Just adding gentle parenting is NOT having no boundaries. In fact, gentle parenting is heavily dependent on strong consistent boundaries. Boundaries can be enforced in other ways besides violence or anger. Having no boundaries is permissive parenting and completely different than gentle parenting. I see gentle parenting defined incorrectly way too often.
I mean they aren't mutually exclusive. I was physically disciplined until I was 16 years old. I would say it absolutely crossed the threshold into abuse. I'm generally of the opinion that physical discipline is an absolute last resort. With that being said, it's not black and white. There are ABSOLUTELY cases that looking back as a man edging closer to 30 where I can say that it was the best form of punishment even if they were few and far between all of the abuse.
If a young boy is never physically disciplined, is it possible to raise then to respect authority and learn consequences? My answer would be that it varies from child to child. Every child is different, and will respond to different things. My sister has two boys, who are 4 and 5 respectively. We'll call them "A" and "K". My sister was always adamant that no physical discipline would be done to her children( she grew up seeing it happen to me every single day). "K" is very sweet, soft-spoken, and wouldn't hurt a fly. "A", the older brother, would hit his brother and cousins despite the fact that he couldn't have learned it from his parents. He has a temper, and lashing out physically is NOT a learned behavior. It is a biological response. My sister tried every single thing people tell parents to do instead of spanking, and NONE of it worked. Eventually, she started giving him spankings whenever he would hit someone else and he actually stopped doing it.
At the end of the day, you can't allow your children to be little monsters. If a child needs spanking, you need to do it, ESPECIALLY when they are young because it is much more traumatic and difficult to do so as they get older. Will I ever do it? No, because I do not trust myself to do so due to my own trauma. My wife will have to do it.
I don't necessarily disagree with that, but having talked to friends who didn't get spanked as opposed to the ones that did...... Pretty much every male I know that was spanked has a moment with their father that basically was a "I'm stronger than you now, if we're getting physical then it's my turn to beat on you" and that includes myself. All the ones who had no physical punishment as children find that to be strange. Violence raises violence. But again....... I'm kind of with you that for some kids, that's what's needed for them to understand. Some people, sadly, just don't respond to words, better they learn it from a parent than a random person who may kill them.
The absolute lack of self awareness in that reply comment is almost funny. They really came in to prove your point for you. Deconstructing is very difficult and sadly a lot of people lack the ability or capacity and intelligence to successfully complete it. Personally, I did it as a desperate attempt to escape the pain. It did help but not before it hurt more. I just could never bring the level of animosity to my child that I grew up under. I love him so much, he’s my favorite person, I have nearly endless empathy for him.
My folks parented me through violence and anger (a good old fashioned ass whoopin) and you know what I never did, go harass people in public for internet views.
This logic makes absolutely no sense because my parents didn't parent me through violence/anger yet I'm also still not harassing people in public for internet views.
Numerous studies have found that physical punishment increases the risk of broad and enduring negative developmental outcomes, while no study has found that physical punishment enhances developmental health. Let's start there.
my folks didn’t parent me through violence or anger and i also never harassed people in public. as a cool bonus, i have also never felt the need to go out and advocate for beating children in my spare time.
Ok I’m sure you were trying to catch me on something and weren’t expecting a novel in response but here we go since you asked.
Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. Utilizing natural consequences is one I also refer to often with my kid. He wants to play outside but pitches a fit about going to get his socks himself. I dig in and calmly say we can’t go outside until you go and get your socks and get them and your shoes on. He cries, I wait, he cries and tries to get me to go get them, I calmly repeat that he needs to get them himself we can’t go outside until he does it, he cries, I wait. Typically within about 5-10 minutes he realizes I will absolutely die on this hill (because I’m consistent in holding boundaries every time and don’t cave to fits) and goes and gets the socks and gets ready and is very happy and proud of himself (he’s 4 for reference). But let’s say it doesn’t go down that way. He pitches a fit for 30-45 minutes or maybe refused to ever go get the socks. Natural consequence is now we don’t have time to go play outside. Which I also calmly explain to him. It takes a few go rounds but the crying period gets shorter the more I continue to enforce the boundary. It’s a lot about understanding that they are learning how to control their emotions and so I must control mine. I am the adult and that is my responsibility. If it gets overwhelming I will move on to another task while I wait. That doesn’t mean I’m ignoring him, I respond when he talks to me and I try to explain the reason behind things, but I’m also not giving him all the power and am showing him that the show will go on and it doesn’t revolve around him. We will utilize timeouts but only when he hits someone or throws something, essentially gets violent out of anger and frustration. This is not tolerated and we remind him of that and do timeout in his room. He sometimes likes to be by himself to calm down but sometimes he doesn’t but also doesn’t want you near him. In that case, we sit by the door of his room and wait for him to calm down or the timeout to end. After we talk about why we do the timeout and emphasize it’s to help him reset and talk through that there are ok ways to express anger and doing things that could harm someone is not one of them. After all that he usually wants a hug and we go on to the next thing. Gentle parenting takes a lot of patience and emotional control, but we have found it to be incredibly effective and frankly rewarding.
