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?

Some children do turn out well in spite of how they were parented.

This! If a child is raised properly from birth then you will never need to hit them. I’ve got a 13 year old DD who has always been an angel and an 11 year old DS who is ‘lively’. Neither of them get into much trouble at school as they were brought up with respect. DS has had 2 incidents when he followed some other boys and done something stupid at school, resulting in the teacher having to speak to me. Both times, he was sobbing his heart out at the thought of his dad and I finding out what he had done. He cried in the car all the way home - I didn’t even need to tell him off, just say how disappointed we were.

DS then lost everything he owned for a week - no devices, no tv, no toys, nothing fun. He came home and read and did extra work with me. He has never forgotten those 2 incidents. It’s healthy to have a little bit of fear of disappointing your parents - when children don’t have this, it becomes hard to parent them.

I am confident happy kind conscientious and responsible. I would also say I have issues from being smacked as a child.

My children are also all of the above despite never having been smacked.

Correlation is not causation.

Having said that I’m not in the gentle parenting or permissive parenting camp either.

But why are you routinely needing to physically restrain your child to brush their teeth? Neither of my kids have ever been massively resistant. One of them hates mint flavour so when I accidentally bought mint flavour toothpaste I quickly did it for her whilst empathising with the fact she hated the taste, then bought strawberry the next time. She wasn't keen but she didn't fight me off. I wouldn't want to brush with a flavour I hate either. The other one is a bit lazy and needed a bit of nagging to do it.

I've never had to physically hold them down and force a toothbrush into their mouths. I'd be a bit worried about them if they were that angry about having their teeth brushed.

Tbf, a lot of children don't like having their teeth brushed but I agree that restraint isn't the way. I turned things into a game based on Monsters Inc - scary teeth, scary teeth, scary teeth - brush the fronts and sides; roar - brush the rest of them.

On repeat until teeth had been fully brushed.

I think many times people misinterpret gentle parenting for permissive parenting. If you are doing it right then it works. For me it’s common sense to treat you kids with the respect you want back whilst showing them what could looks like and having boundaries and structure.

screaming at kids and punishing them teaches them nothing. And if does creates the behaviour you want you’ve basically taught your child to behave out of fear - who wants their kids growing up with that mindset?!

But it has - because you think it’s ok to smack another person , a small person at that even to get them to do what you want.

It’s not gentle parenting that’s failed per se, it’s that some (many) parents can’t parent gentle or otherwise. Similarly some parents can parent gentle or otherwise.

The basic problem is that many parents, who themselves are very ordinary, unintelligent people (remember half the country is by definition below average) seem to think that their children are “special” and that rules / boundaries don’t apply to them and only to other people.

They have absolutely no idea how awful at parenting they are because they can’t see what obnoxious selfish children they’ve brought up.

The debate over smacking is a complete red herring (although is is quite a helpful identifier as to who the bad parents are). Children were routinely smacked 30+ years ago. Generally didn’t do them any harm. People who don’t have a problem with children being smacked, whether or not they would smack the themselves are usually reasonable parents.

Anybody who is against smacking on principle is often a terrible parent who sets no boundaries for their children, who are all awful selfish kids. Of course not everyone, but it usually works that way.

We don't hit people. Any people. Especially vulnerable people. If you think smacking isn't hitting, it didn't do you any harm, and it's ok to hit vulnerable people - you are evidencing the harm that it did.

Gentle parenting works. Most people don't understand it and confuse it with permissive parenting, or never saying no. These threads are boring...

Exactly this. On what planet is hitting people to get them to do what you want, 'parenting'?

Anybody who is against smacking on principle is often a terrible parent who sets no boundaries for their children, who are all awful selfish kids. Of course not everyone, but it usually works that way.

Interesting because in my experience (anecdotal only, of course), it’s the parents who can’t cope with parenting who smack - they can’t manage the time and effort to actually parent their children so they use physical pain and fear instead.

It DID affect you. It normalised for you physical assault on children

Lost in the rainy day.

I can entirely get on board with your definitions in general. But I don't agree with your definition of strict parenting.

Strict parenting done correctly is firm boundaries and appropriate punishments. If my child throws his switch across the room in a rage because he has been told, it's time to let his sibling have a turn.

Sending him to his room cool down is not unrelated to the behaviour in question (real life example from this week!). It's a reminder that throwing objects and aiming for younger siblings is not acceptable and therefore extra consequences required. Yes eldest was very tired after a long week, yes younger siblings had said something that annoyed him but unacceptable behaviour requires strict consequences.

I don't smack my kids, precisely because I can sometimes have a temper and much prefer to remove myself from.situation where I start to lose my cool. But neither do I believe it's fair to say reasoned, thought through, increasing scales of punishment that end in a pre-warned smack on the back of the hand, is abuse.

Her husband gave her a gentle slap because she wasn’t doing as he said ….. unacceptable for adults, unacceptable for children

if you can only communicate using violence then I’d suggest emotional intelligence and communications skills need work

Also it not instant results - your building them up to be a well rounded adult. It doesn’t mean that because you once acknowledged their feeling and didn’t smack them when you normally would have done they suddenly become perfect. No you are teaching life skills and the effort you put in gradually shows up.

Anybody who is against smacking on principle is often a terrible parent who sets no boundaries for their children, who are all awful selfish kids. Of course not everyone, but it usually works that way.

Anyone who smacks their children is often a terrible parent who allows their temper free rein and hurts and terrorises their children, who are ruled by fear and end up with serious mental health issues.

See how silly you sound? Only the issue is that the research overwhelmingly supports the outcomes as described in paragraph 2.

Terrifying someone with violence doesn't improve their behavoiur.

That's what I thought too, I thought gentle parenting was about not using negative language or saying no.

Gentle parenting and a lack of boundaries are not the same. It’s simply one of many parenting approaches that these parents chose to follow, and it didn’t work out for them. No one forced them to adopt it. The issue isn’t gentle parenting itself, but how they applied it.

Violence is a sign of incompetence.

Anybody who is against smacking on principle is often a terrible parent who sets no boundaries for their children, who are all awful selfish kids. Of course not everyone, but it usually works that way.

Of course you've added the "not everyone" caveat, because it gives you a get out of jail free card to peddle this bullshit and then say "oh but you're the exception" when people prove you wrong.

DD10 came to me unprompted yesterday and said "I'm sorry, I thought about disobeying what you said and putting the TV back on, but I know that would have broken your trust in me. I've come to say sorry for wanting to do it". I gave her a big hug, thanked her for her honesty and told her I was proud of her for thinking about the trust between us and making an appropriate decision, and not to be sorry for thinking or wanting to do things.

We aren't an exception; the vast majority of truly gently-parented children are able to communicate their feelings and reasoning in this way once they reach a certain age, and they think through the consequences of their actions, and make a decision on the basis of this - not "if I do this mum/dad will hit me".

But yes, that's my awful selfish kid who I've raised with no boundaries because I'm a terrible parent.

You don't need to hit children but you do need to provide clear boundaries and this includes with socializing, feeding and toileting. Gentle parenting is a joke and school staff are paying the price with under-socialized children who can't cope in social settings. It's one of the reasons schools struggle to recruit when staff are being hurt daily by children who can't cope with the word no.

I really wonder what is wrong with people who think like you.

Erm, no it doesn’t change. I have an 8 year old. Never crossed my mind to smack him. Had firm boundaries since he was little, not afraid to say no. But there is no other situation where the acceptable answer to dealing with another human is to knock them about. Why on earth would it be for a child?