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.

When I take my son home from the park, he is still with me.

When children are sent to sit somewhere alone, they are alone.

Forced aloneness has emotional connotations for children.

Genuine question: when my oldest was a baby I read lots of stuff about child development and the neuroscience on small children having limited impulse control was pretty clear. Has it since been overturned and I’m just way behind the science?

Frequently they have pushed and been pushed, because none of them are immune from either.

No not at all, people just don’t think much, and also they don’t tend to believe things that are inconvenient or uncomfortable for them.

I’d imagine anyone with more than one child has a child who has been pushed and a child who has pushed!

The ratios just aren't 50-50 though are they. The majority of children of any age don't routinely hit or push. It's a small handful of any class.

That’s not what I meant at all - I was alluding to the fact that even the least violently-inclined child might whack a sibling when provoked strongly enough, because siblings do wind each other up.

But it's inevitable that children sometimes have to be alone. If you've got two and one hits the other you have to separate and comfort the one who was hit first. Sometimes a parent might need a time out to calm down themself when pushed to their limit. Heck even if your child has done nothing wrong they might have to be left alone while you do something like go to the toilet.

Of course, and that’s fine.

The possible issues arise when it’s done repeatedly, on purpose, over several years- as well as with how it’s done and the context around it.

I think it's problematic in any case if a child needs frequent and repeated punishment whatever the method.

Yes, I explained in the later post: he sits on the first step of the staircase in the living room (the crime scene) when whoever is around (never in front of guests).

What you had in mind is time out in their own room. Naughty step is a naughty "step" at ours!

He's never done hitting outside the household (except once when he was three in the nursery). Just the typical give the worst side of him to the dearest family!

This is absolutely true and our job as parents is to help them learn impulse control. Giving them long explanations about being kind isn't good at doing that.

Just to add two things:

1. @ZebraDanios Small children are impulsive and they don't have the maturity to control well. I don't deny that. But consequence needs to take place and he needs to reflect until he work on that part of brain (don't quote me. I'm not saying that's biologically possible). But the message needs to be clear in my house and it also needs to let his brother know they are treated equally.

Being small is no excuse for hitting others on their head.

His brother has ADHD. It doesn't give him excuse or impression it's okay to not work on his self control - it's not easy, I know. But the principles are there to be guarded regardless.

I'm sure a lot of mums with ND children know what I mean. It's a lifelong condition. They don't outgrow it (I don't dream it) and the worry never stops. The only way to help is to work on it and try to learn, even just bit by bit over years!

Again, outside the household, not many would offer excuses for them if they hurt others.

1. I always tell them and especially during and after naughty step with the young one, I love him, no matter what. But what he did is not okay. He needs to learn to control himself!

Just in case anyone speculate, from my above post:

No, the little one doesn't have ADHD - he's the opposite of ADHD "outside the household".

DS1, despite his ADHD, never ever hurt his little brother, even when he was in rage with DS2. Unfortunately, they do wind eachother up very often. Well, don't think we can change it in the foreseeable future.

@Return2thebasic I don’t think anyone in their right mind would suggest that because small kids have poor impulse control we should just let them carry on beating the living daylights out of each other! Of course we teach them that it’s not okay - that should go without saying.

What I’m objecting to the idea is that we should we should judge a child who hits the same way as we judge an adult. If one of my friends hit me, firstly I’d be shocked, and secondly I wouldn’t want to hang out with them again. But when one of my kids was occasionally whacked by a friend at nursery, I’d accept that, to some extent, that was something that happened among kids that age: it didn’t mean that child was a massive arsehole and that they shouldn’t be friends any more. But I certainly wouldn’t expect the nursery staff to shrug it off and go “ah, kids will be kids” either!

it didn’t mean that child was a massive arsehole

I don't think anyone on this whole thread has said this about any child.

Our 'naughty step' was in the hallway in a different room, so admittedly I was imagining that!

But even so, your example is like being sent to stand in the corner and face the wall or something. It's a taster of social exclusion (which for children is life threatening), and the point of gentle parenting is that we are NOT the 'big bad world' who will exclude them. We are family, we care, we support, we give emotional tools and vocabulary, we validate emotions, and we work together to find solutions to our issues. We are the secure base that the child can always trust to accept them.

"Please fuck off on your own for a bit darling and don't dare speak to us while you watch/listen to us enjoy ourselves without you" does not really do that, does it? It might work, like emotional manipulation often does, but it's suboptimal.

It's possible to take your child out of the situation and NOT exclude them.

To add onto the prison/time out comparison, most prisoners still have cell mates they're allowed to talk to. A child doing a time out in a room on their own is more like solitary confinement. Lovely stuff to give kids a taster of!

@Mumoftwo1312 I was being facetious (although someone did say that some kids were just mean a while back). My point is that it makes no sense to react to a child hitting another child in the same way as we would react to an adult hitting. It’s just not the same.

The naughty step isn't life threatening! Nor is it solitary confinement. My goodness, what do words mean any more?

I have never used this phrase before but now I have seen what they call "pearl clutching".

How can it be good for children to live in an environment where being made to sit on their own quietly for a minute or two is "solitary confinement"?

And earlier in this thread, I was told my dd needs to be "more resilient"!

And a child being hit by another child is merely "unpleasant"!

But sitting on your own for a minute or two to reflect on your violent actions is a taster of social exclusion, which for children is life threatening.

I just can't agree with any of this. I was on the fence about gentle parenting when this thread started but now I'm entirely put off it

Yep. I don't react the same. If an adult man were to hit my daughter when she's an adult, ill be straight onto the police.

Not sticking him on the naughty step in our open plan living room.

My god, when did you have to go to the extreme using language like this: "Please fuck off on your own for a bit darling and don't dare speak to us while you watch/listen to us enjoy ourselves without you."

You don't agree with me using consequence doesn't make have the right to give such a narrative to me as a mum /a human being.

You can disagree, but you don't make your counter part a worse thing than they truly are.

Seriously?

And, it's obvious you don't agree and opt to only use words and explanations and expressing love with cuddles. Good luck. You don't need my agreement. And wish you the best with your parenting journey.

Okay, “react” was a poor choice of words.

If an adult hit your daughter when she was an adult, presumably you’d advise her never to see this person again and you’d form an extremely negative judgement about said adult (after you’d got onto the police).

Would you do the same if a child hit your daughter?

.

Well, as I've said, there are three boys at her nursery who are known to repeatedly push kids over, mostly girls, including her. She's come to me very upset about it. I don't dislike the boys individually but I need their caregivers to help them learn to stop doing it, using whichever humane teaching method is as speedy and effective as possible.

Is that OK with you? Do you find my answer, to quite a "home question", acceptable? Because I've repeated the above statement in lots of different ways, without changing my stance on it, throughout this thread.

@Theresstilltonighttocome you are wrong, rude, no longer arguing in good faith, and I'm starting to judge you a bit for it.

...thank you for editing your post out, @Theresstilltonighttocome