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.

Recently seen a 2.5 year old child refusing to put their rain coat on to walk home in the pouring rain. Also refused to get into pram. All the begging and pleading from mum was met with a firm ‘no’.

Mum gave in sighing and shrugging and let him walk home in torrential downpour absolutely soaked.

What would a GP do? To me this is madness, my child would have been put in the pram.

Do you come home and you want to watch something and your partner says ‘no’, gives you no reason, takes the remote away, and says ‘you need to be dismissed sometimes to remind you of how the real world is’ - is that acceptable? Of course not, everyone on here would be screaming LTB. This idea that because children are smaller and younger they need to be pushed about is odd mentality. They need guidance and discipline but you don’t have to be an arse and dismiss them either.

You need to put your shoes on
Why
Because we have to go out to the appointment and we can’t be late
I don’t want to put my shoes on
I get that but we have to go out to the appointment and you cant walk outside without shoes as you’ll hurt your feet. So either you can put them on or I’ll have to put them on for you, which is it?

Call it gentle, call it normal, whatever.

I think this happens a lot in real life and again does not help experiences of what people claim GP is and the results it produces.

Per my PP, the 5 people I know, that label themselves GP, have horrendously behaved DC. I've noticed on this thread, the only people who think GP children behave, are their GP. Or perhaps the GP's mum. In real life, the parents I've encountered are literally delusional.

They definitely think their DC are superior and think this is because their parenting is superior.

In real life though, you have to wonder how they genuinely think this, I mean, they have eyes, that's all you need to see the behaviour...yet they seem not to notice, and will tell anyone who will listen how brilliant and well balanced their child is.

That example doesn't work @DinoDough because it would also be abusive if your partner forcibly put your shoes on for you because they didn't want to be late for something you had no interest in.
This false equivalence with adult relationships is inappropriate and makes the concept even more blurry. In adult relationships wielding power through physical strength and control of resources never has a place, whereas in your relationship with your child its unavoidable.
In reality your child has almost no autonomy in many areas of their lives and the parent will be continually excercising control or coercion. Examples can't simply be lifted from adult to adult interactions and plonked into the parent/child ones to illistrate how awful non GP is.

THIS. Except that "SuperDietPlan" doesn't have any materials written by people who know what they are talking about.

Turns out that there are LOTS of people who write about SuperDietPlan, and some of them are very knowledgable/experienced with food and weight loss (some of them are not however!) but they all contradict each other because they all have slightly different, sometimes wildly different, understandings and yet all present with confidence as though they alone know "The true SuperDietPlan". One of them is saying Do XYZ. Another is saying "How XYZ are common myths that harm your weight loss journey". Another is saying "How to do XYZ and avoid ABC" but it's not actually good advice, and following it will lead you to ABC very quickly. One is saying do X and Y, but never ever ever Z because this is completely against SuperDietPlan's core philosophy.

Nowhere is there a "SuperDietPlan Master Resource" or institute, or a book called Super Diet Plan (yes I know people cite Sarah Ockwell Smith but she didn't invent it, there were loads of us on MN doing Gentle Parenting - or talking about a concept that we called this - before she wrote her Gentle XYZ books).

I avoid the term gentle parenting now, even though I still believe in (most of) what I used to post about under that term. It's just too unhelpful and results in circular confusing discussions.

I don't think this is about the general spread of opinion.

I think this is about the profile of people who start threads to complain about gentle parenting in hostile and perjorative terms. A type?

Often it is these three things in practice though:

-no boundaries;
-no consequences;
-allowing your child to behave however they please.

I know that’s not the theory, but it’s the type of approach adopted by most middle class parents I know these days, in the name of “gentle parenting”.

It's hardly a 'live and let live' or 'each to their own' mindset, is it?

Plenty of us have considered positions on parenting style, but would not think to start threads about parents who make different choices. There is something intruiging about the mentality of people who do want to criticize other parent's choices.

*intriguing even. Gah.

Where does it say anything about forcibly putting shoes on? I give my youngest the choice between me or him and he chooses. I’ve never forcibly put his shoes on.

And you’ve not understood the point of my post. I said that the dialogue was disrespectful. My point wasn’t about discipline, I said they need guidance and discipline and of course that means us making choices for them at times, it was about saying ‘because I said so’ and giving an alternative to ‘because I said so’ that involved a brief explanation. And showing how you can give a choice without giving ‘endless choices’ and ‘giving in’. And actually, I think my DC have a fair bit of autonomy in their lives, it’s surprising how much you can let them have if you balance things out. Because that’s what parenting is to me, it’s about raising them to find their own way in the world with boundaries.

And you’re using hyperbole by saying ‘plonked in to illustrate how awful non GP is’.

Maybe you just know some particularly shit parents?

Either way, crap parenting by your social circle isn’t the fault of people who actually practice gentle parenting.

