Hi, I'm Sherona Drake Henderson. Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Monday morning. I'm guest hosting Radio Headspace this week, and it's so exciting to be here with you as we kick off our new mindful parents and collection in the app.

So a little bit about me. I'm a content creator that explores modern parenting. I think about and research ways we can improve every aspect of raising children. I want it to be a better process for parents, for our kids and for society.

With that said, this week I'm going to talk to you about something called restorative parenting, the foundation of which is personal growth and community because no one can do this alone.

And if you don't have kids, trust me. These concepts are universally helpful. Today I'm going to break down what restorative parenting is, how it can help us heal and why a punitive approach to parenting could miss the mark.

Restortive parenting to me goes down to treating people the way you want to be treated. A lot of the times we're looking at punitive ways to treat our kids or those who do us wrong, but everyone has something valuable to offer us.

So restorative parenting asks, okay, where did we go wrong? Who's been offended? Who's hurt? Who's done the hurting? And how can we deal with this situation in a way that we don't lose the value that everyone has? But still we hope people accountable to the actions that they take.

For me, restorative parenting comes from a mindset of restorative justice that I have and I take along with me.

I was in Chicago some years back and we had some very tense moments in the city where there were a lot of people protesting, a lot of people out in the streets, a lot of people standing up for justice.

And I was one of those people and we talked about community and how do we restore? And a lot of times when we're the one that might be the oppressor, we judge ourselves off of our intentions and judge others off of their actions, right?

And so for me restorative parenting came into play when I saw myself raising my child like those that I was protesting in the street.

I'm saying I'm here to serve and I'm here to protect you. I'm here to do these things for you and yet every time you make a mistake, I am wanting to pop you or yell at you or be punitive and in that moment, it's like I can't stand for both at the same time.

And so restorative parenting for me is just an overflow of restorative justice of this idea of no matter how someone acts, how do we honor their humanity?

All of us have these layers of trauma that we've gone through in life. And if we're not careful, then we pass down those fears to our kids and they become afraid of things that shouldn't be.

So a lot of times on my social media, I get comments from people that are afraid for my child because I raise them to have an opinion.

I've had people make comments like, well, good luck when the cops find them or good luck when he's shot up and you think that my child having a opinion or me taking time to breathe and regulate my emotions with my child is going to turn into him being on the news.

And that's something that we have to deal with so that we don't parent from a place of fear.

So being restorative many times for the parent says, where can we restore the broken places in us first?

If you want a more restorative household, there are a few things that I would tell you to do.

One of them treat others the way you want to be treated and count your children as others.

Put yourself in their shoes. What is a three year old going through physically, emotionally, hormonally? What is a 15 year old going through?

In that, I think another tip is to ask good questions. How did that make you feel? What makes you happy?

What color do you like? The simple things connecting is very important and not thinking that you know everything just because you've known this child their whole lives, but also remaining curious. That's what the questions are about.

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