Gentle parenting is a parenting technique that has gotten massive popularity over social media in the last year. This parenting style has four main elements consisting of empathy, respect, understanding, and boundaries. Discipline focuses on teaching life lessons rather than punishments and focuses on partnership between child and parent.
The public opinion on gentle parenting doesn’t lean one way or another, many have their criticisms of the technique while others are all for it. This style encourages communication between child and parent which can contribute to a healthy relationship. Looking at the behavior you model for you children is another thing gentle parenting stresses. On the other hand this style can cause behavioral issues with the lack discipline. This style will not work on every child and will not work in every family. More and more ‘Mommy Bloggers’ and TikTok influencers have joined the gentle parenting bandwagon.
Some notable gentle parenting influencers are
So why has this parenting style gained so much popularity in the past few years? There are many possibilities and contributing factors to this. The generations having children grew up with the rise of social media, which is where many people were exposed to it. The rise in mental health awareness could lead to people wanting to take a gentler approach to parenting. Gentle parenting isn’t done in one way, it benefits some children more than others and is more suited towards younger children.
Gentle parenting has come under a lot of scrutiny for it very relaxed style. With some criticism being the lack of discipline, the inability to use on older kids, and how it does not set the kids up for school. This parenting style is not good for preparing young children to be in school full time. Schools have rules and discipline that children should be prepared for. At the end of the day parenting styles vary from parent to parent and whatever works best for the child’s development.
