To think gentle parenting is actually permissive

Oh no never mind, I found it again in about five seconds - it was "Gentle Discipline" by Dawn Lighter published 1995. However, contains lots of references to time out and bribery, which are usually absent from gentle parenting.

The other book from the 90s which is relevant is Sears' Discipline Book where they coin the term "firm but gentle" - of course this is a direct follow on from Attachment Parenting. This one was probably a La Leche League one too, they love Sears.

Plus of course How To Talk was published in 1980 though this is getting a bit muddy because they don't suggest it as an entire scheme or style of parenting, it's more of a collection of suggestions and tips.

You can go back further and find lots of v "hippy" parenting stuff in the 60s like Summerhill (actually founded in 1921). It's basically just anti-authoritarian, which is very old.

She didn't invent the term gentle parenting. It was well in use on forums by the time her 2016 book was published. Plus there was an earlier book (2005) with the title "Adventures in Gentle Discipline" which was well-known on every Attachment Parenting forum because it was in the La Leche League approved library. I found one earlier than this (mid or late 90s IIRC) using the term, not in the title though, but it doesn't really resemble what most people today would call gentle discipline/parenting, plus I forgot the title of this book, so can't reference it.

I wrote an article about this which was never published, so I really did look into this in some detail - I looked up on google trends, plus the google thing which searches books, MN advanced search and the advanced search of every parenting forum I could find which is still live, as well as the wayback machine and the timeline seems to be that the word "gentle" starts being used in conjunction with either discipline or parenting sporadically throughout the 2000s, then a bit more activity from 2010-2012, 2012 is the start of a slow but steady incline which peaks very suddenly in 2021 which I think is probably when influencers got in on it.

MNers started using it in about 2012, though argued about what it is a lot and mostly agreed it's a silly name, and it was definitely a thing on UK parenting sites long before it became used as a term on more American-centric sites like Reddit (though this might also be that Reddit had very little parenting content until much more recently, and a lot of the other places people discuss/ed parenting are either gone or were behind logins - ie deep web, e.g. LiveJournal, or email newsgroups). Before 2012, there were still threads with the exact same concepts, it just got referred to by either specific book titles e.g. How To Talk, or Taking Children Seriously or Unconditional Parenting, or descriptions like "the thing where you don't use punishments" which is what I definitely called it a few times! Also bear in mind that even today, in some parts of America smacking/spanking is still apparently a very normal and accepted thing - so they tend to have a bit of a different understanding. I have seen some people on more US based sites refer to Supernanny or 123 Magic as gentle parenting, whereas neither are IMO.

SOS started the "gentle" line with the gentle sleep book in 2015, which makes sense because there was a gap in the market for a UK sleep alternative - lots of big popular sleep trainer types had books out, the main alternative at the time was Elizabeth Pantley, and the idea of being "gentle" with sleep made sense. She then used that as a sort of brand (or, wikipedia suggests that her publisher did). Nothing wrong with doing that, and it's clearly made her books very recognisable. But, again, she didn't invent the term and it may have even been accidental - or possibly she was hoping to ride the wave of the significance of the word being used to denote the sort of "follow on" from attachment parenting which it tended to be at that time, which if that was the aim, it was very successful.

SOS is not an academic and makes a lot of claims/statements of “fact” without any evidence to support them. I do agree with a reasonable amount of what she says but I am very sceptical of people who post strong claims without adding evidence to support them or prefacing them with the phrase “in my opinion”.

What?? Sarah Ockwell-Smith is not an academic so I presume she just hasn't read the research on authoritative parenting. I have posted links to peer reviewed research, you are welcome to read it! I don't think anyone who has read the research has got it wrong? I just think that people haven't actually read the research!

I'm sure you're right and it's the inventor of the term gentle parenting, and everyone else who has read the research, who has got it wrong. If only we all had your wisdom.

She may have come up with the term gentle parenting but she did not come up with the term 'authoritative parenting ', which is an academic term, I haven't read her book but I have read the research on authoritative parenting. I'm not saying that gentle parenting can't be authoritative I am saying that authoritative parenting absolutely can include smacking and other punishments. I personally think gentle parenting can fall into either authoritative or permissive but is somewhere between the two. I linked upthread to the only study that I know if that has looked into gentle parenting in terms of parenting styles. You can read it. You posted the APA definition of authoritative parenting without reading any of the research behind it. The book that the APA published on authoritative parenting obviously goes into much more detail.

SOS invented the term gentle parenting.

If you're following gentle parenting, you're following a method first set forth by SOS and still underpinned by her principles. It's an authoritative method. If you are following gentle parenting but not bothering with all the parts of it which make it authoritative rather than permissive, then this thread is about you, not for you.

We know that in the vast majority of studies into parenting, authoritative parenting has been considered to have the best outcomes, and we also know that smacking has been shown to have negative outcomes by almost every metric over thousands of studies.

Whether some parents who are otherwise authoritative and respectful resort to smacking is irrelevant to the fact that a good parent, whether authoritative or not, does not abuse their children.

I think the APA definition of authoritative parenting is deliberately vague and I think it is a bit of a cop out of them really. They have said that they believe spanking is harmful yet they still refer to the research on authoritative parenting leaving out the bits they now no longer endorse.

The APA definition is very vague. They use the words 'firm limits' but don't define what this means but the in the research setting 'firm limits' often meant using punishments.
This is one of the APA books on authoritative parenting https://www.apa.org/pubs/books/4318109

That's not research. Sarah Ockwell-Smith is just a parent who wrote a book. I don't think she has an academic background in child development.

Arguably, Sarah Ockwell-Smith popularised the term, she didn't invent it. And she certainly didn't invent the idea (and has never claimed to).

