To think that gentle parenting only works with kids that were easygoing anyway

[Thingything]

Just this.

I live in a yummy mummy part of the UK where gentle parenting is all the rage. Where the parents have kids who are, shall we say, spirited, it seems the result is kids who turn into utter monsters with no sense of boundaries and terrorize their parents.

I also have friends who gentle parent and their kids are delightful and sweet. Though those kids are the ones that even in baby groups would be sat, listening nicely, playing with a toy. I'm going to say 'compliant kids'.

Maybe this is because gentle parenting is based on a lot of talking, so you need kids with a reasonably developed sense of listening, patience and understanding to really apply it, and with some kids that doesn't develop until older.

Interested whether it's just me who has noticed this - and indeed if anyone has successfully managed to do a full Ockwell-Smith on a spirited / not naturally compliant child and can prove me wrong!

and you know this because?

I think gentle parenting (in its true form) works even better on spirited kids than compliant ones as it generally reduces the likelihood of the power struggles. In my view it’s the more authoritarian parenting that appears to work well with a compliant child as they are less likely to enter a power struggle when they get some ridiculous punishment that feels completely unrelated to the transgression.

I think the trouble with anecdotal judgement of “gentle parenting” is that we as parents are never perfect and it depends on how well you are making it work and whether you’re descending into either permissive parenting or ending up at the end of your tether and shouting at them. Both of which are understandable but going to undermine the approach and give a less consistent message to the Dc and result in “worse” behaviour.

I don't really understand this comment. I think being emotionally mature and not labelling people as lazy, whining, rude, greedy and so on, is a helpful thing to be in the world. Calling names doesn't work on me, it makes me defensive when people do it. It doesn't work on other adults, or colleagues, or friends, or strangers. When I feel shame I don't learn.

It doesn't work on children, except sometimes to achieve the crudest level of short term obedience, which surely we're beyond holding up as the top standard.

The only benefit it brings is relieving the feelings of the parent whose own emotional needs aren't being met in that moment.

I'm not 'terminally offended' by anything, in fact I don't really know what that means. I'm just a better human when I divorce my frustration with other people from the way I choose to talk to them. I'm a better parent when I assume that the child has a start point of having a reason for what they do,and honouring that reason, even if I know they ultimately won't get what they want and they are likely to react emotionally to that.

@somanythingssolittletime Plenty of dc are not capable of understanding and learning from the discussion! This is what parents will not recognise. Not all dc are capable of this for a number of reasons. It’s important to recognise when this works and when a more direct approach is needed. Too many parents plough on without realising dc are not responding and, frankly, are not pleasant dc.

My child is the spirited, non-compliant sort. He’s not easy!
Now he’s in school, I do wonder if I’ve done any of it right…

Pretty much the same tactics with mine. Both have turned out pretty ok so far although adolescence for one was challenging,

The problem was that one was emotionally regulated enough to take on board explanations and a lot of words and one would explode if we tried that technique because she got very frustrated and overwhelmed by emotion. She later turned out to have ASD. So it’s horses for courses.

I’ve never really thought of it that way if I’m honest. I was 19 when I had my son and a single parent and did baby led weaning and then came across gentle parenting which I liked the idea of. I didn’t do it 100% according to the method but instead used some of the principles but just knew I didn’t want to parent in the way I was brought up as a late 90s baby with authoritarian methods. I was brought up knowing the look I got given by my dad when I was about to get my pants pulled down and smacked while being swung from one arm.

In comparison my dad and grandparents commented how good my son was and how he was nothing like me but I’ve never smacked him. I did use the word no, especially if he tried to hit I’d say no and place him down away from me, every single time. But I placed big emphasis on talking especially about feelings and don’t think he turned out too bad considering I was 19 and on my own. I quickly learnt there’s not really a rule book for parenting (as long as it’s not authoritarian and violent like I had) but the principles of gentle parenting really helped guide me and I’ve never smacked my son and rarely raised my voice and he’s nearly 10 now. Although I must say these late primary school years are pretty testing with attitude and showing off to their peers!

My neighbour was a gentle parent and her children were awful to my kids to the point where I stopped agreeing to play dates etc. Her kids would snatch toys off mine at our house, refuse to let my kids play with their toys at their house and were generally very badly behaved and in some cases violent or very unkind. All while my neighbour sat back and let it happen with a few pointless ineffective comments about how its nice to share or we dont hit our friends.

