To think gentle parenting is actually permissive

[theedgeoftheforest]

Even though those who favour it are very insistent it isn’t - well, it is, isn’t it?

Its all ‘they have no impulse control’ (they do) ‘you’re expecting too much’ (you’re not) ‘the teachers reward and sanction, complain to the school’ (nonsense.)

I know post after post will insist that gentle parenting does have boundaries and to be fair I see gentle parents talk a lot about boundaries but they don’t seem to have a clue how to implement them and their kids run rings round them.

So do I but to be fair the response she was quoting was snide.

We are all snide sometimes.

Nailed it.

We gentle parent and are regularly told by people we know and people we don’t how well behaved and kind our boy is. It works for him and works for us. We have very clear, firm boundaries. We do (shock horror) very occasionally shout a bit (we’re human). Showing your children your range of emotions is extremely important for their emotional development and occasionally getting cross is actually not incongruent with the general concept of gentle parenting. A better way to think of gentle is to consider it like traditional parenting but trying to replace fear with other motivators.

I consider myself a (moderately) gentle parent too. What I am not, is a Gentle Parent. Gentle Parenting, as it is generally proselytised, is absolutist and restrictive and has loads of seemingly arbitrary rules with exaggerated pop psychology.

A couple of minutes of time out for an overexcited toddler? This is Not Gentle because it traumatically utilises Shame and Isolation.

A short stern few words for a boy who hits a girl in the playground? This is Not Gentle because it traumatically utilises Shame and besides this level of violence is Developmentally Expected. Remove him from his friends in the playground? Shame, Isolation, Trauma...etc.

When parents try, in good faith, to implement these absolutist rules, it often looks pretty permissive to outsiders. NB this is because they are doing it wrong and Not Truly Gentle Parenting (see above).

Gentle Parenting advocates also generally insist that any/all other parenting styles result in significant psychological harm, which I find implausible.

I'd say the same about so called Traditional Parenting too btw. Any model of parenting with absolutist rules is going to be hard to implement well.

I think good parenting (like good teaching) is flexible, adaptive, moderate, and uses a wide variety of strategies flexibly; this is because, I think, there's no one single good method.

I would agree with this.

I don't really get what the people who claim not to be gentle parents are claiming to be? The opposite of gentle? Agressive? Violent?

I find the way she is meticulously copying the OP but changing the words to say the opposite thing very coy and deliberately done in a mocking way to make the OP look stupid.

It comes across as a child mocking another child in their best adult voice like when ten years olds say "look at me look how clever I am" and it's not a nice way to reply to someone.

If she doesn't agree she didn't need to post she could have just moved on. Or she could have just posted something less mocking and disagreed respectfully couldn't she?

Personally I think it’s brilliant that we even have the insight to choose different parenting styles and adapt them to suit our children. I’m so grateful that I could learn from others and do better than the terrifying ordeal that was my own childhood. So live and let live.

also as someone with a very high spirited, emotional kid, I get very upset when k feel kiddies by other parents. He does meltdown here and there and it’s quite embarrassing enough without the judgement of others, who assume he does that because you have no boundaries or whatever, when in fact you are trying very hard to find the right approach to help your kid navigate the modern world. We women would do better to stop bitching about one another’s approach and instead share, celebrate and support OP. Life’s tough enough and we all do the best we can.

Evidently we read the response in different ways. MrsTP doesn’t seem to be a poster who places their opinions on matters they have little insight into, but again just my opinion.

One thing I don’t do is judge, unless someone’s hitting their child or something. Mine can be spirited shall we say. And it was that which made me realise GP wasn’t for me as the techniques just didn’t work. But there is no judgement.

It was a snide response, that was the intention. It’s obviously a topic some feel strongly about or feel should not be discussed (which annoys me actually, who made you the MN police?) but it doesn’t mean the poster isn’t overall a good egg.

You can be a great poster and make the odd snide post.

Real gentle parenting needs to change its name as unfortunately it has become synonymous with permissive parenting and you’ll always end up with arguments. I think it is also misnamed and therefore people don’t understand it.