The reason for the incongruence on this, I think, is because of the lay understanding/use of authoritative as being "good parenting" while permissive is "too lax" and authoritarian is "too strict".

It's true that under modern parenting standards and according to research, physical discipline is never necessary and has been found to be harmful, so it's no longer considered good parenting.

But if you're talking about the original definitions of those three styles, they're describing parental approaches as observed, and the authoritative one did include physical punishment, just less often and less harsh. Of course that likely is a product of the time of the study. But there's not been any more recent study excluding physical punishment from the definition, so it's not correct to say that it can never be part of that approach, even though it's likely that if you surveyed modern parents, the authoritative ones would be even less likely to use physical punishment today.

I have.

Sarah Ockwell-Smith, who founded the gentle parenting movement, disagrees with you.

https://sarahockwell-smith.com/2019/06/03/how-to-be-a-gentle-not-permissive-parent/

The APA definition of Authoritative Parenting is:

Authoritative. In this parenting style, the parents are nurturing, responsive, and supportive, yet set firm limits for their children. They attempt to control children's behavior by explaining rules, discussing, and reasoning. They listen to a child's viewpoint but don't always accept it.

Hitting does not fall into that definition. Whether parents who otherwise consider themselves authoritative also often hit does not change the fact that hitting is not a part of authoritative parenting.

It's not about what you think it is about what the research actually says! I agree with you that hitting a child is wrong but authoritative parenting in academia absolutely does include smacking and other punishments. Feel free to read my other posts.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that, I do not think hitting ever fits in with the parameters of authoritative parenting. Hitting is never warm or respectful. Hitting is widely regarded by most experts as abuse and it is thankfully now illegal in many developed countries as a result.

I've already addressed this up thread but authoritative parenting can absolutely include physical discipline as ling as it is not overly harsh along with other punishments. If you read the research, rather than just an article, on authoritative parenting and how it is categorised it is high levels of warmth and high levels demands with discipline.

No as I have teens that are well behaved, academically high achievers and are kind (most importantly) so no I don't think that. I was brought up by pretty liberal parents, 'gentle parents' and again no problems.

Permissive parenting can often be due to low expectations of children, rather than lazy parenting. When they truly believe that the misbehaviour in question is inevitable, they feel they must permit it.

Actually children of all ages can often have much more understanding and ability than many people think. We do them no favours when we have low expectations

I've posted on a GP thread before about this because I was the child at home used as a punching bag by my sibling, whose "big feelings" had to be catered to at all times. Any form of punishment, isolation or shaming was described, on said thread, by numerous self-titled gentle parents, as unacceptable and authoritarian. Instead, they said, gentle parenting dictates that the child that's hitting is cuddled and soothed and their "big feelings" explored.

I pointed out that the child that's been hit might also have some "big feelings" and there were crickets from said parents (other than one, I think, who suggested that the hit child would get cuddled first).

This is part of the problem - pretty much everything that gentle parents say isn't gentle parenting, is described elsewhere as gentle parenting by another set of gentle parents.

The marshmallow study was not measuring developmental capacity for impulse control. Go back and read the information in your link again including what they were investigating and statistical power of the sample.

Tantrums are definitely a personality thing. My SD was no much of a tantrum-mer. If told no to something she wanted, we'd have to endure some sulking, but she was quite easily distracted. My daughter is completely different. It is definitely tempting at times to just give her what she wants to avoid a public display, or having to drag her home from an event we've been looking forward to. We don't, because that would obviously make the issue worse, but it's worth remembering when parents are congratulating themselves on their child never having a tantrum that the unintended consequence might make parents be embarrassed enough to avoid tantrums by being permissive.

The upside is that whilst SD can be a bit apathetic and gives up quite easily when challenged, DD will goes for what she wants with a determination bordering on ruthlessness, which will serve her well. Mostly. We're still trying to tame the ruthless bit. There are definitely a lot of days when I think of SD's easy going disposition with fondness and wish DD was the same way!

Bollocks. Have you never heard of the Marshmallow Test? That was done with toddlers.

Stanford marshmallow experiment - Wikipedia

Marshmallow Test Experiment In Psychology (simplypsychology.org)

Gentle Parenting is not what most people interpret it as. It uses boundaries, rules, discipline and mutual respect. Many people confuse gentle parenting with permissive parenting, when they aren't at all similar.

I did gentle parenting, naturally. I have a well-adjusted, kind, caring, intelligent, happy teenaged boy. He has never had a tantrum in his life. Not one. He was never, ever allowed to misbehave in restaurants, put himself or others at risk (not including safe "risk") and has never once been in any sort of trouble. He didn't get so much as a detention throughout his entire school life.

Obviously, much of this is down to the individual child's personality, but the things that self-proclaimed "gentle parents" let their children do, are sometimes quite unbearable. I see out of control children constantly, and more often than not, they are, "just expressing themselves", "being children", "having fun" etc.

Running around a restaurant is not having fun. Screaming on a busy train is not expressing themselves. And the parents meekly say, "Don't scream, darling..." and expect their child to stop? Frustrating.

Yes but gentle parenting doesn’t involve no boundaries either, my point is it’s about the individual not the supposed parenting “style”.

There's not really any "official definition" of gentle parenting either though, except everyone who thinks they are doing it thinks they are doing it the best way!

The facebook groups are insane and so unrealistic. Things like never telling your child their behaviour/actions have made you sad because they should never feel responsible for your feelings. I want my child to know their actions impact on other people's feelings.

There's one gentle parenting facebook group which recently said that gentle parenting is not authoritative (against the person who coined the phrase "gentle parenting") because an adult should never be in authority over a child. So they've invented a whole new definition which is definitely permissive. They're the parents going round smugly telling you to allow your child to play in traffic.