To think gentle parenting is being taken too far?

[gpbs]

I've got DD 2yo and we meet up with mums with similar age kids from time to time, people I've known since pregnancy or since DD was very small. Examples are taken from some of those mums I know but also some mums I randomly encounter when out and about. Some of them take gentle parenting to the extreme I feel. A few examples:

1. Child A chasing Child B with a stick. Mum A says to Child A "sticks are for looking at, not for hitting" or "gentle hands please". Child A hits Child B with a stick "oh no we don't do that, do we? Hitting is mean!" (Wouldn't you grab the stick out of their hand before they hit?!)

1. Child A snatches the toy off Child B whilst B is holding it. Mum of A says "we don't snatch, do we? Can you give it back? Please give it back? Ok at least say sorry? No snatching please" as Child A walks off with the toy that she's just grabbed

1. One mum told me that she asks her son before brushing his teeth and if he says no, they don't brush it. Because body autonomy. He's 2.5.

1. Child throwing sand around, including at other children, whilst their mum calmly explains that it's best not to and how it would hurt other peoples eyes. Child not paying any attention, sand still being thrown, mum still talking at him. (Wouldn't you move them away from sand so it can't be thrown?)

All examples are things I've seen but all are about different children. Ages 1.5-3 in all.

And I know that's not what gentle parenting is MEANT to be about, but it's how the majority of parents who say they gentle parent actually parent.

@Return2thebasic ok I apologise for saying toddlers are easy to discipline, you are right it can be incredibly tough and being long out of that stage I forget how draining it can be. However there were times when I looked at my teenage dd and dreamed back to the days I could take the toy off her and sit her on the stairs for a time out.
Parenting isn't easy, disciplining children and setting boundaries is never easy, but the key is always consistency! And it is easiest to start from the beginning, when they are young. And this is what we agree to do - raise future adults - the next working generation, when we decide to have babies. If they aren't prepared to put in the hard work, well maybe they should've stayed child free for the "easy life"

All this reason-giving assumes that kids understand short term bother for long term gain. Huge amounts of research show that this isn't developmentally expected until at least adolescence.

So, you (general you) can't on the one hand suggest that small kids push and bite and this is developmentally normal...

...and at the same time suggest those same kids understand "it's important to learn your times tables/spellings so that you have a hope of getting any qualifications in the future to enable you to have a wider choice of jobs as an adult..."

Lol.

@ducksinarow123 DH used to say people should apply for "license" to be allowed to have children. Obviously, no one dare to say it in public. But the truth is there are people who bring children to the world, either because of ignorance or lack of care to let children grow to damage their own future, harm themselves and people around them, suffer in a life that's miserable. But unfortunately, nothing can stop it.

My language might be a bit strong and depressing. But honestly, the mental health issues prevail widely now in young children and youths do have a part attributed to this. I've seen some live cases around me, but there's nothing that I could do!

I disagree. Babies don’t get homework- by the time they do they are old enough to be told why, be that

”you need more practice at X” or

“it’s to encourage you to research”,

or, as is often the real reason, simply “because if you don’t do it you will get in trouble at school”

The last is a very important life lesson- no one will force you to do this thing, you may or may not do it, but if you don’t these will be the consequences.

That applies to many many things- going out in pyjamas for example- people don’t do it because it goes against social convention, if you do it nothing will happen except some people might think you are odd, with all the associated repercussions… whether that matters is up to you.

Schools are not parents. How is that relevant to gentle parenting?

If the teaching is in place at home, the groundwork is already done. You don’t need to revisit that teaching. You aren’t parenting, gentle or otherwise. Children don’t need to be parented by everyone. They need to be parented by parents.

@Mumoftwo1312 as many have said it is completely normal to have physical reaction to big feelings. It isn’t ‘learning a skill’ to not hit. It is having your brain grow enough to control your impulse to not react physically to fear etc. You’ve heard of fight or flight? Very young children cannot understand and must be supervised. Brains grow at different rates and children have different inherent abilities. This doesn’t make them ‘violent’
or ‘aggressive’. It makes them scared, angry, impulsive and in great need of a present parent to keep them and their peers safe. (Some more than others.) To hold the limit of not allowing others to be hurt. To use their adult brain to take responsibility for the incomplete child brain. Not to expect them somehow learn something they do not have the ability to. Your child should also have the support feel safe from children who have difficulty. There were children I did not allow my daughter to play with unsupervised, because they had poor impulse control. So I was there to step in if need be. (They are teens now, and not violent offenders). And others who she would ask for an adult to be present with as a strategy. That’s ok. Children don’t need to be self sufficient.

