La chancla. El cinto. La cuchara.

There are memes about them. People wear them like a badge of honor. Like it’s just part of who we are.

But what if it was never ours to begin with?

In this episode, I sit down with Leslie Priscilla — founder of Latinx Parenting, certified parent coach with over 17 years of experience, and author of the brand new book CHANCLA: Healing Our Family, Ourselves, and Our Culture Through Nonviolent Parenting. This conversation broke my brain in the best way possible. We go deep into the history behind chancla culture, how colonization shaped the way we raise our children, and what it actually looks like to break the cycle — for our kids and for ourselves.

I also share something personal I wasn’t planning to. Something I think a lot of you will recognize in your own bodies.

In this episode we cover:

• What chancla culture is actually rooted in — and why it was never our culture to begin with
• How colonization shows up in the way we discipline our kids
• What adult supremacy is and how it shows up in Latine families
• The needs underneath our children’s behavior — and our own
• What decolonial nonviolent parenting actually looks like in real life
• Why healing our children starts with healing ourselves
• Co-parenting, blended families, and keeping kids at the center

Pre-order Leslie’s book CHANCLA👇
Get your copy + three exclusive pre-order bonuses including a bundle of affirmations, a special conversation with a surprise guest, and the behavior needs graphic featured in the book.
👉 Pre-order here

Connect with Leslie:
Instagram: @latinxparenting
Website: latinxparenting.org

Connect with Erika:
Instagram: @theerikacruz

Episode Transcript:

Erika Cruz
Leslie, I feel like this interview is long overdue, but I will say it definitely feels like divine timing that we are talking today and in this moment. I think my all my audience follows you and knows exactly who you are. But for the people who may not know who you are, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah, I am Leslie Priscilla.

some folks call me just Leslie, some folks call me Priscilla. So either one, if you see me out on the street, either one is fine. I will respond to both. and I’m the founder of an organization that I started in 2018 called Latinix Parenting. but before that, I am a sister, I’m an older sister, I’m the firstborn daughter of a Mexican immigrant mother. I am a partner, I am a stepmama, I am also a mama to my three babies. My oldest is 14. the ages are

14, 12, 8, and 7. I have to like think about it every single time. but yeah, I’m, you know, someone who considers herself a chicana. I was born or born and raised by two Mexican immigrants, and I think that shapes a lot of my story and kind of my interests and the ways that my work has evolved. And through Latinax Parenting, I work with parents mainly. I’ve been working a lot more in the last few years with professionals who work with the Latino community.

And so I, you know, consider myself also an advocate for for our people, our families, especially the most vulnerable within our families, which are the children.

Erika Cruz
Definitely. So you call yourself the child liberation chola. I love that. Can you tell us what that means to you and how did this come in? Like how did you fall into this work? What what happened?

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah.

So I came into it from a place of like anger and frustration and like you know just seeing that there existed this like massive gap between the experiences that I grew up with in my family. So to give some context, my mom is an immigrant who came here at 14 years old from Chihuahua, Mexico, and immediately had to start working at 14, right? So didn’t have much of an adolescence. she was one of twelve children.

Dad was 13 years older than she was when they met when she was 19. and she was really seeking like security, you know, and and she didn’t have the space, the time, the capacity, like the the language really to like reflect on what her childhood was. Her childhood ended up being, she would say it was a good childhood, but the things that she’s described that happened in that childhood to me sound very traumatic. she definitely experienced a lot of corporal punishment from her dad.

They were raised in El Rancho. So it was very much like, you know, you do what your parents say. And and and also my abuelo was 14 years older than my my pita. So she started having babies at 14, right? And so which is so common, like for so many of our families. So when she immigrated, she ended up working until she met my dad. She continued working. and then I was born when she was 23.

and she was loving. Like I remember my childhood just being full of I was like Princessita, right? I was like she would just like put these like beautiful dresses on me and like I was a muñeca. Like I literally my friends still to this day like make fun of me because they were like, I remember that your hair would just be like pulled so far back that I would like walk into school. and so she took care of me in that way, right? Where like nothing was really missing from

Leslie Priscilla
a part that part of my childhood. when I was nine years old, my father ended up having an affair, he ended up like leaving the family. We and my mom, myself, and my little sister ended up having to like leave our my childhood home. And so this is like a long kind of way to to lead into like the adversity that I experienced as a child.

because of the stress that my mom was under as a single parent, as a Mexican immigrant who was just learning the language, as somebody that didn’t really know and understand the system that she was coming into, especially after my dad had left. Right. And so as an adolescent, in the years after my dad had left the the family, we really didn’t get along. My mom and I were just like really, really struggle.

And I really didn’t like her. Like I rema you know, like I just was was really resentful of the fact that I was going to these private schools. I went to a private Catholic high school and I was like my friends have like good relationships with their parents. Like I didn’t

understand why my mom couldn’t be that kind of parent that was also a friend, right? That was also kind and like patient and that I wasn’t afraid to go home to, right? Because I would spend a lot of time outside of my house because I knew that if I was home and she was home, it would just, it would not be good, right? I was gonna get yelled at a hundred percent of the time. and so I was resentful towards her

I ended up going the route of child development and family studies in community college. It took me six and a half years to leave community college, but I love there’s an echo. Do you hear the echo? Okay. Do you still hear me?

Erika Cruz
Erika Cruz
I think the echo comes up when I unmute. Is it back, the echo?

Leslie Priscilla
Let me see. No, it’s not. Okay.

Erika Cruz
Okay, I don’t it must have just been a a little glitch. So I I muted from the mic, but I’ll mute from Riverside to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Leslie Priscilla
Okay. I think I was saying, you know, I really loved being around my friends. Like I think that that really ended up being like where I found my safety.

and I was really searching for that safety, right? As all of us do, I think in adolescence, we’re trying to find belonging and we’re trying to meet this need for connection. And and I kind of went overboard with it, where I, you know, I maybe got in cars I wasn’t supposed to get into, and like I often joke that I’m like, I don’t even know how I really survived during that time. Like, thank goodness that like my true best friends were like, you know, protective and and still to this day are. but I ended up going the route of child development because.

Because I wanted to make a difference for kids. I remembered how challenging my childhood was, especially after that period where my mom became a single mom. And I was like, I want to make a difference. Like, I want to make sure that kids have that safety too. And then I got pregnant, like pretty soon after I had started working. I was working with kids for a few years and I and I became pregnant. I wasn’t married. I had been with my partner at that point for four years. But I was like, no, I’m ready. Like, I feel like, you know, I want to do this.

