Putting Down the Belt: Transforming Discipline with Love and Consequences | Episode 57

In this compelling Falling for Learning Podcast episode, our insightful host T.D.
Flenaugh engages in a transformative conversation with Latoya Nichole Stewart, a conscious parent coach and Putting Down the Belt author. Together, they delve into the profound shift from corporal punishment to thoughtful parenting centered on love and consequences.

Buy the book - Putting Down the Belt https://a.co/d/gpAO5cS
Reach out to Latoya Nichole - https://www.instagram.com/i_think_i_love_my_kids/
https://ithinkilovemykids.com/

In this compelling Falling for Learning Podcast episode, our insightful host T.D. 
Flenaugh engages in a transformative conversation with Latoya Nichole Stewart, a conscious parent coach and Putting Down the Belt author. Together, they delve into the profound shift from corporal punishment to thoughtful parenting centered on love and consequences.

Latoya Nichole shares her journey of moving away from the discipline methods she experienced as a child and transitioning into a more conscious, loving approach. She introduces her book, Putting Down the Belt, and the BELT formula: Breaking biases, Evaluating the situation, Loving through the process, and Thoughtful parenting. This formula offers parents practical strategies for understanding and guiding their children without resorting to physical punishment.

During the interview, Latoya Nichole emphasizes the importance of recognizing age-appropriate behaviors and the need for parents to be more mindful and reflective. She discusses how parents can evaluate situations, understand the underlying issues affecting their children, and implement thoughtful, loving solutions. She also highlights the critical role of positive reinforcement and emotional intelligence in fostering healthier relationships and promoting self-sufficiency in children.

Listeners will gain valuable insights into the challenges and rewards of conscious parenting and learn actionable steps to create a nurturing, supportive environment for their children. This episode is a must-listen for parents, educators, and caregivers seeking to break generational cycles of punitive discipline and build a legacy of love and understanding. 






Conscious Parenting, Thoughtful Parenting, Corporal Punishment Alternatives, Parenting Strategies, Positive Reinforcement, Emotional Intelligence, Generational Health, Child Development,

#ConsciousParenting #ThoughtfulParenting #ParentingTips #PositiveReinforcement #EmotionalIntelligence #ChildDevelopment #BreakingCycles #ParentingAdvice #FallingForLearning #EndCorporalPunishment #ParentingWisdom #NoMoreBelt

Transcript

TD Flenaugh: 0:09

If you're beating your kids, giving whoopings, some type of corporal punishment, you could be ruining them. Our guest today, Latoya Nicole, is the author of a book called putting down the belt, the conscious parenting guide. She is a mother and entrepreneur, and she's going to tell you about her experience in putting down the belt, changing how she was taught as a child and how she started her parenting journey. And so stay tuned so that you can get the information that you need to make sure your kids are on track for learning and stay on track for success and keep that relationship in place too. All right. Hit like, subscribe. Let's get into it. Hi. Thank you so much for joining the following for learning podcast. We have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. We are so glad that you've joined us today. We have, you know, kind of leveled up our production quality. We're using our Ecamm, and we are really excited to have you our last episode that was a solo Episode Two in season two had some technical issues, so we're back to looking grainy, but we've been getting it together. So thank you for joining us here. We're all about elevation, getting better every time. And our guest, Latoya Nicole, is going to really get into some ways that we could change some of that generational kind of practices, bad habits that we've had before. Thank you, Latoya Nicole, thanks so much for joining us. How are you doing today?

Latoya Nichole: 2:02

I'm good. I'm good.

TD Flenaugh: 2:03

Hello, hello. Okay, so can you tell us about and we always ask our guests this, what hooked you into learning, what made you love learning as a kid?

Latoya Nichole: 2:17

Um, the fact that I could have information at my fingertips. Um, honestly, anytime I was bored or needed something to do, it was like, go look something up in the dictionary, go read a book, things like that. So I was always learning. I think I just loved learning. Okay,

TD Flenaugh: 2:41

all right. So that didn't annoy you when they were asking you to do that kind of stuff.

Latoya Nichole: 2:47

Maybe you want to know more?

