy I'm such a big advocate of like
diversity requirements in college or these collegeclasses that you kind of require to take
because they fulfill like women in gender, you know, or race and ethnicity,
or you know, global peoples andcultures. You know. I literally
was checking off a box, youknow. I was actually in that the
(08:37):
Journalism school at Colorado University, andwhich is set like a separate pole,
separate school, and I was workingtowards an advertising track, in a marketing
track, and I took Intro toBlack Studies because it fit in my schedule
and it checked off my diversity requirementand it was taught by doctor Raylan Rebaka,
(08:58):
and itolutsolutely shook me, transformed mywhole life. I was an art
maker. I was you know,president of National Art Honor Society in high
school. I hope people can't seemy face, but I'm kind of being
silly about that. But I wasa big, big into art. I
was. I was making art.I took every art class my high school
(09:18):
offered, and when I went tocollege, I just kind of stopped.
But when I took this class,I just started producing all of this art
in response to this knowledge, thisexperience of getting you know, African American
history about I mean literally, canyou imagine intro to Black studies, like
for somebody who like has no idea, Like I went to schools that didn't
(09:39):
teach history, so I ended upchanging my major, like I and then
I just took every class I could, and you know, it was an
ethnic studies program, but I focusedon a fam and and also a kind
of like a Chicano LATINX thread throughthere too. But yeah, it was
absolutely transformative. But it was becauseof that diverse the requirement that I took
(10:01):
that class and you know, totallychanged my entire trajectory. And for Bernard,
the stories he heard from his AfricanAmerican father about growing up in Watts
led him to want to know andunderstand more about the black experience, and
it sparked his interest in studying andcollecting African American art. As Bernard explained,
you know, my father and mymother, each in their own way,
(10:24):
had to find their way in theworld through their own roots. And
I think for my father, growingup in Watts, Los Angeles was this
subformative experience for him, and itin turn informed a lot of my thinking
about my role as an art collectorand a patron, because I was very
interested in sort of using my father'sheritage as a starting point for exploring conversations
(10:52):
with artists of African descent about issueslike family, about race, about nation,
about what it means to be blackin America, what it means to
grow up black in America. We'llbe right back after these messages. Welcome
back to the show. My guests, doctor Carita L. Brown and Charlie
(11:13):
Palmer, authors of The New BrowniesBook, A love letter to families,
know well the power of sharing ourhistory with our children. Their book is
a contemporary reimagining of W. E. B. Du Bois's art and literary
magazine, which was called The BrowniesBook, that he created for children in
nineteen twenty to share Black history andcelebrate their identities. The New Brownies Book
(11:35):
is a collection of modern essays,poems, photographs, paintings, and short
stories reflecting on the joy and depthof the Black experience. Kreta and Charlie
joined me on the podcast this seasonand gave a fascinating behind the scenes look
at their creation of the book.I hope they'll have the chance to enjoy
this episode and the book as well. The third and final parenting principle for
the season five rewind is the importanceof knowing yourself. Knowing who you are
(12:00):
as a parent, as a person, knowing a parenting style, Understanding how
the way you a parented impacts thestyle, for better or for worse.
All of this is key to beingable to apparent effectively and with joy.
And as many of my podcast guestsover the years have told me, therapy
can help you know and understand yourselfbetter. So I guess the subtitle of
this parenting principle is the value oftherapy. This season included a lot of
(12:24):
conversation about mental health, our ownand that of our children. I had
particularly good and helpful discussions about thevalue of therapy with my guests David McGee
and Ruth Horrie. I am abig fan of seeking help whenever you need
it, and I love when myguests talk about how valuable they found therapeutic
help to be. David McGhee wasone of them. David is the chief
(12:45):
executive officer of the Steve Fund,an organization which supports the mental health and
emotional well being of young people ofcolor. David and I spent time talking
about how the Steve Fund helps studentsfind the mental health services they need.
