Reply to “The Harsh Reality of Gentle Parenting”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think empathy, modeling the behavior you want to see, and getting away from shame all make sense, but also think there are some parts of gentle parenting philosophy that are actively bad for parents and kids.

I think advice that tells parents (moms) that they can't express a full range of emotions is really problematic (the go in the garage and scream in a pillow rather than show frustration or anger in front of your child-to me that is messed up.

More harmful to me as the parent of a kid with anxiety is the constant smoothing of the path for kids.[b] The experts in my life keep stressing that my role as a parent is to help my kid build distress tolerance. Kids need to know that they can hear "no" and they will be okay, that someone can be angry at them and they will be okay. If you don't have those small experiences of suffering and recovering through childhood-how do you get to a place where failing a test in college, or getting negative feedback from a boss is something you accept, recover, and work through.[/b] I see young people in my life who do not seem to be able to navigate even small adversities without falling apart and I wonder if there is a connection to this style of parenting.[/quote]

This is interesting.  [/quote]

Coping skills are imperative.  Look around at some of these adults - they are a complete mess. [/quote]

Agreed but you have to be careful about what you conclude from this.

When I was a younger adult (20s, early 30s) I was super sensitive to criticism and had very emotional responses to what I think other people consider normal stuff -- a very critical boss, or a flaky friend who always bails last minute. I took this stuff personally and was very hurt and my life was hard because I had very little resiliency.

I'm not like this anymore (more on that in a sec) but a few years ago I was talking about parenting with another parent and mentioned that I used to be like this. She immediately jumped in and said, "Exactly, see -- your parents smoothed everything out for you as a kid and then you go to adulthood and couldn't cope. That's why I am strict with my kid. He needs to learn how to deal with disappointment and frustration."

Here's the part she didn't wait to hear: my parents did NOT smooth everything out for me. I had incredibly strict parents. They yelled, they told me to hurry up, they punished me if I messed up (i.e. getting grounded for getting a C on a test, or grounded for missing curfew... I got grounded a lot). They were not gentle, they never empathized, they told me often they "didn't care" what my explanation was for some problem I'd had or something I'd done wrong. They never reassured me that they loved me or that I was okay or that I could mess up and they'd still listen and support me.

And this meant that as I entered adulthood, the stakes for every freaking relationship were sky high. My boss is mad at me? I am a failure who doesn't deserve this job. My friend flaked on me? They must secretly hate me, maybe all my friend secretly hate me, I have no friends. I was super needed and wanted constant validation because (this is important) [b][i]I had never received adequate care and validation as a child and questioned my worthiness as a person constantly.[/i] [/b] I wasn't a mess because my parents failed to teach my coping skills. I was a mess because all I had were coping skills (to deal with the crushing depression and lack of self-worth) but I had nothing underneath. No sense of value, no trust that my family would love me no matter what, no belief in my fundamental worthiness as a person that would make it okay if I messed up or someone got mad at me or someone didn't want to be my friend.

That's why I do gentle parenting and make sure to validate my kid's feelings and have empathy and don't say stuff to them like "you make me so mad" or I can't deal with you anymore." The world will teach them all about how little other people care about them and how unimportant they are. They need to know that I love them anyway, and I think they are worthy of love. I'm the port in the storm. I don't need to be the storm.[/quote]

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