Imperfect Heroes: Insights Into Parenting
Imperfect Heroes: Insights Into Parenting
Episode 163: From Playroom to Real Life: Teaching Kindness Through Everyday Moments with Mariela DeSantiago
Join DJ and her guest, Mariela De Santiago as they discuss the importance of teaching kindness and embracing diversity in early childhood. Listen in as they talk about the significance of modeling kind behavior, using positive language, and practicing empathy and compassion towards others. Stay tuned as they share strategies for teaching empathy and sharing with children as young as 2-years-old, including giving children choices. They also share the importance of creating a supportive network for parents, where they can work together to correct and support each other’s children. There is a great need to start teaching kindness and empathy from an early age to help children develop these values and create a kinder, gentler society.
TIMESTAMPS
7:44 Children need to learn that sharing is not just about giving up their belongings, but also about respecting the autonomy of others.
11:49 The importance of verbalizing internal thoughts when we are showing kindness can help children develop their vocabulary and kindness skills.
16:51 How to show kids how to manage their feelings by giving them an example to follow
30:57 Building a network of parents, DJ calls the Mamma Maffia, who become a network of support to each other as they raise their children.
For more information on the Imperfect Heroes podcast, visit: https://www.imperfectheroespodcast.com/
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Connect with Mariela De Santiago
Email: mariela@newmomtalk.com
Website: https://newmomtalk.com/
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LinkedIn Link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariela-de-santiago-57817a19/
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DJ Stutz 0:00
Hey everybody, thanks for joining us and choosing to spend the next few minutes with us. And before we get started, I just wanted to remind you that you can still get Roman is Bigger, which is my children's book, and it's on Amazon. It's on Barnes and Noble. You can even get it on Walmart's website. Yeah, it's pretty fun. And we talk about emotions and feelings, and how Roman is bigger than mad and bigger than happy and bigger than scared, and how he finds the vocabulary to properly express how he is feeling. And so it's just a fun book, a fun story. And then this is the first in the series. We're currently working with my artist right now to finish up the next book. So if you want to get in at the very beginning of the series, get Roman is Bigger now, wherever you order books. And so let's go ahead and get started. You know, this month we have been talking about just kindness and incorporating kindness in our parenting, in our family lives, and even in our lives as adults. Adults can be very unkind sometimes, and so we want to make sure that we're catching ourselves and all of that. But today, I really wanted to talk about taking kindness and actually putting it into action. What are the things that we can do, instead of talking about it and we say nice words and all those things are important, yes, but there's another piece to it, where we take kindness and we actually put it into action. Well, my guest today is amazing, and we're going to be talking about this together, and it's Mariela de Santiago and Mariela, how are you doing today?
Mariela De Santiago 1:51
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I am doing great. It is a beautiful day out here in Southern California.
DJ Stutz 1:59
The sun is finally shining, so no complaints. Parts of the area around us, um, because we're recording this in June, and there's actual snow.
Mariela De Santiago 2:12
I believe it. Yeah, yeah,
DJ Stutz 2:14
I believe Yeah. Chilly day, chilly day. Kids are out in sweatshirts and long pants today, but later this week, they'll be back in their shorts and having fun. So a lot of fun. So Mariela, let's talk for a little bit. I know that you have a son, let's maybe share a little bit about your family and then how you're teaching him about kindness and how we can put that into action.
Mariela De Santiago 2:36
Yes, so my son is two years old. He just turned two in March. I hate this term, but I think it's the best term that most people know. I'm a stay at home mom, but really I'm not. I'm raising a human because I never was working hard, yes, and aside from that, I have my own parenting podcast and my mom group, and my husband works from home. He works both East Coast and West Coast hours, so that one gives you an idea. He's just always working, but it's also a benefit for us, because he doesn't have a commute. And usually his commute is going to pick up our son first thing in the morning, so he always gets time with our son. Nice. So yeah, and then we have two dogs, two boxer dogs. They are great little guinea pigs for teaching kindness to our son.
