Episode 28: Understanding Gentle Parenting

https://youtu.be/J3ye_8-002U

In this episode of Psyched for Sanity, Dr. Parker and Dr. Doss explore gentle parenting and clear up some of the common misconceptions surrounding it. They discuss what gentle parenting is, what it isn’t, and how parents can balance connection, empathy, and boundaries while raising their children.

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***Listener Discretion Advised:
This episode contains discussions about mental health topics and real-life experiences that may not be suitable for all audiences. While the conversation includes humor and personal stories, some content may be sensitive or triggering. Listener discretion is advised.***

Transcript

0:11

Hello, this is Psych for Sanity. I am one of your co-hosts, Dr. Tara McKelvey Parker. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice. I specialize in assessing and treating complex trauma and attachment wounds from childhood. And I'm on your other co-host, Dr. Brendel Doss. I specialize in geriatric psychology, forensic psychology, trauma treatment, and assessment. And boy, do I have a story for you today. I am excited for your story. Buckle in. Good job. Buckle. For those that are just listening, she literally buckled herself in. Because she knows I'm serious. Imagine. I have been teasing her with this story about my child for about two weeks now, and I have been refusing to tell her because I wanted to see her genuine reaction with all of you. Driving bananas. And also you're yes, I'm probably not going to have a a big reaction at this point. I'm going to be like, You're probably like, that's ridiculous. That's you're going to like whatever we'll see. Okay. So the other morning, my spouse goes to get our five-year-old. We have a five-year-old daughter that is um a unique individual and a diamond in her own right. And you never know when you wake my daughter up what you're going to get. So my spouse goes in there and greets her. You know, good morning, honey. How are you know, how do you sleep? All these things. And she's been sitting up. She's awake. Uh-huh. She's not waking up. Okay. She's sitting up. She's awake. She stares at my wife and says, I'm not the child you're looking for. I love that. She's so crazy. What happened after that? Obviously, my spouse brought her down to me. We got her dressed, tried to get her ready because she had to go to school that morning. Literally, like, but literally she came at me and told me. And I'm like, Did you let her watch a horror movie or something? And of course my child's like, no. It's slightly creepy. And I could also see it being a little like playful, like, apparently. I was not there, but it was like a deadpan. One of my, you know, my daughter. One of her deadpan faces, I'm not the daughter your little child you're looking for. And I'm like, holy mackerel! Who we call the priest? We're not even cat creepy. Like it was so creepy. So creepy. That's pretty funny. That's never I'm trying to when I'm trying to think about when I wake my daughter up. She's usually so far, she's usually pretty good. I don't know. We'll see how that's every morning is an adventure. Sometimes we'll get animal noises. Really? Really? Yes. Sometimes she's like an animal of the day. That happens a lot. And she refuses to when she wakes up. I'm not, she'll say, I'm not so-and-so. Like, I'm not my name. I'm Mr. Um Well, my my my wife has nicknamed her the No Noodle Poodle. The No Noodle Poodle. I think for a while she was refusing to eat noodles. I remember. I don't honestly remember how that started, but you never know when you wake my kid up what you're gonna get. And that's what we got about two and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago. That's pretty funny. Yeah, I don't know. Also like scary. Well, yeah, no, that's a little creepy for sure. I don't even like horror movies. And I do, and I'm like, yeah, that could definitely be a good one. I don't watch anything. Anything beyond Abbott and Costello's hold that ghost, I'm out. What? I don't do anything. That's a very old movie that you don't even know because I'm an 80-year-old man. Indeed. And so you will never get that reference. And if you do, hey, accepting it now. Hey, fellow older adults, it's me. I'm here with you. I no, I just don't do anything scary whatsoever. So this was a specific specifically shocking for me. And I'm like, where what on earth possessed literally possessed her to say this? I have no, we have no idea. She never has said it since then. Okay. So there's Well But if anything happens to me, guys, you will know what happened now. If I go missing. Oh my gosh. Yes. You need an if I anyway, that reminds me of a anyway, a podcast that I watch or listen to where they're always like, you need an if I go missing file just in case. And in this case it would be if some if you're a child. I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen. And then the question becomes, what child are we looking for? And where did you take her? Well, that's what I'm wondering. I have no idea. I have no idea. Okay. Well, yeah, I mean, kids are uh wacky. Crazy. As we often talk about on this podcast, and you know, and thinking about what we wanted to talk about today. We are still, you know, in the thick of parenting challenges. Yep. Often they are hilarious and challenging, and you know sometimes in the same moment. Exactly. So we wanted to talk a little bit about gentle parenting as a concept because it was something that both of us have heard. Yeah. We've heard it. Right. And it's some but it I think it's a confusing one for parents and people alike. What like what does it actually mean? Right. Like why is it hard to use in day-to-day? And is it actually helpful? Well, and I think I think, and this is just my opinion. I really had a lot of misconceptions about