Harsh Parenting Results and Alternatives

Were you raised with harsh parenting techniques? Do you still rely on the same harsh parenting style you were raised with when parenting your own kids but find you’re not connecting with your kids or getting the results you want? If you’re ready to try something different, my guest will share some tips you can begin using right away.

Bryan Saint-Louis is a Youth Inspirational Specialist and Speaker with over a decade of experience in driving positive outcomes in education and parenting. And now I’ve brought his expertise to help you dads listening now.

You can connect wit Bryan Saint-Louis or learn more about what he's doing by visiting https://www.bslspeaks.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bslspeaks

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bslspeaks

Email: info@bslspeaks.com

Special thanks to Zencastr for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. Use my special link https://zen.ai/CWHIjopqUnnp9xKhbWqscGp-61ATMClwZ1R8J5rm824WHQIJesasjKDm-vGxYtYJ to save 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan.

Transcription - Harsh Parenting Results and Alternatives

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Were you raised with harsh parenting techniques?

Do you still rely on the same harsh parenting style

you were raised with when parenting your own kids?

But find that you're not connecting with your kids

or getting the results you want

if you're ready to try something different.

My guest will share some tips.

You can begin using right away in just a moment,

so don't go anywhere.

- Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge,

a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere

to take great pride in their role.

And a challenge society to understand

how important fathers are to the stability

and culture of their family's environment.

Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.

- Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me.

My guest is Brian St. Louis,

a youth inspirational specialist and speaker

with over a decade of experience

in driving positive outcomes in education and parenting.

And now I brought of his expertise on the program

to help dads listening now.

Brian, thank you so much for being on the Fatherhood Challenge.

- Jonathan, thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

And it says an honor.

Thank you so much.

- Brian, what is your favorite dad joke?

- Man.

So I heard this one and I actually like this one a lot.

So someone comes to the dad and says,

"Hey, dad, Sunday was a sad day."

And then he says, "But yesterday was a sadder day."

(laughing)

Okay, all right, good.

We got it.

(laughing)

All right, I love it, we got it left, man.

That's all I need.

(laughing)

It got me.

- All right, but I hope the listener

has got a little left out of that one too, but.

(laughing)

As well.

- I'm sure they did.

That was awesome.

- Oh man.

- Well, Brian, let's start with your story.

How did you get involved with working with youth

and helping parents connect with their kids?

- I was 20 years old.

I used to work in a, as a,

not speaker necessarily at that time, right?

But 20, I was working as a, as a Bible teacher.

And I remembered I was embossed at the time

and there was a group of kids.

I wanna say about 70 kids and it was three of us.

And we were supposed to be basically helping them out

for, for the whole month that this series was happening.

And we were supposed to be teaching in the Bible.

Ultimately, the two other guys kind of stepped off

and found myself being the one having to take care

of a room of 70 kids between the ages of 13, 12, 13 to 17.

- Oh wow.

- Yeah.

And of course, I had some people who would come in

and help out and such, but for the most part,

the brunt of that focus was on me.

But man, when I tell you, I was,

I was so impressed with these kids being able to,

ask answers or certain questions that I had.

But then I also realized that I was very keen on connecting

very well with this age group because, you know,

I wasn't so old, you know, I'm only 20,

even though they said I was old, but I was only 20 at the time

and so I wasn't so far away from being a teenager

and I remembered what it felt like to be a teen,

trying to understand certain concepts

and also feeling like a lot of what was being taught

had no relativity to me.

And so I was very specific and intentional on the questions

that I was asking these kids ended up being such a powerful

time that brought me and led me to continue to do work

with youth when I was 21.

I started working at a youth juvenile detention facility,

just seeing the power of how radical empathy

was able to make me help build stronger relationships

with these youth but also impacting their lives

when they get out of that juvenile detention facility.

Being in that space at such a young age

helped me to see how powerful youth really are

and understanding how much they need strong supports

in their lives because a lot of them,

sometimes we see kids who are acting crazy,

we see kids who, you know, speak out of their disrespectful

and such and I always ask myself the question,

who taught them?

What was it that happened in their background

or their life that got them to the place that they were?

