I welcome Mercedes Samudio, a licensed psychotherapist, parenting coach, and author of Shame Proof Parenting: Find your unique parenting voice, feel empowered, and raise whole, healthy children.

We discuss parenting styles, how a parent can find their unique parenting style, what a parent should consider when establishing this parenting style, and why it’s important for a parent to find their unique parenting voice.

00;00;04;02 – 00;00;25;05

Dr. Mona

Welcome to season two of the PedsDocTalk podcast. Whether you have listened to the podcast from the beginning or this is your first episode, welcome. Thank you for being here. I started this podcast last year and I’m so excited for season two. For this season, I will continue to interview experts in the field of pediatrics, but I will also be interviewing fellow mothers.

 

00;00;25;07 – 00;00;44;14

Dr. Mona

Getting your perspective on how you handled various concerns with your child. Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel, PedsDocTalk TV, where I will be sharing educational content in a fun and easy to digest way. Make sure to share these podcast episodes on your social media channels. Write a review and follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram.

 

00;00;44;16 – 00;00;58;08

Dr. Mona

Episode 48 is up next. The importance of finding your unique parenting voice.

 

00;00;58;10 – 00;01;26;01

Dr. Mona

Hello and welcome back to the PedsDocTalk. For the first episode of 2021, I am welcoming Mercedes, who is a licensed psychotherapist, parenting coach, and author of Shame Proof Parenting and also my fellow classmate from UCLA. So I am so excited to welcome her today to talk about finding your own parenting voice, which she talks about in her book and also with her clients as well.

 

00;01;26;05 – 00;01;29;11

Dr. Mona

Thank you so much for being here today, Mercedes.

 

00;01;29;14 – 00;01;31;13

Mercedes Samudio

Thank you so much for having me.

 

00;01;31;16 – 00;01;37;26

Dr. Mona

So tell me a little bit more about yourself. What brought you to write your book, Shame Proof Parenting.

 

00;01;37;28 – 00;02;12;08

Mercedes Samudio

So I have been in the field of mental health and social work for, I would say like over a decade. And one of the things that I noticed more than anything was even when we’re working with children, we don’t always know how to support the parents and the caregivers who are caring for the children. And I started to notice there were these gaps between the parents and caregivers getting the information that they needed, but then having struggles and difficulties with executing it or being consistent and executing it.

 

00;02;12;10 – 00;02;41;04

Mercedes Samudio

And when I started to look at is what’s in that gap between getting the information and executing it. And while I feel like there are a lot of things that are in that gap, one of the things that I noticed more times than not was the shame that parents feel, the shame that they put on themselves because they have such high expectations for how they’re supposed to be raising a child, but also the shame that other people in our society puts on parents to raise a perfect child.

 

00;02;41;06 – 00;03;11;24

Mercedes Samudio

And so shampoo parenting really came out of this desire to share a framework for parenting that is not like a step by step ABC idea to get your child to be perfect, but it’s more about looking at the relationship with yourself, the relationship you have with your own story, and the shame that comes with it. And if you’re using both of those, or the awareness from both of those stories to really inform how you raise your child and how you help them become healthy humans.

 

00;03;11;24 – 00;03;14;20

Mercedes Samudio

Not perfect humans, but healthy humans.

 

00;03;14;22 – 00;03;31;18

Dr. Mona

And that is why I was so excited to have you on for the first episode of 2021, because the things that you’re talking about are so important for modern parents especially, you know, in this day and age with social media, I’m finding that parents are experiencing that shame not only from loved ones, but from strangers on the internet.

 

00;03;31;19 – 00;03;49;14

Dr. Mona

You know, if they have a social media presence or just neighbors. And everyone seems to always have a comment, and it can make it hard for a parent to find their voice and find their parenting style that basically fits their needs and the needs of their child when they’re trying to drown out all the noise that’s coming at them.

 

00;03;49;15 – 00;03;57;04

Dr. Mona

So I can’t wait to talk to you more about this. So how can a parent find their unique parenting style?

 

00;03;57;06 – 00;04;20;11

Mercedes Samudio

So I think it’s more so not just about looking at a unique parenting style. It’s really actually looking at who you are as a person. One of the main things that I talk about when I’m looking at shampoo, parenting or parenting in general is what’s your parenting identity? Who are you? Right. Oftentimes, parents forget that they have lived a life full of experience and wisdom prior to having a child.

