I'm a Black mom who chooses gentle parenting. It's made me a happier parent.

• Sharona Drake is a mom of one who shares her life with over 63,000 followers on TikTok.
• She went from spanking to choosing gentle parenting as she realized it was better for her family.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sharona Drake. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I didn't immediately know what path I'd be on when it came to parenting, but I knew that I wanted to be a great mom. I wanted to epitomize compassion, patience, and listening, which I learned from my years working with youths and through amazing people who imparted their wisdom to me.

As I got parenting tips from other mothers, I realized there was one repetitive tool in their arsenal: spanking. So initially, it was a part of mine, too.

But two moments made me question how I was parenting, and that's why I now focus on gentle parenting.

2 instances changed the way I parent

One day, I found myself in a power struggle with my toddler. He wasn't listening. I had to keep repeating myself, the "Black mama stare" was losing its effectiveness, and nothing seemed to get through to him.

I wasn't going to hit him, but I wanted to startle him a bit so he'd understand what I was asking him to do and do it. Instead, as I moved toward him, my son looked at me with absolute fear. I didn't like that. I didn't want him to associate whatever he was feeling at that moment with his mother.

During a different power struggle, my son hit me, like any frustrated toddler who didn't always have the words to communicate how they felt would. What did I do? I hit him and said: "No! We don't hit Mommy." There we were in this parent-toddler tango because he couldn't understand why I'd hit him when I'd just said we don't hit. That did it for me.

At that moment, I realized I had to parent him by example. The "Do as I say, not as I do" rhetoric was out the window.

I choose to gentle parent

We're growing daily, essentially flying the plane as it's being built, so we don't always get things right. The decision to share my journey of gentle parenting on TikTok had overwhelming support, but it also came with some backlash.

Open communication, autonomy, and patience are foreign concepts to some parents when it comes to their children. But I'm cognizant that I'm parenting from a place of privilege because a lot of parents don't have the time or resources to count to 10 or do breathing techniques every time their child is upset.

I've been asked how I'm preparing my son for the real world as a Black boy in Alabama, or whether he even understands the messages being conveyed to him. I knew that people would think that I was choosing the "white way" of parenting, because for a lot of Black households, this is unfamiliar.

It can be tiring because so much of gentle parenting involves checking and unpacking the trauma and hurt from our own childhood, but my son deserves a healed me. For those who wonder if conscious or gentle parenting works, all I can say is that for me, the proof is in not only my son but also myself.

I have a 2-year-old who displays self-control. He can regulate his emotions. We respect each other's boundaries. I haven't lost myself in parenting, which in turn has made me a happier parent, and our household is a place of peace and harmony.

I'm raising a Black boy who'll be adequately prepared to handle whatever life brings his way with love, compassion, and power.