Giving up on Gentle Parenting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there something called intuitive parenting, where you don’t read books or blogs, and just set limits for your kids, tell them no when need be, and generally show them you care about them? I don’t care if people do time outs or sticker charts, or not, but I don’t understand feeling like you need to rigidly adhere to some “type” of parenting.

As long as you are consistent from your child's POV. That's the challenge many parents have IMO and hence they turn to these self-help books to help them navigate.

Yep— by my own admission my intuition stinks and the result of my uncertainty can be inconsistency. So— I’ve looked for overarching principles or rules for myself. Some have come from reading about authoritative parenting and some from me just deciding what I think is not ok and what seems like a logical consequence. I actually write down these rules so I can be consistent. I tried gentle parenting until my first was almost 5. He was a brat and I was angry and exhausted. I was gentle until I’d explode at DH or sometimes my son. I’d say we are still recovering from it 5 years later.

This is my problem with it. Gentle parenting requires a level of patience that pushes most parents to the brink and then they occasionally explode, which I’m starting to feel is more damaging than just generally being consistent but exhibiting less empathy and gentleness, which would feel more sustainable. I would like to see Janet Lansbury be consistently gentle and never explode after 3 years of severe sleep deprivation and 24 hours a day with a toddler who demands your attention and cries all day. Gentle parenting should come with a warning that you shouldn’t attempt it in certain circumstances.

Every gentle parenting advocate I've ever read/heard, including Lansbury, would tell you that if you are stressed, sleep deprived, or feel like you are just faking your way through "gentleness" and patience, that you should lean on your support system to *take a break.* No one tells you to just stuff your feelings down and plaster on a smile until you break.

The idea behind gentle parenting is that you do the work to not be so reactive to your kids behavior so that staying calm isn't about white knuckling it until you lose it. It's about feeling confident enough in your parenting and trusting your kid and yourself enough to be able to stay calm and measured even when your kid is not. I think of gentle parenting as "mature" parenting, as in you are mature enough to deal with whatever your kids throw at you.

[Anonymous]

And what if you don’t have anyone to give you a break? Like millions of parents?

It’s not my situation but it’s the reality for many. I’d say it’s the norm.

So we can do this exhausting dance of parenting or we can the time out. Timeout all the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And what if you don’t have anyone to give you a break? Like millions of parents?

It’s not my situation but it’s the reality for many. I’d say it’s the norm.

So we can do this exhausting dance of parenting or we can the time out. Timeout all the way.

Show me one parent who was on the brink and time out saved them. This is nuts. You can do “gentle parenting” with some form of timeouts if you want! And time outs don’t fix all of your parenting problems any more than hitting kids would, or a nanny, or anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there something called intuitive parenting, where you don’t read books or blogs, and just set limits for your kids, tell them no when need be, and generally show them you care about them? I don’t care if people do time outs or sticker charts, or not, but I don’t understand feeling like you need to rigidly adhere to some “type” of parenting.

As long as you are consistent from your child's POV. That's the challenge many parents have IMO and hence they turn to these self-help books to help them navigate.

Yep— by my own admission my intuition stinks and the result of my uncertainty can be inconsistency. So— I’ve looked for overarching principles or rules for myself. Some have come from reading about authoritative parenting and some from me just deciding what I think is not ok and what seems like a logical consequence. I actually write down these rules so I can be consistent. I tried gentle parenting until my first was almost 5. He was a brat and I was angry and exhausted. I was gentle until I’d explode at DH or sometimes my son. I’d say we are still recovering from it 5 years later.

This is my problem with it. Gentle parenting requires a level of patience that pushes most parents to the brink and then they occasionally explode, which I’m starting to feel is more damaging than just generally being consistent but exhibiting less empathy and gentleness, which would feel more sustainable. I would like to see Janet Lansbury be consistently gentle and never explode after 3 years of severe sleep deprivation and 24 hours a day with a toddler who demands your attention and cries all day. Gentle parenting should come with a warning that you shouldn’t attempt it in certain circumstances.

