To think “gentle parenting” is just a rebrand of being too afraid to say no?

[TheEdgyTiger]

Not everything needs to be a feelings-based negotiation.

@ungratefulcat

Meanwhile my friend who was wildly strict with her children about everything couldn't control them near roads /water etc because they didn't see her being firm about that any different to her 80000 other rules.

Exactly. If parents say no to everything, children fairly quickly work out that most of the rules enforced are arbitrary, silly and unenforceable. It's a bit of a boy who cried wolf scenario.

Well you are partly right, but as well as saying the external behaviour is not OK, you need to explain to them that their internal furious rage is not OK either.

You don't want kids going round the playground with fists bunched as they try to control the urge to punch another kid in the face, you want them to not have that urge in the first place.

It's just not how it works in my house so my daughters know I am firm on boundaries but will always empathise where I can. It's transformative as it helps them deal with their feelings about it and move on very quickly from the no as they feel heard respected and understood.

The problem is that gentle parenting is wildly misunderstood and not done correctly. A gentle parent will still hold firm boundaries and have logical natural consequences. What is happening is actually permissive parenting which is very different and making teacher lives hell!

I think we're beginning to find out as they trickle into the workplace.

But this is way too much language for a preschool child. They won't hear any of the feelings stuff because they can only remember 4 or 5 words.

Or you could learn the difference between gentle parenting and permissive parenting.

They are easy to distinguish between unless you’re choosing to be lazy and believe that they are the same.

I wish someone would explain it to me then, in ways other than what I see in the wild, which is mainly wimpy voices and very very long sentences "oh Jocasta you can't do that, can't you see Timmy is playing with that, he'll be really sad if you take it" from which Jocasta understands *take it" because she's 2.

This is hardly new, though, is it? My husband and I worked this out with the help of a few popular books on bringing up children way back in the early 1990s. It wasn't called gentle parenting or any other sort of parenting. It's quite obvious that if you have as few rules as possible, limited to the really important stuff, you have a far greater chance of getting children to stick to them.

As for the idea that it's a new and revolutionary idea not to get cross with a toddler having a tantrum, that's just nonsense. My parents were born in the early 1930s and generally took a fairly authoritarian approach to childrearing, but they understood instinctively that tiny children having a tantrum were not being naughty. They need time to get over it and they need to be removed from anywhere they were unsafe or annoying other people.

I'm very sympathetic to parents with young children having a difficult time. I do, however, lose sympathy very quickly indeed when parents let their children behave in a way that is inconsiderate of other people, e.g. running around in shops and cafes. If we have to give this a label, I'd call it negligent parenting. These parents are not doing their children any favours.

My Preschool child is perfectly capable of conversation on that level.

Teen pregnancy has had slight rises in the last few years.

I used to embrace gentle parenting. I believed Sarah Ockwell Smith wholeheartedly and tried earnestly to follow the principles.

I think there are a lot of problems with gentle parenting, though. It just didn’t work with DS, at all. Acknowledging his feeling - if he could hear me over the screams. Sleep training - we had to. It was severely impacting my mental health, my relationship, my job, my friendships, my sense of worth, and probably my safety.

Once I started to question it I started to see a lot wrong with it. The main thing is that whenever someone criticises it or questions whether it’s effective someone else pipes up that well, that’s not gentle parenting. I also don’t like the way that all feelings are seen as acceptable (and expressing them) - so for instance if my four year old wants some ice cream and I say no, I don’t mind ‘aww, I really wanted some.’ But if he’s whining for ages about it it’s easy for parents to think ‘ah but I upheld the boundary, I didn’t get him ice cream’ - yes, but whining and complaining is still something that most people won’t appreciate and that does need teaching.

You’re also (iirc) not supposed to use bribery in gentle parenting which I think is just making everyone’s life unnecessarily difficult !

I'm not sure if I do gentle parenting. I try and do calm, consistent parenting (though it can be exhausting!).

I certainly don't do 'I'll give you something to cry about' but I wasn't told that. And I was brought up in an authoritarian, shouty manner in the 1970s and 1980s.