DJ Stutz 3:27
You know, pets are such a great piece of that. Having a pet that you teach them how to be soft and gentle and yet stand up for yourselves, because especially with dogs, but other animals too. If you don't let them know that you're in charge, they'll take advantage of you and push you around as well. And so so many great lessons for our kids with having pets. And so I'm so glad to hear that. I have two dogs myself and two cats, but we live out in the middle of nowhere, and our cats are working cats. They're not very kind to the mice and the voles and they munch them down.
Mariela De Santiago 4:11
I love animals. I do not like mice, so that's okay, let them do our job.
DJ Stutz 4:16
Yes, for us, but we're going to keep that going anyway. So as we have these opportunities then to put kindness into action and teach our little guys. Now I know that your son is just two years old, and yet that is plenty old to start teaching him about kindness and kind actions. So what are some of the things that you find yourself doing, just maybe on a daily basis to help him start learning about that?
Mariela De Santiago 4:43
Well, just on his normal interactions with people, we've always signed thank you and you're welcome and please and sorry. I feel like he's at the age where he understands what those mean. I don't think he can really understand. You know, when you apologize. Somebody why you would do it like he will say, sorry. So I think that's still a lesson that we're working on teaching him, but just from the very beginning, he's always been around our big dog, so he's learned to be very gentle. And he as an infant always having grabby hands, but he has just learned to be gentle because we always taught him how we would do it. We would show him how to do it. We would have him keep that flat hand open palm. So I think that has helped. Anytime we go to a park, we always have two toys, one that he can share and one that he can use for himself. And that is, I think, a great way for him to be able to learn that being kind means bringing another toy that he can share with somebody that can play with him, right? Yeah, there's been plenty of times where we've gone to a park and kids have a bunch of toys and they don't share their toys. So I don't want him to be the kid that ends up hurting other kids, and so he's been really good about sharing his toys. Does he always want to do it? No. So what do we do? We say, Well, you can trade or you can let him borrow this toy or this toy. So we give him options, so that ultimately he is handing a toy over, and it does make them feel better. Than he does learn to play with that little one.
DJ Stutz 6:24
Yeah, and I love that you're giving him choices, and they are acceptable choices, you know, because how many times I'll take this toy and you'll never see it again or whatever, we overdo it, and so we want to make sure that we're giving them choices, that whatever they choose is fine. I love, too, that when you're going to the park and you're choosing a second toy, you're explaining that one toy is to share and one toy is to play with. And so then he's at least starting to develop the thoughts in his head about, oh, this is the expectation before you even go.
Mariela De Santiago
Yeah, and I think sharing is such a hard concept to get. The age of two, so hard they're not playing with other kids yet. They don't have that interest yet. They just started to develop that interest of playing with their own toys and playing with them the way you're supposed to. So it's just kind of something that I feel like, if I start to develop now and we have that habit, then he eventually will get sharing means I let somebody else borrow my toy, and I can pick which one what I don't want to do is force him to give up his toy that's not sharing. You can pick the one you want and then share the one you are okay not playing with right now, so he gets a little bit of both, right?
DJ Stutz
Well. And there's this term I hear so often, when I was teaching kindergartners would come in or in childcare or preschool would come in, and I would hear sharing is caring, as they're snagging a toy from the clutches of another child. And that's not right, and it's okay for a child to have a special toy or a blanket or something that they do not have to share ever, that is their special thing, and having other kids, especially siblings, you know, down the road, or whatever, but to understand that, oh no, this is his or her special thing. And that's part of being kind too, is allowing a child to have that, and I don't have to have everything that you have. It's okay to say I'm not ready to share yet, and then being kind saying, okay, I'm good with that. I'll go find something else to do. And as we teach our children that that is all part of incorporated into kindness, is allowing children to have those moments and say, Oh, they're not ready to share yet. Oh, they're not ready to play with me yet. That's fine. I'm okay with doing something else, yeah.
Mariela De Santiago 8:57
And I think, a lot of the times, toddlers just don't have a lot of say, right? They are told when to eat, what to eat. They have very minimal autonomy and the ability to make decisions other than the choices that you provide to them. So forcing somebody to share isn't really teaching them that skill of sharing.
