What is "Gentle Parenting", really?

There is a genre of parent and even childless people who practically fall over themselves, salivating, nearly foaming at the mouth to run to the comment section of videos of distressed children to tell the world all the ways they would extract vengeance against said child, for their terrible, no-good, child-like behavior. While I am actively praying for the children and future children of those openly dysregulated adults and wish them nothing but healing, this blog post isn't for them. This is for the people who may have been parented by dysregulated, authoritarian adults but want to do better for their own children. It's for people who are unsure of what gentle parenting is but are curious and willing to learn. It's for parents who are already gentle parenting but may find themselves under attack for their methods and need a reference point for ammo. So, let's get into it!

What is Gentle Parenting? Are there other Parenting Styles?

For some odd reason, gentle parenting has and still is more often than not confused with another parenting style called "permissive parenting". PhD candidate Charlie Huntington wrote a piece for the Berkley Well-Being Institute where he defined each style of parenting. Permissive parents have "few explicit expectations for their children and don’t do much to control their children’s lives". Gentle parents, otherwise known as authoritative parents, however, "provide lots of structure but are also more warm and loving with their children". Lastly, there are authoritarian parents who "use lots of control and not too much warmth in parenting; they give orders and expect them to be fulfilled". Sound familiar?

How Do You Gently Parent a Child Who isn't Gentle?

The baseline for authoritative parenting actually has nothing to do with the child or the child's behavior but everything to do with the parent and the parent's behavior. It's about parents regulating their own emotions, acknowledging when they themselves are dysregulated, and knowing how to deregulate. It is about exercising patience and calm within yourself so that you can not only teach your children how to do the same, but also model that good behavior in real time. The result is a well-rounded child who can effectively communicate and regulate their emotions. When we look at how many adults lack basic communication skills, have low or nonexistent emotional intelligence, and have the complete inability to manage their emotions without violence or any sort of outburst, it concerns me that there are still so many people who advocate for the authoritarian parenting style.

Aren't the Children of Gentle Parents out of Control? What if This Style of Parenting isn't for Me?

I've seen so many complain that kids these days are "out of control" because it's now against the law to "discipline" them. The thing is, discipline is not against the law. Abuse is against the law. I believe what we're witnessing today is a result of over-permissive parenting, by default. When being physically and verbally abusive is the only tool in your parenting toolbox and it gets taken away, and you opt to do nothing instead, the result is a generation of lost children who are essentially raising themselves.

There are certain professions where we can't really afford to do a bad job. Can't afford to be a bad doctor. Can't afford to be a bad lawyer. Can't afford to be a bad psychologist. Can't afford to be a bad police officer. These are jobs that, if done badly, can and unfortunately do result in a matter of life and death, and that's no secret. With the number of lawsuits filed against people in these professions for wrongful death, negligence, and malpractice, I'd say it's common knowledge in fact. We understand that there is definitely a right and wrong way to perform in these jobs and with the stakes being as high as they are, we also understand that there isn't much room for mistakes to be made. People in those professions and similar ones are tasked with being imperfect humans that need to perform perfectly, day in and day out. Yet, we can't seem to understand or come to the general consensus that there is also a right and a wrong way to raise children, and that parenthood is amongst those professions where we really can't afford to get it wrong.

What happens if you choose not to be a gentle parent?

You could change the entire trajectory of your child's life. You could rob them of opportunities for health, happiness, and prosperity because they don't know how to effectively communicate. You could rob other parents of their own children because your child who never learned to regulate their emotions grows into a dysregulated killer. You could be the 13th reason why your child decides to end their own life. You could cause your child to be unable to make or keep friends or romantic partners. You could cause your child to have poor self-esteem and no true sense of self-worth. You could mentally or emotionally stunt your child's growth or cause them to be overly emotional. You could turn your child into a carbon copy of you, where they possess, hone, and model every negative trait you have as if it's a badge of honor, and the cycle continues when they have children of their own. The nightmarish possibilities are endless. The worst of it though is that you're sending these badly raised humans into the world for other people to deal with. You're raising terrible people who might wind up in jobs like say a doctor, lawyer, psychologist, or police officer. Everything begins at home.

Bottom Line:

Unfortunately, the choice to be a gentle parent, dare I say a good parent, is up to each individual parent. I will however continue to implore us all to think about the consequences of choosing to be a poor parent, because it is in fact a conscious choice. People say parenthood doesn't come with a manual, but it does. Most of us have a mini computer right in our hands. Any question you could possibly think of, there are answers and resources readily available to you. At this point, the opportunity to be better is there, you just have to make the choice to take it. Is it easy? Absolutely not. But the research shows that it is absolutely worth it. Authoritarian parenting has been shown to have the worst possible outcomes for children, even worse than being overly permissive. We will not always get it right, in fact it's a guarantee that we will get it wrong sometimes, and maybe even often, and that is okay. It's another gentle way to model for our kids how to apologize and make amends!

Now that you have an idea of what gentle parenting is and isn't, I hope you choose to be gentle with yourself, so that you can be gentle with your child. If you're already gentle parenting, I thank you for choosing to grow your child or children into wonderful adults, even when it's hard. Together, one child at a time, hopefully we can lean on each for support as we continue to create better humans for a better society. We all know what's at stake if we don't.