I recently received a message from an acquaintance telling me how she tried to gentle-parent, but as her child simply misbehaved in extraordinary ways, she started punishing her child with time-outs – the only thing that helped, according to her.

To be abundantly clear, this blog post is not about shaming this mother. Or mothers who do time-outs per se. But the chat left me wondering how misunderstood the conception of gentle parenting – at least how I interpret it – can be.

Gentle parenting – or needs-based parenting – does not have a clear definition apart from stating what in my opinion should be obvious – that children have needs and they should be met. Derived from attachment parenting conceptualised by William Sears and his wife Martha, gentle parenting has as many interpretations these days as there are parents practising it.

For me the biggest grievance is the notion that being a gentle parent means being a pushover. The notion that if you don’t punish your child will lead to your child dominating over you. In short, this notion appears to rely on the general belief that gentle parenting equals no boundaries and that we have to be dominant to raise our children.

For most parents I know, this notion is deeply ingrained into them from their own childhoods, as it was ingrained into their parents, and so on and so forth. Overcoming this notion and realising that kindness is a strength, not a weakness takes reflection, time, patience, and a somewhat-rested parent to do the previous things. Needs-based parenting should include the needs of all family members, and while it is clear that children are not able to put their needs on the back-burner all the time, it is also important for them to have to wait occasionally, to not always get what they want if it’s not good for them or possible in the situation, and to learn how to deal with disappointment.

Being a need-based parent myself, I get in touch with many parents who have opted for this path – however, very often I see parents mistaking needs-based or gentle parenting as having no boundaries whatsoever – which is not needs-based at all. Children – like all humans – need boundaries to orientate themselves in this world and grow into pleasant, communal people instead of self-centred narcissists who believe the world has to constantly turn around them and will have life-long problems in their interactions with other people.

I have compiled a list of gentle parenting myths I have encountered over the past years and why – for me at least – these are simply wrong when it comes to gentle parenting.

Gentle parenting means to never tell your child off and accept every behaviour

The situation is chaos. The son whacks his little sister over her head, she screeches – you can tell it’s a well-practised screech she’s perfected over the two years of being subjected to her brother’s tyranny. His teeth are clenched, the mother quietly starts talking to him, “I understand you want to play with your sister’s toy, but-“ he is not listening. He’s already run off, screaming. The father takes the little girl on his lap. Quickly, she resumes playing. Her brother comes again. He whacks her, she falls over. The mother bends down to him. “I see you’re frustrated but hitting is not a good idea, you might want to-“ and he’s off again.

I’ve seen various situations like this one. In the end, the boy got no consequence for hitting. He didn’t even listen long enough to understand what he did was wrong. His sister was left feeling unprotected, for the parents it must be excruciating to live through this kind of behaviour every single day.

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins”, meaning that your right ends where you infringe on another person’s rights. This is a crucial lesson to learn for children. The difference between gentle parenting and authoritarian parenting is not that one lets their child hit and the other one doesn’t, but how you approach the emotion behind the need to hit.

In an authoritarian setting, the parent might get really angry and probably even hit the child to teach the lesson: If you hit, I’ll hit. The problem is that you are turning your child into a bully with this kind of behaviour. With kids, you beget what you do. An authoritarian parent might yell that they don’t care what happened, hitting is never OK, thus leaving the child behind with his frustration and anger without teaching them how to deal with it.

In the gentle parent approach I am following, it is made very clear that I, as the parent, cannot allow you, the child, to hit another child. I can, however, validate the child’s feelings. I might say, “I see you’re angry, you’re hitting, so I am removing you from this situation. You are never allowed to hurt another human being because your angry.”

Knowing, however, that my child is hitting out of deepest frustration, I can still empathise with them. I can say, “Being angry is OK, I also sometimes want to hit something when I am angry. Do you want to hit a pillow to make you feel better?” I can also empathise with why they’re angry and tell it as a narrative, calm and collected. “So, your sister took your truck away without asking and that made you angry? And then you wanted it back but she didn’t give it. You were frustrated and wanted to hit her.” My kids calm down by me just listening calmly and validating their story and feeling behind it. I, however, always make it very clear that they are not allowed to hit.

Gentle parenting means there are no consequences

Some might say there is no difference between consequences and punishment – or it’s simply a matter of terminology, but I disagree. Of course, you can use the term consequence incorrectly and actually mean a punishment, and vice versa, so let’s look at the definition of both terms. A punishment means doing something unpleasant to someone as a result of their behaviour. There is, however, no relation to the crime – or it’s simply a reciprocation of the crime. For example, the punishment for a child grabbing something from another child could be to grab something from that child. Or it could be that there is no TV time for a week (which, to be honest, is more of a punishment to the parent anyway if it is a fixed point in your schedule). Having no TV time as a result of unwanted behaviour is not only unfair, it doesn’t serve a point and the child will feel resentment towards the parent. There is also no way of you reasoning your “consequence”, as there is no logical sequence to the actions.

A consequence, on the other hand, derives directly from the “crime” at hand. If, for example, you notice your child behaving aggressively after TV time every day, you can say, “I see that TV time is not doing you any good at the moment, so I will have to reduce/end it for now.” In this scenario, there is a clear relation between the TV time and the cancelling of the TV time. In the scenario with the child grabbing another kid’s toy, my consequence can be to remove the child from the playground, the playdate or the playroom, saying, “Grabbing another toy is not OK, I can’t allow you to do that, so I will go with you to another room to play.”

