Restorative Parenting, with Sharona Drake-Henderson

(mouse clicking) (gentle music) Headspace Studios. (soft music) (birds chirping) Hi, I'm Sharona 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 Parenting 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 gonna 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 gonna break down what restorative parenting is, how it can help us heal, and why a punitive approach to parenting could miss the mark. Restorative parenting to me goes down to treating people the way you wanna 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 hold 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...