To think gentle parenting is actually permissive

Forward facing again has nothing to do with gentle parenting? Yes it is safer to rear face especially under 4 but and that is a parenting decision but there’s nothing that’s not “gentle” about forward facing.

And BTW I wouldn’t say I follow full “gentle parenting” even if that is what I did aspire to when my child was born but I do try hard to follow “no judgement” parenting other than for certain things like smacking which I see as abuse. I feel pretty much every parenting decision is judged these days and we all have different ways of doing things, who knows which is right or wrong. Whereas you seem to think “the gentle parenting community” will judge you for sleep training and forward facing and using a nursery which is all absolutely your decision to do as a parent, whereas you judge all gentle parents as being permissive. Can’t we just let people parent how they want as long as they are not harming their children.

Gentle parenting (I hate the term btw) is a great method that includes boundaries and consequences but is delivered in a way that doesn't involve shouting/threatening/punishing. Most of us do it to some degree or another. It's a tricky technique to use constantly and relies somewhat on having a fairly easy going child (and parents) to be totally successful .

Permissive parenting is allowing a child to get away with poor behaviours and not addressing it. Not having good boundaries in place.

Some parents use the term gentle parenting when they are actually doing permissive parenting .

The majority of parents do a mixture of gentle , permissive and authoritative parenting.

The results vary hugely, there are a lot of strong willed and Sen kids who don't respond to typical parenting techniques which can be very challenging for parents.

Are we mixing up the word "rules" and the word "boundaries" here?

@BertieBotts that's an interesting questions about boundaries. I don't think she does use the word in her research from what I can remember but I would have to go back and check! She definitely talks about high expectations and discipline. Ummm...

There are also some studies that show best outcomes with permissive parenting.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19435170/

This isn't the only one but I think it was one of the first. There are actually a fair few now.

I think this study used a definition of permissive parenting that we would probably think of as quite similar to modern day gentle parenting.

It will also depend on what outcomes we are measuring. I think permissive parenting has always been associated with some positive outcomes (creativity, curiosity, self assuredness) in research but overall authoritative has been shown to be the 'best' as we have put a higher value on the positive effects of authoritative parenting.

I think as a society we are now putting less value on 'obedience' in children. It is a word that I rarely hear used these days and I think when research moves away from measuring obedience as one of the outcomes then we might see more studies where "permissive' parenting comes out on top.

Gentle parenting doesn't mean it allows a child to overstep boundaries for their own convenience nor does it mean that a child can behave freely to avoid upset at the cost of someone else's boundaries. Gentle parenting is working together with your child by setting expectations, hearing them, listening to them and explaining to them and being hands on. I see it as a way to go inside their world and being the wiser one by guiding them in their own dimension so they can understand. But some do take the piss with it by performing it.

My mother had a go at a parent at Heathrow airport back from holiday as the family in front was waiting for her toddler to run back to the family. They were hogging the queue by gently speaking to their toddler who was causing havoc by the e gates but also not allowing a huge queue behind them to move around the belt barriers in the passport border queue in the family area. My mum in the end had a go at the parent to either get out of the queue and not disrupt the flow or go and collect her daughter and put her in reins like normal parents do and it was not the time and place to set such a small child free. The parents went bright red and were about to respond to my mother until a member of staff came and told them off too to go and collect their toddler. They were literally standing there talking to her trying to convince a 2 year old "to make the right choice" fucking twats.

Thank you for sharing the study, it was really interesting to read. I thought that self-identified gentle parents, in practice, likely aren't hugely different from parents who do not choose that term and the study seems to reflect that, aside from the fact that it picked up that those gentle parents are very keen to do things differently from their own parents and feel more insecure about their own parenting compared with parents who don't identify with the term gentle.

Also thought it was really interesting the way it picked up on gentle parents' use of the term boundaries - I have noticed this as a reactionary thing almost, just observation of parenting forums particularly between the toddler years of my children born 2008 (gentle parenting wasn't quite a term, but the concept of non-punitive, emotion accepting parenting was there, and it was generally ridiculed and seen with a lot of scepticism - I loved it and was heavily into the theory at this time) and 2018/2021 (what we used to call gentle parenting is now the prevailing style and just called parenting, the term gentle parenting is much more mainstream with people frequently expressing guilt that they "should" be doing gentle parenting but it isn't working, the definition of gentle parenting seems to have expanded over a wider area, some of the self-identified gentle parenting content is now much more extreme and prescriptive).

It seems to me that at some point between gentle parenting being seen as a weird, niche, hippy thing and being seen as a mainstream, normal, preferable thing to do, there was some kind of virtual wrestling match over whether or not gentle parenting involved holding boundaries, since it attempts to avoid punitive responses, to the point that the gentle parent identity now has a very strong sense that yes, there MUST be boundaries, but there is not always a good individual sense of how that actually works in practice.