Of course, in the end it really comes down to semantics; however, I believe that words have power and by making clear what our intentions are with the consequence we can then also reason it to our children, and they will accept their “punishment” a lot easier than when it is haphazard.

Gentle parenting means that your needs don’t matter

With both gentle parenting and parental burnout on the rise, there may be a suggestion that they are ultimately linked; however, there is not sufficient research to suggest such a statement as a strongly backed opinion. However, when perusing social media channels as a mum, you stumble across all sorts of mocking videos that make fun of the “millennial mum” who sets no boundaries and turns her child into a horrific tyrant (notice how it’s mostly women who are being mocked for this).

The sad truth in relation to this suggestion is that a properly executed needs-based parental strategy actually lifts a lot of pressure from the home. Mum burnout, or parental burnout for sakes of inclusivity, can happen for a wide range of reasons – and the way you parent doesn’t have to do anything with it. However, it is safe to assume that those who live in harmonious, boundary-clad family environments with plenty of support and a good emotional relationship with their children are less prone to crack under the pressure that parenthood inevitably brings with it.

When your child’s needs are being met, they develop into pleasant people you want to spend time with. Making them more independent by trusting them and teaching them how to deal with big emotions, consequentially makes family life easier. However, you can only enjoy family time and regulate your own emotions when your needs are met, too. A burnt out mum is no use to anyone, least of all your children.  

What “meeting your needs” looks like varies from person to person. You might need alone time, time away with friends, daycare support or (and I know this might come as a shock hearing from me) TV time. For a while, my son was reluctant to have his teeth brushed (and by “reluctant” I mean he was being a total turd about it). Our mornings were imbued with tension and negativity because of it, so I eventually decided to let him watch a tractor video on YouTube while I brushed his teeth. The mood changed instantly. He was in a better mood, we got his teeth properly brushed and I was in a better mood, too.

Especially when you have more than one child, balancing everyone’s needs can be a Sisyphean task, and yours might always come last. Ideally, you have pockets in your week where you can just nurture your own needs – this can be anything you like. I personally love going to the gym, reading, watching something on my phone, or going for walks.

Deeper needs that need therapeutic guidance should never be ignored. Self-care is a great start, but if you feel really burnt out, it might take more than a shower and a scented candle to get back on track.

Gentle parenting means you have to have a family bed, breastfeed or birth naturally

The “gentle parenting” community can feel like a very elitist, exclusive club. Reading books by some attachment parenting authors makes you sometimes feel like you can only fail in this quest for parenting, for the demands are so ridiculously high.

I remember reading the book “Geborgene Babys” by Julia Dibbern, a German needs-based parenting advocate, which was so angry and judgemental, I couldn’t agree with her anymore, even though in its most basic terms, I agreed with her on most things.

Having a strong opinion and judging an individual harshly are two different things in my opinion. A good example for me is screen time. I am very strict about screen time and it breaks my heart to know that most children start having daily TV time every day at a very young age, watch on phones during an excursion or at a restaurant. I think it is simply wrong, and there is research clearly indicating that it can impact your child’s health in negative ways.

However, I have friends whose kids watch TV every day. I don’t do that with my kids, but I also don’t judge them as individuals. You never know what a person’s reason for their decisions are, what they need to make their family system work. The decision against a family bed, a decision for a caesarean, a decision for daily screen time. So the “gentle” should not only extend to your children, but to yourself and the people around you.

Gentle parenting, in my opinion, has nothing to do with birthing naturally, breastfeeding or having a family bed. A friend of mine, for example, never had her kids in her bed, simply for spatial reasons. However, she always cuddled her son – and is now cuddling her younger son – into sleep every night before putting them in their crib. I once was lucky enough to watch her do it (we spent New Year’s Eve with them), and it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

So saying anyone who doesn’t have a family bed is not gentle parenting is simply not true. It is your family, your rules, find out what works for you as a family so most needs can be met – that is all that matters.

So what is gentle parenting then?

Giving a simple definition of a parenting style is impossible because every family and every family’s needs are different and unique. Gentle parenting doesn’t mean to make your own baby food, doing baby-led weaning, sleeping together, birthing naturally and always being an effing singing Disney princess full of sunshine and laughter. It also doesn’t mean, however, having no boundaries, being a pushover, or being weak for “giving in”.

Gentle parenting, or needs-based parenting, is more about how we view the child and the exact parameters in which we realise this concept are then individual to us and our family. As a “gentle parent”, I understand that children are willing participants in our community, but that their brains are still very underdeveloped and they simply cannot manage their emotions like adults can (or can’t either in many cases). It is the notion that children are valued and valuable members of our family and not possessions of ours that have to be the way we want to. It means to put a harmonious family life in which everyone has their needs met over an environment of suppression where “bad” emotions don’t have a place.

Understanding that your child cannot act differently when they’re upset, kicking and whining and responding accordingly with kindness and gentleness, doesn’t make you weak, it makes you kind. On the other side, you also have your needs, your triggers and freaking out on your child because they’ve had their tenth tantrum already doesn’t take away the gentle parenting badge from you. A gentle parent will understand that these things will happen, but then mend them through cuddling, explaining and apologising – therefore also modelling behaviour that the child can adopt for future life, making your child a kind-hearted and understanding person in the process.

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