Parents who let your toddlers run feral, how are your kids now?

[Fruitcakesanddogs]

I have a 23 month old. I am very relaxed with him. He’s messy, loud and basically a complete hurricane. I try to just let him do his thing, unless of course he’s going to harm someone else or is really annoying someone.

I know some people don’t like this kind of parenting. If that’s you then fair enough. However I am interested in hearing from parents who did take a more relaxed approach with their toddler. How did it turn out for you?

Whatever you may or may not believe:

most people do not like loud and extremely rambunctious children.

bystanders will have a negative reaction to seeing it. And your son will probably pick up on it. exposing him to societal dislike seems like a bad idea to me.

many other children may have a similar reaction.
teachers are only human as well. They may subconsciously experience aversion as well.

my mum just often jokes that my son is feral!

Can you humour me, and explain the joke? Because I don’t get it.

It sounds like she’s just saying that your son is feral - but because she’s saying it with a laugh in her voice, you think she’s being light-hearted, as opposed to just telling the truth.

Kids need boundaries to feel loved, ultimately. I remember learning this on teacher training years ago and it’s always stuck with me!

Imagine being the only teenager in your group of friends whose parents didn’t tell them what
time to be home, or seem to care where you went? Deep down many in this scenario just end up feeling uncared for. Sweeping generalisation I know, but boundaries are definitely a good thing!

OP I am (genuinely) interested in what you would do if he started going rigid and refusing to get in the car seat. Would you just narrow your trips even further? Only places you would walk? Or would that make you decide you had to force him in?

You’re unlikely to get an honest, or rather accurate, answer from parents who let their kids run wild. I’m sure they think their little darlings can do no wrong.

The reality of it is, from my observation, that they grew up too be rude, entitled little shits who had trouble at school, because they didn’t understand the meaning of the word no and felt the class resolved around them. They had problems making or keeping friends for the same reason. Now they are having trouble comprehending that they actually have to work for a living.

I cannot believe you hang around in a shop until your 2yo decides he's had enough of a toy, and drops it. What if it was 20 minutes, an hour? And you had to be somewhere? Ridiculous. What about discarded toys all over the shop. Children need and appreciate all sorts of boundaries. Gentle parenting, my arse...

Your OP asked about others' experiences. I have adult children, my very good friend at the time parented her three sons exactly as you describe. To the letter. Our DCs are the same age and I would dread going there for us all to spend time together. She tread on eggshells with her kids. Their behaviour was awful, it was like lord of the flies with my kids, another friends kids, and hers.

I will give you one example. Eldest DC was fixated with electrics, plugs, anything. When eating a meal us all together, she let him get down from the table and wind a chain round and round through the chair spokes and round her and padlock it. "Isn't he clever, haha, he is so funny". He ran off with the key, he was 5 or 6. Her son was shrieking with laughter, wouldn't give key back. "Darling, bring the key back". Yeah right. He'd never listened to her before, wasn't going to happen now, chair had to be dismantled to get her out. And I was sat there like this is normal.

All three of her adult kids are entitled little wotsits. She never challenged them, they ruled the roost totally. And still do.

I am following a gentle style of parenting (child is under 2). Someone pointed out to me recently that I can’t reason with my child at this age, and some things just have to happen. This was like a lightbulb moment for me!

This was my friend

I grew up with her and she's an amazing lady but by God,her lot where feral

No rules at all,if she tried to lay any down,they'd ignore her and she'd cave

It got to the point I arranged to meet her in town with our youngest dc (both in buggies)

We met up,did two shops (so about five minutes) ,her dd started kicking off so she went home as 'x wants to go back home' (she had to go back a few days later,leaving dd with granny as she did need to go into town)

X was almost 3 at the time

She had no control over them at all-the amount of times we had to stand in a shop/school/the street while the dc where pissing about and we had to wait for them to stop

Another time we'd all gone to play in a field that was about another field away from the main river of our city

They wanted to go and have a look-fine

What wasn't fine was they wanted to jump in (massive body of water,people have been known to drown in it)

She stood there,flapping her arms while saying 'no' (not 'NO!',just 'no')

If I hadn't been there,I'm sure one would have done

They had a massive shock once they hit school (all schools fault) and they got older with no respect for her-im sure they only speak to her because she solves any issues by opening her purse-ones left home now and he only bothers when he needs money for weed (she did push them once they got to secondary,so on paper they have the qualifications but never used them and are jobless-why get a job when benefits and mummy will pay)

It's a shame because they could have been lovely kids but they are greedy,selfish and nasty-I let the friendship drift and still miss her

This

The ones I know who have been parented this way are unhappy, particularly the boys. It’s obvious really… they have been brought up to think the world revolves around them and that they can always do what they want;and that women are there to meet there needs only. Then the outside world doesn’t match what they have learned. So they are unhappy. It’s cruel to not prepare your children for the real world.

