What People Think Gentle Parenting Is vs. What It Really Is 

People forget toddlers brains are still developing. When they throw shit right at you they don’t realize it can hurt you. They either didn’t even mean for it to hit you in the first place, wanted to get your attention, or were just being silly like all toddlers can be. When you tell them something they did hurts it actually teaches them awareness of other people’s bodies as well as their own.

I remember when my little sis threw something at mom and my mom did the baby voice “to calm her down” she was 7. She tried that shit on one of my sisters and she got hit right back. She doesn’t mess with us. As we grew the little one would always disrespect mom. One time she threw makeup at my mom because mom said no she was 13. and a lady came outta no where and threw the palette straight at my sisters face. Told her say sorry to your mom! She did and the lady said you will be treated like that if you treat people like that. And that’s how her ass learned to behave.

B.S. This will only teach children to be obnoxious undisciplined brats who quickly will understand there is no real consequence for bad behaviour. Society and the social sciences have lost their collective minds.

@@agarcia3986 my son couldn’t care less when you tell him he hurt someone all he knows is he’s having fun throwing things. Only thing that works for him is removing the fun from him and telling him why and how it’ll continue to happen if he doesn’t get it together.

Same. Just had a baby and my 4 year old will not let the baby sleep. I gently explain it, I take things away, timeouts, and I'm at my wits end

I mean there's also just stating boundaries and then reinforcing them, which is what a time out is. A lot of gentle parenting also includes choices. So you'd prob say "do you want to put the orange paper in the trash or do you want to have a time out?" and then if they don't make a decision, you tell them if you don't make the decision i will put you in a time out, and then put them in time out! Then they process the idea of their own decisions having consequences.

@SelphieFairy the problem with this advice is that it assumes your child has good communication skills. My son at 4 is barely putting sentences together. His speech delay isn't one-sided either. He can not form long sentences nor understand them, and the message gets lost. Action gets through to him, and then I can deliver a message afterward. Not every child is the same. Some children are very hard headed and do not respond to gentle reactions but instead walk all over you. Only people with strong willed children understand this.

@@abigailloar956 this is my three year old. If I try to explain things calm he 100% does not understand or care. He will continue to do it even as I’m trying to explain or he will just yell and cry over me. He goes to time out until he calms down then I will talk to him about his behavior and let him know he will keep going to time outs if he doesn’t listen.

@@abigailloar956 I mean i don't see how enforcing boundaries isn't a type of action.

Lol! You’re lucky! 😂 This is gentle, you had these kind of parents if you think it’s normal. If I talked to my mom with just a sliver of emotion in my voice, I get grounded for a week “for my tone and attitude”. If I threw and orange peel?! I would not be able to write this message. This should be normal, but no. We’ve instead, normalized being irrationally harsh, mean, condescending, and sometimes even just bullies, to our own kids just because we’re older, and just because we can, and choose to, continue the trauma cycle. 💔

@@thebookbeanI feel you can have the best of both you can be an understanding yet grounded and somewhat strict parent should you beat your kids half to death? no. Can you raise your voice when speaking to them? Depends on the situation and how you want to convey your message. some situations need a change in tone to let them know the severity of the situation if your kids always playing around the stove you can’t tell him the same way you tell him not to run down the hallway about the stove those are two different scenarios one he can scuff his leg and the other he can burn his self half to death my point being I think just use common sense and empathy and logic when it comes to parenting and the kid will turn out just fine you don’t have to go hard one way or the other I’m not advocating to traumatize your child either but I do think discipline is needed as a parent but even better than minimal discipline is great communication

@@thebookbeanthat's just too true for a lot of us. Especially since my religion puts a lot of emphasis on respecting parents, so my parents took it to an extreme like, "oh we can abuse our kids and it's fine because we're the parents and they're just kids"

you would think so, but plenty of people don't comprehend that you need to talk to kids like, y'know, human beings who are new to the world

Hi! That’s absolutely challenging! And I’m sorry if that’s your experience but I’m happy to offer some thoughts. If an 11 year old responds like that - they are dealing with a lot of pain and dysregulation. There is no simple answer but we can help children regulate with conscious parenting - if you’re willing to sign up for one of my free courses - I promise to lay out the specifics for you. 💙

My sister once asked her 8 year old why he went on a window breaking spree. "Because I like to break things. "

She is demonstrating authority though. If the behavior continues obviously they have consequences that involve loss of privilege. She literally just set a boundary. Do you only yell at people when they bother you or something?

