{"id":457282,"date":"2026-04-28T04:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T04:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/457282\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T04:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T04:04:10","slug":"ive-been-a-counsellor-for-20-years-gentle-parenting-is-breeding-feral-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/457282\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve been a counsellor for 20 years \u2013 gentle parenting is breeding feral children"},"content":{"rendered":"

So many parents are coming to me for advice as they are at their wits\u2019 end. Their children are biting<\/a>, scratching, even punching them and throwing severe temper tantrums in public. They are finding it difficult to share. Alongside this, many nurseries are reporting issues with bad behaviour and violent outbursts<\/a>, from children as young as one or two.<\/p>\n

Perhaps even more worryingly, these are children who are not reaching their important milestones \u2013 toilet-training, being able to dress themselves, feeding themselves with a knife and fork and even being able to sit still for a length of time, which means that when they go to school this hinders their education. I am convinced that all this is because of what is known as \u201cgentle parenting<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve run a private counselling practice in the south of England for over 20 years, and I started to see issues with gentle parenting<\/a> about two to three years ago. But recently the movement has been gaining more traction.<\/p>\n

In many ways, the essential concept is a noble one. That children should be raised softly and kindly and the child\u2019s feelings are constantly taken into account. They will not hear raised voices and they will always be listened to.<\/p>\n

Which is all well and good, but in my view the concept is being taken way too far. The parents I meet who are gentle parenting seem to be consciously making decisions to steer away from any kind of boundary setting and make their children their equals<\/a> \u2013 rather than the parent being in charge.<\/p>\n

This means the child effectively \u201ccalls the shots\u201d, and their choices and desires are considered much more important. They do not hear the word \u201cNo\u201d. So, for example, if a child is biting their mother, instead of the mother saying, \u201cDon\u2019t do that, biting is wrong\u201d \u2013 they will say, \u201cIf you bite me this makes mummy very sad and hurts me. How does that make you feel? Do you think biting is a good idea?\u201d<\/p>\n

For a two-year-old, this kind of emotional decision-making is simply not viable. What happens is that the child thinks, \u201cThat got mummy\u2019s interest and now she is giving me lots of attention so I will do it again.\u201d Giving young children this kind of decision-making is overwhelming and confusing for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So many parents are coming to me for advice as they are at their wits\u2019 end. Their children…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[276],"tags":[3914,5606,99378,201258,18,135,19,17,167,502,5,201257,15697,201256,1702,46523],"class_list":["post-457282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-children","tag-childrens-health","tag-daily-features","tag-discover-file","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-news","tag-other-features","tag-parenthood","tag-pushy-parents","tag-standard","tag-top-story"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116480354853635629","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}