Is modern parenting damaging to kids?

[Rainbowsponge]

My friend’s husband is a professional in the area of child development and education. He’s taught at numerous schools, SEN schools and is now a researcher. He doesn’t have children, but I do, and yesterday we were talking about the seeming increase in children with anxiety, mental health issues and what he described as ‘delayed adulthood’.

He’s British but his extended family are from India, and he said visits to see them make a striking contrast between how our children are raised and how theirs are raised. He said children are sort of left to run around in packs and find their own amusement from quite a young age, and as a result they seem more mature and confident.

His theory is that we are interrupting normal development opportunities for kids brains, and therefore they’re not properly developing. He thinks we intervene too much in perfectly ordinary learning opportunities, like playground disagreements, and our quest to make sure our children never feel challenged or upset is actually making them more anxious.

He also thinks softer, more modern punishments are bewildering children and reinforcing bad behaviour, leaving them confused about right and wrong. Children read facial expressions, so seeing us look calm/unbothered rather than angry/disappointed when they’ve done something wrong is counterproductive and blocks them from naturally learning human behaviour and socialisation.

I’m not professing to be a perfect parent at all, but it was a really interesting chat and I want to discuss it further!

I’m honestly not making this up but twice recently I’ve seen gentle parenting in action and a very unhappy child. Once was today - a local soft play with an outdoor garden with bikes and trikes, with a small cafe attached. Mum and dad were there with a little boy of about 2. He was clearly feeling a bit hangry and burst into tears as they urged him to choose a sandwich, then a snack, then a drink, then handed them all over for him after asking if he wanted ‘to carry’ which CLEARLY he didn’t have the hands to do. He then dropped it all on the floor, cried some more as they asked whether he wanted to pick it up and try again himself while they held up the queue. I thought fgs just choose something, pay for the food and let him eat it! By the time they paid he was howling.

The other time was at the same place a couple of months ago, a lady was there with two small boys and who I assumed was a grandparent. One of the boys was upset about something that had happened in the play area. He must’ve been about 3 or 4, and looked utterly bemused as the mum gave a long and fairly performative speech about personal boundaries, personal space, how nobody has the right to encroach on it, how the other child clearly had abusive parents as they had become an abuser themselves etc. I swear he stopped crying through sheer confusion!

I'm not convinced it's parenting.
I think it's a toxic school environment
Increased pressure to constantly perform in school
Lack of income in families
2 stressed full timenparents
Processed food.
Social media

Etc.

The final 2 maybe but I’m fairly certain there is a lot of pressure to study hard and succeed, as well as lack of income, in India and other third world countries.

I do worry kids are too wrapped up in cotton wool these days. Constant parental supervision can’t be good and I wonder if it has lead to a lack of resilience that causes mental health problems. I also see that (a sizeable minority) of parents are too cautious about physical risk, it just makes children nervous. They have to graze their knees and learn that the world doesn’t fall apart when it happens.

I just can’t believe that raising your kids with firm boundaries that are held with kindness and understanding (this is what gentle parenting technically is) could be a bad thing.

Agree, I recently did some work typing letters from child health appointments and while many were outlining real tangible difficulties there were also a lot along the lines of 'little Johnny doesn't talk to new people straight away and lets other children take the lead' and 'little Johnny doesn't like if his usual daily routine is changed without explanation'. Like, no shit sherlock, there's plenty of adults that don't like these things, it's not a medical condition, it's a personality type!

It was sad sometimes as you could practically feel through some of the letters that essentially mum and/or dad had ended up with a child that didn't meet their expectations for the kind of child they had wanted (quiet and introverted rather than outgoing & gregarious), and instead of looking into themselves and getting past that, they had gone looking for some kind of diagnosis with a 'cure' 😔

Schools are awful places at the moment for many children.

We luckily live somewhere where it would be safe to do this (at the end of a 20-year-old estate on the edge of a village, hardly any traffic, near two playgrounds, fields and a small wood) and older kids do, so hoping mine will want to in a few years time.

They're currently outdoorsy kids and can spend a couple of hours just playing in a wood (with me supervising from a short, safe distance) so hoping that will continue.

I've always been one to let them take reasonable physical risks (climbing trees, rocks, etc), which I think helps with confidence and resilience. (DC1 has ASD and is quite anxious about certain things, but is also confident in other ways).

A couple of my friends are ‘in therapy’ for… what would objectively be called quite low level life stresses. From what they’ve said they’re not actually that upset but having mentioned it once or twice to others they’ve been encouraged to ‘get counselling’ so they dutifully have.

What I don't get is that gentle parenting is supposed to be about having realistic and age appropriate expectations of children. Neither of those approaches sounded at realistic for a distressed small child at all. I've never been convinced that a long waffle about feelings is going to do a thing for an upset toddler.

I think it's just convenient for the govt (well. Past govt) to blame it on parents. And usually mums. And overlook society issues.