That they were and ultimately I'm not responsible

for who they are before they meet me

but because of the connection that I am right now with them,

now I'm responsible of modeling the proper behavior

that they can now choose to use in their future.

And so this is something that I started

when it was about 2021 and just seeing the power of how youth

are need that strong mentor and youth need that one caring adult

has pushed me to want to continue in the work with youth as well

but then as you said, right, as I got older, became a dad

I'm realizing how powerful it is for these children

to have strong figures in the home.

And so now as I'm also working with youth,

my main focus as well is also uplifting

and supporting the adults in the lives of youth

so that they can also know how to properly connect

with those teens and the children in their lives as well.

- The next question could be a tough one,

but definitely an important one.

Harsh Parenting has been a reality for many generations

and is argued to be effective.

This includes everything from yelling to even corporal punishment.

In fact, some say that we have crime rates

because parents are often too soft on their kids.

I'll give you one example I saw.

There was a post by a very popular pop star bragging

about the fact that she actually uses corporal punishment

on her kids and I believe she's a,

either a Gen Xer or a millennium.

And I looked in the comments and the comments were flooded

with mostly baby boomers who were jumping in there

and congratulating her.

So I'm curious, you know, if this is,

if this rule, this idea that harsh parenting is effective

and we don't have enough of it

and that's why kids are going wrong these days,

is this true or is this a lie?

- I don't think that's true.

We have seen high rates of criminality throughout the years

since the 80s, since the 90s.

And corporal punishment was absolutely a major use

in parenting at that time.

So it's not as though because of corporal punishment,

it made for better conditions.

A lot of youth were treated that way, right?

They had corporal punishment used

and yet crime rates have not necessarily lowered

or were lower back then than they are today.

I think there's a lot of more different factors

that deal with why youth are still necessarily

being connected or getting involved with criminality,

especially with the rise of social media,

they're being influenced in a major way,

which I think can also contribute to what they want

to do or how they're connected to other people around them,

but it's not necessarily for corporal punishment.

And in fact, I mean, when you look at the question, right,

for the fact that people argue as effectiveness

and I know a lot of people wanna say

mental health has also risen in these years,

but in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s,

how many people were actually going to counseling

due to their mental health?

We weren't necessarily seeing a lot of individuals

who were connecting to psychologists, the therapists,

because it was such a taboo concern.

And individuals were not necessarily trying to see

what was going on introspectively in their minds.

And so many of them, the statistics show

that mental health is on the rise right now,

but if we were actually doing the right work

to better ourselves, to connect ourselves

with mental health professionals,

when we were dealing with traumatic events,

we would have seen the same level of mental health

back then as well.

And I know people, for instance, Jonathan,

I know people love to say, well, it worked for me

and look how I turned out.

But I always ask the question,

if you go back to that child that you were,

don't think about the child, the adult that you are today.

I'm not talking about the adult that you are today.

I'm talking about that inner child that you were.

What was it that you're inner child needed?

Not that you're an adult and you can see things

in a better perspective.

What was it that you're inner child needed?

Did they need all of that punishment?

Did they need all of that yelling?

Even if it happened once or twice,

did they need it happening 10 times a week

or 10 times a day?

Right?

A lot of times we sometimes look at the perspective

of who we are today, but we don't look back

at who that inner child was

and what they probably needed better

in order for them to live a better life,

not just focusing on the impact that it has on our today,

but realizing that child probably needed

a little bit more love.

And if we looked at it that way,

maybe we would have a different perspective as well.

I can weigh on those two a little bit

from a slightly different perspective.

A lot of these arguments tend to reside in,

especially in conservative religious organizations

and denominations.

This is where we really tend to see that argument stick.

And I can tell you from my observation

that a lot of those same adults that are arguing

that have that argument that say,

look how I turned out and they did the same thing

to their kids that was done to them.

I can tell you that in churches

that have tried to grow youth programs,

a lot of times the biggest people,

the most of the people who stand in the way

in the growth of youth programs

and youth fellowship programs in a church

are often those same adults.

They are often the ones who are oppositional

to youth programs and youth initiatives.

