Destiny Bennett, 29, displayed the positive effects of patient parenting when she was attempting to calm her 5-year-old son, Cash. In a video shared by the mom, Bennett spoke to her son in a calm, loving and reassuring tone despite being frustrated with his behavior. Her de-escalation strategy helped to regulate Cash's emotions and allowed the young child to calm down. The sweet exchange between the mother and son was caught on a door-cam video and quickly went viral on TikTok, totaling over a million views in two days.
“Can’t believe I caught this on camera. My 5-year old really struggles with big feelings and regulating his emotions. This morning he was dealing with a lot of anger and I felt myself getting triggered by his behavior so I decided we should take a walk. My door cam caught this interaction between us,” she wrote.
@thebennettgang Can’t believe I caught this on camera #consciousparenting
#consciousparenting
#motherhood
#consciousparenting
#PawlidayPics #
The video begins with Bennett communicating the amount of love she feels for her child.
“I love you. I love you very much. Do you know how much? You don’t know how much? I love you more than this much,” she said while expanding her arms in an attempt to physically show her love.
The Las Vegas mother told Today that she felt it was necessary to talk it out rather than demand the immediate submission of her son, saying, "I knelt down at the door and was like, 'OK, let's have this talk.' Because mommy is on the verge of tears right now and I need to level with you.'"
In the video, Bennett maintains eye contact with her son while reassuring that his feelings are valid.
"I can see how angry you are, and I want you to feel better. 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. I need you to love you, okay?" Bennett reassuringly said to her son.
She ends the pep talk with Cash by telling him that she loves him before he falls into her open arms for a hug.
"I love you. Let's have a good day, OK? Want a kiss?" she tenderly asked her son.
Many people heralded Bennett for controlling the moment, but she quickly nixed the notion of being a perfect mother.
"A lot of people will come to me and tell me I have so much patience and that I'm an angel. But I'm not. I still have my moments when I lose it and I have to come back to my kids and apologize and let them know that I’m having a bad day too," she told Today.
Bennett, who is the mother of three children, ages 3, 5 and 8, said Cash's emotional meltdown stemmed from a fight with one of his siblings over the family's Lego collection. She explained that each child has a designated "special piece," however, the eldest child had claimed the piece that Cash wanted.
Bennett created special boxes for each child and if they wanted to play with a certain Lego piece they had to place it in their box, indicating to their siblings that on this particular day, it belongs to them.
"My oldest ended up putting some unique piece in his box that my 5-year-old wanted, and so it started out with an argument. I went over to try to talk it through, and explain to my 5-year-old that this is a rule that we agreed on as a family," she said.
Even though she described that her "blood was boiling" with her son's outburst, she still managed to take a different approach than the aggressive parenting that she was accustomed to while she was growing up.
“It’s hard, especially when you don’t come from a background or family that chooses this style of parenting. I come from a family where if you’re angry, you would yell or scream — very old-fashioned. So this has been difficult,” she said.
Bennett discovered conscious parenting when her first child was a toddler. She decided to write a book Revised Not Repeated: A Brown Mom's Guide to Breaking Generational Curses in Parenting, which outlines methods on how to parent differently and effectively.
“It’s a journey. It’s my journey. It’s my kids’ journey. Some people who are just starting with conscious parenting expect an overnight change for themselves and their children, so when a moment goes wrong, they automatically think they can’t do it. I think people need to realize that snapping is all part of growth. If you feel guilty that you didn’t respond the way you wanted to, you’re already on the road to growing into the parent you want to be,” she said.
