to think sometimes gentle parenting is taken too far?

[GPgonewrong]

This week I’ve spent a few days with friends, their baby and son who’s almost 4. I have DS who is a few years older.

They gentle parent (which I also do, to an extent) but it means their toddler never hears raised voices, I didn’t ever hear “no”, everything was dealt with through a compromise or sitting down with him. All sounds fine, until you experience the behaviour. He bounced on every single chair and sofa, constantly pulled out furniture, wouldn’t sit down for a meal, eating little bits and buggering off running round, never ate a full meal but fed on demand. He shoved me out of the way several times, complained every time he was explained to why he shouldn’t be doing that, which he shouted back “NO! You can’t say that”. Completely unable to share, always snatching off the other kids, and didn’t say goodbye when we left. He is almost four but still won’t play nicely, instead his idea of play was destructive, throwing things around and knocking things over.

AIBU to think it’s gentle parenting taken too far and no discipline? Or maybe a separate issue?

It's not gentle parenting that's the issue. It's the parents.
Gentle parenting is not allowing your children to run riot.

That's not gentle parenting, it sounds more like lazy parenting than anything. I think a lot of people see ineffective lazy parents and then rant about gentle parenting but it's actually a very specific authoritative parenting style which takes a lot of effort to do properly.

The sofa thing just sounds like a difference in home rules - my kids aren't allowed to bounce on the sofa because our sofa would break, but if we had a sofa that was particularly sturdy or just that was on its last legs so we were planning to replace it so it didn't matter then I might have a different rule.

Gentle parenting does encourage parents to actually think about whether a rule is necessary or whether it's just a rule that you're carrying over from your upbringing - then you focus on the rules that are genuinely important (e.g. hold my hand by the road to keep you safe, apply sunscreen or stay indoors so that you don't burn).

Deciding whether or not children are allowed to jump on the sofa in your own house is just a difference of opinion, two households could easily consider the question and come to two different conclusions.

A lot of the behaviour you describe also just sounds like a very excited three year old who has has friends over to stay. There are extra people in the home, it might be much noisier and much more stimulating than usual (especially if he's the only child in a calm household). He might not be that used to sharing his toys if he's an only child. If that was my child I probably would loosen the reins about things like sitting at the table and what food to eat in that situation, so what you're seeing right now really doesn't resemble their house day to day.

He shoved me out of the way several times, complained every time he was explained to why he shouldn’t be doing that, which he shouted back “NO! You can’t say that”. Completely unable to share, always snatching off the other kids, and didn’t say goodbye when we left

all the children of gentle parenting I’ve come across are physically rough 😂

I often wonder whether the parent would gently deal with me if I behaved the same? Granted I’m an adult but who’s to say I wasn’t a product of gentle parenting

So say for example your child is taking another’s toys, you are just redirecting continually at the detriment of the child who is having their toys taken? Redirection always seems incredibly self centred and selfish.

All you ever hear at playgroups is ‘let’s use gentle hands’ as they push them off in a different direction only for it to repeat two minutes later. Why is seemingly unacceptable to say ‘no, we do not take toys that other children are playing with. We can play with this toy when they are finished’ is absolutely beyond me.

I love the idea that you’re not supposed to say no to them but they can be as rude as they want to the parents 🤦‍♀️

Its a crock of shit OP.

My understanding is that they’re not quite the same? As something like 123 Magic would fall under the authoritative umbrella where you’re like “I’m going to count to 3 and if you don’t get out of the bath you won’t get any tv tonight”

Whereas that wouldn’t work with gentle parenting because it’s not a natural consequence and you haven’t explained, so you have to do the whole “I can see you don’t want to get out of the bath right now, that’s really hard but bath time is over etc etc” spiel

I cannot stand this kind of parenting OP. It proper gets under my skin. My kids have always been told no if it was needed and there were expectations on how they behaved.

If someone came to my house and the parent refused to tell their child to get off my furniture, then it would be me telling them off instead.

I cannot possibly explain how I react in every single scenario in one post; that was a summary. Different behaviours receive different reactions. There isn’t a one size fits all answer unfortunately.

If she took another child I would say something like “This little girl is playing with this toy now, so let’s find something else fun to do. Oh do you see this doll? What colour hair does she have?”

I would never say “no”. You cannot teach when a child is disregulated, they simply do not have the ability to learn then as that part of the brain is shut off.

So we role play and practice turn taking, being kind, explanations of why we don’t snatch etc at other times when she is calm, happy and able to learn so these situations rarely occur as she already knows how to behave because I’ve shown her.

Well you’ve just made that up because that isn’t anything to do with authoritarian (gentle) parenting.

What fun they're going to have when he's a teenager.

