Parent coach takes on authoritarian parenting in Latino families with first book ‘Chancla’

For Leslie Priscilla, parenting and motherhood – how she was nurtured, or not, and how she does so now as a parent – have shaped a long path that offers insight into her journey.

As a first-generation Chicana, from a young age Priscilla became acutely aware of how all people are products of their upbringings and family dynamics. Now, the 38-year-old parent coach, family life educator and author is preparing to release “Chancla: Healing Our Families, Ourselves, and Our Culture through Nonviolent Parenting.” Her debut book draws upon personal testimony, historical context and years of facilitation with Latino families.

In her book, which she will discuss at the upcoming San Diego Book Festival, Priscilla examines the colonial roots of violence in certain aspects of Latino culture and outlines a potential path forward for parents, educators and anyone working to break cycles of harm while still honoring their culture.

Like many children of immigrants, Priscilla’s own upbringing was heavily influenced by and intrinsically tied to her parents’ own immigration story. Priscilla’s father immigrated from Colima, Mexico, to the U.S. in the ’70s, and her mother from Chihuahua later in the ’80s. The family eventually settled in Santa Ana.

However, Priscilla says her parents’ decision to move to the United States, particularly her mother’s, was rooted more in survival rather than aspirations of hope or optimism. That key detail would factor into Priscilla’s own experience as a child coming of age in the household. 

“It was multiple decades of trying to figure out the context of my family, and why my mom did not seem to have the tools that I was reading about in these parenting books,” Priscilla said. 

Priscilla’s work started early in childhood. In fact, much of her work springs from being an older sister who cared for her baby sister at the age of 10. Priscilla says that at that time her parents were also going through a difficult separation, and helping to raise her younger sister set the stage for her life’s passion.

As she grew older, she eventually decided to pursue a career in child development and family studies. Priscilla says that reading through a myriad of nearly exclusively white-authored parenting books during her research fueled her frustration as she realized that her heritage and other experiences common within Latino culture were not represented. Additionally, Priscilla says the journey led to some resentment towards her parents, stemming from unresolved trauma.

“I came from a family where there was violence, alcoholism and a tendency to just be very rough around the edges. So I often spent time with the families of friends that I went to school with who had different kinds of relationships with their parents.”

Prior to working with parents, for years Priscilla taught children as a preschool teacher. She also has worked as a certified parent coach for 16 years. In 2018, Priscilla founded Latinx Parenting, a bilingual organization that advocates for ending corporal punishment. She offers tips, guides, and other practical applications to support nonviolent discipline and intergenerational healing, and promote cultural decolonization – the ongoing process of undoing the influence of colonizing powers on the traditions, values and worldviews of colonized peoples in Latino households. 

The organization places an emphasis on several other issues:

• Social/racial justice.
• Antiracism.
• The individual and collective practice of nonviolence.
• Reparenting, the act of parents healing their inner child by acting as their own loving caregiver, to help change negative habits.

Her inspiration to start Latinx Parenting stemmed from the disconnect she felt seeing families who were able to implement the strategies and practices in the texts she had studied, in contrast to her own family members, who struggled. Priscilla says, in particular, that parenting styles such as gentle or attachment parenting felt very far removed from her parents’ abilities or the experiences she shared with her cousins while they were growing up. 

Nearly a decade later, Latinx Parenting and Priscilla’s profile have grown immensely. Across Instagram and Facebook, Latinx Parenting boasts over 314,000 followers. Her practice offers coaching, workshops, support and training for Latino/Chicano families, as well as a space where parents can engage in discussion and build community with one another.

Priscilla says that becoming a parent herself in 2011 – she’s now a mother to three multicultural children – inspired her to actively hone a decolonial parenting style that has implemented alternatives to oppressive practices found in some Latino households.

Now, Priscilla is taking the next step in her career as she prepares to promote her debut book. Chancla. The book’s title is a play on words and a reference to “Chancla” culture, the traditional use of la chancla (Spanish for flip-flop or sandal) by matriarchs in Latino households as a tool or threat of discipline for misbehaving children.

Although the term is widely joked about online and referenced in pop culture, Priscilla says its persistence represents deeper generational discussions surrounding authoritarian parenting and corporal punishment and the modern shift toward gentle parenting. 

“Having something like La Chancla and having that be so close to our identity and our culture, it feels powerful. It feels like ‘okay, we have this tool and we’re distinct from these other people.’ It makes us better parents because here we are raising respectful children,” Priscilla said.

“But a lot of times those kids are not naturally respectful; they’re obedient. They’re living in some fear. And so that was really the conversation that I would eventually bring up … around cultural healing, trauma and what that does to a child’s brain. It’s the doorway that I have found to be able to kind of bring the Latino community together to say yes, this is something that is universal among Latino families.”

Priscilla hopes the book will not only help parents break toxic generational cycles, but also question old patterns of parenting and help transform family culture.

 “I think that it’s really crucial for us to give context to where it (Chancla culture) comes from. There is a normalization of stereotypes around Latino families that we are authoritarian and that we are hard on our children,” Priscilla said. “I want us to think about ourselves as having the capacity to sustain good relationships and a good connection with our children to the point that there is enough trust between us that they will allow us to guide them in the directions of safety and fulfillment.”

Priscilla is now preparing to take her book on tour, with one of the local stops for KPBS’ San Diego Book Festival. At the event,  from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 22 on the University of San Diego campus, attendees will be able to attend panel discussions with award-winning authors, enjoy live entertainment and browse exhibitions from local authors and independent booksellers. 

As she takes to the road to promote the book, Priscilla hopes that it will not only spur conversations within families, but also discussions about systems that have propped up and incentivized punitive and corporal punishment in parenting. 

“These systems, things like rugged individualism and capitalism, have made it very difficult for us as children and adults to attune to our own body signals,” Priscilla said. “I really want us, as a Latino community, as descendants of people who have been resisting for the last 500 years, to be able to recognize that the ‘chancla’ has to go up against these systems. So that we can then reconfigure and be the best of what our culture is in order for our children to be proud of where they come from.”