And David also brought up his personalrelyfing so on therapy as a means of
maintaining his mental well being. Right, so let me just you know,
let that particular cut out the bag. Having a therapist that I can just
(13:09):
connect to, especially as an AfricanAmerican male, especially as a father,
especially as a husband, is justviotally important. I was so happy to
hear this, and you know,I had some follow up questions. We
talked about how to break the stigmathat surrounds mental health and Black communities.
Okay, therapy, you are singingmy song, you are speaking my language.
(13:31):
I love hearing you say that asan African American man, having a
therapist is important. Why can't welook at therapy like personal trainers, Like
I mean, I imagine that inyour practice, both before and through this
defund, you continue to promote theuse of therapy. Yeah, yeah,
(13:54):
so yeah, I think you raida great question. I think a lot
of it may be cultural, right, what happens in this house stays in
this house, those types of things. But I also would love for us
to just practice, you know,therapy as a prerequisite for whatever it is
we're trying to accomplish, right Likeoftentimes we're so rooted and grounded in ourselves
(14:16):
and our perspectives, you know,like sometimes we get in our own way.
But at least for me, therapyhas been a prerequisite for whatever it
is that I'm navigating in life.Not as if I need someone else to
solve it for me. But welive in a world and in the time
where things are just extremely complex.The amount of information that we're taking in
(14:37):
is unlike any other time in ouryou know, in our lifetime. So
just dissecting that and unpacking that hasbeen helpful, helpful for me. But
African American man, we won't evengo to the doctor when we're supposed to,
so let alone, you know,a therapist. So more of us
just need to talk about it andnormalize and reduce the stigma. Ruth Hory,
(14:58):
a child welfare consult and talked withme about how getting therapy for herself
was key to managing her daughter,Olivia's mental health crisis. When Olivia,
who had suicidal thoughts, was notresponding well to therapy, Ruth went in
a different direction to get help.I was working with an organization called We
Run Brownsville, and they had adifferent approach to therapy, and so they
(15:24):
felt, if you healed the mom, you heal a household. And I'm
like, there, that's it.That's it right there. And so I
went to therapy. And so onceI got to start digging up some of
the fears I had, you know, like I had a child at fourteen,
so I had a the bar waslike, okay, let him get
(15:46):
past fourteen. I get right,And so I had to work on my
fears of you know, sometimes yougotta let Olivia figure it out, and
it's like, nobody but do that. This is gonna happen. That's it
can escalate so quickly, and yeah, so she had to work with me,
and then they pulled Olivia in sothat I was well aware of how
(16:06):
this was gonna look and what Ineeded to do and how to operate as
a teen parent or young adult.It's different. They don't just need something
to watch, something to entertain themin a clean diaper. This is intense
and each child is different. Whereasmy oldest child she kind of like,
you know, just float through life, you know, and then she did.
She had her moments, but itwas maybe once a year. And
(16:30):
so within Olivia is the carbon copyof me. This child I'm speaking about
is me, and so I getit. I understand and it was what
I challenged myself with in life.We have to figure this out. We
have to and so through the therapyand me being able to stand firm,
I was able to help her.I am so grateful to Ruth and David
(16:55):
for talking with me about the valueof therapy in their lives, and I
hope this stories inspire parents to thinkseriously about therapy as an important tool in
their parenting toolkit. We had twoguests from our very first season returned for
a second visit. ABC News journalistDeborah Roberts, who talked with us about
the power of great teachers and herbook Lessons Learned and Cherished The Teacher who
(17:15):
Changed My Life, and filmmaker Cristelmacquarie McGuire, who came back to talk
about her new tech venture with herson, Orlando Magic point guard Cole Anthony.
When we last visited with Cristel onthe podcast, her son Cole was
in college working hard on his passionfor basketball. Since then, his NBA
hoop dreams have come true, andhe and his mom have created an app
(17:37):
to help parents navigate the world ofyouth basketball and support their kid's own hoop
dreams. And that is the rapfor season five of Ground Control Parenting with
Carol Sutton Lewis. If you've caughtall the episodes this season, I hope
you've enjoyed them and that they've helpedyou reflect on your parenting strengths and challenges.