They're an opposition to youth leadership and youth growth.

And you see more hostility in their interactions

with other youth.

That's been my observation.

- I can give you a quick example on that.

I remember one time 'cause I used to be a youth pastor, right?

And I remember there was a time where they blamed the youth

for whatever, like I was in a board meeting,

blamed the youth for the mess that was in the church

for the wires that were messed up in the audio upstairs.

And I was just sitting back and I was a little bit confused

because I was asking myself the question,

is that even true?

And I remembered as they were naming some of the things

that were happening, somebody said, oh no, no,

that wasn't Pastor Brian and them, that was somebody else.

That was another group.

And then they said, oh, what about the audio equipment

in the tech room?

Somebody raised their hand, oh no, that wasn't the youth,

that was X, Y, and Z, I couldn't remember exactly who it was.

And I just looked at them and I said,

you realize how you're quick to attack the youth

on what's happening here.

And you blame the youth on things

that they didn't even do in the first place.

The perspective was the youth caused problems.

And that's the philosophy that causes a lot of issues

that I see, like you said in churches

and in many different organizations as well.

If they don't, if they have a philosophical view

on how they see youth,

they will never be able to actually see them

as the empowering leaders that they are right now

and they could be even better.

Also from a biblical's perspective,

the biggest argument that's used

for enforcing corporal punishment on youth

is the scripture tech spare the rod spoil the child.

Yeah, I love that one.

Yeah, and what's interesting about that one is the rod.

The word, the Hebrew word that's used for rod

is the exact same word that's used for a scepter,

a scepter that a king or a queen would use.

And what's the purpose of a scepter, a royal scepter?

What is the purpose of it?

I mean, isn't that the scepter to basically

not like crown or shoulder royalty of the individual?

In that sense?

Yeah, it's a symbol of leadership.

It's a symbol of authority.

So when someone approaches the throne,

the king or queen isn't hitting anyone with the scepter.

And so what's really being said there is dads step up

and be a parent, be a dad.

I can even add to that right,

because Solomon's father was who?

David.

And what did David say about the rod?

It's a comfort.

Exactly.

That rod and that staff, they comfort me.

Why would, if the rod was meant to be

and to destroy and to demean,

how is that a comforting tool?

And so Solomon,

it's not.

It's an anxiety and it's a source of trauma.

Exactly.

And so I love that you brought that up.

Not a lot of people talk about the rod in that sense.

And so I love that you brought that analogy

and understanding of how the rod is really supposed to be.

Like you said, the symbol of authority.

That's amazing.

One of the biggest arguments I hear for why dads yell at their kids

is because it gets their attention.

And it's the only way that they will listen.

What are some other options dads have that would get better results?

Man, that's a really good question, Jonathan.

And as a father myself, I would say that one of the things

that have helped me to connect more with my children

is not the loud yelling dad voice.

But it's the presence.

It's just a strong presence with that child.

That child feels safe with me.

And I even tell him that.

I talk to him and I tell him, listen,

if you listen to me, I will guide you to places

that you will grow much better than me in your life.

And he's only four years old.

I have a four year old and a two year old.

And I'm very keen on making sure that they understand

how safe they are around me.

Because I'll be honest, growing up,

I used to be afraid of my dad.

Me and my dad right now have a very amazing relationship.

And that took time to build, but I used to be afraid of my father.

And so it wasn't very this strong loving connection

that I had.

It was more so on a fear base.

As I grew older, I understood certain aspects.

I also understood how he grew up and why things are the way

that they are.

But that doesn't mean that I have to do what was done to me

in a certain sense.

And so when I speak to my kids, and listen,

I'm not going to be a liar here as well as to say,

I've never yelled.

But when I yell, I'm quick to apologize.

I'm quick to tell them, hey, look, that he used a yelling voice,

that I didn't need to use in this moment at all.

This wasn't urgent where you were crossing the street

or something was happening to you.

I made a mistake in yelling at you right now.

And then I start breaking down.

Why is it that I did that in the first place?

And then what did we need to do in the situation?

How could we do this better?

And I tell you, as sometimes we think we

can't converse with our kids.

These kids are so smart.