@@melonsauce1474 I didn't say yell. I said a stern tone and a show of authority.

"Stern tone" meaning angry? Every time? Because that sounds like my 71 yr old mom, who I learned to obey and love, but not respect as a fellow adult or feel comfortable around, because she doesn't give a s*** about hurting me and she's a very pessimistic person. I learned to feel sorry I got caught, not sorry I did something she didn't like. After watching my clumsy but effective attempts at gentle parenting for 7 yrs, my mom still thinks my kids should get yelled at for every mistake... yet also she says she admires my patience. She gets frustrated or overwhelmed much quicker than I do. And the kids never go to her to be listened to. I think the desire to be always "stern" AKA use anger as the main method of communication, is from a fear that if you don't constantly intimidate kids, they'll dominate you. Kids aren't actually horrible like that. They want approval, and to get along with authorities. They just haven't learned yet to always think before acting. We can help them think. Besides. This lady's tone of voice wasn't actually sweet and pleasant. It was slightly stern! It showed she was disappointed, annoyed, and serious. I even sensed a little sarcasm in it. Like she almost finds it hard to believe she still has to tell this kid that paper gets thrown into trash cans, not faces. But she knows kids have even poorer impulse control than adults, shaming them doesn't fix that, and many adults still do things on impulse when they're excited or angry. So she's reminding the kid of how to act. I'm sure if the kid is uncooperative, she'll take some action. Not spanking. Maybe telling the kid he needs to go outside and play ball instead of acting wild indoors. Maybe tell him she's walking away, and of course follow through. Maybe telling him he now needs to clean up the whole room since he thinks it's ok to throw paper around. Or maybe she knows from experience that when he does obnoxious things, it means he had a really hard day, and after she asks him about it and he talks with her, maybe he realizes on his own he acted like a jerk and spontaneously apologizes. (Those last 2 options have actually happened many times with my girls). I do believe punishment is sometimes needed, but it's rarely needed immediately.

This doesn't address behavior change. My girlfriend does this bs with her daughter. The daughter basically does whatever she wants. There is no time out, nothing taken away, no consequences. The behavior stays the same. I get it. You new parents don't want to be the bad guy or the mean guy. Have fun when she's 13 cussing you out infront of everyone at target when she doesn't get what she wants.

Well said. 👍

Kids don't need to be cowering/crying in fear of the parent in order for said parent to be in control/back in control. In other words, it may take longer than screaming or spanking, but reasoning with kids in the way that makes sense to them *really does work* .

Or yelling I need to learn gentle parenting

@@theharmonyofknowledge1286why does it have to be screaming/spanking or just calmly explaining? Neither are good methods. There has to be some sort of punishment followed by the calmly explaining after everything has calmed down. With my 3 year old son I tried for a long while with just explaining things to him calmly. He didn’t care and nothing happened. As soon as I started raising my voice (not yelling/swearing) and putting him in a time out and do the explain afterwards he started to behave much better.

"just"

well aren't parents their child's primary teacher through life? Raising a child doeant just mean hugs and kisses but teaching them valuable life lessons as well b/c if we rely on the schools to raise our children we're gonna wind up with ppl who don't know what bathroom to use.

@@DrinkYourNailPolish besides your bathroom comment. I agree I just found it funny that the new revolutionary parent techniques is exactly what they teach us teacher to do in classroom management classes. Which is funny cause I found this vid while taking a classroom management class

@@DrinkYourNailPolishYikes. Great comment until what you said about bathrooms.

​​@@PointingouttheObviousIt becomes rediscovered probably in every generation though. Because young adults are not taught this stuff and have to figure it out in their personal life later. It seems silly to you because you were taught the right way to deal with kids by your teacher training. But a ton of parents don't even stop to think about the fact that because teachers don't yell at and hit their kids, but the kids behave pretty well, parents don't need to be harsh either. Most parents just do what their own parents did.

Thanks and welcome! 🙏🏻

Permissive parenting…

Oh it's horrible. I know a lady who I watched for years parenting her kids like that. Middle class family and super attentive, super present, but "we don't ever call behavior bad." Even though they're a religious family that does believe some behaviors are bad. When the kids were super young, mom used to get hit and punched and bit and scratched during tantrums and just keep holding the kid "so he could work through his feelings in a safe place." One kid still thought it was ok to lie and steal, at age 11. Another still hits everyone any time he feels like it, at age 9, and yes will show compassion and apologize but geez. He has ADHD but he's not developmentally delayed or anything like that. He could have learned some self control by now. The kids are very close to their parents and each other, and sweet most of the time to everyone, but I don't look forward to seeing them because I feel like anything can happen.

