by Nominal Parenting
Gentle parenting, unschooling, potty learning, attachment parenting, and it goes on and on. There are a lot of new parenting techniques, and a lot of old parenting techniques with new names. We get bombarded on social media with strong messages of how some techniques are better for certain types of kids. Some of those posts are click bait to get you to buy a gadget, and some have real advice that could help you.
So, how do we decipher what is helpful and what is noise? One of my previous posts talks about doing a social media cleanse. I highly recommend you start there. Either take a break or go through the accounts you’re following and determine whether they increase or decrease your worries. Let’s break down some of the more popular techniques and see what we can take away from them.
Following the Spirit of the Law not the Letter of the Law
The way I have approached all these new methods is to understand what they are trying to conquer. There are plenty of instructions around each method and some proponents even give you scripts to follow. These can be great to get started, but these methods give examples of unrealistic scenarios.
- Gentle Parenting: This is the big one among millenial parents at the moment. The idea is that you are not only teaching your child how to behave, but also how to handle emotions. As many of us were not taught how to do this, it can quickly turn into permissive parenting. The big takeaway of gentle parenting is to NOT avoid the emotions of your child and specifically don’t dismiss their feelings. This seems like an admirable goal.
- Unschooling: This is the concept that a person doesn’t need to be in a formal schooling environment to learn everything they need to learn. You can do math, science, social studies, history, and English in whichever environment supports your child’s learning. While I agree that most parents should lean into their kids interests and there is plenty of research to support that there are many different ways to learn, the issue becomes when things start getting left out. There are extremes to all of these techniques, and this one can be particularly dangerous. Some take it too literally and wait for the child to lead certain topics. If you don’t introduce reading to your kid until they “show an interest” they may miss the window to learn how to read. This one can go sideways fast. The takeaway for me is to support your child’s learning styles and take advantage of their interests for topics that they struggle with.
- Potty Learning: The idea behind this one is that you let your child lead the potty training, and lean into their motivations. This is not what I’d call groundbreaking, and yet people find a way to make this one extreme too. The main goal is to eliminate the hard part of potty training by not starting with any incentives like M&Ms or stickers. As I have mentioned in previous posts before, you know your child and what will work. You don’t need to take a roundabout way to potty train. Throw this one out if you don’t want to prioritize perfecting potty training.
- Baby Led Weaning: Just like it sounds this one is also a baby or child led approach. This method skips the purees and goes straight to solid foods. So you skip the spoon feeding and purees and put food (appropriately cut) in front of the baby and let them go for it. The big reason this has become popular is because it allegedly fosters independence, increases motor skills, and teaches your baby to listen to their body. I don’t know how credible those claims are, and it doesn’t seem to get your kid eating faster. It doesn’t avoid the picky eating phase, and your child can learn independence and intuitive eating in other ways. I have found this one is blown out of proportion and unnecessarily divisive.
Am I missing a popular parenting technique? Do you feel they help or hurt when it comes to your kids? Comment below to share with the community!
Want more? Subscribe and get a FREE .PDF with a list of ideas you can try from the “How to Become a Fun Parent” Blog Post!