And so I was 23 years old. I had my first daughter. I looked at her and I was like, I cannot imagine ever causing any harm, any pain, any like strife for this little baby. She’s so precious, she’s so sacred. and in that same moment, I felt that way about myself, interestingly. Right. I was like, I deserved all of that, also, right? I deserved safety and care and caring and all these things. and so I had been very privileged that I.

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
I had that background in child development by the time that I got to that point. and then I started reading the parenting books and and realizing that like in school, the school, the things that school teaches you are different than like the things that are sometimes coming out and are more like modern, right? And so I was like, there’s a disconnect here. and then I

I just started getting like really curious about like why did culture was the missing piece, right? Like I was like, why was it that in my family this violence against children

is normalized the spankings, the chancla, the hanger, the cuchara, the cinto, like all of these things have been accepted. And not only that, but I’m watching comedians like George Lopez and others who are like, yeah, we parent in this way. Yes, this is something that we’re super proud of, right? Meanwhile, I’m over here in this white parenting world of like attachment parenting and these things. And they’re like, no, no, like you shouldn’t even put your kid in timeout. Right. Like that’s harmful.

And so it was like this massive gap, Edica, where I was just like, how can I like make sense of this massive gap? And it was the culture that was missing, it was the history that was missing, it was the context that was missing. And so over time I ended up wanting to work more.

closely with parents because I felt like parents were really the root of it, right? Like if we could make a difference, yes, teachers absolutely make a difference, but parents are the ones that kids go home to at the end of the day. And so if that connection is fractured, that’s going to have an impact like it did for me. So I went that route, you know, I changed directions. I was like, I I love working with kids, but I’m gonna work with parents. And I did a training called trauma-informed nonviolent

Leslie Priscilla
child raising that was taught by a teacher of mine, Ruth Beaglehol. And she really was the one that made it known, like, look, this isn’t actually even about parenting. This is about social justice for children. And that was, I think, the first time where I was like, like

This is bigger than just what the individual parent does with the individual child. This is about human rights for a child to be deserving and worthy of all of the things that I saw my daughter as worthy of, right? The love, the care, the understanding, the affection, the attention too, right? The just all of the things that I think make for a healthy child and also like a healthy parent child dynamic. So graduated college.

college, completed my training, was like, I’m ready. I want to go work with parents. And when I was working with parents, they were like a chancla, right? Like it was Spanish speaking parents. I’m very fortunate, very blessed that my

My parents gifted me the language of being able to speak fluently in Spanish because when I was when I was working with them, I ended up learning so much from these groups of Spanish speakers from all over, right? I had mainly like probably Mexican American families, but a lot of Peruvian families and Salvadorian families. And so one of the threads that remained consistent was La Chancla or La Chancleta, right? Because I would ask, I would say, Well, what is disciplina? You know, how do we how do we discipline kids? La Chancla, la chancla.

Then so it was this like funny moment, but I was I I just started to get really curious about that. And then eventually Latinx parenting kind of evolved out of this like frustration that these families, including my mom, including my family, did not have the access, the resource, the privilege,

Leslie Priscilla
The healing, I guess, that we need to be able to access some of these more practical tools, like use a soft tone of voice with your kids, you know, get down on their level, validate their feelings, like all of those things just seemed very out there for what I had experienced in my family and what I was hearing from these other families. So in 2018, Latinx Parenting was birthed. and it’s just been like this accumulation of like all of those experiences.

experiences and I continue to learn and and I I say that you know I’m mainly a student of these families. I am mainly a student of my own family, right? I don’t consider myself an expert. When people say I’m an expert I I get really uncomfortable actually because I’m like really I’m I’m learning, right? I’m I’m wanting to be in a position where I’m receiving and being told the things that people need. That was very long.

Erika Cruz
That was r that there’s like so many follow up questions that I have from that. So that was great.

Leslie Priscilla
no.

Leslie Priscilla
Did I glitch a little bit?

Erika Cruz
No, you’re you’re fine. Can you hear me? Okay, okay, great. So whenever you were talking about La Chancla or the spoon or El Cinto, I’m sure you’ve seen those videos where it’s like the they take out the belt and then the kids like run up to it like a swing instead of being afraid of it. And as you were talking, I kind of got like this memory.

Leslie Priscilla
Yes, I can hear you.

Erika Cruz
But I wasn’t a bad kid, but I was always more spoken and adventurous. And I think my parents really wanted me to be very reserved, especially because my older brother was more reserved, but I’m just a social butterfly. And I didn’t it’s not that I was again rebellious, but I was just a little bit more outspoken. And I will never forget the sound of my parents’ closet. It would make this like squeaky noise as it opened.

And every time I heard that noise, I immediately was like, did I do something wrong? Am I going to get hit right now? Are they getting the belt right now? Especially because the side where the belts lived made more of a squeaky sound. So it was like I associated that. And as you were speaking, I was like, my goodness, it’s so crazy how our brain immediately starts to recognize patterns. And maybe it wasn’t the chunk laughter people, maybe it was other things, but

Leslie Priscilla
Mm.

Erika Cruz
Now like any squeaking closet takes me back to that moment. And it’s wild how that still stays with you even after all of these years.

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah, yeah, and that’s because trauma lives in the body. You know, I I know that a lot of people have heard of that book, like The Body Keeps the Score, but

It is very true that like sometimes those things will surface without warning. in the book that I wrote at Chankra, I talk about this experience where I was talking to my my husband at the time, and I was sharing with him this experience that I had had where my parents were in like a physical argument, conflict, and I started to panic. Like I remember being like nine years old, and I was I started to panic, and my little sister.

Was in a walker, and I started pulling her out of the walker to take her away from that environment. But I hadn’t remembered up until the moment where I was sharing about it how terrified I was and how frustrated, or like just like I remember her feet getting stuck in the little holes, like those little fabric holes at the bottom of the walker, and just being like, my god, and like the the panic rose, right? But I hadn’t remembered that little piece of it.

Since that happened. And so here I am in the kitchen. And then all of a sudden I start to like shake and like hyperventilate. And I’m like, my God. Like I I really was taken back to that moment. and it can be really scary, right? Especially if we don’t have tools or maybe it’s not the right space. And so this is why, like, whenever we we hold circulo or whenever we’re having the space, like I have to kind of warn people to say, like, hey, opening up this door to talk about our childhoods.

may create some feeling of you know, discomfort at the very least, right? It might start opening up. And so everything is optional, right? I’m never gonna be like, okay, we’re gonna go like deep in your childhood right now. but but yeah, it can be really hard when those things come up in the body. I remember one day my ex-husband also like, he took his belt off really fast and it made like that, you know, sound. And I was like

Leslie Priscilla
What’s going on? And I was never hit with the belt, but I was around it when my cousins would get hit with the belt. Right. And so it’s very much in the in the body. And and that can be scary for folks.

