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.

I think also kids need to learn that you often are expected to just get on with things that seem pointless. There's plenty of that in adulthood.

I agree that empathy is not always useful or beneficial. For a start you don’t always know how a child feels - in fact it’s a bit smothering . And also you can’t empathise with the -eg - hitting with a stick. (Well, maybe you can, but best not to!)

Also the fact remains that not all children are compliant. For every child nodding sagely at an explanation for behaviour, there’ll be ten others staring blankly or agreeing at the time and then doing the exact same thing again.

We all have personalities, and some children are thoughtless or even mean. You can’t reason a person’s innate nature away.

with the 10-year-old not doing homework, at that point I’d say something like “we’ve been through this, I know it seems pointless to you, I know you don’t love subject x, but let’s just get on and get it done”. Again, you don’t need endless explanations to show you understand how they feel. I really can’t see the harm in taking a child’s feelings into account - it’s when we let them think their feelings are more important than anyone else’s that we run into problems.

Well said. Sometimes, we all just have to get on with whatever needs to be done, regardless how we feel. Adults and kids.

More often than not in RL, rules are rules, you are happy with it or not. Just get on with it!

I do think explanations are important as kids get older - it’s part of the asking “why” about everything stage that helps them find out how things work. So things like why we brush our teeth, why we have to have a bath or not be mean to people etc do have explanations. But ideally a child is asking about those things after they’ve already become habit from being reinforced from babyhood. A very small child should for example just be getting their teeth brushed even if they don’t like it, using distractions etc until you can get to the explaining stage. Not waiting for the explaining to convince them.

I don’t think boundaries and rules just help you to not be an entitled snowflake as you get older. It’s also about a sense of solidity and that you grew up surrounded by a firm framework - that your parent/s was/were in charge and you could rely on them knowing best (not 1000% perfectly of course but for the basics). Yes kids kick against that and it gets relaxed as they get older, but it’s there to kick and push against so they can work through that and be shaped by those experiences.

it’s like a sapling growing in soil with stakes, it gives support and allows the sapling to get taller and stronger, then it gradually grows its own strength. No boundaries is like no soil and no stakes, the sapling will just flop around and not be able to grow strong or in the right direction. Hmm maybe that’s not perfect but to me it’s not just about controlling behaviour. It’s about providing a clear “container” that a person can grow up and out of.

Re homework, I think it’s very discriminatory and should be optional. I have one older DC who was totally self-motivated and sailed through always doing homework with no bother, and another who has multiple SEN - getting her to do homework is a total nightmare and basically it doesn’t happen because getting through a day of school completely exhausts her and she needs downtime to be able to unwind and get to sleep, which affects being able to get into school the next day - and doing the homework takes her way longer than average so uses up all her time. School are understanding fortunately, but homework discriminates against kids who are struggling academically or mentally, who have a chaotic home, no space of their own. other responsibilities at home, parents who can’t help because they have to work all hours, etc.

Another thing that bugs me as well is that if your child does have SEN or MH problems or other issues, they are often assumed to be ill-disciplined snowflakes who have never been told no, because that does happen a lot. So you’re sitting there explaining to school/CAMHS/etc that yes, you do have boundaries and brought your child up hearing the word no and with clear consequences etc because their first assumption is that you didn’t.

God yes- a lot of the ‘omg look at those shit parents bla bla bla’ is being aimed at families where the parents are actually doing the best for their disabled/neurodivergent children, but what their children need looks different to ‘normal’ and people don’t like that.

What the heck are gentle parents telling their children if a few minutes on a time out step are leading to long term abandonment and attachment issues, fears and feelings?

I do think that a lot of the gentle parenting philosophy leads to making mountains out of molehills. The kid was a little horror, apply some time out then cuddle, chat and move on, surely? Appropriate consequence but also keeping everything in proportion. Not everything is a big deal, including when kids get behaviour wrong.

But all this Gentle Parenting pop psychology is bonkers and contradictory.

My dd wasn't yet 2, she was refusing to brush her teeth. I naively thought to use Reasons and Explanations (as all the Gentle Parenting fans on here suggest). I told her, "you could get cavities, that means your teeth will be poorly, and if they get worse and worse they could even fall out." She wasn't yet 2, she was horrified. She did consent brush them religiously after that though.

Apparently she was being immature and needs to develop resilience? Not developmentally normal? Gentle Parenting always the answer.

On the other hand, 3-4yo boys push other kids over at her nursery.

Totally fine, "developmentally normal"? Nothing we can really do about it except talk about Big Feelings and wait for them to learn. Gentle Parenting still the best way forward.

