Exactly. Parents can get lost in the importance of controlling the child that anything that acknowledges the child’s world / experience can be seen as an obstacle.
Ironically, acknowledging the experience, acknowledging the emotions, in good faith, models healthy self-regulation and once the emotions are felt, unlocks more cognitive availability to exercise self-discipline in the context of a goal.
A child overwhelmed by emotion has much less availability to listen understand and learn than one who is regulated.
But focusing only on control, the parent may lose track of the rest. It’s a lose-lose scenario.
I think one of the risks of the gentle parenting discourse is that so much of it focuses on scenarios involving young children, where the stakes are ultimately very low. Kid won't put on his coat? That's okay, we don't need to go to the park. Oh now it's on, okay we can go later than planned, whatever, it doesn't really matter. Kid won't eat his food, well we can sit for an hour at the dinner table playing mind games and negotiating around his feelings about the textures and colours on his plate, or maybe he can wander off and come back in a bit when he's more hungry, or maybe I'll just only prepare food I know he likes so that I don't have to deal with it.
The older kids get, the less this works— older kids have real commitments, things like school that have consequences to the parents if they are missed. They have sports and other activities to attend that are on a schedule and may have cost money to enroll in. They need to get enough sleep to be functional. They are increasingly exposed to situations that are more complicated to untangle if/when they go sour.
And older kids are smart enough to walk away from a "validation" discussion if they detect that the end goal is just to get them to do the thing— they will simply issue ultimatums: "I don't want to talk about my feelings on this, I've told you straight up I'm just not doing it, end of story."
So it's not that parents are "focusing only on control", it's that particularly as kids get older parents need to strike a balance between good faith listening and validating, while still ultimately retaining the last word and being able to be an authority when it matters. I think some gentle parenting acolytes miss this reality and believe that the toddler scenarios cleanly extrapolate up through teen years, and that everything can be managed through a pure consensus model— and believing that is how you end up capitulating to your kid over and over again, ultimately letting them run wild.
I never took gentle parenting to mean being a push over. When I was a kid I was just told to do what my parents said. I've interpreted gentle parenting to mean take a few steps before resorting to that.
For example, one of my kids hates brushing her teeth. I've explained a million times why we need to brush teeth. She still protests. And I still make her do it.
Giving them the chance to explain why can help correct misconceptions and/or remove the why.
For example, our 10 year old didn't want to go to soccer practice. Ultimately it was because she didn't want to go for a car ride. So we walked instead, which is fine since it was only half a mile away. All protests went away.
Anything we commit to, especially team based sports, is explained simply: unless you have a very good reason not to go, you must go because we committed to this, and other people are relying upon you to be there.
I'm hoping that, in hindsight, with repeated application, the why we do things can be drilled into them. It offers a good check on me as a parent (if my only 'why' is 'because I said so', then maybe I have a shitty reason why... everyone is human, even parents). And as they grow up they will, hopefully, in hindsight, see why we were doing these things is important, and they will have less animosity towards us.
I don't think anyone assumes that gentle parenting is supposed to be being a pushover, and it's certainly not presented that way by its proponents. But my observation is that it seems to ultimately end up as that, given enough time— and sure enough:
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/parenting-is-not-a-f...
- https://lawliberty.org/the-case-against-gentle-parenting/
- https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-harsh-realm...
- https://anniethenanny.ca/why-gentle-parenting-often-results-...
In my limited experience, it's those who most loudly advocate for gentle parenting by name who are falling into these traps, burning themselves out and not properly holding boundaries. Those who have found a sustainable balance of being an emotional safe space while enforcing boundaries and retaining parental authority tend not to use the language of GP, and if pressed will say something vague like it "has some good ideas that they found helpful" but that they don't see themselves as being all-in on it.
At the end of the day I expect there's some no true scotsman stuff going on, where the believers will stay convinced that anyone for whom it isn't working is simply doing it wrong.
> parents need to strike a balance between good faith listening and validating, while still ultimately retaining the last word and being able to be an authority when it matters.
This is pretty much the key in my experience.
To add a finer point: good faith listening is validating. Validating doesn't mean telling them it's ok, or giving in, doing what they want, etc.
It's the difference between "yes I understand you're feeling A, B, C, but we're doing it anyway because X" and "I don't care, stop it, be quiet and do it".
> "yes I understand you're feeling A, B, C, but we're doing it anyway because X" and "I don't care, stop it, be quiet and do it"
And eventually, if necessary, you may have to break the filibuster: "I hear your concern, and I've tried to explain where I'm coming from with it, but you've rejected my reasoning. We are actually doing the thing though, and I've told you why. Get in the car please, now, or you will be grounded."
a.k.a. the dreaded assertion of authority that one hopes is never necessary, but will in fact occasionally be necessary, no matter how much one invests in a positive, nurturing, and emotionally safe environment. Being unable or unwilling to assume this role is to fail at parenting.