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!

That process is incompatible with a purist gentle parenting approach, because it does require the adults to impose structure and parents need to say no and withhold things a child may want because it's not good for them

Would you mind explaining what you mean a little more? I’ve read quite a lot around gentle parenting and haven’t come across the idea of no structure, not saying no and not withholding things a child may want but aren’t good for them.

Same here, and I agree the intention of most gentle parenting as I understand it isn't to not provide any structure and never say no. It's more that when you need to say no you explain why, direct them towards positive behaviour and do so with empathy. But the parents we worked with who parented this way certainly thought this was what strictly following gentle parenting meant. They had interpreted it to mean that their parenting must never provoke negative emotions in their child and they slavishly followed the idea that saying no is bad. A conflation with permissive parenting in my opinion, but these parents were adamant it was "gentle". I think this conflation is not uncommon.

Perhaps a better word to use than "purist" would be "absolutist" - and by that I mean absolutist in sticking to their own interpretation of gentle parenting, not necessarily the original intentions set out in most of the literature on it.

Ah, I see. Thanks for explaining. I think probably the best word in that case is a “misconception” of gentle parenting or, as you say, a conflation with permissive parenting.

I gentle parent and I also wouldn't allow that. I would literally say "I can't let you do that" while removing them from the situation to a place where we could then regulate. It's not GP to allow kicking and biting.

I'm not talking about SEN children, I suggest you reread my post.

I didn't ask you to lecture me about your parenting style in response. This may work for you and your children. Great. It wouldn't work for mine and I'm happy I'm doing it my way - there is no need to convince me to consider changing it and equally, I'm happy for you you're doing it your way and it works.

You’ve misunderstood my point entirely. I even said at the beginning of my comment that I don’t think there is one way to being a successful parent. Neither am I saying you should parent the way that I do and have made no criticism of your parenting. I was illustrating the point that gentle parenting does not have to rely on long drawn out explanations which are developmentally inappropriate for children, doesn’t focus on feelings as a result of ‘individualism’ at the expense of ignoring the needs and feelings of others and doesn’t mean ‘bending over backwards to appease your children’. These are common misconceptions. I’m not entirely sure why you have taken such umbrage.

I also wrote it for the benefit of other people who might be forming a perspective on gentle parenting from this thread. If I’d read that it was all about appeasement, fostered individualism at the expense of other people, didn’t teach respect for boundaries and involved trying to have inappropriate conversations with children during tantrums I would also have rejected it. As I explained, it’s actually helped me immensely so I was trying to dispel some of those myths. Not to suggest that your way or anyone else’s is ‘wrong’. None of it was intended as a lecture or an attack on your parenting.

A one liner doesn't change the underlying tone of the post, whether you wrote it in that tone deliberately or not is a different matter. It's a very common tone amongst 'gentle parents' and one I don't think is warranted.

Was that to me? I really don’t understand why you’re so annoyed. What is the tone of my post that you’re referring to? You responded with a long post about your parenting style so I don’t understand why my post mentioning my own was so unacceptable. I will stress again as I always do when I post about gentle parenting that I don’t believe there is one way to be a successful parent and do not think everyone should adopt gentle parenting. I do, though, think it’s helpful for people to understand what it actually is so they can take what they need from it if they so choose. Because that’s what I did and I found it helpful. Yes, some people go overboard with overly long explanations that aren’t helpful in the moment. I’ve seen that myself but it doesn’t have to be that way.

I also think people make it all about clubs and friends too early on, when it should be about family and home life. I think that makes a difference to children and young people, it’s all centered on what they want, not the family and various duties that go with being a part of that family, which includes being there for older relatives, helping parents as they get older, and seeing parents and elders as role models NOT their peers