YANBU.

Gentle parenting applied to children who aren't suitable results in harm - to the children who do not grow up to be considerate or respectful, and to everyone around them. It all comes down to the cult of individuality, an absolute mare of today's society. You see it so clearly in Gen Z already. My DC is not being brought up gently. He's absolutely delightful, kind, considerate, helpful, has so much going for him. He of course has tough moments and we have tough parenting moments. At the same time, I would say he is definitely strong willed, stubborn and spirited. He will voice his opinions and you'll definitely hear them. I speak to him with a lot of respect and we both enjoy our chats a lot. But when he gets unreasonable there is no way in hell gentle approach would achieve anything with him. He's just not the type. So there are firm boundaries, no is a no and it breaks me at times but I really do not bend. I'm his mother and he knows to treat me with respect and listen. He knows there are consequences. It makes me sad if he's not happy sometimes, but my job is to bring him up to live well in a society, not to always make him happy.

What do you mean by gentle parenting? Do you mean a no isn’t a no and there aren’t boundaries and consequences?

I think most children need a mix of gentle and authoritative parenting. It's good that we have more respect for children as autonomous people with their own nerds and views. It's good that we encourage children to reflect on their feelings. We don't want another generation of emotionally repressed adults. I think getting down on your child's level and making them feel heard and modelling conflict and repair is fantastic.

BUT not every situation needs gentle parenting. Children also need to learn that sometimes in life you just do as you're told, as we have to as adults at work as well! I will absolutely gently parent my child when she's having intense feelings that she literally can't regulate yet. But I also won't be sitting down having conversations about why she needs to put her shoes on when she goes outside. I'll expect her to put them on because I've asked her and she respects me, without it turning into a song and dance.

People seem frightened to say no now. I also think a lot parenting is them knowing you mean business and following through with clear consequences. I also think an occasional bollocking does not harm a child with otherwise loving, responsive, and emotionally attuned parents. Most of us remember a time our parents lost it at us, and let's be real, most of us probably deserved it 😂 I'd never want to rule through fear and want an open relationship with my child where they can come to me with stuff. Shouting once in a blue moon is not the same as constantly yelling and ruling through fear.

Even when the child is in danger? That seems bonkers to me.

My children were brought up using the word no at what I considered were appropriate situations! Ie not grabbing dogs tail,putting dangerous,choke hazards in their mouth,trying to climb over banister etc .That is how they knew from a young age what was safe etc . They are all adults now , not traumatised and happy with life!
Talking and reasoning only has a certain amount of success when they can articulate and converse.

Sort of agree but generally, I think it works with children who just happen to respond to that style. Some will be naturally easygoing and compliant, some will not be at all but respond to gentle parenting better than other ways.

It was an absolute disaster with my DS, who was a very challenging small child. Any attempts to talk things through or Co-regulate, and frustration or anger would immediately escalate into violence. In the end, it took him saying (during a calmer moment) ‘I don’t like you talking about my feelings when I’m angry. I already know how I’m feeling. When you talk to me about it, it makes me feel like hitting you to make you stop even though I don’t want to.’ So I stopped- immediate time out for bad behaviour and no discussion about it, or just left him alone if he just didnt like a decision I’d made and was angry. No more violence, instantly happier child.

When I stopped trying to help him manage his feelings in this way, I realised that he didn’t actually need my help at all. He already had ways of coping- there might be a bit of shouting from him, but then he’d go off and have a bit of a stomp around in his room or do some loud singing or distract himself with a toy and then be fine a few minutes later. So it turned out, with the best of intentions, that I had actually been getting in the way of him coping with anger in his own way, which is very different to mine. I want to talk it through when I’m angry, he wants to have a good huff on his own and then get over it. I think I got too focused on what I would have wanted for myself as a child (having had rather authoritarian parents myself)- I would have done very well with the talking it through approach and was naturally compliant and extremely sensitive- and projected that onto him, but he’s his own person. My idea of the ideal parenting style (for myself as a child) is his idea of hell, he’d rather have a time out if he does something naughty and move on.

We still talk about feelings of course, but not in the heat of the moment.

