I was pretty skeptical about your take here when i started reading this, but then by the end found that your approach is almost exactly how i parent - and it’s not even intentional most times!
I have also found the narration of a child’s every move to be excessive and not natural. Especially when it’s from a perfectly composed script. When i push away all the noise from gentle parenting experts, i start mothering instinctually, which can look like holding my daughter close but silently as she cries, sitting near her during a tantrum but not trying to intervene, or letting her jump on the damn couch if she wants to.
lol that's my favorite thing about substack vs instagram, there's so much more room for nuance here and, in turn, less triggered people running to the comments to start fights!
I love this and it really aligns with my experiences! An interesting observation as a parent to little kids and teacher of teenagers: validating emotions and explaining boundaries verbally works pretty badly with my three-year-old. However, it works better with thirteen-year-olds. It makes sense developmentally, because they have some capacity for reason and want to be treated as rational decision-makers. Toddlers just need a calm hug!
I agree about this not working with three year olds - I've had two so far and both have been absolutely furious with me whenever I've used my calm voice during a tantrum. When I sat quietly nearby and let one scream the other day, though, he was more than happy to have a cuddle once he'd finally calmed, and we were able to continue our day without a power struggle. GP definitely forgets that three year olds are three years old, doesn't it? 😅
Yeah I really think there is not much you can do when a kid is upset like that except to just protect them, yourself and others and wait for the storm to pass
Another great post, and another great perspective. Thanks, Elena! Your point about ignoring is spot on! A big issue I see in the application of gentle parenting is that the attempt to search out the underlying emotional motivation of every behavior or validate each expression of displeasure actually brings a lot of energy and focus to behaviors and expressions we may want to see diminish over the course of development. If parents validate every frustration and complaint of a child, not only does it quickly become unsustainable for the parent, it doesn't allow the child to gain a healthy perspective regarding what is actually a big deal and what is something they should be able to move on from without a huge amount of fanfare.
Not quite, but I'm delighted we're on the same page:) I always appreciate how grounded and well researched your writing is. I find myself nodding along whenever I read your work.
Oh my word I can't tell you how validated I feel by your mention of the gentle parenting > rage cycle. So many times I have gentle parented the absolute shit out of my kids only to ruin it all by reaching the end of my tether and shouting to "GET YOUR SHOES ON I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR THIRTY MINUTES AND NOW WE'RE LATE!" (at which point my husband inevitably walks in, surveys the scene, shrugs and goes "why are you so stressed?" which obviously makes me see a red so deep I could be in the fiery pits of hell.)
I have some qualifications in early childhood, many of which do lean on 'gentle' approaches in their marketing (give the people what they want) but that are actually more on the authoritative side (which the science likes, as you'll know.) All of which is to say that while I am FULLY AWARE that gentle parenting isn't backed by anything, societal pressure has pushed me into trying really, really hard to be a perfectly serene, wonder of a mother who never gets annoyed and always explains everything in such a way that her children just, you know, get it. Except that I am not naturally a calm person, and trying to suppress all emotions that aren't perfectly peaceful and on one level at all times just comes out as irritability. I'm much better at being chilled when I respond to my kid doing something annoying by quietly taking away the toy they were smacking against the wall, for example, and getting myself a cup of tea, rather than using my gentle voice and explaining that their sister's favourite dolly's head is going to cave in any minute and that would make her sad, you don't want her to be sad do you? (At which point the answer, always, is yes I do want her to be sad, which is v hard to deal with as a gentle parent, because that conversation could go on for hours.)
I'm taking this post as permission to sack off gentle parenting once and for all, so thank you. I'll keep explaining the things that need to be explained, but the rest of the time I'm going to lean into my urge to distract and/or ignore in the moments that could really do without more talk. I'm also going to lean more into the hunter gatherer stuff I already do, which I am loving learning about from you.
Here's to enjoying the three children under six that I have spent the last few years trying (very often failing) to be a perfect gently parent to, and here's to letting go of the guilt that blooms daily when I find myself acting like a human being, rather than a Big Little Feelings programmed robot.