Gentle parenting involves holding limits. Firmly, if need be. Physically, if need be. Just with empathy and not punitively. And not blaming children (or labelling children ‘violent’) for childish behaviour driven by childish feelings. Because they are children. With childish brains. Childish brains are all feeling and reacting and not much thinking. It’s how they are built. They do not have the same capacity as adults. It’s ludicrously unfair to expect them to.

a couple of people have complained that ‘real children’ are being hit etc in these learning experiences. No one is lining them up as punching bags! If you know your child hits, you should be close enough to stop them. All children have incomplete impulse control and poor anticipation of consequences. Most (probably all) children hit , throw sand etc at some stage. So these are likely examples. The hurt child is always prioritised. And how else are children supposed to learn to interact with other children? These are responses to occasional, but common, scenarios. It’s not like a known and convicted felon is being let loose among innocents! I would go so far as to say virtually all children have hit, and been hit. It’s practically universal. And you teach them not to when it happens. No one is setting them up!

You do everything in your power to prevent this type of scenario, but they happen. This is how you might gentle parent when they do, that’s all.

yes, it’s a lot of words. Don’t we want children to use their words not their hands? Isn’t that the point? Then are we giving them those words? I doubt a ‘telling off’ would be fewer words, anyway. And the age of the child is important, as is their individual understanding. I would have talked to mine like this at three. But probably not others.

So because they don’t fully understand and therefore won’t fully act on the explanation, they shouldn’t be given one at all?

How would they learn to understand if they have never had it explained to them?

Do you say something along the lines of ‘no, HOT!’ when your baby reaches for the kettle? Or do you silently move their hand until they have a full grasp of language?

The problem is gentle parenting is a very middle-class style from what I have witnessed, and people who say couples should have a license to have kids, are usually referring to poor social-economic backgrounds (how many times have I read in this forum - you shouldn't have kids unless you can afford them and not rely on benefits). No-one would deny mr accountant and Mrs lawyer having a child, even though their parenting style may be this very hands off/gentle/lazy/passive style.
Which is why I think it would be better to have compulsory parenting classes for all expectant parents (dads as well!) would cover all families.

I gentle parent. The scenarios you describe aren’t gentle parenting (as you acknowledge), in fact I’d say they are lazy parenting under the guise of gentle parenting and giving gentle parents a bad name.

In my opinion gentle parenting is about setting boundaries that you as the parent work within (actively, not passively) for the child to succeed. So far it is working for me and I have a very pleasant and polite DC3 - not perfect and we do have challenges but gentle parenting does not mean an absence of discipline.

Clearly, "don't touch because that's hot" is an easy explanation to give.

But "do this silly pointless homework because otherwise you'll get in trouble" isn't. It's subtler. In reality, skipping a single homework doesn't lead to much trouble, does it? In reality it's more like "to cultivate a better working relationship with that teacher because that will make a subtle difference to your reputation among the teaching body which will improve your prospects at school..."

Much simpler sometimes if the kid and parent jointly accept, some stuff just has to get done, no need to overthink it

If you warn a child they'll get into trouble for missing a single HW, but then they don't, they'll realise there aren't the same boundaries they feared

It might be simpler for you, but that doesn’t mean it’s better.

Children are perfectly capable of understanding why people think homework is important- there is a point between ‘Don’t touch-hot!” and a phd thesis proposal that will work.

There is an appropriate level of explanation for every child.

After all why not expect the same from other adults when that's what their parents are teaching them that's the respect they should expect.

It’s a pretty frequently observed phenomenon that most children do not behave exactly the same around all adults. Children who are perfect angels at school will still give their parents pushback (unless they’re totally spiritless) - all the teachers I know would agree with this.

But, actually, as a teacher, I do respect my pupils - why would I not? And I don’t particularly like asking them to do anything that I can’t give a good reason for (which is why I don’t like enforcing pointless uniform rules).

Clearly you would only say that if you knew it to be true- at my school it would have been.

Also, on the topic of reasons being too difficult or subtle to understand - one thing I have found with my children is that if I explain stuff to them whenever I can, on the occasions when I say “look, you’ll just have to trust me on this one”, they do actually accept it. (This is true even of my incredibly contrary daughter who used to say things like “but I want to get sunburnt” and “but I want my teeth to decay”…)

Secondly, even when you can’t give a convincing or easily understood reason, you can still empathise. “I know it’s hard to understand why you have to do this, and I know it’s a bit rubbish for you” is surely better than “because I said so” and doesn’t take that much longer to say.

(I feel really strongly about this because I really hated being told “because I said so” as a child - but then, as an adult, I still hate arbitrary rules. I wonder whether we all just have a different tolerance for this kind of thing?)

@ducksinarow123 , still not convinced, sorry !

Licence is not only to assure financial security, but also the willingness to take on the life-long job as parents. It requires sacrifices, a lot!

Would Mrs lawyer and Mr accountant have the intelligence to know what is the right thing? Maybe they do - I'd have to assume most of them do. But why still adapting the kind of easy parenting? There's a lot in parenting goes against the comfort of life and the relaxed lifestyle. I always wondered why on earth children are sent to boarding school at very young age, when human nature at that stage still needs lots of love shown to them (not material, but the connection and the care). But but isn't boarding school always a upper middle class thing? And it carried on for so long still being pursued by lots, despite the condemnation for years about the problems caused in mental health for children.

Are compulsory classes really the solution? I'm not sure!