Erika Cruz
Yeah, yeah, definitely. The other thing you mentioned was social justice. This is about social social justice, especially for kids who don’t know their rights, who are looking at their caregivers as the people who are teaching them what’s right and wrong, who are there’s there’s this power dynamic, right, where all

Born seeking connection, which is what you talked about earlier as well. We’re all born seeking connection and approval, specifically from our caregivers. And so when you you said this is about social justice, I’m like, man, this is like on steroids, because these are kids who who don’t know the difference between right and wrong because they’re their caregivers are the ones teaching them this. So that makes this even more.

Important for this group because they’re essentially not able to stand up for themselves.

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah, and they’re not able to organize, right? And I think it was Belle Hooks that has this chapter in her in the second chapter of the book, All About Love. that chapter is called Childhood Love Lessons, and she talks about how

Erika Cruz
Yes.

Leslie Priscilla
Basically, children are the only subgroup or the only marginalized and oppressed group that are not able to band together to resist their oppressors, right? Like I as a child could not go to my neighbor who was a child and be like, hey, like, how are they treating you? Right? Like, let’s talk about this. And then it becomes something where we begin to believe that we deserve it.

And that’s how we begin to believe that our children deserve it, right? And so I remember having moments with the parents that I worked with where they were like, yeah, I deserve the beatings that I got. Like I was a really bad kid, you know, and I had to be taught in this way. But it was because there wasn’t an alternative, right? Like our parents didn’t really know all the things that we have the privilege to know now around how corporal punishment and those things impacts the brain. and they were also very much in survival, especially if you had immigrant parents, right? Like

Erika Cruz
Right.

Leslie Priscilla
That experience in and of itself makes it so much harder for a parent to stay regulated, not impossible. And like this is what where the hope is, because it’s not impossible, but it is about social justice for these kids, right? We part of what I want to communicate with the book and with the work is that we have dehumanized children for far too long.

And when I did my training in parent education, I read this wonderful book called Parenting for a Peaceful World that kind of outlines the history of childhood. and I learned that a lot of the mistreatment of children actually came from European influence. And so when people say things like, Well, la chancla is just our culture, and the way that we treat kids in this way is just our culture, actually it’s an adaptation into our culture.

That we adapted for a need to survive, right? And so we ended up becoming the ones who had normalized these ways of treating children. But actually, historically, and I I talk about the research in the book, we did not really have this need to.

harm children in this way, right? It wasn’t until the stressors and the adversity were imposed on us by colonial forces that we said, you know what? I would rather beat my child into submission so that this conquistador or this encomendero, right? Or this like for black families too, right? This plantation owner, like I would much rather be the one to keep my child subdued

Erika Cruz
Well

Leslie Priscilla
Because I don’t want to risk the separation between me and my child if this child is acting up, right? And so we still see this. We still see this. We see this in tiendas. We see this in stores, where we say te va a llevar el señor, te va a llevar like that is directly connected to our history of attempted colonization. And so this is like what I want people to understand so badly is that these are adaptations. This is actually not a part of our culture. Our culture had colonization not been such a horror.

Erika Cruz
Well.

Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
terrible, terrible, you know, h just awful infliction of violence onto our people, who knows the peace that we would have been able to sustain, right? The ease that we would have been able to sustain, the options that our parents would have had

Especially coming from a collectivist culture, indigenous people who were connected to the land, who understood balance, who really honored children, who really took them in as a part of, you know, the decision-making processes and things like that. And I’m not saying I’m not like trying to romanticize all Indigenous peoples either, because there’s definitely we’re human beings, right? Like we have tendencies of causing harm in general. but I do want to highlight and amplify the fact that there were outside colonial influence.

Erika Cruz
Right.

Leslie Priscilla
that impacted and have impacted families for generations and continue to until we kind of wake up and we say, wait a minute, we have power.

Right. Our children have power. We have power. I don’t have to raise my child in this way. I want my child to resist. Right. I want my child to have practice saying no to me, even though it’s uncomfortable for me. I don’t like when my kids say no. Right. But ultimately I do want my kids to be able to say, this is injustice. I will not take this anymore. We as a people are powerful and we have the right and the birth right to be able to change this and to see ourselves as sacred and worthy of all of the things that are good.

Erika Cruz
You blew my mind with that example. And I even had a somatic response. I got like chills in my body when you were talking about the conquerors or plantation owners and how the parents were under the stress to keep their children in check or to act in a in a certain way, to not risk separation. So it’s almost like this harm came from a place of love.

Leslie Priscilla
Yep.

Erika Cruz
It’s like mind blowing to me. And even when you talk about the store example, like yeah, I can imagine an immigrant mom at Target or whatever store, right? The grocery store. And if their kid is acting up, they might be afraid of we’re drawing attention. What if they’re not a citizen? What if IC comes to get them? What if they get kicked out of the store? What if they’re literally judged and oppressed by the people around them that maybe don’t look like them? And that just

like completely blew my mind because it gave me a different perspective that I didn’t think of before. I mean, I always knew it was about, you know, staying not not controlled, but like wanting them to act in a way that that you want them to act. But that is mind blowing to me. Which my next question, which I think you kind of already answered, is about adult supremacy, which is very connected to this.

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah.

Yeah, so I mean it goes back to that like European influence, right? And so what I learned in the research that I did in order to write this book was that the treatment of children in Europe that then was brought into this land, the only way that that evolved away from being oppressive to the child to European children, right? Because the oppression initially was to these European children by their parents or by these, you know, social forces.

Right. And so children were always kind of at the bottom, and then women, right? And then the the patriarch at the top. And so those systems always kind of trickle down to the children in that way. But what I learned is that the way that they started to humanize the their own European children was not because they just decided one day that they were gonna humanize them, it was because the children started to relate to the struggle.

Of the enslaved people, right? And so they started becoming more attached to Native and African enslaved people. And so the European, you know, plantation owners or the encomenderos, right? We’re like, no, no, no, no, no. We can’t have this happen. We have to be nicer to our children so that they stop identifying with these oppressed people. And when I read Larica, I was like,

Like it really, really blew my mind. I was like, that makes so much sense. And so what happened is that it flipped, right? And so rather than to see ourselves as the peaceful people that have capacity for gentle relationship with children, we began to normalize this as a part of who we were, right? People who

Erika Cruz
Wow.

Leslie Priscilla
very comfortably can hit a child very p you know for their own good, right? That’s kind of the saying. It’s like esportourien, right? If I it me duele más a mi, right? That’s actually one of the the names of the chapters of the book is is that we we

Unfortunately, had the script flipped, right? Where now it’s like, you want to parent like white people. You want to parent, you know, like this is this and chunkla culture stuff is like white people shit, is what I’ve heard, right? And so, but we need to recognize the history of what has happened that has made it so much more difficult for Latina immigrant, brown, black families to parent in these ways. It’s been generations of believing that.

