Every parent has their own unique way of raising their kids. Some parents focus on what comes naturally to them while others spend a lot of time reading and learning about different parenting styles to discover what’s most effective. If you’ve spent any time online in parenting forums or communities, you’ve probably heard of gentle parenting before. If you’ve heard the term but don’t actually know what it involves, you might wonder what gentle parenting is.
Gentle parenting is a parenting style that has become more popular in recent years. Some parents swear by this approach, and others heavily criticize it. No matter what side you’re on, we know that parenting styles are never one-size-fits-all and what works for one family or child isn’t necessarily what works for another. Keep reading to find out more about what gentle parenting is and whether or not it really works.
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What Is Gentle Parenting?
The first thing to note about gentle parenting is that it’s not a new concept, although it has become more popular in recent years. The term “gentle parenting” was first coined by Sarah Ockwell-Smith, author of “The Gentle Parenting Book: How to Raise Calmer, Happier Children From Birth to Seven.”
Although this British author doesn’t take credit for creating this parenting style, her book is why this term was first used. This parenting style focuses on raising children with empathy and respect. The purpose of the gentle parenting method is to help children become aware of the effects of their own emotions instead of using punishments and rewards to teach them right from wrong.
True to its name, this method focuses on parenting in a gentle way, both physically and emotionally. With this parenting method, you teach children by giving them age-appropriate boundaries and speaking to them calmly instead of yelling, spanking, or punishing them.
Gentle parenting is meant to foster a partnership between you and your child where the role of the parent is more like a coach. Unlike some other parenting methods, this method doesn’t have strict rules or guidelines to follow. Instead, it focuses on using certain strategies to reach your child and encourage positive behavior.
Parts of Gentle Parenting
Instead of having a strict set of rules, gentle parenting has three key parts: empathy, understanding, and respect.
Empathy
While some parenting styles make it difficult for children to express their emotions, the approach of gentle parenting is to focus on having empathy for your child and validating their emotions. Instead of dismissing how they’re feeling, parents can help their children become aware of their emotions and help them determine what’s causing them. The goal is for children to learn empathy themselves so they can treat others with kindness and compassion.
Understanding
Most parents get swept up in their emotions at some point and become frustrated by their child’s behavior. With gentle parenting, the parent seeks to understand why their child is acting the way they are and understand that a child can’t make adult decisions. While a child’s out-of-control emotions may seem unreasonable at times, those practicing gentle parenting try to understand that how their child looks at the world is different from our perspective as adults.
Respect
Respect is the final piece that makes up the gentle parenting approach. This parenting style is based on a sense of mutual respect between the parent and child. Other parenting styles may focus on the fact that a child should respect their parents, while gentle parenting focuses on respect going both ways. The idea is that by showing your child respect, they’ll learn to respect others in time as well.
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Pros of Gentle Parenting
Like any parenting style, gentle parenting has pros and cons. Even though it’s not a clearly defined method, implementing some of the strategies taught by gentle parenting may benefit you and your child.
It may benefit a child’s mental health
When it comes to the benefits of a specific parenting style, it’s critical to look at the long-term effects, not just how it impacts your child in the short term. One study looked at the connection between a gentle parenting approach and the social responses of toddlers who exhibited shy behaviors. The study found that warm responsiveness and gentle encouragement reduced the risk of anxiety later on.
Gives children positive behavior to model
Every parent gets upset at times or overreacts to their child’s behavior. However, what children will usually model is the consistent patterns of behaviors that they see in the home. Especially at a young age, children model what they see their parents, siblings, and classmates do. With gentle parenting, you’re able to give your child a lot of positive behavior to model since with this method you avoid yelling, screaming, or harshly reacting to your child’s behavior.
Helps children learn empathy
Empathy is an essential thing for children to learn but it can be difficult to teach. Since gentle parenting techniques focus on building a child’s awareness of their own feelings and the feelings of others, it can naturally help them develop empathy over time. Developing empathy for others certainly doesn’t happen overnight, but compared to more authoritarian styles of parenting, gentle parenting can help children get in touch with their feelings and learn how to express them in a healthy way.
Cons of Gentle Parenting
Even though parenting styles can be very personal and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, there are still some clear downsides to many parenting styles. Along with the benefits, there are some cons to gentle parenting as well.
