Breaking Horses and Breaking Hearts: Gentle Parenting in My Own Words

I saw a new patient post-stroke. He was a cowboy-type, rough and tough. I don’t remember why he was referred for speech therapy. I think he might have had mild word-finding difficulty, maybe some trouble with swallowing that was improving. He seemed dubious about me, but warmed when we started talking horses.

“Do ya know what they say about gettin’ kicked?” he asked.

“The back feet will hurt you, but the front feet will kill you?” I replied.

“Exactly,” he smiled. And I knew I had buy in.

We had a long conversation. We talked cattle and horses and hunting. We even talked about how hard he was on himself. We talked about his family. He had adult kids, but they didn’t have anything to do with him. His philosophy regarding parenting was the same one he used to break horses. He told me if a horse did something you didn’t like, you ignored the horse, literally turned your back to them. A horse wants your approval and your attention, same with a kid. They do something you don’t like; you take that love away. They’ll come around because that’s what they’re desperate for. Your approval and your love.

I didn’t argue, but it broke my heart. He didn’t see the sad irony in offering parenting advice when his own kids didn’t have him in their life.

I’m on board with this gentle parenting thing. It’s different from how many of us were raised. It’s hard. My family refers to it as “gentle parenting” (air quotes and eye roll included).

My first job as an SLP was working with kids. I had a pre-schooler on my caseload with cleft lip and palate. He’d had surgeries to repair the clefts, but his speech was difficult to understand because he couldn’t make a lot of sounds. I was inexperienced, but I was doing my best. At the end of a session spent vying for his participation, I offered him a little prize: a dollar store dinosaur. I showed him two and asked him to pick his favourite, but he wanted both. I insisted that he pick one. He couldn’t, and a tantrum ensued. He threw the dinosaurs across the room, kicking and screaming all the while. His mother knelt and asked, “Do you need a hug?” I remember telling this story and shaking my head about how ridiculous it was, how he needed a kick in the pants, not a hug.

Then I had my own kids, and something shifted. As I watched them I realized that, just like me, they were inexperienced and doing the best they could. I had taken developmental psychology courses in school, but I started reading a lot and thinking about how I wanted to raise our kids and what I hoped for our relationship. A friend who doesn’t have kids once asked me how I planned to discipline ours.

“I don’t,” I replied.

He shuddered. I should have explained more, but I struggle to put my thoughts into words on the spot. I don’t punish them with spanking or time-outs. I don’t shame them. I try not to yell at them. They fight often, and unless someone is going to get hurt, I prefer to let them work it out on their own. I let them climb up the slide and jump from a height. I let them fall down and figure it out.

Does this mean that they can do whatever they want? Heck no. They’re kids, and they need a lot of guidance and firm boundaries. They need to be told no. We often utter, “I won’t let you do that.” I’m still figuring it all out. What really matters and what do we let slide?

It’s very physical. I don’t expect to be able to holler from the couch and get immediate compliance. I say it once, and then I help them out. There’s a lot of holding them back, picking them up, stopping them. We’re bigger than them for a reason. One day it won’t be so physical. We won’t be able to intervene so easily, and I’m hoping that they will have matured enough that we won’t have to. They aren’t scared of us. I know lots of people think you are supposed to fear your parents, but I don’t think so. I think we are supposed to be a safe place. I want them to respect me. I want them to trust me. But I don’t want them to fear me.

If you look at the research on parenting styles, they are broken into four types: permissive, neglectful, authoritarian, and authoritative. I think a lot of people assume gentle parenting is permissive, but it isn’t meant to be. Permissive parenting lets kids do what they want to avoid conflict. Neglectful is uninvolved or absent. Authoritarian involves strict rules and punishment. The one with the best results is authoritative, which requires setting and enforcing boundaries, solving problems together, open communication, and natural consequences. Gentle is just another word for authoritative parenting. The goal is a secure attachment (vs. anxious, avoidant or disorganized) between parent and child.

Gentle parenting means holding a boundary and allowing your kids to feel whatever they feel about that boundary. And here’s the hard part: allowing them to express their feelings about that boundary. Let’s just say our kids are passionate. They express, loudly and frequently. And they’re allowed to. We’re not going to give in, and we’re not going to give them grief for having a meltdown.

Gentle parenting involves modelling the behaviour that you want your children to embody. If I want them to be respectful, I must speak respectfully in front of them and to them. If I want them to apologize when they’ve done something wrong, I need to apologize to them when I’ve done something wrong. If I want them to be kind, patient, empathetic, I have to show them what that looks like. If I want them to calm down when they’re angry, I have to show them how I calm down when I’m mad. And I have to do it over and over and over again. It’s no easy feat.

I was hopeful that this parenting style would make my kids well-behaved. It doesn’t. I do think that they are able to let loose at home and get a lot of the stuff they need to get out, out of their systems. I think that helps. They are still developing, still lacking a complete pre-frontal cortex. They’re going to make lots of mistakes. There will be many opportunities to learn and grow. For all of us.

Our three-year-old had a big ol’ meltdown recently. I don’t know what precipitated it. I just know he was mad. It started out as whining and turned into yelling, then screaming, then sobbing. I was mad too. My jaw was clenched, my breath was shallow, and I felt hot and ready to explode. I knew I had to calm myself down before I reacted. I went into another room and closed the door. I sat on the floor and noticed all the angry sensations I was feeling in my body.

I talked to myself, “This is not an emergency. You are safe. You’re okay, and he’s okay.”

I took so many deep breaths. He kept screaming. Eventually, I heard the door open. He walked in, his face red and tears streaming. I looked at him and opened my arms, and he ran right into them. He cried for a while. I kept taking those deep breaths, and he joined me. Until it was quiet. Until all I could hear was our breathing.

“I’m doing it!” I thought. “This is co-regulation.” His little brain and nervous system were overwhelmed and couldn’t cope. He needed help to regulate, to calm.

It feels scary to share this. It feels vulnerable, like I’m opening myself up to criticism and judgement. I’m worried some old relative will comment that I’m spoiling them or making them soft. That they won’t be prepared for the real world. I’m worried a friend will think I’m self-righteous and take some secret pleasure when they inevitably see my kid misbehaving. I’m afraid that someone will hear me lose it and holler at them and think I’m not such a great ambassador for gentle parenting, after all. I’m almost positive that someone will point out that there are many different ways to parent, and my way is not better.

And here’s a really scary thing to say, I believe it is. There are many different ways to do things, and I certainly don’t have all the answers. We’re all learning as we go. When our three-year-old was having his big meltdown, I could have tried to distract him, ignored him, or put him in time out. I could have yelled at him or spanked him, and I bet he would have stopped. But what would I have taught him? That his feelings are not okay? That I don’t want to hear them unless they’re the happy, positive, more palatable ones? That they’re unacceptable? Or maybe he is? I think getting down on the floor, opening my arms, and letting him collapse and cry until he was done was the best thing to do. Is it always possible? No. Do I always do it? No. But I will keep on trying.

Looking back at that little boy with the cleft lip and palate, the little boy who had to work so hard to communicate, and who was so often misunderstood, I was wrong. He didn’t need a kick in the pants. He needed a hug. And that old cowboy who’d had the stroke, the one who was hard on himself and thought he had to be hard on his kids, the one who was once just a little boy, he needed a hug too.

You know how the back feet will hurt you, but the front feet will kill you? I think it’s more like: ignoring a kid will hurt him, taking your love away might just kill him.