Every gentle parenting advocate I've ever read/heard, including Lansbury, would tell you that if you are stressed, sleep deprived, or feel like you are just faking your way through "gentleness" and patience, that you should lean on your support system to *take a break.* No one tells you to just stuff your feelings down and plaster on a smile until you break.

The idea behind gentle parenting is that you do the work to not be so reactive to your kids behavior so that staying calm isn't about white knuckling it until you lose it. It's about feeling confident enough in your parenting and trusting your kid and yourself enough to be able to stay calm and measured even when your kid is not. I think of gentle parenting as "mature" parenting, as in you are mature enough to deal with whatever your kids throw at you.

It’s not realistic to be able to get enough breaks to genuinely feel calm. I’ve posted about my kid on here before. Her separation anxiety is so severe nannies quit. I can’t leave her with literally anyone for an extended period of time, and until around 18 months, at all. Not even my husband can help at night or put her to bed. She is 2.5 and still doesn’t sleep through the night. I’ve never had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep even once since she was born. Woke 10-20+ times a night until 20 months. Family is demented, disabled, in a foreign country, or dead. We have no village, and baby rejects the village anyway.

I cannot have a break. I also cannot be calm and have genuine inner peace and reserves to deal with nonstop screaming.

I try to gentle parent because I hate the alternatives. But white knuckling it through is the best I can do many days. I wish Lansbury had actual advice for how to achieve the magical required inner peace to do it authentically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there something called intuitive parenting, where you don’t read books or blogs, and just set limits for your kids, tell them no when need be, and generally show them you care about them? I don’t care if people do time outs or sticker charts, or not, but I don’t understand feeling like you need to rigidly adhere to some “type” of parenting.

As long as you are consistent from your child's POV. That's the challenge many parents have IMO and hence they turn to these self-help books to help them navigate.

Yep— by my own admission my intuition stinks and the result of my uncertainty can be inconsistency. So— I’ve looked for overarching principles or rules for myself. Some have come from reading about authoritative parenting and some from me just deciding what I think is not ok and what seems like a logical consequence. I actually write down these rules so I can be consistent. I tried gentle parenting until my first was almost 5. He was a brat and I was angry and exhausted. I was gentle until I’d explode at DH or sometimes my son. I’d say we are still recovering from it 5 years later.

This is my problem with it. Gentle parenting requires a level of patience that pushes most parents to the brink and then they occasionally explode, which I’m starting to feel is more damaging than just generally being consistent but exhibiting less empathy and gentleness, which would feel more sustainable. I would like to see Janet Lansbury be consistently gentle and never explode after 3 years of severe sleep deprivation and 24 hours a day with a toddler who demands your attention and cries all day. Gentle parenting should come with a warning that you shouldn’t attempt it in certain circumstances.

Every gentle parenting advocate I've ever read/heard, including Lansbury, would tell you that if you are stressed, sleep deprived, or feel like you are just faking your way through "gentleness" and patience, that you should lean on your support system to *take a break.* No one tells you to just stuff your feelings down and plaster on a smile until you break.

The idea behind gentle parenting is that you do the work to not be so reactive to your kids behavior so that staying calm isn't about white knuckling it until you lose it. It's about feeling confident enough in your parenting and trusting your kid and yourself enough to be able to stay calm and measured even when your kid is not. I think of gentle parenting as "mature" parenting, as in you are mature enough to deal with whatever your kids throw at you.

Eh. If you teach your child to behave from the beginning, then you don't need the patience and self-regulation of a saint to deal with a misbehaving child.

No thanks. We'll stick with our old-fashioned traditional parenting that works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there something called intuitive parenting, where you don’t read books or blogs, and just set limits for your kids, tell them no when need be, and generally show them you care about them? I don’t care if people do time outs or sticker charts, or not, but I don’t understand feeling like you need to rigidly adhere to some “type” of parenting.

As long as you are consistent from your child's POV. That's the challenge many parents have IMO and hence they turn to these self-help books to help them navigate.

