To think "gentle parents" are setting their kids up for a lifetime of friendlessness and struggling to hold down a job?

[ForestGoblin]

You get one chance to build the neural pathways that guide you for the rest of your life and if you don't learn that you're not the centre of anyone else's universe as a young kid you never will.

Gerrataere ive honestly never met any parent like this under the age of about 70. My dad would be considered strict by today's standards and even he would have acknowledged his own mistakes and apologised most of the time.

I see some gentle parents apologise constantly for things they shouldnt have to apologise for.

The fact that some people are wrong about what gentle parenting is doesn’t mean the problem is with gentle parenting.

Teacher; Maths today kids!
Kid: I'm not doing maths
Teacher: you are, the class is doing maths come on books out!
Kid: I'm not! (Throws book across the room)
Teacher: imposes relevant sanction that teachers impose when kids throw books
Kid: sulks in the corner/outside headteachers office/with TA
Teacher: teaches class until they're in a place where sulky kid can be spoken to
Kid: apologises to teacher and gets on with maths.

Confusingly
Except that isn't the whole story.

The book they throw hits another kid in the eye. The teacher or TA then has to deal with the injured kid and disrupted class.

The child isn't used to unpleasant sanctions because there aren't any at home, and continues to demand explanation, refuses to comply etc.

That TA they are sat sulking with is supposed to be supporting the kid with dyscalculia on an intervention, who then misses the help

The kid isnt sulking quietly, they are often behaving in a way thats distracting to other kids and schools lack the spare staff to have someone take off any child behaving like this.

Ridemeginger
Spot on - it takes fucking ages and the kids who suffer most are the ones who need the teachers support (educationally) the most and don't get it because the adults in the room are wasting time on the kid who doesnt do as they are told.

The child isn't used to unpleasant sanctions because there aren't any at home, and continues to demand explanation, refuses to comply etc.

That child isn't gentle parented. They aren't parented at all it would seem!

Politics of this are interesting.

Treating your child as an indiviudal and modelling respectful interpersonal relationships in the home Vs socialising a child in preparation for a world that doesn't care about their individuality, and just wants them to be unquestioningly obediant with the minimum of hassle.

Perhaps class is the missing term? Some of us need to be inculcated to be creative and critical thinkers but docility and compliance is desirable in others?

I was gentle parented.
In my case, both my parents came from abusive homes. They tried their very best to give me something better but perhaps went a little too far in the opposite direction.
I had an absolutely lovely childhood but sometimes my bad behaviour went unpunished. And sometimes it was punished but a little too late, after letting it go on for a while.
Around 6 or 7, I noticed that I was pissing people off and started to put a bit of effort into working out what behaviour was expected at eg: school, friends houses etc.
My neural networks are fine. And my behaviour, as an adult, is unremarkable. I have friends and a responsible job.
The only thing is: I do have a lingering sense that I'm not naturally well behaved and I need to "work on it". So I can be a bit neurotic about etiquette and a bit down on myself if I'm ever socially awkward.
I don't "gentle parent" my own kids and I don't think it's the best approach. But I think OPs sure predictions are a bit overblown.
Overall, my parents broke the cycle and brought me up in a stable loving environment. Their mistakes are minor compared to their achievements

Some people on here clearly just disagree with gentle parenting, and that's fine.

But deliberately misinterpreting what's being said isn't really helping anyone.

Gentle parenting doesn't mean allowing children to do what they want or cajoling them into action. There are times when behaviour has to be stopped quickly because it's unsafe. There are always boundaries and limits.

As a very experienced school governor I would say that most classrooms actually practice gentle parenting anyway! Even more so when there are SEN children involved.

I think there's this ongoing confusion between permissive parenting and gentle parenting.

The explanation which is part of gentle parenting doesn't always happen right away.

No one is expecting a teacher to spend 10 minutes trying to cajole little Timmy into opening his maths book. There will be consequences if he doesn't do what he's asked to do - which is exactly what gentle parenting suggests.

Not everything needs longwinded explanations.

In the same example mentioned above where the child doesn't want to do maths and chucks his book around the class, taking the child out of the classroom and thereby sucking up extra resource etc would happen in every school I've seen. That's not because of "gentle discipline" - it's because you have an angry child and you're de-escalating the situation.

Later on you might have a discussion with the child and try to find out why they were so angry. Do they struggle with maths and feel stupid, so they're trying to avoid doing the subject? Is the behaviour part of a pattern? What's the reason for the extreme anger? And that's where the "gentle" element comes in - trying to establish a root cause for behaviours and not just assuming children are "naughty". And again, this follow-on analysis and communication with the child has been adopted by the schools I've been in and is considered as the gold standard for teaching.

Do you actually have a child in school?

I think real life, and what is being described on this thread, is sadly, chalk and cheese. As I said before, the 5 parents I know who actively call themselves GP, have got awfully behaved children. That's a running theme throughout the thread, the real life experience/encounters of GP and their children.

Even if they aren't what the MN online presence say GP is , that's what they identify as, and those are the children demonstrating their parents style, that we are seeing. I'm sure they'd all say their DC had boundaries.