This is this is the way, right? This is how we work it safe. This is a better, this is

Erika Cruz
Mm-hmm.

Leslie Priscilla
Distinguishing ourselves also from this oppressor culture. And also what ends up happening is that when we do that, our children grow up to assimilate that much more into this Western individualized or individualism-focused culture. And this is where they start to kind of figure out: you know, how do I get power? I become a Border Patrol agent. I become an ICE agent. I come into the police force, right? I begin to have power in these other external ways.

That actually cause more harm to my own people because I no longer identify with that struggle. Because now my survival is about, you know, making sure that I have the power in this way. And so it really does begin with the liberation of children and with the restoration of the humanity of children so that children can feel good and at home in their own families, right? I rejected my culture for a long time. I went to this Catholic high

And I was like, what the heck? Like, no, I want to hang out with my friends whose parents are nice to them, right? And so I was like, up, my mom, like, I don’t want to be around her. I don’t want to be around my tíos and my tías. My cousin, not that long ago, was like, you like left. Like, you know, all of a sudden, like, they just stopped seeing me because I wouldn’t want to go to the fiestas anymore. Because they would yell at their kids, and there was the belt, and there was, you know, and it was just like, I didn’t want to be, of course, I didn’t want to be there. But in doing that, I started to, and I didn’t know this

Erika Cruz
Mm-hmm.

Leslie Priscilla
the time, but really reject my culture, right? And reject the fact that we are a beautiful people. And so it’s been a long journey of kind of coming back to recognizing what has been attempted. I’m not going to say it was fully taken from us, but it has been attempted to be taken from us and to really align with the liberation of our people, beginning with the liberation of our children.

Erika Cruz
Mm-hmm.

Erika Cruz
my goodness, I love that so much. What was the in this research, what did you find was the treatment of children pre-colonization? So what what was that dynamic like?

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah. So it’s really difficult because a lot of the history was burned. Like it was it was erased, right? And so and even with the codexes that we have, right? If we’re just looking at Mexico, those were written often by, you know, European friars. And so it it made us look like we were always violent to our children, like you hear of child sacrifice. And I’m not saying that that didn’t happen. but we still have remnants of parenting in cultures like the Maya people, right? And so

in Maya families to this day, it’s extremely collaborative, right? It’s if you go to an indigenous culture

in Mexico, there is not a lot of corporal punishment, right? It’s not this like really intense experience. And so while we don’t really have a lot of record of what parenting for Indigenous peoples was ahead of time, we do have some values that have remained in terms of our collectivism, right? Where children do get to participate in family decisions, where we see them as worthy of honoring. Some indigenous cultures in North America see children as the the

Mm-hmm.

my gosh, I’m forgetting the word, but basically it’s an ancestor that has returned, right? And so you don’t want to treat them as a child so much as somebody who has lived before and is coming back to teach you certain things, right? And so there’s just there’s a lot of learning, I think, that we can do from multiple indigenous cultures. I think it’s interesting too that you know, there’s this big move for us to stop identifying as Latina and start identifying as indigenous because we are underrepresented in

Leslie Priscilla
Things like the census. But I think it’s also really important for people to re recognize that that’s complicated, right? Like it’s like if you didn’t grow up indigenous, you didn’t, you don’t like necessarily relate to that culture. It can take a while to get back to that. And same with the parenting practices, right? If you didn’t grow up like with you know the child really being a part of that family system in that way, it can be kind of hard to remember that that is actually what we knew, you know, for the 18,000 years.

Years that we’ve been on this land before a Spanish boot touch soil here, right? So, so I always encourage people because there’s like a knowing of it, and like you can go into like research papers and things like that, but then there’s like a different knowing of it, right? Where when you’re attuning with your children, when you’re living in balance with your children, when you are creating a family culture that is as harmonious as it can be, and you’re restoring their sovereign.

And you’re restoring their humanity as you’re restoring your own, you can recognize that as something that lives within you that is also ancestral, right? It’s not new. And so sometimes when people are like, well, what is the you know the actual data? And I’m like, it’s hard because it’s been erased, but the data is internal, right? The data is what we have the capacity to do. That is not violence, that is not, you know, disconnection between us and our children. so I love that.

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
question and I’m still again I’m still learning so much about you know what can be learned from our history before colonization but it is really hard because they very much intentionally came and destroyed a lot of our records but you know they’re there are remnants right and I really do believe that our ancestors are still speaking to us and if we allow ourselves they can come to us in our dreams or in certain moments of insight and and I really try to go with that right because I I think that that is more of our way of going

Conocimiento and knowing and so much emphasis in Western psychology is placed on like, okay, give me, you know, the facts. And it’s like, well, that’s not necessarily, you know, the only way to know things. so I wish I knew more, right? I wish I could go back and see and see. I wish I did, but but there are still remnants of of the treatment of children, and they’re they’re not violent.

Erika Cruz
Mm-hmm.

Erika Cruz
Time travel and sea.

Yeah.

Erika Cruz
Yeah, yeah. I I mean, I’m sure I I’m a very spiritual person. So my feed consists of even kids or toddlers saying the name of a sibling that maybe passed during like a miscarriage, right? So it’s it’s crazy how for children the door between the conscious and the subconscious is pretty much wide open. So they almost are so connected to their intuition, where there’s been many accounts of them either sharing

Things about the family that there’s no way they would know at that age, right? Or just this inherent wisdom. But when children are don’t feel safe, that’s also not fully expressed. Let’s say that somebody is a millennial and they’re a parent and maybe they had similar experiences to you and I growing up, and they are intent they’re probably already following you, but they’re intentional that they don’t want to parent the way their parents did.

But they are frustrated by the actions or the tone of their child. Like, what would be the advice? I know that this is a big question, right? This is literally your whole life’s work. They need to go get your book first and foremost. But what would be kind of the first thing that you would suggest people do? Because I’ve seen, I’ll I’ll tell you why. I’ve seen the attempt of either friends or family members who are.

Looking to de-escalate of maybe a trigger for their child. And they they start off gentle, but maybe default to La Senora is going to come get you, or kind of just like these fear tactics. And I’m not a parent, and I I immediately can tell you I would not like to parent that way. But I think when you’re in that moment and you’re frustrated, it’s different.

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah.

Erika Cruz
And I don’t want to make any assumptions. I assume it’s very overwhelming if you’re on a flight or in a grocery store and your child’s kind of losing it. So what would you say to that person who it knows they want to do better, but they don’t know exactly how to do better?

