{"id":26211,"date":"2024-10-16T18:46:21","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T18:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=26211"},"modified":"2026-03-17T20:38:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T20:38:46","slug":"psychology-professors-research-offers-first-look-at-popular-gentle-parenting-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2024\/10\/psychology-professors-research-offers-first-look-at-popular-gentle-parenting-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychology professor\u2019s research offers first look at popular \u2018gentle parenting\u2019 movement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Psychology<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Raising young children has always been hard, but evidence suggests that it may be getting harder. The isolation of the pandemic, the pressures to live up to demanding parenting standards, and a flood of advice from social media \u201cexperts\u201d have fueled the rise of \u201cgentle parenting,\u201d which moves away from discipline-heavy methods and promises happier, healthier kids. Despite its popularity, there has been no empirical research about what gentle parenting actually means. Is it about not yelling? No punishment? Not saying \u201cno\u201d? How does it differ from other parenting styles? And is it good for both kids and parents?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To find out, Psychology Professor <\/span>Annie Pezalla<\/span><\/a> teamed up with Professor Alice Davidson from Rollins College. They gathered data from over 100 parents across the country with at least one child between the ages of 2 and 7. Their <\/span>study<\/span><\/a>, published in <\/span>PLOS One<\/span><\/i>, represents the first systematic investigation of what gentle parenting means. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is gentle parenting? <\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gentle parenting is a relatively new approach that seems distinct in a couple of ways. From our research on self-identifying gentle parents, we found it focuses on three main things: parents regulating their own emotions, like staying calm at all times; helping their kids identify and manage their emotions; and a strong emphasis on both physical and emotional affection.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where did this approach come from? <\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gentle parenting is a backlash against older, traditional hierarchical parenting that was more discipline-heavy, with approaches like \u201cbecause I told you so\u201d and \u201cbecause I\u2019m your parent.\u201d The gentle parenting movement is a 180-degree pivot away from that, with parents wanting a more democratic style \u2014 one that puts the parent on an even keel with the child. That\u2019s a huge shift. Parents have said, \u201cI don’t want to do that [how I was raised] anymore\u2014I want to be better.\u201d That\u2019s evident in our current dataset.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a sense of existential despair among many parents these days. We\u2019ve faced economic crises, climate crises, health challenges, and isolation from the pandemic, where we couldn\u2019t be with our \u201ctribes.\u201d That sense of despair seems to usher in more permissive-leaning parenting. Parents are essentially saying, \u201cIf our world is going up in flames, I\u2019m not going to discipline my kid for throwing a tantrum over a toy they can\u2019t have at Target.\u201d With the rise of \u201cparenting experts\u201d on social media offering guidance on gentle parenting, those parents are instructed to help their child identify the feelings of the tantrum and offer a hug.  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did you and your colleague, Professor Alice Davidson at Rollins College, decide to research this topic?  <\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We both read this wonderful book by Jonathan Haidt called \u201cThe Coddling of the American Mind.\u201d He discusses how parents seem to be overprotecting their children from a lot of the normative bumps and bruises of growing up. Alice and I wondered if this gentle parenting movement connected to his assessments about how kids are being raised today. It seemed like the gentle parenting movement might be the onset of this particular way of raising children.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there much research out there already on this style of parenting? <\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

No, none at all. There\u2019s one British author, Sarah Ockwell-Smith, who coined the term \u201cgentle parenting.\u201d She has an undergraduate degree in psychology but no further training. Despite writing over a dozen books on the topic, she has never studied it systematically or defined it clearly. She calls it a \u201cway of being.\u201d When Alice and I read her work, we realized we needed to figure out what gentle parenting really means. How do self-identified gentle parents define and live out this approach? Our research showed they\u2019re not doing very well.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developmental psychology tends to focus on kids, but we wanted to know how the parents are doing. Gentle parenting feels aspirational and cerebral. These are A+ parents doing so much earnest work to try to do right by their kids, but we\u2019re concerned they are burning themselves out, and we have no evidence to suggest it\u2019s particularly adaptive to their kids, either (we have plans for some longitudinal work with our current sample). Gentle parenting is an exorbitant amount of work, at least according to what they\u2019re telling us.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the top-line takeaways from this research? <\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These gentle parents are A+ in many ways. They\u2019re high achievers, and many rate high in parenting perfectionism. They want everything \u201cjust so.\u201d They demonstrate laudable qualities, at least on paper, that parenting researchers celebrate. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a classic parenting researcher, Diana Baumrind from Stanford. She created a matrix of parenting styles with two axes: one for discipline and one for warmth. This results in four categories. Permissive parents are high on warmth and low on discipline, like the \u201ccool mom\u201d from Mean Girls. Neglectful parents are low on both axes. Strict, \u201ctiger mom\u201d parents are high on discipline but low on warmth. Baumrind highlighted authoritative parents\u2014high in both discipline and warmth\u2014as the best, and our gentle parents fit this category. So, in many ways, you think, \u201cBravo! You\u2019re doing all the right things.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, our qualitative data show a different story. When we asked these parents how they\u2019re doing, we got poignant, troubling responses, like \u201cI’m hanging on for dear life,\u201d \u201cI have no idea what I\u2019m doing,\u201d or just \u201cahhhhhhh!!!\u201d Many of them are on the razor\u2019s edge. A major takeaway is that these parents are doing great but are at risk of burnout, as indicated by our data. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another interesting finding is that these parents frequently mention \u201cboundaries,\u201d saying they show their children affection but they \u201calso keep boundaries.\u201d Yet, when we ask what that means, it\u2019s completely varied. This is something we\u2019re exploring further. It seems like a popular buzzword, \u201cboundaries,\u201d but nobody is holding boundaries in a uniform way. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you could offer a single recommendation to parents of young children, what would it be?<\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Go easy on yourself. I think parents often underestimate their kids\u2019 resilience. Parents do so much with the best intentions, yet ironically, they may be doing a disservice with all the lavish care and heady, cerebral talk that they do with their kids. The gentle parenting approach might be underserving their kids while also exhausting themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s next in this line of research for you and Alice? <\/b><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re going to continue gathering data, including internationally. We\u2019ve made contacts in Australia, New Zealand, India, and Canada, where folks have asked to collaborate. We\u2019re curious to see if gentle parenting is just an American phenomenon or if it\u2019s seen all around the world. We also want to collect observational data. So far, we\u2019ve relied on self-reports from parents, which is a good first step, but we\u2019d love to see how parents interact with their kids in real life. We\u2019re aiming for longitudinal data as well\u2014currently, we\u2019re on wave two with last year\u2019s sample. And we want to hear from more dads. We\u2019re analyzing a sample of diverse dads at the moment, and the findings are fascinating. <\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psychology Professor Annie Pezalla teams up with Professor Alice Davidson from Rollins College for a study on gentle parenting.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":881,"featured_media":26213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-26211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","tag-psychology","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/881"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26211"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31737,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26211\/revisions\/31737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}