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Chances are they'll have exactly what you're looking for at a price that's hard to beat. Ready to upgrade your home for way less? Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less. That's W A Y f a I r.com Wayfair Every style Every home. Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I want to broach a topic that is important to so many of us. It's our parenting. I guess I'm always talking about our parenting, right? But I want to talk specifically about gentle parenting and why it seems that so many parents are feeling let down by that approach. They're feeling that it's impossible, that it doesn't work, or that it only works for some children and not other children. What is this all about? I've got lots of ideas about what's going on here and how I think I could help parents understand why gentle parenting is failing them and what to look at here. So let's go first of all, gentle parenting. What does that even really mean? So I have actually not been sure because it's not a term that I've ever used to describe the approach that I recommend. Although it seems that a lot of publications, when they write articles about gentle parenting, which, you know, it's been a thing the last couple of years that people want to bash this and, you know, say how terrible it is, and even people that don't have kids want to talk about what, you know, brats are getting raised from this approach or whatever. And My name is often brought in as somebody that's teaching this. So I guess it's kind of important for me to know what it is. And I never really have completely understood how it's defined. It seems that there are various interpretations of what it actually is, and then there's also our personal interpretations, right. What we think an approach is in terms of how we implement it, how it manifests in our interactions with our children. So there's a lot that's unclear here for me. And when I was first blogging, that was back in 2009. At that time, people were mostly reading articles about parenting. They were reading blogs. I first heard the term gentle in regard to discipline. It was gentle discipline. And that was something that a lot of people that identified as attachment parents would talk about. That that was their approach to discipline, was gentle discipline. And I never really understood exactly what that was either. But it did come off to me at the time from the feedback I was getting from parents about it, that it seemed a little on the permissive side, that it was also about not really allowing our children to feel disappointed and not getting what they wanted to try to soften that for them. So that was my first introduction to this idea. I looked online just to be able to do this episode, and I found an article on the Brown University Health website by an MD, Dr. Laura Dawson. So I'm going to be using her descriptions to talk about the contrast between this gentle parenting approach and what I have found for the last 30 years really works. But before I get into that, I want to read this very short piece on. I guess it's why Pulse that was sent to me. It says, are Gen Z and Millennial parents already moving away from gentle parenting? Why? Pulse's parenting report shows gentle parenting, which focuses on open and calm communication, was the top trending approach Gen Z and Millennial parents were trying in 2024. Now, some young parents are reportedly moving away from the soft style and turning towards what the Internet calls fafo, short for F around and find out. The new style is based on the idea that parents can ask and warn, but if a child breaks the rules, mom and dad aren't standing in the way of the repercussions. For example, if a child didn't bring their raincoat when told their parents will have them walk in the rain. This has come about as gentle parenting gets more and more criticism, even from the young gens who coined it. Some young parents say they prefer the new, more blunt style of consequence learning, as it keeps them from quote, tiptoeing around their children's feelings, while others have slowly implemented bits of this approach into their otherwise gentle parenting. So, I mean, first, what I'm struck with is this idea I'm going to push back on that it's a good idea to parent with whatever the trend is and not really look into the history of the approach that we're taking guidance from and understanding what it all stems from and what it really means. And I know as parents, look, we don't have time, right? We're just trying to. To deal with our children and the behavior and get through this early childhood part especially, and have it work for us and for our child. That's what we all want. But as I think I've said here before, if it's a parenting trend, I would really question it. That also goes for fafo parenting, where we're kind of feeling a little more harsh, and it almost sounds like we're resenting that we've been so nice to our children and it hasn't worked. And now I'm reading something into this. But the way this piece is written, it's like we're almost enjoying being mean to our child as payback for all they've put us through. And that makes a lot of sense to me, the attraction to that. But I don't believe that that's going to ultimately get us what we want as parents. And I'm also getting this feeling just from reading this that, you know, here's this pendulum. We've gone so far in this direction, We've gone so far in that direct. And neither one of these extremes is getting us what we want, which is just a really nice relationship with our child, a child that