Losing Heart with Gentle Parenting? Look for the Glimmers!

Have you been questioning your parenting style recently? I think lockdown has resulted in a lot of navel gazing for many of us. The combination of more free time (for some – I know not all, thank you to those of you working hard through this!) and more time spent at home with our children means 1. a lot more difficult behaviour and 2. a lot more time to spend second-guessing ourselves and our choices parenting wise.

How to be a Gentle – Not Permissive – Parent

I come across this misconception time and time again; that if you don’t make your child do something (in an authoritarian way), then they will never learn and will grow to be rude and feral. People seem to forget (or perhaps don’t realise in the first place) there is a sweet spot in the middle – something known as Authoritative Parenting.

The Two Most Important Steps to Coping with any Behaviour – and why so Many get it Wrong!

Coping with behaviour ‘in the moment’ is important, however it’s only half of the discipline. Unless you look at the cause of the behaviour and work to remove or reduce it, the behaviour is going to keep recurring.

Aiming for 70/30: When ‘Good Enough Parenting’ is Enough

All parents make mistakes, all parents have days that they are not proud of. All parents make sacrifices and compromises. No parent is perfect. It is these mistakes that are the most important in terms of our growth as parents. Each time we don’t quite do our best we can learn and we can teach our children how to handle disappointm

What is Gentle Parenting – an Excerpt from The Gentle Parenting Book

Let’s get this out there right now. Gentle parenting isn’t permissive parenting. For those who are new to gentle parenting, perhaps practitioners of more mainstream methods, the most common criticism is relating to supposed permissiveness. They are wrong. Boundaries, limits and discipline play a crucial role in gentle parenting. If you do not discipline your child how can you be truly respectful of them?

What is Gentle Parenting?

What is Gentle Parenting? In my opinion it can be summed up with just four words: 1. Empathy 2. Respect 3. Understanding 4. Boundaries 1. Empathy Parenting with your child’s feelings in mind as much as possible. Using empathy (or what some psychologists call ‘mind-mindedness’) to gain insight into your child’s behaviour and using empathyContinue reading “What is Gentle Parenting?”