To think that gentle parenting only works with kids that were easygoing anyway

I remember with my eldest (the feral one), trying to sit him down and explain why his behaviour was unreasonable. He made 'flappy mouth' movements at me. He literally did not care one whit about the consequences of his behaviour either on others or himself. He was about three at this point. Some children you can reason with as much as you like, it seems as though their entire raison d'etre is to drive you insane.

He's in his late thirties now. Civilised, married homeowner, well employed. He just didn't like being parented, and he really only calmed down when he got out into the world and realised that it wasn't just ME 'flapping my mouth', NOBODY would tolerate bad behaviour.

So if a natural consequence is leaving the park because you misbehaved what is a child getting cold feet because they won’t wear shoes? What is a natural consequence if it isn’t something that happens naturally? Why not call it a direct consequence? It directly relates to the incident. But as a PP said, people are getting so stressed trying to use “correct” parenting methods that they mislabel them in order to sound “gentle” or “nice”. There is absolutely nothing wrong with giving your child consequences for their actions. So why do people feel the need to put the word natural in front of it? It’s to sound nice. Same way people like the term gentle. It sounds sweet and lovely. Rather than just saying you parent your child.

“I use gentle parenting and natural consequences” vs “I parent my child and use consequences”. It’s how it sounds. People like the soft fluffy words.

If you google natural consequences most articles I’ve looked at so far all describe things that happen without adult intervention. Anything else, is just a consequence. Some people say direct or imposed. But not natural.

I think the term “gentle parenting” is basically meaningless as it is used to mean so many different things.

I think permissive parenting is the problem these days - too many parents afraid to say no or have consistent boundaries for their kids, then complaining on here when the kids grow into ungrateful inconsiderate teenagers!

I hate the “SEND kids can’t be parented firmly” approach too - my ADHD/PDA son responds much better to firm boundaries and expectations, and an overly permissive approach would just mean he ran riot and did whatever he wanted instead of learning to be respectful of others and finding ways to handle his emotions and frustration better.

I think that there are easy going children that would respond to pretty much any parenting techniques. They might, as an adult have some issues, though. I mean most adults end up pretty ordinary and we all had less that perfect parents doing all sorts of different things depending on the fashion of the day.

Noone seems to agree what gentle parenting is

You can’t ’chat through’ an issue with a child who’s too young for that conversation. If they aren’t at a developmental stage to feel empathy, or theory of mind, then you’re just talking at them.

‘Natural consequence’ was a distinction from ‘punishment consequence’ ie. You behaved badly at the park so you will have no TV for a week- a random consequence based on your parent wanting you to feel bad.

The consequence of bad behaviour at the park needs to be park related- we leave now. The child may feel bad about leaving, but that’s not the point of it. The point is to stop the negative behaviour.
Next trip to the park, remind Billy how to behave at the park and that we will leave straight away if he doesn’t.
If he can’t behave at the park, we don’t go to the park.
Not as a punishment, but because Billy finds it difficult to behave nicely at the park so we won’t go for a while. We’ll try again when Billy is better at waiting his turn. Then you talk about waiting your turn while you are queuing in the shop, sitting in a traffic jam etc. Waiting your turn is normalised, he sees everyone doing it without pushing in. We try again at the park with a reminder that we all need to wait our turn.

But none of it relies on you being bigger than Billy, louder than Billy, or deliberately making Billy feel bad as retaliation.

I have one very stubborn child who was prone to angry outbursts as a toddler. Ignored doing things asked of him (compared with compliant siblings).

He responded well to explaining and discussing things. He cried with telling off and punishment had virtually no impact/ at times definitely counter productive as he would then lie.

He’s a lovely kind teenager now, plays sport, has friends, still stubborn /?independent thinker and pretty much has to decide to do things himself.

Also to point out we were in no way permissive. He was always well behaved in school but this (I believe) is because of lots of gentle parenting prep, I definitely think it could have gone another way. He struggled/ angry with sport but we strongly encouraged and I think this really does help teach cooperation.

I see gentle parenting as the pendulum swing from authoritarian parenting which was abusive, stifling and by definition controlling. Gentle parenting when it is applied permissibly which is what most people have witnessed it as and are describing it as is equally damaging but in different ways. Decent middle ground with limits imposed on behaviours tolerated and teaching emotional regulation skills explicitly probably is more successful.