If you haven't heard them all,I hope this Rewhine encourages you to
(17:57):
catch up on any you've missed untilwe're back with season six. Please take
a look through all the seasons andcheck out any episode you may have missed.
I send out a newsletter with parentingtopics, info and updates regularly in
the off season, which I'd loveto send to you. If you're interested,
head to ground hutel parenting dot com, click on Let's Connect at the
top of the site and send meyour info. And as I say at
(18:19):
the end of every episode, ifyou like what you've heard, please subscribe,
rate and review where you find yourpodcasts, and tell your friends I'm
Carol Sutton Lewis. Thanks so muchfor listening and take care
Hello, and welcome to the seasonfive rewind of Ground Control Parenting, a
podcast creative for parents raising black andbrown children. I'm the creator and your
host, Carol Sutton Lewis. Inthis podcast series, I talk with some
really interesting people about the job andthe joy of parenting. We have come
to the end of season five.This has been our fifth season of bringing
(00:26):
you helpful ideas, thoughtful reflections,and trustworthy advice, helping you fully realize
your potential for parenting with effectiveness andjoy. This season, we had great
guests offering their unique insights, advice, and inspiring stories to help us raise
our children to be curious, confident, and resilient. We also heard from
guests about how they navigated some realparenting challenges. In this rewind, I
(00:51):
want to talk about the parenting principlesthat came out of these season five conversations
that I believe can be useful tous. All these principles can give us
direction and support on our parenting journeys. And by the way, I'm only
mentioning a few highlights from each ofthese episodes. You'll have to listen to
the full episodes to get all thegood stuff. So let's talk about the
three parenting principles that are coming outof this season's podcasts. First, the
(01:14):
power of pivoting. I've talked aboutthe power of pivoting with guests in all
of our seasons, and I keepcoming back to it as one of the
core strengths of successful parenting. Now, there are two ways that parents may
need to pivot. You can pivotaway from the expectations you have for your
kids and towards who they are andwhat they want. That's really important to
know when to do that. Andthe second way is pivoting away from your
(01:37):
parenting mistakes, owning up to them, and changing your behavior moving in a
more positive and productive direction. Inseason five, several of our guests talked
about that second pivot, how toswitch it up when you make a parenting
mistake. In my conversation with actressdirector producer Sally Richardson Whitfield, we talked
about how to pivot from a badparenting call and apologize to your kids for
(02:00):
it and why this can be toughto do. I think that everything for
me is just being honest with myselfand honest with my children and always being
willing to apologize. Probably not thebest apologizer to my husband, but with
(02:23):
my kids, because we can't beperfect and we are who we are and
we respond the way we respond,which sometimes can be hurtful to them.
But I'm always willing to come backin the room and go, hey,
I'm sorry. Shouldn't have yelled atyou, shouldn't have responded that way,
(02:46):
And I just feel like that's thebest for me, that's the best approach.
I don't know if I've healed everythingthat are my issues, but I
know what my issues are. Sometimesnot every I don't know. I may
be wrong. I don't think everythingis healable, but you can know what
(03:07):
the problems are and why you areresponding a certain way, and when I
respond that way, which is notmaybe the most appropriate, I can then
apologize for it and go, yes, you're absolutely right, You're absolutely right.