Yep— by my own admission my intuition stinks and the result of my uncertainty can be inconsistency. So— I’ve looked for overarching principles or rules for myself. Some have come from reading about authoritative parenting and some from me just deciding what I think is not ok and what seems like a logical consequence. I actually write down these rules so I can be consistent. I tried gentle parenting until my first was almost 5. He was a brat and I was angry and exhausted. I was gentle until I’d explode at DH or sometimes my son. I’d say we are still recovering from it 5 years later.

This is my problem with it. Gentle parenting requires a level of patience that pushes most parents to the brink and then they occasionally explode, which I’m starting to feel is more damaging than just generally being consistent but exhibiting less empathy and gentleness, which would feel more sustainable. I would like to see Janet Lansbury be consistently gentle and never explode after 3 years of severe sleep deprivation and 24 hours a day with a toddler who demands your attention and cries all day. Gentle parenting should come with a warning that you shouldn’t attempt it in certain circumstances.

Every gentle parenting advocate I've ever read/heard, including Lansbury, would tell you that if you are stressed, sleep deprived, or feel like you are just faking your way through "gentleness" and patience, that you should lean on your support system to *take a break.* No one tells you to just stuff your feelings down and plaster on a smile until you break.

The idea behind gentle parenting is that you do the work to not be so reactive to your kids behavior so that staying calm isn't about white knuckling it until you lose it. It's about feeling confident enough in your parenting and trusting your kid and yourself enough to be able to stay calm and measured even when your kid is not. I think of gentle parenting as "mature" parenting, as in you are mature enough to deal with whatever your kids throw at you.

Eh. If you teach your child to behave from the beginning, then you don't need the patience and self-regulation of a saint to deal with a misbehaving child.

No thanks. We'll stick with our old-fashioned traditional parenting that works.

I mean I don’t think is true for every kid but it’s definitely true for more kids than not. Current parenting advice has swung way too much toward permissiveness. Let’s swing it back!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there something called intuitive parenting, where you don’t read books or blogs, and just set limits for your kids, tell them no when need be, and generally show them you care about them? I don’t care if people do time outs or sticker charts, or not, but I don’t understand feeling like you need to rigidly adhere to some “type” of parenting.

This is what I do and I think what my parents did and I think it works really well if you have a multi generational series of it working. But if you’re coming at parenting without a very good model for what good parenting looks like for the child you have it can be a lot harder to have a good sense of how to proportionately and appropriately address situations. Those are the people who look for (and write about I think) styles of parenting.

This. I've written about this on these boards before, but I think the audience for "gentle parenting" is people who were abused as kids, or at least raised by emotionally immature parents who were inconsistent and manipulative and didn't set a model that you can follow.

I waited to have kids because of my own abusive/neglected childhood and being unsure I could break a long line of abusive parenting. I only had a kid when I felt confident I could, and I was immediately drawn to gentle parenting because it asserts that you can respond to your kid without yelling and hitting. I have never viewed it the way some on this thread seem too -- to me, it's just a WAY to set boundaries and discipline kids. Like you still set boundaries, have rules, have consequences, you just do it with emotional maturity that allows you to stay calm and not either lose your temper or give in to whatever your kid wants.

I think gentle parenting would be hard if I hadn't spent so long developing my own emotional maturity, working on my relationship with my spouse so that we can properly support each other, and making sure that my own emotional needs are being met so I don't feel like it's too much. I take plenty of breaks and no how to tell my kid or my partner "hey, I need a minute to myself so I don't say or do something I will regret" and then actually taking it.

I think the issue is that a lot of what is branded as “gentle parenting” is against a lot of standard discipline. I don’t mean spanking, but time-outs, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there something called intuitive parenting, where you don’t read books or blogs, and just set limits for your kids, tell them no when need be, and generally show them you care about them? I don’t care if people do time outs or sticker charts, or not, but I don’t understand feeling like you need to rigidly adhere to some “type” of parenting.

As long as you are consistent from your child's POV. That's the challenge many parents have IMO and hence they turn to these self-help books to help them navigate.

