Let us understand with the help of an example- what gentle parenting is and how we, as parents, can implement it. I have learned so far about peaceful parenting is- it requires patience, love, and an extraordinary amount of faith in yourself and your child.
Peggy, a friend of mine, got separated five years ago. She is a single parent to a 4-year-old boy. Her life revolves around her job and her dearest kid – George.
Like most kids, George is stubborn, throws tantrums, and whines all day.
More often than not, it becomes pretty tricky for Peggy to manage her kid’s behaviour.
Peggy wants to raise a sensible, gentle, and thoughtful boy. No surprise, this is something every parent wishes for. And they’re trying their best to practise gentle parenting.
But sadly, every parent comes across one roadblock or another.
So, I thought, why not help Peggy and other parents alike through my experiences?
I have come up with this article that includes all the core components of gentle parenting. In addition, I’ll also talk about books on gentle parenting that will help you transform your parenting style.
Let’s go!
This is the first step toward gentle parenting. Next, as a parent, you work on developing a stronger connection with your child. Gain their confidence and faith. The best way to do this is to spend more time with them than you usually do.
Remember, every child deserves empathy. If you find them stressed out over something, talk to them, ask them how they feel, and validate their feelings.
Try and find out what may be bothering them by pouring a little more love because gentle parenting starts with parents being gentle with their children.
Smile. Embrace. Caress. Play.
“Apologise when you are wrong!” We often tell this to our kids. And sometimes, we, the parents, also make mistakes- yelling too much, speaking harshly with our kids, telling them to go away, or being negligent when they need us the most.
I know it because, as a parent, I, too, am guilty of having done that. So, I apologise. I know I am wrong at some point with my children, and I will not let them believe that people can get away with bad behaviour without apologising.
“I am sorry, my kids, I was harsh with you.”
Apologising to your kids not only restores their faith and love in you but also validates their big and tough emotions- which is essential to encourage their emotional stability and confident personality.
The success of gentle parenting depends on your children too. Change needs a two-way effort. So, if you want gentle parenting to work for your kids, you should ask them to cooperate with you.
For instance,
“All of us in the house treat each other with respect and kindness. So we shall be kind to everyone and speak nicely.“
The kids will behave based on how they are being behaved with. They will show their emotions just the way you show them. The kids do not listen; they see and replicate it.
As a parent, make sure that you give them gentleness and politeness to replicate.
Communicate with them, let them know that you hear them, and allow them to speak their mind and heart. Help them understand where they went wrong, and help them with correcting their behaviour. Be polite throughout the conversation.
“I know, it annoys you when your sister plays with your stuffed toys. But all she wants is to play with you.”
“I understand that you want to keep your things safe, but we live in a family, and we should share with others.”
Punishment is not a suitable approach to follow. Instead, discuss the situation with them and ask them how they can rectify it. Firstly, this will help them brainstorm different ideas to fix the matter. Secondly, it will make them conscious about not making the same mistake.
For example:
“Your little brother may have been hurt when you yelled at him. Would you like to talk with him? What do you think should you say to him?”
“Would you like to tuck your teddy bear in bed? Your teddy bear feels sleepy.”
When you punish your child, it creates a sense of fear in them, and they tend to suppress their feelings. And trust me, suppressing emotions can have a bad outcome. But, on the other hand, holding back your feelings can intensify them.
You need your child to express their emotions so you can help them heal emotionally.
Many parents often complain about their children “acting out” now and then. But, unfortunately, the emotions they “act out” are often the emotions they fail to express through words.
Moreover, gentle parenting is about helping kids with their emotions instead of blaming them for their feelings. So, validate their feelings so that they calm down and feel heard.
Whenever you find your child stuck in anger, work on creating a safe and secure zone. Because anger is just a response to negative feelings, it’s essential to approach your child’s anger with extra care and patience.
The only way to heal them is to get them to open up about feelings that threaten them. For that matter, you’re required to take them into confidence.
This is how you do it:
“Are you upset about something?”
“Do you want to talk it out?”
“I see that you are angry at something.”
“I am here if you want to cry.”
Using such sentences with your child when they are angry can help them relax and open up about their feelings.
I have authored a complete guide for you to read and learn how to parent your kids without or less yelling. Just go to the sidebar of this post and sign yourself up for the free guide!
It contains all the sentences to try with your child when they are throwing tantrums and when you ‘have had enough!’
With every parent having their parenting style, the goal for all of them is expected – to nurture their children and raise them as independent adults.
Transforming your children to independent, thoughtful, and gentle adults so that they are prepared to face the challenges of the outer world is a crucial task for every parent.
Attachment parenting means developing a nurturing connection between children and parents. Parents should start working on it right from the infancy of their kids.
To understand the concept of attachment parenting, let’s look at its principles.
You can learn more about other types of parenting styles here.
This is one of the best books you’ll ever find on gentle parenting, and it covers everything about neuroscience that functions in your child’s brain.
It will help you understand how to react when your child behaves in a certain way. For example, when you find your child upset, know that the part which takes the decision is not operational. So, it’s better to calm them down first.
‘The Gift of Failure’ is mainly associated with the school years of your child. These may be the years when parents sometimes have to remain uninvolved with their kids.
This book will teach you how to set your kids free. As a result, you will be able to help your kids face life’s challenges and develop a solution on their own so that they grow up to be resilient and prosperous.
A Heart Nurtured Approach- written for kids with high temperaments. It comes up with strategies to deal with children who are often called stubborn.
After reading this book, you will have several ways to channelise the energies of your child correctly.
If you want to implement gentle parenting, I will request you to be gentle with yourself. After all, parents are humans too. You, too, have a lot going on. So, don’t be hard on yourself.
Understand that gentle parenting requires parenting to nurture themselves, along with nurturing their kid.
The success of gentle parenting lies in how much you understand your kid. You can begin with knowing his strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, positives, and negatives for that purpose.
As a parent, you may be required to mind your words. You can do it by evaluating and correcting yourself before you go to correct your kid. Then, check the way you treat them with your words.
But, bear in mind, that you cannot always expect the best results merely by speaking. This will have to be brought into your actions too. That’s why it’s essential to show them respect through words as well as your actions.
Parenting is not easy because it requires superhuman efforts in every possible way- physical, emotional, and financial.
Since learning is a continuous process, we understand that you’re trying your best to raise your child in the best way possible and keep learning from your past mistakes to ensure better parenting.
All the best!