the title on in my head before we like dived into the research on it. It was I'm I'm I'm definitely not a gentle parent. I'm definitely Yeah, you said that out loud. You're like, I'm not a gentle parent. I think you probably are more than what you're even had the misconception of what gentle parenting was before the research because it doesn't the term doesn't naturally sort of link with naturally connect with what it actually is. Yeah. So we wanted to go through it because you know, we've talked a bit about attachment to this podcast. And, you know, the a I think many of these principles that go with gentle parenting promote secure attachment and which we would all love for our kids to have. Which we this is this is good. This is the gold standard. We want this the gold standard. We want to have healthy, you know, secure relationships with our kids. So we thought we'd kind of cover this one because it's important and also I think confusing. And many of us are just trying to parent differently, potentially than we were, or trying to give our kids emotionally what we didn't get. And it can just be confusing what to do. Overwhelming. And overwhelming and like feel really easy to feel like you're failing or doing something wrong. There's like just a ton of parenting information. Right. So let's let's start at the beginning. What actually is gentle parenting? Well, I'll tell you, it's not being gentle all the time. Spoiler alert. It's not about gentleness necessarily. So there are some core sort of principles. Yes. One is connection before correction. Right. So the idea is that um a dysregulated brain is harder to learn. Right. Can't receive correction as well when we're in the thick of big feelings or or big emotions or you know, whatever. So we want to connect before we correct. So you're angry, I get it, I'm still not gonna let you hit. Right. Well, and also it's like if the goal is I don't want my child to do this behavior, and if they're not in a place to hear and receive that feedback, they won't change the behavior. So that that that kind of punishment mentality, you have to be basically do the teaching before there's like any awareness. That's another one of the things, not the connection. It will not happen without a calm brain. Right. So, you know, connecting with your child first will help calm them down. Sure. Also, validating emotion, I think is something that we all kind of crave and need to feel calm and connected. You know, even if you don't agree with the hitting or the behavior, right? You're not supposed to agree with that, right? You can still totally validate your angry, you're disappointed, you feel jealous. That makes sense. The emotion is always true and accurate, but not the full con uh not the full perspective on reality. Right, right, right. You don't have to agree with your child to validate their emotion, right, or everybody or anyone, right, exactly. Um, so emotional validation and connection, these things can help our kids calm down um so that we can focus on teaching skills over punishment. So it's a big concept in gentle parenting that you know, punishment it can kind of miss if we're punishing misbehaviors, it can miss the point, um, rob you and your kid of a moment of trying to teach a skill. So, like, you know, your kids are just trying to develop skills around emotion regulation, around attention and executive functioning. So we want to encourage teach over punish. Right. What else? I think with gentle parenting, it's the title is again like uh misleading, but I think the other things in gentle parenting that we've gonna talked about in terms of the core would be um it's not no boundaries at all. That's that's sort of like a misconception. It's firm, consistent boundaries, um, without shame or guilt. Yeah, yes, exactly. Intimidation or humiliation, like it's not permissive. I think that's a common huge misconception. A common misconception is that gentle means we're always gentle or we're always sort of letting our kids lead or we're never upsetting them or we're never setting limits. That is not true at all. Yes, but you're right. We want to do it, we want to set limits respectfully, as calmly as we can, you know, like and without shame and fear. So yeah, I think when when I thought of previously, when I thought of like gentle parenting, it was this really permissive style of child-led, you know, oh, and there's no consequences of behavior. But gentle parenting does have there are logical reality-based consequences for choices without rescuing or minimizing emotion, right? Right. Um and that's a big part of I think like the the balance of it and the the core. Right. It's that consistency and that engagement with limits. Exactly. Kind of like that story I told, you know, on one of our episodes about uh child development, whenever my daughter was like screaming over a piece of cheese. Like, I know you're really disappointed and upset, and you really wanted that. I'm not we're not getting another piece of cheese, you know. And I tried to do that as calmly as possible while you know sort of trying to stay calm around this meltdown. But um, and that's co- you know, co-regulation. So another core core component of gentle parenting is um understanding that developmentally kids, younger kids you really do need co-regulation. So the way that they cope and deal is really by you staying calm, by lending your calm, by staying close and containing the the big emotions. And I you mentioned younger kids. I would even remind folks that that that kids need co-regulation up to what we talk about, like 12-ish. Yeah, I'd say definitely the first five years. After that, I think some of the stuff starts to get a little bit more internalized, but certainly there are moments when they still need we always I think we kind of always need to an extent someone who's calm and warm and loving and