I wasn't and I'm okay. Likemost of our I think we grew
up with our parents, they didn'tfeel like they needed to apologize to us
(03:29):
about anything, And you know it'syou know, you get that I did
the best I could. I didthe best I could, Like, yeah,
you did, but your best maynot have been right all the time,
and it's okay to say, youknow what, I was wrong at
that time, or maybe guess what, Maybe it wasn't the best you could
(03:51):
have done. You know, thereare times when we are selfish as as
just beings as a person, andwe're selfish with our children, and so
maybe, yeah, you're right,it wasn't the best I could do,
and I made that decision for myselfsometimes. But I think being willing to
(04:11):
be wrong and apologizing for it goesa long way with your children, you
know, I think that is sowise. People get very defensive about parenting
because there's no rule book and theyfeel as if they have to answer for
the way that they are. Andif your ego is wrapped up in whatever
you're doing, you can't really stepback and apologize, because you know,
(04:31):
you want to be that mom thatis always right or that dad that you
know doesn't get challenged. But it'sso much more effective if you can just
take a beat and say to yourchild, you know that I didn't do
right. Now. The interesting thingis you have to you have to say
that to your child. What youdon't want your child to expect that of
(04:54):
you. I mean, every timethat you reprimand them. They can't come
back and say just guess what.Sometimes I'm not I'm not sorry, and
you in trouble, right, Butit wasn't like I didn't do it in
an appropriate way. You can stillbe in trouble that I didn't need to
curse you out. Lee Daniels,director of producer Extraordinaire, talked with me
(05:15):
about the time he had to pivotaway from his instincts about how to punish
his young daughter and how that pivothappened. I moved to Harlem. I
got a place one hundred and thirtyfifth in Madison, and Clara it was
a McDonald's some twenty fifth and shefell out on the fell out on the
(05:38):
floor of McDonald's because she wanted somethingthat she couldn't let me. And I
said, oh, and I saidwould you please? And then all the
black mothers were like, how isshe getting away with this? I was
so embarrassed. I took her homeand I took my belt off and I
gave her two licks. Then itwas a third lick, and she looked
(06:00):
at me because I hadn't beat herever. I mean that one time I
hit her, and then I hither this time and she looked at me
like I was insane. And thatwas the other light bulb moment. I
realized that I was trying to breakher spirit, which had happened to me,
but I didn't know any better.It wasn't intentional, right at all.
It was just and then right,and we just looked at each other
(06:23):
in the living room and I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. It was crazy.
Yeah, yeah, because she wasso smart. She was smart even
at that age. She was soevolved that she understood what I was trying
to do, and so she didn'tneed to have a conversation. She looked
at me because she knew exactly howto look at me. Now, the
(06:46):
pivot you're making is not just theact of saying you're sorry to your child
when you make a parenting mistake.Sure, acknowledging that you made a mistake
and telling your child this is important. But once you tell your child that
you're sorry, figuring out the rootof your reaction and what it takes to
avoid making that mistake again, that'sthe full pivot, and that's the harder
work of parenting that benefits us all. The second parenting principle that came up
(07:10):
a lot this season is the importanceof knowing your history. I believe,
and I mentioned a lot in thispodcast, that we must give our children
a strong sense of their history,both their family's history and their African American
history. This gives them a morecomplete sense of themselves, where they come
from, and it can help thembuild their confidence. This came to light
in an interesting way through two gueststhis season, art collector and patron Bernard
(07:34):
Lumpkin and art curator Stephanie Sparling Williams. Both guests are biracial, and both
of them, as they talked abouttheir own childhoods, mentioned how they were
deeply impacted by learning about their blackhistory. For Stephanie, it didn't happen
until she got to college. SoI'm really interested then in your discovery and
(07:56):
your deep dive into African American studies. I mean, coming from a background
where you start knew who you were, but you did not grow up in
a household steeped with discussion about thishistory. Tell me about what happened when
you got to college to really makeyou focus on this area of study.
Yeah, and I love this story. So I'm glad you asked me this
(08:16):
question because It's such a testament andwhy I'm such a big advocate of like
diversity requirements in college or these collegeclasses that you kind of require to take
because they fulfill like women in gender, you know, or race and ethnicity,
or you know, global peoples andcultures. You know. I literally
was checking off a box, youknow. I was actually in that the
(08:37):
Journalism school at Colorado University, andwhich is set like a separate pole,
separate school, and I was workingtowards an advertising track, in a marketing
track, and I took Intro toBlack Studies because it fit in my schedule
and it checked off my diversity requirementand it was taught by doctor Raylan Rebaka,
(08:58):
and itolutsolutely shook me, transformed mywhole life. I was an art
maker. I was you know,president of National Art Honor Society in high
school. I hope people can't seemy face, but I'm kind of being
silly about that. But I wasa big, big into art. I
was. I was making art.I took every art class my high school
(09:18):
offered, and when I went tocollege, I just kind of stopped.
