• last year
Get ready to explore the exciting world of mnemonic-powered parenting with our special guest, Jackie Santillan, the creative mind behind 'How to Parent.' We'll uncover the ingenious acronym 'Parent,' which stands for 'Possibly Actually Remember Everything Next Time.' This unique approach not only adds a delightful twist to gentle parenting but equips you with practical tools to tackle those unforgettable family moments. Join us for an engaging journey into the world of mnemonics in parenting!

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Transcript:
Jen
Well, welcome to MomCave LIVE where we may have lost our minds, but we haven't lost our sense of humor. I'm Jen from MomCave. And our guest tonight, I'm super excited to talk to you because I follow her. I watch all her videos, they're super helpful, yet she's also funny and not condescending. And she's gonna tell us how she's gonna tell us about a book that she just put out called, how to parent, but it's not that kind of book. It's not like how to parent I'm telling you what to do. Its parent, its capital P dot a dot, it's the initials parent, which is an acronym. So I'm going to introduce Jackie, tell us why your book's title is an acronym.

Jackie Santillan
Well, hi, first of all, thanks for having me this and what a lovely introduction. Thank you so much. Well, okay, so I wrote this book, because I am, I didn't invent parenting. Obviously, I'm not the first parent. I didn't invent gentle parenting. But I've always been a big fan of mnemonics and acronyms to help me remember how to do things. And so I started doing that on my social media, and people really responded. And it's helped them to remember some of the strategies.

Read More here: https://www.momcavetv.com/how-to-parent-jackie-santillan-momcave-live

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Transcript
00:00 (dog barking)
00:00 - Annie, hurry!
00:02 (children yelling)
00:05 (upbeat music)
00:07 - Well, welcome to MomCave Live,
00:11 where we may have lost our minds,
00:13 but we haven't lost our sense of humor.
00:16 I'm Jen from MomCave, and our guest tonight,
00:19 I'm super excited to talk to you because I follow her.
00:21 I watch all her videos.
00:23 They're super helpful,
00:24 yet she's also funny and not condescending.
00:27 And she's gonna tell us how,
00:30 she's gonna tell us about a book
00:31 that she just put out called "How to Parent,"
00:34 but it's not that kind of book.
00:35 It's not like, "How to Parent, I'm telling you what to do."
00:39 It's Parent, it's capital P dot A dot,
00:43 it's the initials, Parent, which is an acronym.
00:46 So I'm gonna introduce Jackie.
00:48 Tell us why your book's title is an acronym.
00:51 - Well, hi, first of all, thanks for having me.
00:53 This is a lovely introduction.
00:55 Thank you so much.
00:57 Well, okay, so I wrote this book
00:58 because I didn't invent parenting, obviously.
01:03 I'm not the first parent.
01:04 I didn't invent gentle parenting,
01:05 but I've always been a big fan of mnemonics and acronyms
01:10 to help me remember how to do things.
01:12 And so I started doing that on my social media
01:16 and people really responded,
01:17 and it's helped them to remember some of the strategies.
01:20 I think when you're in the middle of a tantrum
01:22 or a meltdown or like big emotions of any kind,
01:26 it's really hard to remember what you've learned,
01:28 either, however you learn it, you know?
01:31 So it's helpful to have an acronym that you can be like,
01:34 "Oh yeah, I remember when my kids,
01:36 "when my kids having a meltdown, this is what I should do."
01:39 And so it's a book called "How to Parent,"
01:41 which stands for possibly actually
01:42 remember everything next time.
01:44 And every chapter is an acronym or a mnemonic
01:47 to help you remember what to do in those big situations.
01:51 - I love that you call it
01:52 the stop, drop, and roll of parenting.
01:54 We all remember to stop, drop, and roll.
01:57 - Right.
01:58 - Yeah, I was actually Miss Fire Prevention.
02:00 - I believe it.
02:02 I would expect nothing less.
02:03 - I taught stop, drop, and roll.
02:04 Anyway.
02:05 - Oh wait, you like, you taught it?
