How Decolonized Parenting Supports You and Your Child's Self-Worth with Yolanda Williams
— EPISODE 46 —
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As I’m transitioning into motherhood, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to parent and what kind of parent and mom I want to be for my child.
So, it’s the perfect time to speak with someone who is a mother, who thinks about conscious parenting, and who is passionate about decolonizing parenthood.
Today’s Unconditionally Worthy guest is Yolanda Williams, a Conscious Parenting Coach, Social Justice Instructor, Host of Parenting Decolonized Podcast, and most importantly a single mom to one amazing toddler. Yolanda empowers parents with tools to be more intentional, conscious parents in order to raise the next generation of emotionally well, liberated free-thinkers and in the process, form deeper more intentional relationships with their children.
In this episode, Yolanda and I highlight her self-worth journey and the powerful lessons about communication and boundaries she has learned along the way, as well as how decolonized parenting can support you and your child’s self-worth.
Yolanda believes that parenthood is a training ground for modeling and teaching your kids to behave and communicate in relationships. When we’re in the practice of affirming our own self-worth and communicating our needs and feelings to each other, with the awareness that we deserve to be treated well, our children will recognize that as the norm. This makes it so much easier to have constructive conversations, instead of feeling triggered when we feel our self-worth wavering. “We have to model for them conflict resolution, we have to model for them boundary-setting, and part of boundary-setting is communicating when a boundary is crossed or that you have this boundary to begin with,” Yolanda says.
If you haven’t been raised to be a conscious communicator and set boundaries for yourself and your kids, you might consider going to therapy or you might just benefit from taking a moment to think before reacting to or engaging with someone. “We have a lot of unlearning to do and we have to do that unlearning as we’re parenting,” Yolanda says, “and we have to model as we unlearn and this stuff is hard.”
Oftentimes, we see parents consumed with frustration when their toddler crosses a boundary that they don’t even know exists. In moments like this, we have to recognize that toddlers are in a phase where they’re testing boundaries in a curious way, not a disrespectful way.
The first step to conscious parenting is acknowledging what you need to heal from… and children will most definitely pull that out of you.
Kids will bring to light the parts of you that are unhealed. You’ll then be forced to either heal or revert to “old school” parenting, which doesn’t allow for any of us to be human. Conscious parenting is about being proactive as opposed to reactive. The more space we can give ourselves between their behavior and our reaction, the more time we have to slow down and be intentional and loving with our reaction moving forward.
We may have strong urges to yell, use harsh discipline, and send our kids to the corner, but we have to fight against that unconscious programming, that survival mode. To fight against that, Yolanda pauses, takes a deep breath, and says something along the lines of “she’s just a baby, she doesn’t know what she’s doing” over and over until her brain recognizes that she’s safe.
Children are constantly learning and experimenting. Thus, they’re going to do some seemingly crazy things, like throw all their food on the ground. We can either get angry at these actions or give ourselves the space and self-compassion to shift our mindset and remember that they are just learning to be human. “There’s always a solution and we just have to be in the mindset to be able to even see it,” Yolanda says. You can always give them less food, put a drop cloth on the floor, or do whatever you need to do to work through the issue until they learn some impulse control.
When we punish a child or say they’re being “bad” for doing things that their brain is telling them to do, that they cannot control, we can be inflicting long-term harm on their self-worth.
The Impact of Colonization on Black Parents and Children & How Decolonizing Parenting Leads Us to a Liberated Life.
Enslavement and colonization have affected us, as Black people, in many ways… and it’s still affecting us, especially as we enter parenthood. Thinking about the impacts of colonization and the intergenerational trauma that has stemmed from it, Yolanda set out on a mission to decolonize parenthood because she didn’t want to pass on this trauma to her daughter. So, she needed to decolonize her mind and become more conscious of her trauma. As she decolonized, divesting as much as she can from the white, capitalist patriarchy, she’s noticed how much more liberated she feels. As she lives a more liberated life, she’s able to enable and empower her child to live a liberated life, just as she was meant to when she entered this world.
“Especially as black people, we have to think about how our parenting is affecting our community. What would it look like if we raised children who knew how to communicate, knew how to advocate for themselves in conscious ways, knew their self-worth, understood that it is important for them to care about their community and to fight for their community? What would our community look like?”
- Yolanda Williams
Yolanda’s Advice for People Who Want to Decolonize Their Parenting of Themselves or Their Children:
Recognize what your trauma is and what you need to heal.
Reconcile with the fact that your parents were or weren’t exactly what you needed them to be. Your parents really did the best that they could given the trauma they endured, the support/lack of support they had, the socio economic issues they faced, and the programming they had from their parents and community.
Seek out community. Many of us never had models for what it means to be a conscious person or parent. Finding people that also strive to be conscious parents will introduce you to helpful tools, resources, and support systems. Yolanda found her community through Facebook.
Identify your triggers. Knowing your triggers will help you see your children as children and be able to react more appropriately.
Ask yourself: Where do you give away your power each day? How are you giving your power away to others and how can you RECLAIM that power in healthy ways?
It’s completely valid to fear for your children’s safety. All of our children deserve better. BUT, we cannot become the oppressor because we are afraid of them being oppressed.
Advocate for yourself AND your children. Be willing to be seen as the uncooperative, angry black parent because you’re not willing to assimilate into what others want you to do. Let your kids see you advocating for yourself and for them (both in public and at home), while modeling what it looks like to “rupture and repair”.
Our children are inherently worthy of contributing to the world and of respect, love, and endless opportunities for prosperity. So, who’s ready to decolonize parenthood with me?
Register for the Rona, Racism, and Radical Parenting Conference (beginning on May 29th): https://bit.ly/RRRPconference
About Yolanda Williams:
Yolanda Williams is a Conscious Parenting Coach, Social Justice Instructor, and most importantly a single Mom to one amazing toddler. Yolanda empowers parents with tools to be more intentional, conscious parents in order to raise the next generation of emotionally well, liberated, free-thinkers and in the process, form deeper more intentional relationships with their children. Through her podcast (Parenting Decolonized), conferences, webinars, and writings, Yolanda curates critical and candid conversations about race, social justice, and parenting with authenticity, truth, and compassion and helps people find tangible tools to create personal and collective transformation.
To connect further with Yolanda Williams:
Visit her website & Listen to her podcast: https://parentingdecolonized.com
Follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prntgdcolonized
Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/prntgdcolonized
Connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parentingdecolonized
Join her Facebook group for Black parents: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CPTime
Watch the full video interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KEiLCFPuYq0
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