They take up a lot of information.

I just spoke to my child this morning,

and I told him, and said, Levi, need you to come downstairs.

Then he says, OK, dad, he didn't come downstairs.

I didn't yell.

But what I did, I switched up the question.

I said, hey, Levi, what did I ask you to do?

Right?

I didn't say, come downstairs again.

And then now that aggravates me.

I told him, what did I ask you to do?

And then he says, oh, you asked me to come downstairs.

I said, OK, can you do that now?

And then boom, he just walks right downstairs.

A lot of the times--

Interesting.

Yeah, no, no, a lot of the times, man,

if we actually just converse deeper with our children.

And so one of the techniques that I've learned

is don't repeat your question twice.

When you give your question to your child,

hey, can you go clean that up?

And they'll be like, OK, yeah, clean it up.

Let's say they don't do it.

The next question should be, because now you're

giving yourself a sense of authority and power as well

while you're asking this question.

But you also don't have to be yelling

at reverting to anger and aggression.

You just asked the question, hey, what did I ask you to do?

And so now, instead of them having to be abrasive and such

back and building that type of connection,

it just thinks to them, so, oh, sure, he asked you to do this.

And then, all right, yeah, let's get to it.

It's simple techniques, but these are things

that have to be done from early on.

We're not expecting children to be adults.

And I think that's one of the problems that we have as parents

and as far as we expect them to be at a higher level of regulation

than we are, or maybe not higher than us,

but we expect them to be at higher level

than we think they are supposed to be.

The people who need to regulate their emotions

and know how to speak to them is always the adult.

We're modeling the behavior that needs to be shown.

And so when that child comes to us, we are able and should be capable

to show them the way to move in that light.

And so now they can see how to speak, how to understand,

how to act in certain situations.

So it makes it a lot better now when we're speaking

with assertiveness, not aggression, assertiveness.

And when we have to lay down a specific--

I would say tone, but this is what needs to be done in the home right now.

It's still done in a way that the child is still

loved, cared for, and communicated properly with.

But that's my perspective.

That's what I've seen has worked.

And a lot of the people who I've learned from goes, again,

I had mentors growing up.

And when those mentors showed me how they speak to their children,

it allowed me the opportunity to say,

I want to go a different route when I have children

to speak to them and to raise them a certain way as modeled better as well.

Let's talk about bonding.

How early does the bonding process start?

And how can dads create and maintain a strong bond with their sons or daughters?

Yeah, I love that question.

When I think about bonding, that happens since day one, right?

And somebody gave me some really good advice

when I had my first child that I could raise.

When I felt a bit confused because the child

was always wanting to be her own mother,

because at the end of the day, she was breastfeeding.

And so I found it kind of difficult.

How do I bond with the kid?

Or what am I supposed to do?

And I found those moments where I would just

be around both of them, just sitting, just connecting.

Somebody told me this very specific thing.

They said, when you take care of the mother, you're taking care of the child.

And one of the things that I found myself doing and learning early on was

the better I take care of my wife, that child will also be taking care of supported

and bonded with.

But then I also needed my own time.

I needed time to bond with my child.

I needed time to connect with my kid.

And one of the things that--

and I'll just be really transparent with this.

This was 2020, so the height of COVID.

And my child was only about one years old at the time,

but I was playing a lot of video games.

And I realized I asked myself the question.

I said, man, I'm playing more time or spending more time gaming than I am,

spending with my child.

Because COVID was-- nothing was going on.

There was a lot of confusion.

Everyone was just home, so I needed something to do.

And I found myself that something to do was to game instead of just sitting there

and chilling and just looking at my kid, making funny spaces and reading

or whatever the case may be.

Now, I'm not saying everybody has to do this, but I threw away my games.

I threw away-- actually, I sold my computer,

and I threw away the rest of the games that I had because I asked myself the question,

I said, do I care more about this than I care about my child?

And I wanted to be a lot more present and connected with my kid,

in which allowed that very thing.

I deepened my connection with my child, making some radical decisions

that were helpful to our relationship.

And four years later, he's almost five.

Man, when I tell you, my kid loves me.

I love my child.