But when I took this class,I just started producing all of this art
in response to this knowledge, thisexperience of getting you know, African American
history about I mean literally, canyou imagine intro to Black studies, like
for somebody who like has no idea, Like I went to schools that didn't
(09:39):
teach history, so I ended upchanging my major, like I and then
I just took every class I could, and you know, it was an
ethnic studies program, but I focusedon a fam and and also a kind
of like a Chicano LATINX thread throughthere too. But yeah, it was
absolutely transformative. But it was becauseof that diverse the requirement that I took
(10:01):
that class and you know, totallychanged my entire trajectory. And for Bernard,
the stories he heard from his AfricanAmerican father about growing up in Watts
led him to want to know andunderstand more about the black experience, and
it sparked his interest in studying andcollecting African American art. As Bernard explained,
you know, my father and mymother, each in their own way,
(10:24):
had to find their way in theworld through their own roots. And
I think for my father, growingup in Watts, Los Angeles was this
subformative experience for him, and itin turn informed a lot of my thinking
about my role as an art collectorand a patron, because I was very
interested in sort of using my father'sheritage as a starting point for exploring conversations
(10:52):
with artists of African descent about issueslike family, about race, about nation,
about what it means to be blackin America, what it means to
grow up black in America. We'llbe right back after these messages. Welcome
back to the show. My guests, doctor Carita L. Brown and Charlie
(11:13):
Palmer, authors of The New BrowniesBook, A love letter to families,
know well the power of sharing ourhistory with our children. Their book is
a contemporary reimagining of W. E. B. Du Bois's art and literary
magazine, which was called The BrowniesBook, that he created for children in
nineteen twenty to share Black history andcelebrate their identities. The New Brownies Book
(11:35):
is a collection of modern essays,poems, photographs, paintings, and short
stories reflecting on the joy and depthof the Black experience. Kreta and Charlie
joined me on the podcast this seasonand gave a fascinating behind the scenes look
at their creation of the book.I hope they'll have the chance to enjoy
this episode and the book as well. The third and final parenting principle for
the season five rewind is the importanceof knowing yourself. Knowing who you are
(12:00):
as a parent, as a person, knowing a parenting style, Understanding how
the way you a parented impacts thestyle, for better or for worse.
All of this is key to beingable to apparent effectively and with joy.
And as many of my podcast guestsover the years have told me, therapy
can help you know and understand yourselfbetter. So I guess the subtitle of
this parenting principle is the value oftherapy. This season included a lot of
(12:24):
conversation about mental health, our ownand that of our children. I had
particularly good and helpful discussions about thevalue of therapy with my guests David McGee
and Ruth Horrie. I am abig fan of seeking help whenever you need
it, and I love when myguests talk about how valuable they found therapeutic
help to be. David McGhee wasone of them. David is the chief
(12:45):
executive officer of the Steve Fund,an organization which supports the mental health and
emotional well being of young people ofcolor. David and I spent time talking
about how the Steve Fund helps studentsfind the mental health services they need.
And David also brought up his personalrelyfing so on therapy as a means of
maintaining his mental well being. Right, so let me just you know,
let that particular cut out the bag. Having a therapist that I can just
(13:09):
connect to, especially as an AfricanAmerican male, especially as a father,
especially as a husband, is justviotally important. I was so happy to
hear this, and you know,I had some follow up questions. We
talked about how to break the stigmathat surrounds mental health and Black communities.
Okay, therapy, you are singingmy song, you are speaking my language.
