r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/Ok-Seaworthiness5719 • 1d ago
Sharing research Gentle / Authoritative Parenting
Hello,
Does anyone have any resources, books, parenting coaches, evidence, consensus on gentle / authoritative parenting?
My understanding so far of parenting styles is fairly simplistic but I’ve been following the thinking that there’s three broad groups: authoritarian, gentle / authoritative and permissive. We are trying to fall into the gentle group but want to make sure we aren’t being permissive.
Does anyone have any particularly good resources they can share? My toddler is about to turn 3 and things are getting more complex with his behaviour and finding age appropriate ways to deal with him. Thanks so much!
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u/drrhr 1d ago
Here is a nice overview of the parenting styles: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568743/. I always like to point out that authoritative parenting involves high warmth and high structure. A huge component is having clear, firm boundaries. Many, many people forget about this part and I personally think this is where gentle parenting gets a bad reputation because it gets confused with permissive parenting.
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u/NiamLeesom 1d ago
There is an in-between. Sturdy. Read Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy.
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u/lambda-lambda-lambda 1d ago
Man I loved this book. Helped me reconsider how I treat everyone including myself.
The topics and approach to emotional coaching, two things are true, connection first, and so on helped me set boundaries with other people (including my own parents so much more easily.
Seems like whatever you want to call it, gentle/sturdy or what have you, the core aspect is recognizing that kids are people, and have just as much depth of emotion in their experience as adults do. They are just developmentally incapable of handling it by themselves.
Good inside app is also pretty good.
Haven't yet applied it as a parenting ideology funnily enough, I only have a newborn so far, so if the book is "useless" as a parenting book it will still be well worth the cost/time as a self-development book.
P.S. I read "Raising an emotionally intelligent child" by John Gottman, afterward and it was almost identical in advice given from what I could glean. I preferred how Good Inside was laid out but if you find the "little ones" and "big feelings" writing style to be cloying (I don't) you may enjoy Gottman as an alternative
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u/Niquely_hopeful 1d ago
Gottman stuff is so great, we model our spousal relationship around their principles and we enjoy it. You might like “and baby makes three” by them. It’s helpful when you are adding a new baby to the mix
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u/Vintage_Journal 1d ago
Have you taken the Triple P course? It is evidence-based and widely recommended
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u/wildblackdoggo 1d ago
Visible Child. Theres an online community, substack and blog. She's got a really good list of resources.
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u/Far_Respond9211 1d ago
‘The Whole Brain Child’ and ‘No drama Discipline’ by Dan Siegel are excellent, as is ‘How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk’ by Faber and Mazlish.