My friend is a big fan of reading a theory then swallowing it whole. Her son is a biter, a hitter, and seems to have fairly destructive instincts overall (he tried to bludgeon my son with a heavy object the first few times they met). She gentle parents him and it's absolutely useless.

But her second kid is a quiet and docile daughter, so she really isn't getting the message that they need different parenting.

My son does little phases of rough behaviour and we hold firm on the no, removing toys, and leaving him for a minute, then needing a sorry and hug before we play again. He gets this! But when my husband deviates from the script and tries to chat through the issue, he just disengages.

I think this is part of the problem with the concept of gentle parenting though. It’s perfectly fine for a parent to impose a consequence on a child to avoid a greater harm. When my DS was 4 he would run away from me if we were out anywhere - the park, going to the shops etc. The natural consequence could have been him getting lost, being knocked down by a car, falling and hurting himself, or seriously injuring himself. So I imposed a consequence - if he didn’t walk beside me, he needed to hold my hand while we were out and about. Not a natural consequence, the natural consequence was potentially dangerous.

We’re now at a place where parents are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to explain how X is a natural consequence instead of recognising their authority (and duty) as parents to keep their kids safe, teach them boundaries and how to behave in society.

My kids hear the word “no”, they need to understand that the world won’t bend for them, they also need to feel difficult emotions like anger, frustration, anxiety, disappointment and shame at appropriate times. I’m not doing them any favours protecting them from feeling hard things.

I also think that 'natural consequences' is a misnomer because, as you say, removing your child isn't a natural consequences, it's just a consequence.

But a consequence isn't the same as a punishment.

The way I see it, a consequence is a necessary action to teach and protect the child from the negative outcomes of their actions eg removing them from a play activiity because they're throwing toys at other children because that's not socially acceptable. The toys might be damaged and someone else might be hurt, whereas the natural consequence would be that toy is now broken and no one wants to play with you.

But a punishment comes from adult emotions eg I'm wound up/angry/upset/frustrated/embarrassed by your behaviour and so I'm going to redess the balance by making you feel similarly.

I agree and, for me, there is a big difference in feeling ashamed and being shamed.

Eg

My daughter would feel ashamed of her behaviour and come to apologise to me. In that moment, I thanked her for her apology, there would be some restorative action (in her case, she found verbally apologising hard to begin with but would show it through her actions) and we would then move on.

Sometimes, when shebwas younger, a verbal apology felt too 'big' for her. It made her feel to vulnerable and her own sense of shame made it harder.

But she was always met with empathy.

Eventually, she felt safe enough to offer a verbal apology and did so.

If I'd met her apology with shame, Eg "It's a pity you couldn't have just done it straight away" or, "Why can't you just be good in the first place?" type responses, she'd have felt not only her own shame but mine too and that wouldn't have served anyone well.

OK, it's maybe not natural in it isn't what happens in a group of baboons or whatever. But if I didn't remove him, or said nothing to him, the staff would have asked me to, because the safety rules say no throwing the balls. It's a natural consequence in the sense that if you break safety rules in most places the eventual result is you aren't allowed to be there if you don't obey them. But fair enough, they are human imposed rules.

Gentle parenting done properly works. At its core, it's just a rejection of the arbitrary "because I said so" and shouting/smacking parenting of the past. It's parenting based on empathy rather than shame. It's just not always done properly, well or effectively. Some parents know what sort of parent they don't want to be but don't necessarily know what to do instead.

I have two childen who are adults now and the youngest was mid teens before I'd even heard the term but essentially, it was what I did.

My eldest was a very compliant child so, yes, it was easy.

My youngest wasn't and was exactly the sort of child who'd have been running around restaurants had she been allowed to, who did tantrum and challenged everything that was ever said to her. She was also parented with empathy and without shame. That doesn't mean she wasn't spoken to firmly or that voices were never slightly raised. But she was never shouted at, never smacked and never shamed.

The were both parented from the same position but it didn't necessarily look the same because they were different people who reacted and learnt differently.

There were boundaries and there were consequences. I preferred natural consequences but, as others say, you can't always allow natural consequences to play out because it would be neglectful as a parent to allow your child to have no friends because they throw toys at other children. So the consequences would be that the toy is removed or they are removed.

To me the difference is in what you are teaching them. Complaince through fear and blind obedience or understanding the consequences of their actions to allow them to develop the capacity to make informed choices of their own. To develop strategies for managing their frustrations. To teach them emotional literacy so they can explain how they feel rather than lashing out. To help them understand the why and not just the what.

