To think we overthink parenting these days??

I think it’s stemmed from parents, mothers in particular feeling judged more than ever. Social media definitely hasn’t helped that! You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

My mother and my MIL have endless opinions on parenting. The latter in particular is very quick to point out what she thinks I’m doing wrong (breastfeeding, not using cry it out etc) Then you log into social media and are presented with even more micro aggressions and the picture perfect parenting methods. My parents generation (boomers) have noted they didn’t really get criticisms from their parents or in-laws, but did rely on them quite heavily for childcare. But they didn’t have the constant comments.

I think a lot of us millennial parents, were parented by authoritarian methods, which we don’t necessarily agree with anymore. This may have led to the rise of new approaches such as gentle parenting. It all seems so competitive as well. It’s baffling. We’re all just doing our best, like our parents did their best.

My mother was incredibly strict and at times very controlling. I resented her for it at the time, but as I grew up, I realised she was just doing her best. She was overstimulated, exhausted and just wanted to do her best. I’m keen for my children not to see me as angry and controlling, as I remember how it felt. Not entirely sure I agree ok gentle parenting fully though. I’m not going to ask my toddler to make better choices when he’s trying to stick his fingers in a plug socket.

A little bit but not in the way you're suggesting. I think social media pushes a lot of quick fixes for normal behaviours that adults don't like and makes parents less accepting and instead resistant.

I also think a good number of adults have attachment disorders from their own childhood that they don't want to pass on.

@Twatalert

Yelling is bizzare to me. People would never yell at their coworker for example, but yelling at a child is somehow okay. Being yelled at is frighting for a child, especially a very young one, and means discipline is achieved through fear.

I completely agree: how is a child supposed to learn that shouting and yelling is inappropriate in adult life if their earliest emotional template is being yelled at?

The other thing that worries me about this anti gentle parenting rhetoric is the idea that its a bad idea to have a conversation with children about why something is wrong. Again, how is a child supposed to learn a moral compass if there's no discussion or explanation around why things are done and not done?

Of course if a child is about to stab a cat with a fork or there is an escalation of bad behaviour you yell "no" rather than "kind hands" (which is bollocks anyway). But there's a whole spectrum in between stabbing a cat and day to day interaction between parents and kids. Surely explaining to your kids why they have to wear school uniform or clear their plates after dinner is better than just repeatedly barking: "No arguments, just do it."

For parents to be authoritative and effective they have to be both respected and trusted. That means that the child should know the parent has the last word and should be clear on the boundaries. But it can't work unless the child believe in the parent's rationale for doing things in the first place. Undirected, blanket authoritarianism eventually prompts rebellion.

Yes! No one's work is that critical they can't wait 60 seconds if they are in Costa and my kids can order as efficiently and easily as a lot of older / elderly / adults.

I've never limited anything or refused to expose them to certain experiences because of their age (talking more about access to age 4+ jigsaws when they are 2/3 rather than age 15 films obviously!)

I agree, and the most important thing is to say sorry when we do e.g. shout, modelling good emotional regulation is the ideal but we are all human. I don't think it hurts kids to see we can be hurt or upset or angry and then if we do behave badly ourselves in response to those feelings, we can make sure we apologise and take accountability for our own behaviour, then that is also a useful model/ life lesson.

Instagram is a menace for this. Unfollow everything and only go onto the "Following" feed, it's much calmer.

Lots of criticism of what you're supposedly getting wrong but there is not enough time in an instagram reel or square photo with whatever the character limit is of text to be able to give nuanced, helpful, applicable advice.

And it is never as black and white as the things they are making out as being "wrong". The insinuation is that you're going to massively damage your child if you ever do this thing, when that is not true. Children are extremely resiliant and can survive normal parenting. Don't neglect or abuse them, and you are unlikely to do them harm. If you are struggling with a particular aspect of parenting, read a book or listen to a podcast or do a course. Don't use social media for parenting advice unless you're using it to get a quick overview of what a particular author's style and beliefs are before you invest in their book/course/etc, or you're reading other people's lived experiences or obtaining support e.g. for a specific parenting situation where it's hard to meet others IRL.

I also think back and forth forums like MN and reddit can be helpful, but beware of echo chambers - a lot of FB groups have become unfortunately like this. It can help a lot to sense check what you read online against people you know IRL.