Yep— by my own admission my intuition stinks and the result of my uncertainty can be inconsistency. So— I’ve looked for overarching principles or rules for myself. Some have come from reading about authoritative parenting and some from me just deciding what I think is not ok and what seems like a logical consequence. I actually write down these rules so I can be consistent. I tried gentle parenting until my first was almost 5. He was a brat and I was angry and exhausted. I was gentle until I’d explode at DH or sometimes my son. I’d say we are still recovering from it 5 years later.

This is my problem with it. Gentle parenting requires a level of patience that pushes most parents to the brink and then they occasionally explode, which I’m starting to feel is more damaging than just generally being consistent but exhibiting less empathy and gentleness, which would feel more sustainable. I would like to see Janet Lansbury be consistently gentle and never explode after 3 years of severe sleep deprivation and 24 hours a day with a toddler who demands your attention and cries all day. Gentle parenting should come with a warning that you shouldn’t attempt it in certain circumstances.

Every gentle parenting advocate I've ever read/heard, including Lansbury, would tell you that if you are stressed, sleep deprived, or feel like you are just faking your way through "gentleness" and patience, that you should lean on your support system to *take a break.* No one tells you to just stuff your feelings down and plaster on a smile until you break.

The idea behind gentle parenting is that you do the work to not be so reactive to your kids behavior so that staying calm isn't about white knuckling it until you lose it. It's about feeling confident enough in your parenting and trusting your kid and yourself enough to be able to stay calm and measured even when your kid is not. I think of gentle parenting as "mature" parenting, as in you are mature enough to deal with whatever your kids throw at you.

not everyone has a “support system” they can call on at every moment.

a parenting philosophy that is focused on the mother’s demeanor and feelings (because it is the mom 99% of the time) is extremely regressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what if you don’t have anyone to give you a break? Like millions of parents?

It’s not my situation but it’s the reality for many. I’d say it’s the norm.

So we can do this exhausting dance of parenting or we can the time out. Timeout all the way.

Show me one parent who was on the brink and time out saved them. This is nuts. You can do “gentle parenting” with some form of timeouts if you want! And time outs don’t fix all of your parenting problems any more than hitting kids would, or a nanny, or anything else.

Again the primary gentle parenting advocates are against time outs.

More importantly, setting up a discipline structure that the parent and child understand and is predictable - like a one minute time out for pre-defined behavior- in fact removes a huge amount of stress. Because it is predictable, does not rely on the parent having some specific state of mind, and generally shows results in changing behavior quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And what if you don’t have anyone to give you a break? Like millions of parents?

It’s not my situation but it’s the reality for many. I’d say it’s the norm.

So we can do this exhausting dance of parenting or we can the time out. Timeout all the way.

Yes, and this is why a lot of parents hit their kids or scream at them to get them to comply with behavioral expectations. Because they are stretched too thin, have no support, and have no idea what else to do.

Also I don't know where you guys are getting that time outs are against gentle parenting. Gentle parenting would frown on yelling at a kid "go to your room!" after misbehavior. But a parent saying "okay I can see you are struggling not to hit right now, I'm going to put you in your room where you can't hurt anyone until you are ready to stop hitting" would be in line with gentle parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what if you don’t have anyone to give you a break? Like millions of parents?

It’s not my situation but it’s the reality for many. I’d say it’s the norm.

So we can do this exhausting dance of parenting or we can the time out. Timeout all the way.

Yes, and this is why a lot of parents hit their kids or scream at them to get them to comply with behavioral expectations. Because they are stretched too thin, have no support, and have no idea what else to do.

Also I don't know where you guys are getting that time outs are against gentle parenting. Gentle parenting would frown on yelling at a kid "go to your room!" after misbehavior. But a parent saying "okay I can see you are struggling not to hit right now, I'm going to put you in your room where you can't hurt anyone until you are ready to stop hitting" would be in line with gentle parenting.

Fewer words work better for kids than more. All that blather is ineffective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what if you don’t have anyone to give you a break? Like millions of parents?

It’s not my situation but it’s the reality for many. I’d say it’s the norm.

