The gentle parenting philosophy makes me feel guiltily for having any feelings other than love

[michellet86]

Why is it not ok to show my anger? i mean appropriately and safely, not violent or aggressively. How is it ok to tell our kids their feelings are valid but then we have to suppress anything thats "negative"or only show it stoically?

I don't want to raise a kid who can't understand that he can't do whatever he wants without consequences. There ARE people in this world who will react with anger and he needs to know that.
I prefer the term "responsive parenting". My kids see when i'm getting angry. They also see how i process and handle it- if i need a few minutes to myself to help calm myself down or need to move my body to get some of that energy out, if i need to kind of check in with myself about why something is bothering me.
Sometimes i do loose my cool and yell and then they get to see how i handle that, they see that i feel bad for doing it and learn how to make amends with others when they mess up. These are all important lessons for them as they learn how to process and handle their own emotions in a healthy way. The reality is at some point parents will get angry with their kids. There might be a tiny percentage that doesn't- but that percentage probably has some combination of no outside stresses, lots of support (including the ability to have time to themselves) and that rare child that never pushes their buttons. Now if you're constantly angry and frustrated, yelling constantly somethings off and you might need to find a way to change those patterns but bei absolutely tired of your toddler whining all day for the 27th day in a row with no relief some annoyance is normal.

The main thing is that the parent is in charge. I don't pussyfoot around and I lay down the law. I don't understand all the 'I know you're feeling x' stuff. In the real world you have to moderate your behaviour no matter what you're feeling. Surely children need to learn that emotions cannot dictate behaviour? You can't hit someone no matter how angry you are.

It is quite simply because they have not looked into it, taken the term gentle and assumed what they were doing was gentle parenting but it is most definitely not.

You can do both though, honour the feeling but not accept the behaviour. Like when my son hit a bully, I came down hard on the violence, but did also honour his feelings. We talked about other outlets for anger, and walking away in future. So there is a balance, but I think a lot of gentle parents get it wrong because they are so busy honouring the feelings etc. they forget to discipline what is unacceptable at the same time.

Because no one learns to moderate their feelings effectively through authoritarian parenting.
being taught that your feelings don’t matter, and the people closest to you have no respect or concern for them, is the fastest route to a lifetime of emotional immaturity. You teach children emotional regulation by showing them empathy whilst holding boundaries.

I heard a radio thing about a gentle parent expert, who is gentle with her kid and then goes to another room for a cry and rage alone. That doesn't seem healthy to me, because obviously the parent is feeling like that because a child has crossed a line, and sometimes they need to see that they've crossed that line, not have their parents feelings totally hidden so that they have no idea they've crossed a line and upset them.

Ultimately if they continue to think it's ok to hit people, they could end up in jail down the road. Some things are that black and white, and when it comes to violence there has to be a hard line IMO

Gentle parenting is a joke, always reminds me of Willy Wonka telling Violet...No, please stop, don't... in a gentle voice. She blew up anyway.

My sister uses this bullshit parenting and her kids are absolute brats. They were meant to come to us for dinner because her child would not get dressed and the other one hit her in the face when she asked him in a "nice voice" to brssh his teeth.

She thought is was a valid reason to cancel because the kids did not want to coooperate and she respects their wishes.

Beam me fucking up.

Have no idea why some of my text his in bold, so sorry for that!

'Authoritarian' parenting, by the standards you seem to be using, has been near universal for most of human history, though, and still is in most cultures. Surely you don't really think that the only emotionally regulated people in existence are a small group of largely middle-class westerners who are nearly all under 30?

But the parents being discussed here have ‘read all the books’, they’re not uninformed.

I found the same, and had a girl with big brothers. She was just as battle-ready as they were. There was a lot of refereeing, boundary-imposing etc. Still is, and they're all 18+

This 100%.