 

00;04;20;18 – 00;04;45;17

Mercedes Samudio

And so really thinking about who have I become as a result of my life? The good, the bad, the ups and downs? What’s my philosophy on children? What’s my philosophy on helping someone be a healthy human? All of those things are actually going to lay the foundation for the types of parenting choices and decisions that you make. And so I oftentimes will say, don’t worry about a style, because most parents are pretty eclectic.

 

00;04;45;17 – 00;05;11;06

Mercedes Samudio

They pull from different, elements. They pull from different ideologies. But really looking at who are you and how do you actually want to raise a healthy human? One of my my favorite questions to ask my parents is what was your vision for your parenting? Because I think it really gives us a good foundation for who are they and how did they want their parenting or their caregiving to look?

 

00;05;11;09 – 00;05;28;25

Dr. Mona

That is great. And, you know, before we recorded this, I had talked to you about parenting styles. And there is a lot obviously, there’s a lot of parenting styles because people find their own as you, as you’re talking about. But when you look online or you look at some of the older literature, they talk about the four main types of parenting styles.

 

00;05;28;25 – 00;05;49;26

Dr. Mona

And I know, I know, we discuss how that’s not always, you know, something that we we like to like to promote because it can be so many different things within those styles. But the authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and uninvolved parenting styles, what are your thoughts about those four traditional quote unquote parenting styles, and how can a parent maybe, look at those styles to find one of their own?

 

00;05;49;28 – 00;06;16;16

Mercedes Samudio

So the thing that no one really talks about with those is that every parent that I’ve ever met and uses all four of them, and they use all four of them for different reasons. So oftentimes that authoritarian kind of style comes out when they’re really trying to, you know, keep the the control of the family. There’s probably a lot of behavior issues going on, and they’re trying to kind of make sure everyone stays in line.

 

00;06;16;18 – 00;06;38;21

Mercedes Samudio

I think sometimes the uninvolved parent happens as children kind of develop their own autonomy, and you start to notice that your head knows what they’re doing. So you might just kind of let them do whatever sometimes, or you’re just tired and you don’t have any energy to fail and stop everyone from doing things. I think permissive parenting happens again because it’s hard to have to care for someone 24 seven.

 

00;06;38;21 – 00;06;55;26

Mercedes Samudio

And so there may be times, and I’ve heard this a lot from parents, especially, with the last year that we’ve had, we’re parents just sometimes let them eat chocolate candy for breakfast, because it’s easier than trying to get them all up and eat the right healthy foods. And then lastly, authoritative, which is usually like the gold standard.

 

00;06;55;26 – 00;07;22;08

Mercedes Samudio

You want to be equal parts open and give, healthy boundaries, but you also want to have some semblance of rules and kind of limits for your child. And I think there are times when parents do that really effectively too. And so what I what I say all that to say, it’s really important for parents not to say I have to be a daughter authoritative or I’m too permissive, but to really pay attention to where you done all for.

 

00;07;22;14 – 00;07;39;03

Mercedes Samudio

And how do you feel about that? Do you want to make some changes in those areas, or do you feel like that’s okay? I don’t mind being permissive about this or being a little authoritarian about this, but there are times when I’m okay being really authoritative and just kind of letting it happen as it needs to.

 

00;07;39;05 – 00;07;59;08

Dr. Mona

And the reason why I think this is so great is that when you look at every different type of parenting style and of course, these are just four. There’s so many different branches and so many different labels that have come out, you know, in this modern parenting age, when you start to say, okay, I am a authoritative parent or I am a attachment parent, you know, there is obviously attachment parenting.

 

00;07;59;10 – 00;08;18;04

Dr. Mona

It it can put a lot of pressure when you are trying to do something different, or your child may need something different. And I think that’s why I think it’s so important that we find this voice in that your child may not, in that moment, like you said, be needing an authoritative parent. They may need something more permissive or something more uninvolved, quote unquote.

 

00;08;18;04 – 00;08;34;06

Dr. Mona

If you’re going to put labels on this. But that is so key. And I find, you know, especially with very, with parenting styles that have become so, so rigid in a way, it’s like, well, if I don’t meet this checklist and I am not a such and such parent, and I’m a failure when it’s not like that.

 

00;08;34;06 – 00;08;47;05

Dr. Mona

So this episode is really talking about finding your voice and then also understanding that you can find, different aspects of different parenting styles to find your own, you know, own one that works for your child.

 

00;08;47;07 – 00;09;08;01

Mercedes Samudio

And I think that that’s something that is really important to pay attention to with your parenting, especially if you’re parenting more than one child, because every child needs something different. Every child’s personality is different, and the way to explain to parents is this think about your own friend groups, right? The people that you really like to spend time with.

