Being a parent is about dealing with mixed feelings. The excitement of giving birth to a toddler is on one side, and on the other side, giving them the proper kind of parenting is nervous. The love and care that partners shared became double after they gave birth to their baby. Raising a successful child is a very tough job in today’s technological era. But to make your responsibility easier and guide you about proper parenting, there are different types of parenting styles available. In this blog, we discuss the effectiveness of Gentle Parenting.

What is Gentle Parenting?

Gentle Parenting is all about identifying your children and responding to their demands. It helps you to raise confident and happy children. Gentle Parenting encourages parents and children to make decisions without anyone’s pressure, just by focusing on their internal willingness. It’s not about rewards and punishment. You can also use the monitoring application for better parenting.

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Foundation of Gentle Parenting

The main foundations of Gentle Parenting are:

Understanding 

The human brain is not completely set until the kid enters their third decade of life. That’s why it’s not justified to think children should think and make decisions as adults. Children don’t see the world like young adult people, and their mind is not entirely developed. So that, their viewpoint is different from us. And for parents to expect to understand everything like an adult is problematic behavior.

Gentle Parenting requires parents to learn how their behavior impacts their children and if their expectations are age-appropriate. Let’s suppose you and your children are in the grocery shop. And the child meltdown in the store. It’s not because they enjoy crying and making noise. It’s because they didn’t find any other way to explain their needs to you. Violent and Harsh parents are more likely to raise violent children. 

Parents are the first role model of the children. If you start yelling, bitting back, punishing harshly, then your children may think it’s okay to do so. As a result, children also start doing that. That’s why start communicating with your kids in simple sweet language. If your children feel they are being heard and their parents are always there for them, they are more likely to come to you whenever they encounter a problem.

Empathy

Many other parenting styles focused only on the feelings and thought of parents. But gentle parenting focus on raising an empathic child. It is needed for parents to understand what their children are feeling. Without going through the root cause, considering the children as manipulative and stubborn is not correct. Otherwise, their behavior towards you will never solve. There may be more chance for you to encounter undesirable behavior soon. So ask them or find the cause. What if the children have anxiety and fear? Think wisely.

Respect 

It is very much necessary to treat the children the same way you want yourself to be treated. Don’t forget that they are also human. Never scold your child in front of other people, whether the third person is their friends or family relatives. Children may develop hard feelings towards you. So, parents must gain respect by acknowledging the toddler’s feelings. Then only you will be able to build a strong foundation in between your relationship.

Boundaries

Gentle Parenting is about discipline. But the field should be age-appropriate, respectful, empathic, and intelligent. You need to teach them what kind of behavior you want to have in them respectfully and adequately. 

The world without boundaries is baffling. So, you need to set some boundaries for your child. But make sure they are simple, which guides them to do things in a better way. Boundaries differ from family to family. You need to be in between an authoritarian parent and a permissive parent. You don’t need to say NO to everything, but that doesn’t mean you have to allow everything. 

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Benefits of Gentle Parenting

Gentle Parenting is a new style of parenting that has gained more popularity in recent years. Some sources claim it is scientifically proven, while others claim it is not. But one clear thing is that it increases the positive bond between child and parents. And in the future, children will become happy and independent adults. It is the most significant benefit of gentle Parenting.

Gentle Parenting helps children to express their feelings with their parents. As a result, children are less likely to be violent and achieve better academic marks in their schools. When children and parents share proper communication, then there is no chance for parents to have misconceptions about their children. Gentle Parenting encourages to deal with action and not with the children. As a result, children start to develop improved social skills.

While from the parent’s side, the boundaries set by them will help their child to feel safe and protected. It helps parents by making their children understand; why some actions are not allowed. Following that, gentle parenting also helps children to know, instead of being hurt and sad, it’s okay to share feelings with family members, boundaries are essential, and they are safe with their parents. That’s why gentle parenting is very effective.

Cons of Gentle Parenting  

In gentle Parenting, you need to be more proactive than reactive. Gentle Parenting mainly relies on the children’s inner motivation, which can be time-consuming. That’s why parents need to be consistent and empathetic. It requires a lot of patience. But if parents have a limited amount of time for their children, then forget this parenting style. Focusing on parenting style is not enough; you need to take care of other factors too.

Other types of parenting styles

Attachment Parenting

Attachment parenting mainly focuses on the physical connection, such as carrying a baby on your body, skin-to-skin contact, baby feeding. The similarity between gentle and attachment parenting is that both of them focus on love cares positive discipline. But gentle parenting doesn’t focus on physical touch.

Attachment parenting comes from the attachment theory. And the important dogma of attachment theory is that children have to develop a relationship with at least one primary guardian in order to have normal social and emotional development.

Permissive Parenting 

Permissive parenting mainly focuses on being friends with children. Low expectations of the children categorize it. In such type of Parenting, parents may excuse the children, which they shouldn’t, by saying he is a child. That’s why such kind of parenting may be proved as damaging. 

Permissive parents don’t hesitate to make healthy boundaries and structures for their children. They may find it troublesome and get fear losing their children. That’s why they don’t expect their children to act as mature. Permissive Parenting is oppositive to helicopter parenting. 

Authoritarian Parenting 

Authoritarian parents often end the conversation by saying “because I said so” whenever children ask for a reason. They are not focused on solving the child’s problem by love and care. They often deal with punishment. Authoritarian parents make their children feel apologized, which is not so worth it. In fact, they should guide them to make better decisions and choices.

For authoritarian parents, the decisions and opinions of their children do not matter. Research has shown that children are at higher risk of developing self-esteem. And there is more chance that children start developed hatred towards parents. And to protect from punishments, children start hiding things and lying to them.

Authoritative parenting 

Authoritative parents expect more from their children but according to the child’s age. They understand the mind of children doesn’t work as an adult. They respect the feelings of their children. Authoritative parents believe in giving respect and taking respect. It is one of the effective parenting styles for raising a happy, confident, brilliant child after gentle parenting. 

Conclusion

No matter how many parenting styles are available, not every family needs to follow the same techniques. Still, gentle parenting is the ideal one. But to use this parenting, you need to be more tolerant. Don’t expect to see the results in a few months. The main goal of gentle parenting is to develop a strong relationship between parents and children. 

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