Please read this before you criticize kind and gentle parenting

January 15, 2020 Donald Owsley

Please read this before you criticize gentle parenting.

Nearly everyone has an opinion about how to raise a child. Regardless of the reasons, people will give advice or criticize other parents for how they parent. It is safe to say that people have formed their ideas from their upbringing and the experiences in their family traditions, dating back several generations. However, does one’s perspective justify condemning others for parenting in a different way? Even if one’s view is based on the old traditional and so-called biblical way?

IS TRADITIONAL PARENTING THE IDEAL?

All parents have their views on how to raise children. Some can be quite certain their view is right. In Christian subcultures, parents tend to be somewhat dogmatic about how mothers and fathers should treat and train their children. This is very much the case with patriarchal and authoritarian groups. Many have attended seminars or read one or more of the dozens of books written by popular parenting gurus who claim their philosophy and methods are rooted in the Bible and therefore mandated by God. Yet, is this true? Of the nearly thirty popular books I read during those years of raising our two children, the advice was nothing more than strong opinions based on Western cultural traditions. One can trace the more popular traditions back to the Victorian and Edwardian era, and some even date back to the 1600s. Add a smattering of Bible verses as proof texts, and you have a baptized version of an old-world culture.

SOUNDS GREAT UNTIL…

During the early years of raising our children, I found the books resonating with me because they validated my ideas about parenting. It all sounded great until they did not prove true or did not “work” in the ways promised. You see, working hard to apply those “biblical” ideas to our adopted child made our family dynamics and relationships much, much worse. In most of the seminars and books on “biblical” parenting, there are promises made, such as: if you train this way, then your child will become godly. If you spank the right way, then your child will respect you and become very obedient. If you apply all these specific “biblical” methods, then your family will be richly blessed. In the end, if you believe and do what God supposedly tells you to do, then your child will turn into a good, moral Christian. It all sounds great until you discover bad ideas and false interpretations of the Bible are at the core.

In the middle of working harder to parent God’s way with our second child, the counsel we received by a biblical counselor who promoted most of those popular Christian books, was the last straw for us. You can read our story here. Our viewpoint transformed into something almost the opposite of how we parented the previous twenty years.

NEVER QUESTION TRADITIONAL PARENTING?

When we began to question traditional, “biblical” parenting, there were several people who scolded us. People in the homeschool group, the Christian school, our church, and even some family members told us we were not doing it right. In fact, we still get scolded. They said we needed to spank more and harder. Years ago, one conference speaker personally admonished us to spank hard until the crying stopped. To cry meant our child was rebelling! We were to add more restrictions with harsher consequences. It was imperative our child obey immediately, completely, and without questioning. Some even said the whole point of parenting is to make children afraid of going to hell by making life hell for them. But none of that “worked.” None of it resolved the behavioral challenges or the worsening relationship we had with our child. None of that led her to Jesus or turned her into a godly Christian.

That’s when we began to question where all these “biblical” ideas came from. We did not see all these rules and ideas in the Bible. Like many Christians, we believed questioning traditional parenting was akin to questioning God and biblical orthodoxy. I was astonished that so many people believed questioning traditional parenting was heretical. They were dogmatically right, and we were pronounced wrong, even evil. Why people hold tightly to certain beliefs is a human thing, and there are many reasons for that. You can read about that in this article.

There are many legitimate reasons to question Christian parenting traditions. For one, so much of our contemporary views find their root in Victorian and Edwardian’s rigid and controlling philosophy. That tradition is grounded in the Western culture dating back hundreds of years before. Ironically, many who adopt the old traditional paradigm do so because they do not want to be worldly and want their children to avoid worldliness. Yet, nearly all of the main concepts from which they operate are grounded in old, worldly concepts and customs dating back to the early 1600s.

There are also many valid reasons to reject their misapplication of the Bible. Taking a few verses from Deuteronomy, a dozen or so passages from Proverbs and a handful of verses from the New Testament to support an authoritarian and punitive tradition is hardly good scholarship. In fact, I was stunned to learn it’s the same technique cults use.