DJ Stutz 9:17
Yeah, and in fact, they will fight it more because they're afraid that I'll never get it back, or I'll never be able to finish my block tower, or whatever it is that they're working on. And two, when kids are two years old, they're just coming to an understanding that another child is not just another toy, that it's an autonomous being that can get hurt, that its feelings can get hurt. So when they're younger, they see another child, and they're still learning, oh, that's not a toy. That's not something I can just play with. They can get hurt at two, they're just getting that. Those realizations start about 16 months, 18 months. But, really coming to an understanding of that occurs right around age two.
Mariela De Santiago 10:04
Yeah, so it's a work in progress, right? Teaching them, getting them, and obviously it's kind of whatever is important and valuable to you and what you want them to learn. But for us, it is definitely teaching him how to share, but also not forcing him to have to share everything, just because it's an expectation.
DJ Stutz 10:21
I love your idea of not pushing things on them too much. I'd rather catch them in the act of doing it and then explaining, this is it. This is being kind. This is being nice or whatever. I know that sometimes when I would have to sit down and have a talk with one of my little kinders, and you'd say, was that very nice? And no, I said, Well, what is nice? Well, they have this vague understanding of what nice is or what kindness is. It's this far off thing that people talk about, and I know I'm supposed to be kind. But really, how do I define that? And when they're younger, if we just say, Be nice, be kind without really telling them what that is, it's going to be harder for them to understand and then to internalize.
Mariela De Santiago 11:16
Yeah, and it is a hard word to explain, because it's not a tangible thing, like, you can't say these are shoes. That's how they learn. So that is such a very good point. Yeah. I mean, anytime my son is sharing like, we raise him like, that is so nice of you, so nice of you to share. Or anytime somebody shares with him, we highlight that. Wow. How nice that they were sharing with you. Doesn't that make you feel happy? So trying to highlight those feelings and how that makes him feel.
DJ Stutz 11:49
Exactly, well, and two, you can't talk to a kid too much, basically. And so when you're telling them, oh, I'm making dinner and now I'm measuring out the water, and now I'm adding in the rice, and now I'm doing whatever it is, and you're verbalizing outside. They can hear you, even if they're not sitting right next to you, they're just in the same room with you, and they're playing while you're doing dinner, but you're talking constantly about what you're doing, how you're doing it, why you're doing it. They're listening, and they're building their vocabulary. And so it's the same thing with kindness, that when you think, Oh, I see somebody, and they only have a few things, and we have a lot of things, maybe we can let them go in front of us in line, so they don't have to wait so long while we put all our stuff in. And you're talking about that, while the kids in line with you, they're hearing about that, then they're getting your examples of you showing kindness and courtesy and all those lovely words that we lump in with kindness, and they start developing their own vocabulary around that skill, because truly, kindness is a skill.
Mariela De Santiago 13:00
Yeah. I mean, one thing that I think old toddlers do now is, whenever they don't want something, you know, their vocabulary is still very limited, they tend to just scream no to kind of get their point across, right, right? So we have taught our son, instead of screaming, if you don't want something, you say no. Thank you, right, right. No. Thank you. No. Thank you, Mama. No. That's a lot more calm than prior. So he's saying no, and he's being kind about the way he's saying it, and saying thank you,
DJ Stutz 13:36
Yeah, well, and too, we want our kids to have the confidence to say no when they need to. And in fact, saying no can be an act of kindness with if they see another child that someone is being mean to them, they can go up and say no and take that other child and have them come play with them. And that's one of the things I was always trying to teach with my kindergartners is, you don't need to confront whoever's being angry and mean, you just go rescue whoever is being targeted. And so to say, Come play with me. We're fine. Come play with me, and then leave the other child to stew in their own misery or whatever, but removing someone else from a situation, and we're going to be talking about bravery here coming up and sometimes kindness and bravery really are connected to each other. Sometimes you have to be brave to go up and say, Yeah, this isn't okay. We're not going to use those words. We're not going to say these things. We're not going to tease somebody or hurt somebody, and so it's very scary to go up and say, You come be my friend. Come play with me, especially when they're like the cool kids. And I've seen it as early as pre K, where there's the cool kid syndrome. All. Going on in there. I know, I know, there was a time that I was an administrator at the community college with their child development lab, basically a child care preschool. And then we had students of the college who were getting their degree in early childhood or in education, whatever they could come and do observations, they could do projects with kids, whatever. And so that's what I did. And there was a little boy in one of the classes. He was a pistol, I'm gonna tell you. But everybody, like, anytime anything went wrong, it seemed like this little boy was in the middle of it somehow. And one time I was in the observation room, observing this classroom and observing this teacher and stuff that she was trying to do, and so I could give feedback and stuff, and one of the girls came up crying. She was so upset. And what's wrong, honey? And it's like, Joey hit me. Joey's absent today. They were just so used to blaming anything that went wrong on, and I'm fictional name, of course, on this little kid, that even when he wasn't there, he was still getting blamed for things that went on. And this was a pre K, so they were four, turning five, and it was just interesting trying to teach kids to really sit down and look at a situation. And at that age, they're just barely starting to learn those skills. And so when we talk to them about we don't blame somebody for something if they didn't do it, or if they weren't even there, or whatever, that's all again, part of being kind.
