Does Gentle Parenting Mean No Discipline?

Does gentle parenting mean no discipline? People are wondering that because there are mixed views about gentle parenting approach. I teach parenting all over the world. I'm going to be talking about gentle parenting today. So let's examine what gentle parenting is and if it really lends itself well to discipline and then what discipline is included in gentle parenting or not. So you can decide if it means no discipline or some discipline. I would say that people involved in gentle parenting would probably usually say that they feel like it does have some sort of discipline, but if you compared that to discipline models from other types of parenting, you might make the decision that it doesn't really have discipline. So let's discuss what discipline is. Discipline is when you teach somebody cause and effect. It's when you help them do some self-examination of what happened. It's when you help them learn a new way to move forward and they get to accept their consequences. So they get to learn cause and effect. Now I teach self-government which one of the key skills in learning self government is learning how to accept consequences, because if a person does not get the opportunity to accept consequences, they can't learn self-government. But in the gentle parenting approach, there's not a very big emphasis on consequences or even really a ton on cause and effect. So what they do is they try to understand why the child would have done whatever it is and they might have a conversation with the child about their feelings, their anxieties, you know what they think led to whatever the circumstance was, and then they might tell them, you know, hey going forward, you know, don't do this potentially. And I would say that would be on a case-by-case basis. I did see gentle parenting in action multiple times I've seen it and usually it's like, hey, you know, what's going on? What are you feeling right now? Why is that happening? I'm so sorry that you're, you know, experiencing that. What do you think you can do to fix it? So there's not a lot of direction there except for like going through feelings and emotions. It's almost like a non-directive therapy approach kind of is what I've seen. But then when you read some things about gentle parenting, it suggests that there should be some expectations of some sort and that there should be calmness in correction, which means that there would have to be correction somewhere. But I don't think that there really were specifics of how to do a correction in a way that would actually make it so a person that got the opportunity to learn cause and effect and to accept a consequence and stuff like that. If you think about it in terms of did we talk about what went wrong and did we try to discuss what we should have done, then you could say there's discipline there because that does happen sometimes with the gentle parenting approach. And I think it's supposed to happen that way with the gentle parenting approach. But if you compare it to other forms of parenting like the teaching self-government form of parenting, then you might say no that there isn't any discipline really there because there's a lot of talking but there's not a lot of taking responsibility. There's a lot of finding excuses. There's a lot of discussing feelings but there's not a lot of fixing of the problem that happens. There's not as much of an emphasis on actually altering the behavior. There's emphasis on understanding a behavior but not actually making a behavior change. And usually when we're talking about discipline, we're talking about making a behavior shift instead of just you know understanding the the whys or the feelings behind what led to a certain behavior potentially. So I guess depending on how you're looking at it, I would actually say that gentle parenting does not incorporate adequate enough discipline for a really effective teaching model for children. I feel that children really do need the opportunity to be trained ahead of time how to handle a circumstance. Then they need to have somebody help evaluate with them what did happen and not so much about the feelings. That doesn't mean you can't discuss them. You can but the children don't actually gain anything by going into everything to that depth. There are certain times where it might be appropriate but then other times where it's just gonna be a distraction to the fact that well I just felt an impulse okay and I just wanted to hit that person because they took my car. Well what do they need instead? They need to learn how to communicate it. They weren't communicating properly. Which piece did they miss? They didn't disagree appropriately. That would be a skill that I would teach my children ahead of time. If they didn't do it I would correct them so that they could get the opportunity to accept a consequence. They would also get the opportunity to practice things the right way. But you know that would be something that would be an action step that would happen. So there's the pre teaching of the skills and then the follow through consistently. And then if they didn't want to accept their consequences what are you gonna do then? I think this is where it really got in the weeds for a lot of people with the gentle parenting approach is okay well I'm gonna tell my child not to do that again. But then they're like I don't care. I whatever. I feel this. You're making me mad. And now we're back to the emotions again. And so there was no means for but what if they go completely out of control? Like what do I do for that? And so the children some of these children just started monopolizing everything in the household controlling everything having tantrums. There's a particular woman that I know who has a daughter who is a little bit older and her daughter will just yell at her and tell her no I won't do that. You know just get really angry and she'll threaten things. She'll do risky behaviors just to get at her mother. This type of thing is a very coddled like emotionally entitled behavior pattern that this child is in. And the mother's like she doesn't like it when I tell her she's earned a negative consequence. And she won't do it. She doesn't care. And I'm like well then she's out of instructional control. Which means you need to have some intensive teaching skills under your belt. And those are things that we actually teach here at Teaching Self-Government. That's the name of this channel Teaching Self-Government. And really effective parenting does include some cause and effect. Some personal ownership over your own behaviors. It's important to have those things. So you've landed in a really great place. Because the Teaching Self-Government Channel has tons of videos that you can watch that can help you learn so many different aspects of self-government. We can answer so many of your questions here. Truly learning self-government does require some self-evaluation. Which means that some good study correction needs to happen. If parents do not feel confident to do discipline, they probably need to get some skills. There is a video on this channel. It's a full-length class and it is called The Not-So-Known Secret for Parenting Success. And it talks about some of those skills and principles of self-government that can actually help you create a really effective parenting plan at your house. So go to that video next. I'll see you there.