behaves and makes us proud and that we love being with most of the time. But before I get into dissecting this a little bit more, I want to give you my gut reaction to why gentle parenting is failing people. Taken at face value, gentle is not a helpful foot for us to put forward as parents. Parenting is actually kind of aspirational. We want to head in a direction that feels positive for us. But if the main point in that direction is gentle, it's not going to serve us, because gentle is actually more of a trait or a byproduct of being the kind of parent we want to be, especially when it comes to children's behaviors and discipline. It's not the foot we want to put forward because leading with this idea of being gentle can cause us to kind of stifle ourselves and feel like we need to respond to behavior or manage house rules in a manner that's so careful and tentative, waiting for our child and explaining and trying to understand everything. And I have to say, the term that I use, respectful, that can do that same thing, right? And I think some people do say gentle, respectful or whatever, but I like the term respectful that is inspiring to me as something to center my parenting as a whole around. It's a term that I want to live by with my children because it means being honest and caring and respecting who children are, rather than attempting to mold them into who we want them to be. Treating children from the time they're born as whole and capable people. And this is still unfortunately, an unusual countercultural thing to do. It's something that we maybe think to do when kids are older, but not in the beginning, which is arguably when it matters most, because this is when our children are new to the world. They're just learning who they are, where they fit, what love is and if they are worthy. And it's also when they struggle the most to communicate their needs to us. So respect is a term to focus on, on the day to day. That's the way I want to be with children. But because like a lot of you listening and a lot of the parents that come to me and a lot of parents who've been in my classes, I'm a softie at heart and I'm not the most confident person, or at least I wasn't for most of my life. So I, like many of us, I need something more powerful than respect, certainly more powerful than gentle, to rise into, to be a leader for my child when they're struggling. So that term for me, when children are struggling, when their behavior's off for me, that's confidence. Gentle and even respectful can be part of that. When I'm confident, I can be truly gentle from a place of strength and confidence. Not because I'm afraid you're going to react and you're going to be mad at me, but I know that you are going to react. Probably because I'm doing something that you don't want. But that's my job as a parent. I've got to be the leader for you. If I'm not the leader for you, you've got to be it for yourself. And that's not respecting your stage of development. That's not respecting your needs. As somebody that's 2, 3, 4, 5 years old or even teenage, you can't be in charge of this. So respect is a part of this, but confidence is the descriptor that I try to embody really all the time, but especially when children are having unpleasant, concerning annoying behaviors, when children are floundering, if there's no one confident for them to lean on, if all they have to lean on is gentle, that's really scary, right? They've got some wobbly, gentle, mushy leader, which is how I naturally was before my daughter kind of trained me into shape. So confidence is the key. And respectful and gentle all come from that. And what do we need to find this confidence in ourselves? I'm going to make a few points here. I actually have seven, but they're not going to be long ones. But I'm going to go through them quickly here and then I'm going to talk about how this differs from the gentle parenting approach, at least the way it's been expressed by this MD for the Brown University Health Page number one. Take a step back. Take a step back and take a look at how tiny your child is. This person that's so big in our minds, that can be so mean to us, that can be laughing at us when they're doing awful things, it seems. Take a step back and really look. I've probably said this here before, but in my classes, we sit on the floor in the classes while we're watching the children play. So these infants and toddlers, they become these big characters to us because we're observing them. So we're almost like an audience. And they're the performers in a way. Although they're not performing, they're just getting to be themselves and explore the way they want to explore and engage with other children. And we're there to set boundaries and keep everybody safe and appropriate. Other than that, we don't step in. We respect their inner direction, but we come in confidently. And as the facilitator, I demonstrate this in the class. We come in confidently to show how we can stop their behavior so easily. And yeah, there is a gentleness to it, but it's very firm, it's very confident, but it's not harsh or mean or punitive. I don't know any parent that really wants to be those things. I think in my classes. So the children seem so huge and these big characters and they're funny and they're interesting and they're obnoxious and they're annoying and they test all kinds of things and their emotions are really strong sometimes and all over the place and they seem to overreact and all of these things. But when we take a step back, like sometimes I'll be leaving the class in my car and I see the parent walking with the child and it's like this child that seems so big to me is this itty bitty little person. And that's who they are. They're just these immature little people. So we're going to let them make life hard for us. We're going to have to be so tentative around them, walk on eggshells and make sure that they don't get upset. They're so small and they need us to be bigger than them. They need us to be more confident than them. And some of them are pretty confident. Those children need us even more to be more confident than them because they don't want to get stuck calling the shots and controlling us and not being cared for because we're leaving them to, in some ways decide things for themselves. So take a step back and see how unintimidating this person is. That will give you more confidence. 