Wow thanks for this comment. 3 under 6 go you! But yeah, that was what Michaeleen Doucleff and I talked about: the real battle is to focus on keeping yourself calm, and that’s very hard to do if you’re busy narrating all your child’s emotions to them, especially if you’re not seeing results. Sometimes you just need to quietly and patiently put their damn shoes on for them and escort them out the door.
100%. Narrating everything and saying ‘you’re feeling frustrated’ will send my eldest in to an anger spiral. She’s 6 now but even when she was 3 she’d shout ‘DON’T TALK ME!’. I also find that I’m not able to stay calm if I’m following the Dr Becky approach because a) I forget what to say, b) it doesn’t feel natural or authentic and c) because of a and b, I start feeling stressed because it’s not working. Here’s to stepping away from Big Parenting!
Yes I’ve observed this. A relative is very into gentle parenting and her daughter will throw a tantrum and she’ll say like “you feel left out” “you want presents too”. I’m pretty sure the 4 yo has no idea what “left out” means. It’s like she is putting ideas in her head?
Yes! This is exactly it! You find yourself explaining to them how they feel and thinking ‘but is that how they feel or am I training them to believe that’s how they feel?’
Gentle parenting, or whatever it is currently called, is about control as far as I’m concerned. It appears much more permissive than that, but in fact it stems from an inability on the part of the parent to accept the kid as they are, in the developmental stage they are at. It’s actually unkind to give a child a “positivity sandwich” bit of feedback, try to engage them in whatever convoluted description of their behaviour you can muster, whilst they are having a meltdown. I really believe it all stems from a fear of our kids’ big emotions, which usually of course tracks back to our own fear of our inner world. It’s honestly just ridiculous to me, this whole ethos; I really cannot imagine “following” a “parenting expert” - wtf is THAT?
i did not get it all right, btw. i’m not writing from that pov at all: i am in a seriously awful place in my own parenting of my young adult sons right now, a time of reckoning (menopause) where i have to be very honest with myself about how much i hate mothering and the things i did and didn’t do when they were little. i did pretty well, and i was also extremely over-invested in what i did having particular results. that is mothering for us all, i suppose; also, i think that gentle prenting is as likely to raise a generation of emotionally immature, fragile and even narcissistic humans as it is the generation of empathic, switched-on beings that i imagine is the intended outcome.
Yeah that’s it - gentle parenting is just a gentle way of trying to control a child, but it’s still about control and so it’s still going to lead to power struggles. Obviously we have to set boundaries with our kids, but I think most parents are still trying to mold and control their children too much.
Your points about affirming autonomy and doing less in order to keep your own sanity are so necessary and well taken. When I was 2-3, one of the most effective things my mom did (intergenerational knowledge here) was to put me in a space where I could do all of what I wanted to do (saying the F word, screaming because I couldn’t buy a toy). That space might be a quiet room or the car, but we would go there together (or I would be there alone, in the case of my bedroom, presumably depending on how much of a break she needed). I was free to do as much of the questionable or annoying thing as I wanted to! In that act, I felt the autonomy of being able to do exactly what I needed to do in the moment, while being extricated from a busy environment. I think 5ish minutes was usually as long as it took for me to calm down and say, “mommy, I’m ready to go now.” At 15 months with my first child, we’re not at the tantrum phase yet, but I look forward to practicing some of what seemed to work so well for my mom and me 30 years ago!
This is amazing! I couldn’t agree more. I tried so hard to do all the “gentle parenting” with my oldest. Now with 3 kids I let most stuff go and only intervene if necessary with LESS talking. So much easier and I don’t get mad and yell at them nearly as often! Also as an SLP kids cannot process that level of verbal language especially toddlers. I really think the gentle parenting puts adults feelings on to kids and it does not fit their development . Like they always say with adding a new baby sibling “imagine your husband bringing home another wife”. Like what?!