In my opinion gentle parenting = shit parenting.

They don't learn anything from it other than they can get away with pretty much anything.

What a load of nonsense, we have raised successful human beings for millions of years without these Instagram and 'gentle parenting' 'experts'. Everyone famous or wannabe famous person is a parenting expert these days.

Best thing I ever read when my children were little was: ‘give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man’ (Aristotle).

Well the problem is so many of us grew up in abusive situations that weren’t labelled as such; shouting, hitting, belittling. I understand how, for those of you who didn’t grow up like this, anything else just seems like “normal parenting” but for generations that sort of parenting is what has been normalised, so it’s about undoing that.

Honestly kind of think all parenting "styles" are a lie and in real life everyone just fumbles through/ throws everything at it/ does the best they can.

I don't believe for a second anyone is a fully gentle or permissive parent because I have a toddler and if I wasn't firm sometimes we would never leave the house, at least not fully clothed. Likewise it would be pretty dull life being authoritative all the time and it won't gain you much respect as they barely respect the laws of physics as it is.

You be soft, you be firm, you bribe, you punish, sometimes you loose it, you grab them when they are about to do something stupid and whatever works probably won't next time.

I think we look in books and social media to find a magic answer but is just hard, anything worth it normally is. It's all a predatory practice - someone else gets paid for books and clicks whilst feeding off our mum guilt, exhaustion and desperation.

(Also , side note, maybe a bit hypocritical but, absolutely RICH my parents generation saying mine are too gentle because as grandparents they spoil them way more than we do! A realive told me my 18-month old was probably a fussy eater because I didn't "make" them clean there plate and the proceeded to give them 4 of MY biscuits "but she keeps asking for them")

There is such a 'no true Scotsman' thing from advocates of gentle parenting. Obviously it works if you insist any variant where it isn't is obviously someone doing it wrong. Also if you're just defining it as parenting that isn't abusive it really doesn't warrant a specific term.

Just out of curiosity, what was you're strategy before this? Because "thinking time" or removing from the situation and told off, but not screaming/smacking in response kind of IS gentle parenting??

However, for example brightly saying "Kind hands darling" but not actually doing anything, is not gentle parenting. Not saying this is what you were doing btw, it's just that I really think a lot people think that is the "gentle parenting" way, but it's actually what you are now doing and that's where a lot of confusion is coming in.

What, when you're standing in a queue with people waiting to get back to work? Hmmm.

I completely agree. I think people really underestimate how anomalous our current approach of seeing 'parent' as a verb rather than a relationship and as a full-time occupation rather than a thing you as part of the rest of life is historically and culturally. It is such a huge departure. That doesn't make it a bad thing. Equal rights for women is also historically and culturally anomalous, but that doesn't make it bad! But I think it's unsurprising that there are teething problems from trying to so radically change the parent-child relationship in the space of a couple of generations, and I certainly think that it's playing a part in the huge rise in anxiety among both adults and children.

Yeah I agree with this

I stopped gentle parenting when my child started hitting me. Now she gets told off and time out/thinking time in another room away from the fun and... lo and behold, over time, she's stopped hitting me.

Regarding yelling, it just suggests that the parent is dysregulated and takes it out on the child.

Yelling is bizzare to me. People would never yell at their coworker for example, but yelling at a child is somehow okay. Being yelled at is frighting for a child, especially a very young one, and means discipline is achieved through fear. The issue will be that they will carry around this fear, which is heart breaking. I hope people apologise to their child if they lost their cool. I bet parents wouldn't allow their child to yell at them, but vice versa is somehow okay. It really is not. Double standards and so on. Do this consistently with other things throughout their childhood too and we'll have more threads pop up by parents who cannot understand why adult children take a break from the relationship or won't be close.

The secret is to treat the child like a human with valid feelings and thoughts, even if the parent does not agree. Accept the child, apologise if you have been unfair or rude and work to change your own behaviour after making mistakes so they don't happen again. Just like you expect from your child. If they feel loved, seen, heard and accepted most things will not cause them lasting damage into adulthood. But I believe a lot of parents don't know how to make their child feel loved, seen, heard and accepted because they have been failed themselves as children. It is natural to deny and insist that the child is loved unconditionally, but ultimately only the child gets to decide if it feels like that's the case.

