Is modern parenting damaging to kids?

I think some people do pussyfoot around children without creating clear boundaries. I also think girls are often held to a higher standard than boys with the ‘boys will be boys’ style approach which doesn’t really help.

I’ve tried to instil little bits of independence in mine where possible because I don’t think it’s fair to moddycoddle them and then expect them to manage at secondary suddenly or when they enter adulthood. My reception aged child will often make her own breakfast for example and enjoys being able to do it herself. We had a fair few weeks of milk being split, cereal on the floor etc while she was learning but she is very capable of sorting herself now a year later. I’m quite happy to let my 8yo be alone for 10-15 minutes at a time, have always encouraged her to order in restaurants/speak to people in shops etc and will gradually give a bit more independence each year.

@WellwellwellInever I do not recall refering especifically to gentle parenting in my posts.
I do not disagree with you on what you have described.
What I say is I have seen some people doing it wrong... and the children end up not really knowing how to behave.
Also, that we (I include myself) intervene too much, at least at times, on their little issues. The roaming free is dangerous, but if we get them to a safe place, like a park or big play area, letting them deal with their own issues, make their own play and entertainment is a huge learning opportunity for them. Many children these days have far too many organised and supervised activities and very little make your own fun time.
I do have a teenager and I know the battle of wills season is not fun, but it will pass.

That’s not gentle parenting. That’s staring at a screen! That’s NOT parenting.at all. Gentle parenting is about focusing on the relationship and attachment alongside boundaries. Kids need boundaries consistently delivered in a warm and loving environment.

You can keep boundaries without anger. I have my ‘firm’ voice when I need it and use ‘choices and natural consequences’ rather than shout angrily and lay down the law. If I am getting angry I will say ‘I am starting to get cross now’ and say why. If I lose it and get angry I forgive myself for being human and then in a calm moment I’ll apologise and repair. I model how I’d like my child to behave in relationships.

My DH shouts angrily, threatens things, shows just how frustrated he is all the time. He gets stubborn kick back now we are in teenage years. I get honesty and rational discussions. DC more likely to stick to the rules with me and sneak things with DH.

Those consequences sound great to me. Natural or logical consequences make sense. When I said ‘fear’ I meant interpersonal fear, rather than fear of missing something which is a different kettle of fish.

Surely you have seen parents around that do not put in place any visible boundaries and just keep staring at their screen, whatever their child is up to.
Being aggressive to a child, or anyone for that matter, is wrong. But either doing nothing or telling a child I am crossed, with a perfect straight face, showing no any signs of emotion, ever, does not sit right with me. And it would not work on my child.
Fear, threats.... not really, but telling them you need to be ready by such time or we will not go, because I refuse to be late, is a natural consequence to me, not a threat. Letting them be late for their activities is good to me too. And, at the end of the day, we need to get them ready for the working environment.

I wonder that too. I look back on the freedom I had and remember feeling fear mostly! Bullying was rife and older kids didn’t ‘look after’ us. My DC played out at one house we lived in because it was a cul-de-sac and all the kids and parents were lovely. I risk assessed it.

I guess it’s a question of whether we want kids to survive or thrive. It’s a question of what kind of relationships you want kids to have as adults and what kind of relationship you want with your child now and as they grow up.

Lots of elderly people alive today weren’t smacked and were raised gently. It’s not a new thing. It’s just better understood. You know when you meet them.

We can look to fellow mammals for similarities for sure. Our brains are very similar. But humans develop a frontal cortex and our relationships are far more complex. How many lion cups want to hang out with their parent and go on holiday with them once they have their own cubs? How many mammal grandparents help with childcare? We are more complex than other mammals.

I am really glad it’s going well for your child now. She sounds like me as a child. My parents used corporal punishment too. I’ve achieved well in life. I look to the outside world like a well adjusted and happy person with a marriage and DC and a highly paid professional job. What you wouldn’t know about is the internal struggles I have had. I’ve worked hard to understand my own insecure attachment and what it’s meant for my relationships and well-being. I don’t love my parents in the way I could have, had they been my secure base. Instead they were to be feared. I have a friendly relationship with them. It could be much better than it is.

Time will tell if your relationship with your child is secure enough around the times you physically assault her to see you through the teenage years and into an adult to adult relationship and how happy she will be or whether she will experience mental health issues or struggle in relationships. I hope that it’s fine.

I do genuinely hope that the warmth, love and acceptance you show her in between smacking her is enough. And that she has other significant relationships in her life that are warm and accepting and guide her without fear. I hope that when you shout and smack you are regulated and it’s a choice rather than you have lost it and scare the crap out of her on a regular basis because that’s the most damaging and can lead to disorganised attachment styles and significant mental health issues.

But if she ever struggles the best thing you can do for her and your relationship is to say sorry.

@user1471538275 I grew up in a very poor area. I recognise the kind of parents you are talking about. My parents were not like that though and did judge parents like yours.

We ran around in packs as kids. We were friends with all the kids in the neighbourhood and would just go off to the park, go on bike rides, visit the local horse or keep each other company running errands. Parents would never know where we were.
I think the points in the op are all valid.

My main concern is children are growing up addicted to screens and YouTube. I'm sure this is impacting on their development but even more worryingly, they're not reading books or watching films so aren't developing empathy.
Their parents are often addicted to screens too and don't have string connections within the family unit.
It's all very worrying.