TD Flenaugh: 2:49

Excellent. Yes, it's all about and how parents do it, right, good. All right. And can you tell us about yourself as you know, a learner over the years. Like your educational journey, your career, we know that you're an entrepreneur,

Latoya Nichole: 3:07

and yes, so educational journey. I grew up, actually as a military brat. I was raised by immigrants. Okay, my mom was born in K and my grandparents, they are actually from Jamaica, and both of them have the reading level. Came to this country with the reading level of third grader, but here we are. I am a product of generational wealth. However, that looks for for for some immigrants, let's see military. Brad, I graduated from high school in New Jersey and joined the military shortly afterwards, because I wanted to keep my benefit. And from there, I took college courses and things like that. But I've never stopped learning. I've never stopped taking in information, especially when it comes to kids, because I'm always around kids. I've always worked with kids, and of course, I have kids of my own. Yeah,

TD Flenaugh: 4:09

so you're a product of generational wealth. I want to go back to that. Tell us a little bit about that.

Latoya Nichole: 4:17

So, um, I say this because when my grandfather first came to this country, he was picking oranges. When he died, he was a homeowner and things like that. So he he left the legacy my grandmother still lives in this in that house to this day. Um, there. They had two children, my mother and her sister. My mom's sister passed, but she left the daughter behind. Yeah, that daughter is currently working on her PhD at John Hopkins,

TD Flenaugh: 4:54

wonderful. Okay, so this is what our show is about, legacy building. So. Yeah, we know that. You know, you came from a history where your family is, you know, has more giving you more than they were given. And I'm sure you're passing that on to your children, which brings us to, you know, putting down the belt. How is that related to legacy building, or, you know, generational health and wealth, right?

Latoya Nichole: 5:24

So, yes, because we do want to pass down generational health as well, as you know, because of the color of our skin, we are affected by slavery. And I think it doesn't matter what color your skin is, I think we're all affected by it, period, especially you beat your kids. It's it was known a practice of using belts or whippings to get people in line to get the desired behavior. But it never worked then, and it still doesn't work now.

TD Flenaugh: 5:56

Okay, alright, so when you were growing up, and you even told me that you started with doing this with your kids, right?

Latoya Nichole: 6:04

Yeah, I used to. I used to beat my kids. I'm not gonna lie. I used to beat them, but I learned that there's a different way to get the desired outcome, and that's through conscious parenting. It's all the knowledge has always been there for me too, because of all the psychology courses and developmental psychology courses that I've taken. So it's like, oh, okay, they are doing age appropriate activities. How do I, as the parents, still give them discipline and boundaries that go alongside of what the desired behavior is or what the punishment if there's punishment that needs to be enacted. So,

TD Flenaugh: 6:54

so hold on. So you're saying, I noticed you didn't say like if they're acting up, you're saying they're doing age appropriate activities, right? So what might some of those age appropriate activities that maybe, if I'm still, you know, I'm still doing what my parents did. I'm whipping my kids, I'm getting that bailed out. What are some of those age appropriate activities we might label as acting up, or, you know, cutting up, or whatever we want to call it.

Latoya Nichole: 7:26

So it's a lot of different things. Most of it is like people always love to say the kids not listening. You have to say things more than one time, but

TD Flenaugh: 7:35

right

Latoya Nichole: 7:37

after the first time of saying that there should be a consequence after the first time, and it's because we're drawing it out. We're saying the same thing over and over and over. The kids are like, Hey, I got a couple of times before mom gets up on our feet, Go. Keep going. Especially with the younger ones, another one, a team might look like they're acting out, because you feel as though they might be talking back to you, when in actuality, they could just be emotional or having an outburst because of something that's going on in their life, and because you're so quick to rule it as them being disobedient, You're not getting to the root of the problem.

TD Flenaugh: 8:24

This is interesting because, yes, we talk about the hormones, the mix of hormones and emotions that teenagers go through, and it is a trying time for the kids and of definitely for the parents. So how are you dealing with that. I'm noticing you say the first time there is a consequence. So what kind of consequence would that look like? Because we're talking about putting down the belt. So what are we doing instead?