Loved the story about your mom doing the lizard nostrils! I’m far from a parenting expert (though I think I’m an okay mom after 9 years of trial and error) and one of my favorite parenting tools is just silliness - so often you can defuse a tricky situation just with that.
Silliness is the best! Or just change the subject! Just now my kids started whining about who knows what and I said, look out the window it just started raining! That was the end of that.
I’ll never forget trying to follow a script in which instead of saying no to my daughter’s request to have a cookie at 7am, I fantasized with her about the enormous ice cream sundae with cookies that we would enjoy if only it weren’t so early in the morning.
My daughter was three. She rolled her eyes at me and said, “Mom, stop. Just stop.”
Then of course I spent the day beating myself up because I must have done it wrong.
I don’t follow scripts or listen to parenting experts anymore.
🤣 I believe you. Isn’t it crazy how insane this stuff is in retrospect? But we live in these echo chambers and sometimes we just need to travel (or read 500 books on hunter gatherer societies) in order to realize how bonkers it all is.
This is so great! I think the problem with gentle parenting is that it often draws parents AWAY from the very attunement they think it’s moving them towards! If you are distracted by scripts and what that exact influencer said to do in this scenario you are unlikely to be actually looking your child in the face and attuning to what they need, which is usually NOT a speech but usually IS a nap or a distraction or maybe a hug. It depends on the child and the situation and being actually connected to them and their ways, which is why prescripted responses will never lead to real attunement 🙃
After listening to your podcast with Michaeleen Doucleff, I gave up on gentle parenting. The mental load of narrating feelings was too much and now my approach is to try and teach my 3 year old consequences. I ask him more questions like well what will you do now, ignore tantrums, and if all else fails try to come up with a funny story or reply in a weird Mrs Doubtfire voice which just cuts the tension we are both feeling.
This article was so encouraging! The grunting speaks to me.
I get a little confused when I see gentle parenting describe this way. I have always understood GP to be authoritative parenting with a catchy social media hook. I am not actually familiar with Dr. Becky though. We have been more influenced by RIE/Janet Lansbury and Concious Discipline/Mr. Chazz etc. The focus is on repectful boundary setting and emotional connection. A lot of stuff I have seen focuses on caregivers staying in their body and working toward operating in an executive state (rather being reactionary). Which would require some emotional healing/growth for many parents. Now I understand the push back with GP a little more though. The overtalking I hear on the playground sounds more like anxiety or ego to me. Two emotional states that would inhibit parenting from a gentle perspective. So that just sounds like in-your-head parenting, not actual gentle parenting.
This was a refreshing opinion. I was at a toddler playdate the other day and it was basically two sets of parents, four adults narrating the whole hangout out of fear that one kid would be “bad”. It was like nails on a chalk board. I wanted to yell: “just let them play! They’ll figure it out!” Obviously intervene if things are unsafe but otherwise we don’t need to describe EVERYTHING!
Really great piece, thank you! I'm writing a book about how to resist intensive parenting culture, and, as you write, gentle parenting is a great example of an effortful and isolating style that is well-intentioned and occasionally effective but also very draining for parents. The approach you suggest is exactly what I learned in clinical psych grad school in terms of what to teach parents with difficult kids (it's called "parent training" which I always found hilarious). Differential attention: withdraw attention when kids are acting up, redouble attention when kids are being good. The problem with gentle parenting and the other hyperverbal approaches is that they reinforce bad behavior by encouraging parents to pay more attention when kids are acting up. Parental attention is the most desirable currency in childhood!
I was pretty skeptical about your take here when i started reading this, but then by the end found that your approach is almost exactly how i parent - and it’s not even intentional most times!
I have also found the narration of a child’s every move to be excessive and not natural. Especially when it’s from a perfectly composed script. When i push away all the noise from gentle parenting experts, i start mothering instinctually, which can look like holding my daughter close but silently as she cries, sitting near her during a tantrum but not trying to intervene, or letting her jump on the damn couch if she wants to.
