Ep 13 Decolonizing Discipline: Replacing Punishment with Boundaries & Accountability

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] NV: Sawadee ka, and welcome to the Come Back to Care podcast. I am your host, Nat Nadha Vikitsreth, a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, somatics and social justice practitioner, and founder of Come Back to Care. Adopt connector, norm agitator and lover of liberation. 

If you're on a journey to transform your daily parenting into a social justice practice that nurtures your child's development and promotes intergenerational family healing, I am so glad that you're here. On this podcast, we explore how social justice, child development science, parenting, and family systems intersect with one another. If you've been looking for ways to align your parenting with a social justice values, you're in the right place. Together, we find our way back to our true home. We come back home to our body and the goodness within. We come back to our lineage and come back to care together. So come curious, and come as you are. Let's move at the speed of care, and let's do this.

[EPISODE]

Welcome to Episode 13 of the Come Back to Care Podcast.

This episode is part 2 of our discipline series. In this episode, you and I are going to explore the ways that our society’s obsession with violence and punishment can get played out in our parenting unknowingly, especially when we discipline our children.

Because discipline isn’t about being punitive - tantrums can be rich teachable moments for your child to navigate their intense feelings while knowing that you love them. And they can also provide a fertile opportunity for you to flex your social justice action muscles and practice power-with and accountability instead of control, coercion, and dominance that you might not want in your own home.

I know you’re here because you care deeply about equity, justice, and liberation. I feel so honored to connect the dots between social justice action and daily parenting practice with you. Because I believe that when you’re supported and grounded, you can integrate and practice social justice action in whatever you do, parenting included.

But before we can begin to re-imagine a culture that’s not driven by white supremacist and colonial ideas of dominance, control, and violence, we need to see clearly with our own eyes what kind of water we’ve been swimming in and what kind of air we’ve been breathing.

What better place to start than medieval England? Yes, that time when torture was a public spectacle. Resmaa Menakem, the author of My Grandmother’s Hands and my teacher, wrote quote “Did over ten centuries of medieval brutality, which was inflicted on white bodies by other white bodies, begin to look like culture? Did this intergenerational trauma and its effects end with European immigrants’ arrival in the New Word?” end quote.

I wonder how this intergenerational legacy of violence contributed to the violence of genocide and land theft when Columbus arrived on Turtle Island in 1492.

I wonder how this intergenerational legacy of violence justified white bodies to strip away indigenous languages, traditions, spiritual practices, clothing, foods, medicines, and ways of being because they were deemed "wrong" and "uncivilized."

And I wonder how this legacy of violence gets repackaged and reformed in the present day as police brutality, immigration surveillance, land extraction, labor exploitation, the prison industrial complex, or even our cancel culture.

The water we swim in has many shades of violence that are historical, structural, and persistent.

I wonder how different home eviction is from preschool expulsion when both types of punishment share deep roots in capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.

The water we swim in has people shame and cancel one another in the name of accountability. It has people dehumanize non-white bodies in the name of neighborhood safety. It says those bodies who can produce labor for capitalism are desirable and those fat, queer, trans, and disabled bodies are disposable.

Given our daily immersion in this violence -- in the water we swim in -- I wonder how much of that violence seeps into our home, our parenting, our family’s relationships and communication, and our children’s understanding of the world.

According to Bowenian family therapy, a family dynamic is an enactment of larger social and cultural ideals. The microsystem of family and the macrosystem of society are connected.

For example, when harm happens, we immediately punish the person who caused harm by locking them away. We immediately shame and reflexively blame, and that carries the urgency to punish. We don’t ask why that person caused harm to begin with? We don’t get curious about the conditions the person was in leading up to the incident, for example the daily violence of poverty, houselessness, lack of community, lack of access to therapy, healthcare, and so on.

Marshall Rosenberg, a psychologist and author of Nonviolent Communication, wrote quote “violence is the tragic expression of unmet needs.” End quote.

We bring that in our home when we reflexively put our toddler in a time out or our older children in detention without examining what the unmet needs underneath their meltdowns could be, like we discussed in the previous episode.

And just like I discussed in the previous episode, asking “what are the unmet needs?” doesn’t mean we validate our toddlers’ feelings all day and let them run the house. Teaching them to navigate intense feelings, to learn consequences through limit setting and compassion is very different from teaching them to be ashamed of crying, to hold their feelings in and down, and to be obedient out of fear.

