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If you’ve hung around on social media for any time, you’ve probably heard the term “Gentle Parenting” thrown around. But unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions about what Gentle Parenting means. Based on the name, many assume that it’s a type of parenting that is permissive, passive, or wishy-washy, but this couldn’t be further from the truth!
While we know that there is no one perfect way to be a parent, we also understand that the best parents are always on the lookout for better systems of parenting that support their children as best as they can. We wanted to demystify Gentle Parenting so that you can decide if any of these principles benefit you and your family now and in the future.
So what is Gentle Parenting?
Gentle Parenting is a type of parenting that is composed of four main elements— empathy, respect, understanding, and boundaries. This style of parenting is evidence-based, meaning that the top research in the fields of mental health, neurodevelopment, child development, and sociology all show proven, repeatable evidence that when it comes to the overall health of you and your child, Gentle Parenting has the least negative impact of all of the parenting styles. That’s a big statement to make, so you can probably see why it challenges many parents.
Because no parent ever sets out with the intention of causing their precious child harm. The research shows that even the most abusive, disconnected, disorganized, or guarded parents out there never actively pursue a type of parenting that leaves their children scarred- physically or emotionally.
The reality is that when we become parents, all of our undealt with trauma and baggage spills into our parenting, and we repeat the cycle we desperately did not want to continue.
Being A Parent is Hard – Because Being a Human is Hard!
It’s tough being a human being. We are complicated creatures. We are nuanced and adaptable, and nothing scares most of us more than change because change means we have to adapt and face nuance. We’re also whole, integrated people, meaning that what we do in one area of our life affects the other areas of our lives. Our bodies aren’t separate from our spirit; our hearts directly impact our intellect. Being a functioning, healthy, contributing human takes a lot of hard work. Raising functioning, healthy, contributing humans takes even more work.
This is one of the biggest challenges in Gentle Parenting; we must model the behavior we want to foster in our children.
One of the essential elements of Gentle Parenting is self-regulation. Our nervous system has a tremendous impact on our overall health. When our nervous system is dysregulated, we face a litany of issues, like chronic fatigue, exhaustion, anxiety, depression, mood swings, and out bursts of anger. As science learns more about our intricate and delicate nervous system, we are beginning to understand why mental health issues, auto-immune diseases, and stress-related health problems are rising.
Gentle Parenting reminds us that if our nervous systems are out of whack, how can we expect to help our children regulate their nervous systems? Because every tantrum, every outrage, all the angst, tears, screaming, and inability to respond rationally from our child indicates something is wrong in their nervous system. Remember, when we are infants, we have the same capacity for emotion as an adult and zero understanding of how to manage all those big emotions in a small body.
The healthiest thing we can do for our kids is to deal with our baggage first. To model for them what it means to heal and put our needs first so that we don’t have to pour from an empty, dysregulated cup of a nervous system.
What Does Gentle Parenting Look Like?
We promise that Gentle Parenting isn’t as scary as it may sound. Some might think they must be “fully healed” or have it together to use Gentle Parenting effectively, but that’s not true. Even if you are dealing with baggage from your past and make mistakes, you can still parent your kids gently and well. Owning up to those mistakes is a big part of Gentle Parenting.
One of the reasons nervous system regulation is a big deal in Gentle Parenting is because the goal is to be responsive rather than reactive. When we react to a situation, it’s usually from being overwhelmed or triggered. We yell and scream and slam the door. We threaten and make ultimatums. And we almost always feel awful after. Responding to a situation is a much different scene. We can stay calm to remind ourselves that whatever has just happened isn’t about us or even a reflection of us. We can show up and help our children regulate themselves because we can regulate ourselves.
And this takes a lot of practice! You are going to mess up, and that is okay. However, the critical part of mending any reaction and helping yourself and your child reach a place of responding is in the repair. And more often than not, the repair looks like an apology – a sincere one. It looks like being honest with yourself and your child (or partner!) about what happened and actually communicating about it until all parties involved feel seen, heard, loved, and promise to work hard to do better next time. It takes a lot of humility and grace but also creates trust and intimacy between you and your kids, as you’ve never experienced before.
Boundaries and Expectations
Another key component of Gentle Parenting is setting appropriate expectations through boundaries. Of course, you’ve also probably seen many people talking about boundaries. All boundaries communicate specific expectations and the attached consequence of not respecting that boundary.