02:07 - Yes, that was part of the duties.
02:09 Each fire station had a Miss Fire Prevention
02:13 and you went around and taught little children
02:15 how to stop, drop, and roll at fire safety.
02:17 - Did you have a sash?
02:18 - I totally had a sash.
02:20 I love it.
02:21 And I wish that that was a job
02:23 that I could apply for right now.
02:24 - I know, I would like to just be queen of the world,
02:27 but I'm not, I'm a parent.
02:28 So I feel like the opposite sometimes.
02:31 Jackie, okay, before you became a parent,
02:38 did you have any expertise in parenting
02:40 or did you learn all of, or, you know,
02:42 are you a teacher or do you have, are you a psychologist?
02:45 - Yeah, well, okay, not a psychologist,
02:48 but I was a teacher for 11 years.
02:51 - I've experienced a lot of it.
02:53 - Yes, and it is the reason that I know anything that I know.
02:58 If I would have become a parent before becoming a teacher,
03:02 my poor child, oh my gosh.
03:04 And that's another reason why I started doing all of this
03:07 because I feel like it's so unfair that teachers are,
03:10 not unfair because teachers deserve the training
03:13 that they get, but teachers get so much help
03:17 in the form of trainings and parents just don't get that.
03:20 They don't, and they're just like, you have a baby,
03:22 they're like, here, you can do it, take it.
03:24 You're an animal, you know how to do this.
03:25 And everybody just does what their parents showed them.
03:28 And so your parents weren't experts,
03:31 nobody's parents were experts.
03:33 So being a teacher was really helpful.
03:35 I was a horrible teacher in my first few years.
03:38 I screamed at my poor students, poor babies,
03:42 but they still remember me.
03:42 They like send me messages on Instagram all the time.
03:45 They're like, oh my gosh, it's you.
03:47 The trauma wore off, I guess, but I was horrible.
03:51 And then I had to go get some training
03:54 'cause otherwise I would have probably gotten fired.
03:56 And I fell in love with learning how to connect with kids,
04:01 to like encourage good behavior without having to be like,
04:08 to have a classroom full of fear and to set up expectations
04:11 so they know what to do ahead of time.
04:13 So it's like much more likely that they're gonna do it.
04:15 And so I just devoured all of that training
04:18 and then I went and got my master's in counseling.
04:19 So I'm not a psychologist,
04:21 but I do have some extra training.
04:23 - You have some expertise there for sure.
04:26 - A little bit.
04:27 I mean, my brother would not agree with you.
04:28 My brother would just say,
04:29 oh my gosh, you're just my sister, but.
04:31 - Sibling rivalry, they always know more than we do.
04:34 Yeah, so if anybody has a specific parenting question
04:38 you wanna learn an acronym for or something,
04:41 just pop it in the comments
04:42 'cause we're watching the comments.
04:44 You mentioned--
04:46 - You're probably watching better than I am, but yes.
04:49 - My brain is always here, there and everywhere.
04:51 You mentioned that most people learn how to parent
04:55 from their parents.
04:57 But what happens when, God love your parents,
05:01 they weren't the kind of parent you wanna be.
05:04 And I've struggled with that
05:06 because there was a lot of spanking in my house.
05:11 And so I always said, I will never spank my kids.
05:13 I have not fully always lived up to that, but I try.
05:18 The whole concept of gentle parenting.
05:21 How do you work through what you were taught
05:25 and learn a whole new way of being?
05:27 - It is so hard.
05:30 And I think one of the first things that you have to do
05:33 is realize that you have to kind of reparent yourself
05:36 through the process.
05:40 Once you make the decision,
05:41 it does take time to learn what to do.
05:45 And it takes time to learn what your triggers are.
05:48 And once you learn your triggers,
05:50 then you have to learn how to calm yourself down
05:53 from those triggers.
05:53 Because the first step in dealing with any big emotion
05:57 with your kid is making sure that you're calm.
05:59 So not only you can help them, you are also modeling,
06:03 like I can be calm.