We're so connected with everything that we're doing.

It's because I made some decisions that allowed us to build a strong connection

instead of waiting years later.

I don't need to wait until that child is six, seven, and throwing a baseball

or can play basketball or can do extra curricular activities

or it's good at something that I like in order for me to bond with them.

I just need to connect and just sit and converse and read and just build that bond.

And I think that once we start doing that more often,

these will deepen our connections with our children.

And no matter what they do, they'll love the connection that we spend time with.

It doesn't matter what we do, it's just the fact that we're spending the time together.

What can dads do if they've made mistakes in the beginning

and they don't know where to begin creating a bond and connecting with their kids

later in that journey?

I mean, first thing, man, just forgive yourself, number one,

because we don't need to hold on to that baggage, right?

We all make mistakes.

And so forgive yourself and move forward with that, right?

Because at the end of the day, if you show me anybody who says that they're a perfect father,

they're just a liar.

At the end of the day, let's just be real.

We make mistakes.

Let's understand that.

Let's forgive ourselves and let's move forward.

That's number one.

And then number two, as we're taking those steps,

let's really understand that child, right?

And one of the things that I, what I mean by that is,

don't just look at the fact that there are certain things that you love and care for.

And try to understand what they truly love and care for too,

and bond with them and those aspects in their lives.

So it's not just the things that you love and now you're projecting your life on them,

but you're able to now have this communication or the sharing bond

where you both can show what each other love and care for, and ultimately,

that child sees, "Man, my dad cares about this too in my life."

So I think that's very important as well.

How can dads connect with you or learn more about what you're doing?

Yeah, a lot of the work that I'm doing right now is more so centered around youth development

and empowerment and understanding how to truly build up the next generation.

And so my work has done a lot in schools.

And I do a lot of conferences as well where I speak to fathers,

where I speak about mental health, where I speak about youth development and empowerment,

I do a lot of work with schools and with classroom presentations.

I know a lot of dads might not be in that, but I do community work as well.

And so what that means is we're looking to bond parents with educators

so that they build a stronger connection to their schools.

That's one of the things that I think is very missed right now is the education to parent ratio.

And to even go a little bit deeper, as being an educator,

we see a lot of women in education, but we don't see a lot of fathers or dads or men in education

as much as we used to.

And so one of the missions that I'm looking to do is really start pushing men back into the schools

because it helps those kids to be able to see their fathers as leaders as well,

to care about their education in that sense.

And so that's a big mission of mine, but you could easily find me either on BSLspeaks.com.

You could even book me to come to different places that you would like for me to come speak at.

And then also my Instagram is BSL_Speaks as well.

And just to make this easier, if you go to thefatherhoodchallenge.com,

that's thefatherhoodchallenge.com.

If you go to this episode, look right below the episode description and I'll have all the links

that Brian just mentioned. I'll have it posted there for your convenience.

Brian, as we close, what is your challenge to dads listening now?

Ain't no, my challenge is it's not about doing something specific. My challenge would be

to challenge your thinking, challenge the way that you view your relationship with your child.

I want you to challenge even the way that your child sees you.

Think about how does your child see you as a father?

And I want us to really just start thinking how we can deepen our connection with our kids.

I believe in this concept of empathy and radical empathy even more.

The action that it takes and empathy allows us to try to understand and to imagine the feelings

that that child is doing or feeling at that moment.

So I want us to try to challenge ourselves to think more empathetically.

To think about how that child is seeing their situation and how we can better be fathers,

be dads, be pouring into our children in a certain specific way.

And so with that challenge, I know that our perspectives will deepen and be able to connect deeper

with our child as well.

Brian, it's been an absolute honor to have you on the Fatherhoodchallenge.

You've given us tremendous wisdom and actionable steps that any dad can do

two day to do right now and get results.

And I really appreciate that.

Thank you so much for being on the program.

Thank you again for having me.

I really appreciate it, Jonathan.

Looking forward to hearing and seeing the impact that our fathers can take from us.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhoodchallenge.

If you would like to contact us,

listen to other episodes, find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more information about the Fatherhoodchallenge.

Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.

That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com.

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