As the co-parent of three young adults…the perennial go-to mom for friends and family seeking advice and support… and a credentialed child development specialist and parenting coach, I have practiced, witnessed and/or studied just about every parenting method there is. No matter which style parents adopt, none of them shield us from the frustrations, missteps, screw-ups and occasional ambivalence every parent experiences.
While I clearly like some approaches over others, I don’t espouse any single parenting style, nor is there the ‘Dana Hirt’ way. Instead, I always focus the conversation on the parents’ values, their beliefs, and their children.
Among the trends in the spotlight lately is “gentle parenting.” At its base, there’s a lot to like. It’s about getting down and really connecting with your child; listening to and communicating with them so you can understand why they are doing what they’re doing; offering them choices rather than orders; and being more consistent and less reactive in the face of their dysregulation. All well and good.
Yet where gentle parenting proponents and influencers go awry, in my opinion, is how the approach has been misconstrued to mean that children, not parents, are in control. One mom encapsulated the most extreme version of this with the eye-rolling phrase, “Thank you for not hitting me while I’m buckling you into your car seat.”
For some champions, gentle parenting has come to mean that setting boundaries and safe limits are stultifying for children and, therefore, to be avoided. For example, if a child is having a tantrum and running amok in a public place, the gentle parent sees their role as strictly supporting and helping the child understand their behavior, versus taking the child to a safe place to support/address their dysregulation.
There are several problems with “gentle parents” who put power in the hands of their children:
1) When a kid is dysregulated, any reasoning power they may possess is completely inaccessible to them, so “processing” their feelings with them in the moment is completely ineffective
2) Following your child’s lead doesn’t establish the parents as the responsible adults who can provide a safe ‘container’
3) When children get attention because they are dysregulated, they lose a vital opportunity to learn self-regulating skills, build the ability to self-soothe or practice resilience in the face of a disappointing experience or outcome
4) Parents whose children don’t respond to the strictures of gentle parenting can end up feeling ashamed for not having the time or appropriate affect to meet every situation as defined by influencers
Effective parenting – whether you call it intentional or gentle or something else entirely -- is more about parents being good detectives rather than kids being good processors. Parents are the ones who need to make the connections between your child’s behavior and what they may need and address them.
Absolutely accept your children when they’re emotionally dysregulated – just don’t indulge them in it. Give kids a private and safe place to deal with their dysregulation. When they’ve calmed down (and are old enough to understand), engage in conversations about their upset. Model for them and teach them various ways to cope with future situations. But it’s always parents who need to serve as their frontal lobe, which won’t be fully developed until they are in their mid to late twenties! We have a distinct role to play in setting boundaries; putting up bumpers on both sides of the lane so our kids know the safe place to operate within them.
As with much in the digital age, internet culture has come to define and drive our beliefs and behaviors in many ways…parenting being a prime example. On the positive end, the vast number of resources and support parents can find online can be a lifesaver.
But a perfectly curated blog or vlog? Not so much. Particularly when content proposes, for example, that no “good” parent yells. Parents risk feeling shamed for their lack of strict adherence to a model espoused by someone else. I think we can all agree that parenting is challenging enough without that.
Above all, remember that no parent is a perfect parent. We all lose our temper or yell at our kids sometimes. We all have days that completely go off the rails. Good parenting isn’t about never making mistakes; it’s about modeling how to act and repair when we do. That’s a gentle approach worth adopting.