I was surprised though to see the study refer to this as novel - I guess this is a difference between terms used in academic research vs forum discussions or parenting books, but I thought boundaries have been considered important in parenting for a very long time. Was that term not used in Baumrind's original research? Or does it mean that parents in general don't usually emphasise their use of boundaries, but gentle parents do? (And I so want to assemble a group of gentle parents from 2013 and compare their use of language around boundaries to the 2023 parents now!)

I think there is another, separate but related shift in parenting approaches away from top-down/parent-directed, hierarchical behaviourist approaches towards more bottom-up/collaborative or democratic approaches based in developmental or neurobiological awareness. Those approaches mainly seemed to originate in approaches used with children with challenging behaviours e.g. ASD, ADHD, ODD, adopted children, traumatised children, and seem to have research-backed support in these situations - but are gaining popularity within the mainstream. I think these are distinct from "gentle parenting" which is much wider and seems to overlap both with aspects of these approaches but also with behaviourism, even though some proponents of gentle parenting reject behaviourism. But I also don't think they fit into the categories, or if they do then the closest one is likely permissive - but it's not really the same as "just letting kids walk all over you" - it's just that's really the only way you can code it if you're starting with the assumption that parents ought to be directive and hierarchical.

I haven’t heard of no childcare being a gentle parenting thing?

Nurseries I have seen seem to follow a “gentle parent” type approach anyway, no hitting children, no shouting at children, no time outs, lots of autonomy, choices and natural consequences,

Absolutely this!

You said (and I agree) that adults who constantly moan are draining. I’m saying that I don’t actually think there’s a correlation between tolerating a toddler whining and an adult who complains about everything.

The fact that I sympathised and allowed my son to be upset about being told no to a biscuit has not turned him into a little boy who’s always whinging. The bigger picture of how my husband and I behave when it comes to disappointments/setbacks, the way we’ve spoken to him about his feelings (in general. I’m not about a 10 minute conversation about a biscuit 😂) etc has. Allowing / not allowing the whining is kind of irrelevant. It’s what happens around it.

Really interested in your post - how would you tackle said example?
I think it's important children realise there's a line they can't cross (as in make everyone late for school) but like you say there's only so long you can be gentle for before time starts running out, it's really hard, I really like your post as it's so wearing trying to be constantly gentle

What did you change and how did you change it? Asking genuinely

That's not what I said though.

Your 7 year doesn't complain and it sounds like you don't either . That's the link, not whether he whined as a toddler.

I wish people would actually research gentle parenting before trying to pull it apart.

Gentle parenting is pretty simple when broken down. The concept is that the feeling is ok but the behaviour is not when trying to correct something. It's about having consequences that are relevant eg removing a child from a bath tub if they refuse to stop splashing. It's about treating children with respect.

We spend our lives being told to respect our elders. This is about giving children respect but also boundaries, rules and age appropriate consequences. It aims to remove toxic masculinity, people pleasing and sacrificing your own needs at the expense of everyone else. It's about being heard.

Permissive parenting is just letting a child do what ever they want which is a recipe for disaster. You don't see the children who are brought up through gentle parenting because they aren't the ones swinging from the curtains.

Examples of gentle parenting
Child a wants go play with what child B is playing with. "Child b hasn't finished their turn yet but when Child b has you can have your turn."

Child hits sibling "It's on to feel angry but it is not OK to hit. I am going to take baby over here to keep everyone safe"

Kid keeps splashing in the bath "I can see you are having difficulty not splashing whilst in the bath. I'm going to remove you now and we can try again tomorrow"

There are studies that will come out in the next couple of years that are looking at 'gentle parenting' as a distinct parenting style separate to authoritative and permissive and comparing short term outcomes. What I think will be really interesting though is when the long term studies come out and look at outcomes for teens and young adults. Unfortunately that won't be for a long time!

I think people misunderstand it because of the name. I’ve seen it described as ‘respectful parenting’ which makes more sense imo. Yes, there are boundaries- literally every gentle parenting resource I’ve ever seen stresses this. It’s the way I wish I’d have been parented so it’s the way I’m parenting my children 🤷‍♀️

I am in my 50s now and I don’t think children are lumps of plasticine that you can somehow mould into a predictable outcome by using a particular parental approach. Children do have free will and personalities just like adults do. Sometimes a child can be raised beautifully but still be unpleasant as an adult. It’s much more complex than people think. I am in a large social network and that’s how I have come to my conclusion.

I think gentle parenting is hard to do, as it involves not yelling and hitting, while maintaining consequences and boundaries. I think many people fail for that reason - either not regulating themselves or not having strong boundaries (or both). It requires huge self discipline and regulation on the adults’s part. But I think it is one of the better approaches . I wish there had been more training available on how to do it while upholding all of the needs of the family members, not just kids. It’s important that children learn that adults get tired, need their help with chores, have to manage household budgets etc. This is all part of the self regulation process for the adult in their capacity as parent and ultimately for the child who watches their parents and subconsciously copy them.

