gentle parenting your toddler: 6 great tips on gentle parenting

Deciding on the specific parenting style to use when bringing up your children is not an easy task for parents. Sometimes, you will find that the parenting style you choose can be influenced by your experiences when growing up. In some instances, you may want to imitate the unique strengths that your parents modeled. In some instances, individuals may want to use their childhood experiences to blueprint what to avoid when choosing a specific parenting style.

Gentle parenting is an approach that has been chosen by several parents today. It mostly encourages you to partner with your child to make choices based on internal willingness and not external pressures. It doesn’t need to follow a strict set of rules, but rather encourage compassion and accept the child as a whole.

What Is Gentle Parenting?

Gentle parenting can be defined as a peaceful and positive approach to parenting. It is characterized by empathy, understanding, boundaries, and respect. It is a type of parenting that promotes a relationship with your child based on willingness and choices, and not demands or rules that you have made as a parent. The good thing about gentle parenting is that you teach your children what they ought to do by using positivity and patience and not fear and management.

How to Gently Parent Your Toddler

Understand Your Toddler

The main objective of gentle parenting is to teach children three main things: understanding, respect, and empathy. Children behave differently, and they need parents that are willing to understand why they are acting the way they are. For example, are there specific things that trigger their anger? Does your child do well in group settings, or does the child get extremely hungry before dinner time?

One night, I made my two year-old quesadillas dinner, which he loved. But at the same time, there was a pizza advert on the TV, so he rejected his meal and was asking for the pizza with a full-on tantrum. If the TV was off, he wouldn’t have even thought about pizza. Gentle parenting tries to find out what specific things lead to specific actions taken by your toddler.

However, you should know that gentle parenting does not entertain any bad habits among toddlers. You, therefore, need to make every effort to ensure that you understand what makes your children emotional and try and provide help the way you can. At the same time, you have to ensure that you enable your child to cope with their emotions anytime they occur.

Show Respect through Your Actions

Most people believe that only adults deserve respect. It would be best if you understood that children also deserve respect, and in most cases, they tend to imitate what they see adults doing. Therefore, you must teach your toddler how they can respect others through their actions. For instance, you should not force your children to do what they do not want to do. Ideally, treat them as you would want yourself to be treated.

For example, you can always ask your child what they think of a specific decision that you are about to make. Seeking their opinion is very important when it comes to gentle parenting, and it is a very important aspect of gentle parenting you should never ignore. You can also support them with things they love doing daily and spend time with them. How you react to different situations in the presence of your child will establish how they will react. Therefore, strive to show respect through your actions.

Name and Acknowledge Their Emotions

Toddlers learn emotions, and they tend to express them in primal ways, that are not socially accepted ways. You need to teach them to first name their emotions and then understand that their feelings are meant to be felt, and that is okay. For instance, you can let your child know that it is okay to get angry but not okay to hit someone else. Teaching your child to acknowledge their emotions and telling them it is okay to feel how they feel can help them understand emotions, leading to better empathy. In response to this, the child should feel safe to express their emotions to you. This will help them to build good connections and develop emotional regulation mentally.

Tell Them What They Can Do

Always tell your child what they should do and not what they shouldn’t. I’m working on improving this myself. For example, instead of telling a child don’t run, try and tell them to use their walking feet. Try refocus and redirect your children on what they need to do and not what they shouldn’t. If you use positive language, you will be able to direct or redirect your child’s behavior. It also gives them an action to comply with something they are supposed to do and not have to stop a behavior.

Be Mindful of the Way You Praise

Sometimes, using praise to motivate your kids can work positively. However, it is vital to understand that you have to be careful not to overpraise them to build their confidence and independence. This is because too much praise can also undermine their confidence. This happens when children learn to expect and think that they can only feel good about themselves when they get outside validation. This might not be good when it comes to building good confidence in your child. Therefore, you have to proceed with moderation when it comes to praising your child.

Don’t Use Punishment as a Way of Discipline.

Using harsh punishment for kids may not work if you want to ensure that they learn from their mistakes. Sometimes, they might focus on moving away from the punishment but not figure out how they can do better next time. Therefore, you want to look for ways you can make children make up for their mistakes instead of dishing out harsh punishments.

respect and boundaries

Gentle parenting has become quite popular today, and it is one of the safest ways you can raise your toddler. Choosing gentle parenting produces independent, emotionally regulated children. If you want to start gentle parenting today, use the tips listed above and be consistent. Take your time to transition and be patient with yourself as you gently parent your toddler and bring out the best in them! Good luck!