This is the second in a series on Gentle Parenting

The term, Gentle Parenting was coined by Sarah Ockwell-Smith, a British writer who has authored a variety of books on the subject. She emphasizes the importance of empathy, respect, understanding and boundaries in parenting. And in doing so, she shares some of the best practices of good parenting.

But you may be surprised to know that Ockwell-Smith actually has no qualifications for calling herself a parenting expert. She has an undergraduate degree in psychology, she is a mother, but otherwise, nada. 

Her ideas are her own. Like other parenting experts before her such as William Sears (attachment parenting), she speaks based on her own opinions and observations rather than from scientific research findings.

In other words, Gentle Parenting has no data behind it.

And it is just beginning to be studied.

So how can parents know if it is an effective technique for raising happier children? 

Well, they can’t.

But this has not stopped many parents from adopting Gentle Parenting wholeheartedly and feeling deeply that this is the “right” way to parent.

It is important for such parents to keep in mind that since parents started to parent, there have been styles of parenting that have been popular and then gone by the wayside, ways of parenting that have been considered “right” at the time and then, just as quickly, have gone out of fashion.

And in the last 75 years there has been a particular trajectory to parenting styles: Since Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote his first parenting book in 1946, parenting has become progressively more “child-centered” with Gentle Parenting being the most child-centered of them all.

But is this actually good for children?

Let’s look at what little data there is.

In one of the first studies of Gentle Parenting, professors Annie Pezalla and Alice Davidson gathered data from 100 self-identified “Gentle Parents”. And what they found may not surprise you. They said that these parents are “at risk of burnout”. 

It turns out that this parenting style is extremely hard for parents to implement. For example, the expectation that a parent can remain calm at all times regardless of children’s behavior is extremely emotionally taxing for parents.

This is what they said, “Parenting young children has always been hard, but evidence suggests that it might be getting harder. The pressures to fulfill exacting parenting standards, coupled with the information overload on social media about the right or wrong ways to care for children, has left many parents questioning their moment-to-moment interactions with their family and leaving them with feelings of burnout. 1

And they found that gentle parents were not always so gentle on themselves: “the emergent theme of self-critique, expressed by over one-third of gentle parents, and the findings that, among those self-critical gentle parents, the levels of self-efficacy were significantly lower, illuminates the need for more explorations and more support of these parents. One of the gentle parents in our sample, a 40-year-old mother of two children, wrote that her approach to parenting is about “Trying to remain calm…but I do reach my limit sometimes.” Gentle parenting seems to represent an approach that is extraordinarily gentle for the children, but perhaps not-so-gentle for the parents themselves. “1

Moreover, it is also not clear that remaining calm at all moments is actually helpful for children.

While extreme emotional outbursts from parents in reaction to children’s misbehaviors are obviously not advantageous, I would suggest that there is a natural feedback system that is in place in parent-infant/child interactions both in humans and in most other mammals: when a child or young animal misbehaves by doing something dangerous or annoying, the parent naturally reacts accordingly – with an angry word or growl and sometimes a correction. From this, the child understands that she has done something she should not have. The parent’s negative reaction is the logical and normal consequence for a child’s misbehavior and the child learns what the parent will and will not tolerate.

And the effectiveness of providing a consequence for misbehavior has been widely researched. As I discussed in my last post, in the parenting style known as Authoritative Parenting, parents make their expectations clear, they support children’s feelings and needs and they provide gentle punishments or consequences when children misbehave. And this parenting style has been shown, in many studies, to be the most effective parenting method (amongst the three types of parenting styles: Authoritative, Authoritarian and Permissive) and the one that yields the happiest children.

Gentle Parenting does share some characteristics of Authoritative Parenting – it advocates clear boundaries and provides support for children’s feelings and needs.

And where Gentle Parenting also gets it right is in the area of advising parents to stay calm in the face of children’s extreme feelings. A parent’s ability to remain calm in the face of an infant or young child’s distress – sadness, pain, frustration, IS helpful – and we have known this for a long time. Theorist Wilfred Bion wrote about the mother’s ability to contain her infant’s highly charged affects by reacting with soothing as being one of her most important functions and the one that helps infants learn to tolerate their own distress. He explained that the mother who can grasp the importance of, and take into herself, some of the baby’s earliest and most primitive anxieties helps her baby to internalize the mother’s capacity to tolerate and manage anxiety.

