A journalist recently reached out to me for comment on an article about gentle parenting. The article starts with the definition of gentle parenting, one with which no self-respecting child psychologist would disagree: Gentle parents treat their child “as an individual with their own point of view” while centering “guidance, teaching, and modeling” rather than shame and punishment. This aligns exactly with my personal parenting philosophy and the autonomy-supportive model.
Then the “real-life” examples shared by the array of experts quoted in the article lost me. Reading these examples helped me clarify one of my chief complaints about the approach: Gentle parenting prescribes an ideal first response to a child’s behavior, but leaves us hanging for how to respond when the child does not actually change a behavior (like interrupting when you’re on the phone).
This reminds me of when I attempted one of the gentle parenting tricks with my then 4-year-old son. Instead of loudly directing “Put on your shoes,” I whispered. He punched my leg and ran off. I did not keep whispering.
The Instagram success of parenting memes promoting gentle parenting principles depresses me. Low on nuance and high on shame induction, these pithy posts can get thousands of likes and shares. The popularity concerns me because it seems to convey that we are embracing impossible standards for parents, en masse—and without good reason.
But there may be hints of a pendulum swing away from the meteoric popularity of gentle parenting. The parenting website What to Expect recently listed 2024 parenting trends, including: “Parents are revolting against the once-popular gentle parenting style.”
I want to be clear: If you practice gentle parenting and it feels like a great fit for you and your children, I fully support it. There are healthy and helpful elements to the approach.
I worry, though, about the parents and kids for whom it is not a great fit, and how experiencing this leads to feelings of self-blame and failure instead of recognizing that this approach is simply not the right recipe for their family.
Before I dive into the no’s of gentle parenting, let’s start with the good stuff. Gentle parenting promotes key ingredients of authoritative parenting. Defined generally as a blend of parental warmth and firm limits, authoritative parenting has long been considered in psychological research as associated with the healthiest kids.
The overlapping elements of gentle and authoritative parenting are:
Empathy and perspective-taking are two of the main ingredients of autonomy-supportive parenting too. It’s good to understand our child’s emotions and how those emotions affect behaviors. That ultimately helps us address behaviors via their emotional underpinnings. Always the aspiration!
So why do I bristle at gentle parenting guidance? As I have reflected on why I oppose an approach that sounds so great in theory, I came up with more concrete reasons than “it annoys me.” If you’ve struggled with embracing gentle parenting, hopefully this list validates why.
1. You’re not doing it wrong if you're not a gentle parent.
Gentle parenting advocates directly contrast it with authoritarian styles. Think of authoritarian like a dictator regime—it’s old-school and not great for kids because there’s no regard for the child’s wants and needs. It’s about the parent having full authority with low warmth in the relationship and rigid limits.
But you can be a very effective parent who doesn’t ascribe to gentle parenting, and not be authoritarian. It’s not either/or as often presented.
2. Your child's behavior is not a referendum on your parenting.
In how I see parents interpret gentle parenting, they (mostly mothers) feel intense pressure on each interaction. A child’s behavior becomes a reflection of whether the parent has a positive enough relationship with their child.
Guess what? Sometimes kids are jerks. Sometimes we are jerks. We all have our moments. Every challenging behavior or meltdown does not need to be a referendum on our parenting or our relationship.
3. It creates stress that none of us need.
This pressure adds stress to parenting that we don’t need. Higher stress undoubtedly impacts our relationship with our child in a negative way, more so than having our authentic moments of being human.
Yes, I’m arguing that it’s fine to show frustration with a child who has asked us the same question for the seventeenth time because they didn’t like our answer. It’s better than holding it in, which hurts us and does not demonstrate natural consequences of our child’s behavior on others. Not to mention that this one moment of frustration does not define an entire relationship.
4. Empathy doesn't fix everything.
Another theme I see and hear (and have felt myself) is the guilt, self-blame, and shame when we attempt gentle parenting techniques and our child continues to do the “undesirable” behavior. Empathy and addressing emotions underlying behaviors often do not eliminate the undesirable—because kids are kids. They have brains and nervous systems that look like a construction zone—flimsy structures, electric wiring not yet hooked up or hooked up sloppily, and a disarray of tools without a toolbox to organize them.
But we internalize our child’s under-construction limitations as our failure, since we are told that this empathy and focus on the relationship is the solution. We think that we must be doing it wrong.
5. You can have connection and consequences.
Punishment and discipline are often confused in gentle parenting material. According to decades of science, behavioral tools are not automatically punishments and can be a very effective component of discipline. Discipline teaches; punishment does not. You can have connection and consequences. I promise.
6. The science is weak.
Finally, despite claims to the contrary, digging around in academic databases yields little evidence for the effectiveness of gentle parenting. Its very definition is slippery because it’s not yet a concept recognized and studied in psychological science.
Generally, however, research and common sense support that different children respond to different parenting strategies. This leads to my last gripe—when proponents of any parenting approach claim it works for everyone. I take this on in great detail (with scientific back-up) in my book.
Autonomy-supportive parenting incorporates the best of gentle parenting (e.g., using empathy and perspective-taking, prioritizing the parent-child relationship) but with more flexibility and less shame/guilt/feelings of failure. Gentle parenting may offer an ideal version of parenting, but autonomy-supportive parenting is compatible with the real version.
Last year, another journalist writing about gentle parenting contacted me for comment and agreed to interview me despite my contrarian stance. In our talk, the journalist shared one example of using several gentle parenting tips to stop her two-year-old’s undesirable behavior of jumping on a table. With no effect on his gleeful jumping, she finally yelled and took him off the table. She felt guilty for days.
The relief she expressed in our conversation was perhaps part of finally feeling permission to release a more pervasive guilt of not living up to gentle parenting standards. If you’re in that camp, I hope you can also find that relief and release.
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Rachel Marsden
Donald Low
Bradley Blankenship
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
Abbas Juma
Michael Kwet
visit website