There is little point in this extended gentle talking to an angry/upset/dysregulated child because at that moment their brains can't process what you're saying. The amygdala has taken over and the hippocampus (where their memories are stored) and the prefrontal cortex (where their decisions are made) have both shut down. So, yes, if a child is very angry or upset there is no point in a parent trying to reason with them because they don't have the capacity in that moment to process it even if they understand the words.

There’s a lot of the “no true Scotsman” defence of gentle parenting.

And yes, I think there are absolutely times when children (and adults!) should feel ashamed of behaviour. That’s a normal and healthy to having acted unreasonably.

Following on from my post earlier about “natural” consequences, why do you think removing the child from soft play is a natural consequence? It’s not. It’s a direct consequence decided by the you. I’m not saying thats the wrong thing to do. I totally agree with you. But it’s not a NATURAL consequence, it’s an adult decided one. You even use the word “allow” as if it does just happen naturally. It doesn’t. You make the decision and actively remove him.

The true natural consequence for throwing balls at other children is that no one will ever want to play with him and he’ll have no friends. Or he’ll get hit/balls thrown back at him. Obviously this isn’t ideal. So removing him is best. But that doesn’t make it a natural consequence.

I feel the term, like gentle parenting, has just become a thing people say to make themselves feel like they are doing a “nice” form of parenting rather than punishing. It sounds fluffier than saying we just do consequences.

Natural consequences are things like the child getting cold feet because they won’t wear shoes or the toy getting broken because they were throwing it about and they don’t have the toy anymore. It’s a natural consequence if there isn’t any adult intervention. If the adult has to perform the consequences, it’s no longer natural. It’s just a consequence.

I would remove the term "gentle parenting" from this...

For me, it isn't a functional term any more, and just confuses discussions. Having read many on here about it, all I can conclude is that it has two functional definitions:

Those who don't like it define it as:
A, listening/discussing/understanding + Overly permissive, lack of consequences and discipline, no authority.

Those who do like it, describe something that is in essence:
B, listening/discussing/understanding + Has consequences and authority, but no cruelty.

Both can't be true.. and even if you take those who spend a long time giving supportive and proper definitions of gentle parenting, really it does just come to down to an absence of subjective "cruelty". You can still say no, still punish, still have consequences, still set boundaries, etc. so what makes it gentle? When you boil it down, it tends to just be a rejection of what ever that person thinks is "cruel or unfair", which is often based on what has now become outdated from the previous generations.

Anyway, it has become a rather useless term that inspires more confusion than clarity in a discussion.

For the OP. Yes you are 100% right.

More easy-going parenting styles only work with naturally easy-going children... and some children require more authoritative boundary setting. Give those children the easy-going style, and you create a spoiled brat.

I would say the opposite that authoritarian parenting only works on permissive children. But thinking about it I guess it’s probably true of most parenting styles.

I was slightly more authoritative with my elder children as it was what I was raised with and didn’t know better (pre internet) both were very well behaved children. With ds who is autistic it just wouldn’t have worked so I had to change and try to manage his environment rather than expecting him to cope in mine. He struggles and everyday is a challenge but I suspect it would be worse if we had tried to be stricter.

My oldest wasn’t SEN but he was pretty hard work. We did do gentle parenting (not permissive), but also a lot of GOYB parenting: Get Off Your Butt 😂. I saw it called that on some American site. It basically meant being proactive rather than reactive. In practise it meant staying close and stepping in with distraction or redirection (not shouting) to steer away from meltdowns. Cutting play dates short if they were getting tired and grumpy. Getting off my butt and being physically close to the kids, rather than sitting down with the mums and ignoring them until all hell breaks loose. My mums a primary teacher and I learned it from her - she was always really scathing of parents who sat on their arses whining at children to stop doing XYZ, but not actually intervening in any useful way - then exploding and smacking them for not doing what they are told 🙄. And it was really good for our relationship - stepping in and showing him (and his friends) how to play, how to resolve arguments, how to compromise - then stepping back again. All done with words and Getting Off My Butt, no shouting, no smacking.

The problem is people don’t understand gentle parenting and are actually either permissive or just not parenting.

There are still rules and boundaries and consequences. Just no need to verbally yell at children for behaviour that is most likely developmentally normal. It’s about the why rather than punishing emotions. Most adults can’t control themselves but we expect tiny humans to be able to whose brains aren’t even fully developed.

