Reply to Giving up on Gentle Parenting

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Gentle parenting basically just means no yelling, no hitting, no time outs. It promotes saying no, physically removing children from situations that are dangerous or when they refuse to comply, physically forcing them to do certain things (they won’t put shoes on, you put them on for them). The whole point is if you face very firm boundaries and expectations you won’t need to yell or punish. I don’t know whether that’s true, but that’s the point.

It does not mean negotiating. In fact, Lansbury specifically says not to do that.

I think it’s super hard for two reasons. One, I find staying calm and patient with hundreds of toddler tantrums a day really hard. Two, you have no leverage or punishment, so you have zero in-the-moment tools for stopping bad behavior aside from physical removal, which is hard or impossible when your child physically resists. Gentle parenting is a long game that assumes that over time your kids will learn your boundaries and comply, eliminating the need to act out and push back.

It’s not working for me, but it’s worth mentioning it’s really not about being permissive or arguing with your kids. Quite the opposite.[/quote]

I hate Janet Lansbury with a passion. Some of her advice is in fact run of the mill behavioral stuff you might get from any child psychologist. But she serves it with a side of massive condescension to women who don’t perform motherhood correctly. Her methods seem to be more focused on the mom feeling and saying the exact right thing instead of setting up structures that actually work. She also seems to literally believe in magic words, as if following her scripts (“I won’t let you hit!”) will change behavior. [/quote]

Oh, the scripts. I read the Ross Greene books, followed the scripts, and my little dear one laughed manically each time. Maybe it works on some kids.

We found out later that the youngest DS has ADHD and switched to an authoritative style of parenting, which also doesn't allow for parents yelling or losing their cool. We all are so much happier now, including DS. It's not a miracle cure and that funny kid still pushes boundaries but it's definitely all doable. [/quote]

This.  I have a boundary pusher.  He needs clear guidelines.  I use the same approach with people who work for me, ha.

What are the rules?
Will the rules be enforced equally?
What is the punishment for breaking the rules?

90% of humans want to know this on some level.  If they know the answers and what to expect, it makes things easiers.  [/quote]

My dude. That is gentle parenting. Making boundaries and rules known and enforcing them consistently is essential in gentle parenting because you have no tools for in-the-moment compliance so you are relying on rock solid boundaries and rules.[/quote]

gentle parenting is against punishments though. negative consequences are a cornerstone for my kid. some gentle parents offshoots are ALSO against positive rewards. so basically the theory is that you just talk to the kid correctly and they will follow the rules. lol. [/quote]

I admittedly haven’t researched this much but the one time I heard about gentle parenting the psychiatrist explaining it said they were against *unrelated* punishments.  So no spanking or withholding screen time because the kid is being loud.  But sure yes, separate loud kids from siblings and send to their room if necessary because that solves the loud problem (they can’t disrupt other people’s afternoon if they’re out of hearing distance).  Which makes sense to me; my kid gets both negative and positive consequences but they’re (usually; I’m not above bribing occasionally and I can’t say I never yell or scold unreasonably) related to the situation at hand.[/quote]

that doesn’t work for everything, and it’s unclear why it’s even necessary for the punishment to be related. [/quote]

Consequences should be as related as possible to the offense because children are still just learning how to be people and the whole point of consequences should be to teach them how to better behave in the future. That's why "natural consequences" are preferable, whenever possible, because natural consequences will not only teach a child to do better next time, it will also teach them WHY to do better next time.

So an example would be trying to get a child clear their plate and help clean after dinner. An authoritarian parent might take away TV privileges or say "no dessert" if a kid failed to follow the expectation that everyone in the family clears their plate after dinner. But neither of those things have anything to do with cleaning up, and also don't teach the kid anything about WHY cleaning up after yourself is a useful skill. But if the consequence is that you leave their dirty plate at the table with the food still on it, and then serve them dessert or breakfast on the plate that still has they dinner remnants on it, and they say "hey, that's gross!" and then you explain that yes, it is gross, which is why you need to clear your plate and rinse it and put it in the dishwasher after every meal, they will start to understand why cleaning up is important. And gentle parenting would suggest doing this in a kind, playful way, so it feels like a lesson and not some kind of horrible punishment, because then your kids are more likely to listen to the part where you explain it instead of just feeling horrible and mistreated.

Natural consequences are not always possible but they are possible more often than many parents think, and if you can come up with at least related consequences the rest of the time, you discover that the lessons tend to stick better and your kids trust you more because they will view you as a guide who has some wisdom to impart as opposed to a jailer who is alway telling them "do this! don't do that!" with no explanation, and then taking away their favorite activities when they can't keep those rules straight.[/quote]

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