Mariela De Santiago
Yeah, and a lot of it also kind of stems on being able to identify their own feelings, right? Like when they're frustrated, they may not know how to voice that, and so they react in the way that they do, which might be like throwing or hitting or screaming or crying, whatever. So it's being able to teach them how to learn what their body is telling them. So if I'm frustrated, and can somebody acknowledge that I'm frustrated, and maybe all they need is a hug, right? Yeah, that's teaching them that kind of like, oh, well, just because you're frustrated, which we all get, doesn't mean that I'm going to yell at you because you, I don't know, threw all of your nuts all over the floor, and now I have to go and pick them up that can we maybe I'm just going to go and hug you and hold you and say, Oh, that was really frustrating, Han, we needed to let it out somehow.
DJ Stutz
Yeah, you bring up such a great point, because very often we as parents can get frustrated easily with our own children. We're tired, we're not feeling well, we're trying to get something done, and that's when the meltdown happens, or the huge mess happens, or they're clumsy and break something, and maybe it's something that is precious to us, something that holds a memory, or whatever. And so it's easy for us as the big people to impose our frustration on the little ones when they don't know that this was special. They didn't mean to break it, they just made a mess, and they don't understand what was going on. And so the example that we set in how we handle our frustration and how we help them through these kinds of things, and working through it is going to have a huge impact on how they process those things.
Mariela De Santiago 18:37
Yeah, and also them being able to see how we react and how when we're frustrated, we all get frustrated. I know I do. Yeah, oh,
DJ Stutz 18:47
For sure. That's why we're all imperfect,
Mariela De Santiago 18:52
and the way that I react is going to be very different, depending if I have somebody that can support me and relieve me so that I can step out, or if I can, I'm here, and I've got to deal with my frustration and all of the other chaos that's going on at that moment. Yeah,
DJ Stutz 19:07
Yeah, yeah. I can remember when my kids were really young, my sweet husband was working just so that I could stay home and be there with them. He was working outrageous hours. I mean, a 60 hour week was a good week for us, and he just was putting in all this overtime. And I can remember a couple times he put in 100 hour week. And so I'm here raising the four kids. He's doing everything he can to try and support our family and stuff, and oh my goodness. But there were times when I was just like, oh, no, I have had it. And one of these days, Christian, my youngest of those four, he's about 18 months. Yeah, he wasn't two yet, and I am cleaning or doing laundry or something, and I came into the kitchen, and here he was with brand. A new box of Cheerios, and he dumped them over his head and was taking Cheerios shower. They're all over the kitchen floor, and he is just in heaven. He is in heaven. Now my first inclination was to not be kind, and mind. And I had to take a breath and step back and say, this kid is in heaven. He is having a blast. And he was squishing the Cheerios with his fingers against the floor, watching them kind of explode when you put the right amount of pressure on them, and he's moving them all around. And I just thought, Okay, I have to walk away, first off and take a breath so that I can come back. Right, you see, he's happy, he's safe, he's entertained, and I need to handle this in a better way. And it was just a couple minutes, but I was able to come back and say, wow, you know. And too, when money's tight in a brand new box of Cheerios, I'm thinking, oh, there's that piece too that will affect our ability as a parent to manage things appropriately. But we are the biggest examples. They will learn more from what we do than what we say,
Mariela De Santiago 19:08
Yes, yes. And I think that is the key, right? And so one saying I do not like is Do as I say, not as I do,
DJ Stutz 21:32
Yeah, rules for thee and not for me.
