Parenting gently as Christians
 

This is the main purpose of our community, so the topic is nothing new! But recently I've been seeing young Christian parents (on instagram) call Gentle Parenting ungodly. At first I was taken aback, but then I remembered it's why GCM is here. We can and do parent without spanking and punishment in a way that honors the Lord.

There are lots of old threads stickied in this public forum, but I'd like to discuss with you ladies.

Two things come to mind. The first is GRACE. Yes, from the beginning in the Garden of Eden, we see God punish for sin throughout the Old Testament. But then Jesus comes and takes our punishment on the cross. Where we deserve judgment, we find MERCY. Natural consequences to sin abound, but he doesn't strike us, thanks be to God. He has compassion on us. He knows that we are dust. He teaches us kindly and patiently. I am so humbled by his patience with me.

The other thing on my mind is that I used to think that with the right kind of parenting, I could control the outcome, I could produce young adults walking with the Lord and filled with fruit of the Spirit. But the truth is that no parenting style or method has the power to affect change in our children's hearts. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. Gentle parenting does not a guarantee an outcome, and neither does consistent spanking and punishment. So what do we gain by parenting gently? Well, as a mom with grown kids one thing I gained is a strong and sweet relationship with each of them, even through some very hard times which are not over yet. By God's grace I laid a foundation that is serving me well in that way and I am grateful. I do have regrets, but NOT about not punishing them.

Please share your thoughts and beliefs and questions.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

I tell people that part of practicing discipline is discipling. And we choose to focus on doing that with our children. We come alongside them and teach them and coach them and encourage them to build on their foundations.

We don't expect that they will become Christians, but we expect that we as parents will love Christ and that will be so attractive to our children, that they will want that relationship with Him too.

We have rules (no gum until you're five) and teach them principles (we keep things clean so that bugs don't come to live in our house and so things don't break), but we don't have formulas.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

I think of gentle parenting as modeling what a real life looks life: grace, mercy, natural consequences, love, disappointment, handling that disappointment with kindness, etc.

I'm so thankful I have a five year old because I get to do it again with her.

Gentle parenting means acknowleding that parenting each child is different. What works for the heart of one may not work for the heart of the others.

And sleep. Honoring needs. In my first round, I underestimated how important it is to pay attention to the child's needs for sleep and downtown and home time *and* nursing and eating.

Gentle parenting means knowing each season is just that: a season. Pruning is an important part of parenting.

Gentle parenting extends to friends. It means not engaging my IRL friends with their choices unless they ask or the opportunity arises in natural conversation.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

I think so much of gentle parenting is teaching. I'm not expecting them to respond appropriately when young, but I'm teaching them my expectations. I want their inner voice to be kind while also revealing truths about how to behave/interact with others. There are so many things that I've learned here at GCM, but one of the most important for me personally was to assign positive intent. It helps with parenting and all other aspects of life.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

Does Gentle Parenting on social media today mean the same thing as it has meant on this board?

I don’t hang out with many parents of babies and little ones these days, but my first thought is to make sure they mean the same thing that you do. I know there were a few really questionable or harmful things going around years ago that had nice sounding names, but that when I understood what they were I did not agree with them.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

Good question, teamommy! I just assumed so. I remember that when Jeri started GCM, it was rare to find gentle parenting mingled with Christianity.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

My daughter just had a baby and says she is having trouble finding gentle Christian parenting resources. Luckily she has me.

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Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

A lot of some of the current 'gentle parenting' is much more online to the 'taking children seriously ' if that is what people are seeing I can understand how they don't think it is right.


The young parents that I currently know take pride in not reading any parenting books ( now nor in the past nor any plan in the future) and just winging it.

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Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

I've told my daughter that a lot of gentle parenting is more about the parent's motivation than actually looking different. Like removing an out of control child to their room could look like a time out, but the motivation is never punishment, but safety and chance to calm themselves and keep others from harm. Even if it kind of looks the same, I think the child definitely feels the difference in the intention and feels supported and loved.

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Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

I've noticed that too. My youngest has quite a few friends who are the oldest child in the family. The generational differences between me and millennial parents can feel uncomfortable sometimes. GCM has helped equip me to raise one child so far into adulthood, and I think he's an amazing person. Even though people who interact with him will go out of their way to tell me this, they don't generally seem interested in my parenting approach. My youngest has come to me horrified after seeing a peer spanked. He can't process why anyone would do that, it's entirely foreign to him.

I don't know how to offer support in a way that doesn't present myself as an expert, because I'm not that either. I had to re-parent myself before I could fully understand how to show my children grace. That was probably the biggest work that needed to be done before any of the tools made sense. I had to heal in the hopes I wouldn't hold my children back too much.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

Taking pride in "winging it" is so utterly foreign to me that I cannot even begin to wrap my head around it.

I guess from my perspective taking pride in being educated (however one sees fit in doing so) seems so much more "prideful" although being prideful is not going to end well I suspect.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

The ones I how who are winging it aren't even oldest where they could feel like they picked it up from there parents. They are youngest or only and generally all their friends are youngest or only as well. It is bizarre to me.

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Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

My dh doesn’t read any parenting books even when I’ve suggested it or handed them to him. If I specifically ask him to read a short excerpt he will. How many of your dh’s have read parenting books? My dh also has unrealistic age-related expectations about what kids should be able to do at certain ages and isn’t willing to listen to ideas that that something isn’t an age-appropriate expectation even if they are very scientific. He is not as gentle of a parent as I am.

While I do read parenting books, some parenting books are also truly awful and would make you a worse parent to follow their advice, so while I’m not a wing-it kind of person, I can understand people not wanting to read them especially because they contradict each other.