Another example is when we take away substances in hopes of solving addiction. By doing so we place the same shame and blame on the users and fall into the trap of “well if you’re more disciplined you can make a choice to stop using.”

If we really unpack the unmet needs underneath most addiction, we would see that sometimes the daily brutality of poverty, houselessness, and other systemic oppression is too much to bear. And often those who experience this oppression are left with too few resources to help cope. So the only option to survive this violence is to numb out using substances, for example. If we’re going to talk about choices, we have to be honest and look at the person’s circumstances as well. Our choices aren’t divorced from our circumstances.

For our little ones, sometimes we take an iPad or a toy away reflexively because they should know better or have better self-control. In our efforts to control them, we might not consider what the unmet needs underneath the meltdown are.  

Ok if your shoulders are up to your ears and you’re not breathing because you’re having an “oh crap” moment of parental guilt because you just put your child in time out yesterday, please take a moment to re-center in whichever way your body needs. Feel your feet on the floor, sigh, hum, stretch, if you’d like. I honor your feelings of guilt, shame, and wherever you’re at. I do [sigh]. I also want to invite you to stay in the complexity and curiosity with me.

I’m not dismissing a discipline strategy like time out, time in, taking toys away, or ignoring tantrums. I believe there’s a time and place for them. And I believe with my whole heart that when you’ve had a chance to eat, to breathe, to re-center for just 10 seconds aka when you feel supported and grounded…I believe you know which discipline strategy to use, when to use it, and how to use it so that discipline is teaching your child the lessons you want them to learn instead of teaching them fear and compliance through violent punishment.

If you’d love to explore more ideas about what to reflect on and try before, during, and after tantrums, I’ve created a free self-guided audio workshop for you. You can sign up at comebacktocare.com/tantrums. T-a-n-t-r-u-m-s. comebacktocare.com/tantrums.  

By taking the time to look at the context or the water we’re swimming in with unflinching honesty, we can see that it’s so hard to swim against the current or the norms of coercion, punishment, dominance, and control. It’s not because you lack the skills or you’re not a good parent. Allow me to repeat: It’s not because you lack the skills or you’re not a good parent. It’s because being intentional and conscious as a decolonized parent takes a lot of work on top of the daily worrying about whether you’ve done enough for your child.

Applying all of this analysis to parenting specifically, I want to share two points. One, about validation and performative parenting and two, about our obsession with obedience.

First let’s talk about validation and performative parenting. Throughout history parents, maternal figures specifically, have been disempowered and devalued. They’ve faced constant demands and pressure from society to replace their love for and connection with their children with rigid quote unquote medical regimen from men in white coats. Remember the outdated belief that a hug will spoil a baby? For more context, I’ve outlined some interesting information in season 1 episode 6. Okay, fast forward to now, many of us are still conditioned to turn away from our inner knowing and intuition in order to religiously follow parenting advice, all 5 bullet points of them, on an Instagram post.

Many parents I’ve worked with often share with me that they constantly feel the internal pressure of “did I do enough for my child?” “am I good enough?” and external pressure from society of “why don’t you try these tips?” “have you used those XYZ?” We’ve been trained at hospitals after delivery to measure how many ounces the baby ate instead of cultivating observations skills to see when the baby is full. We’ve been trained from newborn care classes on how to soothe a crying baby but not on how to watch when the baby shifts state from calm alert to active alert and then to a full cry.

There’s not a lot of space for you as a parent to cultivate your skills to a) listen to your inner voice and b) trust your inner knowing and expertise. So, when your child has meltdowns, you might want to cut that crying or nonsense behavior out right away to appear that you’re in charge, that you have this parenting thing figured out, that you’re actually a good parent.

Do you see the thread here? From systemic oppression’s invalidation of your parenting authority to your invalidation of your child’s emotional expressions during meltdowns.

Let me say it one more time that I’m not saying you want to hurt your child or you don’t love them. Rather, I want to point out that when we’re overwhelmed, we do what we gotta go to make it through to dinner. That means we unknowingly reenact the norms of control and punishment in our parenting because we don’t have any bandwidth to reinvent the wheel or even to align our parenting with our values.

You may end up using control and punishment to appear competent and end up performing parenting to get validation from capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.

But why should we want validation from a system that continues to exploit us? Why should we perform parenting for the oppressors instead of practicing parenting that aligns with our values?

Alright, onward to the second point, our obsession with obedience.