Leslie Priscilla
I would say this shit is so hard. Like I am so compassionate because I am a mama and and and a human being. Like I feel like even when I had like preschoolers before I was a a parent parent, like I was still, I would still find it challenging to kind of keep it together, right? Like I would I would have to because I’m like, these are not my kids. Like I can’t. but I tell parents, like, I’m very transparent. I’m like, look, I still very much feel

this like fire in my hand that wants to come out, you know, towards my kids, especially when my need for respect is not feeling met, my need for consideration or even space sometimes is not being met. Right. And so oftentimes it’s like I just want to normalize the experience for parents because sometimes when people think that, they see I’m a parent coach, they’re like, you’re here to judge, right? You’re here to like tell me what I’m doing wrong. And it’s like, no, I’m here to normalize like how difficult

this experience is. And I feel like the more gentle that we are in spaces where we can really reflect about those situations, the more gentle our capacity will be for our children. Right. And so

Honestly, it depends a little bit on the dynamic that that people have with their kids. There are parents that it’s very easy for them to be playful with their kids, right? And so I would say, okay, go with that. Like make it something that’s playful, like shift the energy so that it’s it’s a little bit lighter. there’s parents that are not that way. There’s parents that are like, no, I need the respect, right? And so for them, I really break down what respect is and the differences between respect and obedience, right? And whether there’s a difference.

difference there because often we get really frustrated when kids are just acting

Leslie Priscilla
like kids, you know, if they’re playing or they’re being loud and a friend of mine a long time ago was so on point she called it, she’s like, you know, a tantrum really feels like an assault on the senses. And I was like, yes, like it really does, you know. It’s a human thing to be like, I don’t I don’t wanna experience this like loud noise in my ear, right? The shriek of a child on an airplane. Like even me, I was on an airplane yesterday and I like a child started like

fussing and I was like, please don’t, please don’t. You know, like it’s not the immediate reaction for anybody, I think, to be like, I welcome these feelings, you know, I welcome these these experiences.

And so I just want to normalize that for parents first and foremost. Second of all, I really want parents to have like this extensive vocabulary around what their need is and to reconnect with the parts of themselves that are sensation oriented, right? And so with my kids, for example, if they are acting in a way where I might slip back into the patterns that I grew up with, I will be very communicative and say, look, my chat.

Right now is starting to feel really hard. My gut, my my belly feels like there’s a fire in it. You know, I’m like telling them just like, yeah, like you’re I’m not telling them you’re in a danger zone, but by communicating what the somatic experience is, I’m hopefully getting them to understand from this more abstract, like visual, because kids are super visual, right? And so if I’m like, hey, there’s a volcano that’s like bubbling right now in my body.

and like I need to go and take some I’m gonna come back, but I need to go and take some space to calm my volcano down because if I don’t, it might explode all over you. And I have told my kids, I’ve been like, look, I feel like if I don’t take space right now, like I might hit you. And I really don’t want to, you know, like I really don’t I don’t want to hurt you. And so I’m gonna I’m gonna walk away. sometimes, you know, I take behaviors personally like all parents do.

Leslie Priscilla
I’ve learned a lot just parenting my fourteen year old, you know, where she

She’s gotten really good at communicating what her needs are. And I think that part of that is because I’ve been able to kind of work on that and and model it, right? And say, look, I’m needing, you know, I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’m feeling hot in my body. I’m needing space. I share this experience in the book where she was next to me in the car and we’re driving to school. She’s like, you know, she’s has like furrowed brows and I’m just like, what the heck is wrong with like in myself, right? I’m just like, what’s her problem?

Like she didn’t have to wake up super early and like make breakfast. And and so there’s my need for validation of my labor too, right? Like there’s my my like I need someone to tell me thank you for like all of this hard work. is it her job in that moment when she’s feeling that? No, right? Cause my mom would put that on me and I hated it, right? And so.

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
There’s this moment in the book where I talk about how she’s she’s kind of like, you know, feeling these these emotions and I’m just like, what’s wrong? Like, you know, but I’m I’m doing it in a way where I’m just like, get the in this, like, what the heck? You know, why are you acting like this?

And then she starts telling me, she is like, I am really overwhelmed. Like I feel really stressed out. My siblings are being very loud. Like I feel really tense in my body. My nervous system is overactivated. Like all and I’m just like, whoa, you know, and so the goal is not for us to not have those moments, but it’s to kind of build on the skills that we have to be able to communicate what we’re experiencing and then model that so that our children at some point will kind of take on that vocabulary and move away from the behaviors.

That are always strategies to meet a need, right? Like I this is kind of what my training has been is that all behavior is a strategy to meet a need. Child behavior, parent behavior, neighbor behavior. Like all behavior is a strategy to meet a need. So I think the more that I have one. my god.

Erika Cruz
that is like you need a shirt with that.

Erika Cruz
Mic drop moment. You’re right. Every behavior is an act to have a need met.

Leslie Priscilla
That is so funny you said that, ’cause we literally just got these in.

Erika Cruz
my goodness, I love it.

Leslie Priscilla
And so this is like a graphic in the book and what I tell people and so this is like helpful because

I’m like, look, behavior is like we are the observer, right? We’re this like get sad that’s like flying over the rainforest. And if you look down, like you can’t see anything but just this like blanket of green. And so that’s the judgment. That’s like you’re being disrespectful, you’re being rude, you’re being lazy. You left your socks on the floor for the fifth time this week. You’re so lazy, like you’re so, you know, ungrateful is like a big one, right? And so, but we forget that like under this canopy of of rainforest are like the the sensations, right? I have like a little cricket here to represent.

sensations, it’s the emotions, which is the river, right? It’s the thought processes that are happening in a person. And then at the very root of it are the needs, right? And so when I’m working with parents, it’s really about connecting back to our own needs. Because in the moment that my child is having a tantrum, the interpretation of it is that they’re being disrespectful, but really it’s the perception that my need for respect is not being met. So there’s a difference there, right?

Erika Cruz
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah. And so it’s like okay, we wanna kind of like peel away the judgment and like the evaluation of it and we wanna look at it and say, Okay, I am experiencing

Erika Cruz
Mm-hmm.

Leslie Priscilla
an absence of that need for respect or consideration or validation for the fact that I worked really hard this morning, right? And then I can look at my child’s behavior and ask, okay, well what might they be needing, right? They’re needing space. They’re needing validation. They’re needing, and then I’m the adult, right? So like I have to figure out how to tend to my needs, my inner child wounds as well. Right. A lot of this is inner child work and that’s like the second leg. It’s the parenting but it’s the reparenting.