Latoya Nichole: 8:52

So, um, this actually gives me a great opportunity to kind of plug my book. Let's plug it. Let's do it. So I have a book called putting down the belt. It is on sale on Amazon. I

TD Flenaugh: 9:06

I got my copy. Go get yours.

Latoya Nichole: 9:10

In the book, there's a worksheet that you can actually use in real time for any issues that you're having. So in the book, I use an acronym, which is belt, which is my formula to help you put down the belt. The B stands for breaking biases. E is for evaluating the situation. L is for love, and T is for thoughtful parenting. And we use this to actually say, okay, my child is having an issue. How do I break the biases surrounding this issue? So say I have a teenager who has emotional outbursts, right? I'm going to look at it. Right? My bias might be, I got a disrespectful child, right? I would never talk to my parents that way. My parents would would knock me into next week if I talk to them like that. That's the bias, right? It is. So when we go down to E evaluating the situation, we might find out that our child might be getting bullied at school. We might find out that maybe because who I'm dating, or maybe because I recently am going through a divorce or something, or we just broke up, or me and the other parent are not getting along, and it is affecting my child. Okay,

TD Flenaugh: 10:47

so we're really thinking about evaluating and maybe even not blaming my child, but looking to see what my role might be in it.

Latoya Nichole: 10:56

Yes, because in conscious parenting, the problem is never the child. The problem is the problem. And a lot of people treat the problem as if it's the child.

TD Flenaugh: 11:04

The problem is never the child, the problem is the problem. Okay, get this book. Okay, I gotta start looking at myself. I might be doing something wrong,

Latoya Nichole: 11:17

or might even find out that, yeah, we might even find out that our child is just acting out because they they miss having time with us. Maybe you're spending more time with the other kids and you're not giving them enough time, right? That's evaluating the situation. Once you're able to evaluate it, like, okay, I can see what's going on. So when you get to the L portion, which is love, you're like, how do I love on my child through this situation? How do I love on my child through this situation? Maybe I need to plan more one on one time with my child. Maybe I need to get my child into counseling. You know, maybe I need to go up to the school, set an appointment with the guidance counselor see what's going on at school. You know, you never know these kids. They have so much going on. And sometimes we're so caught up in our own life that we neglect to understand that they have lives too. Mm, and that's heavy the thoughtful parenting. That's that conscious parenting. I think mindfulness. How do you how do you approach them in that way? So on the worksheet, you actually have a little section where you put in your action plan. So you might say, Okay, now my action plan is, I'm going to plan one on one dates with my child. Once a week, I'm going to go up to the school and make sure that nothing's wrong with my child school wise, you know, okay, talk to my child and say, maybe, you know, give them a audit. I love telling people to audit, audit, audit yourself. Audit yourself. Towards your kids, ask them, What am I doing? I like to go with the negative first. Okay, do to be a better parent to you, because they, if you, if you give them the space and they feel comfortable enough, they will hurt your feelings. So let me,

TD Flenaugh: 13:11

let me just pause for a second, because you do have to really be in a different space, right? Because if you're in this space where I'm just busy. I'm too busy to deal with this, I'm too busy to deal with that, then this isn't gonna work. So I really have to be reflective about myself. So I have to do some work. Like this is my dress. You know, it's easy to pick up that belt, right? Isn't that easy?

Latoya Nichole: 13:37

Look? Um, you

TD Flenaugh: 13:38

want me to take on some blame and everything I gotta take on somebody. Man,

Latoya Nichole: 13:46

yes, you do. You do. But the good thing is, is, after you ask them that, ask them, because after you feeling hurt, you gonna need to hear some good. What am I doing? Good? What do I need to keep doing okay. What do you love about me being being your mom? Okay, that way you feel good about yourself. Okay. Look, it's not all bad. Work over here. But guess what? They still left me. They still okay.

TD Flenaugh: 14:12

Can you take us back to like, what caused this switch for you? Because, as you stated earlier, you already were into it, right? You got weapons at a child, your kids getting weapons, and then somehow you decided to change this. So what changed you? What was the thing?

Latoya Nichole: 14:31

It is, the realization of turning into my mother, as real as that sounds,

TD Flenaugh: 14:40

tell us more about that.