06:06 And your big emotion is not too big for me.
06:08 And I can be calm and help you through it.
06:11 And so I have a whole chapter
06:13 about emotional regulation strategies
06:15 because so many people are like,
06:17 how do you think I'm gonna be able to teach my kids
06:20 how to calm down?
06:21 I can't even calm myself down.
06:21 - I can't calm down.
06:22 I'm having meltdowns and tandems.
06:25 - Same, honestly, same.
06:26 And I had a big talk with my son this evening about it
06:29 because one of my big activators, my big triggers
06:32 is that when I'm running late, which happens a lot
06:36 because I have ADHD and I have time blindness,
06:38 when I'm running late, I get extra stress.
06:40 So other things thrown on top of that
06:42 make me like really stressed out.
06:44 So I was just telling him, you know, I have this thing
06:46 and it makes me stressed out
06:47 and I need to take a deep breath.
06:49 And for some people, just hearing the phrase,
06:52 take a deep breath is also triggering
06:54 because they're like, that doesn't help me.
06:56 (both laughing)
06:58 And you're probably right.
06:59 It probably doesn't right away.
07:00 And telling your kid to take a deep breath
07:02 probably doesn't help them.
07:03 But I mean, scientifically,
07:06 if you do take some deep breaths, it will help.
07:08 But there are lots of other things you can do
07:11 if that is not the go-to for you.
07:13 I really like reducing any sort of stimuli.
07:16 Like if I can close my eyes,
07:19 if you can wear like earplugs
07:21 that kind of take some of the sound out,
07:22 or if you can't do that,
07:23 if you can just go into a darker room for a second,
07:26 that helps me.
07:27 Running cold water on your wrist helps me.
07:30 Repeating a mantra, something like,
07:32 he's not giving me a hard time, he's having a hard time.
07:36 - That's a good one.
07:37 - Yeah, that can just take you out of that anger
07:40 before you respond.
07:41 So that's the first step.
07:43 And then, something's happening.
07:47 (both laughing)
07:48 Something's happening out there.
07:49 I'm a real mom with a real child who's-
07:52 - I know.
07:52 - Real things happening.
07:53 - You have real children that could,
07:55 at any moment-
07:56 - Anytime.
07:56 - Shocked by it.
07:58 - I don't know if I answered the question.
07:59 I hope that I did.
08:00 - Yeah, you totally did.
08:01 So what is your favorite acronym of all time for parent?
08:07 - My favorite, and probably one that I'm most well known for
08:11 is the BRAT method, which I love.
08:15 Although, had I known that I was gonna be
08:17 the acronym person, I probably would have not made it BRAT,
08:21 because I don't want people to feel like
08:22 I'm calling their kids BRATs.
08:24 - But it's so easy to remember.
08:26 And when you're frustrated and you're thinking,
08:28 "What, a BRAT?"
08:29 Then you can remember the mnemonic.
08:31 - Exactly.
08:32 And I try to make the mnemonic not just like a word.
08:35 I try to make it relate to the situation.
08:37 So like, when your kid's having a meltdown,
08:39 the acronym is SPACE, because they need space.
08:42 They don't need you in their face at that time.
08:44 So like, the BRAT method stands for breathe,
08:47 which is what I just said.
08:48 Calm yourself down.
08:49 It doesn't have to be breathe, but calm down.
08:52 R is recognize, and that is recognizing out loud
08:55 what they are doing with their body.
08:57 So you just threw that block across the room.
08:59 Your eyebrows are scrunched.
09:01 Your shoulders are up.
09:02 You seem really mad.
09:04 That's the A, is acknowledging the feeling.
09:07 So you recognize what's going on with their body,
09:09 and then you acknowledge what they're feeling,
09:11 or at least guess.
09:12 And if you're wrong, they'll tell you.
09:16 "Ah, I'm frustrated."
09:18 You know, whatever they tell you.
09:20 And then T is tame.
09:22 So hopefully ahead of time,
09:25 you've had a chance to work on some calm down strategies.