So this is a well known function of the mother, one that was recognized before Gentle Parenting and which Gentle Parenting wisely incorporates – just as it includes a variety of other important parental functions including empathy, endeavoring to see matters from the child’s point of view, verbalization of the child’s feelings and motivations and support for these.

Where Gentle Parenting goes wrong is that it asks WAY too much of parents and it asks WAY too little of children.

At this point in history, most parents work to earn a living and face a host of demands just to survive. Adding to this the expectation to stay calm in the face of every sort of child emotion and behavior, being endlessly empathic, and having no consequences for misbehavior may just be asking too much of parents.

Parents need a sense of having SOME control at home. Sometimes they need a child just to do what they have told them to do. And parents need some way to express themselves to their children. When a child does not comply with what a parent has expected of them, it is natural for the parent to be annoyed and to say so. This is life. Children need to know that not everything they do is acceptable and that some things they do come with unpleasant consequences. They really need to learn what not to do and what to do – because once they go to school and eventually to internships and to jobs, once they have friends, and eventually romantic relationships, this will be the reality of their lives. Not every person in life will be understanding and empathic. Not every motivation for every kind of behavior is equally acceptable in life.

Moreover, research has shown that children feel safer when they know what is expected of them AND they feel less guilty when they have a consequence when they do not comply.

In the end, this is what the researchers who did one of the first studies on Gentle Parenting had to say: What seems to be unique about the gentle parenting movement is that it has not been presented or advocated by scholars of human development; rather, it has largely been the product of social media. Considering that parents are increasingly stressed or burned out by their caregiving responsibilities, it is imperative that evidence-based guidance is made available to those who are interested in gentle parenting. What does this approach entail? How is it related to other parenting approaches? Is it a sustainable approach for caregivers? These are empirical questions, and they deserve empirical answers. 

1 Pezalla, A., Davidson, A., (2024) Trying to remain calm…but I do reach my limits sometimes; An exploration of the meaning of gentle parenting. Tenth International Congress on Peer Review and Sicentific Publication, July 31.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0307492#pone.0307492.ref010

Psychology professor’s research offers first look at popular ‘gentle parenting’ movement

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/parenting-translator/202311/when-gentle-parenting-doesnt-work

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0307492#pone.0307492.ref010

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/gentle-parenting-style-hard-on-parents-rcna176917

Should children suffer consequences when they don’t do what we tell them to do?

This question has come up a great deal recently in light of the advent of “Gentle Parenting“.

Most of you have probably heard of Gentle Parenting and some of you may even be using the Gentle Parenting philosophy to raise your kids. But for those who are not up to speed, the Gentle Parenting movement was started by Sarah Ockwell-Smith, a British author and mother of four. She has written a variety of books about gentle parenting, including The Gentle Parenting Book. She emphasizes understanding children’s feelings and acknowledging the motivations behind challenging behaviors as opposed to correcting the behavior itself. She advocates setting firm boundaries, giving choices, and avoiding punishments.

According to a New Yorker article on the subject, “Instead of issuing commands (“Put on your shoes!”), the parent strives to understand why a child is acting out in the first place (“What’s up, honey? You don’t want to put your shoes on?”) or, perhaps, narrates the problem (“You’re playing with your trains because putting on shoes doesn’t feel good”)⁴

This sounds great – and it IS great: trying to understand why your child feels the way she does, and putting this is into words for her is part of good parenting. And yet, this may not be enough. It may not result in the desired outcome…and parents are getting tired of exerting all the energy this style of parenting requires.

We want our children to do the things we want them to do—like getting dressed, coming to meals promptly, sitting at the table, doing their homework, not fighting with their siblings, etc.—and we struggle with how to accomplish this without violating current parenting norms.

And we don’t just want our children to do these things when we tell them; we also want them to learn to do these things without having to be told.

But there’s more. We want our children to internalize good values. We want them to develop their own moral compass. By the time they are 9 or 10, we want them to understand the importance of listening to others, following rules, treating others with consideration, and being honest, among other things.

And often we don’t know how to reach this goal.

So what do we do? Talk to our children each time they do something we don’t like or when they fail to do something we want them to do in the style of Gentle Parenting? Provide consequences when they don’t do what we tell them to do? Or do we go back to old fashined punishments – and actually punish them—whether by a spanking, the removal of a privilege, or by taking away a promised treat?