2. Get a basic sense of why children misbehave so this is something I talk about all the time, and it's very, very laid out for you in my no Bad Kids Master course. All of these things I'm going to talk about today are ideas I go into in depth to really help you understand and internalize it, have it become a part of you that you see this way. Because once you get that, it never comes undone. You know, it takes a long time to get that for some of us. It's a process for all of us. But any progress that you make, you don't unlearn it. So understanding the why makes this behavior so much less intimidating, so much less worrisome will give it so much less energy. When we understand that our child has lost it there on some level, even if they look quite composed, they've lost the plot and they just need us to help stop them, guide them, occasionally carry them out of some place, or carry them towards us, remove the object from their hand that they're not using safely, in a sense, rescue them from making us angry at them, preventing that from happening. When we see behavior for what it really is, that it's not so conscious and intentional and that it's somehow directed meanly towards us, and that our children dislike us, or that they never understood the rules to begin with, or that they're going to be like this forever and ever, those are all places we can go as parents that will prevent us from feeling the confidence that we deserve to feel when we see what's really there. We can proceed with confidence Three, understand and accept this basic dynamic. We set a boundary, whether it's taking that object away, stopping our child, taking their hand, saying, you know, it's time to go now, and they get to feel, however they feel about that we're ready. We know that's often part of what's going on here is that there were some feelings bursting out of them and they started to act that way because of it. So when we stop them, when we help them, they're going to blast us. Maybe we don't stop and wait for that. If we're in motion, we help move them along. We don't try to make that better. We know that that's part of the deal a lot of the time, and that's part of what was in there in the first place that made our child behave that way. So the more that we can make peace with this idea of letting feelings be and being okay with it, the more confident we will be. Four, understand that cooperative tasks, like the ones that I call caregiving tasks, which are cleaning up, maybe bringing their plate to the table if they're a bit older, combing their hair, bedtime rituals, we can have consequences, like, I can't read now, but I will lie here and give you a hug and say goodnight, and you can be very mad at me when I leave. These cooperative tasks, they take extra confidence and respect on our part. We have the confidence to sometimes let go, cut our losses. Okay, here, just do one little ch across your teeth and no one across the bottom. Perfect. Let's go. 5. Embrace the messiness of it all. Yeah, so it's not neat and tidy. Young children have a lot of feelings that they express all day about all kinds of things. And even the happy, joyous feelings, excited feelings, those can be the most stressful of all for them, right? We're having this wonderful holiday party or their birthday and their behavior is off. And how dare they? We've gone to all this trouble because they're excited and it's really hard for them to control their impulses and these feelings that they have in them. So it's going to be messy no matter what. And the more we can embrace that for ourselves and not expect that we're going to be perfect, far from it. And that means we're doing it right when we make mistakes and we have regrets. And guess what? We can do this thing where we make peace later, where we come clean, where we say to our child, I did that. And I don't love that I did that. I was too tired and you were not listening and you didn't want to do it and I couldn't deal and I yelled, but that wasn't okay of me, and I'm sorry. So once we know we can do that, what's not to feel confident about, right? 