@ducksinarow123 , oh, while talking about boarding schools, it does give me another thought - do you think the super rich want to raise their children following the same standards/goals as the ordinary us? Imagine how the Tory leaders want to raise their children - what do they want their children become? (I don't want to generalise, but...) Not promising! All about entitlement for sure!

The last is a very important life lesson- no one will force you to do this thing, you may or may not do it, but if you don’t these will be the consequences.

This is exactly why I would like homework to be non-compulsory (given the very limited evidence that homework has any material benefit).

Rather than spending hours chasing pupils round the school and giving them detentions for not completing homework, I would like to be able to say to them “if you do this, I’ll mark it, you’ll know whether you’ve got it right or not and I’ll know how to help you improve. If you don’t, none of that will happen”. While I realise younger pupils don’t necessarily have the awareness to grasp that or the self-discipline to carry it out, I do feel like 15/16 year olds should be able to.

They can and do grasp it, given the chance. Several pedagogy around the world use this model (as well as voluntary attendance in lessons, group decision making for uniform/subjects studied, whether and which exams to sit amongst other things) and they are very successful.

The problem with introducing it into a mainstream setting is that (apart from the obvious push back from staff), the children take time to understand it and to cope with it- if you have been used to doing things only because someone more powerful tells you to, you aren’t equipped with the skills to deal with it when that top down structure is removed.

Giving an explanation ONCE is certainly a good thing. It's part of normal conversation parents should have with kids. You don't have to explain to kids why homework is important only when they say they don't want to do it there and then.

The problem is when you've explained, you know they understand, but expecting an explanation as a way to control the situation becomes the norm.

You had the conversation about homework their first week of class. 2 weeks later, they come home tired and don't want to do it. And instead of saying that you've already had that conversation and it now needs to be done, end of, you get the parents who respond to their kids trying to get out of what they don't want to do by asking 'why' and going on and on until ultimately, the parent gives up or agree a compromise.

Those kids become a nightmare of constantly arguing everything with the constant 'yes but why'.

These dont seem to have any awareness of the manipulation and patiently engage in lengthy repeated explanations that their kids already understand perfectly.

Hmm I slightly disagree on the boarding school front but for context I was actually visiting one yesterday (I'm a teacher). Most boarding pupils are either from military families and it allows the students to have a consistent education, or are international students whose parents want them to have "the best" English education so they could get into the best "English universities" (I say England as opposed to UK as education is different across our nations).
There are fors and against for boarding schools. Especially for those whose parents move about frequently, it is probably better for the child having that consistency then having to start a new school every year

@ducksinarow123 oops, I had Eton in mind when I mentioned about the boarding schools. I suppose that's in the past, the white upper class thing. These days, more diversity.

I probably mainly thinking about one person in my last post. The one who's a career lier and went to Eton. Don't know how his parents raised him and how he would raise his own (well he probably was and is still too busy to do any "parenting".)

Compulsory classes wouldn't work on people like him...

Yes. “We’ve had this conversation” is very different to “because I told you to”.

Some children dont take no for an answer, go on and on asking why/but in between sulking and crying (we all know at least one!) but that isn’t because they have ‘gentle parents’, who explain too much, it’s because they have any ‘type’ of parent who gives in to moaning and nagging.

but that isn’t because they have ‘gentle parents’, who explain too much, it’s because they have any ‘type’ of parent who gives in to moaning and nagging
I agree, but sadly these parents do see it as gentle parenting.

I think a lot of parents are under a lot of pressure theses days.
To be the perfect parents but there are so many rules some just dont no how to do it.
Children have a lot of rights as well as adults but i feel sometimes kids have more rights than the parents.
I have seen it first hand when i saw a woman tell her child off in town he was about 8-9 she said something about taking something off him if he can not behave and he just looked at her and said thats abuse you cant do that.
And ive seen others when one parent is telling off and the other petting up.
Too much molly cuddling.
Its rare to see a child or teen with a book with pages or hear i want to be a nurse doctor teacher etc. Now its i wanna be tictok famous i wanna be an actress a singer.
Because most parents alway say you can be what you want my son wanted to be a pengwin but he now works at the sewers.
The child thats never wrong gets told off at school but parents think its some kind of abuse.
Alot of kids are being raised and think they entitled to the world.

And the parents that are never around to parent the nannys nos more about the kids or just pal them of to a boarding school.
Or use the granparents as much as you can.
Them children with pilot parents think they know their kids but they dont and wonder why they go NC when there adults its because you were never there for them to miss.

Best not to have twins or more than one kid if a mother (and it’s always the mother) who is supposed to be on hand at all times to intervene, eh?

We don’t even expect adults to act on logical natural consequences (if I keep eating shite I’ll get fat, and destroy my health) and yet somehow we expect kids to manage?

Gentle parenting seems to expect children to understand complex concepts well before their time, whereas more normal parenting (because I said so!) starts with the “doing as you’re told” and expects understanding to come more naturally whenever the child is more developmentally ready.