'Soft parenting made monsters of my children': Daily Mail article

[EightiesChick]

Sorry but just had to share this classic DM effort to make us all think we should be beating our children with sticks.

I love the Mail-esque detail of the noodles being tipped 'all over my freshly washed hair'. As if a) we all still wash our hair every 7 days only in a tin bath in front of the fire, and b) as if your child tipping their dinner over your greasy in-need-of-a-wash hair would be better somehow.

No - we dont have to 'beat our children with sticks ' but learning boundaries is not such a bad thing. I have seen a few children whose parents don't want to 'upset ' their children by showing boundaries and saying 'No' and it often seen in what seems to be spoilt brats .

No problem in highlighting this even if it is the DM .

don't see any reference to beating with sticks in the article?

I'd be pissed off if my child tipped food over my 'freshly washed hair ' - wouldn't do it again

i'd be pissed off if my child tipped food over anything!

True . Agree there. Dog would eat it though

I'd be pissed off if my child read the DM.

that's possibly why mine don't tip food. they are all too aware that the dog will eat it. maybe that's the answer. get a dog.

DM good for mopping up dog sick after its eaten the food that child has tipped .

Tomorrow in the DM 'Soft parenting gives you cancer'

"Immigrants statistically softer parents than Resident Britons!"

I actually agree with most of it, sorry! We are fairly PC about discipline in this household, we label the behaviour not the child, we don't roar and shout and there's definitely no smacking.. but there is a very firm and consistent application of the word "no" and a zero tolerance policy on aggressive behaviour.

However, I was horrified recently to have a discussion with the nursery staff about discipline options open to them. I was informed on arrival that ds (2;3) had been "unkind" and had pushed and shoved a bit that day. It was no great mystery to me, he is getting his back teeth and had been awake until 11 which is not like him and was obviously tired. So I asked what they did - they told him his behaviour was "unkind" and got him to say sorry (fine!) and then took him to a corner to play with him (not fine... so what does he do when he next needs attention, then? Yup, wallop someone).

I said that at home we send him to the corner to have a think when he is aggressive. We literally say "corner" and he toddles off and sits there. We might say something too like: "I know you're angry but hitting's not okay". If he is angry, he might shout for a few minutes ("no way sorry" and that sort of thing), but usually he sits there and then toddles back for a cuddle. We don't have a set time on things, we check in with him (are you ready yet?) and if he seemed particularly distressed and we didn't feel like he knew why he was there we might go over and explain it to him and support him to get a cuddle.

All pretty tame, "soft" stuff - but apparently, the nursery "can't" have a time-out because it "alienates" children and makes them feel "bad about themselves" . Oh, I am such an abuser . So the strategy that works well for us at home, and that ds accepts, understands and readily utilises, and that we are 100% consistent about at home and out and about "can't" be used in nursery because some think tank has come up with some claptrap about it.

I think it says a lot that it's not even possible to tell a 2 year old that hitting another child is naughty (erm, isn't "unkind" just making naughtiness be a rose with a different name?) or have them have time out from a situation. I know my child and all this crap about them just needing cuddles and talk when they are aggressive doesn't always apply. Sometimes, my boy hits because he wants to do something he's not allowed to do and it makes him angry. It's fine to be angry, it's not fine to hit and sometimes you need a few minutes out to collect yourself rather than being overstimulated with toys and play.

You don't have to beat your child, roar at them or be some sort of Victorian disciplinarian to set boundaries. Even Dr. Sears talks about this stuff and he's as soft as they come! However, letting kids away with outrageous behaviour because you feel guilty because you've been away at work or have had a hard day is not okay parenting (and before anyone flames me for that, I work too).

freshly cut spring onions and freshly washed hair.

I love how she says they both have to work to pay the bills when she has 2 foreign holidays a year, a spacious playroom and 2 trampolines. We both work to maintain our lifestyle or we both work because we like to might be more accurate and less martyrish

I would want to hit her too if she drivelled on like that. Obvious 'guilt parenting', but agree she is a bit of a martyr.

I'm about to go back to work and articles like this are a stark reminder of what I DON'T want to become.

Boundaries are so important. My DS is only 9mo, but as my DH keeps on telling me, he's a product of US. So as he gets bigger, his behaviour will be a reflection of how we bring him up.

Sure we'll f*ck up along the way. But this article has helped a bit, actually.

Agree with absolutely everything working9while5 said. I take the same approach with my DD.

Still hate the DM though.

bet she claims benefits as well. The slattern.

Yes I basically agree with it as well. I have an ex-friend that could be the woman this article describes. She tries to 'reason' with her children while they are literally punching the living daylights out of her. A succession of au pair girls with no childcare experience while she and her husband are hardly there. She is an ex-friend because of the way her children behave when they visit us

Our children have clear boundaries, we are always there for them, no physical punishment. We do show disaproval and mean it.

Children are not little adults and when they are toddlers they are totaly self centred and will behave like selfish animals if allowed to do so. They have to be given boundaries - you can't expect a child to work it out for themselves of 'be reasonable'.

I said the 'beating with sticks' thing because I basically saw this as a straw man argument (oh, how the DM loves these) to push you towards the opposite extreme. The mother in this was so ridiculously wet that she sets a ridiculous standard of 'soft' parenting. Having said that, I am worried that people are now saying they know parents like this! Surely no-one would just say nothing if their child tipped noodles over their hair, freshly-washed or otherwise?

There is a firm application of the word 'no' in most families I know. Doesn't mean toddler tantrums are unheard of.

As Eighties says, this is a straw man: the mum is ridiculously wet and makes sure to touch on all the trigger points that will have less affluent/older readers tut-tutting (baby yoga etc).

