There are many ways to raise a child, but gentle parenting is a name attached to some of the most supportive, loving, and, yes, gentle ways of teaching and correcting.
In gentle parenting, we try to manage our reactions and remember that our child is another human being with feelings, needs, and desires of their own. Instead of starting with heavy demands and consequences, the idea is to meet your child’s needs, communicate expectations, and listen with love.
Gentle partnering (that’s not a typo) is the idea of employing some of the same ideas with your partner.
How Is Gentle Parenting Relevant To Marital Relationships?
I know a lot of you are already reading with skepticism, because we know it is not our job to parent our partners. We’ve discussed this ad nauseam with regard to mental load, and spouses who end up with all the responsibility for budgeting, meal planning, cleaning up the other person’s mess (along with the kids’), and so on.
Let’s clarify right away that’s not what ‘gentle partnering’ means.
Gentle partnering should, ideally, be a two-way street, but it’s also (like gentle parenting) as much about how you regulate yourself and give yourself the gift of clear and effective communication as it is about how you interact with your partner.
This isn’t a movement to make you more responsible for your partner’s laundry and keys, or to place all the responsibility of communication on one partner. It’s to make things better for everyone by modifying the behavior of the one and only person you can control: yourself.
Use An Empathy-First Mindset
In gentle parenting, this might mean that when your child says there’s a monster under the bed, you don’t just consider the claim, but the emotions he’s expressing.
You know there’s no monster under the bed, but arguing isn’t going to change your child’s feelings. So, you address the emotion. You say things like, “I hear you telling me that you’re afraid,” and then, after validating the emotion, you seek a solution together, which might involve Monster Spray or a night light.
In gentle partnering, this might look like acknowledging your partner’s frustration over a disagreement, rather than pressing the argument, perhaps saying, “I know this is as frustrating and upsetting to you as it is to me. We don’t have to see it the same way, as long as we can find a way to work together on it.”
Employ Active Listening Techniques
It’s tempting to interrupt your child’s long rant on why homework and bedtimes are unfair, and sometimes that’s called for. Sometimes, though, he needs to be heard out, even if the rule will still be the same in the end.
Gentle parenting calls for active listening. That means paying respectful attention and being prepared to repeat key points to show that you’ve heard and to ensure you’ve received the communication accurately.
Active listening is important between spouses, too. In the end, you may both still disagree about the best way to handle a situation, but if you hear each other out without interrupting and with a genuine ear for understanding, there’s a better chance you can reach a solution you can both live with.
Emotional Self-Regulation
When we overreact to our kids’ behavior, our reaction is less about the behavior than our own dysregulation. The mess, the noise, the stress, gets to us, so we yell, or we say “You’re grounded until you’re thirty!” or we overreact in some other way that doesn’t help them or us.
Gentle parenting doesn’t mean we don’t discipline our kids when they use crayons on the walls (again) or sneak video games after bedtime. It means that the correction comes from a calm, aware space after we’ve gained control of our own bodies, and is proportional and effective.
With a partner, emotional self-regulation comes up when you want to scream because they didn’t take the meat out of the freezer to thaw for dinner like you asked, or because they’re not pulling their share, or because of whatever thing the two of you have disagreed about. Maybe they’re clearly in the wrong, or maybe it’s just a disagreement, but either way, getting your emotions under control before reacting will help reduce defensiveness and can result in more honest communication.
Awareness Of Your Reactions
While authoritarian parenting says, “I have decided this is the answer, and I’m right because I say so,” gentle parenting (usually a subset of authoritative parenting) says, “I realize that when my child does that thing, I feel this way. I wonder why that is.”
This kind of introspection helps us ensure that our parenting is based on our child’s needs, not on an internal reaction to our own fears or past traumas. We have to consider: is it really terrible that my child has exhibited this specific behavior, or is my body reacting because I’ve been taught to fear this situation?
The same thing applies in relationships. Your partner did something that caused an emotional reaction in your body. Where does that come from? Is it from past traumas, or a deep fear? Recognizing the source of the reaction helps you respond in the clearest and most effective way, instead of automatically.
Validation First, Problem-Solving Second
Your child is enraged because his block tower just won’t work the way he wants. You can explain to him that, clearly, putting the bigger blocks on the bottom will give him a more stable base, but there’s no way he’s hearing you.
