Parenting Coach Perspective: The Difference Between Gentle Parenting, Conscious Parenting, and Positive Parenting?
I’m here for it. These videos make me laugh and maintain a sense of humility and irreverence in my work.
While funny, the videos trade in misunderstandings. In my parenting courses, I’m often asked what it means to engage in Positive Parenting, Gentle Parenting, or Conscious Parenting. Today, I’ll explain these terms.
First, all these approaches are responses against Authoritarian Parenting (AP). In the AP approach, the adult makes decisions and gives directions, and the child does what the adult says. The goals are compliance and calm,. Power moves in one direction. When the child does not comply, the adult enforces the power structure with threatening, punishing, and shame. AP is quite effective if compliance is the main goal. If you overpower your kid, the challenging behavior will probably stop. However, you’ll be doing a crappy job of helping your kid to develop behavioral skills.
Behavioral skills are a complex set of competencies that include things such as intrinsic motivation, transition from one activity to another, remembering and executing multiple directions (very hard for neurodiverse kids), stopping something that is engaging, and starting something that you don’t want to do. Think about it. How many of these have tripped you up today… and you’re a grown-ass-person! An AP approach motivates through fear. When we are afraid, we don’t learn. Our lizard brain takes over and our rational brain shuts down. Have you ever been triggered and then afterward you are telling someone what happened and you can’t remember the details? That’s because your prefrontal lobe went offline and your memory-making was impaired.
Here’s an example of an Authoritarian Response.
Your six year old is playing with Legos. She gets to a place where she doesn’t understand the instructions and starts to get upset. She asks you for help. You tell her you are busy and can’t help. She groans and you ignore her. Finally she screams, “I HATE THIS! IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!” And throws the Legos across the room.
Authoritarian Response
Parent: “If you can’t treat your toys nicely then you can’t play with them! Pick them up NOW!”
Child: “NO! I hate this!”
Parent: “FINE then you don’t deserve to have Legos.” Parent grabs Legos and marches away with them.
Child: Screams and Cries
Parent: “STOP CRYING RIGHT NOW! YOU CREATED THIS SITUATION! If I hear you scream one more time, I’m going to throw these Legos away!”
If this approach sounds familiar, it’s because many of us were raised with this approach at least some of the time. Many of us, including me, react like this sometimes when we are upset with our kids.
Which brings us to Positive Parenting. Instead of focusing on berating negative behaviors, this philosophy emphasizes teaching behavioral skills. Kids can learn skills when they feel connected, important, and calm. Advocates of Positive Parenting spend much of their parenting time staying connected with their kids, finding joy through play, and helping their kids learn skills to manage tough situations. I use an adapted version of Positive Parenting in my parenting courses.
The goals are maintaining connection and building the child’s sense of power and efficacy. Power is held by the caregiver and child with clear boundaries and respect. When the child cannot follow directions, the adult uses tools to build behavior skills in positive ways.
Let’s look at the same scenario from a different perspective.
Positive Parenting Response
Parent: “Whoa, you just threw your Lego. I can see you are VERY UPSET.” Parent goes quickly to the child and gets at eye level. Parent holds the child's hands. “I can’t let you throw Legos because you might hurt someone. Are you frustrated?”
Child: “YES!”
Parent: “No screaming. Use your calm, powerful voice. Why are you frustrated?”
Child: “Because this Lego set doesn’t work and you won’t even help me.”
Parent: “Got it. That IS frustrating. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you when you wanted it. Let’s take a break from the Legos. When we are calm we can go figure it out. Do you want to calm down with me, or do you want space?”
Child:...
Parent: “Well, I’m going to stay with you, unless you tell me you want space. How about we play with this other toy for a little bit.”
10 mins later
Parent: “Are you feeling better? Should we see what’s going on with those Legos?”
Child: Nods
Parent: “Great! Before we do that, let’s talk about what to do if you are frustrated. If you get frustrated again, what can you do to express your frustration without screaming or throwing things?”
The first thing you may notice is the Positive Parenting approach is much more challenging. The caregiver needs to stay calm, be present, and carefully monitor the needs of the kiddo. This is HARD WORK. This is why support such as parenting workshops can be helpful in maintaining a Positive Parenting focus. A huge benefit is that you don’t have a dysregulated child or adult, and you save time and energy that would be spent doing emotional cleanup. The real benefits are the lessons the adult is teaching the child:
Your feelings matter to me.
Your emotions are real and will not upset me.
All emotions are valid. Not all behaviors are appropriate.
I can stay calm in tough situations. I will teach you how to do this.
People are more important than things or situations.
Problems are solvable.
We can practice and prepare for frustrating times.
Positive Parenting isn’t permissive. The adult asserts and holds clear boundaries including preventing the child from throwing another Lego. When the child is calm, the caregiver offers suggestions and lessons for the future.
Okay, so then what are the differences between Positive Parenting, Gentle Parenting, and Conscious Parenting? In my experience, there are more similarities than differences, and the terms are used interchangeably. Some nuance:
Gentle Parenting often focuses on the scripts and tools that parents use to get their kids to behave productively without yelling. These tools can be very effective. They are also easy to mock on social media. Here’s another good one.
Conscious Parenting centers on parents staying untriggered and present for tough moments. This is critical for me - my journey to support my kids required me to lean into the sisyphean work of controlling my reactions and healing my wounds. This work still challenges me.
Positive Parenting is grounded in the theories of Alfred Adler, a student of Freud, who taught that all human beings seek belonging and significance. When children behave in inappropriate ways, we look to fill their belonging and significance buckets, then teach them behavioral skills. Positive Parenting is my preferred term, mostly because I don’t feel very gentle, and Conscious sounds a little woo woo for my taste. But I ain’t mad at either term.
All these approaches focus on caregivers staying calm and thoughtful, working on adult-kid connection, building skills, and deemphasizing threat, shame, and punishment.
Want to see Positive Parenting working in a real life crisis? Check out this video!
In the April 1st Morning Cup of Calm, we’ll look at the limitations of Positive Parenting and the role of consequences.
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Paul Tough is my second favorite journalist. On the surface, this essay is about his son learning Russian. Below that surface, it’s about fatherhood, worry, aging, the dance of understanding and not understanding our kids, and so much more.
where we’ve been
Thank you, Support for Families of Children with Disabilities for inviting me to be the keynote speaker at your conference. As a member of this community, it was a delight to connect with so many people. Here’s a snippet of my talk. If you are parenting a kid with a disability, make sure to check out their resources.
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Ed Center, the founder of The Village Well, is a parenting coach and educator certified in the Triple P method. The Village Well is a community of parents in BIPOC families, focused on attaining more joy, calm, and meaning in family life. We coach parents to prioritize their own healing and wellness, deepen connections with their kids, and learn tools to support better behavior. Services include Parenting workshops, Parenting courses, and community events. Our support is culturally-grounded support and honors your unique family. Ready to stop yelling? Schedule a free consultation with one of our team members.
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