 

00;09;08;02 – 00;09;25;11

Mercedes Samudio

Each of them is different, and the way that you approach them about certain topics, or the way they even bring up certain topics, you change that because you’re a chameleon and you flip and you don’t care, but because you understand that, okay, this friend is more this way. So when I talk to her about certain topics, this is how it should sound.

 

00;09;25;17 – 00;09;44;19

Mercedes Samudio

Or this friend is more like this. So when I talk to them about certain topics, this is how I should do things. The same thing actually you can do with your kids and helping them to understand that, right? That well, the reason why I talk to Mona is because she thinks this way, but maybe she thinks this way, and this is why she has these chores.

 

00;09;44;22 – 00;10;04;25

Mercedes Samudio

It helps kids to actually start to learn a little bit more about how to tolerate difference, how to tolerate that things aren’t always going to be evenly matched or quote unquote, fair. And then it allows you, as a parent, to pay attention to the fact that each one of your children is different and you can respond to them differently, and you can manage them in different ways.

 

00;10;04;28 – 00;10;14;07

Dr. Mona

I agree. What else should a parent consider when establishing their parenting style? What other tips would you have for them when they’re trying to make sense of all this information?

 

00;10;14;09 – 00;10;44;08

Mercedes Samudio

I think the first step for anything is to really journal. What is it that I love about my parenting? What do I like about my parenting? What do I dislike about my parenting? And then finally, what do I want to change? I think starting there gives you a very unique starting point, so you’re not starting at the same place every other parent is starting with, because every parent has different, unique challenges.

 

00;10;44;10 – 00;11;04;22

Mercedes Samudio

And so if you start off with those four questions, it actually helps you to really suss out, what do I really want to change? What do I really, actually love about my parenting and feel good about? And I think sometimes we focus too much on okay parenting to change appearance. And to do this, we don’t also focus on what are you are good at, what do you feel confident in?

 

00;11;04;23 – 00;11;26;08

Mercedes Samudio

Because those things you can use to support yourself in those times when things are not going so well, you can remind yourself what I’m really good at listening to my kids, or I’m really good at organizing things in my home or whatever else you’re good at, but also paying attention to things that maybe you’re not great at, or things that maybe you don’t like to have to do so much.

 

00;11;26;14 – 00;11;43;00

Mercedes Samudio

We have to start looking at parenting as this kind of linear thing and realize that not only is it a fluid experience, it’s an experience that grows and shifts and changes as you become more aware of yourself and as your children become more aware of themselves.

 

00;11;43;03 – 00;11;54;03

Dr. Mona

What would you say from your experience? Would be a common mistake. You see, in, new parents or even experienced parents make when approaching, parenting.

 

00;11;54;05 – 00;12;15;08

Mercedes Samudio

I see them make a lot of mistakes in trying to do whatever they think is the thing that’s going to stop them from failing too bad so they can be back on whatever the new current parenting, you know, bad is, or they’ll pick up in the parenting book and just start reading it and trying to shoehorn themselves into that space.

 

00;12;15;10 – 00;12;42;05

Mercedes Samudio

And again, on one hand, I know we do this because there’s no rulebook with parenting. And so you want something that says, if you do it this way, it’ll work. But what I’ve noticed is the parents who get comfortable in the uncertainty of what it means to get to know themselves as a parent and to get to know their child, the ones who can learn how to do that, the ones who can find a healthy tribe of people that can also sit through it with them.

 

00;12;42;10 – 00;13;15;17

Mercedes Samudio

Those are the ones who actually figure out their own unique parenting style and their own unique voice. They don’t beat themselves up as much because they know that each and every thing that they try is giving them more information for how they like to do things that are next time. And so I think that biggest mistake is trying to do it right the first time, trying to read someone else’s philosophy and shoehorn yourself into it, because then it creates a really false sense of who you are, and it’s hard to figure out what you want to change or what you want to do, even when you don’t even know who you are, what your values

 

00;13;15;17 – 00;13;17;11

Mercedes Samudio

are about raising a child.

 

00;13;17;13 – 00;13;27;16

Dr. Mona

And why is it so important? Why do you think, you know, obviously you wrote this amazing book, that we encourage parents to find their unique parenting voice.

 

00;13;27;18 – 00;13;56;12

Mercedes Samudio

I think it’s really important because that’s the piece of your parenting that no one else can do for you, right? There’s no book. There’s no manual on how you’re going to show up uniquely in your parenting space. And this is really important because I also talk a lot about the lack of diversity in the parenting space. And so many of the prominent books were written by white women who had more influence in a lot of the parents who were coming into the world right now.

