Reply to Giving up on Gentle Parenting

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]
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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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