Physical Punishment

Well, let’s start with physical punishment. That is an immediate no – because we have long known that physical punishment is not beneficial for children. In a review article on the subject, Anne B. Smith states that while physical punishment has often been considered an effective, and even necessary means of socializing children, research has revealed it to be a predictor of a wide range of negative developmental outcomes for children. There is widespread agreement on this throughout all the recent research done in the area. Physical punishment is associated with increased child aggression, antisocial behavior, lower intellectual achievement, poorer quality of parent–child relationships, mental health problems (such as depression), and diminished moral internalization.²

In a review of the literature on this subject, one researcher found that there was also widespread agreement among studies that physical punishment tends to lessen the chances that children will internalize parental rules and values.²

Talking to Our Children

Now let’s move on to another alternative: talking to our children. This has been found over and over to enhance children’s understanding of parental expectations as well as maintaining the affectional bond between parent and child.

But, as I mentioned, talking is often not enough. While some advocates of Gentle Parenting may differ, it has been found that what is more effective than talking alone is setting clear expectations, instituting gentle punishments, such as consequences for misbehavior, and being consistent.

This is called authoritative parenting.

Authoritative Parenting

And the research on parenting is clear on this. In many studies of three types of parenting: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive, authoritative parenting has been found to be the most effective as well as the style that yields the happiest children.

Authoritative parents are responsive to their children’s feelings and needs, and they are more often supportive than harsh with their children. This style of parenting is associated with talking together with children about their behavior as well as setting up mild punishments or consequences for misbehavior. Studies have shown that this type of parenting results in lower levels of depression and higher levels of school commitment among adolescents.³

Authoritarian Parenting

Meanwhile, authoritarian parents are those who are low in responsiveness to their children yet highly demanding of them. The authoritarian parenting style is associated with emphasizing obedience and conformity and expectations that rules be obeyed without explanation. Authoritarian parents exhibit low levels of trust and engagement toward their children, discourage open communication, and engage in strict control. And it has been found that verbal hostility and psychological control are the most detrimental of the authoritarian parenting behaviors. Adolescents from authoritarian families have been found to exhibit poor social skills, low levels of self-esteem, and high levels of depression.³

Permissive Parenting

Permissive parenting is characterized by high levels of responsiveness to children coupled with low levels of demandingness. Permissive parents affirm their children’s impulses, desires, and actions and consult with their children about decisions. In results that may surprise you, adolescents from permissive families report a higher frequency of substance use and school misconduct and are less engaged and less positively oriented to school compared to individuals from authoritative or authoritarian families. And permissive parenting is also associated with low self-esteem in children.

So back to the question: What is the best thing for parents to do?

Well, it seems to me that what some people call “gentle parenting” can end up being a lot like the “permissive parenting” I described above.

And, according to the research, authoritative parenting seems to yield happier children and children who eventually internalize the rules.

So this means setting clear rules and limits for your children starting early, talking to them about these, and instituting clear, mild punishments, or what I call consequences, for when children do not do what you have told them to do.

And notice, I use the words, “what you have told them to” instead of what you have “asked.”

It is time to stop saying, “OK?” after each thing we tell our child to do. As the parent, it is time we stop asking our children to do things we actually want them to do. It may be hard to act like an authority with our children, but generational boundaries are important. Our children need to know that, in the end, we, as the parents, are the boss.

As parents, we are often afraid to set limits or to give consequences. We are afraid of making our children unhappy or angry. We are afraid of meltdowns—whether in public (embarrassing) or at home (frustrating).

But we have to understand that we need to be able to tolerate our children being upset, disappointed, sad, or even angry with us if we want them to learn how to do what we want them to do and if we want them, eventually, to internalize the values we hold dear.

So, let’s start to institute consequences, be consistent, and let the consequences fit the misbehaviors. Often called logical consequences, these will make sense to you and your child. For example, if your child does not put on her pajamas in time for her to have books read to her on a certain night, then story time will have to wait until tomorrow.

References

1. A. Mageau, Joannie Lessard, Joëlle Carpentier, JeanMichel Robichaud, Mireille Joussemet, Richard Koestner (2018). Effectiveness and acceptability beliefs regarding logical consequences and mild punishments. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, Vol 54, Jan-Feb, 2018.

2. Smith, Anne B. (2006) The state of research on the effects of physical punishment, Ministry of Social Development, New Zealand.

3. Hoskins, Donna. (2014). Consequences of Parenting on Adolescent Outcomes.Societies, 4(3), 506–531; https://doi.org/10.3390/soc4030506

4. Winter, Jessica. 2022. The harsh realm of gentle parenting. March 23, 2022, The New Yorker.