Try Gentle Parenting For Better Communication

Different parenting styles influence the way in which we communicate with our children. Cultural norms and our own upbringing can affect our choices – perhaps we wish to follow in our family’s footsteps, or we have a completely different attitude about raising children. Is one approach better than another? New research suggests there may be one style that leads to the best outcomes for children to be able to regulate their own emotions and grow up into confident, empowered adults: gentle parenting. 

What Is Gentle Parenting?

The four main parenting styles are authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved. Where does gentle parenting fit in? It is not a form of permissive parenting, it is based on authoritative parenting. To know gentle parenting is to know the best kind of authoritative parenting: a warm, supportive caregiver that is firm, reliable, and sets clear expectations. 

Misconceptions about gentle parenting include:

• Being too easy on children
• Allowing them to disobey or disrespect parents
• Creating “soft children” 

However, it seems that gentle/authoritative parenting leads to the greatest self-efficacy (in other words, this parenting style is the most likely to encourage children to be motivated in the face of emotional stress.) In fact, the Public Library of Science journal PLOSOne published a study in 2022 that found authoritative parenting was the most effective style in stimulating children’s academic achievement, and in raising children who set an intention to get good grades, regardless of their socio-economic status. 

Parenting Styles

Let’s look at the differences and what they mean. 

Authoritative (gentle parenting) is a parenting style that focuses on validating the child’s experience emotionally, provides a tool or skill to get through the feeling, and then encourages the child to move forward. With gentle parenting, a parent would likely respond to their child who just scraped their knee with three things in a specific order: “wow that looked like it hurt, you are sad that it hurts, and you’re crying” (validating the emotion), “how should we help your pain, ice pack? breathing?” (offering skills/tools), then discussing how that incident occurred, ways to avoid it and moving forward. This experience helps the child identify their feelings, learn a way to cope or resolve them, and go forward having the skills when it may occur again or learning how to avoid it in the future (example: “We do not jump off the top of the slide, that is why you got hurt and are feeling sad”). 

Authoritarian parenting focuses more on suppressing emotional needs by using statements like, “no crying”, “get up and shake it off”, and “that didn’t hurt” to their child who just scraped their knee. While parents using this strategy believe they are building resiliency in their children, they may be emotionally stunting their child by invalidating their experience and missing an opportunity to provide the space to learn and practice self-regulation skills. This form of parenting is based on the idea that children should provide obedience and respect to a parent at all times, and commonly uses threats to achieve that obedience. 

Permissive parenting focuses on being supportive and caring for the child but allows the child to self-regulate with few rules or expectations. Statements for the same scenario with this parenting style might be: “Oh I am so sorry you fell”, “What can mommy/daddy do for you?”, “Ice cream will help it feel better”. They may use bribery or gift giving to ensure the peace from their child and not have them face adversity or things that might be hard for them. This feels like a form of protecting the child, but unfortunately does little to prepare them for big emotions experienced later on in life. 

It is difficult for a child with an underdeveloped frontal lobe to understand what feelings are (or how to manage them). They will simply gauge caregivers’ reactions to similar situations and take that information and refer back to it throughout their childhood. Those parented with an authoritative parenting style are statistically more likely to be socially accepted, successful in their future endeavors, less likely to have anxiety and depression, do not associate love with obedience, and have a higher sense of autonomy and independence, according to this study, which correlated parenting styles with how young children with cavities behaved at dental visits. 

With all this said, what makes authoritative parenting so successful? Many believe that it is a clear in-between of permissive and authoritarian parenting, combining firm reliability and warmth and responsiveness. 

Regardless of which parenting style you align with, communication is a huge and important aspect of a child’s development. Incorporating this simple tip to improve communication with your child may help to decrease negative behaviors such as aggression, whining, or tantrums: Validate your child's feelings. 

Validating feelings, no matter how silly they seem to us, is a useful tool in opening up lines of communication with your child. This can be done using simple reflective statements like: “You really like that food”, “That made you sad”, “You are happy when you go to school”. This can show your child that you are following their experiences and open up the space to identify feelings, talk about them, and offer ways to work through them to eliminate big feelings spilling over.

I specialize in working with children, parents, and families using play therapy and child-centered techniques at Lifeologie Counseling Midlothian. In Texas, you can reach out to me at (214) 530-2335 to learn more about improving communication with your little ones, or click here to find a Lifeologie parenting specialist near you.