Is gentle parenting effective

They did comprehend? Look at the thread - it’s roughly equal in people saying both of these things - “gentle parenting is just normal parenting” (ergo, most parents are doing it anyway), vs. “gentle parenting is the reason children are badly behaved”. If that’s the case, most people’s children must be badly behaved, no?

🤣🤣🤣

They definitely do. When's the last time a teacher angrily shouted at a 5 year old, yanked a toy away from them, told them to shut up, smacked them round the head....?

They get the child to comply with out the fear of pain, it anger etc.

They "gentle parent" these kids, by talking to them, setting clear and firm boundaries, building a relationship of respect and trust, acknowledging they have feelings etc.

It makes a lot of sense as many families are more concerned about how they look from the outside. Especially with very big families, often overlapping with very religious as well, it's would be humanly impossible to gentle parent 3-5 kids of various ages and make sure all their emotional needs are taken care of. From what I gleaned with friends growing up like that, there was always some form of abuse going on behind closed doors. Eg A very angry, violent father which was pretty normal for 90s times. Other times, the children are simply ignored and nobody cares what their true interests or personalities are. The single most important part was getting along with your siblings but beyond that, nobody gave a shit about your interests or hobbies or identities.

Sorry the joke went over your head, darling. Mummy will make a more intellectually appropriate one next time.

When my 10 year old nephew told me to fuck off after I asked him and my son to keep the noise down as the younger ones were sleeping, I was not impressed to see my brother go in and say "be polite" and that was it. My nephew just laughed.

My own son (13) was horrified at the lack of punishment. He would have had his phone taken away for a week and made to apologise!

Gentle parenting is fine but there needs to be consequences for actions, clear boundaries and rules.

Passive parenting is the problem.

Schools follow exactly this approach. It’s not called “gentle parenting” but behaviour systems in primary and secondary often include things like Zones of Regulation displays, time-out passes, reflective consequences, etc. to support the child in managing their behaviour and understanding the consequences of their actions.

Because there's different styles.

Parent 1 will hit the child to get them to comply
Parent 2 might shout or throw things
Parent 3 might talk and explain
Parent 4 might ignore everything

They're all "parenting".

Comprehension not your strong point?
'Darling, you really must read the words'. 🫣

I think it's a fallacy to suggest that punishment is the reason children learn to be good humans.

If the only reason your child isn't bullying another child is because they know they'll get punished if they do, what stops them from being bullies in situations where they won't get caught? If they only do their homework because they're punished if they don't, what happens when they get to university and nobody is grounding them for not completing their essays?

Gentle parenting gives children a framework in which to grow into empathetic, independent, self-motivated individuals. If you respect your child's feelings and give them strategies for emotional regulation they will grow up respecting other people's feelings too.

If you raise children to behave in order to avoid punishment, you're relying on someone or something to always be there to inflict that punishment, and there won't always be.

I think you've not met some of the so called gentle (but also annoyingly loud) parents I've come across. They're performance parenting Gold medal winners.

I think you’ll find a lot do, a good school will have strong boundaries that children are aware, those boundaries are enforced and children after the event will have a quick chat with the adult to ensure the child understands why x action is wrong. I guess in some areas some schools have teachers screaming at children, others allowing poor behaviour and manners, but that hasn’t been a thing anywhere I’ve been.

Agreed.
(I've said this already)

Or, some children are just lovely little people, who realise that they can behave and have fun, and they don't need to whine/tantrum because they're loved and secure.
I also think we have to note that some bad behaviour isn't bad behaviour at all, but overstimulation (in ND, but also sometimes in NT, children) and/or children learning to regulate their emotions.

Schroedinger's gentle parenting - simultaneously the reason kids are little shits in public, and also the thing all good parents have being doing all along anyway.

Exactly - schools aren’t going to follow’gentle’ parenting style in the classroom.

Because a surprising amount of people think that screaming, shouting and hitting, or, on the other side of the scale, ignoring their children and letting them “get on with it” is also “just parenting”.

I think you’re over-egging the amount (and depth) of discussion when asking a child not to do something here.

Everything isn’t a massive discussion - ‘no you cannot do X, because of reason Y. We do not do x in y situation’

Explaining in the moment relates the activity to the instruction, doing it days later means they’ll probably have forgotten what they did, how it felt, the impact it had etc.

‘no’ becomes meaningless very quickly if just barked repeatedly without context IMO.

Why call it gentle parenting? Parenting doesn’t need an extra title.

This thread is like banging your head against a brick wall 😂

Allowing the behaviour to continue while attempting to have an ineffective negotiation there and then - not gentle parenting.

Redirecting / removing the child from the situation and then immediately having an age-appropriate conversation about why - gentle parenting.

No.
There's no need to call good/proper parenting 'gentle'. 🫣

That's gentle parenting - authoritative but respectful. A permissive approach would be to allow the behaviour to continue, an authoritarian approach would be to punish the 'disobedience' of the second throw

What is wrong with punishing disobedience? This is where one of the great blindness of "gentle parents" comes in. They think their child is well behaved because they can eventually be coaxed to do as you've asked. They visit my home & I think they are badly behaved because they:

• don't do as they are told first time, even great big kids of 8/9
• question instructions, wasting time & disrupting activities for others
• have to be nagged several times/don't listen when told no.

People always give example of toddlers with gentle parenting/natural consequences, but in RL what I see is ineffective toddler approaches but with a child of 6 or 7. They are still doing things a second or third time after being told not to.

Suggesting that the parenting has not prevented recurring behaviour. What do you do when it keeps recurring?

There are no real consequences of risking it, and often a child gets away with bad behaviour because older children don't always have grown ups hovering a few metres away the way toddlers do. The sorts of transgressions older children make often don't really have a natural consequence they care about either:

• Bully that kid you don't like - natural consequence, he won't play with you - you don't care, he's not one of your mates anyway. Other children don't tend to exclude the popular bully either so there's no meaningful natural consequence.
• don't do your homework - natural consequence, bad marks - you don't care until its too late to remedy.

Schools, police, society, need children to learn to obey first time, in group context where they won't get a one on one adult managing behaviour. If you don't apply real, meaningful consequences (i.e. punishments!!) for bad behaviour, in what sense are you maintaining firm boundaries?

Bad parenting.
Quite straightforward.
(If you're concerned about how bad it is, be 'that person' and report it, for the child's sake).

This is a very interesting point! I think there could be some truth in this.

Shit parenting! Or further up the scale, child abuse

Again, who is suggesting we do this?
Ah, yes, nobody.