OMG WeAreTeachers no no no. As a former teacher and current “gentle” parent, I can tell you right now this ain’t it. So can Dr. Becky at Good Inside, who would probably not appreciate the context in which she’s quoted in this article.
This article conflates gentle/respectful/ peaceful/conscious parenting with permissive parenting: All behavior is OK, no boundaries or consequences, any means necessary to “protect” a child from difficult feelings, including blaming teachers, other kids, the world instead of holding their kids accountable. Are there a lot of permissive parents who THINK they’re gentle-parenting? Absolutely. That doesn’t make it true. And permissive parenting has been around for a looooooong time. I was raised with it. It is NOT the same thing.
Authoritarian parenting, which has traditionally been seen as the only other option, means putting all the focus on obedience and shaming kids for behavior while teaching them to repress their underlying difficult feelings so they grow up with no idea how to handle them when they eventually boil over. (And, as is often the case with two opposite ends on a spectrum, there tends to be a lot of overlap between this and permissive parenting. They both have aspects of emotional neglect.)
True peaceful parenting sits on the sweet spot of the spectrum between permissive/steamroller and authoritarian parenting. It’s about making a distinction between feelings and behavior: connecting with kids and validating their difficult emotions WHILE holding boundaries, maintaining high expectations, and following through with consequences. It teaches them to trust themselves to handle tough situations instead of relying on others for validation/absolution or lashing out at others when they make a mistake. Good teachers already teach like this, or should want to learn how if they didn’t know there’s another option. Good school districts have already incorporated it into their curriculum in the form of SEL. Yes, kids who are raised like this speak up more when adults are disrespectful or abusive. They challenge situations that seem unjust or unreasonable. Good educators want their students to do this.
Behavior issues are sky-rocketing because kids are reflecting what’s happening in our country and the world: stress and trauma due to mass shootings, climate change, increasing wealth disparity, political dysfunction, adults throwing temper tantrums when they don’t get exactly what they want… Basically, they’re just echoing adults’ dysregulation. Trust me, true gentle parents are the ones helping our kids PROCESS all this BS. They’ll be the ones who fix it all when they’re grown.
And what do bad school districts keep doing? 1) Making class sizes bigger, which makes it impossible for teachers to build relationships with all their students, which research has proven is the number one determinant of student success and teacher job satisfaction. 2) Refusing to provide more resources to support students and teachers such as counselors/psychologists/special ed paras/prep time for connecting with parents & guardians/proper training & safety measures.
What school districts actually need in addition to addressing the above is to train administrators in “gentle” administrating: listen to educators, trust their experience, validate their concerns, and give them what THEY say they need to succeed (not what you decide unilaterally). Of course that still includes holding them accountable when they make mistakes, but accountability is very different from shame/blame/gaslighting. Any group of randomly-selected teachers could tell you all of this, but most of them are afraid of punitive action if they do. Or they tell you and you nod and smile and implement some worthless initiative and don’t actually change anything. This has to start shifting soon or public schools are doomed, and trust me, it will NOT be kids’ fault.
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