Agreed. I would say I gentle parented but didn’t take any back chat / rudeness so was strict on some things. But my kids were pretty compliant and well behaved, even during their teens. I don’t think i’m any amazing parent who has all the answers, just lucky to have compliant kids. Some are far from compliant.

That's pretty much how we had to handle our two SEN boys. I wouldn't say how we parented fits with "gentle" as in the over explaining, never say the word no approach. But I would call that permissive, not gentle parenting. We did have to be authoritative (not authoritarian) with DS2 in particular, and by that I mean making boundaries very simple and clear. I wouldn't say we punished, but we did allow natural consequences, like taking DS2 out of a soft play place because he threw balls from the ball pit at another kid and didn't stop when asked. DS2 may have received that as punishment, but I'd see it as a natural consequence - you don't stick to the rules, you can't do the thing. Once we'd taken him out and left, that was it - no more consequences, the focus was on calming him down and redirecting. I think a lot of the gentle parenting advocates mistake punishment for natural consequences and vice versa. Kids need natural consequences for learning and development.

A lot of people mistook how we parented for permissiveness because we didn't make DC do things we knew weren't within their window of tolerance yet, risking meltdowns and lots of distress. It meant missing out on a lot of family occasions, because DS1 couldn't tolerate a noisy restaurant until he was around 6, for example. We had to build up from going to small cafes for a drink, to going to a beer garden with the dogs, going inside for a bit with ear defenders on, progressing to being able to eat a snack out, etc. Took about 2 years. He never went to big, noisy children's parties, hated them, and we never made him, and nor did we have them. For all of primary his birthday was having one or two friends over to do Lego or game and getting fried chicken from the exact same place 😁

People used to say "oh just bring them, they'll be fine when they get there". It's well meaning, they wanted to include us, but they've never experienced an autistic sensory meltdown!

The anticipating, scanning and meticulous planning ahead was endless, and exhausting at times. No spontaneity at all. Of course we didn't get it right all the time, but we do now have two ND teens who are generally coping pretty well and know their needs and limits.

Proactive parenting is exactly what we have to do.

Sort of agree but generally, I think it works with children who just happen to respond to that style. Some will be naturally easygoing and compliant, some will not be at all but respond to gentle parenting better than other ways.

It was an absolute disaster with my DS, who was a very challenging small child. Any attempts to talk things through or Co-regulate, and frustration or anger would immediately escalate into violence. In the end, it took him saying (during a calmer moment) ‘I don’t like you talking about my feelings when I’m angry. I already know how I’m feeling. When you talk to me about it, it makes me feel like hitting you to make you stop even though I don’t want to.’ So I stopped- immediate time out for bad behaviour and no discussion about it, or just left him alone if he just didnt like a decision I’d made and was angry. No more violence, instantly happier child.

When I stopped trying to help him manage his feelings in this way, I realised that he didn’t actually need my help at all. He already had ways of coping- there might be a bit of shouting from him, but then he’d go off and have a bit of a stomp around in his room or do some loud singing or distract himself with a toy and then be fine a few minutes later. So it turned out, with the best of intentions, that I had actually been getting in the way of him coping with anger in his own way, which is very different to mine. I want to talk it through when I’m angry, he wants to have a good huff on his own and then get over it. I think I got too focused on what I would have wanted for myself as a child (having had rather authoritarian parents myself)- I would have done very well with the talking it through approach and was naturally compliant and extremely sensitive- and projected that onto him, but he’s his own person. My idea of the ideal parenting style (for myself as a child) is his idea of hell, he’d rather have a time out if he does something naughty and move on.

We still talk about feelings of course, but not in the heat of the moment.

Same with explanations. I’ll usually give a very brief, one-sentence explanation if the reason for my request isn’t blindingly obvious. Anything more and he interprets it as me being open to persuasion, and will get extremely stressed trying to change my mind.

Conversely, I know other families who have children of all sorts of dispositions who respond beautifully to gentle parenting, or who at least respond better to it than other approaches. It’s horses for courses.

My children were brought up using the word no at what I considered were appropriate situations! Ie not grabbing dogs tail,putting dangerous,choke hazards in their mouth,trying to climb over banister etc .That is how they knew from a young age what was safe etc . They are all adults now , not traumatised and happy with life!
Talking and reasoning only has a certain amount of success when they can articulate and converse.

Even when the child is in danger? That seems bonkers to me.