Look at any teaching threads to see how awful the environment is now. Or Not Fine In School website.

Don't Just blame mums. Again. I'd almost suspect political motives at play.

And a general lack of understanding about neurodiversity at play too.

I disagree with that.

The things that damage children the most are abusive and neglectful parents. Not screens or gentle parenting.

Yes, I think it's pretty widely believed intervening too much is interfering with opportunities kids need to learn.

There is a delicate balance to be struck between creating resilience and exposing kids who genuine difficulties (such as neurodiversities) that make coping with things like classrooms hard. Because we musn't forget the damage also done to many children in the past and the adults they became when they were exposed exstensively to stressful contexts that it was just demanded they suck up and cope with on their own. I'm sure it can be hard to make the call though and I do suspect we are doing some kids a disservice by allowing them to avoid things they could reasonably cope with.

Then why are kids far more anxious and mentally ill under the modern methods which involve gentle parenting and screens?

The problem is, many parents don’t know how to parent. We’re all making it up as we go along.

I’m a parent AND a teacher (secondary). DS1 is AuDHD. I see parents making the same mistakes every day. The worst of these is no boundaries. I mean between parent and child. The child’s feelings are the parent’s feelings, the child’s successes are the parent’s successes etc. This prevents parents and teachers working together to help children with their behaviour, because parents overidentify with their children and become defensive.

Its a huge problem.

Interesting. I don’t really buy this tbh. In my personal experience kids I know might have more help from parents/teachers than I did 30 years ago but there’s still plenty of scrapping. If I intervened in every argument I’d never do anything else!

My ex's family are from India. My experience of Indian children doesn't tie up with your friends. In my experience children in India are coddled way beyond anything I've seen in the UK and are completely lacking in independence compared to children here.

I’m not sure if it makes a difference but they live very rurally on farms.

Parents feel guilty because they are very busy and they overcompensate by not setting firm boundaries for their kids. Gentle parenting might be a good way to patent but people pick the bits that suit them and the whole thing gets watered down. It's not rocket science. Children need boundaries so they know what's right and wrong and they need their parents to show them this. They also need endless love and parents who are physically and emotionally present.
Its OK for things to be difficult sometimes. No one seems to allow children and teens to have any challenges or difficulties. Nothing wrong with sorting out their own friendship battles. Nothing wrong with getting wet occasionally waiting for a late bus. Nothing wrong with going without a treat because you spent all your pocket money. It's OK for no to mean no.

As someone who works with preschoolers, and having raised my own children, I do think we are institutionalising our children from babyhood and preventing them from having adult free adventures.

In a nursery situation they are learning from babyhood to follow routines and structure outside of their choosing. They are with their peers a significant amount of time rather than learning from adults and the real world. I see differences in children who are in full day, full week childcare in comparison to those who only come in for a few hours. They aren't seeing the real world when they are in a childcare situation. They aren't getting a chance to be bored because it is constant stimulation and learning. Adult's can't just punish, it has to be done gently threw negotiation. It means the children know they can get away with hitting their friend because the adult will just 'talk to them'. It works fine with some children, but not with all of them. They don't get to do 'real' tasks such as helping with the washing, or cleaning the car, or helping with the shopping in the way they would if they were within a family unit all day.

Older children feel stifled by the constant presence of adults. They want to challenge themselves and their peers, adults step in and stop it. They have an argument and adults immediately step in. They want to chill out and do their own thing but in a childcare/holiday club situation they can't. They have to follow someone elses agenda.

I seriously think we are doing our children a disservice in our quest to keep them safe and occupied. I'm not sure what the answer is because our society is moving further and further away from valuing the family unit over money and production. I think we are going to be seeing the repercussions when we are elderly and this generation is in their 20/30's.

@Rainbowsponge - well yes obviously. My ex's family live in a city so different environment. No pavements, people drive like maniacs and very polluted. Not an environment to be "out in packs" even if they had the inclination.

I second this as an eye opening read. Quite alarming really.

Gentle parenting doesn’t mean no boundaries or giving the child all the power. It’s about building a strong attachment and not using fear and shame to manage behaviour.

Research has consistently shown that consistent boundaries and warmth/love are the key things. Passive parenting with high warmth, high boundaries with low warmth aren’t great and no boundaries with no warmth is abuse.

Childhood stress does build resilience as long as it’s not persistent and toxic stress. ACEs are key (adverse childhood experiences) and the more you have the poorer the outcomes.

Context and environment are also influential - school, home environment (access to nature), role models, nutrition.

It’s all quite complex and really can’t be boiled down to if X then Y.

I was in a shop the other day and a toddler was having a strop, as they do, and the Mum was standing about three feet away repeating frantically: 'Be kind! Be kind Izzy! Be kind!'

🤷‍♀️

This is very interesting, any tips or books to promote resilience in children?