For example, look at the problem of mishandling Proverbs (see my articles here, here, here, and here), where verses like Proverbs 22:6 are taken out of context and misused. To understand this further, check out How to Study Proverbs. One other negative of this common school of parenting is it is rooted in the Old Testament Law with a focus on sin but little to no reference to Christ’s new covenant life. To dig deeper, read Corporal Punishment in the Bible by William Webb, Thy Rod and Thy Staff, They Comfort Me (Hard Copy) by Samuel Martin, and The Child in the Bible by Marcia J. Bunge (editor).

I’m not saying all Christian traditionalists are harsh. Some parents have an authoritative style, so they are kinder in their approach. Nevertheless, much of what Christian traditionalists believe is rooted in the same dogma as the authoritarian advocates.

So, before someone criticizes another’s different parenting approach because it does not fit the traditional model, it is intellectually honest and wise to investigate how legitimate that model is. What is it based on? Where did it come from? Is it truly biblical?

THE NEW PARADIGM

Our switch from Western traditionalist parenting was not easy. Immersed in a conservative Christian culture and strongly influenced by the churches and homeschool communities we were in, we simply did not know anything else. Nor was there any reason for us to question the grandmasters of the Christian parenting movement. They said it. We believed it. That settled it.

Applying a kinder version of the Christian traditionalist style to our first, very compliant and calm child contributed to our arrogance. As we were taught, our first child was the ideal child because we were ideal parents doing the right things the right way. But then our world was turned upside down. As I’ve already said, nothing of the traditional parenting style “worked” with our second child. You can read our story here.

After ten hard years, things came to a severe crisis for our family. Out of necessity, we had to seek other counselors and professionals. What they presented helped explain the reasons why our special needs child was different and why traditional parenting was making things very bad. Sin and rebellion could not explain our child’s thinking and behaviors and spanking did not turn her into a good Christian girl.

The first thing to happen was we were humbled. We could no longer assume we knew it all or had the exact answers for parenting, and certainly had no grounds to pat ourselves on our backs while condemning other parents for failing to be “biblical” like us. The second thing we did was to err on the side of mercy and grace rather than insist on law and order with commands and punishment. We took our cue from Jesus’ approach to discipling his “children” (what he called his disciples). The third thing we did was to become students again. We learned new ideas about a child’s natural development, which includes neuroscience and the formation of the brain. We studied the impact of trauma and neglect on infants and children, came to understand that all behavior is a form of communication and rarely a sign of wickedness. We learned how remaining calm with the child helps him calm down and learn to soothe himself. And most importantly, we discovered how the connection with children is far more critical than correction. As some say, you connect first before you correct.

This new paradigm comes out of the extensive research done over the past fifty years on child development and attachment, and on more recent studies of the developing brain. The results of the research produced what is known as positive parenting.

Shortly after that emerged what seems to be a rather spontaneous movement in Christian circles. Parents like us who formerly held to traditional and so-called “only” biblical ideas began to question what the Christian parenting experts promoted. Different than the old school, this philosophy has various names: grace-based parenting, whole-child parenting, wise parenting, kind parenting, and perhaps the most popular gentle parenting. You can also read about it here.

Gentle or kind parenting is still authoritative in that parents set boundaries, but it is not punitive. Connection before correction is a mantra, which means caregivers need to understand and tune into the developmental level of their child and connect with them in a caring, gentle manner. From that position flow the instructions and admonitions. This parenting model starts with the child as made in the image of God rather than the child as a sinner. In other words, respecting is far better than rejecting. It is a way to understand the soul and not about focusing on behaviors, looking at the long haul formation and not on the immediate results. It is about influencing the child, just like effective leaders do, and not about controlling the child (which is a myth).

Gentle parenting aims to help the child develop intrinsically motivated self-discipline and respect in contrast with extrinsically motivated obedience. Indeed, many of us would say this new paradigm is far more biblical because it’s informed by both the Old and New Testaments but flows out of life rooted in Christ’s Good News and living in union with Christ as Christian parents raising their children.

So, rather than criticize those who have adopted this researched-based and Gospel-informed paradigm for parenting, question your own presuppositions. Don’t reject the newer paradigm for parenting until you understand it. It’s intellectually dishonest to set up gentle parenting as a straw man you can proudly chop up to support your ideas. The better way is to first understand by learning the truth of this different parenting philosophy before critiquing or criticizing it. A great place to start is by reading any of the books below. I suggest you read the following books first: