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The people who criticize “gentle parenting” are just abusers who think not hitting or yelling at your kids is “spoiling” them. We shouldn’t even need a term like “gentle parenting”. NOT abusing your kids isn’t gentle. It’s the bare f*cking minimum.

“Gentle Parenting” is when adults who were abused as children have the emotional maturity & proper healing to understand their own children deserve far better than the mistreatment & trauma they faced. They understand what they experienced wasn’t normal or ok & the generational trauma ends with them. People who are mad at or mock this have yet to heal through their own childhood traumas and honest to god believe they, much like their parents, are great at raising their children, only because they managed to do so without killing it.

You don't have to be a parent in order to know how to rise a child in the same way you don't need to have cancer to know how to treat it.

I consider myself a gentle parent before that became a thing. That doesn’t mean letting kids do whatever they want. My kids are 22, 19, 17 all boys and they absolutely adore me and we are super close but they have their own lives. I was very responsive, I had rules that made sense, consequences were generally natural. They don’t lie (often to their detriment), they don’t sneak, they are honest and kind. They aren’t perfect people but that has never been the goal.

These parents putting their kids on TikTok just doesn't sit right with me, especially when the kids are being emotional. The tiktok with the woman explaining the stick hitting the tv was perfectly fine because there were no kids in the video, so it doesn't bother me. I can't be the only one that thinks this way, right?

The main critiques I’ve seen of gentle parenting are from people who believe anything short of child abuse (ex: beating children, washing their mouths out with soap, etc.) is permissive parenting. Research has shown corporal punishment to be ineffective long-term and incredibly harmful to child development for decades. It’s incredible to me that people can still defend it so vehemently, and I’m so happy our generation is making the shift to gentle parenting ❤

Ppeople took 'not saying no' the wrong way. Kids don't know the other behavior we expect when we say "Dont slam the door!" We need to show them the expected behavior: "instead of soaking the door, even if we are upset, that could break it. We need to shut it gently. 99% of the time with this method the child does the expected behavior. They simply don't know.

I really feel like the reason why many people (not all) see timeouts as being abusive, is because the way that you explained what a timeout should be and the way that they experienced what their parents defined as a time out, are extremely different. A time out where a child is sent to go collect themselves and calm down, is so different from the many people who were sent away to their rooms because the parent would say something like " I don't want to see you right now,!" or "I don't want to see you until tomorrow. And I better not hear from you again tonight, you are (insert belittling adjective here)." What were called timeouts for many, was really more like solitary confinement after a good dressing down. They felt like they were sent away to be isolated with no opportunity to apologize or for reconciliation for what seemed to be an unreasonable amount of time. If this is what they perceive a time out to be, then they might remember when they were a child and they would spend hours crying in their room, not fully understanding what was happening but just knowing that their parents were extremely angry and thought lowly of them and there was nothing they could do about it - to do that to their own child would be unconscionable. Again, I'm not saying that this is everybody who feels timeouts are abusive, and I'm also definitely not saying that's what timeouts really are, but I am saying I've come across a lot of people who don't like the idea of timeouts and this is the exact reason. Especially if they got a beating first, and then were told to go think about it alone.

i love that you acknowledge cruelty being your trigger, shows that you're human after all

empath is not fully cooked yet. love that

Such a great take. Would love to hear more about child development and psychology from you.

I think for a lot of people, gentle parenting is basically not aggressive/hostile parenting, like yelling, screaming, hitting, grabbing, etc. The fact that a lot of parents who are authoritative label their parenting as 'gentle' shows how many of those parents used to be children of aggressive/hostile parenting. The bar was just set really low, which is quite sad but also a sign of progress 🌟

This video actually gave me a more positive understanding of the gentle parenting trend. I think I rushed to conflate it with the prevalence of helicopter parenting, thanks for your fair analysis of gentle parenting.

Well if you ever ask my parents/caregivers, they would probably say they were always gentle, even though alot of the time they were the opposites, just them trying to hide all the abuse an mistreatment they caused.

