Gentle parenting is a hot topic today. Many parents feel it doesn’t work, others feel it’s a life-changing new approach to parenting, and it’s the only safe, respectful, and effective way to avoid pitfalls. And most of us have seen our own parents do it.
But as one TikTok mother revealed in a recent video with her toddler son, the method requires some patience and understanding of most people, much less exhausted and flustered. Parents are hard to come by.
A TikTok mother ranted about her toddler slamming a toy, saying she “asked me so many times”.
This video presents a scenario that is immediately familiar to anyone who has spent time with a baby.
When her baby fusses by slamming toys on the TV stand while watching a show, TikToker gently tries to correct him over and over again. “Stop squeezing,” she says over and over. “Don’t do that, you can’t do that,” she repeats.
“You can’t do that, Bab, come over here,” the mother tries again, but the toddler simply turns around and looks at the mother before starting to whack the toy. This is a familiar scenario for many parents.
Finally, TikToker loses his temper and yells. The toddler then leaves the TV and toddles obediently toward the mother.
“I’ve asked well many times,” she wrote in the caption.
A TikTok mom framed her video as proof that gentle parenting doesn’t work. Many parents agree.
In an on-screen text, the mother summed up her video by saying, “My gentle parenting.” TikTok is full of videos of parents who are just as frustrated with the technique as this mother and end up yelling at their kids instead.
Others, like the younger dad, have said that “gentle parenting works amazingly well when you have a sweet child, combined with the patience of a kindergarten teacher and the on-the-spot emotional intelligence of a therapist.” claim.
Even stand-up comedians like the one below are starting to complain about it.
Proponents of this method, however, argue that these people fundamentally misunderstand even what tender parenting is. It claims to be a discipline that has in mind children’s behavior, and is very different from adults in a myriad of ways.
Many followers of this method, like anti-bias educator Janelle Scales, are quick to say that the key to successful gentle parenting is parental self-discipline, not the child’s.
But there’s a much simpler and more fundamental reason why gentle parenting can fail, experts say.
Small toddlers and babies need physical boundaries, not verbal instructions, because their brains cannot yet process verbal discipline.
Parenting coach Marcella Collier, who leads workshops on calm parenting and other parenting issues, explained how it works in response to a video of a mother yelling at her toddler.
“Peaceful parenting changes according to developmental stages,” Collier explained. She goes on to say that this is exactly why we buy baby gates, playpens and the like for babies, and videos like this TikTok mom show Collier how she looked at herself when her kids were little. He explained that this was the reason why he built a baby gate around his TV.
“Or that physical barrier could be you,” she continued, explaining.
Collier explains in other videos how this works for older kids, like a kid hitting his mother because she’s angry. In gentle parenting, after setting boundaries about not hitting, Collier encourages kids to do something else with their hands instead so they can release their angry energy in other ways. This allows you to “meet them at their level…and at their developmental stage.”
In a nutshell, Collier said:
It may not be easy.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer covering topics of pop culture, social justice and human interest.