6. Consider moments where you felt it working. We've all had moments. Even if we feel like we're terrible at setting boundaries or we don't get this thing that we never know what we're doing, that we always lose it, we've all had moments where it did work. So consider what was going on for you then. Were you more sure of yourself? I'm guessing you were. Why? Did you feel decisive? Did you feel capable? Was it that the boundary felt clearer to you? Was it that there was nobody watching you so you felt like you could take a risk to be confident and not fear that your child would have a reaction? Whatever it was, whatever elements you can identify that helped you there, create them around every boundary for yourself. A lot of parents have said to me in the past that they feel really confident about certain safety boundaries, like holding their child's hand in the parking lot. We're not going to let go. Maybe it's something else that you feel really, really sure about. Well, that feeling in you is what children need for every kind of boundary. And again, I'm not talking about these boundaries, like brushing your teeth, where we're going to force something into your mouth. We're going to have much more flexible boundaries in those cases. But in all these other ones, whether it's my child wants to wear my dress or my shoes or go into my handbag or stay longer at the party, and I can see their behavior is already looking a little off. And, you know, there's something that happens when children's behavior starts to go off. It starts to tip that direction and it very seldom untips. So we really want to try to get on that when we can. That's when to go into holding hands in the parking lot mode. Or whatever was in those boundaries that worked for you in those moments where you felt that taste of confidence, whatever that was, put that into all these less important to you boundaries so that you can approach them all with that confidence. So you can practice the confidence. Because we all need a lot of practice at it. And what happens when we practice it is it becomes a part of us again and it affects everything else in our lives. Imagine the freedom of somebody can be mad at you and you're still going to hold on to your decision. There's nothing to fear here. Because that's the other thing is as leaders with confidence, we can change our mind too. So we want to go into it with confidence if possible. But then if we think about it and we change our mind, we can say, you know, I was thinking about it and you know, yes, you can have some grapes before dinner. That's fine with me. I know I said no, but I changed my mind. We don't have to make a big explanation. Confidence will set us free. Trying to be gentle, even trying to be just respectful all the time, it's like we're tamping something in us down that is going to explode and we're going to end up yelling and then we're going to feel bad about ourselves. And that makes it impossible to be confident. And then our gentleness comes even more from a place of weakness. It doesn't help us7 know that if you're even 50% of the time aiming in this direction, you're exactly where you're supposed to be in your process. It is a process. This is a relationship and a relationship is a process. It's always developing, it's always moving. So just aim yourself in this direction. Confidence, respect. Yeah, gentle's in there somewhere too, but it's not the focus. It will start to feel very good. If it feels like everything just costs more these days, it's not your imagination. Groceries, gas, healthcare. Everything's skyrocketing. Unfortunately, keeping track of expenses has never been my forte. 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Or white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks, Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. So I want to touch a little on what this article said just to help you see the contrast. It's called Gentle what It Is, How It Can Help and possible drawbacks by Dr. Laura H. Dawson. So here's some of the aspects of gentle parenting. Parent as Teacher Parents help their children in identifying emotions and understanding conflicts. For example, during a tantrum, a parent might state, you look frustrated. They might verbalize, you are having so much fun playing and don't want to go to bed even though it's bedtime. Parents also serve as teachers by modeling behaviors of kindness, empathy, and self discipline. Sometimes that means sitting quietly with the child or offering a hug when the child's behavior appears out of control. Everyday parenting presents many opportunities for practice of these principles. Okay, so if during a tantrum as a child my parent states, you look frustrated, that is going to make me ten times as frustrated. In fact, that makes me want to hit the parent. I hate to say I'm falling apart here. You look frustrated. That's us trying to follow a direction of oh, say the feeling. And this is not going to help. Studies show that talking to children during tantrums makes the tantrum last longer. And that makes sense because why does this person need to talk to me right now? This is about the parents need. They're doing what they think they're supposed to do. Nothing to do with what I need as a child. Imagine being upset and your friend is like, you look frustrated. I don't need you to tell me I'm frustrated that I look frustrated. A part of this that I do believe is helpful is parents also serve as teachers by modeling behaviors of kindness, empathy, and self discipline. Yes, and that is not just gentle parenting. That's every parent. Everything we do as parents is modeling for our kids. No matter what kind of parenting we do. If we're doing f around and find out parenting, then we're modeling that tough kind of, you know, vengeful sounding, I hate to say attitude. Another aspect of gentle parenting, according to this article, appropriate developmental expectations. A key component to a parent's ability to act with empathy is understanding of developmental expectations. Broad emotional swings in young children and pushing boundaries in older children are seen as appropriate. Recognizing biting and kicking as normal toddler behaviors and door slamming as expected teenage behavior allows for empathy in parents and respect for their child no matter where they are in development. So I