To think you need to jus lift your child?

[PugasaurusRex]

We had a visiting toddler today. When it was time to go he threw a mega tantrum and refused to leave or to return the toy he had hold of at the time.

His mother just stood there. And stood. And stood. Occasionally calling weakly "George... George.... Time to go now..." George would then bolt back into the playroom.

This went on for the best part of twenty minutes. Eventually he started throwing things at my elderly cat in a rage, so I had to go and physically remove George from the playroom, remove the toy from his grasp, and essentially post him out the front door with his mother trailing behind.

I've seen this in toddler groups too. Child won't put on shoes/leave/come away from the door, and instead of lifting them and removing them the parent just sort of stands and bleats at them.

Am I missing something? Is it now seen as wrong/too strict to tuck your child under your arm and match them off kicking and screaming? Mine are a little past that stage, but I remember it being a fun feature of their toddler years.

I feel that George's mother was quite happy for me to be the bad guy in this scenario... She's a perfectly fit woman so I'm not sure why else lifting the child was beyond her

God yanbu. Dd had reins which were attached to a harness so during tantrums I could lift her off the ground like a puppet and carry her away . Reins were controversial at the time but they were a god send.

Neverquiteasitseems

I find it very difficult to physically intervene. Not holding hands near road, that's fine, but manhandling out of supermarket, forcing into car seat etc. I just can't do it. Once had a toddler standoff in Sainsbury's for an hour unable to get DC1 in car seat. I ended up getting pushchair out of boot, getting child in and walking them until asleep and transferring them to car”

Long time since mine were toddlers but I had a brilliant lightbulb moment in the car park once, maybe worth sharing.
Stiff, arched back, wailing, tears: ten minutes cajoling, instructing, pleading, trying to fold him in half , beginning to sweat. It suddenly dawned on me and I tickled his ribs. He collapsed, doubled up giggling and I had him seated and buckled before he knew what was going on. Only took another 3 or 4 similar episodes for him to give up resistance altogether. One of the few occasions I felt truly powerful, ha!

YANBU!

My H sometimes tries to cajole our 3 year old up the stairs when he’s refusing to go to bed. I always have to tell hi to just pick him up, asking him to go to bed 10 times just won’t work. If he hasn’t moved but the 3rd request, he’s not going to move at all!

Reins still are controversial but I thought the little back packs were good. Especially cos I could keep my things in them😂
And imagine those big 70s wooden play pens...how I longed for one..they would not be “allowed”. I’ve a photo of me in one - it was huge!

SiamEasy we got an awesome Tekplas modular play pen - took up most of our dining room 😂

And I wouldn’t survive twins without reins!

Just looked that up Sink-wow!
The thing I found with the gentle/attachment parenting groups is that they didn’t have any real solutions because they just happened to have chilled out DC so their methods “worked”. My DC was intense as well (still is) and when I said some of the insane things she did they were shocked because their child didn’t even do the rigid trolley thing🤷‍♀️
Another thing was that to be successful at that type of parenting you almost had to drive yourself into the ground. Using a pushchair had to be justified..of course now I’m out of the fog of toddlerhood i can see it for what it was but it seems to attract a lot of vulnerable —sleep deprived— women. The worst bit was the child seemed to lead absolutely everything and it was utterly joyless for the parent.

I hate to say it but everyone my DC grew up with who were gentle parented have a whole host of issues. My DC are 14 and 16 and even they can spot them a mile off. They have no boundaries, lack of respect for other children and are never wrong.

I once watched a gentle parent be so proud her 6yo DC was in the garden with a full sized hammer and screws ‘building something for mummy’ he also did electrocute himself putting a knife in a toaster (he was ok), we used to babysit for one another. According to her my DC were polite, quiet and said please and thank you. Her DC would wreck my house, wail and cry, refuse to eat what I had made, were rude
The difference is mine would not want to get into the car with me if they knew they might get a stern telling off AND the fear of someone else telling them off
Whereas drippy friends DC never had a care or consequence in their entire lives

I totally agree with you OP. DS has a friend/parents like this. It can take up to 45 minutes for them to leave when they visit. The child is no longer a toddler, so there is no excuse.

The gentle parenting is not working with this child. As Pookie said, there are no boundaries and no respect.

Ah yes. This was little Henry, who at at least twice the age of my 17 month old, was busy pelting him with beanbags at the toddler gym.

As I moved my son away, Henry's mother - who had said nothing to her child - weakly smiled at me and said "He's not really aiming for him... not on purpose."

I took my DS off to play with something else, and when I looked back, little Henry was now pelting his mum with beanbags, while she pleaded with him to stop. At least he wasn't really aiming for her.... not on purpose anyway 🙄

Going against the grain here but my mate gentle parented, long before it was a thing. Many of us thought her child was a bit of a pain in the arse and he certainly had a hard time when he started school; teachers did not like him.

However he has grown up to be a perfectly pleasant and successful young man. He's a bit dismissive of my mate though and doesn't seem to care much about her feelings.

It’s not really going against the grain - he has done well for himself because he mostly cares about himself and not much for his DM feelings as that’s how he’s been brought up 🤣

The ethos behind gentle parenting is:
Lack of confidence in your parenting and/or laziness
Belief your child is the most precious person on earth above all others
That all DC are incapable of understanding things when they clearly do (so some self delusion and lots of excuses) - babyfying them

My dsis and her DH are very intelligent and their eldest child is very bright. My ex drippy mother friend her DC are very bright and academically way above mine. They were all still quite unbearable as children to be around and the gentle parenting really calls into question your relationships because it can really affect your own DC.

Actually carrying DS is an absolute last resort for me as last time I had to do it (months ago!) I accidentally scrapped his foot on the carpet , felt terrible. It's not really surprising as DS is nearly 4ft tall and I'm 5ft1 .