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
and figure out like why does it bother me so much when my children put their feet near my face. it was because whenever I did that to my mom, she would freak, she would freak out. Like it was, so it just it it kind of continues in that way. But we need to ask ourselves those questions. And often it’s more helpful for us to be able to process those experiences.

outside of when they’re happening. Right. So I really encourage parents to have some kind of reflection practice, whether that’s journaling or you’re calling a friend if you’re processing these things or therapists, if you want to, a parenting group, right? some kind of space where you can kind of unpack that. Because what ends up happening is that we don’t create that space and then these things continue, right? And then they become chronic. And then I have parents that come up to me and they’re like, my child is 17 and she doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. And like she doesn’t, you know, and I feel like I’ve failed and I haven’t

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
Done enough to like preserve that trust. And that happens sometimes. Like even to this day, my mom will call me and I still get tense in my body, right? And those things are really hard to shake. And so as much as possible while our kids are younger, not that it’s impossible, right? Because I feel like repair is always possible, but as much as we can, if we can really attune to what the need is, have a vocabulary around it, get to know our own responses, you know, what what is a trigger for me, what is an

activation for me. How do I, you know, navigate if I’m gonna practice mindfulness as a tool, how do I do it outside of that situation so that it becomes a pattern that I’m instilling in my brain, right? Because the brain is a this is an organ. Like we’re we’re trying to create these connections and like shed the other ones. And so it’s complicated. It’s a labor, like it’s a lot of labor for parents and I mainly I want to validate that for them.

Erika Cruz
Totally. Yeah, and it’s just very overstimulating because not only are you managing the nervous not managing, but you have to like regulate your nervous system, but also that of your child, especially if they’re at a younger age. I was at a Joe Dispenza, I was actually at an event and Joe Dispenza had just happened to be the one of the speakers. And there was a question asked about parenting, and he said,

Being a parent is the fast track to enlightenment. And I thought that was so interesting. And like what you just described right now reminded me of that because what it forces you to do is it forces one, kids are mirrors, right? Everybody’s a mirror to us, but it forces you, as you mentioned, to like reparent yourself, to observe your actions, to observe your child’s actions. And if you really do

If you’re up for the work, I think it can be a very rewarding experience, but definitely it doesn’t feel that way in the middle of a trigger, right? I don’t have kids, but any trigger doesn’t feel like, this is gross in that moment, but on the other side of it, it can definitely feel that way.

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I think if we if we have like a really clear idea of like

our children as our teachers, right? So there’s this like perspective that like I raise my kids, right? I parent my kids. Well our kids are also our teachers, right? We really do. And I agree with that. I agree that it’s like it’s like the fast track to at least like higher consciousness kind of like, you know, the the level of humility that it takes to not take something personally and to kind of like unpack that moment. Mind you, like this requires, you know, access to things like you

Erika Cruz
Yes.

Leslie Priscilla
know, I I just want to name privilege because a parent is working two jobs or is afraid of deportation or like this becomes much harder when you add those layers. And so this is why my work with Lucky Ned Parents like

constantly has like we have to address the fact that like there are levels of hardship. but in those moments, if we can slow down a little bit, if we can bring some playfulness into it, if we can bring some breath into it. Like I I do breathing exercises with my with the parents that I work with. I’m like, this is free. It just takes like creating a ritual out of it. You know, you can do it in the morning. You can like there’s there’s things that we don’t need to pay for necessarily that can kind of bring us

to a point where we can see our children as teachers of us. I remember once not that long ago my son was this it’s it’s very humbling and it’s like very vulnerable to to kind of share this because it’s something that I like I advise against, right? We he was in the bathroom, I was like trying to get ready to go and this is like where I really struggle sometimes is like when I feel like I’m in a rush. And so I’ve had to like learn like workarounds to that right.

And like start getting ready early and just kind of let it go and be like, okay, I guess I’m gonna be late. but I was getting to the point where I was getting really loud, you know, and I was just like, I need you guys to hurry, like, you know, you’re moving too slow, blah, blah. Like I was, I was spiraling a little bit. And so my son went to the bathroom and I was in there and he was like, Mom, when you yell, it makes me feel bad. And I immediately went, Well, maybe you should feel bad, you know, like you’re making me late. And I like went into this like narrative, right? And he’s like, No, and he stopped me and he was like,

No mom, like you’re making me feel like I’m a bad kid. And I was like, like it really stopped me in my tracks, and I was like, shit, like this is like this is where he’s teaching me, right? Like this is where he’s telling me you’re acting in a way that is not aligned with what your value and what you’re like.

Erika Cruz
Leslie Priscilla
you know, goal is really for this relationship. And so it like it kind of snapped me out of it. And I was like, like, I’m so sorry. Like I, you know, I was able to kind of melt a little bit.

I don’t believe that like guilt and shame do much for us or our children. I think that guilt, especially when we act in ways that are not aligned, it’s inevitable. I think it’s important for us to kind of recognize it as like a moment where we can learn, right? And we can kind of, okay, reset, you know, figure out what our next intention is, what are we gonna do the next time, repair with our child if we need to. But I don’t think it serves us it serves us to carry it in a

way where we start to feel like bad parents, right? Where we start to feel like I’m now admonishing my inner child again. You’re a you’re a bad niña, you know, malcriada parent, right? Like there’s not a lot of benefit that can come from that. And so you know in those moments it’s like okay well what what how do we repair that right how do we come back to a new place of of healing in that moment. But it’s

Erika Cruz
Yeah, yeah.

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
gonna happen. I mean I’ve been working with parents now for gosh, like a long time. And and I still I still fuck up. You know, the expectation is not that we don’t fuck up. It’s that we know what we do and that we can recognize it when we get to that point and do better.

Erika Cruz
Yeah. And I mean, for your son to feel comfortable enough to say that to you as well, I mean, that’s just kudos to you because you’ve obviously done done a great job. I did want to ask about shame. It was one of the things I wrote down and then I completely lost my questions because I got so into our conversation. But as we think about shame or guilt, I remember feeling as a kid, if I did something wrong, I almost felt like, I deserve this.

And this guilt that made almost justified the action of the belt or of La Chancla or of whatever, where whatever it was. so much so that I remember like I would make mistakes and I would beat myself up about it. Like not physically hurt myself, but I would emotionally beat myself up.

And like I would lose something. And I remember I would get in so much trouble if I spilled something or if I lost something. And I was called like irresponsible and all these things. And as I’ve gotten older, I’m like, this is so interesting because my mom spills things and loses things all the time. So it was nothing more than her projecting onto me. And I just got back from a trip. I was gone for two weeks and I dropped my AirPods. And I dropped my AirPods because I was distracted.

