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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I read the gentle parenting books (Lansbury, how to talk so little kids blah blah) and I didn’t come away with anything about not having consequences. I just don’t think you guys have read the books.

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Lansbury is against time-outs

https://www.janetlansbury.com/2016/05/why-timeouts-fail-and-what-to-do-instead/[/quote]

DP, but did you read the link you sent? Her point is not that time-outs are evil or she is "against" them, but that they aren't very effective. Why? Because they fail to actually teach children the skills or tools they need to behave better the next time, in most cases.

Authoritarian parenting (the yelling/hitting/timeout model) is premised on the idea that if you punish kids for bad behavior, they will think about their behavior and the punishment and draw the logical conclusion that if they want to avoid punishment, they must stop engaging in the bad behavior. What gentle and authoritative parenting experts are saying is that this assumption is wrong, ESPECIALLY for young kids who lack the cognitive reasoning skills to draw those conclusions. Instead, yelling/hitting/timeout teaches kids a bunch of other lessons that parents might not intend (lessons like "I'm a bad person" or "when things are hard, my parents want me to go away" and "the bigger and stronger person gets their way") but doesn't actually help them become better functioning people who can avoid the negative behaviors that parents are punishing in the first place.

But consequences are essential to gentle parenting. It's just that Lansbury and other advocates are pointing out that in order for consequences to work, they must be coupled with things like:

(1) Clearly articulated expectations. A child can not meet an expectation they are unaware of, and young children in particular are not just going to pick up on expectations -- you have to tell them.

(2) Consequences clearly linked to negative behaviors. Timeouts are rarely directly linked to the negative behavior, and they also isolate a kid in a moment of upset or conflict when it would be useful for someone (like a parent!) to be there to explain what is happening and why so that the child actually learns something they can apply in the future. Sitting in ones room alone after being yelled at is not actually the learning experience some parents seem to think it should be.

(2) Communication. This is where a lot of parents struggle and with reason -- it can be hard. I think this is wear gently/authoritative parenting resources can be most helpful. I've gotten some very helpful ideas for how to better communicate with my kids from resources like Dr. Becky and (when my kids were younger) Janet Lansbury. It can feel awkward and stilted at first, but you get better with time.[/quote]

Is there someone on this thread that was advocating authoritarian parenting? I guess I didn't see that post. It doesn't matter though. Just about everyone else advocates authoritative parenting, which apparently is the same thing as gentle parenting so we're all arguing about nothing. Typical.

Time outs didn't work for my kids. They work for me, though! I give myself a time out and I love it. [/quote]

Yes! Literally OP is like "I want to lay down the law," which is authoritarian. Authoritative parenting requires communication and setting expectations and explaining stuff to kids when they don't meet expectations so they learn (instead of just punishing them without explanation, which is WAY easier but ultimately not as effective). And lots of people agree this is easier and just want to yell at their kids and are tired of the "gentle parenting" (i.e. authoritative) parenting advice which says not to do that and instead to meet a higher parenting standard that requires you actually teach your kids how to do stuff and model healthy emotional regulation. It's hard, that's why people don't like it.

My family uses timeouts, btw, but in the way you mean -- people put themselves in timeout. We don't send kids to their rooms for misbehaving, but when someone is clearly dysregulated, we'll ask if they want to take a break or if spending some time on they own might help them feel more calm. Sometimes the answer is no and sometimes it's yes. Works for adults, too. This actually goes to the question of "giving kids agency" that has popped up on the thread. We always try to give our kids agency to do something that is going to be helpful to helping them behave. So giving a kid space to choose to take a break for a bit, or to choose how to make amends with a sibling they hurt, or to choose how to own up to making a mess, is a good kind of agency. It's not "do whatever you want!" It's "I trust you to make your own choice here, and if it doesn't work out, I'll be there to talk through how to make a better one next time."[/quote]

“Please Larla stop biting mommy! Mommy doesn’t like that. OW Larla that hurts! Are you feeling sad OW! Would you like some OW alone time OW? Please Larla I can’t OW let you OW bite me OW!”[/quote]

I don't know what this response is for but I do gentle parenting and my kid doesn't bite me (or anyone) and if they did, I would not ask if they were feeling sad or needed alone time. I don't actually believe you've ever witnessed a parent IRL do that.[/quote]

Yes of course your kid doesn’t bite. So maybe you should stop acting like you know anything about difficult behavior. [/quote]

Oh, my kid has been a biter. Was a biter at age 3. A big one. I used gentle parenting techniques to stop the biting. For me, the more difficult the behavior, the harder I have to lean into what I have learned from people like Lansbury and Dr. Becky because the harder it is to stay calm and regulate my own emotions. That doesn't mean I let my kid bite me. It means that I use gentle parenting techniques to keep my own emotions in check so that I can address the difficult behavior. It's so much more effective than responding emotionally. For me at least, it was my kid's difficult behaviors that led me to read up on gentle parenting and authoritative parenting, because my own parents would have just screamed at me or hit me, and that didn't feel right, so I was looking for an approach that was effective but not abusive.[/quote]

Lansbury gives you zero tools to stay calm and regulated while you deal with endless defiance and screaming. She gives you the why but NOT the how. This is one of my biggest gripes.[/quote]

If you're having that much trouble staying calm and regulated then you need to go to therapy. I'm saying that genuinely btw, not snarkily. [/quote]

No kidding. Already doing that. It doesn’t magically rewire your nervous system, give you a neurotypical child, or erase literal years of extreme sleep deprivation that make you irritable due to having a hard child who never, ever sleeps.[/quote]

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