I carried him at an event on Sunday as he couldn't see and bloody hell, my back is killing me.

On paper, I agree with a lot of the "gentle" parenting - no smacking, giving a child limited choices, listening to them,talking over good/bad choices

See I always thought this was more attachment parenting rather than gentle parenting.

Attachment parenting (as I understand it) is about loads of love, affection emotion support etc but also very firm boundaries?

Anyway, what do I know. I have an 18 month old so haven’t reached these stages yet. Already started with placing firm boundaries though! And absolutely would carry him out if he didn’t do as he was told.

I’ve been more of the mind of attachment parenting and yes it is within firm boundaries

So there is a choice but it’s a choice of 2 things - apple or banana? And if refused, only the choice of fruit is available and no level of whinging will change that. Or what would you like to wear today? Pink shoes or blue shoes? There are still consequences to things but the child isn’t rail roaded into your way or no way.... or literally everything their own way. They have freedom but it’s still monitored by you

You explain to children when they make an error why it was an error and how it might have made someone feel if they threw something at a child and the chance to say sorry then forget about it and move on. You give them warnings and count downs to consequences but you follow through. You distract them from tantrums but you deal with it swiftly and if you can’t distract, you feel confident enough to call time on it and leave the scene

It’s not ‘what would Henry like?’ And then the child lives on cocopops morning noon and night, you never remind them how their actions make other people feel so they barge around their life never being told off!

Is he really ‘perfectly pleasant’ if he is dismissive of his mother, and doesn’t care for her feelings, though, @TinklyLittleLaugh?

I was a reasonably strict parent - I was definitely not a ‘gentle’ parent - I was loving, supportive, encouraging, gave them fair boundaries, and consequences when they over-stepped those boundaries - and they have all grown up to be successful and pleasant young men who care for the feelings of other people, including their father and me, and are not dismissive of them.

Feel sorry for poor child listening to parents whinging, and whining themselves all day. No boundaries does not make happy kids, they should know what is expected and mostly comply. Count to 3, giving a choice or I won't tell you again mostly works if you mean it. Have consequence in mind in case not and always follow it through.

I happily removed mine surfboard style after fair warning had been given to leave someone's house. If they misbehaved I would also leave immediately.

I also noticed Mum's though who told their kids they had to leave then got talking to other Mums/friends and didn't follow through. The kids would have got up to go and then realised their Mum wasn't really focused on them and went back to playing. Seemed like a good way to show you didn't mean what you said as a parent. And I've seen parents not willing to follow through on the threat to go home because the parent was having too good a time - so the kid didn't get punished as promised if they did it again.

Plus my friend trying to persuade her DD that she couldn't have an ice cream from the ice cream van as she'd had one earlier - tried and tried for 20 minutes and then bought her one anyway - causing a whole heap of trouble for the other parents who had said no to their children. My friend and her OH were always trying to negotiate never laying down the law or following through on the consequences they'd said. And then she was envious my children were so well behaved!!! Child is now the most wayward teen I know. Really scarily wayward.

I fear for the future with some of the idiotic parents who just cannot say no, or take the lead - there has to be an adult with a guiding hand and gentle rules for every child, surely ? How it must have upset that child to have a bleating mother standing there giving out negative messages when all he wanted to do was play? No wonder he got frustrated. What was wrong with 'Come along George' - and if he didn't, taking his hand or picking him up and leaving. He will very quickly learn that Mum means it's time to go and it's easier to go than be carried out. Her life must be hell if that scenario is played out every time George doesn't want to co operate! Heaven help his teacher.

I've seen this many times at nursery. Parents seem to think they can either get their toddler to see reason and do as asked or they can carry out negotiations on why they have to do such and such eg Mummy/Daddy has to go now but we will do something you want to do when we get home before bedtime. I cringe at the sight!

Yep, for sure. Someone elses child throwing a tantrum is not your problem, or at least it shouldn't be. My own GD did this is a store, I pushed her stroller out and faced it into a wall. She kicked the wall for a while, and then gave up.

I think everyone has come across a parent like this.

They stand there like a wet lettuce saying "Come on Persephone, time to go home now. Please get off the climbing frame pumpkin, Mummy's waiting. Now please put your shoes on and.... OK, 5 more minutes pumpkin".

Had a coffee this morning with a friend and we were reminiscing about the time our pair of cheeky three year olds refused to get off a climbing frame in a soft play and we climbed up there ourselves and marched out of the door with a flailing, screaming toddler each under our arm. As any normal parent would.

Urgh, I have a lovely friend, who is awful at discipline. Her then 3 year old ds would regularly push and hit, and take toys from others, and not a peep out of her. The amount of times i found myself saying "NO PETER" because i had had enough. Infuriating. On a separate note, she is also an anti vaxxer...

It's a certain technique badly done and it doesn't work with all kids. Mine hated being ignored so I would say I was leaving and go. She followed when she realized I meant it. You also need to say Put your shoes on with an element of command. Kid is getting attention if Mum weakly stands there and pleads. Kids do need to work out tantrums on their own but you could just carry them out!

I used to have a friend when our kids were toddlers, the most ineffective parenting ever.
Child wouldn't get in the car seat, buggy etc and she would stand weakly trying to negotiate with a 2 year old, "I know you're cross darling but mummy really wants you to get in the car seat, please darling, oh darling please don't kick mummy, do you feel tired darling, are you hungry, on & on. I'd just end up picking him up and strapping him in, ridiculous carry on.

Yes ‘I’m leaving without you then’ would scare mine because I would actually leave out of sight 😂

I remember my own mother always threatening to leave us somewhere but never ever following through. The one time she did actually do it I remember vividly because I did not believe she would... and she did! Unfortunately that was a one off