It can become permissive parenting
One of the biggest cons of gentle parenting is that it can easily become permissive parenting. Permissive parenting is a style of parenting where parents set low expectations for children and don’t give strict rules or boundaries. This type of parenting has many downsides and can lead to significant behavior problems. Although gentle parenting isn’t the same as permissive parenting, many traits of these parenting styles overlap.
Difficult for many parents to practice
For most parents, gentle parenting requires a lot of internal undoing and unlearning. Since one of the most important aspects of gentle parenting is how you speak to your children, this method may not come naturally to every parent. This not only makes it difficult because you have to go against your natural tendencies, but it can also be time-consuming to learn these strategies and perfect them.
It’s challenging to define
One of the biggest challenges with gentle parenting is that it’s not a clearly defined parenting style. Since it doesn’t come with any strict set of rules or standards, it can be challenging to know what to do in each scenario and there are many different ways to interpret what gentle parenting actually is. Some parents prefer a style that isn’t so rigid, but it can make it challenging to know if what you’re doing is effective or not.
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What Do Critics Say About Gentle Parenting?
When you look at what gentle parenting is supposed to be, it’s easy to see that this term is not meant to be the same approach as permissive parenting. While there are many genuine critics of this parenting style, many of the “critics” express their frustration with the fact that no one has clearly defined what gentle parenting is and that many people misuse the term.
In the r/ScienceBasedParenting subreddit, r/jessdamom asked fellow parents about their opinions on gentle parenting.
Opinions about this parenting style online
As r/2035-islandlife expressed, “I like the idea of it but so many people misconstrue the term, and gentle parenting is so loosely defined already, that I hate the phrase. The number of parenting threads where people think it means nonstop empathy with no boundaries, or asking if they're horrible for setting limits….basically permissive parenting…I just am sick of the term.”
Gentle parenting isn’t the same as permissive parenting, but since many parts of gentle parenting are open to interpretation, many parents may be practicing permissive parenting and calling it gentle parenting.
Another Reddit user, r/soundsunamerican, stated what many parents likely have thought to themselves and said, “It’s hard when these kids aren’t gentle children-ing.”
This is a great display of how the idea of gentle parenting may sound effective, but in practice, it’s not always that simple. When your toddler won’t put their shoes on, it may be easy to get down to their level and calmly express why they need to put their shoes on. When your child is throwing a full-on tantrum or simply isn’t responding to your boundaries, there are times when you may need to find something else that works for you.
It’s also important to keep in mind that every child has a different temperament. While every child can benefit from a loving, compassionate, and empathetic parenting style, one parenting style isn’t going to work for every child.
Does Gentle Parenting Really Work?
Since every child and parent is different, no one can say definitively whether gentle parenting works for every family. There is evidence that supports some of the strategies of gentle parenting. However, the problem with stating that this is proof that gentle parenting itself works is that there's not a clear definition for this parenting style.
As one Reddit user pointed out in the r/ScienceBasedParenting subreddit, a lot of the research people generally point to is actually referring to authoritative parenting. Authoritative parenting is a more clearly defined parenting style that has many benefits.
When we look at the research on how to raise well-adjusted, confident, and healthy kids, authoritative parenting is the gold standard. This parenting style does share some aspects with gentle parenting, which may be where the evidence that gentle parenting works comes from. While some aspects of gentle parenting can benefit young children, this approach can vary greatly from one parent to the next.
There are also many critics of gentle parenting, even in the world of child psychology. The lack of consequences is one of the main reasons why some experts say gentle parenting doesn’t work. Caring about your child’s emotions and choosing to deal with them calmly is a good thing. Even still, most parenting experts agree that children also need a firm, but loving authority figure, and gentle parenting often lacks this aspect that’s so necessary in effective parenting.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to finding the right parenting style for you and your child, keep in mind that what works for another family may not work for yours. It’s important to tune into your intuition and remember that loving your child is the most important part of parenting.
Sometimes loving your child looks like being gentle with them and understanding their feelings and sometimes loving them looks like giving them an age-appropriate consequence for their actions. No matter how you choose to parent, you can’t go wrong with loving your child, setting clear boundaries, and trying to see things from your child’s perspective.
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