Same with explanations. I’ll usually give a very brief, one-sentence explanation if the reason for my request isn’t blindingly obvious. Anything more and he interprets it as me being open to persuasion, and will get extremely stressed trying to change my mind.

Conversely, I know other families who have children of all sorts of dispositions who respond beautifully to gentle parenting, or who at least respond better to it than other approaches. It’s horses for courses.

Proactive parenting is exactly what we have to do.

That's pretty much how we had to handle our two SEN boys. I wouldn't say how we parented fits with "gentle" as in the over explaining, never say the word no approach. But I would call that permissive, not gentle parenting. We did have to be authoritative (not authoritarian) with DS2 in particular, and by that I mean making boundaries very simple and clear. I wouldn't say we punished, but we did allow natural consequences, like taking DS2 out of a soft play place because he threw balls from the ball pit at another kid and didn't stop when asked. DS2 may have received that as punishment, but I'd see it as a natural consequence - you don't stick to the rules, you can't do the thing. Once we'd taken him out and left, that was it - no more consequences, the focus was on calming him down and redirecting. I think a lot of the gentle parenting advocates mistake punishment for natural consequences and vice versa. Kids need natural consequences for learning and development.

A lot of people mistook how we parented for permissiveness because we didn't make DC do things we knew weren't within their window of tolerance yet, risking meltdowns and lots of distress. It meant missing out on a lot of family occasions, because DS1 couldn't tolerate a noisy restaurant until he was around 6, for example. We had to build up from going to small cafes for a drink, to going to a beer garden with the dogs, going inside for a bit with ear defenders on, progressing to being able to eat a snack out, etc. Took about 2 years. He never went to big, noisy children's parties, hated them, and we never made him, and nor did we have them. For all of primary his birthday was having one or two friends over to do Lego or game and getting fried chicken from the exact same place 😁

People used to say "oh just bring them, they'll be fine when they get there". It's well meaning, they wanted to include us, but they've never experienced an autistic sensory meltdown!

The anticipating, scanning and meticulous planning ahead was endless, and exhausting at times. No spontaneity at all. Of course we didn't get it right all the time, but we do now have two ND teens who are generally coping pretty well and know their needs and limits.

Agreed. I would say I gentle parented but didn’t take any back chat / rudeness so was strict on some things. But my kids were pretty compliant and well behaved, even during their teens. I don’t think i’m any amazing parent who has all the answers, just lucky to have compliant kids. Some are far from compliant.

The problem is people don’t understand gentle parenting and are actually either permissive or just not parenting.

There are still rules and boundaries and consequences. Just no need to verbally yell at children for behaviour that is most likely developmentally normal. It’s about the why rather than punishing emotions. Most adults can’t control themselves but we expect tiny humans to be able to whose brains aren’t even fully developed.

My oldest wasn’t SEN but he was pretty hard work. We did do gentle parenting (not permissive), but also a lot of GOYB parenting: Get Off Your Butt 😂. I saw it called that on some American site. It basically meant being proactive rather than reactive. In practise it meant staying close and stepping in with distraction or redirection (not shouting) to steer away from meltdowns. Cutting play dates short if they were getting tired and grumpy. Getting off my butt and being physically close to the kids, rather than sitting down with the mums and ignoring them until all hell breaks loose. My mums a primary teacher and I learned it from her - she was always really scathing of parents who sat on their arses whining at children to stop doing XYZ, but not actually intervening in any useful way - then exploding and smacking them for not doing what they are told 🙄. And it was really good for our relationship - stepping in and showing him (and his friends) how to play, how to resolve arguments, how to compromise - then stepping back again. All done with words and Getting Off My Butt, no shouting, no smacking.

I would say the opposite that authoritarian parenting only works on permissive children. But thinking about it I guess it’s probably true of most parenting styles.

I was slightly more authoritative with my elder children as it was what I was raised with and didn’t know better (pre internet) both were very well behaved children. With ds who is autistic it just wouldn’t have worked so I had to change and try to manage his environment rather than expecting him to cope in mine. He struggles and everyday is a challenge but I suspect it would be worse if we had tried to be stricter.

I would remove the term "gentle parenting" from this...

For me, it isn't a functional term any more, and just confuses discussions. Having read many on here about it, all I can conclude is that it has two functional definitions:

Those who don't like it define it as:
A, listening/discussing/understanding + Overly permissive, lack of consequences and discipline, no authority.

