Is gentle parenting effective

[Lifeisinteresting]

I was born in mid 80s so my parents parented like typical 80s parents, more tough love than softer approach. My daughter was born in the 00s we took a boundaries, firm but fair approach. I see posts on MN or with my friends who now have young kids who gentle parent and can't help but think half the reactions are down to not setting reasonable boundaries and responses.

Gentle parenting does have boundaries and responses. Perhaps you are thinking of neglectful, ineffective or permissive parenting?

Gentle parenting is just working with your DCs emotions. Not shaming them unnecessarily.

I think you have to be specific about what you’ve seen that you think doesn’t work, rather than criticising ‘gentle parenting’ while we might not all agree what that is.

What is the difference in gently parenting or letting children getting away with everything?

From the people i speak to about 'gentle parenting' no 2 people agree on what it is

If it means spending 20 minutes telling a child why they should stop doing something rather than 'no' then no i dont do it, but i don't shout or hit so not sure

True gentle parenting means setting firm boundaries in a calm and respectful manner. It is much harder to do than the IMO lazy, lose your shit parenting that often results in DC that don't know how to manage their emotions and ignore requests unless screamed at them. If you don't know what something is, you should Google it before starting a thread about it.

Another thread that (possibly deliberately) confuses gentle parenting with boundary-less parenting.

People just want to criticise other parents.

This post should be bookmarked at the top of every thread on gentle parenting.

Lots of 'gentle' parents seem to be producing quite precocious children, sadly. Too much debating and creating a friendship as opposed to actual parenting. Of course there will be someone along to say 'that's not gentle parenting'. 😬🫣

If you think gentle parenting doesn’t have boundaries then you have NO idea what gentle parenting actually is.

Its true name is authoritative parenting , and it’s entirely about setting boundaries and having natural and logical consequences.

Most people are like you and don’t understand what it is, confusing it with permissive parenting.

Some individuals parenting is effective, other individuals parenting is not.

Thinking across my friends, they are all very clear with boundaries for their children, they say no, they are told off and so on… but all also make the effort for their children to understand what they are doing wrong, they aren’t in the habit of shouting, reacting emotionally, or physically restraining and endlessly disciplining their children over petty infractions.

I think a lot of children of eg the 80s would say their parents were unnecessarily disciplinarian, never considered their feelings / treated them as individuals etc.

Proper gentle parenting has done incredible things for DD and for us as parents. Proper gentle parenting is respectful and firm and uses the traditional meaning of "discipline" - to teach.

Just shouting at your children or allowing yourself to lose your shit is just as lazy and ineffective as permissive parenting.

Is it effective? Based on my experience of my kids- it’s absolutely fantastic! I couldn’t be prouder of how they are turning out 🥰

People also love to think it was soooo much better int their day, and everyone is so awful nowadays.

On a whole variety of topics….!

If you know that people will tell you that that's not gentle parenting (because it isn't), why would you post something you know to be inaccurate? 🤔

I would say I’m boarderline gentle parenting but I have also had lots of comments that I’m very strict my children.

I acknowledge their feelings and sometimes it’s hard but give good reasons why something is happening.

But i also have very firm boundaries on behaviour and what’s expected from everyone in the family, adults and children. Emotions are talked about, clear communication on how we are feeling (or if are too young where they feeling things in their body, anxiety is stomach or anger could be shoulders / hands)

If we are in the park and they aren’t listening, the consequence is we don’t go to the park the day after. I will explain it by saying yesterday you weren’t listening to me when i said it’s time to go, this made me feel very frustrated. We can’t go to the park until we have practiced our listening skills today. Potentially we can go to be park tomorrow if you x/y/z.

Most parents I see who claim to be “gentle parenting” expect their child to have an emotional understanding well beyond their actual age. So is completely ineffective. I’m sure there are others out there who can do it properly!

I don't know it to be inaccurate, others will claim it is.

Yes, in my experience. I've been following gentle parenting strategies with my son for nearly five years and they work well for us.

By gentle parenting I mean the following:

• I don't do punishments. No shouting / hitting / time outs / removal of privileges. There are natural consequences where appropriate, for example if he threw a toy when younger I would remove it, or I would take him out of a situation where his behaviour was unsafe or inappropriate
• We have firm boundaries. If I say no to something and he is angry or upset as a result, he still doesn't get the thing. If I tell him not to do something and he continues to do it I immediately physically intervene to prevent the unwanted behaviour.
• I am respectful of his feelings. He's allowed to be angry / disappointed / sad. He is not allowed to express those feelings in ways which are harmful to himself or others.
• we spend a lot of time when he's calm and happy working on safe and effective methods of emotional regulation so that he has strategies to help him when he's struggling
• I am kind and respectful and empathetic in the way I speak to him
• I have age-appropriate expectations of his behaviour, and I understand what he is and is not likely to be capable of in terms of emotional regulation

He is nearly five now and is a lovely child. He has very good emotional regulation skills, his behaviour is reliably good, he's generally a joy to be around.

We do it, both our children are well behaved and polite, they’re not perfect, and we wouldn’t expect them to be. But this home has always been tantrum, strop and shouting free. We don’t have a need for severe punishment, harsh language, grounding etc as its very unusual for ours to misbehave or being rude etc. They of course still do stupid things on occasion, as thats completely normal despite being irritating.

Absolutely this.
They deny it though, every time.
Expecting emotional level beyond what a child is able to grasp is actually not being kind at all.

Because it is 🙂 hope this helps.

I did all of this too, but to me that's just parenting.

What are you actually claiming to be inaccurate exactly?

@Hoooray your approach isn't too different from what I called firm but fair. I think my point on gentle parenting comes on as you mention having realistic emotional expectations for the age, which is where I think I see it fall flat with friends.

Quite. I’ve been a teacher for over 20 years in several fairly affluent areas. The decline in general behaviour is quite shocking. Children just don’t understand the word no anymore. Basic manners are also in short supply. How difficult is it to teach your kids to say please and thank you?

@MaryBeardsShoes this is exactly where I see it go wrong.

From your OP, it looks like you gentle patented yourself. Firm but fair with boundaries is 90 % of gentle parenting..If you also made a commitment to treating your kids respectfully and ensuring they understand why you enforced a specific boundary, congratulations you did the dictionary definition of gentle parenting.