Mariela De Santiago 21:37
So many things that just drive me nuts, because they are learning from us and how we treat people and how we treat animals and how we respond to things, and granted, they're gonna see the moments that are not always like the best response. Yeah, that doesn't mean that you're always responding that way, right? Like, I definitely have my moments where my dogs stress me out and I yell at them and I just kick them out of the room and right tell them open the door and let them run away out you go, yeah, open the door. You can go be one with the coyotes, but obviously I don't open the door for them and let them just run free. Yeah, but he sees it more often than not. I am petting them and loving on the animals and taking them out because they need to run around to play with the ball, all of the things. So he sees then can also treat his animals with kindness, because he sees that we're doing it. He also treats them like his siblings. He gets so frustrated, and again, he can't communicate, and they're right at his eye level,
DJ Stutz 22:44
Yeah.
Mariela De Santiago 22:45
They're like, Oh, I'm gonna just lick your face because it needs to be cleaned. And he gets so frustrated and screams at them, and they just wave his hands everywhere. But then he has his moments where he loves the dogs, and he just goes and hugs them so tight. I'm like, Oh my gosh, at the poor animals. Okay, like, that's a tight hug. I just stand there and they love them, yeah?
DJ Stutz 23:11
And that's the fun thing about animals, too. I know, with ours, instead of saying drop when my dogs have something in their mouth, I just tell them thank you. And they come and I'll take it from their mouth. I'm like, Thank you, and then they'll loosen up. And so our grandson is staying with us this summer. He's six years old, and they have dogs, and so he's, you say thank you to your dog? Yeah, she doesn't know drop. It's thank you. But my grandson thinks that's the most hysterical thing ever that you say thank you to a dog. But exactly it's trying to teach that skill to them and have them participate in that. And I think too, like, if you have a neighbor and maybe there was a surgery or someone sick, or whatever, and there's something that you can do, like even go mow their lawn for them, or weed their flower garden, or make a meal to take over and have the kids be a part of that experience and let them know that this may not be the most fun thing to do, but it's really helping out. Mr. So and So, or miss so and so and sometimes being kind means not doing something that is super fun, and not doing something that we all want to do, but doing something that someone else needs, and putting that kindness into action and having those conversations with Your kids can make a huge impact on them.
Mariela De Santiago 24:42
Yeah, I mean, whenever we have birthdays or Father's Day, we go and he picks out the card, and then He hands the card to whoever is the recipient or the birthday gift. Try to incorporate him in that he even helps out with the candles.
DJ Stutz 24:58
Oh. Yes, blowing them out. Yes, yes, yes. At that age, they're like, Ah, I have to blow it out. So fun, so fun. One of the things that I really promote with my coaching and workshops and stuff is that having a plan makes all the difference. What are the opportunities that we have coming up that will help us to teach kindness to Joey or Susie and what are their own personal strengths and weaknesses? Because you can see early on, there are things that really will frustrate a two year old. So how can we help them come to understand so it's watching them paying attention to when they are unkind or when they are kind, and then making a plan to incorporate opportunities when, you know, they'll naturally reach out, because they've shown you that's their nature. And then other times when we can either practice being kind, you know, we're going to talk about it, and how can we do this? Or coming up with a plan and getting them involved in the plan. There's so many different ways that we can work with our kids, but planning ahead and knowing kindness is a value that I want to instill in my kids, so let's make a plan for how that's going to happen.
