An Honest Look at Gentle Parenting

By Call Emmy Team · July 23, 2024

While binging videos on how to calm your toddler down from a tantrum, perhaps you stumbled upon the term gentle parenting. It's one of the most popular parenting techniques of the 21st century, but is it on its way out?

Parents are seemingly ditching the gentle approach. To understand this concept, we must first examine the four most common parenting styles. Take a few minutes to reflect on which style sounds like you.

The Four Parenting Styles

Authoritarian Parenting

This style emphasizes your power as the caregiver. An authoritarian dynamic does not allow for flexibility. As a parent, your word is final and that’s that. This style is viewed as the antithesis of gentle parenting. Kids raised under the authoritarian style have low self-esteem, poor social skills, and poor coping techniques.

Authoritative Parenting

Authoritative parenting depends upon effective communication and healthy boundaries. The authoritative parent makes rules, but they also explain their reasoning for those rules and listen to their children's feelings. Kids raised with this style are said to be independent and self-assured. Gentle parenting is often compared to Authoritative parenting because of the positive effects they both have on a kid’s development.

Permissive Parenting

Permissive parents set rules but don’t enforce them; they set boundaries but let their children blur the lines. They believe that their children will eventually develop the skills they need in life with minimal interference from them. To be clear, permissive parents do love their children, but it’s a friendly approach to parenting.

Uninvolved parenting

This is the nonchalant, hands-off approach to parenting. This style shows the indifference one can have toward a child. The kids essentially raise themselves.

What is gentle parenting?

The purpose of a gentle parenting style is to create an environment where children can express their feelings and own up to mistakes without fear of punishment. In this parenting style, reward and punishment systems do not exist, and neither do commands. In fact, the word “no” is a no-no. Instead, natural consequences are used to establish boundaries. For example, you wouldn't order your kids to put away their snacks; instead, you would explain why it benefits them to do so.

The benefits of gentle parenting

This style is said to produce emotionally aware, confident, and communicative kids. The lack of punishment with gentle parenting reduces the anxiety that children may develop under authoritarian parenting.

A big benefit of gentle parenting is that it creates a deep bond between parent and child. The lack of punishment and commands create a loving, respectful relationship based on clear communication.

The Parent Becomes a Role Model

Since this style emphasizes patience and empathy in the parent, the parent subsequently becomes the perfect role model for their child. The more communicative and open you are, the more like you they become. This openness will increase the likelihood of them sharing their feelings with you as they grow.

The Cons of Gentle Parenting

Shame

On Instagram, parents are regularly inundated with content from other parents who always know the right way to calm their kids. When gentle parenting techniques don’t succeed in real life the same way they do online, parental shame develops, straining the relationship between the parent and child. Many parents end up stressing over their phrasing, tone of voice, and body language.

Lack of discipline

Some believe that gentle parenting is creating a generation of entitled kids. As Gen Alpha kids take up space in classrooms, their behavior has come into question. As a result, blame has fallen squarely on the shoulders of this trendy parenting style used by millennial parents.

In the context of the classroom, commands are necessary, and extensive reasoning isn’t always plausible. The teachings of gentle parenting may work in the home but not when the kids leave home and face an environment of punishment and reward.

Lack of Data

Gentle parenting, being a relatively new parenting style, does not have much evidence-based research associated with it. Mostly, the effects of gentle parenting are based on research conducted with authoritative parenting.

Is Misrepresentation the Problem?

Many believe gentle parenting produces rambunctious, spoiled children who can’t take no for an answer. Others say these are signs of a permissive parenting style. Because of the name, people assume gentle parenting is a lackadaisical form of parenting, all about being as nice as you can to your children. What they often neglect are the clear boundaries involved, boundaries that permissive parenting does not emphasize.

A kinder approach

As you've seen by now, empathy is a major component of gentle parenting. When you are being empathetic to your kids, don't forget to be empathetic to yourself. Be patient with yourself when you do raise your voice and get upset. Also, lean into your intuition when it comes to the various parenting styles. Take what you need from the gentle parenting method and leave the rest behind.

Conclusion

We are in the age of parenting books which all recommend “the best approach” to parenting. As time goes on, the pros and cons of each style are revealed, and gentle parenting happens to be the latest style subject to scrutiny. How do you feel about gentle parenting? Do you use it? How is your approach changing as your kids grow? Whatever your approach, it’s important to remember that each child is different, and their responses to gentle parenting will vary. Don’t feel pressured to follow one parenting technique. Instead, do your research and find what works for your child and yourself. You got this!

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