09:27 I'm working right now on a Calm Down Corner digital guide,
09:31 because people are always asking me how to set that up
09:32 and get that practice started with your kids.
09:35 But if you can just kind of like gesture at it,
09:38 like, "Remember your Calm Down Corner."
09:40 - Go calm down.
09:41 Not like, "Get over there."
09:43 - It's not time out.
09:44 It's a place that they would like to go.
09:46 - Go calm down.
09:46 - Yeah, or I just, with my son, he really responds well
09:50 to like, if I just hand him one of his stuffies.
09:52 He doesn't have a stuffy that's like his thing,
09:55 but if he's stressing out, I can hand him one,
09:58 and he kind of uses it to wipe his boogers,
10:00 and just, you know.
10:01 - Wipe those.
10:02 - That's his thing.
10:04 And then the last T, it's a double T, Brat, like Benjamin.
10:07 And it stands for teach, and I added that one later.
10:11 But that is something that you also add later.
10:14 It's not something you do in the moment.
10:15 When everybody's calm, you take a moment,
10:17 and you're like, "Hey, next time you're mad
10:19 "'cause your tower fell down, call me, I'll help you."
10:22 Or, you know, walk away for a minute,
10:24 and then come back and rebuild it.
10:25 So it's just telling them what to do next time, basically.
10:28 - Yeah, that's been super important in our family
10:31 is like the debrief later has always been a good thing.
10:35 Like, what could you have done differently?
10:37 What could I have done differently?
10:39 I'm also a big believer in apologizing to my kids.
10:43 Like, okay, Mommy was really stressed out,
10:46 and I did not mean to raise my voice.
10:48 I'm sorry, but when that was happening,
10:52 it makes me stressed out, so let's talk about that.
10:54 And like in the debrief, sometimes we have to apologize.
11:00 - That is so powerful and so amazing that you're doing that.
11:03 That's one of the best things you can do
11:05 to teach your kids how to apologize, first of all,
11:07 is like, "Oh, my mom apologizes
11:10 "when she does something wrong."
11:11 And then, too, like taking that accountability
11:13 makes the conversation so much easier.
11:15 Like, if you start a conversation with your kid
11:17 after a big meltdown like that with like,
11:20 "I'm sorry I raised my voice," it disarms them.
11:24 Like, they're probably like worried
11:25 that you're gonna come in and shout at them,
11:27 but if you apologize first thing, they're like,
11:29 "Oh, okay, I'm not in trouble.
11:32 "This is okay, where are we going?"
11:34 They're ready to like listen a little bit more.
11:36 So it's a great, great thing to do.
11:38 - A good one.
11:40 We're in different stages of parenting.
11:42 You have a little preschool child, right?
11:46 - Yeah, he just started kindergarten this year.
11:47 - Oh, kindergarten, okay.
11:49 And my oldest just turned 13, and I always say like,
11:54 if you can't figure something out in parenting,
11:57 just know it's a stage, and that stage will pass,
12:00 and then you'll be in the next stage
12:02 and not know what to do.
12:03 So I'm in the next stage of not knowing what to do
12:06 of the teenager years now.
12:08 I know you haven't personally gone through them yet,
12:10 but do you have any acronyms that you think
12:12 would be fitting to help me
12:15 because I really need some help with them?
12:16 (laughing)
12:18 - You know, I don't know if I have anything
12:20 that's specifically written for teenagers,
12:23 other than, but that does give me somewhere to go
12:27 in the future.
12:28 - Yeah, maybe a part two.
12:29 - And part two, yeah.
12:30 I do have one for teaching kids how to apologize
12:33 if you need that.
12:34 - Oh, it's that one.
12:35 - And let me just remember what the things are
12:38 'cause now I can't remember it.
12:39 I get on the spot, I get a little bit nervous
12:41 and I can't remember things.
12:42 - Of course, it's so much harder
12:43 to remember things on the spot.
12:45 (laughing)
12:46 - Okay, so I have oops, and then I have how,
12:48 which is setting expectations.