Forgive me if I think none of this is rooted in particularly rigorous science. How can we expect under-2s to blithely shrug off the prospect of losing teeth, while not expecting 3-4yos to keep their violent tendencies in check?!

All this talk about Gentle Parenting not "brutalising" children... but at the same time a pp said above it's "merely unpleasant" for a child to be hit or bitten by a peer.

My dd has had to develop quite enough resilience I assure you

I have enjoyed this thread and got a lot out of it but I wonder if we're at the diminishing returns stage... I don't think anyone's opinions are going to change further by this point and I don't think my own opinion is ever going to be swayed regarding the acceptability of peer-on-peer hitting (which is what started this thread in the first place).

I think when it comes down to it, if it requires upsetting child A to stop him from hitting child B, that is necessary. Even if it requires Authoritarian Parenting. Because if a Gentle approach means he might hit B again, even just once more, that's not fair on B.

Yeah, you miss judged the teeth explanation. That doesn’t mean explaining is wrong, it means that particular explanation was inappropriate.

Got it. It's not the principle that's wrong, it's my delivery.

Very no-true-scotsman isn't it. If it doesn't work, it's not actually Gentle Parenting. It's Permissive Parenting, or you're doing it wrong by misjudging the explanation, or they're Not Developmentally Ready because Child's Brain.

And if you do it the Authoritarian way, such as showing disapproval when they hit another child, that's wrong even if it seems to work and everyone is happy, because you've invisibility traumatised them with Shame even if they don't appear to be traumatised, because Child's Brain.

@Mumoftwo1312 everyone is wrong sometimes.

You were wrong when you explained to your daughter in those terms.

It really doesn’t follow that all explanations are wrong. Accept you made a mistake and move on.

Just picking up on this to add that Sarah Ockwell-Smith has indeed written many books on gentle parenting - one about sleep, one about potty training, one about siblings, one about eating, one about starting school, one for toddlers, one for older kids… - after saying in the introduction to her first book that it was the only book about parenting you would ever need because it was such a simple idea, and unlike other parenting experts who wrote book after book in order to amass royalties, she would be doing us, her readers, a disservice if she couldn’t explain it one book.

Frankly this alone is enough to put me off calling myself a “gentle parent” (despite the defence I’ve maintained of gentle parenting on this thread!).

(It’s true that she’s pretty lax on boundaries too. Child struggling to settle in at nursery? Just don’t send them. Yeah, that’s great if you’re pootling about at home all day with your homeopathy Sarah, but some of us do actually have to work.)

It taught me that if you behave in a socially unacceptable way, life will be harder! That's true.

I'm not going to continue this conversation any further because frankly it's feeling a bit gas-lighty, I'm sure not through intention on your part. But I know what my childhood was like and fear of abandonment never entered it for a moment.

Of course not all explanations are wrong. I use explanations for lots of things, as I've repeatedly said, including in response to your kettle example. For other things I use "trust me dd that's just what we have to do" and for other things, like violent behaviour, I use firm though loving disapproval.

It's Gentle Parenting that's absolutist. Its Gentle Parenting that says you must do xyz Every Time and abc Never because otherwise you'll traumatise/brutalise your child, destroy her sense of self, Child's Brain etc etc

Oh dear, it's pretty bad that she said at the start that you only need one book and any more is cashing in...then proceeded to cash in, confirming that her approach isn't effective enough just to need one book!

The nursery settling is interesting, it's a pretty privileged position where you can give up work/not go back work if they aren't settling at first. Friend who gentle parents also doesn't think about the bigger picture i.e. financial security, how to pay the bills etc and lives in a bubble with the kids.

we’ve been through this, I know it seems pointless to you, I know you don’t love subject x, but let’s just get on and get it done
In theory, this is great, if the response is likely be 'yeah, fair enough, I get your point and will get on with it' but it never does. 10 years old push boundaries, see how far it goes, so they will argue back for the sake of it, challenge what the adult say, engage in discussions that go nowhere until the parent has enough and backs down. The more it's encouraged, the longer the conversations, the tedious it becomes and the quicker parents back down.

I’ve never met a parent who claims to have achieved perfect ‘always this way, never that’- and I’ve known a lot of crunchy/attachment/hippy/steiner/home ed/gentle parents.

They all have a principle or a philosophy they try and follow, but they all know that they are not perfect, even within their own paradigm.

I think the ‘perfect gentle parent’ story is a social media thing- click bait instagram shit that everyone ought to know is rubbish, and not a reflection of real life.