I love this safety bar on a roller coaster analogy, so good!

Of course you can. That is insane. I remember endless dialogues when mine were two ie 'its cold out, you need your coat or you will be freezing' or 'be gentle, that hurts and makes me sad' or 'You need to finish your food, you need to grow big and strong' etc etc etc.

Of course you can reason with them, how else do you teach them things?

I don’t think there is any concrete answer to this, as everyone has very different boundaries.

I am quite lenient in my parent’s eyes as I let my children engage in risky play, I’ll often let them discover the natural consequences of things (E.g. I will let them leave the house without a coat, only to discover Infact it is quite cold and they should have brought a coat) and they spend a lot of time outdoors in the garden climbing and getting up to general mischief with the water butts. I often turn a blind eye to things that aren’t ideal, but don’t really matter in the scheme of things. Yesterday my 1 year old and 3 year old started ‘doing the washing up’ and it made a huge mess, but they enjoyed it and I got 20 minutes peace to do some other bits.

Having said that, we have zero tolerance for hurting other people or being destructive. My children very rarely break their things, and they very rarely injure eachother (Infact, I don’t think they’ve ever left a mark on one another). I have a lovely friend who often comes around with her 4 year old and I can always guarantee something will get broken, and someone will get hurt. My friend is a great parent but those things just don’t matter to her as much as they do to me.

Hmmme, very few parents are going to hop onto a thread like this and say...Yeah, I called it 'gentle' parenting but actually I was just lazy and permissive and adult DC are a nightmare.....
So, you're going to get responses from more boundaried parents no?
I think if you're interested in parenting why not dip into books on child development genuinely written by experts? Not people trying to sell a book with no qualifications just personal views or rehashed misrepresented psychological concepts (I give you 'attachment parenting') or worse still influencers. Developmental psychology would tell you that those moments of putting the toy down or getting into the buggy or doing anything that you don't immediately want to do are super important for your DC. Frustration and anger or upset are big emotions and are not to be avoided but offer opportunities to help you start the long process of helping your child to notice feelings, give them labels and eventually since skills in managing them.
Smoothing his path so he is never thwarted or his needs are never in conflict to anyone else will mean he won't get opportunities to learn how to manage being sad or cross or that he exists in relation to others not in an isolated egocentric bubble. You'd be doing him a massive disservice.

Yep. My dc school is full of them. Then parents remove their kids because they are being 'picked on' and are 'too strict' 😅

Gentle parenting isn’t a lack of boundaries
This! As soon as I saw OP saying her experience of gentle parenting that's exactly what I was going to say.

Giving children age-appropriate freedom to play and explore is not the same as giving children total freedom to make as much mess and noise they want to in any situation.

On what planet is it gentle parenting to let your child grab stuff in shops and then wait until the child decides to drop it to put it back? That's just permissive and teaching the child that they can do what they want and the parents are wishy-washy and lack a backbone.

The younger children who run around feral and wild like hurricanes are the children grow into older children who also have no boundaries. If OP already feels she can't take her child places because of their behaviour, it's not going to get better as they get older.

I was that teenager

My mother is a narc,so we had to be the perfect kids-her parenting skills had to be seen as the best

Every little thing had a rule-and by God help you if we pushed against them

I hit 13 and she just gave up-i could be out all night if I wanted-I often didn't come back for days

Nobody worried-it was seen as I'd show up at some point (thank god I did and nothing bad happened)

Looking back as a adult,it scares the hell out of me-i had nobody worrying about me,no bedtime,no rules-nothing

Anything could have happened-and the fact nobody cared is horrid

I have nightmares,even now (I'm 45) that I'm kidnapped and nobody notices so I live the rest of my life underground and nobody gives a fuck

I needed rules,boundaries and parenting more than ever-I was 13-that,looking back was scary enough but to have none at two/three is unthinkable

I think Lagirl means more thought that sometimes once you’ve explained why something has to happen, it just has to happen regardless of whether you’ve managed to convince the child or not. If so, I remember a similar light bulb moment myself.

My eldest daughter loves to pick her own clothes and she had a charity event at school a few months ago. She has mild sensory issues and hates wearing tights, but she wanted to wear a dress. It was a cold day and I explained that she had to wear tights, as she wouldn’t have the option later of putting them on. She tried to reason with me and suggested lots of alternatives: she could pack them in a bag to put on when she was cold, she could put them in her pocket etc etc. None of those things were an option as the event was outdoors and the school wouldn’t be able to devote the time to helping her change. We were late and in a rush and I was getting more and more frustrated trying to explain things to her until I remembered that ultimately, sometimes there are just clear boundaries without me needing to explain why every single one of her suggestions wasn’t going to work. So rather than get myself more frustrated, I just said “nope, I’ve said no, I’m not discussing it further. Let me know when your tights are on and you’re ready to go”.

