sick of ‘gentle parents’

[strawberrysugar23]

i’m so fed up of gentle parenting - just been to soft play and a boy probably about 4 years old was whacking my 18 month old, pushing her down, kicked her in the face. obviously i kept intervening and actually told him off myself but his parent was nowhere to be seen. once i’d told him off he moved onto a different toddler whose mum approached me and asked if i knew who his parent was. said parent eventually came over and said ‘aw is he being rough?’ i said yes he’s being very aggressive to multiple toddlers, has hit/kicked/pushed and keeps following them around even after other parents are intervening. and her response was ‘ohh (child’s name) you need to be more gentle!’ in a soft voice then walked off and he continued.

sorry but wtf. if your child is as feral as that surely you say right we’re leaving and actually tell them off instead of that response? seems to be a common occurrence too, always seems to be the most aggressive kids who are being gentle parented

Gentle parenting I've come to realise just means "Not authoritarian parenting"

That's why it covers the whole gauntlet from permissiveness to bonkersness to normal/sensible parenting, but a lot of gentle parenting resources seem to define themselves by what they are not which is why people come up with definitions of "conventional parenting" which are 50 years out of date and nobody has advocated for for decades.

All modern parenting resources seem to agree that authoritarian is bad, permissive is bad, authoritative is right.

A lot of the techniques explained on gentle parenting sites are authoritative.

A lot of modern parenting advice, even though not labelled "gentle" would fit under a gentle parenting definition of not authoritarian.

Gentle is not a helpful name IME. It just creates entirely unhelpful and completely meaningless camps - because you get people identifying either as a gentle parent or as somebody who is far too sensible to go for this gentle nonsense - and meanwhile they might both be using a very similar approach and probably have things to learn from each other, but the "gentle parent" is put off by the other's hostility and the other is put off by the label.

I've even made a silly diagram to show the overlap IMO

You have authoritarian (all the shouting, punishing, control, expectation of obedience etc), authoritative (boundaries but kindness), and permissive (no/low boundaries) in a row in red, green and blue respectively. They all slightly overlap.

Then a big "gentle" circle that covers most of both authoritative and permissive. I honestly think there is that big of an overlap. And that's why it's an unhelpful label.

YABU for conflating gentle parenting with no parenting/shit parenting

Just because she used the word gentle doesn’t mean she follows the gentle parenting methods.

@HiveBee We’ve come a long way from the abuse children suffered at the hands of adults decades ago, and rightfully so.

I have an autistic 4 yr old and I try to gentle parent.. he can get aggressive so I am by always by his side helping him with taking turns etc

If things get a bit chaotic or rough he is calmly taken away to another area of the playpark or to feed ducks and when calm told he must not hurt others or he’ll will have to leave the park as I need to keep everybody safe.. if he does it again, then we leave. It is a natural consequence for his actions and this is what I believe gentle parenting is. I don’t punish in the sense of shouting/timeouts Etc but he does get consequences for his actions. He still needs to learn right from wrong.. I think what you witnessed is permissive parenting

I was about to come on and say I agree with you OP. We have a couple of children in DCs class who are utterly precocious agressive shits and we suspected it was because the parents use the gentle parenting technique and didn't suitably tell them off when they hurt other children.

I now see that they've just not been parenting. Gentle parenting is a very different technique.

That's not gentle parenting, that's just not parenting.

'Gentle parenting' is a label that is attractive to many who like to think of themselves as parents who are doing a better job than their own parents did.

I've seen it in action in playgrounds around town. Not impressed, frankly.

Though maybe I'm mixing it up with 'Positive Parenting'.

Or maybe I'm right.
www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-harsh-realm-of-gentle-parenting

That's just it for me. In life there are some things we need to be "fearful" of. As per my example of kicking someone and being arrested. (I'm being somewhat lighthearted in that I wouldn't actually kick anyone!). My DC got told off sometimes and I personally feel a 4 Yr old is old enough to know you don't hit/kick people.

My DC have grown into happy productive adults and we have a great relationship. They will even tell me now that they thought I was a bit "soft" on them! So I am curious in this research you mention as to how the outcome is better?

Anyone I know who has a bad relationship with their parents, it's because of things like abuse, emotional neglect, parental substance abuse etc. I've never met anyone who struggled with how their parents disciplined them, if they were otherwise loving and caring towards their children.

Maybe gentle parenting makes children a nicer human being generally? That's the only way I could see it making a significant difference. But how would you even measure that?