 

00;13;56;14 – 00;14;20;02

Mercedes Samudio

And so I so when we focus on just those spaces, we’re actually ignoring a huge set, identities and ethnicities and races who aren’t being represented in these parenting philosophies. And so that’s even more, of a reason for you to really sit back and say, who am I? How does my culture affect the way I parent? How does my life experience affect the way I parent?

 

00;14;20;02 – 00;14;39;27

Mercedes Samudio

How does my feeling or lack of healing affect the way that I’m going to be a parent? There’s no book that can actually establish all of that for you unless you’ve written your own memoir about your life. But other than that, you’ve really got to do some of that deeper stuff. Who am I and how do I want to teach my child how to be healthy?

 

00;14;40;01 – 00;14;44;14

Mercedes Samudio

And so finding your unique parenting voice allows you to do that.

 

00;14;44;20 – 00;14;49;16

Dr. Mona

So tell me more about how parenting can be influenced by culture.

 

00;14;49;18 – 00;15;16;14

Mercedes Samudio

So one of the things that I think is really important to pay attention to is that before this parenting field became a thing, people had to raise children, which means that there are all types of people who raise children. I think in the past, we’ve had more of a community feel where there were more than one people in your community who would help you with your child, but now I think things have just changed where we’re more distended thanks to the global pandemic, we’re even more distant from each other.

 

00;15;16;20 – 00;15;38;24

Mercedes Samudio

And so that’s one way that parenting has changed. We don’t have as much support. We don’t have as much help anymore. When we look at things ethically and racially. There are a lot of ethnic and racial, parenting strategies that some are really helpful and useful and still a little outdated and go against what we currently know about how children develop.

 

00;15;38;27 – 00;16;09;02

Mercedes Samudio

However, it’s still so important for us not to judge those outdated and maybe, older ideas because those ideas are embedded in a culture. It’s not just about do we care about the safety of children. It doesn’t mean that actually many cultures raise children a certain way because they do care about children. They don’t understand the far reaching, maybe, you know, consequences of what they’re doing, but they’re thinking initially, I’m going to care for this child.

 

00;16;09;07 – 00;16;32;05

Mercedes Samudio

So when I think about black parents or brown parents or any other type of parent who might use parenting strategies that we do not, we that we know now can create long lasting trauma when we try to understand those parents. The first question you want to ask is this. Tell me how that parenting strategy is helping your child do whatever it is you want them to do.

 

00;16;32;10 – 00;17;00;23

Mercedes Samudio

If it goes into helping them be more disciplined, how is that parenting strategy helping them be more disciplined? How’s it working? Are you noticing a change in their ability to follow instructions or stop at the boundary you set for them? I like to ask these questions because it’s not about demonizing a parenting style, it’s about actually helping parents figure out what are the set of strategies I need to help my child learn the concepts that I want them to learn.

 

00;17;00;25 – 00;17;31;13

Mercedes Samudio

Other ideas that come out of that as well is there are a lot of there’s a lot of oppression and discrimination for different cultures. And so some parents have to parent on an extra layer of teaching their child about that discrimination in that oppression. And so there are no parenting books that talk about how do I teach my child how to manage oppression, how do I teach my child how to manage discrimination when they’re a child of color, or they’re living in a world that still to this day, doesn’t know how to handle difference and uniqueness?

 

00;17;31;15 – 00;18;01;07

Mercedes Samudio

And so when I say there’s no I mean, that’s starting to change. It hasn’t been in the past. It’s not the norm. And I honestly say most of the parenting books that are out there that are very prominent and, popular don’t have any mention of what it means to be someone of a diverse identity, whether it’s your race, your gender, your sexual orientation, your spirituality, any of those differences, we’re not really talking about how they influence the ways in which parents raise healthy children.

 

00;18;01;09 – 00;18;16;24

Mercedes Samudio

We don’t think about those things. And so we really have to start paying attention to how they influence the way we see ourselves. Because parents are human, they’re raising human children. And all of these different identities and cultures influence the way we show up as humans.

 

00;18;16;26 – 00;18;31;25

Dr. Mona

It’s just so, so different, and there’s just so many different ways that we can approach it and so many different ways that we can evolve as parents. What would be your final message for new parents trying to navigate this modern parenting world?