And they ended up getting run over. So, and as a kid, or just a few years ago, I think I would have beat myself up about it over and over and over. And I spent so many years doing that. And this time I laughed about it. And I was like, it happens. I have some wired headphones just in case. And those are the ones I use the rest of the trip, and it was totally fine.

But it took them it took a while to get here. It took a lot of therapy. It took a lot of inner work. It took a lot of journaling. I live with my mom now. I hadn’t lived with her for over 12 years. Then I moved back when I started my business. And it took me almost like observing her as a human because it was the first time I lived with her as a fellow adult rather than like as her child. And now it’s like we’re roommates. So it’s been such an interesting experience to witness. And so

Erika Cruz
I went on a whole tangent here, but the point was that I would shame myself and beat myself up over things because it’s what I was taught as a kid until I unlearned that. So the repair is possible even with ourselves, right? Even with our parents. And I assume this is part of what you discuss in the book. So who’s the book for?

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah. I it’s for you. It’s for it really is for anybody that like and you say I’m not a parent and I always like push back on that ’cause I’m like, you are actually parenting your inner ninja. You know, you are actually

engaging in relationship with a version of yourself that is still very much in need of love, care, validation, like all of these things. the book is for parents. I like it’s being marketed as a as a parenting book, but it’s also like an anthropology book because I do talk about the history and I do talk about, you know, the the context of what we come from. But I wanted to speak to something that that you said because the

The shame is really difficult, I think, especially for some of our elders to shake. And I think that sometimes when I have challenged kind of getting to the point where somebody can acknowledge maybe the harm that either they were caused or the harm that they have caused, it’s because there’s so much of that experience that is shrouded in shame, right? Either because I did something bad or because somebody, you know, else did something bad and shame on them.

But I wanted to to speak to the fact that like this is why it’s so important for us. I think, especially as we engage with our elders, that we don’t add on additional layers of shame and that we’re very, very careful about the ways that we approach some of these topics with them. Because I think

While healing modalities and therapy and things like that are becoming more normalized, what’s happening is that because Western psychology comes from a very individualistic lens, and there’s this like whole pull and push towards in you know, boundaries, right? Like you have to create boundaries. And so what that does is sometimes it kind of like, you know, pushes away some of the people that because of their own traumas or because of their lack of access.

Leslie Priscilla
And resource like did harm us, right? And I want to caution that there’s ways of untangling cadenas without cortandolas, right? Like there’s ways of kind of saying, ‘Look, this belongs to you and this belongs to me.’ and so when like we like with your mom, right, or like with with any any of our elders really, when we are sensing that they are carrying this shame.

Erika Cruz
Mm-hmm.

Leslie Priscilla
like it it’s it’s hard to to put into practice, but we do have to parent them a little bit, you know, and we have to like bring in that gentleness to them a little bit. It’s easier when we do it with ourselves, right? When we have that practice. And then they start to kind of learn from us based on what we’re doing for ourselves, which is nice. But even like yesterday my mom was over and I wasn’t back from the airport yet and she had brought a couple of donuts for my kids and my stepson was scared and she didn’t realize that my stepson was going to be here. So she did not enter the house

said my partner.

because she felt so bad and so guilty about not having brought my stepson a donut and just kept bringing it up and she was like, I just feel so bad, I just feel so bad, you know, and I like I I I would have if I had, and like and it’s like it’s okay, like no one really cares, you know, like it doesn’t but but I just want people to know that like our elders deserve that unconditional love now and that compassion and and yeah they they did some shit like they

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
They really hurt us sometimes and they may have used la chancla and they may have used, you know, worse things, but I think it’s really important to move away from this paradigm of dehumanization, regardless of who that’s about, right? And and that’s really difficult too because there’s definitely like people that are still trying to oppress us. And so people are like, well, are you trying to get me to like humanize them? And it’s like, well, maybe a little bit just for prevention purposes in the future, right? Like we can like figure out what happened there and then like apply it to to our children.

Erika Cruz
Mm-hmm.

Leslie Priscilla
And our descendants, but but it’s really difficult. And like it’s not easy being a human in this time, in this country, a person of color right now in this country. Like it’s very stressful, I think, to be confronted with like a lot of the experiences that we’re seeing, a lot of our community.

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
have and the and the trauma around it is very hard. So I just want to like really emphasize for people that like compassion and and kind of opening our hearts, you know, to as many people as we can in this time is really, really important. And I don’t know if that answered your question, but I think, you know, when you were talking about shame, I was like, ooh, that reminds me of like the the shame that that so many of us carry and and it is hard to shed.

Erika Cruz
No, definitely. One of the last questions I wanted to ask you before I you tell us more about your book and where people can can grab a copy is about co-parenting and being a step parent because there’s it’s it’s very common now to co parent or to have kind of mixed families. And in those situations there’s a lot of competing interests, right? Like there’s the the the actual parents, what’s

Leslie Priscilla
Okay.

Erika Cruz
birth parents, that’s the word I’m looking for, plus the step parents. And I really think that sometimes people’s egos can get in the way and cause a lot of a lot of conflict. But I I think what you just mentioned around compassion and maybe just like having a child first approach is maybe the the way to go about it. But if somebody’s in a situation where they are co parenting and they are having a very stressful time, what advice would you have for them?

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah, I mean

I’ve been co-parenting for the last four years now. So I feel like I’m still relatively new to it, right? I I feel like that this question might be answered differently in 10 years. but I feel like what has been helpful for me is to kind of like let that situation be that situation. Like obviously, you know, it’s gonna come into the house. Like there’s there’s definitely things where like, you know, we may not want my stepson to like have a self.

Phone and his mom is like very adamant about that, right? And so we have to like it’s definitely a dance that we have to do, I think, in that process, as long as the you know, integrity of like whatever the relationship is, like my partner and I, right? Like, as long as we are okay and we have a level of trust that whatever comes, we’re gonna be able to get through. same with if like if I didn’t have a partner and I was just co-parenting with an ex-husband, and this is again

Like you said, very, very common where

You’re navigating different parenting styles, and mom said I can have this, or dad said I can have this, and why don’t you let me? Right. And so I want to have I want to make sure that people are very wary of like triangulation, which is like where the child’s kind of in the middle, right? And there’s like I just think it’s as a child of divorce. I remember like how challenging it was when my parents would kind of use me as a pawn. Right. And so especially

Erika Cruz
Mm-hmm.

Leslie Priscilla
If I have to be very, very careful with it, because that was my model. Like that was that was what happened when I was a child. but I think it has been helpful because I’ve been able to kind of say, Okay, well, I’m never going to say anything bad about their dad to them, right? Whereas, like, my mom would just constantly talk so much crap about my dad, right? I remind them like your father loves you, even if I, you know, if I have issues with like the bio.