don't think you're going to think about respecting your child when they're slamming the door in Your face. But yes. Otherwise, this again shouldn't just be gentle parenting. Understanding the why of behavior and what we can expect is going to help any kind of parent, no matter how you identify. And if you don't, if you're just getting mad at kids and, you know, judging them and telling them they're bad and shaming them for doing these things that, yeah, many children do, then chances are you may be putting a wedge between you and your child, which nobody wants, right? So this part, I agree, is really important. Understanding appropriate developmental expectations. Okay? Avoiding punishments and behavioral rewards. Punishments are not a part of gentle parenting. They're seen as unnecessary, disruptive to the parent child bond, and as training children to an external reward rather than to their own internal emotional and moral compass. A child should never be encouraged to behave for the purpose of influencing their parents feelings. Stop that, because you're making me sad. Instead, parents strive to connect with their children, help them understand their distress, empathize with that distress, and propose alternate action. You were mad, so you threw your toy at your sister. But throwing your toy could hurt your sister. Let's think of some other things we can do when we're feeling mad that wouldn't hurt anyone or anyone else. To reinforce positive behaviors, parents will highlight a positive feeling or outcome such as you must feel proud that you made it to the potty and kept your underwear dry. Okay, so in the first case with your mad, you threw your toy at your sister. What else can we do? All this, I mean, it's actually doing the opposite of what this writer just said to do. They said understand developmental expectations. But now you're going into this whole reasonable dialogue about what your child could do instead of da, da, da, this impulsive thing they did. So you're trying to address with reason something that is a typical impulsive behavior that really isn't about reason. And this doesn't mean that there's not other things your child could do. But to say all these words about something that was an impulsive action, you know, it's like imagine ourselves there. We, you know, grab for that chocolate when we were on a diet and our friends saw us and they said, oh, you shouldn't do that chocolate, you know, what else could you do, Janet, when you feel like getting chocolate, because chocolate isn't good for you and it makes you unhealthy or whatever. If you think that, I mean, it's a disconnecting response. So if that is indeed how people are interpreting gentle parenting, it's understandable to me that that does not Work. And here's another example of way too much talking about something that children just need us to help with. Developing boundaries. The writer says flexibility is a crucial component to gentle parenting. And equally important is parents ability to hold clear and firm boundaries. The key to holding boundaries and gentle parenting is to incorporate empathy, respect and understanding. I can understand why you don't want to go to bed when you're having such a good time playing. But getting enough sleep is very important and it's time for you to get ready for bed. Which parts of bedtime routine would you like to do yourself and which parts shall I help with? So that doesn't sound to me like two people really talking. And it's way too much explaining about something that children just need help with. Instead, I would recommend approaching this more, you know, genuine and authentic between you, like, ah, it's hard to stop, you know, it's bedtime now, my love. Let's go here, I'll do this. Do you want to do that? I mean, something that's real and authentic. She talks about revisit and repair when exchanges with their children are far from gentle. So that's wonderful. When all is said and done, children should feel that the parents are on their side. Yes. If that's not true in the parenting approach that we're choosing, that children are feeling on our side, that's disconnection. And that's, you know, again, is not the reason most of us had children to have this wedge between us where our children feel like we're on the other team and we're kind of against them. So how can gentle parenting help? This parenting strategy places the relationship as the crux of everything. So it's not this parenting strategy. It's that the relationship with our child is the crux of everything. It's the crux of their behavior. It's the crux of their self confidence, our enjoyment of life with children, their feelings about themselves, their ability to reach their potential. The whole point of having children is about the relationship. So if we're doing an approach that doesn't have relationship at the crux of everything, then we're going to go in a distancing, disconnecting direction with our kids and that will unfortunately show up in their behavior or their feelings about themselves as they grow, their ability to function, their mental health. There's no positive to that. And then she says, possible drawbacks of gentle parenting. Skeptics of gentle parenting propose the following drawbacks of the technique. Time and energy intensive, contrasting to a more authoritarian style of parenting. My way or the highway. Gentle parenting requires significant time and energy to execute. Parents must have patience to allow emotions to unfold, time to communicate with children what they observe, and energy to express empathy and problem solving. Okay, none of that takes any