So we can do this exhausting dance of parenting or we can the time out. Timeout all the way.

Yes, and this is why a lot of parents hit their kids or scream at them to get them to comply with behavioral expectations. Because they are stretched too thin, have no support, and have no idea what else to do.

Also I don't know where you guys are getting that time outs are against gentle parenting. Gentle parenting would frown on yelling at a kid "go to your room!" after misbehavior. But a parent saying "okay I can see you are struggling not to hit right now, I'm going to put you in your room where you can't hurt anyone until you are ready to stop hitting" would be in line with gentle parenting.

Because Dr Becky and Janet Lansbury are *expressly against* time-outs. To varying degrees they are also against negative consequences unless they can somehow be framed as a “natural consequence.” And they are also not supported of positive behavioral incentives like point charts. Their entire theory is that if the mom controls her own feelings and behavior and talks/reacts to the child in just the right way, the child will learn the correct behavior.

“Gentle parenting” does not mean “don’t yell at or spank your kids.” It is a philosophy of child rearing that departs from mainstream clinical advice on dealing with disruptive behavior such as PCIT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what if you don’t have anyone to give you a break? Like millions of parents?

It’s not my situation but it’s the reality for many. I’d say it’s the norm.

So we can do this exhausting dance of parenting or we can the time out. Timeout all the way.

Yes, and this is why a lot of parents hit their kids or scream at them to get them to comply with behavioral expectations. Because they are stretched too thin, have no support, and have no idea what else to do.

Also I don't know where you guys are getting that time outs are against gentle parenting. Gentle parenting would frown on yelling at a kid "go to your room!" after misbehavior. But a parent saying "okay I can see you are struggling not to hit right now, I'm going to put you in your room where you can't hurt anyone until you are ready to stop hitting" would be in line with gentle parenting.

Fewer words work better for kids than more. All that blather is ineffective.

the “blather” is actually the core of the philosophy. they believe that a set of magical words (that must be said with the correct emotion) will teach the child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what if you don’t have anyone to give you a break? Like millions of parents?

It’s not my situation but it’s the reality for many. I’d say it’s the norm.

So we can do this exhausting dance of parenting or we can the time out. Timeout all the way.

Yes, and this is why a lot of parents hit their kids or scream at them to get them to comply with behavioral expectations. Because they are stretched too thin, have no support, and have no idea what else to do.

Also I don't know where you guys are getting that time outs are against gentle parenting. Gentle parenting would frown on yelling at a kid "go to your room!" after misbehavior. But a parent saying "okay I can see you are struggling not to hit right now, I'm going to put you in your room where you can't hurt anyone until you are ready to stop hitting" would be in line with gentle parenting.

Fewer words work better for kids than more. All that blather is ineffective.

the “blather” is actually the core of the philosophy. they believe that a set of magical words (that must be said with the correct emotion) will teach the child.

Yes, I know that - but when a child is angry, upset, dysregulated, etc. fewer words are better in the moment. A discussion can happen later, when they are able to be receptive.

This is general parenting advice, not specifically related to gentle parenting or other types of parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what if you don’t have anyone to give you a break? Like millions of parents?

It’s not my situation but it’s the reality for many. I’d say it’s the norm.

So we can do this exhausting dance of parenting or we can the time out. Timeout all the way.

Yes, and this is why a lot of parents hit their kids or scream at them to get them to comply with behavioral expectations. Because they are stretched too thin, have no support, and have no idea what else to do.

Also I don't know where you guys are getting that time outs are against gentle parenting. Gentle parenting would frown on yelling at a kid "go to your room!" after misbehavior. But a parent saying "okay I can see you are struggling not to hit right now, I'm going to put you in your room where you can't hurt anyone until you are ready to stop hitting" would be in line with gentle parenting.

Fewer words work better for kids than more. All that blather is ineffective.

the “blather” is actually the core of the philosophy. they believe that a set of magical words (that must be said with the correct emotion) will teach the child.

Ironic how it doesn't work with adults, but yet they think kids with a smaller vocabulary and less ability to emotionally regulate can find meaning in all the words.