Psychology professor’s research offers first look at popular ‘gentle parenting’ movement

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 “experts” have fueled the rise of “gentle parenting,” 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 “no”? How does it differ from other parenting styles? And is it good for both kids and parents?

To find out, Psychology Professor Annie Pezalla 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 study, published in PLOS One, represents the first systematic investigation of what gentle parenting means. 

What is gentle parenting? 

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.

Where did this approach come from? 

Gentle parenting is a backlash against older, traditional hierarchical parenting that was more discipline-heavy, with approaches like “because I told you so” and “because I’m your parent.” The gentle parenting movement is a 180-degree pivot away from that, with parents wanting a more democratic style — one that puts the parent on an even keel with the child. That’s a huge shift. Parents have said, “I don’t want to do that [how I was raised] anymore—I want to be better.” That’s evident in our current dataset.

There is a sense of existential despair among many parents these days. We’ve faced economic crises, climate crises, health challenges, and isolation from the pandemic, where we couldn’t be with our “tribes.” That sense of despair seems to usher in more permissive-leaning parenting. Parents are essentially saying, “If our world is going up in flames, I’m not going to discipline my kid for throwing a tantrum over a toy they can’t have at Target.” With the rise of “parenting experts” 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.  

Why did you and your colleague, Professor Alice Davidson at Rollins College, decide to research this topic?  

We both read this wonderful book by Jonathan Haidt called “The Coddling of the American Mind.” 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.

Is there much research out there already on this style of parenting? 

No, none at all. There’s one British author, Sarah Ockwell-Smith, who coined the term “gentle parenting.” 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 “way of being.” 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’re not doing very well.

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’re concerned they are burning themselves out, and we have no evidence to suggest it’s 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’re telling us.

What are the top-line takeaways from this research? 

These gentle parents are A+ in many ways. They’re high achievers, and many rate high in parenting perfectionism. They want everything “just so.” They demonstrate laudable qualities, at least on paper, that parenting researchers celebrate. 

There’s 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 “cool mom” from Mean Girls. Neglectful parents are low on both axes. Strict, “tiger mom” parents are high on discipline but low on warmth. Baumrind highlighted authoritative parents—high in both discipline and warmth—as the best, and our gentle parents fit this category. So, in many ways, you think, “Bravo! You’re doing all the right things.”

Yet, our qualitative data show a different story. When we asked these parents how they’re doing, we got poignant, troubling responses, like “I’m hanging on for dear life,” “I have no idea what I’m doing,” or just “ahhhhhhh!!!” Many of them are on the razor’s edge. A major takeaway is that these parents are doing great but are at risk of burnout, as indicated by our data. 

Another interesting finding is that these parents frequently mention “boundaries,” saying they show their children affection but they “also keep boundaries.” Yet, when we ask what that means, it’s completely varied. This is something we’re exploring further. It seems like a popular buzzword, “boundaries,” but nobody is holding boundaries in a uniform way. 

If you could offer a single recommendation to parents of young children, what would it be?

Go easy on yourself. I think parents often underestimate their kids’ 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.

What’s next in this line of research for you and Alice? 

We’re going to continue gathering data, including internationally. We’ve made contacts in Australia, New Zealand, India, and Canada, where folks have asked to collaborate. We’re curious to see if gentle parenting is just an American phenomenon or if it’s seen all around the world. We also want to collect observational data. So far, we’ve relied on self-reports from parents, which is a good first step, but we’d love to see how parents interact with their kids in real life. We’re aiming for longitudinal data as well—currently, we’re on wave two with last year’s sample. And we want to hear from more dads. We’re analyzing a sample of diverse dads at the moment, and the findings are fascinating.