That's because it's not. Gentle parenting is very vague and fluid with definitions but includes parents not being allowed to say simply say "No, stop that!" or set non negotiable firm rules as everything has to be a negotiation. The child's feelings are always centred to the detriment of anyone in a hurry, feeling human impatience or wishing to simply parent their child without having to explain endlessly or whisper or (insert nonsense here).
Children are taught that there is no hierarchy. Their feelings are paramount.
This is a good explanation of why it doesn't, and cannot work.
"At bottom, gentle parenting discards the very concepts of truth and authority, in deference to the capricious tyranny of both parents’ and children’s feelings. The approach requires that parents model the kind of facility with emotional language that we want children to have. That’s why it is considered a good example of gentle parenting to say: “When you don’t get ready on time, it hurts my feelings and makes me anxious. Why are you having a hard time?”
There are two problems with a statement like this one, in a situation where a parent is trying to get out the door: First, the problem with not getting ready on time is that it is inconsiderate, inefficient, and disrespectful of others’ time; whether I “feel anxious” about it is wholly immaterial. Second, “why you are having a hard time being on time” is a conversation we by definition do not have time for in this circumstance. By beginning such a conversation in this moment, I am being inconsiderate and disrespectful toward whomever we are not on time for.
In other words: what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong, no matter how either the child or the parent feels about it. This is why any civilization that carves an ordered society out of the harsh barbarism of nature is built on rules, laws, and mores that incentivize and reward what is right while stigmatizing and penalizing what is wrong. "
lawliberty dot org/the-case-against-gentle-parenting/
Gentle parenting is fundamentally flawed and cannot work in the vast majority of cases. It is simply ineffective parenting.
The correct model is still authoratitive (not authoritarian or permissive) parenting, which the gentle parenting cult members try to latch on to and claim for themselves.
However authoratitive parenting absolutely DOES expect parents to (at times) exercise their authority and duty as an adult and lay down rules which the child must obey and must obey instantly - discussion is for later once the behaviour has been controlled/insisted upon.
Inefective gentle parents believe that all behaviour stems from how connected the child is with their caregivers. 🙄
Authoratitive parenting sometimes requires punishment, or discipline if you prefer that word. Ineffective "gentle" parents do not condone punishment, ever. They rely instead on consequences. However, sometimes the consequence of disobeying a parent must be punishment/ discipline and must be immediate and it is perfectly ok to teach children that punishent and discipline exists in the real world.
Authoratitive parenting also accepts that the world is filled with other people who you will be expected to treat with respect, at least initially, and whose feelings matter just as much as the child's desire not to share, get ready on time or whatever other behaviour they are exhibiting that is causing distress to others etc.
Gentle parenting centres the child's feelings, expecting parents to be angels with with the time to endlessly put their child's wants and feelings first and with the endless patience to explain everything over and over and over and over. It also wrongly expects children to have a much more adult understanding of the world than they do.
But worse, it expects everyone else to tolerate this too.
It's actually very cruel to raise kids like this. They get into a situation where mummy and daddy are not there to protect them, they have always been allowed to do things at their own pace or not do them at all, and then they meet real life.
Gentle parenting relies on what people wish children were like, and what they wish human nature could be. And so - for the most part - it doesn't work.