Gentle Parenting has failed, lets accept this.

[Zod666]

I read everyday about children's behaviour, even primary school age where they are out of control, don't fear or respect adults and this is all down to that loverly middle class BS known as 'Gentle Parenting'.

Let's just call this out for what it is, because it does not work. I have a friend who's 8 year old son does what he likes, is disrespectful, hits his mum and no amount of 'punishment' such as removal of electronic devices etc makes a blind bit of difference, he just does not care.

So how do we discipline children like this? is it really bad to give them a measured smack on the back of the legs/bum? Obviously there is a difference between a smack to correct a child and beating the hell out of them which is child abuse and should be prosecuted, and in England smacking is still legal.......

In years gone by their have always been kids that will go too far, and by this I mean the James Bulger killers who I think no amount of discipline would have changed their outcome in life, but for the majority of kids I feel we are failing them with this soft approach where there think they can do anything without repercussions.

AIBU?

I didnt hit my children! I could count on 1 hand the amount of times tapped the back or their hand. A stern telling of usually sufficed i've said this!

And yes, I have 3 lovely young men

We all know you hit your children as you told us about it. It's quite encouraging that you now desperately want to convince yourself you didn't, because it means you know how wrong it was, but you can't take back your posts.

Keep telling yourself that.

Gentle parenting isn't the problem it's no parenting. Some people aren't potty training their kids or brushing their teeth or in fact doing anything with them at all.

Why are they not potty training ? Why are they not brushing teeth?

Is is because they are trying to be gentle and if the child says no they are stuck ? How exactly does gentle parenting work when the child just says no ? When the child fights and throws the toothbrush away ?

"A telling off, at the time they did it, if they took no notice and did it again it was a tap to the hand, and a stern No, if they did it again I would remove toys."

You here,.. saying that you'd hit them, then if they did it again take the toy off them ... that's you telling us m hitting didn't work

That also means telling them off didn't work either! And it says tap on the hand - i did not hit them! Google the difference between a tap and a hit.

Taps aren't a punishment. You hit them. "Smacked" if you prefer to use your original word, but smacking is just a word for hitting that child-hitters prefer to use.

YES you did. If you "tapped" an adult on the hand, that would be assault and you could be prosecuted for it. They court wouldn't care that you've come up with a stupid, cutesy word to try to minimise what you did. You hit them. Own it.

This is the issue people have with gentle parenting, they don't understand it or know how it works at all. Gentle parenting isn't about letting your DC decide and do as they like. It is about holding boundaries in a calm and compassionate way. People who effectively gentle parent have clear, consistent boundaries.

You did. There's no getting away from that.

If I hit them it would have been giving them a 'bat' where I came from.

Just leave me alone please, I did not HIT my children. I commented on this post and i've been lynched ever since because i misworded something in my OP.

I only have to look at my son and he knows to cut the crap. I don't have to touch him. You don't need to manhandle your child to potty train them. DS was potty trained at 3 with just kindness and plenty of hugs and encouragement. I'd have to ask why this child is crying, screaming and throwing things.

Gentle parenting =/= permissive parenting. The problem is that lots of people don't know the difference. Children who've actually been gentle parented are generally confident, curious, and happy to take direction from adults.

Whether you call it a tap or a smack or a thwack or whatever, it's hitting children. You haven't been lynched and you didn't misword anything; you were called out on hitting your children and now you're trying to make yourself the victim.

Would you be fine with your boss "tapping" you on the hand for a work mistake? Or your spouse "tapping" you on the hand for not doing something they asked?

While I am sure there are lots of parents who aren't potty training, tooth brushing etc with their children, I do tend to think that modelling behaviours in the home as opposed to training children works pretty well in the long term. Children get on their feet and walk if that's what everyone around them is doing, just as they enjoy books because their parents enjoy reading with them and they learn to eat with a knife and fork if they are given small (blunt) ones at table with the rest of the family. Things don't require massive investments if they are family normality.

You can stop engaging with the thread but you can't stop people replying to you, and people are going to reply when you tell outright lies contradicted by your earlier posts. You hit your children.

In the original definition of gentle parenting, parents have to follow through on these types of things.

A classic way of handling it would be: "I can see you are feeling very sad/angry about brushing your teeth. As your parent, it's my job to keep you healthy and safe, and that means your teeth need to be cleaned. I can do it, or you can do it yourself. OK, I can see you have thrown your toothbrush and are not ready to make a choice, so I will make the choice and brush your teeth."

If the child is so resistant to toothbrushing that they are fighting and need to be actively restrained then I'd suggest that any good parent would need to start looking at underlying reasons for this (Sensory issues with the toothpaste/toothbrush? Some sort of bad experience with the dentist? Toothache?) and address them, but in the mean time, the teeth need to be brushed. You are bigger than them and shouldn't need to hit them to get them under control.

Unfortunately, this calm approach is time consuming and frustrating (especially when you are on a tight timescale to get them to bed or out of the door) and if a parent is trying hard to avoid authoritarianism ("Brush your teeth right now or I will do punishment") they might instead become permissive and just say "Oh well, never mind," which is not gentle and is, in fact, abusive.

Ok, so you still haven't explained why "tapping" them on the hand was effective...

If it was such a light tap, what was the point of it? What, in your mind, did it achieve??

The only reason I'd tap the back of my child's hand is to get their attention if I thought they hadn't heard me, and that's more like... drumming/tickling of the fingers on their hand and physical sensation to get their attention.

And the reason people think you smacked your child is because you said that "It rarely got to the smack on the hand to be honest - a stern telling off was what it normally took. After the smack on the hand I would restrict some toys"

So you would hit your child on the back of the hand - sorry tap - sorry hit - sorry tap, not sure what you mean

I didn't explain why telling them off sternly was effective either, or was that me shouting, yelling, screaming, berating my child? I'm sure you will take that whatever way you want to take it

Enjoy your weekend

Look, face itz you messed up with parenting at times, and that's ok ... We all do.

Going back in time would you still use the same methods? Knowing that the removal of the toy was the effective way to teach the child? Or would you STILL resort to "tapping" then before removing the toy?

Well, you didn't say shout/yell you said Stern I believe.

Nobody thinks having a stern word is unacceptable.

Just seems a bit misguided to go straight to negative ways, rather than choosing a less aggressive approach.

"Do not hit with toys , otherwise the toy will be removed" - be firm, clear etc. then follow through.

No need to go aggressive, aggressive, then resolve 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I think also the "I will make your brush your teeth" needs to be started early whilst you can physically control a child without hurting them - and many people don't like to upset their younger children because they are small - and suddenly they are too big to restrain

If you don't want people to say you hit children, the best thing to do is not hit children. It's worked for me.

So they just keep getting consequences on top of consequences. You hit them, then you still had to take away their stuff. So hitting them didn't work, did it?
If it was taking their stuff away that worked, just do that first. Don't hit children.

Also you can call it what you like - make yourself feel better by calling it a tap or whatever - it's still hitting. And if it was just a tap and didn't hurt them, what was the point in doing it? Parents who hit their kids and can't think of any other ways to parent are just shit parents.

Luckily the world has changed and these days lots of parents recognize that there are other ways to get results than resorting to hitting children. Id rather be a gentle parent than thinking we can teach right from wrong by hitting - sorry, "tapping" 🙄someone so much smaller than ourselves. That's just stupid and completely illogical.