is like, yeah, I'm here for you. Sure. I got you. And I think at the end of the day, that's one of the core components of gentle parenting. So it's you know, all of this sort of these emotional pieces, um, teaching skills, viewing you know respecting a kid as like a whole person. They're not just like behavior to control, they're developing little personalities, you know, um, that are really unique. Um, and so yeah, respecting I think is often misunderstood in general, but I think within gentle parenting, my idea of it is actually in line a lot with what I believe from my personal parenting experience. I think a lot of the time parents exist in the world where they expect their children to act and behave in a way that they do not model. And that really bothers you a lot. It bothers me a lot of the hypocrisy of it. Professionally and and you know, it's so hard because I I hear stories from parents and things like that, and in my mind I'm thinking, you know, this doesn't really feel respectful of a kid. And that doesn't mean when I use the word respectful, I want to be clear, it doesn't mean that I think a child should be equal to you, but it does mean that a child is not dumb, they're just young. And they're a person and they're gonna develop into a full autonomous person very, very soon. Time goes by fast, from my experience in parenting so far, and I heard it only accelerates from here. So why would you not want to set the groundwork for respecting and you know, showing that modeling? Because if you want them to be respectful and model it, then why are you using anything but respect and modeling it to them? That's a big part of gentle parenting. Yeah, and I and and you know, to sort of jump on that, I do think gentle parenting is like a newer term, a newer movement, a newer concept. And this is why I think many of us, um, I think we resonate with this kind of parenting style because we may have been parented in a way where there is a hierarchy. Right? It wasn't gentle or like, you know, it's sort of um some you know, seen and not be heard, like you know, that do as I say, respect is like sort of paramount. And what while asking why is disrespectful? Yeah, like some of them, you know, I I think, right, so we're trying to do it a little differently. And I think sometimes, you know, speaking of permissive, we can over-correct right. That is not gentle parenting. It's not gentle parenting, but some, you know, we're trying to do, you know, something different. We want to be emotionally sort of available, we want to be gentle, we want to be understanding, we want our kids to have emotion regulation skills. And sometimes I think people then think they need to over-correct. And then it it leans more permissive or more child led, and they're you know, that's when it becomes hard for them. Other challenges of that. I think the way I would frame it, yeah, to kind of like is I want to always make sure my kids, even at the young age they are, I have three and five right now, even at the young age they are, I want to always want to make sure their voice is heard, and I want to try to listen with with some level of calmness and regulation. And at the end of the day, I still am gonna make decisions for their best interest as a parent. And I'm gonna be honest that you know, right now, it's not a good idea that we have cake for breakfast. I really appreciate you asking. Like this morning, daughter woke up and asked for a mango bar because she saw a mango wrapper from a mango bar on my bedside table that I did not hide soon enough. So she's like, I want a mango bar. And I said, That's a great idea. I thank you for that. That's a great idea. Let's have one after dinner tonight. And she's like, No, no. I said, let's go work on our dinner, let's go work on our breakfast. Yeah, and we'll have that this evening. We'll have mango bar later. Child led would be giving her the mango bar this morning when I don't really think it's a great idea for have that much sugar without having more protein or other things. That's just my personal decision as her parent. Right. And that's just a really microcosmic example of I validated she liked it. I appreciated the request I heard. I didn't yell at her and say, You can't have one right now, or that's not for you. I of course she wants a mango bar. That makes a lot of sense. They're delicious. But it's just not gonna happen right now. Yeah, exactly. So those kind, you know, that's that's a good example. Um, so I think a lot of us know this. And we like aspire, sure, I think, to have to do some of this with our kids, but it's hard. So, you know, why why do you think it's so hard? Gosh, it's so hard because we and I say we, I think I had a there elements of gentle parenting in my experience um and my childhood a lot. Um but I think we as a collective, um, I'm an old millennial. I think in that generation, we are trying to do something in gentle parenting that we have never seen or experienced before in our lives. And in childhood. Yeah, many of I mean lots of us didn't. It's really hard to do things when you have no model whatsoever for how it should look and feel. Yeah. And it I think, you know, um it requires regulation and emotional work, yes, and the social lexicon. Yeah, and it's it's that's so that's really hard. I mean, we're asking you guys to like stay calm. Or you're asking this of yourselves if you're doing gentle parenting. Right, or validate experiences when no one validated yours. Right. Um, or to sort of have developmentally appropriate expectations. So hard. These things are really hard to do. Right. Um, you know, to and and and I think that's one of the maybe the com more common misconceptions about gentle parenting is that you have to stay regulated all the time, or you have to always be gentle, you know, or like your kids are not gonna have big reactions. Right. That's