I think because this information is so widely available it means people do more research and do think about it more. If my mum wanted to get parenting advice she either had to get the bus to our nearest town to go to the library, or call the HV. I've got a world of info and opinions in this digital rectangle that's permanently attached to my hand!

The problem is there's so many conflicting pieces of advice and so many "tribes" that parents often end up trying to parent this ideal child instead of the kid that's in front of them.

For what i read on here and see when im out some parents need to grow up and learn how to be parents.
Way to much molly cuddleing.
And way to much SEN being used as a pass card for bad behaviour.
To be honest i dont think half the kids and teens have sen they use it to act as twats to get away with it.
And the parening omg the threads ive read on here are stupit from no visits to kissing babys to strict eating having constant nannys needing constant child care CM payment are never enough is a big one it's like kids are piggy banks.
Kids never hearing a raised voice but a teacher is blamed for abuse if a child is told off at school.
School gate mums having more drama than the kids.
Honestly its fucked up.
The list goes on.

I do agree with this. Little babies, yes you do have to go with the flow and survive the broken nights and early mornings and do what you can to get through the difficult times.

But from the age of 2 onwards my son hasn't been allowed to just wake us up before we're ready to be up. He usually wakes at half 7 or 8, but anything before then he's told it's still night time and get back to bed. He's 3 now and we don't mind if we hear him turn his lamp on and chat away to himself looking at his books, or put his Yoto player on (it has a volume limiter which is amazing), as long as he stays in his room quietly.

I had my DC decades ago so it's interesting for me to see how things have changed.

One thing that always surprises me a bit is how so many will say their toddler wakes at 5am and they have to get up with them. Mine would just get told "back to bed". Sometimes they'd just play quietly in their room, but it was just a standard that the time to get up was set by me, not them.

Likewise people saying they can never shower or get a cuppa. I had the bouncy chair, walkers, door hanging things (not sure if any of those things are in use now) and I just got on with what I needed to. Now it seems like every moment your child is awake you need to be interacting with them in some way.

I think parenting has been made a lot tougher now. And yes, SM doesn't help at all. I'm really glad it wasn't around when mine were young.

I must say, I don't get the whole "kind hands" thing either. How is it traumatising to tell a child something is "naughty". When an adult punches another adult and goes to Court, the Judge doesn't say "kind hands" 😂I don't see how it's wrong to tell children certain behaviours are unacceptable. They need to know that.

I agree.
A short ‘stop that!’ rather than ‘have you thought about how sad you will be if you hurt yourself and how sad that will make mummy if you are hurt because we talked about how dangerous electricity is before, didn’t we, so please can you make a good choice about whether to carry on sticking the fork in the electric socket?’ is surely more effective? But ‘stop that!’ would be classed as yelling which is literal child abuse in some people’s eyes.

I can't help but get the impression of a defensive mother as the OP who just needs to feel better about her methods for a moment.

Completely missed the point too and obviously has no idea what gentle parenting is as others have said.

I am really tired of the endless kneejerking about how "gentle parenting" is the source of all society's problems. There's a few dozen threads every week on here blaming "gentle parenting" for everything from SEN to drug abuse, usually with a reference to "snowflakes" thrown in somewhere and a request to go back to Dickensian standards of discipline.

As PPS have pointed out there's a huge difference between "gentle" parenting (which means non aggressive parenting in which there's a dialogue with the child about the rationale for things happening rather than just "shut up and do as you're told") and "permissive" parenting (which is not enforcing any boundaries with children and taking no interest in what they are doing). Regardless of whether "gentle parenting" works or not (and I think sometimes it works, sometimes not), I really really wish people could learn the distinction between these two things.

Yes there are neurotic parents who overthink things and yes there are parents who need to get better at just enforcing discipline and there are plenty of spoiled children. But it worries me that people think it's a bad idea to have a discussion with your children and treat them as sentient beings.

Sometimes you have to draw a line and put your foot down and you need to be in control. But discipline should not just be a long stream of barked orders with no engagement or acknowledgement of the child's needs. If "gentle parenting" means "intelligent and discursive parenting" I really struggle to understand why that's a bad thing.

See, I do this. My kids always order their own meals and drinks. Eye contact, treat staff with respect, teaches confidence and engagement with other adults etc.