I don't think it's healthy to follow any kind of parenting style 100%. So I pick out the aspects of gentle parenting that make sense to me and ignore the rest. For example, validating and naming my toddlers feelings is something I think important so I do that. But I also feel making him say sorry and telling him I'm proud of him is also important (gentle parenting says not to do these). So yeah, pick out the bits that make sense to you, ignore the rest. Doing an extreme form of anything isn't right imo

have they though?!

Apparently so!

We are on the whole gentle parents but… we have some pretty firm boundaries on behaviours. So we talk about why the boundaries are there, we make the process as enjoyable as possible, we try for connection and together as the starting point for behaviour management.

Done wrong: I think it's used as an excuse by lazy and permissive parents and creates selfish spoilt kids who lack boundaries.

Done well: I think it often comes at a great cost to the parents and is therefore only available to people who have a certain amount of privilege, because not everyone has the resources to do that. Even then the kids grow up with warped expectations about the reality of human nature and the world they live in, and that can be problematic unless aforementioned privilege makes it a smooth run for them.

So my conclusion is that for most people it is unattainable, and for many it is damaging. For others it is used as an excuse for permissive parenting, either intentionally or because it is misunderstood.
Also, the movement creates a lot of parents who are judged for parenting in a more authoritarian style, even when this is the better parenting style for their kids due to temperament, familial circumstances or neurodivergence. It creates division and a lot of parental guilt, and also a lot of confusion by people who feel like they have to learn a totally new toolkit to parent now than the way in which they themselves were raised. Often the methods are counterintuitive to what feels natural, and therefore hard to implement and sustain.

There are some brilliant things that have come from parenting change, I'm over the moon about the increase in countries criminalising physical chastisement (smacking). But I do think that calling any display of negative parental emotion such as a raised voice traumatic to the child is terrifying. Because anger is not abuse, boundaries are not abuse, and the danger in calling it so is that abuse is minimised and people think it's ok to abuse others so long as they have an emotional justification, having not been set proper boundaries about this previously.

It's all such a balancing act. I don't think many parents get it right (I know I often don't, I'm no guru type 😂) and I think gentle parenting can be really good for some parents, who are naturally authoritarian and could do with being more empathetic and nurturing alongside that, but for permissive parents (and their kids!) it can be really damaging to remove words like 'no' from their vocabulary.

All the people I know who follow gentle parenting are adamant their children are well behaved and that they are firm but fair and frankly...they are not. Their children run rings around them, often to the detriment of my well-behaved child (e.g. not taking turns properly). The behaviour their 4 year olds demonstrate would absolutely not be accepted in a Reception classroom and I suspect these children, who mainly started school in September, have learned to follow the rules just like everyone else when they know there's no choice. I agree with a pp that the language used is often ridiculous - if you check understanding with a Y2 or Y3 class, it's often surprising how much has gone over their heads and yet these gentle parents are using long strings of language with 2, 3 and 4 year olds who are already probably not in the best state to be listening.

As others have said, gentle parenting was a response to angry, authoritarian "do as I say not as I do" parenting which ignored the needs of children. It has now been co-opted by permissive parents who think that "validating children's emotions" means "they can do whatever they want and they should never be sad" instead of, for example, anger is a normal reaction to being disappointed but that doesn't mean you can hit me".

Check out MummaCusses if you want a more robust and sarcastic version of gentle parenting.

The bigger problem here though is people who read parenting books or follow "parenting experts" instead of understanding how children learn and develop. A book can only give you a script because they're not in your home and hearing/seeing your child's response.

If more people understood how a child's developmental level practically affected their responses to anger, disappointed, fear, confusion etc then you would naturally respond in an effective manner.

This is why I recommend Dan Siegel books/Youtube. It's the actual science behind the principles of proper gentle parenting.

@Whee

My sister works in a nursery, she said there's no point in using any words after the second one when telling a child off, because most 3 and 4 year olds aren't able to properly understand more complex sentences. When I started using short phrases or single words I noticed a marked change in my sons behaviour. Turns out he had glue ear so that contributed, but even after that improved the single words or two word phrases changed things a lot. I think we misunderstand their cognitive ability A LOT as parents.

