Parents treat their children with respect and recognise them as individuals.
Gentle parenting is a child-led parenting style that focuses on understanding, empathy, and respect rather than punishment or reward.
Ryan Reynolds and his wife, Blake Lively, have four children, including three daughters, James, Inez, and Betty, and a son, Olin. Ryan Reynolds recently sat for an interview at HubSpot’s INBOUND tech conference and opened up about his parenting style. Being a “Gentle Parent”, Ryan mentioned that he tries to understand his children’s perspective and does not yell at them. He said, “Parents today are so different. We’re so soft. I don’t yell. I grew up with that—it was nuts, it was an improvised militia. Now it’s like I can go look at all my parenting resources and remind myself how to be perfectly compassionate.”
The Deadpool actor further shared that he took help from parenting resources to become a better parent. Casting the difference from when he was a child, Ryan shared, “I took a workshop on conflict resolution, and that changed my entire life; I just didn’t know how to process things that I felt because I had a scarcity mindset when I was younger. I didn’t know how to unfold that thing in your brain that conditions you just always win or be right. I have four kids, and so far, none of them seem to have that (scarcity mindset), partly because they were born on ‘Easy Street’.”
What is Gentle Parenting?
Gentle parenting is a child-led parenting style that focuses on understanding, empathy, and respect rather than punishment or reward. Parents treat their children with respect and recognise them as individuals. Moreover, they use proper communication to build a relationship with their children. “The idea is to be more like a coach for your kid rather than a punisher,” said Pediatrician Karen Estrella, MD.
In traditional parenting, it’s common for parents to scold their children with phrases like, “Stop acting childish and put on your shoes.” In contrast, those who adopt a child-led approach might express similar sentiments in a more friendly tone. For example, in gentle parenting scenarios, a parent might say, “You’re acting a bit silly, and I’m running late for work! Let’s talk about this when we get home.”
Gentle Parenting is not “Gentle” on parents?
While parents like Ryan Reynolds advocate for gentle parenting, this child-led approach also has multiple pros and cons. The actor mentioned that there are resources available, that can be helpful for parents to navigate parenting, but multiple reports open up about the drawbacks it has on parents.
Gentle parenting can be a motivational tool as kids learn from their parents. If the little ones don’t find their parents yelling or screaming about various things, they will be able to imitate them and discover the good ways they use to solve such problems.
Check out the list of drawbacks
Time-consuming to learn new habits
Gentle parenting requires a lot of self-discipline. So, a parent needs to unlearn a lot of behaviour to learn healthy habits. They have to start being proactive and making mindful decisions.
Parental guilt rises
Due to social media, an idealised version of gentle parenting can, at times, contribute to parental guilt. Many parents might start developing self-doubt, as unlearning old habits after growing up in families with traditional parenting is quite difficult.
Children set unrealistic expectations
Children can develop certain expectations from parents’ gentle behaviour. It is extremely difficult for parents to maintain the same decorum whenever dealing with their kids. Kids with the ideal response setup may not understand the change in their parent’s behaviour at times.
Lack of boundaries
Due to gentle parenting, children may intrude their choices on many of the parents’ rules, resulting in parents lacking boundaries.