A gentle parent would have explained to the child they had hurt others so it wasn’t safe for them to stay at soft play and removed them
In John Lewis, a gentle parent who advise the child playing on the stairs is not safe and if the child isn’t listening they would have to be removed from the situation
What is described here is lazy and ineffective parenting

İ think parents of aggressive children do not want to discourage aggressiveness in a hope it will protect them against bullies or they will because bullies/alfa -children themselves.
I have once posted how my son almost lost an eye on the playground when another toddler got his finger into my DS's eye and kept pushing his finger despite my son's loud screaming. I had to pull that boy myself while his parents were watching.

Oh gentle parenting drives me nuts!

I remember breastfeeding DS when he was a few weeks old, and my SIL was round with her 4 year old. He kept throwing the blanket over my head as I’m trying to feed my child and then throwing himself on us. I kept saying “Otis, can you please stop” but don’t have the sort of relationship with my SIL where I can use a firm voice with her son. She was just standing there and saying “Otis, come on, leave them alone”. She never says no to him whatever he does, but that incident in particular was too much.

Another thing I noticed, usually children over 4 years old would play without parents' close supervision. They do not care that they hurt younger children. It is up to toddlers' parents to teach their toddlers to kick and push or somehow be brave to fight bigger older child.

omg this! all lovely for them getting to sit and enjoy their coffee but not so fair on the other parents who are having to battle them off 🥲

I took a gentle patenting approach with all three DC and would have come down like a fuck ton of bricks on behaviour like this.

@Fuwari 'gentle parenting' is just a modern buzzword to describe authoritative parenting (as opposed to authoritarian). It's quite likely you were a 'gentle parent' whether you identify with the term or not, or at least employed a lot of the same principles in your parenting. See @BertieBotts explanation and diagram.

You can Google research into authoritative versus authoritarian parenting yourself and look at the evidence.

I'm sick of people thinking that lazy, ineffective and permissive parenting is what gentle parenting is.

We were in a restaurant the other day and there was a table there where the parents were clearly gentle parenting. And - to be fair to them - they were doing it properly. But my God, it looked exhausting. And must have sucked every inch of the fun out of the whole experience (especially for the other kids who were there). Little boy was trying to play with a ketchup bottle and put it in his mouth. The discussion and debate that went on was something to see. Both parents at it in turn for about 15 minutes. (The other kids were clearly bored witless too.). Honestly? I’d have taken it from him, put it down the other end of the table and said “Stop it! That’s not nice; other people have to use that.” And I’d have sounded a bit cross - but he’d get the message and we could move on to something else. I quite admired them in a way - but I simply couldn’t live like that. The earnestness must be soul destroying.

Plus - if kids never learn to see irritation and learn that sometimes you do things which make other people cross, in a safe, family based context, how do they learn to pick up on social cues as they get older? Because adults (especially in a British context) aren’t direct; a look at threads on here shows people will always say things are fine and then complain about them bitterly behind the back of the offender. Being able to spot when someone is getting pissed off with you and finding you a pain is actually a bit of a life skill!

thing is though it’s not even just this one parent in specific. this is a common thing in toddler groups/soft play etc etc where parents are doing the whole talking gently instead of actually giving the kids consequences i.e. removing them from the situation properly etc and i’ve not once seen it work

my cousin is a big advocate for gentle parenting too and her son is quite honestly a horrible, aggressive little thing

Some parents can't or won't properly parent their children. It was ever thus. Even if they're under the illusion they're practicing gentle parenting that doesn't make it so.

Random people seeing things that they don't like and declaring it gentle parenting doesn't make it so either, or help things.

christ!! your poor son

I think boys in particular are not suited to lazy or gentle parenting. They can often be so wild compared to girls.

I think she just sounds like a lazy parent rather a gentle one. The not gentle at all ones who continually growl "pack it in" or "get here" are just as bad and ineffective as the ones who say "Charles darling, I don't think the little boy wants to play a smacking game today" (this was actually said to a boy of about four who was smacking my crying one year old repeatedly on the head in the baby area of a soft play)

I know a few people doing gentle parenting.

They swear they do have consequences and limits etc.

What i see in practice is:

• their children often do not care about the "natural" consequence, and repeat the bad behaviour repeatedly.
• in lots of situations there is no natural consequence for the child, the consequence is for the parent or a sibling
• the use of distraction rather than saying no simply teaches their child that they don't have to take no for an answer, and that they will be offered fun alternatives all the time

I hate having these children on playdates. They have zero concept of obedience, even at 7 or 8, and don't do as they are told, they answer back all the time, you ask them to stop doing things and they just ignore instructions as if they are optional.

It comes back to parents who don’t want to address their child behaving in a way they shouldn’t so they turn a blind eye or have a chat. Having a chat has its place but when it comes to hurting another child there needs to be an immediate consequence so they understand just how serious it is to hurt others.

I know of a family where the child routinely attacks both parents. He’s 7. When they told me I suggested they get further support. They both look horrified and said he’s just expressing himself!