Oh, also - another thing I have noticed or realised recently about gentle parenting.
IME very very few people fall naturally perfectly in the middle of authoritarian and permissive. Think about your typical internal reaction to minor irritations. Is your instinct to confront and control, or to ignore and avoid? Most people tend to fall down on one side of the coin or the other. Mine is to avoid. In the past I realise, I let a lot of things go because I was thinking "Oh, that's not really an issue yet. Hmm. Maybe it is. Oh, I don't want to deal with it right now. Maybe if I pretend not to notice he'll stop by himself. Oh, no he isn't. I'm going to have to do something. Ugggh. I don't want to. It's going to cause an argument. Maybe it can wait a little longer." It wasn't a particularly conscious thought process, and I would always have stepped in before something serious happened, but I can recognise that pattern happening now, and also recognise that stepping in at that crisis point is far too late. The boundary needs to be drawn earlier, where it wouldn't matter at all if he stopped there.
Think about a full bathtub (bear with me - I love metaphors). If you filled it right to the brim with you in it, you might feel pleased. Maximum water, no spillage. How clever I am. Except that every time you move, water dribbles and splashes over the edge. Every time, you feel irritated and confused. You did not overfill it, so why has it spilled? You can't even get out of the bath without creating a lot of mess which then has to be cleared up. By the time the bath is over, you feel more stressed than you did before.
Another person leaves three inches between the top of the bathwater and the rim of the bath. They can sit in the water quite happily, wash themselves, and get out without spilling a single drop. The only way they would get water on the floor would be to play or splash vigorously in the water.
The first bath didn't seem too full when you got in it. It was the perfect height not to spill, but it did spill. The second bath could have had more water in it without spilling, but the lack of extra water allowed the person to move around and wash easily without worrying about splashes.
It's the same kind of thing - if you have your boundaries right up at the edge, he's still going to push them, which means he's going to cross the edge which pushes your buttons and makes you react in ways you don't want to. You need to pull the boundaries back, so that even if he pushes a little, it really isn't going to be of any consequence to you. The mistake then is thinking that it doesn't need to be of consequence to him. That doesn't mean you need to be harsh but it does mean you need to be prepared to stop something before it becomes an issue, not just when it does.
Anyway - sorry. Back to the authoritarian/permissive coin. It is my gut feeling that most of the literature on gentle parenting is aimed at parents who fall naturally on the authoritarian side. This looks more like: reading motives into things that children do, fearing that without control your children might no longer respect you, worrying about what others think or what the child might do worse next time. If we take a typical example - a four year old draws on the table instead of on her paper. Handling it badly in an authoritarian way might be to go crazy, shouting, telling off, punishment, really out of proportion to what might be a simple accident or lack of knowledge, out of fear that the child might have done it on purpose, the assumption they should know by now, or that if they don't stop this now the child will never respect property ever. Handling it badly in a permissive way might be to think, oh well, that table's old anyway, it doesn't really matter. It's just part of what happens when you have children, and don't give them any information about what surfaces are OK and not OK to draw on, but then become upset when they begin to "decorate" their entire bedroom including walls, furniture and carpets.
Gentle parenting says - let some things go. Perhaps a table in a child's room is OK to draw on a little bit. Set them up to win - think ahead and prevent issues by putting down newspaper, only give them washable pens. Assume positive intent - give information, don't blame or criticise.
A naturally authoritarian parent reading those gentle parenting guidelines might think OK, this makes sense. They let the accidental table drawing go, without punishment, but still make it clear that they are displeased. They decide that this table is OK but they make that clear to their child and are extra attentive if they are doing art elsewhere. When "setting up to win" they are clear with the child about what they are doing and still expect other pens (etc) to be brought back to them. They ask questions to find out what happened and start from a point of teaching and communicating rather than jumping to "You did this on purpose, you've ruined my table!"
Conversely, a naturally permissive parent reading those guidelines interprets them differently. Letting things go - this lets them off the hook for confronting their child about the inappropriate drawing, which they don't want to do because they don't like conflict. Even when it moves onto other things that they are initially unhappy about, they think "Oh, but does it really matter? Never mind, it's OK to let that go. It's their room after all." Setting them up to win is interpreted as "it's my fault if they make a mistake" and assuming positive intent is used to override the effects of the action, rather than simply being a different starting point for discussion.
I don't know if it's that authoritarian parenting is more common, or that gentle parenting type stuff is just naturally aimed at the middle->opposite of the spectrum and it's assumed that if you're already on this side you don't need advice on how to be more on this side, but I have come to realise that, much like reading a newspaper which opposes your political views, if you're struggling with or even just interested in parenting techniques, it's probably more helpful to read parenting literature which contrasts your instincts, in order to surprise yourself and challenge yourself, rather than sticking with what you're totally comfortable with. It doesn't mean that you have to agree or follow the books to the letter, but when you're starting from a laid back point, it's really not helpful to read books telling you how to be more laid back. It just ends up being an excuse and then you wonder why it doesn't work like they promise that it does.
(Sorry for the mass essay!)