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?

I had someone who claimed to be a gentle parent she literally would not remove her child's dummy from him until he decided he wanted to give it up, fine, except it was effecting his speech BADLY so I told him he could only come into my house if he gave it to me at the door (he was almost five at this point) he handed it over fine then demanded it back I said no you can have it back outside when we go out cue a tantrum he was telling me to "uck off" (couldn't form and "f" because he usually had his dummy in and talked around it) "uck off itch" was another gem told his mum to get it back bust her up etc etc mum was sat there wringing her hands powerless if she had said give it back to him I would have but it was interesting to see she literally wouldn't challenge ANYONE

Anyway we left for group I gave it back (as agreed) got to group he proudly told the staff there to "uck off" too she wanted a referral to speech and language but they refused saying remove the dummy he will talk properly (she said she didn't want her staff subject to abuse his mouth was vile) eventually a social worker got involved and forced her to potty train him and remove the dummy

Fucking ridiculous, but he can talk now to tell people to FUCK off

There is so much bollocks talked about gentle parenting. It doesn't mean not not saying no and not having boundaries. That's just not parenting at all. Gentle parenting is very different.

I have a family member who practised gentle parenting. I'm not sure I knew what it was at the time, but I did know her kids never sat down to eat, made a massive fuss about what they ate and were dreadful for my kids to play with.

It was a pain in the arse when they were younger but now the eldest is a teenager and utterly wild. She won't go to school, doesn't eat family meals and sets her own bedtimes.

I have 3 kids with Sen so boundaries are absolutely crucial, otherwise they loose the plot (as do I). This family member believes that her dc needs time out of school to 'therapeutically heal' so she is home alone not learning anything.

It's really sad but thankfully not my problem.

I have a very energetic, not very gentle, and strong willed 6 year old, who is often seeking to push boundaries. He’s not always calm and obedient. Gentle parenting would never work for us, he needs very clear boundaries.

He gets told “no” all the time. He has clear consequences and we follow through. We talk about everything too, but in the moment he gets very clear messages, otherwise he would walk all over us.

A very enlightening thread. Recently I had a discussion re parenting, attachment etc with a younger family member who has a senior position in child SS. We have always basically agreed on the need for boundaries but I was surprised when she stated these were not very important and she was basically describing gentle parenting as described here , though she didn’t name it as such. Talked about disregulation and brain development and seemed to regard me as a complete dinosaur, though we’ve known about infant brain development etc for about 30 years.
Im rather depressed at the situation because I am only too well aware from my work experience how the lack of boundaries damages outcomes for children and the breakdown in family relationships.

Gentle parenting is all about clear boundaries

What is so wrong with telling a child no? What do you do if they are about to touch the hot oven door, just let them burn their hands ?

Sometimes a firm No! or Stop! or Come here now! is necessary, for the child's own safety. They need to hear it, and learn to take notice of it, because one day it might be really, really important that they do as they are told at once, without explanation or negotiation.

I have started doing this with my 2 and 3 year olds and although it requires a bit more active intervention to step in quickly if any toy snatching starts, they have really quickly picked up that they need to ask for a turn, or play together, or offer a swap. It does not happen every time and it's usually the older one who finds it more difficult. The acknowledging feelings and "helping" her to hand the toy back actually calms her much more quickly. It really does work better than either shouting at her or putting her in time out or telling her off which were all things that we tried previously. The key is that you gently physically enforce whatever the boundary is - you don't waffle on while letting them do what they want

As opposed to things like shouting, threats, punishment, manipulation, shaming, you enforce your boundary in a respectful way.

Well actually, one of the ideas behind not saying no constantly is so that when you do use it for something dangerous and urgent, it really stands out. A lot of children are told no so often that they tune it out.

Like everything parenting is about balance really.

Probably due to COVID if in recent years. The other factor is that schools own discipline is much less strict. 50 years ago teachers could give you a physical punishment if you misbehaved. 30-40 years ago that wasn't really done any more at primary level at least, but there was still plenty of standing facing the wall if you misbehaved, shouting, fear based punishment. Not great for learning or enjoying school but a quick fix for naughty children.

I genuinely think my niece has never heard the word no. She scratched my son’s face, smacked him in the head then pushed him over because he touched one of her toys (that she wasn’t even playing with at the time!) and her parents took her aside and talked about how her feelings must have been hurt when he touched her toy and how they understood how she had big feelings but that is wasn’t very kind to hurt him. I just stood there open mouthed. I consider myself a pretty gentle parent as they go but if any of my children behaved like that they would be immediately taken home and properly told off. Apparently she has no friends at nursery and they can’t understand why!!

Yes sorry. Authorities parenting is what I meant.

@SnackSizeRaisin COVID has been an issue for young children. No doubt about that.

As DD1 is 30 I can assure you behaviour policies were far more sophisticated than you suggest! As I worked in education before she was born I can tell you behaviour policies have not featured humiliation for quite a while. Sanctions were used but mostly being sent to the head! Not much different now. Plus a load of warnings. Behaviour policies concentrate firmly on promoting good behaviour. I think that’s right for young children. Schools will work with parents but parents who will not take any responsibility are a pain. Most are not like of course.