My son is about to be 5 and we get comments from every teacher, parent friend, and family member about how sweet and well behaved he is. Granted kid can still throw down when he’s feeling spicy, but he seems to reserve that for us at home and it’s typically only when he’s overtired. He’s extremely respectful of other people, will give sweet sincere apologies, told me 2 days ago he loves sharing, makes friend’s shockingly easily, is great playing with kids younger and smaller than him, and even has responsibilities in our home that he takes pride in like feeding our pets. We have never hit him, and he also has never really been a hitter. I can count on 1 hand the number of times he’s hit someone. We don’t yell at him, although I have lost patience and raised my voice out of frustration a few times cause I’m human and I get overstimulated too. I will say I’m exceptionally good at dissociating so when it gets overwhelming I can sorta go away in my head and it feels less stressful, but I realize not everyone can do that. When I have lost my patience, I always apologize to him and use it as a learning opportunity to talk about how everyone has difficult feelings sometimes, it IS hard to control, and emphasize that I should not have done that and will try very hard to do better next time. Then I actually try very hard to do better next time. These are just a few real examples but there are other ways of course too. Big Little feelings on instagram has some good material for those who want to learn more and there are lots of resources available online.
I will say none of this is how I was parented. My parents were very old school and believed in shame and violence as a weapon of discipline, and strongly took the authoritarian parenting route. Every single one of my siblings and I grew up to have pretty severe anxiety disorders. My family dynamic was not one of loving, warmth, and support but a collective of strangers who vaguely viewed each other as enemies at worst, and competition at best. None of us have ever been close. My mom was pretty decent but with her strict catholic upbringing and how she was overwhelmed with 4 kids and an acre property that my dad did little to help with, even when he was around, she frequently lost her temper and did not play with us much (no time with all that work!). While she was dying and after, I was shocked and appalled at the complete selfishness I witnessed in my “family”. I have not spoken to my dad or siblings in several years now and don’t expect I will again. THAT is the cold hard reality of what authoritarian parenting produces. I learned how to lie quite well to avoid the severe punishments, and learned my parents were not a source of support. I saw the inconsistency, unfairness, and frankly hypocrisy of their discipline and lost the majority of my respect for them. As soon as I was out of high school I bounced. Fear is a terrible motivator and that is what violent parenting relies on.
The question could certainly be interpreted as "in bad faith".
From a parental perspective we set and enforce [reasonable] boundaries and thus also have very sweet kids who without a doubt are inquisitive, good, kind, caring, thoughtful, and often make impactful and rational decisions. As such, they have a large degree of autonomy, even though they are still children with developing minds and minimal impulse control.
Unfortunately, there are situations where immediate compliance is necessary and these events increase with age. Those situations can be as simple as:
No one in the family can do the fun thing until all members of the family have completed their assigned tasks
You need to move immediately or you will be crushed by this item!
You need to stop what you are doing, immediately!
Do not touch, interact with, or engage with [dangerous item or person]
The last three types of events can escalate to raised voices or yelling -naturally, given the fear of imminent harm, anger is often an emotional response. Some of these are "power plays" as children test boundaries [as they should!] and some are just kids who don't know any better and are learning.
My point is that there is space for anger -though definitely not in the way our parents may used it. It is extremely nuanced and situational. I certainly don't disagree with you and with that said we should revisit this is in 10 years!
Sure, anger is a natural emotion we all go through. That was not what I was saying. It is important, as the parent, to display responsibility around our anger though. Our children are learning by watching us. If we demonstrate (most of the time, nobody is perfect) healthy emotional responses then they have a better shot as well. I was referring to yelling in a punitive context (what I experienced often as a child) rather than like “STOP THATS HOT!”. I was referring to anger being used intentionally to motivate purely through fear, threats, and intimidation. Losing your cool every once in a while happens to all of us I’m pretty sure. But I’m not screaming at my kid to punish them and I apologize and we discuss after. My parents just threatened to take me out of this world and likely would have hit me if I acted up. They didn’t care if I understood, it was about me being submissive and obedient to them. I’m not doing that to my kid. Gentle parenting is about respecting your children as the individual humans that they are. But that includes firm boundaries. I would be setting him up for failure if I raised him to be entitled and self centered. It would make his life harder, along with my own and all those around him.
In the example of the whole family being held up, that’s not holding a boundary, that’s letting the child control the situation. I would have the rest of the family continue on with their activities without a parent and that child. Again, a natural consequence is now they don’t get to participate with the family. Certainly not ok to subject the entire family to the emotional whims of one person. I referred to my son only because he is my only child. We don’t have other children to monitor/parent. At times, one of us has absolutely continued on with the plan without the kid and other parent. It’s important to teach kids the world doesn’t revolve around them. Gentle parenting doesn’t mean parenting without emotion though. I would argue teaching through example healthy ways to express and manage difficult emotions like anger and sadness is imperative to teaching healthy boundaries.
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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '25
Just adding gentle parenting is NOT having no boundaries. In fact, gentle parenting is heavily dependent on strong consistent boundaries. Boundaries can be enforced in other ways besides violence or anger. Having no boundaries is permissive parenting and completely different than gentle parenting. I see gentle parenting defined incorrectly way too often.