For instance, if your teen has been staying up way too late texting, you, as their parent, have every right to set a boundary for them (which will teach them to set boundaries for themselves!). Sitting down and telling them that if they do not stop texting after, say, an hour before the time they need to be in bed, they won’t be able to have their phone in their room at night until they can be responsible with their phone at night. You are still the parent, and you are still in charge of ensuring their needs (sleep) are met, even at the cost of what they want (to talk to their friends). So setting a clear, specific, reasonable expectation and communicating the natural consequence of ignoring that expectation reminds your kids that you are their parent and are willing to do what’s best for them, even when they don’t like it.
Then you follow through. If your teen breaks the boundary, you follow through on the consequence – even while they yell and tell you how much they hate you and you’re the worst parent ever, and Jonny’s mom lets him do whatever he wants! The key is to remember to respond rather than react in those moments. Your child doesn’t hate you; they don’t like what you did, even though they knew you would do it!
Boundaries are essential to Gentle Parenting because they teach so much about the real world and relationships. Many in the Gentle Parenting community don’t use the word punishment. Not because it sounds bad or harsh, but because punishment isn’t an accurate word for what we’re trying to do as parents. We do want to discipline our children, but the word ” discipline ” means “teach.” The goal isn’t to make your kids fear a disproportionate outcome to their actions but to communicate the natural bad consequence of choosing to make a bad or unhealthy decision.
Boundaries teach kids how to handle conflict safely. It teaches them to communicate their needs and respect the communicated (and even the uncommunicated) needs of others. Sticking to your boundaries teaches kids that you are trustworthy and that you mean what you say; they can rely on you to follow through. It teaches empathy, understanding, and how to be a grown-up.
Appropriate Time and Place
The last element of Gentle Parenting we want to touch on is always keeping in mind whether or not your parenting is age, place, and time appropriate. Again, a lot of this goes back to learning to self-regulate and help our kids regulate an out-of-whack nervous system.
We’ve all been in situations where someone has spoken or acted in a totally inappropriate way for the situation. It’s always a tense moment as the people in the room shuffle through their emotions and try to keep it together, not make a scene. Unfortunately, most of us tend to shove down our initial reaction for the sake of the others around us, but we keep it shoved down and never actually deal with how that situation made us feel. So, yes, there are definitely times when you do need to set a reaction aside to get through the current moment or where it’s appropriate to leave, so you don’t lose your cool. But these are things that need circling back to in an appropriate way.
The same is true for our kids. It is not okay for your teen to say they hate you when you take their phone away at night. That kind of language is hurtful and unkind, and you definitely need to have a conversation with them about that. You need to tell them how much it hurt you and that saying terrible things to people when they do things we don’t like isn’t how we deal with our anger, frustration, and disappointment. And that conversation shouldn’t be right before their big game. Or at the dinner table with the whole family around. Or at a family BBQ.
Respect is a two-way street, and Gentle Parenting promotes that children are entitled to just as much respect as adults. Respect means dealing with conflict in an appropriate way. This means finding a time and place to have difficult conversations that don’t heap on shame, belittle anyone, and allow for an open discourse between every person involved. That might be on the way home from practice, after dinner while you’re doing the dishes together, or after the last family member has left with a belly full of ribs.
If we aim to teach our children to be kind, gentle, loving, and responsive adults, why would we put them in situations that shine a spotlight of shame on them? The way we respond to our children should be time, place, and age-appropriate, just like the consequences for breaking a boundary should be appropriate to the boundary.
Conclusion
We barely scratched the surface of everything about Gentle Parenting, but hopefully, this helps demystify it. Finding a parenting style that works for you and your family is very personal. There is so much shame around parenting styles, and we by no means ever want to add to that!
The more research that comes out about the effects of Gentle Parenting, the more we’re excited to watch as parents begin to implement many of these principles and see tremendous outcomes with their children. It is never too late to try new things in our parenting, so whether you’ve got little or big ones, you can shake up the parenting rut and do something new for your family.
And remember, the most incredible thing about Gentle Parenting is that as we learn to parent our kids better, we also learn to parent ourselves better, which will bring healing to your whole family line for generations to come.