 

00;18;31;28 – 00;18;49;12

Mercedes Samudio

I always say this, and I’ll continue to say I should probably just put on a shirt. Parenting is a marathon. It’s not a sprint, right? There’s not a single time in your life where you will not be someone’s parent. Even if your kid grows up and stops talking to you like you’re still their parent, they’re just not talking to you.

 

00;18;49;15 – 00;19;12;20

Mercedes Samudio

And so what I often tell my parents is this. Yes, the first 18 years of life mattered because it’s the most time that you’ll be able to spend over your child, making sure they do things, but understanding that every single aspect of your parenting and of your work with your child is part of that bigger journey. And so don’t tell yourself I just because at two years old, you forgot to do something.

 

00;19;12;20 – 00;19;35;02

Mercedes Samudio

You’ve ruined them for life because they’re still in your life, and you get to talk to them and you get to apologize and you get to have discussions about it, and you get to work through it together. And so if you don’t remember anything else, remember that parenting is a marathon. It’s a journey. You always will have an opportunity to go back and repair whatever it was that you feel your child feels.

 

00;19;35;02 – 00;19;38;01

Mercedes Samudio

Didn’t work out the best between you two.

 

00;19;38;03 – 00;19;59;29

Dr. Mona

And that, I think, is that motto of your shame proof parenting. Because you know that that is the feeling that I see a lot of modern parents have right now, and that I didn’t do this and my child is ruined. It’s so hard to see as a pediatrician who’s into child health, you know, children’s health and wellness. And obviously, I’m sure for you as a parenting expert, you’re like, no, I want you to remember that there are ways to change this, that you’re not ruining your child.

 

00;19;59;29 – 00;20;21;20

Dr. Mona

The fact that you even care about not ruining your child, you know, shows that you actually are, you’re in a good spot. So, Mercedes, this book is called Shame Proof Parenting. Finding your unique Parenting Voice. Feel empowered and raise whole, healthy children. I’m going to link it on the show notes of this episode, but is there anything else you wanted to add today, Mercedes, before we end this call?

 

00;20;21;22 – 00;20;43;03

Mercedes Samudio

Sure. One other thing that I do outside of doing the parenting work is I also work with parenting professor Reynolds and mental health professionals as well, to help them be better at engaging with parents and engaging with families, as well as starting to pay attention to the unique needs of different cultures and different identities within the family structure.

 

00;20;43;11 – 00;21;00;16

Mercedes Samudio

And so that I actually do through my nonprofit called Diversity and Parenting Incorporated. And so, if you go to the website Diversity in Parenting or if you can learn more about the work that I’m doing to really change the way we support and help heal diverse families.

 

00;21;00;19 – 00;21;11;07

Dr. Mona

I couldn’t agree more. And I know you have a diversity of parenting conference that you usually host. Obviously now with the pandemic, you had to, reschedule it. But. Correct.

 

00;21;11;10 – 00;21;38;00

Mercedes Samudio

Yes, yes. And so that was the whole point, the whole point of that conference and the nonprofit that goes with it, diversity and Parenting incorporated. The whole point is to bring more awareness to those issues, bring more awareness to not just how parents raise children who have different, diverse identities, but we also need to change the landscape of the experts in the parenting speakers who are out there and the teachers who are out there.

 

00;21;38;00 – 00;21;56;09

Mercedes Samudio

We also need to see more diversity in that space, too, because as I’m sure you understand, as a person of color, representation matters. If there’s no one who looks like you doing any of these task, it’s harder to connect, which means that it’s going to be harder for me to implement it. So we need to have more experts of color.

 

00;21;56;09 – 00;22;03;07

Mercedes Samudio

We need to have more speakers of color. Talking about the unique aspects of living within a certain cultural identity.

 

00;22;03;10 – 00;22;27;23

Dr. Mona

Mercedes, thank you again so much for joining us. I’m going to be attaching links to my show notes so that you can check out her book and her resources, as well as her nonprofit, and I hope to actually be at Diversity and Parenting Conference in the future. But again, thank you again for just increasing the awareness and importance of diversity in parenting, because I think that is the key to also help reduce shame in parenting as well.

 

00;22;27;23 – 00;22;28;26

Dr. Mona

So thanks again.

 

00;22;29;01 – 00;22;30;19

Mercedes Samudio

Thank you so much for having me.

 

00;22;30;22 – 00;22;50;10

Dr. Mona

Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. I hope you guys enjoyed it. As always, please leave a review, share it with a friend, comment on my social media and if you’re not already, follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram. Love doing this for all of you. Have a great rest of your week. Take care. Talk to you soon!