Latoya Nichole: 14:42

I don't want to be my mother. I don't want to be running around the house with the belt in one hand fussing and cussing at everybody. You know how stressful that is. Your blood pressure high? Mm, you stressed out. You got a headache. Hair falling out, all that stuff. All because you want everybody to get in line. And you just the Wicked Witch of the West with the belt. Everybody can get it. But no, that's that's happening there. When we think about it, it's crazy. You see them women that be in the store busting and cussing at their kids, threatening some of them even, even put their hands on their kids in the store. They don't care. But when you're around somebody like that that is stressful to you. You're like, oh my god, like you could do this in so many other ways. There's a big line. There's a big line between the behavior and get in the belt, you have a whole list of other things that you can do before you get to the bell, and that's why I'm here. It's like, okay, there's things that you can do that you can better understand your child. You can correct the behavior and ensure that they don't do it again, and even if they do, guess what? How many times did it take your hard headed behind to figure something out? You know, we all, we look we all hard headed

TD Flenaugh: 16:12

fast. Yes, hold that thought, because we're gonna be on a break and then we're gonna get back to it okay for the United States, 75% of children don't know how to write. Well, add that to the fact that so many people out there are trying to silence the voices of those who have been oppressed and trying to prevent them from telling their story. Who's going to tell your story if your child doesn't know how to write? Well, I have two books to address this issue, the rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook grid tend to make sure that parents know what to do, that educators know what to do to get their children to write better and just not write better, but love to write. Make sure that your next generation could tell their story and they won't be silenced. Go to fallingforlearning.com today to purchase your set. Okay, so we are with Toya Nicole. We're going to continue to talk about how she made the switch from whooping her kids, just like she's been taught as a kid. You know, she got whoopings As a child, many of us did, and she did the same thing with her kids, but she made this switch. How is this different than is conscious parenting and like the gentle parenting the same? Or is there a different?

Latoya Nichole: 17:33

Oh, it is not the same. Actually, I get offended by just a parenting because when you think of gentle parenting, you think of Charlie, stop

TD Flenaugh: 17:44

that, stop that Johnny. Oh my gosh. Stop, Johnny. Stop everybody.

Latoya Nichole: 17:50

Everybody thinks of this when they hear gentle parenting, is that, that lazy parenting, that permissive parenting, you going to say the same thing, there's no discipline, there's no boundaries, you know, but conscious parenting is not that it's about having the boundaries. It's about having emotional intelligence. It knows that kids are going to test the boundaries. Here's how you put a safety device in place, just like when you go bowling. You know, they put the bumpers up. I'm just passing it, the bumper, okay, it's the bumpers for the kids. It's like, Yo, I know you're going to be a kid and you're going to do things that kids do, but I'm your safety net. I'm your safety net.

TD Flenaugh: 18:35

So that, I mean, that's so is it a good analogy? Like to to understand? Can you tell us about, like, maybe some missteps that happened along the way, or some real takeaways that you had as you were doing this, as you've been making the change?

Latoya Nichole: 18:53

So yes, I will always say that I am not a perfect parent, and this is a journey, but I've been in this journey long enough to guide you, and because I used to beat my kids first, I'm better at helping you, because most conscious parenting coaches have not gone through this before, and It's really just being able to, in the moment, just stop and not fuss and cuss and be like, Okay, what is going on in this situation? How do I be smarter than my kid? Because my kid thinks they're smarter than me, not like, seriously, I'm not kidding you. Nine times out of 10 these kids think they're smarter than us. Tell us more. You have to be the one smarter. And a lot of times it's just like, Yo, I gotta understand what my kid is thinking.