(13:31):
I love hearing you say that asan African American man, having a
therapist is important. Why can't welook at therapy like personal trainers, Like
I mean, I imagine that inyour practice, both before and through this
defund, you continue to promote theuse of therapy. Yeah, yeah,
(13:54):
so yeah, I think you raida great question. I think a lot
of it may be cultural, right, what happens in this house stays in
this house, those types of things. But I also would love for us
to just practice, you know,therapy as a prerequisite for whatever it is
we're trying to accomplish, right Likeoftentimes we're so rooted and grounded in ourselves
(14:16):
and our perspectives, you know,like sometimes we get in our own way.
But at least for me, therapyhas been a prerequisite for whatever it
is that I'm navigating in life.Not as if I need someone else to
solve it for me. But welive in a world and in the time
where things are just extremely complex.The amount of information that we're taking in
(14:37):
is unlike any other time in ouryou know, in our lifetime. So
just dissecting that and unpacking that hasbeen helpful, helpful for me. But
African American man, we won't evengo to the doctor when we're supposed to,
so let alone, you know,a therapist. So more of us
just need to talk about it andnormalize and reduce the stigma. Ruth Hory,
(14:58):
a child welfare consult and talked withme about how getting therapy for herself
was key to managing her daughter,Olivia's mental health crisis. When Olivia,
who had suicidal thoughts, was notresponding well to therapy, Ruth went in
a different direction to get help.I was working with an organization called We
Run Brownsville, and they had adifferent approach to therapy, and so they
(15:24):
felt, if you healed the mom, you heal a household. And I'm
like, there, that's it.That's it right there. And so I
went to therapy. And so onceI got to start digging up some of
the fears I had, you know, like I had a child at fourteen,
so I had a the bar waslike, okay, let him get
(15:46):
past fourteen. I get right,And so I had to work on my
fears of you know, sometimes yougotta let Olivia figure it out, and
it's like, nobody but do that. This is gonna happen. That's it
can escalate so quickly, and yeah, so she had to work with me,
and then they pulled Olivia in sothat I was well aware of how
(16:06):
this was gonna look and what Ineeded to do and how to operate as
a teen parent or young adult.It's different. They don't just need something
to watch, something to entertain themin a clean diaper. This is intense
and each child is different. Whereasmy oldest child she kind of like,
you know, just float through life, you know, and then she did.
She had her moments, but itwas maybe once a year. And
(16:30):
so within Olivia is the carbon copyof me. This child I'm speaking about
is me, and so I getit. I understand and it was what
I challenged myself with in life.We have to figure this out. We
have to and so through the therapyand me being able to stand firm,
I was able to help her.I am so grateful to Ruth and David
(16:55):
for talking with me about the valueof therapy in their lives, and I
hope this stories inspire parents to thinkseriously about therapy as an important tool in
their parenting toolkit. We had twoguests from our very first season returned for
a second visit. ABC News journalistDeborah Roberts, who talked with us about
the power of great teachers and herbook Lessons Learned and Cherished The Teacher who
(17:15):
Changed My Life, and filmmaker Cristelmacquarie McGuire, who came back to talk
about her new tech venture with herson, Orlando Magic point guard Cole Anthony.
When we last visited with Cristel onthe podcast, her son Cole was
in college working hard on his passionfor basketball. Since then, his NBA
hoop dreams have come true, andhe and his mom have created an app
(17:37):
to help parents navigate the world ofyouth basketball and support their kid's own hoop
dreams. And that is the rapfor season five of Ground Control Parenting with
Carol Sutton Lewis. If you've caughtall the episodes this season, I hope
you've enjoyed them and that they've helpedyou reflect on your parenting strengths and challenges.
If you haven't heard them all,I hope this Rewhine encourages you to
(17:57):
catch up on any you've missed untilwe're back with season six. Please take
a look through all the seasons andcheck out any episode you may have missed.
I send out a newsletter with parentingtopics, info and updates regularly in
the off season, which I'd loveto send to you. If you're interested,
head to ground hutel parenting dot com, click on Let's Connect at the
top of the site and send meyour info. And as I say at
(18:19):
the end of every episode, ifyou like what you've heard, please subscribe,
rate and review where you find yourpodcasts, and tell your friends I'm
Carol Sutton Lewis. Thanks so muchfor listening and take care
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