Does Gentle Parenting Actually Work?

Effective parenting involves demonstrating kindness, love, and understanding, while simultaneously establishing unwavering boundaries. Today’s modern parenting world has become overwhelming. With everything going on around social media, people giving different opinions and advice, it is difficult to find the right parenting technique that actually works.

With so many controversies surrounding gentle parenting, people believe it is not effective in raising well-behaved children. In this article we will explore the controversies about whether gentle parenting truly works, and we’ll share tips on how to properly implement it in a healthy, effective way.

Gentle parenting does work when it is applied correctly. Strong parental leadership plays a crucial role in making gentle parenting functional, balanced, and effective.

What is gentle parenting

Gentle parenting is a parenting approach that is built on four key pillars: trust, understanding, consistent boundaries, and positive discipline. Different from the traditional parenting of the 70s, 80s and 90s, which used punishment in ensuring that children conform to societal and family norms and values, gentle parenting questions the ‘why’ approach to understanding a child’s behavioural outcome.

The gentle parenting approach to parenting is more concerned with providing a safe, positive environment that prioritises strong communication in building a child’s emotional intelligence.

With a gentle parenting approach, children have to feel supported and valued at all times

4 Pillars of gentle parenting

1. Respect

Just like adults, children also have needs, feelings and desires, but we seem to suppress them. Respect means acknowledging their presence and feelings the same way others acknowledge your presence and feelings.

Instead of shouting or hitting the child when they interrupt you, you simply address them in a respectful manner to make them understand the consequences of their behaviour to you.

2. Understanding

Parents must realise that some of their expectations for their kids are too much. With gentle parenting, you have to understand that your child’s brains are developing; they are still throwing food around because they haven’t mastered the skill to handle the situation.

3. Boundaries

Gentle parenting ensures that you keep your children in a safe and secure environment by enforcing strong rules. Boundaries allow you to teach your child the approved way of doing things. Clear boundaries guarantee your child’s safety.

4. Empathy

This pillar is about you being aware of your child’s feelings. You have to understand what their desires are and how you can boost the way they are feeling positively. Understanding your child’s feelings and behaviour is key to gentle parenting.

Does the Gentle Parenting Style Actually Work? Honest truth to exhausted parents

1.It installs intelligence in children.

Research shows that children raised under a gentle parenting style tend to possess greater levels of emotional intelligence compared to those raised in an authoritative parenting style. This emotional intelligence is built with children’s ability to:

• validate their feelings.
• Get support and guidance from their parents while also learning from their mistakes.
• Solve problems with parents, offering them room to make mistakes, learn, and grow.

2. Teach rather than punish.

A gentle parenting style works when children are being taught with consistent acts of kindness, patience, understanding and clear boundaries instead of reinforcing punishment. This in turn shapes the child’s behaviour and provides them with a sense of security, support, and understanding.

3. Safety and education.

This approach to parenting allows parents to understand their children’s perspectives and their expectations. This guarantees safety to children because they feel valued and loved, which in turn teaches them a sense of respect and trust. It also provides safety to children who have confidence issues and those with sensitive issues.

How Leadership Makes Gentle Parenting Work

Leadership is the ability to control and influence others to work towards a common goal. Leadership plays a pivotal role in contributing to healthy, gentle parenting. For leadership to work in a gentle parenting style, it shouldn’t be more centred on authoritarianism, but rather a mixture of empathy, guidance, and kindness. It should be democratic leadership rather than authoritarian leadership.

Effective leadership fosters a sense of security in children, valuing and nurturing them to navigate unexpected life challenges. Leadership also lays a foundation of comfort where kids excel through parental love and guidance. As a parent, implementing suitable democratic leadership in a gentle parenting style should involve the following roles:

• By leading by example, you demonstrate your expectations to your children instead of dictating what they should do. This contributes to the child being encouraged, motivated, disciplined and self-driven.
• Building bonds based on connections, trust, and understanding; as a parent, leadership allows you to implement the four pillars of gentle parenting, which validates your child’s feelings, fosters active communication, and enables engaging conversations, thereby making them feel secure with you and within the family.

Leadership Effectiveness in a Gentle Parenting Approach

Leadership style plays a fundamental role in gentle parenting. Effective leadership in gentle parenting means:

1. Setting clear boundaries in a kind and loving manner.

2. Teaching your kids the consequences of their actions

3. teaching children how to be responsible individuals who will contribute to the functionality of society.