Yep, my childhood was similar (lower middle class, 1980s). Bit grim, generally being shouted at by random adults if you came to their attention, lots of avoidable accidents in primary school (mostly getting run over - do kids still play chicken on main roads?) followed by drink, drugs and underage sex as teenagers.

This running-through-fields-of-wheat idyllic childhood that some people on this thread seem to have lived in apparently the mid-90s is completely foreign to me. Like somebody has read too many Famous Fives.

Agree totally that current helicopter parenting is very negative in many ways. Kids almost never face the small, necessary emotional and social challenges without an adult running interference for them. There is sometimes too much planned activity and no opportunity to be bored and make own entertainment with friends, deal with small challenges. Often there is no opportunity to even choose their own friends as contact limited to a very restricted circle selected by parents via playdates/mummy’s friends instead of a mix including other kids in street or school.

Although parents may try to restrict screen time and harmful content it is really hard to manage, and really is negative for mental health and social skills.
Some parents make excuses for everything their child does so there are no consequences even when it’s warranted. They expect other people’s kids to be punished, but there’s often a reason why their child is a special case.

As an example of cosseting - I bet most parents on this site have never ever sent their kid to the corner shop to buy a paper or pint of milk -they wouldn’t dream of burdening (or risking) their child in such a terrible way! I bet anyone on this site aged over 35 was often dispatched to the shop for something or other at age 8,9,10. And no, complaints about the task were not listened too!

The net result is the kids end up anxious, dependent and with no resilience in many cases.

@Stravaig

I vaguely remember that the act of union came about because Scotland was bankrupt, as a result of over investing in their very own colony. England had to bail them out. Plus ça change….

But I don’t know what this anti English rant has to do with parenting styles , tbh.

Hmm, I think what you say @Rainbowsponge feels like it could be true, but when you delve into the figures I think they tend to tell a different story. First, it’s really important to address your friends comparator head on. There in no evidence Indian children are on average happier than children in the UK. The recent world happiness report shows the opposite, compared to the UK young and old in India are considerably less happy. So no doubt people from China and India are impressive in their drive and demeanour but if you look at the average happiness levels Uk comes out on top by comparision. These are still medium income/developing so maybe it’s not fair to pick on happiness as a metric but other similar economies have higher levels of happiness and arguably a gentler approach to parenting.

A better comparator might be Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands. Those children are happier, grow up to be healthier and happier and have better life outcomes generally. What do they do differently? It could be parenting choices, the evidence is mixed on what style is best apart from authoritative which is broad but would not include any violence, and relatively gentle approaches to discipline. Parents in these countries also spend significantly more time with their children than those in the Uk.

Screentime is another tempting one to blame but the evidence around this is mixed at best, with recent systematic reviews finding minimal or no significant effect at all, especially when you control for socioeconomic status.

Every generation seems to think the younger generations are going down hill in terms of manners, communication, ambition, decency etc. but again the research on this sort of thing rarely reflects that to be the case. I do think spending more time with children and leading by example are probably the best way to raise happy, confident and ultimately capable children. Who knows though? I think you need to be clear about what metric you’re using to judge these things, I think happiness is a good one- what do you think?

But is children's mental health actually poorer now? Or was children's mental health just overlooked in the past?

@MeinKraft you are right about large mixed age range of kids, often teenagers who were sent out with younger siblings to look after. But being allowed to play meant very different things for different children. I was allowed to play out with my friends. We were all the same age, we did not hang about with older teenagers, and we did not get into any bother. We played tag, chatted, played on the playground.

I think there's far too much hand wringing about screen time and children being over supervised. The real dangers to children's development and mental health are things like domestic violence in the home, parental addiction, lack of secure housing, exposure to porn, access to drugs and alcohol at a young age.

Playing out unsupervised sounds like a great idea but children have really poor judgement and sometimes the consequences can be catastrophic. We used to run around like this when I was a child in the 80s and 90s and bullying was rife, we were in and out of friends houses and one of the dads ended up being a convicted paedophile.

Kids out with other kids often spend time with older young people too, teenage siblings etc and for every sensible caring teenager there's one who can't really judge what's appropriate and will talk about stuff that's just not really appropriate for children to hear, or show videos on their phone to the younger ones that they shouldn't be seeing, or let them have a drag on a joint, etc etc.

So no, I don't let my children play out unsupervised and I won't while they are in primary school. I don't hang over them but I am nearby in case they need me. It might set them back but I want them to have a childhood and I don't think there's any perfect answer to this problem.

Yes, one of the first colonised, and still not free. Every colonised nation was pillaged of people and resources to fuel the onward march of Empire, that's the entire point of it. Victims and perpetrators, both.

Personally, I think a crucial facet of 'good manners', good psychological health, and general resilience is found in acknowledging and celebrating our diversity, not constantly seeking to homogenise and erase it.

@Rainydayinlondon Starmer has said he is keeping his children out of the public eye as much as possible.

I noticed that the Starmers’ children didn’t do the ceremonial walk into 10 Downing Street because they” didn’t want to”. I do get that, as it’s daunting, but it’s interesting that Sunak and Hunt’s children ( both of Asian/Indian heritage) did accompany their parents. They are younger I suppose, which might make a difference.
I would hazard a guess that the Starmers were laid back and gentle parents, but their children are clearly less confident.
I don’t mean this as criticism as my children were also lacking in confidence and I now wonder whether this was due to my parenting style. I wish I’d been a bit more “old fashioned “ now.

Its true, all that being out all day, getting into scrapes and up to mischief, falling out and making up with your peers was invaluable and an important part of our development.