Gentle Parenting: Everything You Need to Know

Gentle parenting is a nurturing style of raising children that allows parents to partner with their little ones to promote their growth and development. This parenting style encourages unshut liaison and reflection, leading children to make positive choices independently. Gentle parenting moves yonder from seeing a child’s policies as neither good nor bad. Children can communicate their unmet needs, and a parent focuses on teaching positive policies instead of punishing or removing privileges as a deterrent to negative behavior.^1,2

How Is Gentle Parenting Different From Other Parenting Styles?

Gentle parenting is the most collaborative parenting style and the only one that does not include punishment or negative reinforcement. While the permissive parenting style is child-led with minimal boundaries, and the sundowner style is parent-led with many, gentle parenting uses teamwork between parents and children to set and respect boundaries.³

Parents lead their children to make positive decisions through unshut liaison and by setting well-spoken and resulting expectations. Natural consequences, rather than punishment, guide little ones while encouraging social-emotional learning. Gentle parenting respects the feelings and thoughts of children, empowering them to wilt confident and independent.^1,2

Parents connect with their children to develop empathy and grow social-emotional skills together. Through gentle parenting, parents provide bilateral understanding, modeling, and positive guidance to raise happy, confident children. This tideway implements four key pillars: respect, boundaries, empathy, and understanding.^3,4,5

Respect

Respecting a little one’s thoughts and feelings makes them finger heard and valued. Openly expressing themselves with their parents early encourages healthy liaison skills that wilt the foundation for all future relationships while giving them the conviction to thrive independently at school, during activities, and on the playground.

Boundaries

Gentle parenting uses pearly and firm boundaries to make children finger confident in the expectations set for them and includes the child as often as possible in creating these guidelines. For example, creating a list of rules for the home as a family is a hands-on way to involve little ones in decision-making and immuration the family through teamwork.

The gentle parenting tideway believes it is normal and healthy for children to test boundaries. As little ones grow from babies to toddlers to young children, they test boundaries as they proceeds independence. This shows marvel and growing confidence and should not be judged harshly or taken personally by parents (no matter how nonflexible that may be!).

Understanding

Parents understanding how nonflexible it is for children to be constantly growing, developing, and having widow expectations put on them is an essential component of gentle parenting. Gentle parenting asks that parents have realistic expectations for their children and themselves. When parents make mistakes, a gentle parenting strategy is to use those experiences as an essential tool to model towardly actions, such as the parent apologizing or making amends. This teaching impacts little ones and helps them realize that everyone makes mistakes, which encourages resilience.

Empathy

Developing empathy can be tough for young children, as they are often in phases of minutiae where, to proceeds independence and conviction in themselves, they are primarily self-serving. Gentle parenting encourages children to think increasingly well-nigh how others would tideway things or are feeling, which leads them to build empathy and social connections. Along with communication, pretend play can help little ones engage in empathy and practice important social interactions. Pretend play encourages expressive language, which promotes asking questions, making choices, and experiencing the feelings of others. This can build essential connections and impressions on how children will treat people in real-world situations and support the minutiae of their social conscience.

How to Practice Gentle Parenting

Parents can practice gentle parenting as soon as the victual is born. From the start, communicating and respecting the child forms a yoke of trust and security that will promote conviction as they grow. When speaking, parents squint at children’s faces as they talk, requite them undivided attention, urgently listen and respect their thoughts and feelings. They work with their children to establish boundaries and use resulting reinforcement, encouragement, and unshut liaison to help develop decision-making skills and confidence.

Tips and Tricks for Implementing Gentle Parenting

Use Meaningful Praise

Meaningful praise is focused on character, kindness, and any whoopee parents want children to repeat. Parents may praise children for helping, using manners, showing kindness, and sharing feelings.

Use Positive Dialogue

Instead of saying, “no, don’t touch,” gentle parenting asks the parent to requite the reason, permitting the child to understand the importance and learn to respect the item. With gentle parenting, the parent might say, “this item is fragile and could break, so we can only squint at it and enjoy it with our eyes.”

Use ‘We’ and ‘Our’ Phrases

Using “we” and “our” phrases when talking well-nigh behavior, rules, and expectations helps little ones follow the rules increasingly readily considering they understand the rules are for everyone. For example, if your child hits you out of frustration or anger, a parent practicing gentle parenting may say, “Ouch, that hurt me. We cannot use our hands to hit considering it hurts other people’s bodies. Please do not hit me, and I will not hit you.” If the policies continues, the parents will remove themselves from the space to requite the child time to reflect and use their hands respectfully.

Use a Liaison Corner

Create a liaison corner or a calming corner, rather than a space for punishment, to provide a unscratched place to discuss issues and feelings. Designate a cozy space to talk together or for children to take time alone. Offer drawing pads and crayons as talking tools and inspire little ones to find their words. Support little ones by providing hands-on tools to help them process and manage feelings. This can include books, fidgets, stress balls, and plush toys.

Gentle parenting is an impactful style of parenting in which children are respected and guided to make self-sustaining decisions using empathy and kindness. Strong family immuration and cadre values develop through unshut communication, understanding, and collaboration. Through gentle parenting, pearly boundaries and well-spoken expectations are shared and managed through consistency and positive reinforcement. Parents raising children with gentle parenting model positive policies and encourage autonomy to grow confident, happy kids.

Resources

1. Larzelere R, Lindner Gunnoe M, Roberts M, et al. Children and Parents Deserve Better Parental Discipline Research: Critiquing the Evidence for Exclusively “Positive” Parenting. Marriage and Family Review. 2017;53:1,24-35.

2. Havighurst SS, Wilson KR, Harley AE, Kehoe C, Efron D, Prior MR. 2013. “Tuning into Kids”: reducing young children’s policies problems using an emotion coaching parenting program. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev. 44(2):247-64.

3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25685975/

4. Landry SH, Smith KE, Swank PR. 2006. Responsive parenting: establishing early foundations for social, communication, and self-sustaining problem-solving skills. Dev Psychol. 42(4):627-42

5. https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5104354/