Exploring Gentle Parenting and the Spectrum of Parenting Styles
Parenting is a personal journey, shaped by our upbringing, values and other experiences. Perhaps you are aware of Bowlby's attachment styles - secure, dismissive, ambivalent, and disorganized? Approaches like gentle parenting, conscious, responsive and more speak to these outcomes. If you're not sure what's what, this is the article for you.
In this article and in the parenting styles chart below, we’ll explore gentle parenting in depth, and discuss how it compares to other styles like conscious parenting, responsive parenting, natural or intuitive parenting. We’ll also look at other approaches in our parenting styles chart, so you can determine what is the best fit for you and your child.
But first... some myth busting that has created a great deal of pressure for parents!
What Conscious, Responsive and Gentle Parenting Are Not…
First I would like to emphasize what modern approaches like conscious, responsive, and gentle parenting are not. Many following these parenting styles feel the need to be perfect parents. This actually creates harm in the relationship with our children, and for ourselves. Here’s 5 reasons why:
1️⃣ It sets unrealistic expectations for you and them, which can lead to perfectionistic tendencies and disappointment when they don’t meet these ideals. This can manifest as anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, and other forms of self harm or unhealthy coping skills.
2️⃣ There isn’t much space to express emotions as they arise, allowing for release and the opportunity to teach them how to work with more challenging emotions in a healthy way. This is crucial to holistic health and wellbeing, in development and for healthy future relationships. Remember, we are setting the foundation here as to how to work with emotions and challenges. As parents we need to lead by example.
3️⃣ Trying to keep it in and respond gently actually creates a sense of unsafety and distrust for the child. You know that feeling when you just know something is off… this is what this does for our children. Children are skilled at reading your energy and can tell when something is out of alignment, which only puts them on edge. This often leads to confrontation and emotional outbursts, as they know something is incongruent but don’t have the context or words to process it.
4️⃣ By being busy doing all the things a ‘perfect parent’ does, you don’t have the opportunity to just BE fully present with them, which is what they deeply crave. Safety and belonging are our core needs. When we can be fully present with ourselves and our children, we nourish our nervous systems, learn to co-regulate in healthy ways, and nurture healthy relationships. As a result we are relaxed, open to learning, being creative, problem solving and thinking critically! If you want to raise a leader or just a happy child, offer them space to be bored… trust me.
5️⃣ You are not able to honour your authentic beautiful self, which makes it much harder to lead by example and honour this in your child. I always go back to intention. So what is your parenting intention? What is holding you back from fully loving and accepting yourself? It is not until we can do this, that we can fully love another.
So now that we have that out of the way, let's explore some key parenting styles!
What Is Gentle Parenting?
Gentle parenting has emerged as a popular, compassionate approach that promotes mutual respect and empathy between parent and child. Rather than traditional punitive methods like time-outs or harsh discipline, gentle parenting encourages collaboration, communication, and understanding. Gentle parenting focuses on fostering emotional connection with children, helping them feel valued, and guiding them through challenges so they can learn, rather than punishing, controlling, or manipulating behaviour.
Key principles of gentle parenting:
Respect: Parents treat their children with the same respect they would offer to adults, listening to their feelings and perspectives without dismissal.
Empathy: Gentle parents empathize with their children's emotions, recognizing that outbursts and misbehavior often stem from unmet needs or feelings.
Patience: This parenting approach avoids impulsive reactions, instead taking the time to respond thoughtfully to a child’s needs and emotions.
Collaboration: Rather than enforcing strict rules, parents involve their children in decision-making, problem-solving, and understanding the consequences of actions.
Gentle parenting can help nurture a child’s emotional intelligence, encouraging critical thinking and intrinsic motivation, allowing the child to move at their own pace. It also strengthens the bond between parent and child, fostering a trusting and open relationship. A common concern is that parents believe they need to hold their emotions in or be so gentle that there are no boundaries, which we explored above.
What is Conscious Parenting?
Conscious parenting emphasizes self-awareness in the parent. Conscious parenting is about being present and mindful of your own emotional triggers, biases, and expectations, and how they influence your child.
Core aspects of conscious parenting:
Mindful reflection: Parents take the time to understand their own reactions and recognize how their past experiences may affect their parenting.
Healing generational patterns: Conscious parenting encourages breaking cycles of behavior that have been passed down from previous generations.
Focus on the present: Instead of worrying about controlling future outcomes, parents focus on nurturing their child’s emotional needs in the present.
In practice, conscious parenting aligns with the gentle parenting philosophy but adds an element of self-awareness, encouraging parents to heal their own emotional wounds as part of becoming better caregivers. This does require additional support often and regular parental self-care practices.