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
Bio mom of my stepson, it’s like your mom loves you. Like I have no, you know, like I really try to make sure that, like you said, it is child centered and it is child focused. And as much as possible, we’re going to preserve, you know, the safety and the security that a child can feel in the home. it can get really challenging though. Like I’ve heard this from many other parents. Luckily, my co-parent and I, like we it wasn’t always this way, but now we have a pretty okay relationship and you know.

We can work with each other and and even like relate to it. You know, he was telling me this morning he was like, I just found like an album of of photos from like back in 2014 and 15, and I was like, cool. He’s like, I’ll upload them to a cloud for you. And so like that’s starting to evolve, right? Where like that’s not a challenging thing to bring up that we had this life together. and so I just want people to kind of look at it from that long-term angle and say, like, it’s not always going to be this way. I need to be really solid in myself for these kids.

Erika Cruz
Mm-hmm.

Leslie Priscilla
Kids, make sure that they see me as this, like, you know, rock as much as possible. obviously, if I’m having a hard time or I’m crying, like it’s okay to tell our kids like I’m feeling sad right now, or I’m like experiencing grief right now, and this is really hard right now, and like it has nothing to do with you, you know. And I I my mom would tell me, like, you’re just like your father, right? And like say it in that way where it was a bad thing, and so it made me like it was shameful, right? It

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
Like a point of shame, and so I just want folks to be really wary of that and also know that like though it’s temporary, like everything is temporary, things will evolve. I pray a lot, like I think I’m really grateful having grown up. I don’t consider myself a Catholic anymore, but I still very much have a relationship, I think, with Creator, and and I try to place as much trust and like surrender into that that faith and that relationship, and just say, you know, I I may not understand why this hardship is.

is happening right now. I may not understand why this is being put in front of me, but I’ll be okay because I’ve always been okay, right? Like vamos a estar bien and I feel like that sense of resilience can also be really helpful and beneficial for our kids.

Erika Cruz
Definitely. that was a beautiful response. Tell us about the book. Where can people get their hands on it? What is the release date? Give us all of the info.

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
This is the galley copy, but still like the art is really cool. it is going to be out on August 22nd. So that’s a Tuesday. it was six years in the making. I poured

Erika Cruz
Amazing.

Leslie Priscilla
so much of my story into it. some stories that were shared today. You’ll also hear like the expanded version of of those. I am really excited for it to be shared or published also in Spanish. That’s like really like I’m excited for this one. I really am. But yes, so that will come out in April.

Erika Cruz
Is that release date a little later? Okay, great. Okay.

Leslie Priscilla
but this time around, yeah, it’s coming out and I recorded the audiobook for it. So if folks want to listen to me tell it in my own voice, they can do that. It’ll come out in my voice.

Erika Cruz
You’ve been hard at work behind the scenes, girl. my goodness, Leslie. That is a lot of work.

Leslie Priscilla
Yeah, yeah, it was a lot. My voice is like I think permanently impacted by that experience. But but it was a lot of fun too. And I can’t imagine I was I was the little girl that in class was constantly like, I will read this, you know, like I love to read, I love to read, I love to write. And so reading the audiobook, like I I couldn’t imagine anybody else.

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Leslie Priscilla
Doing it. but yeah, I’m super excited for it. Pre-sales are super important. So if folks are listening to this ahead of time, please get one for yourself, get one for your parent, get one for like your comadre, whoever. I think people are really gonna benefit from it. And I and I don’t say that from a place of ego. I say that from a place of like, I know what I put into this and I know that it’s done. And the reviews that have come back so far have kind of affirmed that it’s been done from a place of like so much empathy for

our parents for ourselves as parents and and people and obviously for our children so I’m excited for it to be passed down you know generationally too and and built upon by other people because one day I want to just chill in a hammock and like I’m excited and and Book Tour hopefully is coming too and you know I’ll get to meet a lot of people and hear stories. So I’m looking forward to that.

Erika Cruz
Definitely.

Erika Cruz
Yeah, you’ll have to let me know if you come to the Bay Area so I can attend.

Leslie Priscilla
there is something in the works right now for min what is it called? Nightmares something like the there’s a bookstore. I’ll I’ll let you know later. But yes, coming to the Bay Area. I’m in California, so I’ll be all over California.

Erika Cruz
Amazing, amazing. can people is there a specific website? You’ll give me the links, right? So I can add it to the show notes.

Leslie Priscilla
Yes, but really easy is Latinx parenting.org slash chancla dash book. And there’s three pre-order bonuses that are available right now. One of them is a bundle of affirmations that I recorded. one of them is to be a part of a conversation with somebody that I have not announced yet, but that is very special. and then the other one is the graphic that I showed you that’s on that t-shirt that kind of explains the behavior and you know the roots of it and all of that. So hopefully that’s supportive to folks.

Erika Cruz
Okay. Wonderful.

Erika Cruz
Amazing.

Leslie Priscilla
but yeah, please get the book. I’m so excited.

Erika Cruz
Amazing. So I will be sure we can release this like ASAP so that people can submit their pre-orders because I know those are super important. I already know who in my family I’m going to pre-order a book for. I have a cousin actually who’s also a child development major and she’s worked with kids her like whole career and she just gave birth to two twin girls. So I think she would love the book from so many different

Aspects and she’s on maternity leave right now, so I think it’ll be perfect. By the time the book comes out, she’ll still be on leave. So yeah, I’m excited to get it for her. I think she’ll love it, and then a few other people that I’m thinking about as well. So, for those of you listening, if you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did, you dropped so many gens. Like typically I come on these podcasts, and it’s a great conversation always. But I like you broke my brain a few times with the things that you shared in the research.

I cannot wait to get my hands on the book. I know that mine’s on its way, so I can’t wait for that. Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you want to make sure that you touch on before we close out?

Leslie Priscilla
I think just, you know, I think the affirmation of the fact that we are experiencing really difficult times right now and, you know, I really want to make sure that people are balancing joy with those. ’cause it can be really

vicariously traumatic to witness everything that we’re witnessing right now in terms of what’s happening to our family members and our people. So I want people to still have their fiestas and I want people to still, you know, go out and and find things to do with community and get out, right? I feel like a lot of times we end up doom scrolling, but we need to be out with our people and celebrating and being joyful because that’s who are.

Erika Cruz
Yeah.

Erika Cruz
I love that. Amazing. Leslie, Priscilla, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. whenever your Spanish one comes out, you are welcome to come back. We can maybe talk about everything that’s happened from this release and then to also just let people know that the Spanish one is out. Thank you for coming on.

Leslie Priscilla
Yes, I appreciate it so much. Thank you for you.