I don’t like parenting that way, but sometimes it’s necessary and you can still be a gentle parent but not reason with your child for every single decision.

A friend parents her children like this, her eldest is a delight and clearly flourished under this style. Her youngest is verging on unpleasant to be around at the age of 5 and it’s clear he needed stronger boundaries.

“Unless he is really annoying someone” this sounds like you only stop him in extreme cases. I’d be stopping him before he gets really annoying out of consideration to others.

I didn’t exactly let my dd run feral, but I was very relaxed.
she slept with me until 12, breast fed until 3, no rules or bedtimes.
if she needed to stay home from school for a mental health day we went off to the spa when she was older or the zoo when younger.
eveyone I knew criticised my parenting and said I was wrong, but I was convinced it was the right way.
She is 19 now, at a Russel group uni and happy and confident. No issues and a close relationship with me and others.

@Lagirl20 Hmmme well you can't do complex negotiations/reasoning as they don't have the comprehension/language skills. But simple if/then instructions or natural consequences are fine. Toddlers comprehension is way ahead of their expressive language skills. So "If shoes on then park" would be understood (and repeat and repeat). Or depending on what you care about "No coat, DC get cold"(insert elaborate miming of shivering and rubbing arms). Then follow through ...start the walk to the park, let them get cold then take the coat from under the buggy and then they can choose to put it on.
Mine were described as 'feral' by my mum as they'd be muddy or wet and would mostly choose active physical play. I would 'let them' have messy play or pay with loads of toys at once in what looked like chaos. But... They had to help with tidy up time, were not allowed to shout, screech or run in inside public spaces, had to wait, sit on buses, share, leave when I needed to, sit in shopping trolleys etc. We also noticed and labelled emotions (it's like labelling objects it's just as important) and tried to minimise times when they might fail (distraction, turning down inside/slow/craft type activities.). Gods honest truth the toddler and pre school years were the hardest thing I've ever done (and I have a really stressful job). You have to be so active and in it. But you owe it to them to try and step up.

You said " I would find it upsetting to physically restrain him just to go to the park..."

And it sounds like you find anything that upsets you or your son is to be avoided if at all possible. That's not gentle parenting. Parenting sometimes means kids get upset, and parents have to do things they don't like because it's in the long term interests of you child. He's missing out on early experiences like museums or restaurants because you can't control his behaviour. You drive places because he won't get in a buggy. You must realise how that sounds?

You seem to think that as your child gets better and communicating, it will all magically get easier. It won't, he'll just be able to say no inn more ways and argue back more, as you haven't put the groundwork in.

I have friends with a child raised like yours. Older dad on his third family who didn't want the hassle of setting boundaries and a mum who had given up enforcing good behaviour because he constantly undermined her. Child was bossy, resisted any attempt to do what she was told and argued back for England. Was absolutely shocked when she stayed with me once and discovered not everything is a negotiation - but we got on fine once she accepted that 'my house my rules'. She really struggled in school too, and with keeping friends. Turned over a new leaf once she hit University and is now a lot better bit I know she wasn't happy as a child & young person and couldn't understand why people didn't seem to like her.

Your mum isn't joking by the way. She's trying to tell you something and you aren't hearing it. Keep on like this and you might find she won't want to spend time with her grandson as he's too hard work.

The way to ensure things like this is via a wider culture and expectation that when you give an instruction, it has to be followed. There are just some things that your child must do for health and wellbeing such as going to bed and holding hands in busy areas. I know buggys can be difficult but you need to give yourself a chance by having some expectations of how you expect your instructions to be followed. If you don't, you could end up with a very disrespectful child or teenager on your hands.

I had a fairly relaxed approach to many things. I tried to say yes when I could and was happy for dirt, messy play and tried to explain what was happening to my children and why. However, when I say no, I mean it and all my children know that some things are just not up for negotiation. There are simply some instructions that must be followed. I pick my battles and talk to my children a lot but I'm still the person in charge. Now I have a teen, I'm very thankful I set this up from.an early age.
I'm also a teacher and have always had a reputation for being quite firm, but children have great fun in my lessons and feel safe as the correct boundaries are in place. Controlled freedom is the sweet spot where children thrive!
I think you are being unfair to your son as you are sometimes handing over the adult decision making role to him. He shouldn't be able to endlessly hold something in a shop when you need to leave (also why is he allowed to mess with something you have no intention of purchasing?). Well done for being reflective. Don't be afraid to evolve your approach into something that might be more appropriate but still respects your parenting values.

Toddlers are loud. Toddlers are messy. Toddlers never sit down. Toddlers touch everything. Does that mean they're feral? To me they are just being toddlers. They grow out of it. My 4 year old is so chilled now sometimes I want him to be a bit more outgoing like other kids I see. He's so shy and reserved. I don't like the term feral.