Mariela DeSantiago 26:18
Yeah, and to use all of the opportunities as a learning opportunity. Like, if your child is not being very kind, what we do is, oh, you know, that's not very nice. And we try to explain as best as we can to a two-year old why something might not be nice, and just say, Well, do you need a break? Or do you think you want to say sorry? So giving him the option of like, oh, maybe I just need to go and stay on the bench for a little bit, and then I'll come back when I'm ready. Yeah, I've had since those were parents rather than taking it as a learning opportunity. I mean, for example, the other day I was at Disneyland, and there's this little activity place in Toontown, and there was a kid that was at least four years older plus, and my son goes to one of the little turn wheels. Well, the kid pushes my son away. And so I said, Oh, you know, we're not gonna do that. He was here first. We're not gonna push him away. Well, the mom, rather than using that as a learning opportunity, comes over and says, It's okay, we have to leave anyway, which just blew my mind to not correct that behavior. Yeah, what you have taught your son is that he can always push anyone away, and he's not going to be corrected for that well, and I'm a little bit of a mama bear, like I'm going to step in.
DJ Stutz 27:33
Right, right?
Mariela DeSantiago 27:35
No, he's going to.
DJ Stutz 27:36
We want to give our kids a chance to try and work out their own issues, standing up for themselves or whatever, but when you have a child that's obviously bigger, and if you do intervene, we're going to intervene in a way that is modeling kindness on our behalf too. You don't have to be mean to stand up for yourself or for someone else, but I'm always shocked when I see parents ignore or excuse their own kids, and then they're shocked. Why is my kid always the one in trouble at school?
Mariela DeSantiago 28:07
I know, and I wonder if it's like, are they kind of taking it as an example of a judgment on my parenting, if I correct a certain behavior that's not appropriate? Yeah, I don't think it is right. Ultimately the out? Well, I think it will be the judgment.
DJ Stutz 28:22
I think we're in a place in society, though, where we've made ourselves afraid. So instead of the mommy club, my mom had like this mafia, I grew up in Los Angeles, and sent me to the store. And I'm seven years old, eight years old, whatever, and I'd ride my bike to the store to get the butter that she was out of or to get something. And I can tell you, man, if I spit on the sidewalk between going to the store and coming back, by the time I got home, my mom knew about it. She had spies everywhere, you know what I mean. And mom stuck together and they helped each other. Now we're at a point where we're scared to death that if I don't handle this right in public, will they call CPS? Will they go after me? And I think that there are parents that, and especially so I taught in the lowest income a lot of gangs, lot of crime type families, and they were very distrusting of if someone says I'm not doing it right, or tries to correct my child, they will jump in, and it's more out of fear that you're going to call on me and fear of being judged. They don't want to be judged because they are so judged already in so many areas sometimes, you know, yeah, that's not okay. What you're doing, you know, what I'm saying. And so we've developed this thing in our society where that mommy mafia just isn't working anymore, and it's not that team out there. You have to be really close friends to be able to get in on that. Where, if I was at a store and I was doing. Something, and my mom was looking the other way. Trust me, someone would say something, and my mom would be like, Oh, hey, thank you. She would never get mad at that person for correcting me. She would get mad at me for not being on task. And so I really feel like we really do need to open ourselves up to if someone's helping us out with something that our kiddos are doing and oh no, no, no, we don't do that. Instead of running and grabbing our kid in eliminating them from the situation, saying, Oh, thank you. Let's work this out. How can we work this out? Oh, he pushed this little boy down. Oh, okay, Joey, you know, tell me what happened, and you can talk about it, but you're teaching them, and you're incorporating our society back into this team that we used to be, rather than now. It's all isolationists and judgy and you know, we're all just trying our best.
Mariela De Santiago 30:54
Yeah, and a matter of communicating, right?
DJ Stutz 30:57
Absolutely. Parents, kids, friends, teachers, pastors, whatever it is, but being open to that, I can remember one time again, I'm old, but I'm in Los Angeles, growing up and playing at a friend's house, I said a bad word, and he spanked my butt the dad did, which was normal back then, but then he called my mom and said I just swatted DJ on the butt, and this is the word she said, and my mom's like, well, thank you very much. And I came home, I got spanked again for saying the bad word. Mom was grateful that he had intervened. Now, I wouldn't suggest spanking anybody's butt, but that was normal back then. That was, yeah, it wasn't as dramatic as it is now, but that teamwork was there. And he didn't just get after me for saying the bad word. He then called my mom to make sure that my mom knew what I had done and the steps he had taken to correct it. And I think we need to be more open to that teamwork.