Implementing Leadership in Gentle Parenting

For gentle parenting to work, it should be properly implemented. Parents should foster an environment which will encourage kids to explore and be independent enough so that they make mistakes, from which they will learn. This fosters a sense of resilience, confidence and the ability to navigate through life’s challenges without them giving in or losing hope.

Balancing Leadership in Gentle Parenting.

Setting limits and teaching consequences are acts of kindness because they provide children with a sense of security and understanding of boundaries. The key lies in how these limits are communicated—clearly, calmly, and with empathy—ensuring children know they are supported and loved, even as they learn from the consequences of their actions.

Being firm does not mean being harsh; it means being consistent and clear with expectations while also understanding children’s perspectives. This balance helps children feel respected and valued, promoting cooperation and mutual respect. Active listening and empathy are cornerstones of balancing kindness with firmness. By listening to children and validating their feelings, parents build trust. This trust makes it easier for children to accept and understand boundaries, reinforcing the balance between parental guidance and a child’s growing autonomy. This approach respects children’s feelings while maintaining the necessary structure they need to grow.

Gentle parenting techniques every parent should be familiar with.

1. Be more encouraging

It is virtually significant when it comes to gentle parenting. As a parent, you should avoid encouraging your child as being good or smart but rather give them motivation based on their efforts and outcome instead of judging their outcomes. Encourage your child to be a hustler by exploring life avenues and when there make mistakes, guide them as a parent.

2. Stay calm and adjust your emotions.

One of the frustrating things about gentle parenting is that no matter how the child frustrates you as a parent you have to accept the frustration, and the way you choose to handle the situations sets the tone of behaviour for your child.

3. Lead by example.

As a parent, when you lead your child by example, showing them how things are done, you are simply instilling them with self-discipline. This will allow them to thrive in a chaotic world. The children only observe and internalise the type of behaviour instilled by their parents.

4. Build a sense of connection and understanding.

When it comes to the gentle parenting approach, parents should engage in strong conversations with their children. Also, children should be able to express themselves freely around their family, and as a parent, you should validate their feelings and be empathetic when it comes to their needs.

Pros and cons of gentle parenting

Pros

1. Freedom of expression: with gentle parenting, children have the free will to express their feelings without the fear of being judged. They also know that their feeling will be validated.

2. Confidence and emotional wellness: children growing up with their feelings being validated, respected and guided thrive well both in school and in the outside world because they have the necessary skills and knowledge to adapt to every situation they face. Children are able to speak out their feelings; hence, this helps them to have a sense of self-awareness and be able to control and express their emotions.

3. Healthy relationships: This parenting approach stipulates a positive parent-child relationship which fosters a sense of security. When parents actively listen to their children’s needs and desires and openly communicate with them, it makes it easy to build a bond built on trust, making it easier for them to align with set boundaries.

4. Creates independency: when parents respect their children’s decisions and choices, it allows them to stay independent and to make choices based on their interests.

Cons

1.It is often considered permissive parenting: Gentle parenting has been criticised as permissive because of its similar approach to permissive. Gentle parenting vs Permissive parenting, understanding key differences

2. Children have different wide personalities: While it has worked for some children, parents have to enforce other strategies to make it work on their children because children have different personalities.

3. Patient: Parents have to be patient with their children’s emotional state and their process of learning.

Authoritative vs. gentle parenting.

Read more on authoritative parenting

Gentle parenting is empathy, understanding boundaries and respecting a child’s ability to make choices and act solely on their own. When children make mistakes, parents guide them with kindness and open communication and also explain the consequences of their behaviour. While in contrast, authoritative parenting shapes a child’s discipline through guidance.

When it comes to emotional wellbeing, children raised in a gentle parenting style have parents who provide a positive, nurturing environment; the child’s feelings are valued and respected, which allows them to have confidence in expressing themselves.

Conclusion

The gentle parenting approach is more concerned with balancing empathy and boundaries so that you get to change every challenge faced by children into opportunities. Building a lasting relationship with your kids requires your parental leadership style, communication, patience, and kindness to make gentle parenting effective. If you would want to explore insight and guides to building strong, emotional, hearty kids, the book Hold On To Your Kids by Gordon can offer you a practical guide. The book provides helpful advice regarding how to strengthen and maintain a strong parent-to-child relationship.

Do you want to raise emotionally intelligent and self-esteemed children? Read the ebook on amazon and find out how to do so.