@CremeEggsForBreakfast

I will check that out, would be really helpful to have a better understanding and also a bit of a giggle. Every day is a school day on mumsnet isn't it?

@GentlyBen I'm so sorry, that must be so awful for you

Honestly in your shoes I would consider calling the NPCC for advice. A three year old who doesn't eat and is malnourished, who is excessively violent, who is at risk of falling through the cracks because he won't be in nursery or school -- that sounds like outside help needs to be involved.

It's a load of bollocks. I have boys whom I have raised with a firm hand, lost my shit more times than I care to remember, split up endless fights and always tried my best to treat them with respect, be straight with them and always, always demand respect in return. They're adults now, with whom I love spending time. They have turned out just fine. Kids need firm boundaries which includes telling them no!!

Lol I see your point, but I disagree on your monolithic view on parenting. I actually think there have always been a wide spectrum of parenting styles and types of parenting , albeit based more on personality differences / intuition than on philosophies of parenting. For me an authoritarian style of parenting is a “my way or the high way” type of attitude- you have to do what I say , because I said so, no compromise, no empathy, no respect for a child’s independent perspective. I don’t think that results in emotionally mature humans. It seems quite obvious that it wouldn’t..

They most definitely need boundaries and to be told no, this is big part of gentle parenting so it’s actually not “a load of bollocks” …

DGS rules the house. Before he was two, his DPs were cancelling on us because "he didn't want to get dressed today." He is front and centre of everything they do and it's all about what he wants, to the complete exclusion of any sort of routine.

We don't eat out with them any more. We find it too stressful. He is not being taught any table manners, or in fact any manners at all and now spits constantly, but that's all right, because he will grow out of it.

He won't be weaned or toilet trained either. He will stop BF and wearing nappies when he's ready. In the meantime, he wakes constantly at night and his DM is clearly exhausted, working FT as well now, but determined to carry on because it is best for him.

That's OK then. @GentlyBen - solidarity.

I agree in the sense that many people use the term as an excuse not to bother instilling any boundaries with their children. But as far as I know, you are ‘allowed’ to get frustrated and angry with gentle parenting, you just model good behaviour ie label the emotion and explain it in a non accusatory way. ‘I’m feeling very frustrated by [your behaviour] and I need 5 minutes to myself’ is ok, I think?! You can use consequences, etc but the difference is more about phrasing than anything. I think many people don’t bother to read up on anything - which is fine, but then they pretend their ‘style’ is based on a theory such as this, when actually it’s just an absence of theory (or anything else!), not based on anything. It drives me a bit bananas really because the children have no resilience whatsoever and their mental health will be shredded by the time they’re adults. And yet, you’re right, they seem to be able to take the moral high ground! Bonkers!

I absolutely detest the phrase "gentle parenting". It implies that everyone else is roughly parenting!
I am also, yet to find someone who says they are gentle parenting who actually is. Every single one of them is indulgent parenting. Having no boundaries and never saying no - like some of the pp - is absolutely not authoritative parenting. Authoritative parenting btw, is the actual name for gentle parenting and far better explains what it should entail. I do believe in the principles - just not in 99% of peoples interpretation.

Let's take a scenario: leaving the park, child doesn't want to:

The indulgent parent - allows the child to stay (no boundaries, child does not feel safe and often leads to other 'bad' behaviours as the child tries to find the boundaries)

The authoritarian parent - shouts at the child that they're annoying and if they don't leave now, their iPad time will be taken from them. (Punishment rather than consequence and child feels misunderstood. The behaviour might stop that time but will happen again next time)

The authoritative parent - comments on how tough it is to leave somewhere fun, asks if the child wants to hold your hand or walk out alone AND if they still refuse, picks them up and removes them because it is time to go. (Child is given empathy and choices but the parent follows through with leaving. The child feels safe)