Well it would really depend on the age of the children involved, but as an example if my child took a toy out of another child's hands I would take the toy and hand it back and say something like "Oh, we don't snatch, Tilly is playing with the car right now. Do you want to play with the car? Shall we find another car?" This is all said calmly with pauses, not one question after the other and hopefully the child lets you know at this point what they want to happen.

If they were still insisting on that toy I would say something like "Shall we ask Tilly whether you can use it after her?" If Tilly says yes then I'd say something like "Okay great, what shall we play with while we're waiting?" or if Tilly isn't having it I would say "Oh it looks like Tilly won't be done for a while, let's find something else."

If my child started becoming too upset at any point and couldn't talk about it then I would lead or carry them to another room to have a break, name their feelings, offer comfort and generally be a calm presence until they were ready to go back.

Saying gentle hands and not doing anything else would be incredibly ineffective I imagine.

Distraction is great as long as ultimately it prevents repeated unwanted behaviour. Does saying no to a child prevent unwanted repeated behaviour?

Gentle parenting is generally a crock of shit

They wont cope well in school.

I would never say “no”. You cannot teach when a child is disregulated, they simply do not have the ability to learn then as that part of the brain is shut off

Do please explain what neurological or physical process shuts off part of the brain when it hears the word No.

@ApplesInTheSunshine You must spend hours doing this! My DC never had to listen to all that. I had clear expectations. Fairly easy to understand. By and large Dc understood.

Parenting these days seems to be confused with being a psychiatrist. You don’t need to do all that explaining! Most dc I see with all this going on either don’t understand or ignore. Mostly both. It’s perfectly ok to say, no. Stop doing that. That’s not ok. And mean it!

She's not saying that the brain switches off when it hears no, if you actually read what she says, she's saying that very disregulated (e.g. experiencing very high emotions) children are unable to learn and process information.

It's harder and more time consuming in the moment but in the long run it's great because you are literally teaching the children what to do in these situations, so they learn how to navigate for themselves. So they will learn from you that if they want a toy they shouldn't snatch (which is where the lesson ends in classic parenting), but also that they can ask the person with the toy for the toy, they can negotiate for a turn with the toy, they can ask to play together with the child and toy, they can find a similar toy etc. You model what to do in those situations.

Plus, they learn that if they don't get what they want then it's understandable to feel frustrated and disappointed, and they might work through those feelings by seeking comfort or going somewhere quiet. You're teaching them good social behaviour.

This made me laugh sorry so the patents don't use the word no and don't raise their voices but their 4yr old son shouts no at them 🤣

@azimuth299 My personal feeling is that it is far too much for a child to process all that - such as the options to ask for the toy etc. I feel the lesson needs to be simple, as in if someone else has the toy, you wait until they have finished with it. I don't think they really need to know more than that when very young.

That's permissive aka shit parenting, not gentle parenting.

I'd say we gentle parent. There are lots of boundaries to do with safety etc. We do probably have fewer arbitrary rules at home (e.g. I have no issues with my sofas being bounced on) but my child is perfectly able to tell where she has to change her behaviour. And she gets told no, with an explanation. The key thing for me is having consequences that actually make sense to a 4yr old brain. It sounds like this kid of your friends has no consequences to his behaviour at all!

The manic behaviour is dysregulation (overstimulation) IME, DS1 did it a lot especially when we were around other people. It was a nightmare to deal with TBH and trying to be strict just made it even worse. DS2 is the same. I didn't really understand what caused it when DS1 was little. He is 14 now and chilled as anything and not unpleasant at all, so I really don't think it was bad parenting.

Compromising, sitting down and talking does work, a raised voice doesn't add anything to this interaction, and if they were taking toys away then that is consequences. Yes perhaps they were a bit lax about general rules about bouncing, sitting in one place etc but perhaps they have chosen to choose their battles and these seem like minor issues compared to whatever they are working on at the moment.

(I don't like using the term "gentle parenting" any more because there are hundreds of possible definitions for, it, it makes more sense to talk about the actual parenting practices rather than an unhelpful label).

@CremeEgg1983 I agree. Far too complicated for the very young. My Dc learned all of those things but we kept it simple. I didn’t give numerous food options too. No choices.

@azimuth299 My DC did all of those things! It really is not producing superior children with all this explaining and negotiating. I did obviously negotiate and give options when they were older but at 3/4 I didn’t.m very often. They did like choosing dresses though! Being more direct doesn’t stop Dc being able to do anything! DD1 is a barrister and spends her life advocating for others! Clear expectations, and carrying out what you say, mostly stops them being unbearable though.

Honestly that sounds like normal good parenting to me. I don't consider myself to have gentle parented but what do gentle parents think others are doing?