more time than giving a behavior chart or a punishment or a bribe. It takes less time because, no, we're not going to give these long, reasonable dialogues about behaviors like is suggested in this article. No, we're not going to wait while our child gets mad at us because we had to take them from the park. So now we're in the parking lot waiting, or we're in the car and we're not going to go anywhere because our child is upset, or we're not going to make dinner because our child had a hard time at the end of the day and they're really grumpy. And no, we're going to carry on with acceptance and letting feelings be and, yeah, empathizing if we can, but it's more about acceptance. Full acceptance. You get to feel how you want to feel. I'm doing my part here taking care of you, and I do try to understand, but it's not going to change me or what I do, including slowing me down. So this is a whole misunderstanding. And maybe that is what gentle parenting is, but that's why it doesn't work right there. That's one of the big reasons we're going to be exhausted if we're giving all this extra time to softening ourselves and our approach and being so kind and understand every emotion. And let's talk about why you won't, you know, put your trash in the trash can or why you spit at me. Let's discuss it. I mean, no, of course that's not going to work. High parental investment assumes a parent's aptitude for understanding and synthesizing their child's emotional state. Even though most parents have no formal training in child psychology. No, all we need to do, if there's a moment to really acknowledge, like, our child's looking at us with tears on their face, we don't have to understand the depth of all their emotions and all the complexities. We just say, I see you, my love, and I'm here. Something, anything, reflecting back what we're seeing. That's all. So, wow. All this work that gentle parenting is perhaps putting on people or people are putting on themselves, of course it's not going to work for us. Overemphasis on self. Critics argue that constant attentions to one's own emotional state could interfere with the Development of empathy without practice, children of gentle parents may find it more difficult to adapt and adjust in the face of discomforts or adversity that is not accommodating to their emotions. 100% know that the whole idea of allowing emotions is because they can have emotions while we're still moving on with life. They're having emotions because we've said we're going to do this anyway or this is a no, or whatever that is. It's not about, oh, let me see how you really feel and let's talk about it and absolutely not. So, yeah, this makes a lot of sense that genital parenting isn't working for people if this is what it's really about. None of that would work for anyone I know. And it would make people want to, yeah, get mad at their kids and start threatening them. And then she ends with there's no one size fits all in parenting. Gentle parenting is one approach that prioritizes the relationship between parent and child for benefit immediately and in the future. So I'm actually going to push back on that too. And I know a lot of you will disagree with me, including a lot of other parent advisors, that there's no one size fits all in parenting. I believe tuning into our children, allowing them to have their feelings, being confident leaders that respect them, that can be gentle and not harsh and mean and cruel, that understand that the relationship is the crux of everything. I think that is one size fits all parenting. I've never seen a child for whom this approach doesn't work, and I've been working with children for 30 years, so we could argue that. But what I want to offer you is hope and maybe relief that you don't need to go to some other extreme, to some harsh place to make your child behave better. What will probably help is for you to work towards this idea of confident leadership through the seven points that I described here. 1. Taking a step back and getting perspective on this little teeny child you have that's getting you all worked up, making life feel so hard for you, you can handle them. 2. Get a basic sense of why children misbehave. That makes it so much less intimidating. 3. And understand and accept the basic dynamic of we set a boundary. Our child gets to feel however they need to feel about that, and we're okay with them having whatever feelings they have. We're not going to let them act on them unsafely, but they can have them. 4. Understand that cooperative tasks aren't as definitive as other boundaries. These take extra confidence and respect which means the confidence to let go and sometimes cut to the chase and cut losses. 5. Embrace the messiness of it all, including the messiness of us in this role. That's how it's supposed to be. That means you're doing it right. Make peace later. 6. Consider moments when you felt it working. What was going on for you then? Were you more sure of yourself? Maybe felt more decisive and capable? Why imagine every boundary. That way you can always change your mind later. And seven know that if you're even 50% of the time aiming in this direction, you're exactly where you're supposed to be in your process. It is a process, as in every relationship. Just keep keep going. We can do this. Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why customers have enjoyed Progressive's Name your price Tool for years now. With the Name youe Price Tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they'll show you options that fit your budget. 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