10/14/2022
So this one really blew my mind! My co-parent and I decided against corporal punishment, but that decision didn’t come easily. We were both raised with “pow pow” and “s***kings”, and in all honesty we both held a close belief that we “needed” it growing up! Culturally and religiously, s***king was thought to be out of an effort of love! ♥️
As parents we desperately LOVE our babies, and want to do the right thing to help them grown into functional, socially integrated human beings!
Can I get an amen? 😆
However, with much support and convincing we jumped off the s***king train and joined the gentle parenting journey.
This is not to say we didn’t have many family meetings and parent powwows- we DEFINITELY did, and still do!
But our son’s behavior started to drastically shift for the better in school! He began to come home and open up to us about his concerns and experiences in school, which gave me the opportunity to patiently explain more about the context of each situation as well as provide him with tools to better navigate his emotions.
So instead of punishing and yelling when August didn’t “meet the mark” at school, we opened conversation and allowed space for his big emotions! He was able to soothe with my assistance, his mind regained access to his developmental executive functioning, and he started solving more problems at school on his own with less time needed to calm down and with fewer consequences.
He started to become excited about school again! The very best feeling!
The take away for me was that my little boy deserves to have big emotions, regardless of his gender. In fact, he had them regardless. The difference was that we created a safe space for him to process those emotions. When we would s***k or provide heavy punishment, he did not feel emotionally safe and felt very hurt/abandoned during times he needed our support the most.
For me, I was able to see my son as the innocent and ambitious young boy I always knew him to be, and got to focus more on celebrating his wins! 💫
