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.

It sounds like you’re having to monitor your kids a lot. What do you mean by ‘underlying problem’ by the way?

I think the expressions and talking are fine. The problem is no consequences if the child doesn't listen. For me, I'd say gentle hands please. If my child hit I'd remove him and tell him off in an age appropriate way, make him say sorry, and if he didn't we'd go home. You only have to follow through a few times for them to realise you mean it. But in general it works to explain that it hurts, be kind to friends etc. otherwise it just seems like an arbitrary rule you're imposing. A toddler doesn't actually understand hitting hurts, that's why we explain it to them. But yes there should be some consequences like removal or time out to make it effective.

This!
I would actually argue that setting boundaries and teaching basic social skills is showing more empathy.

Unfortunately I roll my eyes when someone describes them self as a "gentle parent" as I know it tends to mean ineffective parent with feral kids that hurt other kids. My general experience of those that really do gentle parent and do it right is they don't talk about it they just do it.

Icantbedoingwithit
oh yeah sorry, just to clarify I hope I’d have taken the stick away too!!! Just saying sometimes things happen and your reaction is the best but it’s because you’re under a lens and don’t have time to come up with the best response

Just sounds like weak parenting to me.

@JaneLawrence I have a friend like this. She can't bear to say No to her child. It's excruciating. He spoiled so many days out when he was pre-school. Last time we went out, he was about 13. We were at a concert and he started singing along. He does have a great voice, but it was definitely a "we sing, you listen" occasion. I was mortified and couldn't believe she allowed this

Every action of ours in the outside world has its consequences.

I don't see why the problem to apply consequence at home. It's a life lesson. We shelter our children from it, they have to learn harder outside our protection. It makes harder for them to adapt to the outside world and find their places around others.

I fucking hate weak, pathetic non-parents. They breed and raise little shit bags. And everyone else has to bear the brunt of their antisocial behaviour which is completely excused by their entitlement.

This hugely contributed to the challenges teachers have to face in school. Behaviour issues were seeded at home and are left without effective control. School then has to tiptoe dealing with them without upsetting the parents who think schools are to blamed.

I have a friend whose DC has school attendance issue since Y3. She was very critical to the school while most of us think school has been doing wonderful jobs for the kids (as you could tell they care). Then her DC started secondary, she was initially all about praises for the new school. Less than half year, the praises became criticism again because "the school doesn't want to do more to help her DC for refusing to go to school."

She's a wonderful person herself. Unfortunately, me and DH could see very early on that child would have problem due to problematic behaviours not being addressed sufficiently.

To be fair to her, she's not "gentle", but just not hard enough on instilling the basic principles with no tolerance. Boundary and clear consequences, as some suggested.

It's hard to see the way it evolved as exactly how we saw it would happen, but couldn't say anything.

What infuriates me about gentle parenting is the way they go on... and on... and on.... they are toddlers! They heard the last 2 words! Which is why "no jumping in puddles" reads to them like "PUDDLES!".
KISS.

And asking your DC's permission? WTAF? I mean, give a warning if you must (we're going to brush now) or choices (sitting on the loo or standing up?).

DD shrieked at me this morning (she is 9 and known for shrieking) and was told robustly that hurts my ears, and my head, and hurting is not OK, just as when her brother hits her he has chosen not to have the TV on, she's making the same choice.
It's at a simpler/lower level for younger DCs but even so.

"Look at this stick. Look at me hitting you with it."

My eldest hated having his teeth brushed at that age ( I say "that age" but it was actually years from 2-5) so I'd force him to do it, the internet has made me realise there's a lot of people out there who just don't because of "body autonomy" or something.
Since he started school I also noticed a lot of parents give their kids tons of chocolate/sweets every single day like multiple times. Like wtf shit was a rare treat when I was a kid and I'm talking the 2000s so hardly the dark ages.
I'm genuinely surprised there aren't loads more kids with rotten teeth

You need to tell that to the many thousands of mums who think it is gentle parenting and carefully adhere to it then. I left a gentle parenting group with thousands of people on it when the admin told me off for questioning if having a bedtime is coercive parenting. Yes it is, they told me, gentle parents do not set a bedtime. The post was a mum whose 7yo was on his tablet till about 3am and too tired for school. The responses were all about explaining gently to 7yo that they should go to sleep earlier. Jesus wept. This is what the people in the role of gentle parenting experts who are deciding what behaviours are gentle parenting are what aren’t say, so forget what you think gentle parenting is. This is what it actually is in real life and it’s pure neglect in my book.

