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.

I don't recognise any of what you're saying tbh. My dd started school with a good understanding of healthy, respectful relationships and a good level of self confidence. Having been raised with kindness, respect and calm but clear communication, she knew how to interact with others effectively and recognised when others were not behaving appropriately. I think your thinking is completely backwards tbh.

You wouldn't and I understand that it's not for me to explain it to you because even if I tried you probably still wouldn't understand by the looks of it. I will stop posting now. I know what I mean and I don't mean what you think I mean so I will leave it at that.

I teach my children not to put up with it and to discuss on themselves and their education.

So you teach them to uphold their boundaries and be confident in articulating assertively when something has upset them without losing control of their emotions.

That's basically the entire point of gentle parenting.

Have you realised that what you're saying makes no sense?

Thank you for that explanation I will bare that in mind I do try to calm my son down when he gets upset and then he tells me. He does get upset with me when I don't hear him and I remind him I am half deaf so he has to speak up. My second daughter struggled and it took a lot of talking and I did lose it with her sometimes but she is fine now and doing what she is meant to be doing.

Don't care spend a day in my shoes and see how long it takes you to lose the plot.

When my eldest daughter started A Levels in September 2020 she choose Biology, P.E and Psychology. In the first two weeks her Psychology teacher told the whole class that the maths part of the course was hard. She came home and told me and I said her teachers from her other school felt confident that she would do well in that subject and I had confidence in her as well. Two weeks later she wants a day off to think about whether she should continue or not or whether she should do sociology. I said fine have a day off I had a right go at her for self doubting herself and all because the teacher said it was hard how dare she do that to herself.

She ended up getting an A* for Psychology she wrote 5 essays in 2 hours in the exam. She is a very capable and bright young lady and if I didn't give her that kick up the arse she would not have got that grade. Now she is at university living it up and kicking the arse out of all her exams.

It's a normal human response to lose the plot occasionally & within reason. We are not robots. My children knew who was boss and they recently said to me it made them feel more secure & protected knowing this. I suppose I was a combination of authoritative and softly softly. It worked for us.

👍😁

Same here.

I'm sorry but this is hilarious. You're saying all that as if YOU are the one who has discovered 'parenting' the right way. What you've written is the way 100% of the people I know parent their children, me included. We don't put a daft name on it though, it's just parenting...common sense.

This

This was my dd exactly before her 11+ exams. She actually gave me a reasoned argument for homeschooling her - prior to this she’d been getting 100% straight in all the practice papers to the point where a lot of tutors were turning us away in favour of kids who needed them more. I think sometimes kids, girls especially, can let their inner critics get out of control - it’s our jobs as parents to give them a little nudge every now and again.

I saw a thread a while ago where a poster was begging for help with her unruly toddler ‘but please bear in mind when you respond that we are committed to gentle parenting’

It’s like it hadn’t occurred to her that if gentle parenting worked her child wouldn’t be so unruly 🤯

I also think it's just parenting/common sense, and I never felt the need to put a label on it. However, I parent in a very similar way to how my own mum and dad parented.

I wonder if the "daft labels" are more relevant/meaningful to those who are consciously trying to parent differently from how their own parents did it? I can see how giving it a name might be helpful to those who aren't just following what feels like second nature to them.

It's very easy to repeat the cycles that our parents passed down to us, much more difficult to break away and do something different. I won't stand in judgement of anyone who actively tries to do that, and if a "daft label" helps them to stay on track with it, all power to them!

But ‘no’ followed by ‘because I say so’ or ‘I think video games are stupid and rot your brain’ wouldn’t be a productive conversation, it makes it all about you and your feelings whilst completely dismissing the child

Children should occasionally be dismissed. Their teachers at school and line managers at work won’t consult them on everything they’re asked to do, they’ll get the instruction then just have to do it. Giving kids endless justifications and choices is a terrible idea, because adult life simply doesn’t reflect this. And it’ll come as a huge shock.

I never slapped my children but they were in no doubt as to who was in charge 😁

Neither extreme is good though.

True there must be a middle ground. I don't think it's right that children should never hear the word no. However I would support the validation of feelings and not yelling, speaking kindly and gently . In my experience children who are screamed at or spoken to harshly often become bullies.

Another poster talking about "yelling" or "screamed at". Where has this notion come from that if we're not 'gentle parents' we scream, shout at and bully our children? Nearly every single post on here advocating for gentle parenting has mentioned these things.

Absolutely. For all of those posters who say you’ve misunderstood gentle parenting, the reality is maybe they gentle parent well but many many ‘gentle parents’ very much misunderstand gentle parenting. I left a Fb group with thousands of members when someone posted that their 7yo was up on their tablet until 3am and what could they do? it was the admin people who explained to me in detail that yes, bedtimes are coercive and gentle parents do not set bedtimes unless their child agrees and supports the bedtime. Like what the actual fuck. So these admin are the people defining gentle parenting and setting the rules for thousands- this is clearly a very very common view of wha gentle parenting is, specifically amongst those who gentle parent. So if someone tells me they are a gentle parent, I wonder if they are a good parent or exactly the parent the op mentions whose children will be disadvantaged from a very young age. Doesn’t mean they won’t turn out ok, plenty of children just about have to bring themselves up, but doesn’t make it good parenting.

one day one of my kids will have friends over, and when they leave I will turn to my husband and say Child X clearly has some of those gentle parents who think bedtimes are coercive, and let’s keep a close eye on that friendship.

I didn't say that but one of the PP s on here mentioned a bratty child whose gentle parenting parents spoke calmly to them and the child was a horror. I guess I was trying to say that speaking calmly to a child is a good thing . If gentle parenting means speaking calmly to a child then gentle parenting is good .

She did list other things those parents did like never saying no that I see could be an issue. But I was baffled as to why she includes speaking calmly as though it were an issue?

I'm not saying that those who don't gentle parent are all telling at (abusing in other words) their children .

‘All those explanations that non-GP find so insufferable and effortful and boring, that's the effort that leads to these emotionally healthy teenagers that actually do not have mental health problems and hate their parents.’

I see no need to make it so black and white. I didn’t GP. I said no to my children. But I have gorgeous and happy young adult kids who think I am awesome and don’t hate me. I am not denigrating GP but it’s important to remember that it’s not the only way to raise well-rounded and confident young people.

My brother used a more GP approach. Gave his toddlers lots of choices and explanations every step of the way. His kids are now similar ages to my kids. And all our children now are pretty great young people and you can’t tell who was raised with which philosophy. As I keep saying, kids who are raised with love and boundaries tend to do ok. Whether the parents want to label their own parenting and follow a certain prescribed philosophy or not.

I agree. The arguments are very binary here. People seem to think only extremes exist. It’s odd.

I don’t think pp meant speaking calmly is inherently a bad thing, more that it’s not always effective and children actually to need to see that they’ve made you cross or disappointed sometimes.