a huge misconception that that gentle parenting is gonna erase a tantrum or kids aren't gonna have big feelings. I think I really do think, yeah, a lot a lot of parents sort of the I think the hope is that the behavior stops, that the feeling stops, right? We want to parent in a way that makes it such we don't have any of this stuff because it would be easier, right, without the meltdowns and the big feelings and things like that. But even gentle gentle parenting is not about not having meltdowns or not or endless validation or endless empathy or endless patience. It's about a framework of uh a secure attachment, which is boundaried, consistent, reliable, warm, responsible. So, like you're setting limits, kids are gonna be upset about angry. And tantrums are developmentally appropriate at certain ages. Right. You're still so big feelings happen. You're you are practicing this kind of parenting, you're absolutely gonna lose your patience. You're gonna be invalidating sometimes, you are like gonna probably think things that are not necessarily appropriate, and your kids are gonna protest, they are gonna get dysregulated, they are going to have hard moments, but you're trying to lead with connection, you're trying to be warm and boundaried, you are trying to repair, you're trying to have developmentally appropriate expectations and teach skills, but you know, even in the midst of when things are imperfect and when they're messy and all of that. So you know what thing that makes it hard since this is kind of sort of born, not born on the internet, but is is definitely there's a lot more talk conversation around it on the internet. Social media and the internet has really made it like so I think it's it's helped it. Yeah, definitely because it's kind of communicated more to more people. Yeah, more people just yeah, social media about parenting in general. Like I get so much of my information still from Right. Yeah. But I think it also creates an inaccurate perception at times of what it functionally is. Um and it can lead to your feeling like I'm not doing a good job at this, or that I that my perception was I'm not doing it. I'm not doing that. I don't do that. That is not me. But that's inaccurate because at its core I a hundred percent feel like with the constructs that we've talked about, that I do that. Yeah, that we're most we're mostly like doing that, but we don't I'm not endlessly patient, endlessly empathic, endlessly calm. That's you know, and they're still like our kids are still very upset, as you probably can tell on this podcast. We talk a lot about them being upset and they're allowed to be that, they're allowed to be upset. Yeah. So I think this is true. I often, you know, because I follow a lot of parenting sort of, you know, influencers or whatever, and they'll have these sort of like calm scripts, these scripts for what you can say. This this gets me often a script for what you can say in this moment, right? And then I get hyperfixated on what the script is saying, and I'm like, wait a second, that is not helpful for me in this moment, even though the concept is is good, but like that's too simple for that's not gonna work for my kids. So and that's where I think while the scripts can be helpful, I think viewing them more as not scripts but guide guideposts. Guideposts. And that's where you know, the and I think I'm hopeful that that that parenting influencers are s or mental health influencers in this space, and a lot of them do acknowledge that their lives, what they put out there, what they share is only part of what you see. I think uh if uh some parenting influencers might put out their kids' worst tantrum, you know, I think they might get some pushback for that. But I think those tantrums exist, and some of them do talk about how this is not always how it goes. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Social media is just one one part of our lives that we're choosing very intentionally in an edited fashion to put out in the world. Yeah, exactly. And not the whole picture of reality. Yeah. So, you know, I think what are some other common, I think we've covered many of the common misconceptions about gentle parenting. Um I think can you think of some others? I've got a couple more. Misconceptions. Yeah, misconceptions about gentle parenting. I think that you're never supposed to like become dysregulated yourself, or that you're never supposed to have intense emotional reactions to things. That was a common misconception that I had. Yes, because you're like, I'm not gentle. I don't I'm gonna use my patients way too gentle for being gentle. No, and I think it's okay to show children how their behavior impacts you and develop mentally appropriate, safe ways. I've run into this a lot where parents think they're not supposed to have any emotional reactions to their kids, and I'm like, that's not reality-based. I always tell people in 10 to 15 years, how do you want their them to treat their spouse? How do you want them to treat their boss? It's okay to let them know in the development broke context, this really bothered me. It's so not okay to hit it's not okay to hit me. It's not okay to like yell at me. I don't appreciate that. You know what I mean? Sure. Communicating about the experience is important. Yeah, and I I just think I do think, you know, kind of just yes, I think for me when I thought about gentle parenting, I thought about like, oh, it means you never upset your kid. Right. You know, like if I'm j if you're gentle enough, if you're doing these things, it means your kid's always okay. Right. Or they're never really upset. And I'm like, that's a really big misconception. Um, another one I think too that parents get really h hung up on is is just this idea then that we you know we can't ever leave our kids distressed. Oh yeah, big one. Right. Like it's not okay