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.

Why? Do we all have to pretend our children are stupid just to make others feel more comfortable?

My eldest wouldn’t have been at the same age but my youngest most definitely is capable. Neither are stupid - their communication just matured at different rates.

Preschoolers who are about to start school can absolutely understand a 4-5 word sentence 🤦‍♀️

As a teacher of 10 years, I think the problem comes when every little telling off, expectation, instruction is now open to negotiation by the parents and children. They forget it or ignore the fact that I don't have time to ask Felicity what her motivations and feelings were when she was chatting with her friend in class/scribbling on her book/called someone stupid. If I did that with everyone I'd have no time to teach! Minor issues become huge dramas. It's not just the usual 2/3 children with behaviour issues that causes me to claw my eyes out. It's the slow chip, chip away at my authority by parents who just don't trust what I say or do anymore. There are lower expectations by parents, children and SLT in general. I still love it in general, but so much of my time is wasted.

No, but you are implying that your children are intelligent because of your direct actions (and therefore that if your child is ‘stupid’, which is a strange word for someone earnestly advocating treating children with respect) it is also because of a parents actions, or lack of.

The examples people are giving are way longer than that.

And young two year olds are just about able to understand two concepts together like "Daddy's hat" or "no hitting".

For some children yes, but I would still say it or a version of. Of course it will develop according to the child's understanding. I was just trying to explain the difference in approach.

A two year old is a toddler? A preschooler is 3+

You'll get lots of responses on here saying 'thats not gentle parenting ' it's 'permissive' but in truth these days they equal the same thing.

Oh no this again 😩

Gentle parenting is NOT permissive parenting. See the difference op?

I'm sorry you are dealing with that. I can only imagine.

Sometimes the 'rougher' kids are better disciplined than the very middle class ones who've been negotiating for hours on Meredith's decision to gauge her baby brothers eyes out and finally came to the conclusion that she may gauge just the one eye out to keep the peace.

How ironically perfectly timed @healthyteeth 😜

Ok, so far I've got the idea that gentle parenting means explaining what a child's feelings might be along with telling them what they can and can't do.
I think that's too much talking for younger children, and often for older children I have to say, partly because I don't think we need to label a frustration at not getting sweets, or drag out negative situations.
But is there more? I see people saying "don't have too many boundaries so they will know the ones you have are serious".
But my DCs know that running in the road is "never, serious" and eating sweets after you've brushed your teeth is "you'll get told to go and brush them again and you might not get them tomorrow".

And I also see a lot of privilege. If your family is in temporary accommodation and you're worried about your children being put into care then being clean and tidy at school is an absolute must. You fear judgement and worse.

If you are a mildly hippy middle class family your child can go to school with uncut and unbrushed hair and you won't feel judged. You don't need to have that rule.

Same for Black families, who get more judged on even mildly poor behaviour, messy hair etc.

What have I missed, what else comes under what you would call "real gentle parenting"?

Haha yes 😜

They don’t equal the same thing though. Care to explain why you disagree?

If you are gentle parenting by just saying yes all the time you have missed the point of gentle parenting.

There's a lot of "this isn't GP, neither is this" but little of what it IS.
@SquashedMallow in US studies it's the Black families who have to be more authoritarian with their children because life doesn't ever give them a second chance, they have to listen to authority the first time or in some cases.

This bit “…children should be treated with kindness and due consideration for their feelings. I think wherever possible life should be arranged so the 'no's' are kept to a minimum, by avoiding situations where their wishes and yours will conflict and not having too many rules and restrictions about trivial things. Where that isn't possible I think a firm no with an age appropriate reason is sufficient” is Gentle Parenting, the rest is not.

I've spent most of my teaching career in very deprived areas. You absolutely deal with some fucking insane difficult parents there, but by far the worst school I've had for petty, vindictive, entitled parents on a day-to-day was at a leafy, no uniform, kids-call-you-by-your-first-name school. I had a group of bullies mums on an absolute campaign against me and it was an awful time. WhatsApp group all calling me horrible names and coordinating letters/emails to the head.

The crime? I presented the Queen Bee parent with evidence that in fact her child had been bullying another girl by putting notes in her backpack such as 'your mum's poor', throwing things at her when my back was turned and encouraging other children to exclude her. Suddenly it's all flipped around and the QBs child is being bullied, and hadn't I remembered that this child had called her a name 2 years ago?! Children in leafy places are far more likely to 'do no wrong'.

Gentle Parenting is absolutely appalling and should be made illegal. How any parent could treat their child with respect while enforcing boundaries and teaching them what emotions they’re feeling and how to deal with them so they can navigate the world with self-confidence while treating the people they meet along the way with respect and kindness is beyond me!

It’s tantamount to abuse….

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

Indeed. Saying yes all the time is permissive parenting.

Though certain things may feature in both styles such as kindness and connection, the major difference is that one has no boundaries or limits and one does.

Everyone likes to be heard. You may feel that acknowledgement of feelings is not necessary but it's what makes the difference between a child hearing 'because I said so' and 'I understand and emphasise, but no'. The second, if done consistently fosters emotional intelligence which many adults are lacking.

You ask what else, I would say it's not doing things which no parent should anyway but some still do; belittle, humiliate, tease, take their own anger or frustration out on, illogical consequences, harsh punishment, over reliance on bribery, always giving in, never admitting they are wrong or made a mistake, shouting, aggression, because I said so etc, too many choices.
All seems like just be a good parent yeah? Because it is. That's why everyone gets so frustrated.

This sounds way too much like being a doormat, but also very privileged.

I can't arrange my kids' lives so they are going to avoid situations of conflict. For a start, they are adopted and will probably never get to meet some birth family members they'd really like to get to know. One of them finds some kinds of learning very hard but has to try and try. Many families won't be able to meet all their children's needs at the same time.

I'd rather get my kids used to "no means no" than avoid saying no.

No teasing? Really? We have plenty of that across the generations in my family and we've all turned out fine. A lot of what I'm reading here sounds so earnest and humourless. I'm not talking about belittling, bullying or humiliating, I'm talking about learning to laugh at oneself, which I regard as an essential life skill.

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what gentle parenting is and it often gets confused with permissive parenting. I would say we "gentle" parented in that when we said no or put a rule in place, we explained why, we validated feelings but not unacceptable behaviour, and we let DC have age appropriate choices and input. But we absolutely did use the word "no" and had clear boundaries and expectations, and were occasionally prepared to be unpopular and not rush to rescue them from their feelings. Experiencing natural consequences is important for social and emotional development. They both have SEN, so we had to distinguish between what was genuine dysregulation and not coping, and what was them testing boundaries, doing daft things, or disregarding instructions, like the time DS and his mate ruined his mate's parents' newly seeded lawn playing footy on it when they'd been told not to, and he wasn't allowed back until the lawn had been reseeded and recovered. That's a consequence of not respecting someone else's property, and was fair given the boys' ages at the time, I wasn't about to go storming in making excuses for him. But he didn't get any extra artificial punishment imposed by us, as the natural consequence was not being allowed to go to his mate's house.

We were careful when they were wee lads about not expecting things of them that they couldn't yet cope with adequately, pre-empting sensory overload, being prepared to leave things early rather than risk a meltdown, etc. I suppose some would think that's permissive parenting, but to us that was just sensible and pragmatic.

You deserve a medal. I can well believe it. When my children were at primary school in the late 1990s I remember a mother who was herself a teacher begging her daughter's class teacher to change her mind about making the daughter and her best friend sit at opposite sides of the class because, in spite of many warnings, they persisted in talking in class. I couldn't believe it. It sounds as if things have got steadily worse since then.