Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Help with a stubborn baby!

Being a gentle parent is not synonymous with not parenting.

There is a huge difference between crushing a child's spirit and not being willing to be the bad guy in order to teach a child boundaries, especially when those lessons are about safety. That your child is being allowed to handle electric cords is an accident waiting to happen. Not only should the cords be out of reach as much as possible, but it is up to you, the parent, to be consistent in establishing the boundary that electrical cords are not ok to touch by picking your child up, moving them somewhere else and speaking a firm no - over and over, no matter how many times it takes. There can't be an oh-well limit when it comes to matters that involve safety, no matter how persistent, stubborn or out of control your child is at the moment.

And to then allow a one year old who is not physically capable of pushing you away to do so with your permission (you are choosing to move since you are much bigger and can't actually be pushed) is teaching the child that you do not have authority. Your child needs to know you will keep them safe and that there are boundaries - and that you are in control. To not give your child that security isn't gentle; it just lets you temporarily off the hook from being the bad guy. At some point your child is going to encounter an adult or another child who isn't concerned with being gentle, and the emotional consequences to your child will be so much more devastating than the temporary frustration of hearing you say no and knowing you mean it.

I know this sounds harsh, but it is likely the most important lesson I had to learn in parenting a strong-willed gifted child. My oldest walked at 9 months, and she pushed against every boundary in sight. I learned to pick my battles and then not ever waver from the ones that mattered. I remember some days where I got nothing done, because I spent the entire time redirecting her from trying to do something dangerous. If I had given up on the 754th time, all I would have done is teach her that that was my limit. But by never wavering on the things that mattered, she learned to accept it the first time she heard no, and she was much happier for it. It also made parenting her easier, because she knew I had the authority.

She's 22 now, and she is still strong willed and driven. But she accepts boundaries and has learned to discipline herself. She's told me that the consistency over the years helped ground her. And now that string will and drive are helping her meet her goals. It has turned into a wonderful asset for her.

You can be gentle and still set boundaries, but you are going to have to be willing to be the bad guy.

Well said Lisa. Very true.

Agreed.

Also teaching that-- as a basic boundary condition-- one CANNOT roll over other people using aggression or manipulation...

that's a really necessary explicit lesson (well, okay-- a series of them) for some children. It's also a really exhausting challenge for parents!! The very worst mismatch is when a fairly aggressive child is being parented by a submissive and gentle parent-- because the innate tendencies of both parties lead to the CHILD being an authoritarian/dictatorial presence there.

I realize that this is a fundamental difference in parenting philosophies... and that there are people who truly believe that ALL children will naturally blossom out without any guidance, and that altering their innate tendencies in any way is "wrong" because it prevents them from doing what they are 'destined' for... and my apologies to anyone with that outlook, but I have to say that I don't think it is okay (societally) to let kids with certain traits develop those traits without alteration to that natural trajectory. Some kids are not destined to develop into very nice people without some parental shaping of natural personality traits. Leaving kids completely 'au natural' does concede that some of them will turn into manipulative, exploitative individuals. It's a particular risk with kids who are exceptionally gifted in some way and lack empathy. Golding didn't invent Lord of the Flies out of thin air, YK? It resonates because it describes something fundamental about human nature. I don't think that most parents would like that for their kids.

Leave certain tendencies unaddressed, and those kids can become nightmarish for everyone around them when they are a bit older, because they don't all "naturally" develop empathy, impulse-control, and tolerance. Some do, of course... but not all. There really isn't anything personally advantageous in The Golden Rule. KWIM?

Aggressive kids who are age-appropriately self-centered and asynchronously advantaged in their ability to gain what they want often need VERY strong parents. Not harsh parents, but parents who are willing to say "NO. You must not do that. You need to consider others, and recognize that their needs are just as important as your wishes are." Until they can develop empathy, (and even that may be a matter of fairly deliberate parenting in some cases) they need us to help them... as firmly as required.

It's really hard to redirect some kids into more prosocial patterns, but it does pay dividends down the road.

Neglect to do that, and you can wind up in a far, far different place. I know several friends with teen/adult children who deeply regret their assumption that modeling reflective, compassionate, and gentle behaviors would be enough to teach those things to kids of ANY disposition. Some kids, not so much-- they take that as confirmation that they ARE, in point of fact, very much entitled to anything they want, at any time that they want it, and that their opinions, desires, and needs will automatically take precedence over those of others-- no exceptions. These are not particularly happy children, either-- because those antisocial behaviors leave them isolated as peers figure out that they are a bit, well, sociopathic.

Gentle parenting can work with those children. But passive/permissive parenting cannot; that merely teaches them that the world exists to do their bidding. I think that most developmentally healthy kids believe just that at some point (around 2-3yo) if they have been lovingly nurtured, but it's not good if they continue to believe it. LOL.

PS. I was a child very much like this. My parents were VERY firm about not permitting selfish/exploitative behavior from me, and insisted on coaching prosocial thinking. My BIL, a very similar child, was never coached that way (on the contrary, he was coached to be self-centered and aggressive, or at least that there wasn't anything wrong with that because he naturally deserved whatever he liked), and he is sort of sociopathic. I do credit the permissive parenting he experienced with his complete lack of compassionate perspective-taking. Neither of us was parented in a particularly "gentle" manner, though-- so I know that one can't conflate gentle with permissive. My DH is nothing like his interpersonally exploitative younger sibling, so it wasn't that his parents were "bad" parents-- just all wrong for a kid with my BIL's needs.

Non-permissive but gentle is rather like "What would Ghandi do here?"

HowlerKarma- if there was a "like" button, I would click it for your answer.