On this week’s Parenting segment, one mother is worried her 10-year-old son has “taken advantage too much of our gentle parenting style”. 

“He dictates everything, even where he wants to go out weekend,” she told Moncrieff. 

“He knows I find it hard to say no to him. He has no problem embarrassing us with regular meltdowns either. 

“I am concerned that he's walking all over us and it's too late to get him to change.” 

Child psychotherapist Joanna Fortune said the real question is it too late for the parents to change their style. 

“You might think you're doing gentle parenting, but it's sounding a little permissive,” she said.  

“There are these kinds of schools of parenting that emerge – gentle parenting, relaxed parenting, helicopter. 

“It can feel like you're performing parenting rather than authentically doing it.” 

The meaning of gentle parenting

Joanna warned gentle parenting does not mean “an absence of boundaries”. 

“You need boundaries, you need limit setting, and this is what's missing,” she said. “Boundaries help us to feel safe, it communicates.” 

For example, Joanna suggested rather than letting the 10-year-old dictate what the family does at the weekend, they could offer him limited options of what he would like to do. 

“[You can say], ‘We're going to do this’ and if he says, ‘No, I’m not doing that’, [you say], ‘Oh, you’d rather do something else? But actually today, here's what we're doing. But when we get there, you can choose A or B’,” she said. 

“That's your choice, but the scaffolding is there the structure, and the boundary is there.

“This is one of the reasons that gentle parenting can fail - it's actually when you over accommodate a child's emotions without any guidance.” 

Proper behaviour

Joanna also said it isn’t healthy to never say no or never show negative emotions in front of your child. 

“It's really about shifting the focus to increasing your child's awareness of their behaviour, and the effect that behaviour has on others,” she said. 

“Our feelings got loud, we yelled at each other. I really wish that hadn't happened. If I did do over, I would say it this way to you instead.” 

Gentle parenting, Joanna said, is about partnership between you and your child to make choices, but it doesn’t remove the responsibility of discipline. 

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