Mom's Viral Video of Helping Her Son Through Anger Is 'Gentle Parenting' at Its Finest

As a mom of three children aged 7 and under, emotions tend to run high in our home. Managing a whole group of little people comes with unique challenges. Add in being a family content creator and it can be challenging to decide which of the not-so-easy parts of parenting to share with the world. Case in point: when mom and creator Destiny Bennett's Ring doorbell caught an interaction between herself and her 5-year-old son, Cash.

The video, which went viral on Tiktok, shows the aftermath of a disagreement between Cash and his two siblings. "I can see how angry you are, and I want you to feel better," Bennett says to him while kneeling at eye level. "Sometimes feeling better is getting the things that we want, but sometimes we can't get the things we want. And it's OK to be angry, but then we have to be able to let it go and understand that we're not going to get it, and we have to find another way to make our body feel better."

Bennett is definitely not the only TikTok creator sharing her gentle and conscious parenting moments on the app but what resonated with me the most while watching her interaction with her son is that she is a brown mom. The reception from a large majority of Bennett's POC viewers—though ranging in opinions—is clear: We could've all used a little conscious parenting.

"Breaking these curses, I love to see it," one user commented.

"I wish my parents were able to comfort me in my dark times. If you also feel this way, you are not alone. You are lovable," another comment reads.

"Some of y'all are such good parents omg," another said. "These new kids are so lucky."

The commonality between all of the above comments? They came from BIPOC viewers. While gentle parenting is not new, it is definitely new to see among Black and brown parents. Many of us come from childhoods in which we were not given the same grace we are learning to give our children. This triggers us to respond to their emotions in a reactive state rather than from one of conscious parenting. I know because I've been there. I know because that's how I was parented.

And while Destiny does receive a ton of praise on her gentle parenting videos, she has also received less than stellar comments. Bennett has been accused of raising her children to be "soft" and "parenting white." Comments like those are proof of the underlying traumas many Black and brown millennials faced within their own childhoods and now carry over into their own parenting styles.

The belief that you have to scare your children in order for them to respect you is toxicity bubbling from one generation to another.

As parents, it becomes all too easy to fall into the patterns of how generations before us parented. Many Black millennials will tell you we were often left to tend to our own emotions backed with the promise of our parents "giving us something to cry about."

Bennett's video serves as a reminder that there are many different styles of parenting, but the message is clear: Raising happy, healthy, and well-adjusted children starts with you being a well-enough-adjusted adult. Conscious parenting challenges you to look within yourself, practice mindfulness, and shift how you view parent-child relationships. It is most definitely a journey.

In addition to sharing marriage and motherhood content on her platforms, Bennett is also an author. Her book, Revised Not Repeated: A Brown Mom's Guide to Breaking Generational Curses In Parenting, serves as a guide for changing toxic generational patterns in parenting. And while everyone may not agree with her parenting techniques, the three little people that are a part of the Bennett gang will for sure be better off because of it.