Exactly :) thanks for reading! Seems like most people just preferred to stay on Instagram and yell at me 🤣
lol that's my favorite thing about substack vs instagram, there's so much more room for nuance here and, in turn, less triggered people running to the comments to start fights!
100% the same
I love this and it really aligns with my experiences! An interesting observation as a parent to little kids and teacher of teenagers: validating emotions and explaining boundaries verbally works pretty badly with my three-year-old. However, it works better with thirteen-year-olds. It makes sense developmentally, because they have some capacity for reason and want to be treated as rational decision-makers. Toddlers just need a calm hug!
I agree about this not working with three year olds - I've had two so far and both have been absolutely furious with me whenever I've used my calm voice during a tantrum. When I sat quietly nearby and let one scream the other day, though, he was more than happy to have a cuddle once he'd finally calmed, and we were able to continue our day without a power struggle. GP definitely forgets that three year olds are three years old, doesn't it? 😅
Yeah I really think there is not much you can do when a kid is upset like that except to just protect them, yourself and others and wait for the storm to pass
Completely agree.
Another great post, and another great perspective. Thanks, Elena! Your point about ignoring is spot on! A big issue I see in the application of gentle parenting is that the attempt to search out the underlying emotional motivation of every behavior or validate each expression of displeasure actually brings a lot of energy and focus to behaviors and expressions we may want to see diminish over the course of development. If parents validate every frustration and complaint of a child, not only does it quickly become unsustainable for the parent, it doesn't allow the child to gain a healthy perspective regarding what is actually a big deal and what is something they should be able to move on from without a huge amount of fanfare.
Exactly! You said it better than I did
Not quite, but I'm delighted we're on the same page:) I always appreciate how grounded and well researched your writing is. I find myself nodding along whenever I read your work.
Oh my word I can't tell you how validated I feel by your mention of the gentle parenting > rage cycle. So many times I have gentle parented the absolute shit out of my kids only to ruin it all by reaching the end of my tether and shouting to "GET YOUR SHOES ON I'VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR THIRTY MINUTES AND NOW WE'RE LATE!" (at which point my husband inevitably walks in, surveys the scene, shrugs and goes "why are you so stressed?" which obviously makes me see a red so deep I could be in the fiery pits of hell.)
I have some qualifications in early childhood, many of which do lean on 'gentle' approaches in their marketing (give the people what they want) but that are actually more on the authoritative side (which the science likes, as you'll know.) All of which is to say that while I am FULLY AWARE that gentle parenting isn't backed by anything, societal pressure has pushed me into trying really, really hard to be a perfectly serene, wonder of a mother who never gets annoyed and always explains everything in such a way that her children just, you know, get it. Except that I am not naturally a calm person, and trying to suppress all emotions that aren't perfectly peaceful and on one level at all times just comes out as irritability. I'm much better at being chilled when I respond to my kid doing something annoying by quietly taking away the toy they were smacking against the wall, for example, and getting myself a cup of tea, rather than using my gentle voice and explaining that their sister's favourite dolly's head is going to cave in any minute and that would make her sad, you don't want her to be sad do you? (At which point the answer, always, is yes I do want her to be sad, which is v hard to deal with as a gentle parent, because that conversation could go on for hours.)
I'm taking this post as permission to sack off gentle parenting once and for all, so thank you. I'll keep explaining the things that need to be explained, but the rest of the time I'm going to lean into my urge to distract and/or ignore in the moments that could really do without more talk. I'm also going to lean more into the hunter gatherer stuff I already do, which I am loving learning about from you.
Here's to enjoying the three children under six that I have spent the last few years trying (very often failing) to be a perfect gently parent to, and here's to letting go of the guilt that blooms daily when I find myself acting like a human being, rather than a Big Little Feelings programmed robot.
Wow thanks for this comment. 3 under 6 go you! But yeah, that was what Michaeleen Doucleff and I talked about: the real battle is to focus on keeping yourself calm, and that’s very hard to do if you’re busy narrating all your child’s emotions to them, especially if you’re not seeing results. Sometimes you just need to quietly and patiently put their damn shoes on for them and escort them out the door.