12:50 I think that's helpful for everybody
12:51 before you go into a new situation.
12:53 Like, this is what I'm expecting out of you
12:55 just so that they can know what to do.
12:57 Here it is, it's right here on page 67.
13:02 So the first O is own up to it.
13:05 Don't try to pin the blame on the other person.
13:08 The other O is the other person's feelings, recognize them.
13:12 P is make a plan for the future.
13:14 And S is sorry, say that.
13:17 (laughing)
13:17 - It's great that works.
13:18 That's so important because, I mean,
13:20 I'm sure you've met adults who just don't know
13:23 how to say I'm sorry.
13:24 Or the idea of it like so disarms them,
13:28 so like tears at the core of their self-esteem
13:31 that they can't say they're sorry.
13:33 And that affects their entire lives,
13:36 like your job, your relationships, everything.
13:39 - It's bananas.
13:40 And I think in that chapter I reference,
13:42 'cause I'm a big Bravo fan,
13:43 I reference the Real Housewives
13:45 because none of them can apologize.
13:48 It's all like, I'm sorry that you felt that way.
13:51 Or I'm sorry but, da, da, da, da.
13:53 - I'm sorry you got upset.
13:55 - I'm sorry you got upset.
13:56 Yeah, and it's like, no, you have to own up.
13:57 I'm sorry I hurt you.
13:59 I'm sorry I broke your toy.
14:01 You are probably scared when I get angry like that.
14:05 In the future, I will take a deep breath
14:07 before I talk to you.
14:08 I'm very sorry.
14:09 And that's oops.
14:12 - Yep, that's great how you just went
14:13 through the steps like that.
14:14 - Yeah.
14:15 - There is something else you have going on, a new podcast.
14:18 I know nothing about it other than it's called
14:20 Hiding in Cars, which I assume means from your children.
14:24 But what is it?
14:26 - Yes, exactly.
14:27 Well, okay, so I started it for a few reasons.
14:29 One is to, was because I wanted to have a designated time
14:32 where I'm catching up with a friend.
14:35 Because I'm really bad at,
14:36 especially when I'm going through bad things,
14:38 like isolating myself and not talking to people.
14:41 And so if I have it on the calendar,
14:43 it's like, you can't just hide.
14:44 You gotta go talk to a friend.
14:46 So my friend Evelyn and I are doing this.
14:48 It's like our third podcast we've started together.
14:51 But also, so the Hiding in Cars part is we just,
14:55 we pretend like we're with you in your car
14:57 while you're hiding from your kids
14:58 or like sitting in Starbucks and like scrolling
15:00 on your phone.
15:01 It's very, just like, you can tune in, tune out.
15:04 It's nothing too deep on the main feed of the podcast.
15:06 - Awesome.
15:07 - We're just chatting.
15:08 And then we have a bonus episode,
15:10 which is where we will answer parenting questions.
15:13 Because the other reason was a lot of people
15:15 ask me questions on TikTok and on Instagram and on Facebook,
15:19 and I can't get to all of them to make videos.
15:22 And sometimes I just don't have time to make a video,
15:25 but I want to address some of those questions.
15:27 So it was a way to like address it in a broader way
15:31 and give people another way to reach us.
15:33 So.
15:34 - That's a great idea.
15:35 - Yeah. - Thanks.
15:36 - One of my favorite videos of yours
15:38 is the one about setting expectations.
15:42 And so sorry.
15:43 No, no worries.
15:44 She has a frog in her throat.
15:45 - I know.
15:46 - I think I have a frog in my house.
15:48 Actually, not kidding.
15:49 - I'm obsessed with frogs.
15:50 We'll talk about frogs in a little bit.
15:52 - Yeah, we could do a whole thing on frogs,
15:54 but there is a tiny little frog that was wedged
15:57 between two parts of the sliding glass door a few hours ago.
16:00 And we're like, oh, we have to find a way to get it out
16:03 and let it out.
16:04 Somebody closed the door.