Personally I don’t label my parenting, it comes under the good enough making up as I go along standard, my kids are happy have boundaries, I rarely shout, natural consequences generally, and we do talk about feelings and it’s okay to feel x and y, never all the time though! (When it’s time to put shoes on when they were younger and had a tantrum, it was usually under the arm, in the car seat and shoes handed to the childminder so I wasn’t late for work, no time for validating any feelings!) They were always fine in the after a few minutes. They’re also parented slightly differently as they’re different. They seem to be turning out okay and eldest seems very emotionally literate and will work on how she is feeling and has strategies what to do.

To be fair, so are a lot of parents out there.

You OP is incredibly judgemental.

If I cop to 'snide' can you own 'judgemental'?

What I think is lazy and ineffective is when parents constantly shout at and punish their kids so much it has absolutely no effect apart from giving the kids major issues in the long run.

I don’t understand all these labels about how you parent. It’s just parenting. DT’s had boundaries set, time out if they ignored instructions, told off if they hit anyone, never co slept, praised when they were good, sleep trained from six months and full time nursery from the same age.
We all survived, they did well at school and Uni and are happy independent adults. Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.

I’m judging those who have profited from this nonsense craze. No one else.

You have decided my post is judgy because you want to. You read it, it got right up your nose and you immediately responded aggressively and with a ‘clever’ rewording of my OP.

You disagree, fine, tell me what’s so amazing about GP.

By this definition, I am and always have been a gentle parent. Which is quite funny, because I have always been perceived as quite disciplinarian - the type of parent who can sit both children down with an activity and an absolute expectation that they will occupy themselves for the length of time I eg need to talk to an adult about something non-child related; have a dentist appointment with them sitting quietly in the same room etc. But equally, give them undivided attention and support etc when that appointment is over.

My ‘gentle parenting’ - which as I say met the above definition to a T, and was probably best described as freedom and mutual respect within a very clear framework of boundaries - did not look anything like any recent ‘gentle parenting’ by those who define themselves as ‘gentle parents ’.

I agree. When you constantly shout at a child, they only take you seriously when you are shouting. The worst behaved NT children in my sons class are the DC of shouty parents.

Sorry, meant to quote Shiningout

I don’t think anyone who tries to genuinely follow gentle parenting thinks it’s an ‘absolute’. Or perhaps I’m doing it wrong as well, who knows. I have autistic children, and I do try to keep to GP. However it absolutely fluctuates and I have no shame in saying that, there are moments that seem passive and there’s moments that are stern (certainly when I can see them putting themselves or others in harms way). But as others on here, I was raised in an abusive environment where my feelings did not matter, and that’s what I put to the forefront of my own parenting - trying to understand my children’s viewpoint as well as what is constructive going forward. And it doesn’t always work! Thats ok, you don’t stop growing as a person because you’re the parent. Theres also no shame in learning from a situation, because there is no absolute way. If your child can come to you during their worst times without worry, then you’re not doing it wrong.

You disagree, fine, tell me what’s so amazing about GP.

I did. Literally in my first post.

I agree with @MrsTerryPratchett. I've got 2 dc with SEN and gentle parenting is the best way to keep my dc regulated and doing well.

Well, pedantically, you didn’t, you said she had firm boundaries and you followed GP.

Glad it worked for you. A bit over arguing tbh.

Gentle parenting is supposed to be authoritative parenting with lots of love but firm boundaries. I actually think it’s quite hard to implement in the way it is supposed to be done. I think it’s quite easy to do the acceptance of your child emotions bit but the boundaries bit seems to present a problem. I guess I try to quasi gentle parent, Dh is much better at it than I am tbh.

If someones claiming to be a gentle parent but their kid is behaving really badly without intervention then they aren’t a gentle parent.

It’s got a shit an inaccurate name tbf.

I do agree with some of that @LostTheMarble

As with most things, there is a middle ground.

But I do know I’d be considered highly abusive by the GP community for even considering sleep training (or for forward facing, for that matter.)

Gentle parenting involves setting clear boundaries, understanding a child's feelings and behavior while using empathy and respect. It's based on research and is considered a form of authoritative parenting.

Permissive parenting on the other hand involves giving children a lot of control and having few limits. Some characteristics of permissive parenting include, inconsistent boundaries, a lack of structure, pleading, bribing, and a reluctance to say "no" to a child.

They are quite different styles of parenting with very different outcomes.