The worst parents I have seen are those who are not consistent. Those who lavish their kids one day and then on the next, because they are in a bad mood, absolutely let loose and belt them for minor things.

I didn't say she had little insight, she could have all the insight in the world. She just doesn't have to be so bloody rude about it. Replying in a snarky way to mock the OP is just unpleasant.

I think of gentle parenting as: don’t use fear or shame to make your kids behave well.
and don’t focus on outward behaviour to the extent that you couldn’t care less about what’s going on inside.
it’s not permissive parenting.
it should be assertive and kind.

Oh fantastic, thank you! That is totally new and looks very similar to something I was wondering so will definitely have a read.

This is the only paper that I know of that has looked at gentle parenting academically and in terms of parenting styles and from what I remember it puts gentle parenting somewhere in between authoritative and permissive.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0307492

But I don’t think a toddler being upset about not having a biscuit means they’re going to grow up to whine about everything. Is it frustrating some times? Absolutely but they grow out of it. My 7 year old very rarely complains now. But I also never berated him when he did when he was really little.

Everything’s relative isn’t it? I used to work in a clothes shop, and I remember complaining that a customer swore at me when I couldn’t give them exactly what they wanted. Now I work in a prison, and I wonder why on earth I let that bother me. I once had someone tell me to ‘watch what happens’ if i didn’t give them their money back. It felt so threatening at the time, I wouldn’t even flinch at that now. I wasn’t wrong when it upset me, it just wouldn’t now. And that’s true of a toddler being told no.

Research requires reading of other papers then doing in-depth analysis. Not necessarily following up by writing a paper. In addition the level of analysis required would depend on the level of study. Research for GCSE, A-Level, Undergraduate, Masters and Doctorate have different depths and analysis requirements. I shall not be writing a paper attachment theories however it shall form part of my research to enable me to understand the different aspects of my research. What you mean is a majority of people use grey literature and do not necessarily have access to academic papers. Even academics who write books, will simplify the language and methodology of the approach and findings, otherwise the general public would not find it as engaging.

Most people on the internet completely misunderstand authoritarian/authoritative/permissive, using them as a shorthand for "things I think are too harsh" / "things I think are reasonable" / "things I think are too lax" and they think you can put individual actions like for example time out, into one or another of the boxes. Which is not how it works - it's about how you are across time. Everyone has days where they say something too harsh or give in on something that usually they wouldn't because they are tired or whatever. You can't assess someone's parenting style from an individual moment.

3WildOnes is right here - you can read the original papers, they aren't hard to find, and judging by the time period I wouldn't be so quick to say that physical discipline, even, would ONLY fit into authoritarian. And certainly not things like time out or removal of a privilege. There is a sentence somewhere which is something about "robust discussion" which basically means parents and teenagers having a shouting match but it was about the parents holding the boundary and the child feeling comfortable/safe enough to come afterwards and apologise. I'm not going to look it up because I will be up all night reading through them all.

And gentle parenting isn't ANYTHING academically because it doesn't have a universally agreed-upon definition or a founder, so you can't effectively study it. You have to be able to define something to study it.

I'm not aware of any studies on natural consequences either, but I would be interested to read them if you could share any links. I think the current trend for natural or related consequences is hugely misguided, actually. I totally get the intent, but I think the downsides outweigh the benefits massively. It is better either to structure parenting so as not to really impose consequences artificially at all, which is possible both in behaviourism-based approaches and of course for more collaboration-based/bottom-up approaches. Or if you have to use them, it is actually considered best to have them be very very predictable, mild, clear and predetermined in advance - which makes all the logical stuff difficult to do, and it doesn't have enough of a benefit to be worth it.

Most people deal with minor setbacks pretty stoically I would say... I work in a customer facing role and most people accept the rough with the smooth, a minority complain constantly! This is of course different to a justified complaint when something has gone badly wrong.

People who moan constantly about everything are extremely draining but thankfully most of my friends and family are the sort to make the best of any situation

I mean I’d argue that lying and cheating aren’t really comparable to whining, and don’t need to be treated the same.
Children also cry a lot, that’s not something I’d encourage in an adult. But we meet them where they are. I’d think it over the top if my friend burst into tears because the Lego set they’d just built broke. I was much more understanding when my 2 year old cried when he dropped his duplo car.
My husband came in tonight complaining about delays in his work day. If we’re honest, it was an entirely predictable part of his job, he knows to expect it, it happens regularly, but it still irritates him. Was it great to listen to? Nope. Have I heard it before? Absolutely. Did I berate him? Of course not. I listened, I empathised, we moved on. He felt better, and whilst it’s frustrating sometimes, I’m genuinely glad that he feels able to talk to me. And yes I agree the biscuit to us is such a minor thing, but it’s not to the child. To them it’s as big a deal as the really awful lesson you had to endure, or prisoner who threatened me during my shift.