Ps does anyone ever feel a bit like they're... Gaslighting their kid when they start to explain every little thing? Or just me? 😅
100%. Narrating everything and saying ‘you’re feeling frustrated’ will send my eldest in to an anger spiral. She’s 6 now but even when she was 3 she’d shout ‘DON’T TALK ME!’. I also find that I’m not able to stay calm if I’m following the Dr Becky approach because a) I forget what to say, b) it doesn’t feel natural or authentic and c) because of a and b, I start feeling stressed because it’s not working. Here’s to stepping away from Big Parenting!
I’ve had to accept that I am no Dr Becky. As soon as the script stops working, I get super frustrated. It’s just not worth it!
Yes I’ve observed this. A relative is very into gentle parenting and her daughter will throw a tantrum and she’ll say like “you feel left out” “you want presents too”. I’m pretty sure the 4 yo has no idea what “left out” means. It’s like she is putting ideas in her head?
Yes! This is exactly it! You find yourself explaining to them how they feel and thinking ‘but is that how they feel or am I training them to believe that’s how they feel?’
Yes!! It always felt so weird to me and I swear my oldest could pick up on how forced it was and it would escalate things further
Absolutely! My boys are the same!
Gentle parenting, or whatever it is currently called, is about control as far as I’m concerned. It appears much more permissive than that, but in fact it stems from an inability on the part of the parent to accept the kid as they are, in the developmental stage they are at. It’s actually unkind to give a child a “positivity sandwich” bit of feedback, try to engage them in whatever convoluted description of their behaviour you can muster, whilst they are having a meltdown. I really believe it all stems from a fear of our kids’ big emotions, which usually of course tracks back to our own fear of our inner world. It’s honestly just ridiculous to me, this whole ethos; I really cannot imagine “following” a “parenting expert” - wtf is THAT?
i did not get it all right, btw. i’m not writing from that pov at all: i am in a seriously awful place in my own parenting of my young adult sons right now, a time of reckoning (menopause) where i have to be very honest with myself about how much i hate mothering and the things i did and didn’t do when they were little. i did pretty well, and i was also extremely over-invested in what i did having particular results. that is mothering for us all, i suppose; also, i think that gentle prenting is as likely to raise a generation of emotionally immature, fragile and even narcissistic humans as it is the generation of empathic, switched-on beings that i imagine is the intended outcome.
Yeah that’s it - gentle parenting is just a gentle way of trying to control a child, but it’s still about control and so it’s still going to lead to power struggles. Obviously we have to set boundaries with our kids, but I think most parents are still trying to mold and control their children too much.
Your points about affirming autonomy and doing less in order to keep your own sanity are so necessary and well taken. When I was 2-3, one of the most effective things my mom did (intergenerational knowledge here) was to put me in a space where I could do all of what I wanted to do (saying the F word, screaming because I couldn’t buy a toy). That space might be a quiet room or the car, but we would go there together (or I would be there alone, in the case of my bedroom, presumably depending on how much of a break she needed). I was free to do as much of the questionable or annoying thing as I wanted to! In that act, I felt the autonomy of being able to do exactly what I needed to do in the moment, while being extricated from a busy environment. I think 5ish minutes was usually as long as it took for me to calm down and say, “mommy, I’m ready to go now.” At 15 months with my first child, we’re not at the tantrum phase yet, but I look forward to practicing some of what seemed to work so well for my mom and me 30 years ago!
Yeah we definitely use the calm down room tactic! And I go with them if they want me to. It’s not a timeout. It’s just space to vent.
This is amazing! I couldn’t agree more. I tried so hard to do all the “gentle parenting” with my oldest. Now with 3 kids I let most stuff go and only intervene if necessary with LESS talking. So much easier and I don’t get mad and yell at them nearly as often! Also as an SLP kids cannot process that level of verbal language especially toddlers. I really think the gentle parenting puts adults feelings on to kids and it does not fit their development . Like they always say with adding a new baby sibling “imagine your husband bringing home another wife”. Like what?!