Totally agree. My mum has taught Reception for 27 years and she says the evolution of the 'little shit bag' behaviour is terrible. Her naughtiest child in the class of 27 years ago would now be considered mild.

Exactly!
I did not entertain any of this bollocks when mine were small. I didn’t scream and shout or smack but they had clear consequences and boundaries. If they had a tantrum at a restaurant or misbehaved then there was a clear warning that if it happened again then we would be leaving. I did this once but never had to do it again because they knew it wasn’t an empty threat. I remember some of these type of parents at kids parties letting their kids run riot and saw them looking pitifully at mine when I warned them not too. They are both successful, well balanced adults now. The overindulged ones who were allowed to run riot grew up to have MH issues, criminal records, school refusers with no qualifications, had kids at a young age who were taken into care etc.
The increase in this sort of bollocks ineffectual ‘parenting’ is going to cause major issues for society in future. It’s already having an impact in schools in terms of behaviour with school age kids not being toilet trained etc because it’s their choice bullshit. Schools can’t issue sanctions due to the backlash from these pathetic parents and it’s causing a mass exodus of teachers. I am genuinely worried about the future of education in this country. A huge culture shift is desperately needed.

😱

They are going to bring up some children who can't survive living on this planet! Gosh, the poor kids, what kind of hard life is ahead of them!

I think the name gentle parenting has muddied the waters to be honest. I really support it, but it should be authoritive (not authoritarian) parenting with strict boundaries enforced with empathy- there should be consequences but they should make sense, if done right it's probably the best kind of parenting.

What you've described is permissive parenting which isn't the same thing and is definitely not how it should be done (I can be too permissive and I know it's not ideal- although I do have great children, it does make life tougher for myself).

That's not gentle parenting, that's just allowing the child to do as they please with no consequences. I take a gentle parenting approach with my child but he wouldn't have gotten away with any of that and it wouldn't have been handled like that either. This is what gives gentle parenting a bad name, because it's not gentle parenting.

And if any of those kids had been playing in the soft play I used to work at, the parents would have had to remove their child from the play area if they were doing any of those types of behaviours.

They wouldn't have liked me but it wouldn't have been about their wet and ineffectual 'gentle' parenting.

It would have been about everyone's safety.

Gentle parenting is also spreading to schools/teachers!

My DS comes home regularly and repeats what his teacher says. Things like ‘it doesn’t matter’ which means now he won’t even TRY to do his homework because his teacher said ‘it doesn’t matter’ if he can’t do something.

Another thing he picked up is ‘it’s in the past, let’s forget about it’. So he’ll be mean to his brother and I’ll want to have a chat about it later in the day and he’ll say ‘it’s in the past, forget about it’.

Teacher is in mid-20s and I don’t agree with a lot of things she teaches the kids. So now I have a 7 yr old who does something shit and will say ‘it doesn’t matter’!!

Is it gentle parenting or just lazy parenting? It's not a coincidence that 'gentle parenting' has become a thing at the exact same time as 'sticking your kid on the iPad so it shuts up and you don't have to parent' has also become a thing.

YANBU, witness it all the time. They’re not doing their kids any favours either because no one likes their kid then! Just think they’re a brat, when actually they’re a perfectly normal child without boundaries.

Well, she doesn't have to have the child 24hr/7days and for the rest of 20+ years. It's just easier for her to say "it doesn't matter". Surely she doesn't have her own kids yet.

I'd talk to school about it, for the sake of other children under her care in future.

Terrible parenting, and then we have to deal with them in primary school. And the parents defend their little precious butterflies who behave horribly because they've been allowed to their entire lives!