Little troublemakers? Get out!
Crayon graffiti, animal abuse, garden destruction and vandalism are just some of the crimes committed against children by a woman’s niece and nephew, “well-behaved parents” she eventually banished from her home.
“Am I an idiot who tells my sister that gentle parenting is bullshit and kicks her and her family out of my house?” one anonymous, no-nonsense aunt asked in a trending statement on Reddit.
“I had never heard of this before she came to live with us, because I guess I don’t know anymore since my children are grown up now,” added the woman, whose younger sister’s daughter and son, aged 3 and 5 respectively, terrorized her household for two days.
“I have seen gentle parents in action,” she moaned, “and I was appalled.”
A relatively new approach to child rearing, gentle parenting, sees modern mums and dads sparing the rod and avoiding harsh punishment in favour of instead supporting their child’s sense of self-awareness through positive reinforcement.
Venting her frustrations in a viral Reddit post, the agitated aunt explained that her sister and brother-in-law had exercised “no discipline” as their offspring ran wild during what should have been a week-long visit.
“During the first two days of their stay, his daughter drew on my walls with colored pencils,” the disgruntled woman said. “And his son pulled up flowers I had recently planted in my garden and threw a rock at my car parked in the driveway.”
“To top it all off,” she continued, “they kept pulling my golden retriever’s hair and hitting my dog in the face.”
But when she tried to stop the children from destroying her house and harming her pet, the kind mother simply excused their reckless behavior.
“She said what her children were doing didn’t deserve what I would call discipline,” the woman recalled. “Every time she would ask them, ‘How do you feel about doing this?’ And that was it.”
Before judging his niece and nephew unwanted peopleThe furious owner severely reprimanded her little sister.
“I told her that this gentle upbringing would cause her children a very difficult life and a rude awakening one day, probably even a prison sentence,” the indignant older sister recalls.
“She snapped back and really lost it when I said, ‘This soft-spoken, hippie parenting bullshit is a scam and will ruin your kids’ lives,’” she said, “which I regret now, but it escalated at the time.”
“Now she won’t talk to me anymore,” the woman laments, “and our mother says I was wrong to kick them out when they had planned to stay longer.”
However, Reddit readers were firmly on the woman’s side.
“I’m tired of seeing permissive parents refer to their parenting style as ‘gentle parenting,’” one supporter complained. “Gentle parenting is about communication and realistic consequences, not being lazy and letting your kids mess up.”
“Life is not sweet,” said another. “It kicks you in the head, spits you out, then laughs at you and tells you to go back to work.”
“These children collapse as soon as an unfortunate situation occurs, and that’s a shame. They never develop coping skills,” the commentator continued.
However, proponents of this cutting-edge practice insist that gentle parenting doesn’t always mean a rude awakening.
“I have been very gentle with my children and they have always received appropriate discipline when necessary,” wrote one anonymous mother. “As adults, they are well-mannered, kind (and) caring.”
The philosophy of “gentle parenting” includes four main elements: empathy, respect, understanding and boundaries, according to parenting center Verywellfamily.com.
“It’s about developing the qualities you want in your child by being compassionate and setting consistent limits,” the site’s experts explain. “It’s about understanding how a child is feeling in a given moment and responding accordingly in a way that’s beneficial to their emotional well-being.”
Rather than taking disciplinary action—such as imposing a time-out or demanding an apology—gentle parents often leave behavior correction up to the child’s discretion.
Unsurprisingly, traditionalists are not very keen on this controversial concept.
Critics of the method have accused mother Sabriena Abrre, of Vancouver, Canada, of “child abuse” for allowing her 4-year-old to “scream bloody murder” under her nose without consequence.
Another mom in the movement took to social media to say that the passive parenting style had led her to become “an emotional punching bag” for her toddler.
“I’ve been pregnant for four years now,” the mentally exhausted mother told an online community. “I feel so exhausted.”