Those who do like it, describe something that is in essence:
B, listening/discussing/understanding + Has consequences and authority, but no cruelty.

Both can't be true.. and even if you take those who spend a long time giving supportive and proper definitions of gentle parenting, really it does just come to down to an absence of subjective "cruelty". You can still say no, still punish, still have consequences, still set boundaries, etc. so what makes it gentle? When you boil it down, it tends to just be a rejection of what ever that person thinks is "cruel or unfair", which is often based on what has now become outdated from the previous generations.

Anyway, it has become a rather useless term that inspires more confusion than clarity in a discussion.

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For the OP. Yes you are 100% right.

More easy-going parenting styles only work with naturally easy-going children... and some children require more authoritative boundary setting. Give those children the easy-going style, and you create a spoiled brat.

Following on from my post earlier about “natural” consequences, why do you think removing the child from soft play is a natural consequence? It’s not. It’s a direct consequence decided by the you. I’m not saying thats the wrong thing to do. I totally agree with you. But it’s not a NATURAL consequence, it’s an adult decided one. You even use the word “allow” as if it does just happen naturally. It doesn’t. You make the decision and actively remove him.

The true natural consequence for throwing balls at other children is that no one will ever want to play with him and he’ll have no friends. Or he’ll get hit/balls thrown back at him. Obviously this isn’t ideal. So removing him is best. But that doesn’t make it a natural consequence.

I feel the term, like gentle parenting, has just become a thing people say to make themselves feel like they are doing a “nice” form of parenting rather than punishing. It sounds fluffier than saying we just do consequences.

Natural consequences are things like the child getting cold feet because they won’t wear shoes or the toy getting broken because they were throwing it about and they don’t have the toy anymore. It’s a natural consequence if there isn’t any adult intervention. If the adult has to perform the consequences, it’s no longer natural. It’s just a consequence.

There’s a lot of the “no true Scotsman” defence of gentle parenting.

And yes, I think there are absolutely times when children (and adults!) should feel ashamed of behaviour. That’s a normal and healthy to having acted unreasonably.

Gentle parenting done properly works. At its core, it's just a rejection of the arbitrary "because I said so" and shouting/smacking parenting of the past. It's parenting based on empathy rather than shame. It's just not always done properly, well or effectively. Some parents know what sort of parent they don't want to be but don't necessarily know what to do instead.

I have two childen who are adults now and the youngest was mid teens before I'd even heard the term but essentially, it was what I did.

My eldest was a very compliant child so, yes, it was easy.

My youngest wasn't and was exactly the sort of child who'd have been running around restaurants had she been allowed to, who did tantrum and challenged everything that was ever said to her. She was also parented with empathy and without shame. That doesn't mean she wasn't spoken to firmly or that voices were never slightly raised. But she was never shouted at, never smacked and never shamed.

The were both parented from the same position but it didn't necessarily look the same because they were different people who reacted and learnt differently.

There were boundaries and there were consequences. I preferred natural consequences but, as others say, you can't always allow natural consequences to play out because it would be neglectful as a parent to allow your child to have no friends because they throw toys at other children. So the consequences would be that the toy is removed or they are removed.

To me the difference is in what you are teaching them. Complaince through fear and blind obedience or understanding the consequences of their actions to allow them to develop the capacity to make informed choices of their own. To develop strategies for managing their frustrations. To teach them emotional literacy so they can explain how they feel rather than lashing out. To help them understand the why and not just the what.

There is little point in this extended gentle talking to an angry/upset/dysregulated child because at that moment their brains can't process what you're saying. The amygdala has taken over and the hippocampus (where their memories are stored) and the prefrontal cortex (where their decisions are made) have both shut down. So, yes, if a child is very angry or upset there is no point in a parent trying to reason with them because they don't have the capacity in that moment to process it even if they understand the words.

OK, it's maybe not natural in it isn't what happens in a group of baboons or whatever. But if I didn't remove him, or said nothing to him, the staff would have asked me to, because the safety rules say no throwing the balls. It's a natural consequence in the sense that if you break safety rules in most places the eventual result is you aren't allowed to be there if you don't obey them. But fair enough, they are human imposed rules.