Loved the story about your mom doing the lizard nostrils! I’m far from a parenting expert (though I think I’m an okay mom after 9 years of trial and error) and one of my favorite parenting tools is just silliness - so often you can defuse a tricky situation just with that.
Silliness is the best! Or just change the subject! Just now my kids started whining about who knows what and I said, look out the window it just started raining! That was the end of that.
I’ll never forget trying to follow a script in which instead of saying no to my daughter’s request to have a cookie at 7am, I fantasized with her about the enormous ice cream sundae with cookies that we would enjoy if only it weren’t so early in the morning.
My daughter was three. She rolled her eyes at me and said, “Mom, stop. Just stop.”
Then of course I spent the day beating myself up because I must have done it wrong.
I don’t follow scripts or listen to parenting experts anymore.
🤣 I believe you. Isn’t it crazy how insane this stuff is in retrospect? But we live in these echo chambers and sometimes we just need to travel (or read 500 books on hunter gatherer societies) in order to realize how bonkers it all is.
Oh my gosh I’ve seen the imaging thing on the gram so much. I am now off the gram
This is so great! I think the problem with gentle parenting is that it often draws parents AWAY from the very attunement they think it’s moving them towards! If you are distracted by scripts and what that exact influencer said to do in this scenario you are unlikely to be actually looking your child in the face and attuning to what they need, which is usually NOT a speech but usually IS a nap or a distraction or maybe a hug. It depends on the child and the situation and being actually connected to them and their ways, which is why prescripted responses will never lead to real attunement 🙃
Nothing replaces hands on experience and testing what works with your child
After listening to your podcast with Michaeleen Doucleff, I gave up on gentle parenting. The mental load of narrating feelings was too much and now my approach is to try and teach my 3 year old consequences. I ask him more questions like well what will you do now, ignore tantrums, and if all else fails try to come up with a funny story or reply in a weird Mrs Doubtfire voice which just cuts the tension we are both feeling.
This article was so encouraging! The grunting speaks to me.
I get a little confused when I see gentle parenting describe this way. I have always understood GP to be authoritative parenting with a catchy social media hook. I am not actually familiar with Dr. Becky though. We have been more influenced by RIE/Janet Lansbury and Concious Discipline/Mr. Chazz etc. The focus is on repectful boundary setting and emotional connection. A lot of stuff I have seen focuses on caregivers staying in their body and working toward operating in an executive state (rather being reactionary). Which would require some emotional healing/growth for many parents. Now I understand the push back with GP a little more though. The overtalking I hear on the playground sounds more like anxiety or ego to me. Two emotional states that would inhibit parenting from a gentle perspective. So that just sounds like in-your-head parenting, not actual gentle parenting.
This was a refreshing opinion. I was at a toddler playdate the other day and it was basically two sets of parents, four adults narrating the whole hangout out of fear that one kid would be “bad”. It was like nails on a chalk board. I wanted to yell: “just let them play! They’ll figure it out!” Obviously intervene if things are unsafe but otherwise we don’t need to describe EVERYTHING!
Sounds like torture! I only want to hang out with the parents who are willing to talk to me while they let the kids play, otherwise what’s the point?
Really great piece, thank you! I'm writing a book about how to resist intensive parenting culture, and, as you write, gentle parenting is a great example of an effortful and isolating style that is well-intentioned and occasionally effective but also very draining for parents. The approach you suggest is exactly what I learned in clinical psych grad school in terms of what to teach parents with difficult kids (it's called "parent training" which I always found hilarious). Differential attention: withdraw attention when kids are acting up, redouble attention when kids are being good. The problem with gentle parenting and the other hyperverbal approaches is that they reinforce bad behavior by encouraging parents to pay more attention when kids are acting up. Parental attention is the most desirable currency in childhood!
Love and agree! The excessive talking these influencers and courses push always seemed so unhelpful to me. Toddlers need less talking
When my oldest was a baby (he’s 13 now), I swear “gentle parent” just meant “we don’t spank them” 🥲.