if they're upset or we go or we leave. And some like we we talk a bunch about co-regulation and staying near and being calm and containing, but like the reality of the situation is like sometimes when I'm busy and I have other things to do or there are multiple kids around and your attention is divided, you are not able to stay nearby while your kid is, you know, rolling around on the floor, and it's okay if you walk away and they're not okay. Well, and I think the world is gonna is not gonna constantly attend to their feelings. Yeah. I mean you're the hope is that you're doing it well enough at home. I think I've said this stat before, but like 30 to 50 percent of the time. Thirty f to fifty percent of the time is what the the attachment research says. If we're doing, you know, these things 30 to 50 percent of the time, then we're doing pretty good. And that includes repair, not perfection. So even in this 30 to 50 percent of the time, if we're like losing it, right, or we're having unrealistic expectations or we are like leaving our kids in distress, like but we're repairing, right? And you know, we're saying like you know, what we need to be saying to take responsibility and to you know, try better next time and take accountability, sure. Yeah. All of that stuff is like included. Right. So repair over perfection. So, you know, what can help then? What can help us be more gentle if we're, you know, t in the context of what it actually is. If we want to be a more gentle parent and promote and foster more secure attachment, then what what can be helpful? Yeah, I think always understanding that this is new and different if this is not how we were parented is one. I think maybe, you know, looking at and realizing that like that you talked about the scripts that we find on social media and on the internet might be helpful, but they might not be a perfect fit to come out of your mouth or your to be coming out of your experience with your child. I always tell my patients and my clients, this is how I would say something or do it, but you need to be able to have your version of this, otherwise it won't work. So I think your version of whatever that regulated state is for a script or a or a dialogue with your kid. Right. And owning it yourself. Yes, I think another big one, you know, because this parenting approach requires, you know, really leans a lot on this sort of emotional care. Um, that we have to be taking very good care of ourselves so that we can stay as calm and regulated as possible. We can. Yeah. Right. Or at least have the wherewithal, you know, the kind of just pay attention to what's triggering you, right? What's making you overwhelmed or extra irritable or whatever. And so that you can be thinking intentionally about okay, like what's going on with me or what's going on with Magna Ham. Like what needs to be adjusted. Sure. Um, and then making sure that you're taking care of, yeah. Self-care is very, very, very important because we lose it way more often when it's easy to be overwhelmed by kids' behaviors, even if they're really developmentally appropriately expected. So exactly. I think um kind of zooming out on on this conversation, I'm just taking away a how hard. I I feel like this is one of my common reframes. You're like, everything is hard. Uh a lot of things with parenting are hard. Excuse me. Everything is hard. A lot of things with parenting are challenging and I think really rewarding at times. Yeah, definitely. But it's actually kind of like comforting in a weird way for me to realize, oh, maybe I am a gentle parent. Yeah. Maybe I am like gentle parenting when I thought I was like fun, you know, doing my own thing. No, I'm not. I'm doing something that other people are trying to do too. You're not special, Brandon. I not in that way. Other ways I am. You're a diamond. I am a diamond. Sparkly diamond. I have many facets. What are you taking away from our gentle parenting like rundown and conversation? Hmm. I think that I did identify with this term more from the beginning. I figure I kind of figure I I didn't really know the the the comp the core components. Right. Not really. Like I I kind of felt like I probably fell into some kind of like, you know, gentle attachment kind of like yes of Hazsies. Yes, of parenting approach. Sure. So in going through it, it was just kind of affirming, I think, of what I'm already doing. And also it was, you know, super nice again to just always have, I think, validation that even if my child is distressed and struggling and things are hard, sure, it doesn't mean that I'm doing anything incorrectly. I just gotta like hold on to the roller coaster. Right. And try to stay as calm as possible and you know, teach some skills and be as present as I can, and then, you know, like the rest of it's up to the up to her, up to the world. Up to their own. There's all kinds of things that impact how our kids develop. Parenting obviously is important, but there are a many components. So you know. Okay. Yeah. Well, let us know what your thoughts are on gentle parenting, and if this is new information for you, or if this is old hat, you know, let us know in the comments. This podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes only, and it's not a substitute for therapy, diagnosis, or any kind of professional mental health treatment. We hope that we can share with you our experience authentically and genuinely, and we hope that occasionally will make you laugh. Maybe you can relate to our quest and our psyched for sanity. The content we share is um our personal opinions and insights. They are not clinical insights to anyone, and they don't represent or reflect any entity that we worked at or have worked for in the past. But if listening to this podcast has made you think, we'd really encourage you to speak out a mental health professional in your area.