I felt so validated by this post that I actually teared up! I was a very easy going kid and my parents never used punishments. I assumed my parenting experience would be similar. Like any modern mom, parenting influencers seem to find my eyes and ears everywhere! We’re also homeschooling and I’ve dipped my toes into unschooling. The period after my son was born had some big challenges in our family and then I was working full time during a global pandemic, so I feel like I was far more vulnerable to “influence” than any other time in my life. There is a sense in the gentle parenting/unschooling/peaceful parenting realm that you are doing terrible harm to your child if you rely on any traditional parenting approaches. It’s a horrible feeling to think that you are harming your child! But, it turns out that I have a son with a wonderfully big personality, a clear sense of what he wants, and a sharp temper. Talking things through together works 90% of the times, and 10% of the time, it does not at all! The best thing I have done for my mental health in years was to tune out all parenting influencers for long enough to find my footing as a mom with a working brain of my own (and an MAT in early childhood education and MLIS that allows me to feel fairly comfortable reading the research myself!). I started using behaviorist approaches (usually rewards) when there is a clear behavior that needs to change fast before we can really get to the part of finding deeper solutions. They are rare and I try to make them time limited until we find a better solution, but they are sanity saving. I also reminded myself that I’m a person, too! I recently heard a gentle parenting “expert” talking about aggression and suggesting that punishments and rewards were not acceptable, but that parents (moms, it’s always really moms) might have to get in there to physically set the boundaries with their bodies. She described getting at child level to block a hit. I found myself talking back to the podcast, because am I just supposed to get hit, kicked, bitten, etc.? That doesn’t seem healthy, but is exactly what would happen in her scenario! Instead, could it not make sense to set a safer boundary for everyone with a reasonable, age-appropriate punishment or reward (generally removal of something enjoyable for a short time--in our home screen time is now earned by not hurting anyone all day) and then dig into tools and feelings and triggers and find a big solution (we’re still doing all that important work!)? Too often, our influencer culture makes it feel that it’s all either/or, and we must divide ourselves into camps. Thank you for the wonderful, evidence-based reminder that, with most things, it can be both/and and we can experiment to find solutions that work.
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