But the”choice” you are giving him is who puts on his shoes isn’t it? I’d certainly find it abusive if my partner said either me or him was to put on my shoes but my shoes were going on! 😂

Maybe, my experience is unusual but I don’t think so.
And I do think the gentle parenting movement is somewhat to blame. There are some wonderful resources out there of gentle parenting (eg I follow LRKnost) but there’s also a lot of sanctimonious trite (Sarah ork smith) that is understandably interpreted in the way I see it being applied by middle class parents everywhere.

Again, you’re missing the point of my post. It’s not about letting them do what they want, it’s about the approach and the level of respect. The shoes have to go on for their own safety, but you don’t have to hold them down and say ‘because I said so’ and you can give them some autonomy in the process.

Because you're an adult and not being parented

There was a brilliant post on reddit the other day actually by a user called LittleBananaSquirrel. She said this:

I had my first baby over a decade ago. Back then everyone was talking about how gentle parenting, anti sleep training, baby led weaning, extended rear facing, cloth diapering ETC were these against the grain, revolutionary things that new parents of that era were pioneering and going to change society with. I had another child soon after and then was out of the baby verse for like 8 years. I get pregnant with my 3rd baby and of course my socials all start targeting me with the new generation of parenting experts and influencers, many of whom are first time parents to babies or young toddlers and lo and behold we have a whole new generation of Moms who think they are revolutionizing gentle parenting, carseat safety, anti sleep training, cloth diapering ETC like nobody has before, they are breaking new ground and scandalising older parents who obviously did everything completely the opposite to them. I'm just here like... Why is everyone pretending this is anything new at all? Just because you weren't a parent until recently and therefore probably didn't think much about any of these topics at all doesn't mean they weren't very much alive and well before you came along. My sister's eldest is 20 and besides the extended rear facing, it was all the exact same stuff back then too, nobody is revolutionizing anything 🤣

The only thing that has actually changed between my 1st and 3rd are some cool new gadgets, like a shnuggle pod bath I would have LOVED with my older kids or my newborn sized ergo instead of having to use the annoying inserts with my ergo original.

Having had babies in 2008, 2018, 2021, I absolutely concur!! I think there is a huge aspect of this in gentle parenting. And I know I was guilty of it too. It was actually one of these MN threads where someone said "So you treat children with respect, have reasons behind rules, don't hit/try not to shout, talk to them, see their point of view....... that's just parenting then?"

And I said YES, YES, now you finally get it!! (my point at that time being that GP was not some magical special unattainable thing, it was just normal) And then I realised that I was the one who had something to realise

I think there are lots of parents who read and use "gentle parenting" advice and think it is useful and quietly get on with it without making much of it at all - they are probably the ones who gentle parenting works well for (and maybe they get a bit fed up/confused on threads like this but they aren't the loudest voices) and if it didn't work then they just try something else since they haven't hung their entire identity on an internet buzzword.

It might be less the gentle parenting mindset in general (which, as said, not one specific mindset, much too broad) and more the tendency for people to jump onto a bandwagon and think that they have discovered something new and revolutionary, and become an evangelist about it.

I do disagree slightly with the reddit poster on one point. I think the parenting internet of 2023 is a much more divided, polarised, tribal-thinking place compared with the parenting internet of 2008/09 (maybe up to about 2013). Or maybe I was just lucky in that I had mumsnet, where we used to have bunfights but everyone shared the same space and could have a discussion and there was some balance, even if you thought others were totally wrong. Now there is a FB group for everything and the FB groups are a totally unregulated space which seem to spawn their own kind of special weirdness where people pick a stance and then get competitive about how stancey they are. So you get people proclaiming all kinds of made up rubbish in experty tones, even though they are just parents, and people somehow go along with this even when the original info gets distorted beyond any reasonable sense. Old hats on MN might remember the Baby Led Weaning forum that Aitch set up, and the "vicious debates" about whether it counted as BLW if you sometimes used spoons. There was occasionally someone pointing out that really, purees teach them to swallow first and chew later, whereas BLW teaches them to chew first and swallow later. Neither of these things are absolutely true, but it was quite an interesting thought/useful way of looking at it. But if you go onto the BLW facebook groups today, there is a whole list of rules and a load of lore about this idea, to the point that if you have a baby that you have ever given spoon feeds to you are supposed to totally stop weaning them for 2 months in order for their palate instincts to reset in case the combination of self-feeding and spoons causes them to choke because they got confused about which order to do it in. This is BONKERS and has no basis in reality. It's not in the original BLW book (of which at least there is one). I'm not aware that babies' palates will reset. I don't think it's even a good idea to stop weaning for months at a time, unless you've started much too early.

I think probably the parenting internet of the 00s did start this with all the terms (BLW, EBF, ERF, NCSS, etc etc) and the camps but it seems to have reached a whole new level of unhealthy/ridiculous today.