To me gentle parenting is about putting yourself in the child’s shoes. For example almost all of my five-year-old’s behaviors that are difficult are anxiety. If I can see that she is yelling because she is feeling worried, I can respond with compassion and also realize that I need to do the kinds of things that calm worried people down (ie not isolating, shaming, yelling, or spanking- all of those things make anxiety worse, not that any of those things are good to do to anyone). I also remind my dh of this when he gets frustrated with her. People who aren’t acting in pro-social ways have feelings that are causing that and addressing those feelings helps so much (while also teaching better ways to handle those emotions and teaching them that you can’t hit, etc, even if you have those feelings). Kids can be helped not to use anti-social coping mechanisms if they have better coping mechanisms but it is a long process that in between sometimes looks like a child using the anti-social coping mechanism and then being helped to use a pro-social coping mechanism. So those are my random musings- hope they make sense.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

My dh was not going to read parenting books. I read them and we talked about what I had learned and what we felt about it. But he didn’t have the attitude that he didn’t need to learn. He just wasn’t a reader.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

It's a good question, what do people mean when they call Gentle Parenting ungodly. I will say there is a resurgence of neo-Calvinism (which is different in many ways from traditional Calvinism) and it's very strict and legalistic. Strict gender essentialism, strict parenting, strict views on many things. Matt Chander joked that when his kids were little family devotions often included the kids getting a beating (and his interviewer laughed).


I think the general public is moving away from hitting and emotionally hurting children but a segment (not sure how big) of American Christianity is digging in, hard.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

Based on interactions I've had I can understand why they're digging in. I don't believe I can get into it here but I can probably sum it up as reactive.

---------- Post added at 08:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:32 AM ----------

Same here.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

This I have found very true. I'm Reformed, not sure I'm hardcore Calvinist, there seems to be a difference I'm trying to work out, but I'm the only gentle parent I know who holds this view of scripture etc. I was following a lot of the Calvinists on twitter, and I'm so disappointed. They first of all have a skewed Idea of gentle parenting and dig in their heels that their idea of it is the only right one therefore making GP always wrong, they also have high expectations of children that are developmentally inappropriate most of the time.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

People I know who are against gentle parenting have a very limited view of what it is and don't really understand the philosophy. They also tend to be people who believe 'the culture' (American culture, presumably) is going downhill and becoming ungodly, and this fits their preconceptions. They latch on to half an idea that sounds crazy to them and use it as a rhetorical device. For example, they will listen to a parenting expert trying to say that we should use positive instructions instead of negative (gentle hands rather than don't hit) because little children's brains can't process negatives as easily. Rather than being able or willing to try to comprehend, they'll rant about how crazy it is that now we are supposed to be positive all the time and never tell our kids no, and how it's a sign of the crazy, woke, ungodly times we're living in. I haven't found there's much point in trying to help them understand gentle parenting, since it's not really about parenting at all.

However, I have had some influence with some younger parents by encouraging them. I try to help them trust God more and be less anxious, angry, and reactive through gentle, loving, commiserative words of encouragement. They are mostly not ready to fully embrace gentle parenting, but they become more open to hearing about things like age-appropriate expectations.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

This is an interesting thread!


What does it mean exactly when someone is "winging it"? It must be an idiom of some kind but I have not heard it before.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

No plan, just going with the flow

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

I see. Thanks!

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

I remember realllly struggling with the concept of Gentle Parenting vs. what I had learned was Godly parenting. It took a lot for me to shift my mindset. I was raised in a very "spare the rod/spoil the child" background and everyone I knew was the same way. You spanked to save their souls! It never sat well with me and I found GCM by researching other options. I can't imagine this idea of "winging it" during parenting.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

I thought gentle discipline was about as far from Godly as you could get because all I ever saw on it was taking children seriously and the natural child project. The stuff I read was so unreasonable that I thought it was satire at first. No one seriously thinks that adults should wear diapers to avoid taking their children into a public restroom since the children dislike the noises. No one really thought that you should avoid all meal preparation if your eighteen month old was upset because you weren't playing with him. (Now that I see that written out, I really missed a great excuse to not cook). Or never driving so that your infant didn't cry.
I also think there is a two fold reason for the push back in Christian circles that we see. The first I think is that it is seen as a referendum on them personally or at the very least their parents. Parenting and family of origin always has so much emotion wrapped up in it, it's really hard to see objectively.
I think the other reason is money. There is a lot of money to made writing books, speaking at conventions and teaching classes. Not to mention there is a lot of ego tied up in it as well. Gentle parenting really throws a wrench in the works by saying get to know your child and follow their lead. Listen to them when they speak and ask them questions that let you see where they are coming from. Your relationship will be the backbone of the way you discipline, so make it sure it's a positive one.
It doesn't look like you set limits when you give your children information and let them decide what to do, even if they don't make a good choice. It doesn't look like you have rules when you don't really punish them for breaking something. Or if you offer a pleasant alternative to bad behavior.
I can still remember when my niece assured her little brother that he could do pretty much anything at Aunt Rita's house because there are no rules here. Before I could say anything, my other nephew spoke up and said it's awesome here, no one ever gets in trouble. She just talks to you and helps you fix the problem. My daughter is still trying to figure out why they would think there aren't rules here. I think that for so many people the explanations of why we do things instead of saying this is the rule seems like we're trying to be friends or cool parents. Personally, I want my kids to understand the point of the rule, so I say we don't eat all over the house because we don't want to share our house with bugs or worse. It makes them a lot more careful of crumbs and spills because they know the why.

Re: Parenting gently as Christians
 

May I share a few of your statements with my dd who is giving a speech on this topic? You phrased some things really well!


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