Mariela DeSantiago 32:00
Yeah, I think, you know, building your village where that's where that comes in, like, having your village, especially if somebody is watching your child, like, how do you deal with behavior? Yeah, for us, we give choices. We don't just say it's either this or that, like, it's either you clean your toys or you're not going to play with them for the rest of the day. No, it's do you want to pick up your toys by yourself? Or do you want me to help you pick up your toys? So ultimately, the end goal is you're going to pick up your toys. It's just a matter of how you get there.
DJ Stutz 32:32
Right? And too, toys are a great way, especially if you have an only. My grandson's an only, that's here with us, but it's a great way to teach about kindness. He's got these little stuffed kittens that he's crazy about and teaching them to be kind, or, Oh, my cat's being very noisy. What should we do? Is that okay? You know, I'm trying to get into his story. He's but he's got this whole thing going on where he's teaching his kittens about being nice and being kind and whatever, and it's just fun watching that, and it's okay to incorporate inanimate objects and giving them that personality and stuff that's imaginative play, which is extremely important with our kids as they grow up. And so, yeah, taking whatever you've got, whether it's a neighbor or a toy or a dog, and making that work for you is a wonderful approach.
Mariela De Santiago
Yeah. I mean, because everyone's experience is going to be different in life, right way, how you encounter what you encounter, so just being kind and with people that are different to you too, and that don't have, like, the same views, perspectives, values and so on.
DJ Stutz
Or disabilities too, even disabilities, those are kind of more obvious sometimes. We were at a Raising Canes last weekend, and there was a young man, and he has Downs Syndrome, and he was working there, and my grandson said, What's wrong with him? And so we were able to talk. And went up and said hi, and he was a great guy, and he's like, Hey, how you doing, little buddy? And talking to him and but instead of sitting back and you know what I mean, and whispering and whatever, go up and say hi and introduce yourself and get to know that person who is different, whether it is faith, race, politics, oh, heaven forbid, or disability and outlook and all of those things, all those differences are so important to our society, we shouldn't be threatened by them.
Mariela De Santiago 34:30
Yeah, well, and it's part of life, right? All of that is so this is a great way to start from when they're little, to be able to have conversations with people that are going to have different views. Which right we always do every day, right?
DJ Stutz 34:44
Right, absolutely. Well. Mariela, why don't you help our followers learn more about where they can find you and listen in on your podcast? Yes.
Mariela De Santiago 34:54
So my podcast is called New Mom Talk Podcast. So, you can find me anywhere that you get your podcasts. You can also find me on my website, newmomtalk.com and if you are in the San Diego area and are looking for a mom group, I have a mom group called Carlsbad Mom Crew and San Diego Mom Crew. So all of that is also on the website. You can find all of the events and Instagram at Newmomtalk.podcast. I hope that anyone that is a new mom or soon to be mom or dad looking to find resources to the very commonly Google topics can find me and get those answers from experts using evidence based knowledge.
DJ Stutz 35:41
That's the key. And so we're gonna have all of that information in the show notes, so you're just a click away, my friend. So I hope everyone will take an opportunity. Yeah, before we go, I always ask my guests the same question, and that is, we know that there are no perfect parents, but some do seem more successful than others. How would you describe a successful parent?
Mariela De Santiago 36:06
I think a parent that has a good relationship with their child, so, one that can validate their feelings and that they are the parent that they go to whenever they're feeling unsafe, and that there are no boundaries with them. Hopefully that will be me. I only have a two year old, but right now he does run to me for hugs. So I think I'm doing good so far.
DJ Stutz 36:29
Sounds like you're doing great so far. So Mariela de Santiago, thank you so much for being a part of our show today, and I look forward to keeping in touch and seeing all the amazing things you're doing and so everyone until next time, let's find joy in parenting. See you guys.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
