Do you consider yourself to be merely a mother who raises her children? You might be a tiger mom, a helicopter mom, or a lawnmower mom… You might use positive parenting, free-range parenting, or whatever else you want. Over the years, we’ve slapped a lot of labels on ourselves in an attempt to adopt or avoid what we’ve learned. Now there’s a new buzzword circulating among moms: gentle parenting.
Basics of Gentle Parenting
The attachment parenting approach for infants inspired gentle parenting. For older children and toddlers, this parenting style encourages parents to acknowledge their children’s developmental stages and equip them with the tools they need to understand their emotions and respond appropriately.
Another way of describing this parenting style is to say what it isn’t: the strict father of the past. What he says is final, and his children must live up to his standards, irrespective of their own wants and needs. Whenever you start practicing gentle parenting, you examine your child’s behavior from the perspective of his or her developmental stage, empathize with him or her, and respond in a way that makes sense to the child.
The Benefits of Gentle Parenting
Among the most beneficial aspects of gentle parenting is that it teaches children how to work together with their parents to become good people. They are discovering their place in a family, a relationship, and eventually a community, rather than simply responding to threats, orders, or rewards.
You’ll applaud the twist of this parenting style if many rules and standards don’t feel quite right for your family. Gentle parenting still includes discipline in the sense of teaching, but it does so without the use of traditional punishments. Since, as proponents argue, punishment and rewards override a children’s developmental desire to try, this kind of parenting avoids them.
The Drawbacks of Gentle Parenting
You’ve noted one of the criticisms of gentle parenting if you’ve already read about the lying issue and wondered if this style of parenting will ultimately result in a well-mannered child. What about if your child lacks the internal motivation to engage in age-appropriate positive behavior? The answer is that gentle parenting necessitates consistency as well as a great deal of patience.
Another disadvantage of gentle parenting is that it necessitates a parent who has resolved and worked through their own insecurities in order to be effective. You must, without a doubt, keep an eye on your own behavior even more than your child’s.