1. Put empathy front-and-center
Empathy is the most important aspect of gentle parenting, and it needs to be a part of everything that you do. Your kids aren’t just little robots programmed to follow orders. They’re living, breathing beings with very real thoughts, feelings, and needs. Put yourself in your kids’ shoes. Remember what it was like to be little. The great thing about parenting is that we’ve already experienced what it’s like to be little, so it’s a lot easier to empathize with our children.
2. Set reasonable age-appropriate boundaries
Before you set a boundary, ask yourself if it’s reasonable based on what your child is actually capable of doing. Not what you think they should be able to do, not what you want them to do, but actually capable of doing based on their development.
For example, you may want your 2-year-old to sit quietly at a restaurant, share nicely with others, and not throw a tantrum in the middle of the store. However, developmentally speaking she’s just not capable of those things yet. Kids don’t develop abilities such as self-control (including emotional control) and sharing until around age 4.
3. Set boundaries with reason
Along with setting reasonable boundaries based on my kids’ ages, I am also a strong advocate of setting boundaries with reason. By that, I mean that I don’t make arbitrary “because I said so” rules. Every single rule that I make has a logical and justifiable reason behind it.
Take healthy eating for example. I don’t just tell my kids, “Because I said so” when they ask why they can’t have chocolate for breakfast. Instead, I view it as a teaching opportunity and openly discuss with them why it’s so important to eat right.
Kids are more likely to respect- genuinely respect in the literal sense- a rule if they understand why it matters. That’s important to me. I don’t want my kids to just blindly follow orders now. I want to give them boundaries that will help them throughout their entire lives, and the only way I can do that is if they actually understand the reasoning behind a rule.
4. Don’t be afraid to say “yes” sometimes
Let’s go back to healthy eating. When we’re home, I focus on feeding my family real homemade food. That means saying no to and limiting (or outright eliminating) processed junk, sugary snacks, and other stuff that’s not really good for anyone, let alone kids.
However, when we go on vacation, I say “yes” more often. We still eat healthy for the most part, but I relax the rules and let them have things that they don’t often (or ever) get at home. Some would find that inconsistent, but I explained to my kids upfront that vacation rules are different from home rules. So they know not to expect the same laxity at home if that makes sense.
5. Raise your words, not your voice
One of my favorite gentle parenting quotes comes from the poet Rumi. It goes, “Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” Unless your goal is to terrify and terrorize, yelling at your kids doesn’t really accomplish anything. Think about it, how do you feel when someone screams at you?
Just about every parent has snapped at some point and shouted at their kids. I’m not saying you’re a bad mom if you have. I’m just saying that we need to try harder- as hard as humanely possible-to hold our tempers and speak to our kids with the same level of respect that we expect from them.
6. Treat your kids the way you expect them to treat others
This goes along with the last one, but it extends beyond just not yelling at your kids. The golden rule of doing unto others as you want them to do unto you goes for parenting, too. Treat them the way you want them to treat you, and the way you hope they’ll treat others.
Also remember, respect is earned, not freely given. While you can expect your children to show you respect, if you want them to genuinely respect you, then you have to earn it. You have to show them that you’re worthy of true respect by showing them that they are worthy of it, too.
“Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?”- Jane Nelson, author of Positive Discipline
7. Discipline the action, not your child
Discipline in gentle parenting is all about focusing on the actions and making the consequences fit the infraction so that your kids learn and grow. If your son breaks something because he was careless with it, don’t ground him from the TV for a week. TV had nothing to do with his actions, so why should it be included in the consequences? Instead, you could maybe set up a “repayment plan” where he does chores to earn the money to pay for the damage.
Another part of this one is focusing your comments focused on the action itself. Don’t humiliate your child or make them feel bad about themselves. Again, that’s not exactly a gentle way to parent. One of the easiest tricks I use is to avoid starting sentences with “you.” For example, don’t say, “You’re such a slob,” or “You never listen,” or “You failed this test because you weren’t paying attention.” Instead, focus on the action and the “why” behind it.
“Tantrums are not bad behavior. Tantrums are an expression of emotion that became too much for the child to bear. No punishment is required. What your child needs is compassion and safe, loving arms to unload in.”
8. Help them learn from their mistakes
By giving consequences that make sense, you’re helping your child learn actual lessons from their mistakes. That’s really the goal of discipline, isn’t it? We all want our kids to grow up knowing that there are right and wrong ways to do something and that it’s important to learn and grow.
Going back to the example above, after your child “repays” you for whatever he broke, ask him what he learned. He may tell you that he learned he needs to be more careful in the future and that it’s hard work making enough money to buy the things we want. Let him know that you’re proud of him for recognizing that.
“Obviously, you want to teach your child [the difference] between right and wrong, respect and being kind to others, whether it’s their sisters or parents. You try to teach them by example, talk to them and explain certain situations. But there’s also a time to put them in time out or let them know they’ve made a mistake and try to learn from it.” – Eli Manning
9. Be willing to learn from your own mistakes
Let me be very blunt and clear, you WILL make mistakes as a parent. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. There’s absolutely no such thing as a parent who gets it right 100% of the time.
So, just as you expect your kids to learn from their mistakes, you have to be willing to learn from your own. I constantly reevaluate everything I think I know and ask myself if there is something I can do better or something that I need to change. As parenting teacher Hannah Guari Ma explains, the only way to inspire a certain quality in kids is to model it in ourselves.
“I believe that the best way to inspire a quality, or even a habit, in our kids is to cultivate it in ourselves. This means that parenting is a constant journey of learning and growth, of looking outward, toward my children, to see the areas in which I need to work at improving myself.”
10. Make connecting with your kids a priority
Gentle parenting is all about communicating with your kids, and you can’t really do that if you don’t take the time to truly connect with them. Make family time a priority. Take an interest in the things that they like. Spend vacations together, and eat dinner together as often as possible. Just be there with them in the moment every moment that you can.
It sounds trite, but our kids really do grow up so fast. We only get one shot at raising them right. So, let’s make sure we’re focusing on what really matters and doing our best to raise them to be kind, compassionate, confident, happy, and healthy. Who knows, they just might one day change the world.
I think the best part of being a parent is when your little one looks up at you and just smiles and stares because they know you are their person. Like nobody else is as important as you. They know that you have them like nobody else ever will. The connection is indescribable. – Proud Happy Mama
I’ll leave you with one final quote that I really love, from Alain de Botton: “To be a parent is to be a chief designer of a product more advanced than any technology and more interesting than the greatest work of art.” Our kids are true marvels, the real wonders of this world. As long as you treat them that way and treat them like the miracles that they are, all of these gentle parenting techniques will come naturally.