The indomitable black man explains gentle parenting well - for anyone who doesn't understand what it is.

The OP didn't return? So they don't actually give a 💩...

I'm not criticising the parenting approach. My point is simply that comparisons to adult to adult relationships are not helpful.
You didn't say you would forcibly put your child's shoes on, but "either you put them on or I do...."
well the child has a third choice don't they, which is to refuse them being on altogether. You can't have that, so if they refuse you will ultimately have to use force.
I completely understand that the use of physical power isn't the first resort and that other persuasive methods are used first. But ultimately if they didn't succeed you would have no option but to resort to measures that in adult relationships would be abusive. Which is why the comparison doesn't work.
In truth I think the misappropriation of terminology such as coercion and control to the parent child dynamic is part of the reason GP slips for some into permissive parenting. In the example of the shoes, I'm sure there are parents who would allow their child to be bare foot or cancel the appointment as the lesser evil than what they would see as being coercive or controlling.
I'm not criticising anyone here BTW. Its more a reflection on why what is actually a very straightforward idea causes such a lack of consensus to its meaning and often presents itself rather differently.

BertieBotts
I feel the same about BLW.

BLW is a method.

Lots of parents, me included, did a mix of finger food and spoon fed purées, and just got on with it. That's not BLW though and no amount of sitting at playgroup/on Facebook is going to make a mix of finger foods and purees BLW.

But there's always idiots on Facebook claiming that their version of (insert weaning method/parenting method/sleep approach) is (insert name here that it isn't actually).

The lesson is to look at decent resources if interested in parenting approaches/sleep approaches/weaning approaches and getting informed about what they actually are, not saying "Sandra at playgroup let her child smack mine over the head so gentle parenting is rubbish/some random person on Facebook said you can never say no".

jeez It’s just the name of a parenting style that a psychologist who studied parenting called it.

What do you think childcare professionals/psychologists/teachers study?

parenting styles, all have distinct characteristics that have names otherwise how can anybody actually understand how someone was parented.

Unfortunately for a lot of children they may be patented in an authoritarian or uninvolved style, I would say gentle parents start off wanting to be authoritative (which is different to authoritarian) and slip into passive.

authoritative parenting is what most parents aspire to

But again, this wasn’t my point!!! My point was about talking disrespectfully to children and saying things like ‘because I said so’ and ‘because you need a reminder of things in the real world’. And giving an alternative of how you can be respectful in a tricky situation without giving in and with offering choice and some autonomy without offering ‘endless choices’.

My point was that children are not there be be pushed around just because they’re kids. It’s about treating them with the same respect that you afford others. Part of that respect IS giving them boundaries and instructions and sometimes making choices for them. Same as we sometimes do for other adults. We live a life defined by boundaries for our own and others safety, that’s what our society largely dictates. But there are ways of doing this. I stand by my point that I give my DC the same respect that I give other adults.

You’re missing the point of what I’m saying and I’m not going to reiterate it again. Please reread the original opening part of my post with the adult comparison and how I describe it. It’s about how to handle things, how you talk. I’m not saying I’d tell my husband to put his shoes on. Like if you need to turn the television off you don’t just walk up and switch it off. You tell your child and manage their expectations ‘after this episode has finished I am going to turn the tv off’. It’s about how you treat a situation and how you talk to someone, you give them the same respect you’d give another adult, not that you would treat them exactly the same. I’m rambling now.

Yes, that was the point if you read the thread.

Apologies @DinoDough I have rambled and I entirely understand your points.
I was largely rambling off at a tangent about the GP/PP thing, as the tendancy to say PP is just lazy doesn't sit right, given all the effort parents make only to end up being permissive. It led me to wonder if the permissiveness is rooted in trying to avoid negative traits that are inappropriate in adult relationships but are actually unavoidable in parent child relationships, and your example was the mental spring board to that.
Its very loosely related to your points and you have been patient in responding to me.

100% this.
This is exactly it:
In the example of the shoes, I'm sure there are parents who would allow their child to be bare foot or cancel the appointment as the lesser evil than what they would see as being coercive or controlling
And the more trite gentle parenting gurus refuse to address these conundrums because they don’t fit into the approach. The implication is that if your child choses the third option (rebellion) it’s because you are not doing gentle parenting right, or your child isn’t as perfect and well behaved as mine. It’s a necessary presumption of the way the approach js applied that children of gentle parents are always so respectful and well behaved and it’s because of their superior parenting approach. Like the pp who says of course she never forces on the shoes, the child always chooses 🙄.
The reality is children aren’t always like this and they don’t always comply and the gentle methods don’t always work as well as they do in practice as they do in theory. That’s when the lazy , permissive parenting comes in, because these middle class parents following the gospel of Sarah orkwell smith have no other ideas and no other tools.