I do think that a lot of the gentle parenting philosophy leads to making mountains out of molehills
I do agree with that and that it can end up pushing kids in reflecting, analysing and overthinking everything which is the perfect move to lead to generalised anxiety.

Some times, it's doing ourselves a favour to just do things because we've been taught they just need to be done without going over the why and indeed potentially ending up making mountains out of molehills.

I need to reduce my speed to 40 because there is a sign that says so. Done. Or, do I actually need to reduce to 40. We're not in a build up area, there are no bends, it's not dangerous, I've got a good modern car. That sign is old, it should have been changed but they can't bothered so I think it's safe to drive 50. Oh but what if I get a ticket when there were no good reasons for it. What will happen? Will I be able to challenge it? Will I be offered to go and do a course? How much that will cost etc...

So, don’t back down? If you have explained and the conversation is over, just don’t engage with it anymore.

The only kids I know who do this have parents that give in to it- they have taught their kids that it works.

I very don’t often say no, but when I do that’s it- there will be a good reason for it which I will explain, but I won’t back down (unless I’m actually proved to be wrong about something).

@Mumoftwo1312 It’s interesting that you talk about gentle parenting being absolutist (“do it exactly like this 100% of the time”) because that very much fits my experience of gentle parenting forums. Sarah O-S herself once told me that being a gentle parent was like being a vegetarian: you couldn’t pick the bits that suited you, you had to do it all exactly as prescribed.

I remember years back getting into an argument with another mum on a GP forum after I asked for help dealing with my extremely strong-minded then-3-year-old (I am using strong-minded entirely as a euphemism here) because there were certain things (getting dressed was one of them) that she just would not do despite me using every gentle parenting trick in the book. She kept suggesting things, I would say they had no effect, she would tell me they worked beautifully with her child and I must be Doing It Wrong.

It was incredibly frustrating because it is obviously wrong-headed (and actually slightly insulting to the children themselves) to assume that all children respond to anything in exactly the same way, as though they don’t have personalities or minds of their own. Some children are naturally more compliant than others: I used to watch my niece doing everything she was told without any sort of fuss and wonder what sorcery her parents were using. “That’s just how she is”, they said, just as baffled as I was.

These days though I tend to think of gentle parenting more as a means than an end. Does it always get the results I want, ie does it always get my children to behave perfectly? No it doesn’t. I eventually discovered there are other tactics that worked better on my delightfully obstinate daughter (humour and silliness were always good ones - or I could convince her to do something by getting her to tell me how it was done). But it was never really about the end result, it was about - as you said earlier - doing what felt right to me. I maintain that children are not “less” than adults, so I couldn’t treat mine with less respect than I’d treat an adult (while also not treating them like an adult, because - as much as they’ve been pooh-poohed here - I do think age appropriate expectations are really important).

Anyway - this is a very long-winded way of saying that my feeling is that it’s kind of a shame that gentle parenting has so many aspects that (quite understandably) people off because there are many aspects of it that really are genuinely helpful, and I cannot agree more with the central premise (children are people and deserve the same empathy and respect you’d afford any other person): but I do understand your frustrations with it.

This expresses really well my instinctive aversion to all the conversations about Big Feelings. They actually lead to more self-doubt, not less.

I'd rather have a happy-go-lucky child, even if she's labelled as "obedient" which some on here think is a bad thing, than an angst-ridden introspective child.

My dd questions a lot of things. The other day she pointed out at bedtime that the Owl in Gruffalo shouldn't be there because owls are nocturnal.

Being obedient isn't mutually exclusive with being intellectually curious.

I think that there's a place for talking about emotions and them being normal and ok but it's not necessary or good to do it for every single minor issue day to day.

If your 10 year old is used to a parenting style where everything is up for endless debate and explanations to the nth degree, then yes, you’ll have a far harder time getting them to do their geography homework than a 10 year old who is beginning to push boundaries en route to being a teenager but is generally used to doing as they are told.

So, don’t back down? If you have explained and the conversation is over, just don’t engage with it anymore
So I totally agree, but again, the issue is that those who do continue to engage and back down are those who state that their behaviour is because they chose gentle parenting and those are the parents others gave issue with.

I see sadly so much of it. Especially in my gym club. Kids running screaming in the changing rooms and parents every time asking nicely to stop because...and kids continuing and parents giving up and letting them go on, visit after visit, giving the same explanation every week. Wash and repeat.

Same in the showers. It's hard to refrain from intervening and saying something.