With 4 kids at age 10 and under, I’m up for any parenting strategy that might save my sanity. Currently, I’m considering giving my kids 10 “daddy dollars” every morning and every time they ask me a question, they have to pay me a dollar. While this means I would have to answer forty questions every day, I’m pretty sure that’s a significant reduction from the six million, two-hundred forty-thousand, six hundred and twenty-three questions I currently answer. It is in our nature to look for strategies and techniques to help us lasso the whirlwind of family life.
Many parenting books, seminars, and strategies exists to help parents, so we’re going to take a look at two parenting paradigms that are on opposite ends of the spectrum: gentle parenting vs tough love. Both terms are vague enough to include extremes, but at their core, one emphasizes gentleness and one emphasizes toughness. Both are wrong, and I’ll tell you why.
Parenting is hard and the stakes are high. We were all raised by imperfect parents and there are some – maybe even many – among us who carry some significant scars from our childhoods. We also live in a therapeutic age when human flourishing is often measured with only one criteria – self-actualization (or perhaps one of its less clinical sounding synonyms like “happiness” or “self-esteem”). “Gentle parenting” fits into this therapeutic climate perfectly by – well, see for yourself in the quote below:
It doesn’t even have an official name—“gentle parenting” is a catchall for variations that include “respectful parenting,” “mindful parenting,” and “intentional parenting.” In its broadest outlines, gentle parenting centers on acknowledging a child’s feelings and the motivations behind challenging behavior, as opposed to correcting the behavior itself. The gentle parent holds firm boundaries, gives a child choices instead of orders, and eschews rewards, punishments, and threats—no sticker charts, no time-outs, no “I will turn this car around right now.” Instead of issuing commands (“Put on your shoes!”), the parent strives to understand why a child is acting out in the first place (“What’s up, honey? You don’t want to put your shoes on?”) or, perhaps, narrates the problem (“You’re playing with your trains because putting on shoes doesn’t feel good”). (Jessica Winters, the New Yorker March 23, 2022)
On the opposite spectrum is “tough love”.
Tough love parenting involves harsh or stern measures meant to help the child in the long run. Stringent rules and tough discipline characterize it. On some occasions, it strongly resembles authoritarian parenting. (Roselia Shi, Parenting Science.Today)
What do these strategies offer?
I don’t want to shout at my kids. I don’t want my household to be a place of threats. I want to raise children who want to have a relationship with me when they become adults. I want to be able to have real conversations with my kids about their fears and affections, their motives and their desires. Because “gentle parenting” focuses on inward motivation, it can be appealing to Christian parents who want to draw out the inner man.
I want children who can follow instructions without asking “why”. I want my children to be able to not just withstand criticism, but learn from it. I want kids who can face adversity without quitting. Because “tough love” focuses on observing right behavior (particularly in the face of adversity), it can be appealing to Christian parents.
Why do they fall short?
Gentle parenting clearly has some downsides. We (as a nation) are not raising emotionally mature children who know how to cope with difficulties and hardship. Hard working young men and women who are cheerful in the face of adversity and don’t spend their time whining and blame-shifting are not exactly abundant. The truth of this statement can be verified by every potential employer that I know.
But toughness can be overdone, and not every parent is capable of knowing where to draw that line. High standards can be good, but they can be emblems of a mom or dad’s personal desires and ambitions, whether that means raising a son to be the baseball player you always wanted to be or having the picture perfect family at church on Sunday morning. When “tough” love starts to look eerily similar to an unfeeling, detached authoritarianism, caution is warranted.
Generally speaking, we recognize when vices have become tyrannical. We know the difference between an occasional second (or third) trip to the buffet and a glutton. We know the difference between a Saturday afternoon on the couch and being a sluggard. We know when vices become tyrannical, but we don’t recognize when virtues become tyrannical, and we are living in a world of virtues gone wild. When “gentleness” or “tough love” become the highest goal of parenting, it becomes a sort of god (or idol). Proponents of either system of parenting may sacrifice common sense itself to the god of their system.
For example, one subset of “gentle parents” refuse to tell their children “no”, opting instead to only offer choices. This might result in a child who cannot control his desires, but is compelled to gratify an alternate desire instead of learning self-control. Additionally, it could result in a child who is unable to recognize absolute moral restrictions, such as “thou shalt not steal”. Another potential outcome of this could be a refusal to honor legitimate authority, like a teacher in a classroom or a policeman on the street.
One subset of “tough love” parents refuses to ever give an explanation. For any instruction. This might leave a child with the belief that all rules are arbitrary, based solely on power. Another potential outcome could be a child who resents the value system that is being enforced (arbitrarily, to her perception). This has some explanatory power regarding kids who grow up in Christian homes but leave their family/faith as quickly as possible.
In both examples above, a virtue that should be a sergeant in the parenting army is acting like a 5 star general. Neither virtue, on its own, is sufficient, Parents have the terribly difficult job of raising moral agents who require gentleness and discipline, among many other things. Think of all the complex steps it requires to build a car and then imagine trying to accomplish that task with only a screwdriver. Now consider the immeasurably more complex task of raising a child with only “gentleness” or “tough love” in your toolbox.
Consider the scenario of a 12 year old returning home from school, slamming the door, and yelling at her siblings as she shoves her way into the house. The gentle parent is going to default to gentleness and the tough parent is going to default to discipline. The wise parent isn’t going to default to either, but is going to determine what course of action to take based on knowledge of her daughter and the context of the situation. For example, is this a new behavior, or is this something that has been addressed multiple times before? Is this behavior generally uncharacteristic of this child? Have there been circumstantial changes that are weighing on the child? At the end of the day, the behavior does need addressed, but whether it will be addressed with an immediate “We have discussed this before and since you continue to behave like this, there will be no screen time for the next three days” or a gentler start such as “I can tell you are upset, can you tell me what’s going on?” is the question.
This willingness to respond to the individual person in his context is reflected in God’s complex relationship with His children. Just think about the difference between God’s firm discipline of Moses’s single act of disobedience compared to His tender and patient restoration of Elijah. Or to see it in a single individual, consider the different episodes of praise/criticism or rebuke/restoration in Jesus’ relationship with Peter.
If your goal is to raise a child to love God and love others, then you will need every tool in the toolbox. You will need to know when to be tough and when to be gentle. You will need to know when to be patient and when to be imperious. Sometimes, you’ll get it wrong, and sometimes you’ll get it right. Sometimes you will heal wounds and sometimes you will cause scars. Some days you will be the bad guy because you are a good parent, and other days you will be a bad parent because you were the nice guy.
Conclusion
Rather than opting for “gentle parenting” or “tough love”, parents need to address both inner man issues (desires, motivations, affections, and emotions) as well as outer man issues (behavior and habits) with instruction, affirmation, honor, rebuke, discipline, rewards, and punishments that are appropriate to the child and his context. While all of us tend toward one or the other (which is why 2 parent, male/female parenting is optimal), we should not consciously conform our proactive and reactive parenting towards one or the other. Instead, we should strive for wisdom. With that in mind, here are a few questions to ask yourself:
For the parent who leans towards addressing the inner man (motives and desires): Have I trained my children to obey instructions, or does every instruction devolve into a conversation? Do I ever push or stretch my children to achieve a goal? Is sympathy my default response to every problem my children bring to me? Do my children respect authority at home, in the classroom, and in public settings?
For the parent who leans towards addressing the outer man: Have you given your children reasons and motivation to love instruction? Do you ever listen to your children without offering correction? Do you make obedience a condition of love? Do you have any understanding of your children’s dreams, desires, and motivation, or do you simply want them to obey?
Nathan Writes 