This example is just engaging with a 2 year old in a developmentally inappropriate way. A 2 year old trying to take something just needs a "it's Timmy's turn, right now". If they protest the you acknowledge their feelings but reinforce the boundary. " I know this made you cross but it's Timmy's turn". Then distract. A permissive parent would waffle on for a bit and then just let them take it to keep them quiet. An authoritarian parent would just say no and then punish. The authoritarian approach sounds easier but doesn't help the child actually learn which is the point of discipline. It actually means 'to teach'.

I also doubt OP is a genuine poster - just looking for a rise.

youre confusing emotions and behaviour. Being disappointed about the ice cream is fine, whining for ages - behaviour isn’t. Gentle parenting isn’t indulging every behaviour under the guise of respecting emotions. It’s about respecting emotions whilst also controlling/correcting behaviour.

I don’t subscribe to any parenting narrative but would say I’m a gentle parent on the whole - or I aspire to be. It’s not going to look for the same for all kids. I approach my two children differently, but it’s not a different class or type of parenting, it’s just tailored to their needs and what works for them. Ie one child does NOT want comforting during a tantrum, there’s no point attempting discussion until he’s calm later on and totally over it. The other WILL want comfort shortly after the event and can discuss it much sooner. One can cope with being told no, the other needs to hear what you do want them to do.

I also think that’s fine.

I think though as children get older we can be a bit firmer. Something I have seen a lot of on gentle parenting groups is that children have no impulse control and therefore cannot be blamed or held responsible for their actions and I don’t think that’s true. I have a four year old and a (nearly) two year old. If my two year old pushed another child I’d say firmly ‘no, we don’t push our friends.’ If my four year old did it I would be firmer and a lot more disapproving. It isn’t doing him any favours to behave as if he’s somehow not in control of his actions at all.

However you also get the other extreme on here, where it’s rarely if ever acknowledged that mostly well behaved children can have their moments. I would say DS (4) is 70% lovely, 20% boisterous and silly and then a small minority of the time (often when feeling not 100%) he can be surly, sullen, rude, defiant and stroppy. He really isn’t like this most of the time and it’s pretty much always just aimed at me. I once posted for advice and some of the replies were helpful but some were awful, calling him names, telling me he’d meet his comeuppance in school (with barely concealed glee at the thought) and then many diagnosed him with autism, PDA, ADHD and various other things …

As with all things it’s about balance. There are times when it’s fine to be firm and times when it’s okay to listen and to redirect or to acknowledge the feelings.

(incidentally one massive issue I have with the SOS train of thought is how many parents think gentle parenting can be extended to gentle teaching )

So are we saying that gentle parenting would not be ‘I know you want an ice cream’? ‘I hear you’re very disappointed you’re not getting one.’ ‘I understand you really, really wanted that ice cream’?

Because yes, that’s exactly what gentle parenting is - but of course, anyone who does gentle parenting and finds that it doesn’t work for them is told ‘but that’s not gentle parenting!’ So obviously it works, if anyone it doesn’t work for is purportedly doing it all wrong!

I'm sure you believe that but they can say way more than they understand. You just carry on thinking you've given birth to a genius though. I'll read about children's actual capabilities, me.

The ability of a preschool child varies wildly.

I wonder if that is why I found this style of parenting possible, because mine were capable of this kind of conversation long before they started school. They were both talking in sentences well before their second birthdays.

My son could discuss and understand (and explain to me) concepts like commensalism (thank you octonauts!) before he was three ( I know because we had that conversation at an aquarium before his sister was born)

This is the most MN post ever.

Of course some children are capable of this. It might not be "the norm" but it doesn't mean there aren't plenty of children who can
Mine have stayed at top of the top set in their teens so it may be related to intelligence, but possibly also that I spoke to them lots and read them lots of stories.

Intended or not, this is lofty and supercilious.

"I know that made you cross but it's Timmy's turn now" is also way too much for that age.

It's just an anecdote about my children. They are who they are.
Mumsnet appealed to me because it was (or used to be) mainly used by a fairly well educated and intelligent group of women. I didnt realise I had to pretend my children were stupid to fit in now. I thought I left that shit behind at high school