The first step is to validate his emotions. Yes, it’s frustrating. Yes, it makes him angry. He’s right that gravity can feel very unfair! Acknowledging his emotions is important, and now the two of you can work together for a solution. In this case, you know the solution from your experience and can guide him to it.
When you and your partner have a problem, that won’t apply the same way, because it needs to be a solution you seek together, not an answer you parent him or her into. However, the principle stands: validating one another’s emotions is key. You don’t have to believe your spouse has a good reason to be scared, angry, frustrated, annoyed, or embarrassed, to validate that the emotion itself is genuine and valid.
Then you can work together to solve the root problem.
Seek A Collaborative Approach
It’s easy to say, “my child is being difficult” or “my child is giving me a hard time,” but usually, if we zoom out a little, we can recognize that the child is actually having a hard time himself. Then, instead of viewing parenting as a battle of wills (a mom who wants to enforce bedtime against a child who refuses), we can see ourselves and our kids on the same team (a tired child and a mom who wants to help him get the rest he needs).
In relationships, it’s common to have a disagreement and see two sides: one who wants the house clean and one who wants to relax; one who wants company and one who wants quiet; one who wants to parent firmly and one who wants to parent gently.
If we reshape these disagreements, we can find two people who want to enjoy their home together, or two people who both want to find some joy in a weekend off, or two people who want to raise happy, healthy children, and just aren’t quite on the same page about the way to do that. Once you’re a team instead of opponents, that’s a huge step towards finding middle ground.
Respectful Conversation, No Blaming Or Shaming
It’s easy to say, “Well, if you’d done your homework last night….” or “It’s your own fault for staying up so late,” or “Yep, see what happens when you don’t listen?” Sometimes it’s tempting, and maybe we’re all guilty of it from time to time.
However, we know it’s not the most effective and loving way to parent. Instead, we can listen to our child’s frustration about being tired or getting a low grade, and then ask, “Are there steps you can take in the future to help prevent this?”
With our partners, it can be tempting to say, “Well, if you hadn’t….” or “You always do this,” or similar. Couples therapist Tracy Ross tells Huffpost that she advises her clients to use “I statements” instead.”
Instead of, “You loaded the dishwasher but didn’t start it, again” that means saying, “I get frustrated when you don’t follow through. It makes me feel like all the responsibility is on me.”
Blaming and shaming shut down conversation. Discussing feelings, openly and honestly, is a way forward.
Understand Imperfection
We often forget that kids, just like us, can have tired days, grumpy days, and days when everything feels off, bad, or wrong. Parents often scold or punish kids for having unapproved feelings or human flaws.
For instance, a normal human adult might forget their lunch on a workday and decide to have fast food. If their child forgets his lunchbox on a school day, does the adult recognize that everyone makes mistakes, or does the adult scold him for being disorganized?
With our partners, we need to recognize the same bias. Sure, it’s frustrating or hurtful when some important task isn’t completed, or when your spouse gets something relationally wrong, and that feeling is valid. However, make sure you’re giving fair consideration to whether this is just your partner being a flawed human being (like yourself), or something bigger.
Prioritize Emotional Safety
Your child should always feel safe coming to you with a problem. Whether it’s your little one telling you they broke a lamp, your tween telling you they got a bad grade, or your teen admitting to substance abuse, you can’t help them if they hide it.
That’s why we try to prioritize making our kids feel safe. Yes, many of those actions do require consequences or correction of one type or another, but they shouldn’t make your child feel unsafe.
You and your spouse should also feel safe about coming to one another with problems.
You should be able to say, “It hurts me when you….” or “I am overwhelmed and need you to….” or “I feel ignored when…..” Your spouse should be able to say their own versions of these back.
Protecting one another’s emotional safety is key to having important conversations and moving forward together.
Gentle Parenting Isn’t Being A “Doormat” & Neither Is Gentle Partnering
This is a super important caveat.
Many people who don’t understand gentle parenting think it’s about letting your child run roughshod over you. They may believe that gentle parenting means not enforcing any rules, not disciplining or correcting your child, and always letting your child make the final decisions.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. Gentle parenting teaches your children to respect their parents and themselves by showing them respect as another human being.
Gentle partnering requires the same. It doesn’t mean that your partner is allowed to be abusive, or cruel, or that you have to parent them. Instead, it should be a relationship that works in both directions.