TD Flenaugh: 19:50

Wait a minute, what do you mean by they? They think we're smarter. Tell us more. Like, break that down. So

Latoya Nichole: 19:55

you ever, you ever, oh, what's going. It. You know how you tell your kids, go clean go clean your room, right? Clean your room. And, you know, if you will, you you walk away. You tell them, Go clean their room. You walk away, right? You go, do your own thing. Guess what they're doing, not cleaning that room, right, right? Yeah, they're not cleaning that room. And the first thing out your mouth is like, Yo, you want to be like, Did I tell you to clean your room? But guess what? That's not going to get the room clean right. And what stresses you out? It stresses your kid out, right? Instead, you can actually set timers. You can give them a goal list, like, hey, what do you want to do first? You want to clean this up first. You want to not clean this up. Or do you want to clean that up first? And guess what? They're still going to even if you give them tasks before they even get into it. Because my son is so guilty of this. Okay, Mike, look, go clean your room. He gives this whole theatrical performance he's going to get out of cleaning his room. It never works unless I'm in the mood where I'm like, You know what? I don't care, and I let it go, because sometimes it's not that serious, and sometimes it's like, Look, son, if you don't clean your room, CPS going to come get you, you're going to be living in foster care, and you're not even going to have your own room. You want to share a bed with like 10 other people. Look, you exaggerate it as much as you want to. You can even pull up Foster, foster parenting stories on the Internet. We're they're there. Look, I'm not saying scare your kids, but sometimes you gotta let them know, like you gotta, but still, you can break it down into smaller tasks, because it honestly as soon as you walk away, they're not going to do anything because they're overwhelmed. But that goes back to conscious parenting and being mindful and evaluating the situation. You know who your kids are. You know how they act. You know how they're going to react certain things. How do you stage it in a way that you don't get a reaction out of them. Oh, I know my kid likes to play video games, so guess what? This is, what's going to be the goal at the at the end, like, look at how clean your room is. Now you get to play video games to the rest of night, and I don't have to bother you because your room is clean. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. So they really do need it broken down into little tests for them.

TD Flenaugh: 22:49

So I like a lot about what you said, you know, giving them a smaller task, making it digestible for them, because kids do get overwhelmed by, you know, the room might be very dirty, and so how do I get started? What do I do?

Latoya Nichole: 23:07

Like a tornado,

TD Flenaugh: 23:10

right? It's just easier to put it off. You know, if you yell a little bit like I might be used to you yelling, I could just

Latoya Nichole: 23:19

ignore it, which is what they do, like, seriously, yeah, for sure. Okay, so you said gentle parents, and I told you, I was like, Oh, I don't like that term, yeah, there is no difference between, to me, there's no difference between that gentle parent and that parent that that's constantly yelling at their kids. Okay, before they get the belt, you're both yelling, yelling, yelling, saying the same thing over and over and not doing anything about it. Mm, the only difference is one parent goes and gets the belt after they get frustrated, the other one doesn't do anything.

TD Flenaugh: 23:55

I see So what changes have you seen in your kids since you did this because we did talk about that generational health. So what changes have you seen in them? So

Latoya Nichole: 24:06

I see them, they are happier. I don't get a lot of pushback for a lot of things. I see that my children are very self sufficient. They will take the initiative to do a lot of things on their own. I did have make a video the other day, my son was cleaning out the toilet. He was using my dish. It's in the trash now. But how can I be mad at a child that took the initiative to clean whether they did it right or wrong? I'm not going to be mad at him doing it wrong. I'm just happy that he did it, because that's positive reinforcement. Kids literally operate off positive reinforcement. If you want to see positive behaviors, reinforce it, praise them for it, even if it's like not perfect. It. It don't gotta be perfect. Just let them know I appreciate you. Thank you. Like be oh yes, give them all the praises like I I would have never thought of that you are so smart. Sometimes they think they like I said, they think they smarter than you. How to let them think it sometimes, sometimes you gotta let them think it. We know the truth, right? We have more life experience, but sometimes they want to have a say in how things go in their own environment. Their home is supposed to be their safe space.

TD Flenaugh: 25:37

Yeah,

Latoya Nichole: 25:38

so if you're you're walking around like a tyrant and treating everybody in the household, um, like they're your subjects. Then imagine how that that works out for you.

TD Flenaugh: 25:50

Yeah. So tell me about your book, putting down the belt. Like, how did it come about? You know, give me some background on it.