I just want you to know that your content is amazing! Many therapist gatekeep information from the public. (Which I understand) You are overall such a blessing to many people and we have learned so much from you!

This was a great insight into gentle parenting. I was nanny for a family that did gentle parenting and they didn't believe in using the word 'no', or putting them in time out. I noticed I was having a little difficulty when it came to tantrums since i believe when a child does that its best to give them space to let it out (of course as long as they arent hurt themselves or others) then I go to talk to them, but the parents saw this method as mean. The motto i was taught with kids was "Be Kind, but Firm". I would love to see you react to supernanny as I found great success with some of her methods as well. Have a good one 😊💛💛.

As a nanny, preschool teacher and child specialist ski instructor who never wants to be a parent.. gentle/authoritative parenting is the way of raise kids.

I'm feeling a distinct disconnect between "gentle parenting" and the defined parenting styles. Like theres a mode of parenting (gentle/scary/angry etc.) and the style (permissive/authoritative/etc.) would be layered under that. Does this make sense to anyone lol?

I really appreciate your take on this. My wife and I are talking about it and im still quite conflicted. One of my problems is “natural consequences”. In my experience natural consequences are a lot more harsh than imposed consequences by parents ( I’m referring to generalized good parents). For instance being abruptly pulled off a ladder and scolded hurts a lot less than falling off a ladder. You had said that the natural consequence of hitting someone is merely that they get upset. In my experience it gets me hit a lot more and harder. I think that’s one thing that makes gentle parenting as a whole look bad to me. Still don’t wanna throw the baby out with the bath water though!

All I would say is that before kids, I thought I was a very patient person, I thought I would be a good parent and would enjoy it. We thought we would have little mini versions of ourselves that we would 'get' and they would 'get' us. In reality we had little extreme versions of combos of our parents and grandparents with some wild card characteristics thrown in. And the relationship with our kids isn't a given, it takes work, love, empathy and it's not always fun...it's gruelling at times and situations can push us to the absolute limits. It's so often a strategic game, always having a bargaining chip to hand. It's exhausting to come from that quite chilled out place to parent strong willed personalities. If there is one quality I think we've needed when it comes to behaviour in parenting it's 'Adaptability' you absolutely have to be prepared to trial and error and stop and start things and yet maintain a consistent experience for the kids. Communicating and working together as partners is also essential but that again can bring out differences in values and ideals.

Have you ever seen the KZfaq channel Momma Cusses? I’d say she’s fairly inline with Authoritative parenting in how she goes about her idea of gentle/responsive parenting. Her teen child makes appearances on the channel from time to time, but her little children do not. I’ve heard from other people in the psychology field & parents that parenting styles depend on the personality of the child. That some children are more “challenging” then others & need a more Authoritarian style. This frankly to me always felt like a justification to abuse kids & to make a literal child out to be a villain. I definitely think the folks who think Time Outs as inherently abusive likely experienced Time Out as “stay the corner/your room not doing anything/not make any noise until I say you can come out!” And then they were left for long amounts of time. I know I definitely prefer timeout as an exercise in emotional regulation & not as a punishment.

I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing you step into your power and authority as a Doctor of Psychology ❤ Your content is so relevant and informative!

This was a great video! I would love to see more parenting videos from you. I especially liked your point about learning about parenting before becoming one.

Thank you, very needed information

I was raised in under authoritarian parents. To this day I still suffer from all of the consequences you spelled out, minus the hostility. I refuse to raise my children the same way.

I truly think it's not necessary for a person to be a parent to be able to have good ideas about parenting. There certainly is a bad version that goes 'just do this thing, it'll solve all problems!' and that's probably not realistic ever. But I've seen many people having good ideas for situations they were not directly involved in - because they weren't under pressure of having to solve them. Removing the pressure and urgency can make thinking outside of the box much easier, because it spares the frustration. As long as the suggestion is not presented authoritatively or by talking down to people or like the parents could never have thought of it themselves (which they often have), but as a mere idea that's thrown into the game, it's fine in most cases.

i find the "don't talk to me unless you're a parent" thing to be very narrow-minded. beyond the fact that getting an outside perspective is almost always helpful, that child does not live in a vacuum. society as a whole has a stake in how they grow up and they do have a say. kids are not property to be built how you want because "they're yours" - they're growing people and you're there to guide them into maturity.