​@@kristinathomas5890 wow that's bad 😳 Mom must have some trauma from childhood

Same as the second version

There isn’t one to a child. They’ll continue their behavior for both. A toddler couldn’t care less about your reasoning and logic if it lacks consequence. They care that they aren’t having a good time. That’s why time outs work for my kid, I remove him from the fun time he was having. The calm explaining follows after the time out and getting him to acknowledge that if he continues to misbehave he’s coming back for longer time outs.

if you wanna know literally watch any super nanny clips…

learning involves repetition. surely you've done those pages of 100 multiplication problems. learning is never one and done. so yes, you're gonna have to repeat it a million times so that someone learning to person from scratch, knows how to act.

​@@STEELOOFFICIALyou're gonna allow your child to throw shit at your face a million times before they get the memo? No

​@@Laura-sl4sgNo reasonable gentle parent will just sit there and be hit over and over. You walk over and make sure the kid doesn't pick anything else up. Or carry them outside so they can be rowdy. Or hold them close and get them to practice deep breathing to calm down. Etc. Because this "million times" stage for throwing things at your face is most likely still in toddlerhood. If you do all that and they're still repeating the behavior at age 10, the parent should have noticed a few years ago this kid has psychological problems and they need professional help.

Exactly. Also not the point. Development takes time but you don’t have to abuse them along the way .You can’t punish kids into maturity 🙄

My parents raised my brothwr and I that way before it even had a name and we both turned out fine. the key is talk to them like you would a fellow adult. like you don't beat up your coworker of they did that but you would be like "hey Tom what's the deal why you throwing papers at me?! well don't disrespect me like that I don't appreciate it! and if you do it again I'm taking it away from you." and they learn the lesson that we don't throw papers at other people. cos in c as you don't know, kids are new to this planet and need the rules explained to them. not smacked around like they're a dog.

​@@DrinkYourNailPolish😂 you have got to be kidding me, your going to take the paper away from tom in work hahaha 😂 stop it , firstly the child is not an adult and wont behave like one, so the child needs to learn actions have consequences, if a child threw paper in a teachers face, the child woukd more than likely be expelled for a week , continuing to behave like that, then excluded, there is absolutely nothing wrong with spanking a child, it creates a healthy respect, when i say smack, thats exactly what i mean, not a beating or a punch or kick or a slap in the face. i dont think a child should be smacked for throwing an ornage in your face the 1st time, i would definitely question why they did that , but if you throw it again after ive asked you not to, you will go to your room, and if you fight me to go to your room, you will get a slapped bum, children need to respect their parents and other adults, not the other way round, a child will be respected and rewarded for showing good manners, good behaviour, kindness etc, a child will be punished for showing the oppersite, time out , growned , a smack bottom , thats how we learn right from wrong In my humble opinion 😊 we arnt learning them life lessons , they are learned when they are adults, we are just learning them respect for their elders 😊

​@@SW-ui5sjPlease take a look at my reply to the 5th comment in the comments section.

⁠@@SW-ui5sjooh yes abuse is the way to respect your elders. how about you don’t fucking hit a 6 year old , a SIX YEAR OLD???? Do you not see the issue in that????????

Conscious parenting doesn’t dismiss the need for urgency or ignore danger. The absolute comparisons are untrue and unhelpful. Reasonable people know when to use urgency and also when to take time to validate a child before continuing.

When I tried gentle parenting, I couldn’t even finish my sentence without another paper coming to the face. Things have been much better since I’ve stopped being lazy and put my little one in time outs and explained to him after he has calmed down why his behavior was out of line and that he’d be back in time out if it continues. Kids don’t care about logic and reasoning…they care about having a good time. Time out takes them away from their fun time and shows them their behavior has consequences.

Gen X here. It's not "gentle" as much as it is don't be a jerk to your kid - conscious.

Exactly Lmao , was the same shii .

I can see a difference. First:being a pushover,not fully explaining to the child what they did was wrong. "Sorry you thought you had to throw paper at my face,how can I make it up to you?" Second:explaining to the child why throwing paper/objects at someone isn't right,could hurt someone. "Ok I see your angry,but tell me your upset and don't throw things at me just cause your upset." I hope this helps you understand a bit better.

I bet you are the type to come to blows when someone bothers you in public instead of going through the authorities.

How do you handle conflict with other adults if you can't see a difference?