For many of us, based on our intersecting identities, we’re following this logic of violence, domination, and control not for fun but out of survival. Because throughout history anyone who advocates for justice and equity often gets punished for quote unquote disrupting the peace or the status quo.

So when we’re on autopilot, out of love, we’re teaching and training our children to be successful in society by teaching them how to perform their socially constructed labels well- class, race, gender, immigration status, and so on.

For example, Annett Lareau, a sociologist, wrote in her wonderful book, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life, that middle class families teach their children to work around the systems with an implicit expectation that the system is built for them. On the other hand, poor and working class families teach their children to obey the systems to avoid punishment.

When we look at race, the idea of “the talk” usually means different things in white families and in Black families. Back when I just moved here in 2011, the talk for the white families in my preschool classroom was about quote unquote when you hit, you sit. For my Black families, the talk was about police brutality. And this was in a Preschool classroom.

When we look at immigration status, many of the immigrant families I met in my home visiting years taught their children to only speak English to be successful in school and jobs down the line.

When we look at gender, it’s quite easy to see in the colors of clothing and types of toys we buy for a boy vs. a girl.

Out of love and protection, we teach our little ones to conform to these labels and these scripts written by systemic oppression so that they can make it, come out on top, and build their quote unquote security on the backs of the oppressed.

Conforming to the labels trickles down into our home and it looks like obedience.

We glorify politeness. We want our kids to say please and thank you right after they can say mama and dada. We want our children to appear calm, to sit crisscross applesauce. We want our children to hold their feelings in and hold them down because it shows perseverance. We want our kids to know it’s not nice to have boundaries and say what they need because they would impose on others and disturb others. We want them to be obedient because obedience somehow means they’re good children.

So when they disagree with you, they’re disrespectful. Yet we want them to be leaders who speak their minds.

Or when they cry, they’re weak. Yet we want them to be empathic and kind to others.

Or when they rest and play, they’re lazy. Yet we want them to respect their bodies and learn about consent.

When we look at the water we swim in, I hope that we can move shame out of our body and transform it into the energy we need to practice accountability. Accountability where we commit to using our child’s tantrums and meltdowns as opportunities to unsubscribe from the oppressive norms of violence, punishment, and coercion. Because as Kazu Haga wrote quote “you can’t shame someone into transformation.” End quote.

For more information on the specific considerations and actions you can reflect on before, during, and after tantrums, I’ve created a free self-guided audio for you. You can sign up at comebacktocare.com/tantrums. One more time: comebacktocare.com/tantrums.

How are you doing? Are your shoulders creeping up to your ears again? If that parental guilt has returned or it hasn’t left yet, wherever you’re at is okay. Over years of serving families and young children, I’ve seen that each family’s journey to decolonize discipline and to replace punishment with compassion is very unique. I’m curious and excited to hear what your version will look and feel like.

One thing that I hope decolonized discipline will not be is individualistic where you’re going to go off grid and read 15 more books on brain development to improve your skills and be even more effective.

Until we have universal childcare, paid parental leave, accessible perinatal and postpartum care and early childhood education, lactation and feeding support, mental health support, and a system that values children and parents like yourself, we’re all we’ve got.

Instead of reading 15 more books, I hope that you’re in an ecosystem of care filled with those whom you trust and those who can support you to be the parents you know you want to be. So that when you’re supported and centered, you can align your daily parenting, specifically discipline, with your values of compassion and liberation…most of the time.  

So what do you need today to orient your body and nervous system towards wellness, connection, and care, even just for 10 seconds?

Before I hop off, I want to leave with 3 reflection questions for you to flex your discernment and decolonized parenting muscles in moments of your or your child’s meltdowns:

One. Control & Contain: Am I controlling my child or am I helping to contain the emotion explosion so that they feel safe enough to be with their intense feelings?

Two. Punish or Teach: Am I punishing my child for asking for help or am I teaching them how to navigate their intense feelings while knowing they’re loved even when they’re not at their best?

Three: Coerce for Comfort: Am I coercing my child to perform calm for my comfort? Or, can we be in the tension, in the tsunami of tantrums together?

Lastly, please check out the free, self-guided audio workshop so you can design your discipline plan before, during, and after your child’s tantrums in ways that are developmentally informed and decolonized at comebacktocare.com/tantrums.

Thank you so much for being in discomfort, complexity, and curiosity with me today.

In solidarity & sass. Until next time, please take care.