I've learned a lot from this, thank you

On time outs, I think that if the kid has not been taught how to collect themselves then it can be cruel to send them away to figure it out on their own and thus abusive. A seven year old autistic kid having a meltdown due to being exhausted and overstimulated and being sent to time out is not okay. Same seven year old being told not to do something and doing it and being sent to timeout is okay. (Using examples from my own childhood.)

Theory has not met practice, but theory is important

Great video! Love the parenting conversations, currently pregnant with my first baby. Could you do one on the research about the effects of screen time on babies and toddlers? I’ve been looking into it and it seems pretty clear it’s all negative effects. But it would be nice to have a pro dissect the research!

Do you have any recommendations for books that break down age appropriate behaviors and tasks for kids backed by literature as well as how to discipline appropriately? I’m not a parent, but I am a first time nanny to a 5 and 8 year old and I’d like to be as good at my job as I can be. 😊

You are so pretty! Great video

What is an example of natural consequences?

Gentle parenting sounds like it can be passive aggressive in a Nurse Ratchet kind of way.

I'm a mix between results of permissive, authoritarian and authoritative. In and out of therapy for 10 years and I feel like a lost puppy in the body of a 28yo male. If only it were as simple as looking at a chart. Good video.

Can you make a video about the normalization of males in their twenty’s with teenager girls maybe the effects of grooming

Dr ana you have grown quite a bit since your channel first started! This is well deserved 👏

Hi, do you think for the good of the whole of a society different types of parenting style need to exist to keep the society healthy as a whole? If everyone would an authoritative parent would some good stuff be lost from the other parenting styles be lost?

I genuinely love your content. Can I provide constructive criticism? Could you think about choosing an alternative clicking/less abbrasive clicking noice for your bullet points? It might just be me, but I appreciate your work nonetheless!

My friend is a great mom but she is super permissive with her baby because she thinks not paying attention to her will case her trauma

I agree with "don't judge parents" in the way that it's incredibly complex and demanding and society is not really built to help out caregivers. So, doing your absolute best is impossible, and you will make mistakes, and that is okay. However, it does not mean that every parenting philosophy is okay or healthy

I don't even want kids and I still watched the whole video and found it interesting.

These videos are so helpful but now I’m confused as to how my parents managed to be permissive and authoritarian. Still better than neglectful like their generation’s parents though. And hopefully our generation will do much better

you left out the vlog parents

I wish you hadnt lied about the cat story. It discredits so much more of your content, that you are prepared to lie about something which doesnt matter.

Gentle parenting is just athoritative parenting with a lot of patience

I like how the gold standard has no downsides, sounds legit

Sounds like the Supernanny

I think you’re mistaken when you say that having rules for your child is not gentle parenting.

I don't see the link for TaskieHusky in the annotations or description - am I missing it?

I think your remarks about time outs might be a little off base. I agree with you that time outs are not abusive, but they might not be the most effective. For example, some have advocated for co regulating with an upset child rather than having them go off to “figure out” emotional regulation on their own.

Just to counterpoint your initial justification that it’s ok for non parents to give parenting advice: just remember that we all tried to plan and figure out what kind of parents we were going to be before we had kids and you might achieve 10% of that goal at best as all the unexpected external, internal factors hit once the kid comes, let alone the individuality of the kid themselves who never ever pops out how you might have expected. The key is being flexible for any eventuality. Now having said that, I would never tell a psychologist with or without kids that they can’t give parenting advice. Present me all the research you’ve found please, that’s why I came here.

I think gwenna laithland/ @mommacusses is a very good example of gentle parenting