Parenting trends that can get in the bin

[PiratesEatTrolls]

Permissive/passive parenting labelled as gentle - no, little Jimmy not wanting to play with your DC is not a natural consequence for squirting him repeatedly and directly in the face from 2ft away with a super soaker, despite being asked to 'stop please darling, he doesn't like it, oh look, he's crying'....a natural consequence would be removing the super soaker

Never saying 'no' as a principle- fair enough (not really), but if you're DC is being violent, I sure as hell will tell them no

Neutrals neutrals neutrals and no plastic tat - let them have some stuff they like! Buy it second hand of you want to be eco but let them have the odd bit of tat/character pyjamas that make them happy, why not 🤷🏼‍♀️

She then suggests giving the child who has just bitten you an apple!

😂

Ouchy grouchy, you bit mummy! Did that feel good for you? Are you bored here? Here, have an apple my little love.

Surely all that yes he’s a child is that biting feels good, plus is a great way to solve boredom and get a free apple!

Although I didn’t realise this woman sort of made up gentle parenting and it was a specific philosophy - I’m starting to think I’m not one after all!

Hitting is wrong.
Hitting is ALWAYS wrong.

Also, from the sounds of it, her opinion is that you should basically try to make sure the child is never ‘triggered’ by anything unpleasant, and resign yourself to this behaviour continuing for ‘maybe years’ because it’s just normal. In my experience a child biting and hitting for ‘years’ is far from normal.

Well I am a child of the 80's and I witnessed shocking amounts of physical violence, I was on the receiving end too. It was very normal. People have different experiences.

Also parents that use full sentences to speak to their toddler/baby. "Jimmy we both know how dangerous it is to run at mummy with a knife, so could you kindly please pop it down on the astroturf and regulate your emotions." Just say no or stop, then explain in kid friendly terms!

"Pop it down on the astroturf" 🤣🤣

Plastic grass can go in the bin! Daisy chains might die out...

I don’t really like Sarah OS for various reasons but actually the whole giving a kid something appropriate to bite/kick etc is fairly standard behaviour management in playgroups/nurseries for children of a certain age. It’s not a treat, it’s redirecting unwanted behaviour.

Mine are 25 and 21 and I think I just parented the same way as my mum and dad. They were never hit (nor were we) but they were very much aware that they needed to do as we - as adults and their parents - told them.
My son was particularly annoying as a toddler as he constant,y wanted to push boundaries and argue - he could have easily became feral - but every adult in his life said no when he was getting annoying and he had to learn that a child does what an adult tells them (yeah yeah, I know about safeguarding and abuse - but really? That's not a reason to allow children to behave badly).
I think that I was stricter in the years when I was a single parent because I knew I was being judged so had a lot to prove.

Anyway, the whole child centred parenting strategy is really just a cop out by parents and storing up problems for the future when someone dares say no to their little darling.

@goodkidsmaadhouse the post I was agreeing with was one discussing validating feelings and not addressing behaviour. In my personal experience those who advocate gentle parenting do not address the behaviour and I’m sure that people will tell me that this is not GP applied correctly, but I think that’s where labelling parenting styles enables some to not deal with unacceptable behaviour under the guise of a parenting style and in the worst examples of this have professed to be demonstrating superior parenting.

I think it’s about age appropriateness too, sometimes addressing the unacceptable behaviour and then a distraction from the trigger I find more successful than focusing on emotions that lead to/from the trigger in younger children. In instances where unacceptable behaviour is not demonstrated I prefer to reinforce that and focus on the emotions then. For instance when my youngest can’t get on the swing at the park, he does a big sigh and goes onto something else, I acknowledge that he was disappointed but did well to wait his turn. Of course all children are different and their parents are/should be best placed to decide what they can comprehend at what age as to what will be effective.

I view training as practising the teaching, in the same way that you teach a child a sports skill and then they practise. Not sure if training is negative connotations I’m not aware of 🤷‍♀️

One change I have seen is an increased belief in the benefit of socialising and organised activities for babies and young toddlers. Previously there was a more widespread belief that they were best off at home with a primary caree most of the time.

That is a change in society, but actually the underlying science hasn't changed.
Until age 3 babies and small children need regular consistant interaction with a SMALL group of familiar and recognised adults. Their primary need is to feel safe and loved. Stimulating and socialising activities are not actually meeting their primary need which is attachment and love. Nurseries and organised activities don't actually provide that.
It is unpopular to say because most people rely on sending their kids to nurseries in order to go back to work, but a home setting is actually closer to what a baby/small child needs.

Yet worldwide its quite normal to co sleep. Without all the "latest guidance"

Worldwide some parents don’t have a choice due to living conditions.

Worldwide some cultures have completely different set ups such as floor beds, lack of fluffy pillows, soft mattresses and other suffocation risks.

Hardly comparable.

I mentioned the NHS, so clearly not talking "worldwide". But, thankyou for the obvious input.

Gentle parenting as a term existed before Sarah Ockwell Smith wrote about it. I think I traced the first mention back to the late 90s/early 2000s. Ockwell-Smith was publishing books from 2013 onwards. There was also "Adventures in Gentle Discipline" by Hilary Flower published in 2005.

And non-punitive parenting has been around much longer than that under various different names, since at least the 1900s, (as in 1900-1910), and likely practiced by private individuals previously, though it was fairly niche until the 60s when it rose in popularity due to anti-authoritarian movements in the population in general.

It's also been used in SEN circles for decades.

Parents turning a blind eye to their rampaging 7 year old bulldozing over toddlers/babies in softplay.

Embarassing pictures/stories of children being posted on social media where these moments are immortalised for everyone to gawp and laugh at.

The idea that babies have to ‘cry it out’ to learn to sleep independently. Or that children need to sleep in their parents bed until toddler/early childhood to feel ‘safe’ and ‘secure’. Ridiculous.