The joy of summer is that I get to listen to neighbours fall over themselves trying to performance gentle parenting. The kids misbehave and run riot and never once is the word no used. It is quite amusing listening to the nonsense they come out with.

We do a mix of gentle parenting and attachment parenting, our eight year old is well behaved and polite, he obviously had his odd moment, but they’re fairly rare and nothing major or extreme. Gentle parenting involves very clear and consistent boundaries. So what the ops friend is doing isn’t gentle parenting.

It’s like you’re talking about my niece. She occasionally hears a word no but then has such a meltdown that it quickly gets changed into a yes, so…..
And she also struggles with making friends at the nursery and they wonder why.

I gentle parent. DD has ASD, she can’t always contextualise. If I say no to something she will never do it again (ie no to jumping and she won’t jump when she needs to at school). Conversely if I say no to DS he will throw a tantrum, argue and will get so upset it will take up to an hour to calm him & he won’t listen anyway.

Kids are all different and so parenting needs to be different. With DD I have to explain everything, with DS it’s far better to distract him away from what he’s doing.

Have a child whose parents have this style in one of my kids classes. The parents are constantly moaning and considering changing schools. Ironically their child loves the school and is enjoying the boundaries kindly but firmly put in place. They’re actually sweet natured but their behaviour alienates most other children and they have no idea why.

We gentle parent our kid (2, will be 3 in September) - but doesn't sound anything like what the OP described.

We have strict boundaries and routine, and he hears no all the time. The great thing is though he knows that if he has a tantrum about us saying no to something (eg: he asks for chocolate at the shop and I say no, not today) I mean it and no amount of crying will change that. The gentle part is that I'll tell him it's ok to be sad and disappointed that he isn't getting chocolate today but if mummy says no chocolate that means no chocolate and he gets comforted and cuddles. Amazingly it means when he asks for chocolate at the shop and I say no not today he just puts it back and doesn't ask again or do anything remotely like a tantrum.

Gentle parenting gets a bad rep because I think people use it as an excuse to give into their kids tantrums and not hold any boundaries or teach them consequences. I think what's really worked for us is being people of our word - I've told my husband if we say anything to DS we have to follow through. This can be a discipline thing (eg threatening to take something away for misuse) or a nice thing (so if I say he can have iPad after dinner, he does get it after dinner! Otherwise I just shouldn't say it)

I guess this is a really long way of me saying that some people think they're gentle parenting but they're not they're just not holding boundaries to try to make their lives easier in the short term but they're actually making it a million times harder in the long term

I don’t see how the amount of time needed to gentle parent eg taking off to a quiet place talking about feelings etc is possible if you have several young children/ babies all needing attention at the same time. You have to prioritise.

I do think there is a discipline crisis in schools. They are (rightly) not allowed to hit or humiliate children, but a lot of the discipline systems are still based on the framework of "Behave because of fear of a terrible punishment" except that the punishments are no longer terrible, and this doesn't work because the kids who need to behave differently don't care about these non-terrible punishments (and/or aren't sufficiently frightened by them to override other causes of their behaviour), and may even be more riled up and push back more. The ones that are deterred by them don't need them. If you want a system that relies on threat, then the threat must be credible and it must be ever-present. That's why old school teachers used to have the cane visible as a kind of reminder of what could happen if you stepped out of line.

Add this to the mess that is mainstreaming everyone without the necessary support systems, and you have an extreme problem. Now leading to the point where so many teachers are burnt out and you can't hire new ones because nobody wants to do it.

Discipline systems in schools need replacing with new systems (there are several to choose from) that don't rely on threat in the first place, and schools need much much better support and integration and funding for children with SEN, inclusing in the early years where many children won't yet be diagnosed or may be on the cusp because of developmental delays which will correct themselves given time.

But there doesn't seem to be any funding for any of this.

There is a reason that so many proponents of this (including Philippa Perry) have only one child. It's a lot easier to do it this way if you always have one on one time. It's also a lot easier to turn every time a child has to share or play nicely into a full dramatic performance if that's something that happens only when you're out rather than 42 times a day...

When I see people doing the full-on talking about feelings it's normally to their young toddler PFB and then what strikes me is just how inappropriate it is in terms of the child's language development. You get this two year old who can't yet follow two stage instructions with a parent giving them a lengthy monologue and the kid, pretty clearly, isn't following a word of it.

Why do posters keep thinking “gentle parenting” avoids tantrums? My DC had so few I can only remember one. They learnt I chose the shopping! I never let them choose sweets or chocolate. We never bought them when they were present and rarely anyway. You can avoid possible tantrum situations as well.

Not every child is prone to tantrums. I didn’t spend time exploring their feelings. I’m slightly amused that Dc have such advanced brains that they understand and react appropriately to all of this detail about their inner feelings and responses at 3 years old. If they are still having tantrums when they go to school surely that is evidence of nothing much working?

Incidentally we do let the kids clamber all over our sofa, but they know they can't at other people's houses, including either set of grandparents.

That sounds like permissive parenting, not gentle parenting.