What is Responsive Parenting?
Responsive parenting is another iteration of gentle parenting, focusing on meeting the child's emotional, physical, and psychological needs in a timely and appropriate manner. Responsive parenting emphasizes sensitivity and understanding a child's cues, to foster secure attachment.
Key traits of responsive parenting:
Attunement: Parents pay close attention to their child’s behavior and respond appropriately.
Consistency: Consistently meeting a child’s needs builds security, helping the child feel safe.
Flexibility: Responsive parenting adapts to the child’s individual temperament, age, and developmental stage.
This style is especially important during infancy and early childhood, where bonding and attachment are crucial for healthy emotional development. The act of being responsive not only enhances trust but also nurtures a child’s confidence and sense of self-worth.
What is Natural or Intuitive Parenting?
Natural or intuitive parenting advocates for raising children in a way that honours nature and nurtures instincts. This philosophy promotes practices like breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing, parent’s connecting with their intuition, and being able to honour that in their child. Often there is minimal use of modern medical interventions, such as avoiding unnecessary medications and allowing for natural healing processes.
Essential elements of natural or intuitive parenting:
Trusting instincts: Parents rely on their intuition and the child’s natural signals to guide their parenting decisions.
Holistic health: Natural parenting often incorporates alternative or holistic health practices, such as homeopathy or herbal remedies.
Environmental awareness: A commitment to sustainable, eco-friendly practices is common in this parenting philosophy, such as using cloth diapers or making organic food choices..
Flexibility: Like responsive parenting, intuitive parenting is adaptable and recognizes that what works for one child might not work for another.
While natural parenting shares similarities with gentle parenting in its nurturing approach, it specifically emphasizes a return to natural instincts and practices. This often resonates with parents who prefer to go with the flow rather than adhere to strict guidelines, however; clear boundaries are established for the child's wellbeing. It encourages parents to trust their own wisdom, knowing that they are best equipped to understand their unique child’s needs, and to foster this same confidence and intrinsic motivation in their child.
Parenting Styles Chart: What parenting style resonates with you?
While parenting styles quiz or parenting styles chart can provide insight into how you interact with your child, it's also important to honour your values, intentions, and capacity. This parenting styles chart explores 9 approaches:
What Parenting Style Resonated with You?
You might find that while you aim to be authoritative, you occasionally slip into more authoritarian habits in stressful moments. Or in trying to be a gentle parent, you slip into passive parenting. Recognizing these pattern allows you to make mindful changes, which actually is part of conscious and intuitive parenting.
What I see very challenging for many, is that while one child responds well to one style, another child in the same family needs another approach. Or sometimes parents have different approaches, which gets very confusing for the child often resulting in outbursts or anxiety. Rather than getting too analytical or caught up in worrying if we are doing the right or wrong thing, which only creates anxiety for ourselves and our children, I lean to parenting from the heart. This is a combination of conscious, responsive, natural and intuitive parenting.
Whatever style you resonate with you, I feel it's very important to consider the following factors:
What are your family values? Are yours aligned with other primary caregivers?
What are your intentions: What seeds do you want to plant? What do you want your children to feel and be capable of? What do you want their inner voice to say?
What capacity do you have, so you can be consistent? Do you need more community or professional support to be the parent you want to be?
Parenting is not easy. It doesn't come with a handbook, and this mutual learning experience means that we are also learning. For this reason compassion, a regular self-care practice, and awareness around our patterns and triggers with compassion and curiosity is important. When we are able to approach from this space, we can be objective, responsible for our own emotions and health, hear our children from the heart, and meet them accordingly, to foster a safe and mutually respectful relationship.
Consistency is also key to create a safe environment, but I appreciate we all slip up. This is just an opportunity for growth, and potentially repair by taking responsibility and letting our child know how we will handle the situation in the future. Some of my tips include carving out daily you time, and enjoying regular check-ins throughout the day to release emotions and energy building. Our kiddos also need this! When we have these regular practices in place, we are better equipped to lead by example in a healthy way, and this is how our children learn and what fosters safety. When our children feel safe, loved, and respected, life gets much easier! We see less tantrums, meltdowns, overwhelm, and other experiences that aren't the most enjoyable for anyone. Instead we get to enjoy more time having fun together!
Ultimately, the goal is to raise happy, healthy, and secure children, and there’s no one-size-fits-all method. By combining elements from various parenting styles and trusting your own instincts, you can create a nurturing environment that works for both you and your child.
Want to Learn More?
Heart Centred Parenting: The ultimate guide to parenting, particularly if you have a highly sensitive or neurodiverse child
The gloWithin App: Learn breath and somatic practices for you and to share with children!
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