By Mia Hanuska
All children deserve a good parent, but not all parents deserve children. This phrase seems to be under almost every parenting video, no matter what the content depicts. From one side, it’s used to criticize parents who are too “soft” on their kids, while from the other, it’s used as criticism of both neglectful and overly controlling parents. But what makes someone a “good” parent? For many new parents today, it’s practicing “gentle parenting” with their children.
Gentle parenting stresses the regulation of emotions, for both the parent and the child. It focuses on “teaching and learning, rather than punishing,” creating an environment for children to discover important social and emotional skills where it’s okay to make mistakes. Parents are encouraged to set both realistic expectations of children’s behavior and firm boundaries, and when tested, to enforce expectations and boundaries with “compassion and respect.” Although gentle parenting is often confused with permissive parenting, nowhere does gentle parenting support letting children get away with anything. Instead, it is authoritative: parents thoughtfully, yet effectively, discipline their kids.
This differs from the other two generally recognized parenting styles, authoritarian and permissive. Authoritarian parenting highlights demands more than responses. In this style, parents tend towards strict, controlled, and harsh punishments, and their children often display greater anti-social, insecure, and self-harming behaviors. Children with authoritarian parents are less likely to question authority, of which is an important life skill, especially surrounding knowledge and education. On the exact opposite of the pendulum, there’s permissive parenting, where parents lack all levels of discipline for their child. This can also appear as uninvolved parenting, where kids receive minimal guidance and nurturing, barely possessing a relationship with their parents.
To be a “gentle” parent, parents practice acknowledging the child’s emotions and teaching their kid ways to regulate them. Gentle parents emphasize “being aware of the words [they] use, the tone of voice, and taking deep breaths or stating ‘I’m frustrated’ instead of just showing the emotion,” describes one 40-year-old mother of two. Through regulating emotions as an adult, these gentle parents model the exact behavior they want their kid to mirror and show them how to handle difficult situations while experiencing multiple complex emotions. When their child misbehaves, gentle parents respond by “emphasizing a sense of calm, minimizing hierarchy, rationalizing (i.e., explaining why the behavior was inappropriate), [using realistic] punishments, [and/or] redirecting.” Most of these reactions center on giving the child more power versus establishing power over the child.
This distinction plays a large role in the effectiveness of gentle parenting; children learn how to handle their emotions themselves, rather than having their emotions handled for them. For example, in shy toddlers, the gentle parenting style appeared to reduce risk for anxiety and increase regulated responses. The beneficial emotional learnings developed in the childhood stage are then continued into teenage and adult years, suggesting positive communication patterns later in life.
However, trying to be a “perfect” parent and constantly having to immensely regulate emotions in stressful and frustrating situations leads to gentle parenting taking a toll on parents. Many report feeling exhausted and burnt-out, commenting, “I’m hanging on for dear life” and “the more that you have to stay calm and be gentle, the less you have energy to do other things.” Plus, with the United States greatly lacking effective supportive systems for parents, such as paid parental leave and pre-K, some parents worry about the economic difficulties of the style. Like most parenting styles, gentle parenting requires lots of time and energy, both physical and mental, resulting in more parents staying home to look after their kid and reducing the household income. Moreover, the burden of constant patience yields gentle parenting to often require a greater support system than other parenting styles, which can provide challenges as the responsibility of raising a child typically falls individually on the mother.
Of course, gentle parenting doesn’t assume—or require—parents to be perfect. Instead, it teaches parents to recognize when they’ve made a mistake, and verbally acknowledge the issue, then (if needed) apologize sincerely to those necessary. This procedure helps children to realize that flaws are what make people human, and even those they may idolize aren’t perfect. Does a “good” parent have to be a gentle parent? No, probably not. But are gentle parents more likely to be “good” parents? Possibly. With the novelty of gentle parenting, it’s unclear just how much of an impact the emotion-driven style has as a child grows up; however, anecdotal reports have declared it more fruitful than alternative styles. In the end, gentle parenting simply emphasizes that children are humans too. Children are still developing, still learning to accommodate their needs to the busy and intricate world we live in. They will make mistakes, have difficulties, break down. Why? Because children are humans too.