Personally I would worry about any child whose mum preferred writing articles about how she was a monster rather than taking responsibility for her upbringing in the first place.

I don't know.. there's a lot in it I recognise wrt to both a friend and relative of mine.

Saying no doesn't stop tantrums in the short- to medium-term but ignoring and allowing tantrums, or dealing with them in protracted ways with lots of reasoning and discussion when children aren't at the age to be able to contribute, almost inevitably increases them IME.

In terms of our relative, she and her dh certainly meant well but there really was guilt-led parenting.. she had a small age gap and there was a lot of inconsistency about the use of the word no plus lengthy, wordy "reasoning" and "explanations" in the event of tantrums that were clearly not working. It would begin calmly enough but these parents would get really worked up because their 2 year old wouldn't answer e.g. why she had hit or drawn on the wall, and it would become a battle of wills etc, and in the middle of it they would apologise to HER. It was a bit of a farce, sadly.

Unfortunately her little girl is now 6 and really quite behavioural at home and at school now. The sorts of things that are described in the article are routine at family dinners even now. At 6, she will be extremely violent to her sibling e.g. pinning her down and biting her on the cheek so she requires stitches. We haven't had a meal with their family where there hasn't been significant shouting/screaming/wailing in years, it's really uncomfortable.

I think there are parents like this out there. I don't think any of them meant to do it, I think a lot of people were desperately trying to be their child's friend and to have lovely quality time etc... but it can lead to terrible trouble. Of course, this being the DM, there's that overgeneralisation that this is what happens to EVERYONE who deigns to talk to their child about anything to do with behaviour, but there's a kernel of truth there that I recognise from RL.

I think the writer is confusing what she does, which is crap parenting, with parenting methods that don't use things like time-out at a young age.

We don't do soft parenting, we don't use time out either. We don't need to use penalties to enforce boundaries, they're just there and kept to because we have an expectation of good behaviour. We also understand that 'tantrums' are often caused by frustration and an inability to express feelings or deal with a big scary world at that particular point in time. We've never had a tantrum last longer than a minute and we deal with them with patience and calmness and lots of love and reassurance.

I agree that the entire article is strawman and designed to push buttons.

World, could you elaborate on 'we deal with them with patience and calmness and lots of love and reassurance' please? I'm trying to do just that with DS, 23mo at the moment, but coming up against a barrage of opposition from v traditional (probably DM-reading) mother as well as doubting my methods and abilities. I know I need to be more consistent, but your post sounded exactly what I'm aiming to achieve, so if you could give any more detail I'd be really grateful!

LaTristess The first thing we had to do as a family (my GPs are also main care givers) was try and remove the word 'tantrum' from our vocabulary. They're not caused by anger, they're caused by frustration. It's about trying to see the world from a toddler's point of view. They don't understand why they have to do certain things - maybe not break toys. Other things such as sometimes we are in a rush in the supermarket, and other times we can take time to let her restack the shelves - how is she supposed to understand the difference? Or they may be unable to express that something is making them scared/uncomfortable - I'm sure most parents have had at least one occasion where they couldn't understand why their child was screaming only to find out that there was something making them really uncomfortable, e.g. sat on something hard in the car seat, or shoe buckled up wrongly, etc.

When DD gets upset/emotional, what others would call 'tantrum' we just get down to her level and support her through it. It's well documented that children learn from adult behaviour, and young babies and children pick up their emotional cues from the adults around them, so if the adults are stressed/angry, the child will get into a similar state. Likewise, if the adults remain calm and unstressed, the child will pick up on that emotional state too. There is a period at the start of any upset (between 30 seconds - one minute) when there is no way of communicating, so we're just quiet and calm until she is able to listen to what we're communicating. I'm using the word 'communicating' rather than 'saying' because communication happens on so many levels, not just vocal.

It may be that we have just been blessed with an incredibly easy child, or it may be that our parenting style has contributed to it. I have no way of knowing as I only have the one. I do think it's easier to parent this way with just one child as it's easier to stay unstressed in situations. I'm also not easily embarassed so if she decides to get upset and lie on the floor in the middle of the supermarket I don't care what other people are thinking.

Sorry - that's turned into a bit of an essay, but I guess the key point I'm trying to make is that children learn their behaviour from the adults around them.

Worldgonecrazy, I have to say that I think you have a pretty easy child if you can just set standards of good behaviour which are then adhered to, it sounds like you have a rather naturally compliant little girl so I wouldn't go about saying that her behaviour is a direct consequence of your parenting. You are lucky also that she hasn't had a tantrum that lasts more than a minute - I wouldn't even call that a tantrum! DS1 hardly tantrummed at all but DS2 is a totally different child and we have had screaming at full pelt for over half an hour under the table, bright red face etc. What you say is important though with how you handle the outbursts- tantrums are natural reactions to a scary world which is outside of their control and understanding. With tantrums, it is best to at first distract, then if it continues, ignore yet still be there and accessible (I sit on the floor but don't look at DS2), periodically I'll say "DS2, cuddle?" but that is often met with more screaming. The most important thing to do is to not give in.
I do not agree with a lot of soft parenting ideas either, I have a friend who, if her child shoves another, uses a million words in a soft voice about how "we don't do that, darling blah blah blah" whereas I think you need to treat these things more seriously, and actually sound stern, and look stern, say the word no and make them feel like they have done something wrong. This friend's boys are really aggressive and her soft parenting doesn't seem to have worked at all. DS1 has developed a strong conscience and sense of morality now.

worldgonecrazy it sounds like you have an easy child! DS1 was so easy. No tantrums easy to steer in the right direction a complete and utter joy!
DS2 not so much! God he is hard work, looking forward to getting his 15 funded place a pre school