16:05 So now it looks like in the inside part
16:07 and it's, I don't know where it is.
16:09 So I, after this, I'm going to go upstairs and frog hunt.
16:12 - Yeah. Are your kids frog lovers or are they?
16:15 - Yeah, they're pretty cool with animals.
16:17 My daughter loves every kind of animal, including snakes,
16:20 which me was like, what?
16:22 - Yeah.
16:23 - It's just fine.
16:24 - Except for you've got to like,
16:26 you got to know your snakes if you want to be a snake lover.
16:28 - Right. You don't want to love on the wrong snake.
16:31 - Right.
16:32 - It's kind of like men.
16:32 (laughing)
16:35 No, no.
16:36 Some man's going to be mad at me for calling them snakes.
16:38 But okay.
16:40 And then another thing you've got going on is very funny.
16:43 I hear you've invented a way for us to continue
16:48 to be the slacker moms we are and get some love
16:52 and relaxation while parenting.
16:56 - Yeah. My sister-in-law actually sent me a video of,
16:59 and I think you've experienced this,
17:01 of like a dad laying on the couch with a shirt
17:03 with roads all over the back of it.
17:05 And the kid is driving the car.
17:07 She was like, you could totally make shirts like this.
17:09 I have a shirt shop already.
17:10 She's like, you could make shirts like this
17:12 so people could stay part of the parenting game
17:15 when they're like sick or tired or whatever,
17:19 when you want to participate,
17:20 but you also don't have the energy to get up off the couch.
17:23 And so I have, I'm going to show you just a couple of them.
17:25 This is a scavenger hunt t-shirt.
17:29 So it's the name is Zosty.
17:32 It's short for exhausted.
17:33 And then, so like you put this on
17:36 and then you lay on your tummy
17:37 and then you can like do four corners or bingo or whatever,
17:41 you know, straight line, blackout.
17:42 And it's like something shiny,
17:43 something that smells good, something soft.
17:45 They have to go find stuff.
17:47 There's one with like a blank face
17:50 that they have to make a face and hair
17:53 and stuff out of her clothes
17:54 from items that they find around the house.
17:56 - Oh my gosh.
17:57 - And the last one is a Halloween one.
18:01 My son and I played this yesterday, actually.
18:03 It's like a guess who?
18:04 So you pick one and then you're like, is it alive?
18:09 Does it have eyeballs?
18:11 Can it walk?
18:11 And then try to get them to guess it.
18:13 So those are all on Etsy.
18:15 - Those are totally fun.
18:17 So tell everyone where they can find you
18:19 and the podcasts and the shirts
18:21 and all the stuff and all the acronyms.
18:24 - I said, I had ADHD.
18:25 I wasn't lying.
18:26 I cannot stick to one thing.
18:28 Like there's stuff everywhere.
18:29 I'm @kindminds_smarthearts.
18:33 And in my link tree, you can find all of that other stuff.
18:36 My book is on Amazon.
18:38 If you search.
18:39 - I'm sending it to the comments.
18:41 - Thank you.
18:42 - The book should be in the comments if I did this right.
18:44 (laughing)
18:45 - But if you search how to possibly actually,
18:48 it'll come up.
18:49 If you search for how to parent, like a million books.
18:51 I did not think that through.
18:52 - A million books come up that don't really help.
18:55 - They're not the same.
18:56 (laughing)
18:57 And I promise it's not judgy.
18:58 I promise it's really easy to read.
18:59 I made it like double-spaced pages
19:01 so that it's like, you feel like you've read 100 chapters.
19:04 It's a breeze.
19:06 - That's awesome.
19:06 So you feel accomplished.
19:07 (laughing)
19:08 So if anybody here watches your videos,
19:11 they know you're not judgy.
19:12 You're awesome and down to earth.
19:14 So thanks for chatting with me.
19:16 Thanks for watching everybody.
19:17 And I'm gonna go frog hunt.
19:20 - Yes, good luck.
19:21 I wish you good luck on that.
19:22 - Thank you, thank you.
19:24 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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