It seems odd that a vast majority of the actual GP people have encountered, are nothing like the GP on this thread. Somehow all these GP in real life are mislabelling themselves?

But when people claim they are gentle parenting and it’s not what people on here are describing as gentle parenting, surely you can see why people are confused?

What is being labelled gentle parenting on here is just parenting for most of us, again another source of confusion.

Teacher is not the parent. It's ok to do things differently in a school.
It's totally possible to be a gentle parent and expect your children to behave appropriately at school.

I wish I had been ‘gentle parented’. I wouldn’t have had to go through years of adulthood feeling worthless and unable to speak up for myself!

There certainly seems to have been a lot of lazy/ indulgent parenting in recent years. My sister has brought up her two sons like this, and it baffles me. Lets them tell her what they want for meals, so cooks 3 different things every mealtime. Lets them decide when it's time for bed, buys them whatever they ask for, watch anything they want no matter how unsuitable, etc etc. It's creating a rod for your own back, and raising entitled brats who will have a shock when they grow up and have to look after themselves and fit in with others.

What is being labelled gentle parenting on here is just parenting for most of us, again another source of confusion
there's no need for confusion unless people are actively looking to do the Mumsnet head tilt "I'm so confused" act.

There's many different approaches to parenting. The four main ones have been shared up thread.

Lots of people have taken the time to explain how gentle parenting is not permissive parenting (because for some weird reason some people insist that it's all about letting child smack each other over the head as parents pathetically say "oh no Tabitha").

Lots of people have explained how gentle parenting and other authoritative approaches are different from authoritarian approaches (the latter using humiliation, isolation, shame, shouting etc to parent through fear and coercion to different levels).

It's not confusing unless people are looking to be confused.

But the world is bigger than mumsnet. This isn’t people’s only source of information, so whilst a few people are making the distinction on here, in ‘real’ life there are lots of people describing it in a different way. Hence the confusion, nothing to do with head tilts or any of that other passive aggressive stuff people say on here.

And there is often more than one child like this per class.

It's interesting to catch up on this thread, and see people apparently deliberately misunderstanding what gentle parenting is.

Our DD had related consequences, knows her limits and boundaries and is a polite, sensible little girl, who will know growing up that her parents love her unconditionally and will always be there to support and champion her, and always be her safe place. She doesn't need to fear her parents, or hear us saying "because I said so" and "life isn't fair".

But the world is bigger than mumsnet. This isn’t people’s only source of information, so whilst a few people are making the distinction on here, in ‘real’ life there are lots of people describing it in a different way. Hence the confusion, nothing to do with head tilts or any of that other passive aggressive stuff people say on here.
Yes, but this is a thread about gentle parenting that's full of people who are apparently very confused about something that is not at all confusing when there's pages of people explaining.

Even offline, if people were actually interested in different parenting models, as opposed to seeing a child with no boundaries and making several leaps, they could quite easily find out.

Top result in Google:
Gentle parenting is an evidence-based approach to raising happy, confident children. This parenting style is composed of four main elements—empathy, respect, understanding, and boundaries—and focuses on fostering the qualities you want in your child by being compassionate and enforcing consistent boundaries. Unlike some more lenient parenting methods, gentle parenting encourages age-appropriate discipline that teaches valuable life lessons.

You clearly don’t understand what gentle parenting is or what its core beliefs are. If you did, you wouldn’t be posting this.

Oh my goodness! I’m giving up with this post because it’s just not going in. Some people (in real life) are describing their own parenting as gentle parenting when it doesn’t fit the description given on this thread. That’s why people are basing opinions on a definition which isn’t the one on this thread.

But the point is, whilst on a online forum, there may be lots of anonymous typists presenting one version of what GP is, in real life, actual people who call themselves GP do not behave like this.

That's the confusion. It's not the inability to read pages of online explanation. It's trying to comprehend why this bears almost no resemblance to what our actual, real life experiences of GP are.

sOh my goodness! I’m giving up with this post because it’s just not going in. Some people (in real life) are describing their own parenting as gentle parenting when it doesn’t fit the description given on this thread. That’s why people are basing opinions on a definition which isn’t the one on this thread*
Yes I know. The fact people confuse the two was acknowledged on the first two pages.

Quite clearly when there's already half a dozen pages of people saying "some people confuse permissive and gentle parenting and here's the difference", being on pages 8/9/10 saying "gentle parenting is rubbish, it makes bratty children because little Tabitha has never heard the word "no", bashes her friends over the head with trucks, is never going to function in life" doesn't make sense because people have already explained that permissive and authoritative are different.

Same with "but it's so confusing, it's just parenting surely" after pages of people outlining different approaches to parenting.

People could do a quick Google, they could read at least some of the dozen pages with people talking about the topic, but they won't. They'll just continue to argues it's so confusing and Tarquin has never been told no in his life.

They'll just continue to argues it's so confusing and Tarquin has never been told no in his life.

But you do understand, that's what most of our encounters with real life people who claim to be GP are. It's not arguing and being confused.

All these people can't be mislabelling themselves. Perhaps the theory of what they believe they are doing is what we are reading on this thread, but the outcome they genuinely believe it is achieving, is not quite what is being experienced by the rest of us.