Latoya Nichole: 26:02

So there is no book out there about how to put down a belt. I realized that like that, which is crazy, but the way that the book came about was through the morning meetup. Um, they says, you know, you need a formula to be able to help people something that you can easily refer to. And it was somebody else, nayetta from the activity Playhouse. She's, yeah, she's like, oh, you know when I think of you and I think of your brand, I think about the belt. Okay,

TD Flenaugh: 26:36

could you pause for a moment like, I don't know if people know what the morning meet up is, so just let them know what it is.

Latoya Nichole: 26:42

So the morning Meetup is, oh, it's a group for entrepreneurs who want to do but bigger and better things in their business, right? Come together and meet every day, Monday through Friday, to to where we can gain insights and have community when it comes to our business. I mean, that's how we know each other. Yes,

TD Flenaugh: 27:03

we have Friday morning. Yes, alright, so you're telling us, you know, one of the things for your business is, have that your conscious parenting brand, and you had, so one of the members was talking about, you know, they think about the belt and then take it from there, what would put

Latoya Nichole: 27:25

together for you somebody? And I was like, oh, man, I can't, I can't think of, like, what would go with the belt? Like, what would go with the belt? So I had someone else give me some words for the acronyms. And the longer I looked at I was like, This is not my brand. This is not my brand at all. But I was able to replace the words that you that you now know, which is breaking biases, evaluating the situation, love and thoughtful parenting, which represents my brand, and this is something that I could use to help people put down the belt. Yes, so, and, of course, I applied a worksheet in there, because sometimes it's not enough to just have the information. Sometimes you need to be able to write out your problems, kind of like journaling. Yes,

TD Flenaugh: 28:18

it's, it's wonderful. I mean, looking through it, and really, you know, I say people need to go out and get it. It's so important. You know, part of being an entrepreneur is leveling up yourself, and, you know, it's also changing yourself and changing your practices. And that doesn't happen, you know, it happens through reflection. It happens through all of that. And then that's obviously what conscious parenting is thinking about. You know what happened with us when we were kids, and how we could improve upon that? Right? We want our children to do better than what we had. We want them to be able to grow beyond what we were able to grow, right about that legacy building, and you don't have to pick oranges, you know, your grandparent did that for you, and now you're going to give your child more than what you had, you know. So, I mean, it's good. We need to think about what we're doing. Some of the things, like you said, we did, you know, rooted in slavery. You know, we we'll beat the kids and nobody else will beat them, you know, kind of thing. Um, so

Latoya Nichole: 29:29

it's important eating kids never kept them out of jail. Imma tell you that now you go to jail. Ask them who I got a whooping. I guarantee you

TD Flenaugh: 29:43

very true, right? We thought that, yeah, yeah. So it's something we have to think about. We just do things and just to keep doing them, because that's how it was when I had it is, we need to think beyond that, right? And we're so glad that you've joined us. And you're spreading this message with people because, you know, we don't know what we don't know, right? You just continue to do the same practices. We're going to get the same results right. We want to have we want our kids to have more right. Our program falling for learning is about making sure that kids are on track for learning and stay on track for success. And so part of that, of course, is academics, but also it has to be about our relationships, about their health and wellness as well. So it's

Latoya Nichole: 30:32

the foundation of their life. Absolutely want to build a strong foundation so they can self sustain, because eventually they're going to leave the nest.

TD Flenaugh: 30:45

Yes, yes. And what are some, you know, final thoughts that you could give to our guests out there who are now hearing your message and are going to consider what to do, what? What are some final thoughts.

Latoya Nichole: 31:01

So one of the biggest things I want to let people know is that it's okay. One, I don't judge people. I understand, like, you know, I tell people what I do. And some people are, like, taken aback by it. But I do want you to know, like, if you beat your kids, and I'm not going to judge you by what you have in your diaper bag. These were the tools that were handed down to you. I am here to help you put more tools in your diaper bag. I'm giving you more accessories that you can use on your parenting journey. Um, that's all I'm here to do. I want to be the change that I see in the world, and I started in my own home, in my own mind. Thank you. Thank you.

TD Flenaugh: 31:48

Thanks again for supporting the falling for learning podcast. New Episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com, at falling for learning, or listen on all major podcast platforms such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more for more resources, visit falling in love with learning.com. We really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week.