Woman Kicks Her Family Out Of Her House After Her Sister's 'Gentle Parenting' Wreaks Havoc On Their Lives
She couldn't take her niece and nephew's behavior and her sister's lack of initiative.
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Everyone has different styles of parenting that they adhere to, whether they realize it or not. One woman’s choice of gentle parenting worked fine for her immediate family until they went to visit her sister. Then, everything fell apart.
A woman kicked her extended family out after her sister’s gentle parenting made her and her family miserable.
One woman posted on Reddit and said she had trouble with her sister’s family when they came for a visit.
“My younger sister and her family, which includes her, her husband, and two kids … were visiting my husband and I and staying at our home for a week,” she explained.
“My sister does gentle parenting,” she continued. “I’d never heard of that before she came to stay with us because I guess I’m out of the loop since my kids are grown now. She explained to me that gentle parenting means they don’t do time out, don’t do grounding, etc., but instead just talk about their feelings.”
This woman didn’t really understand the concept of gentle parenting, but she was willing to let it go to appease her sister.
“I thought that was a bit odd because it sounds like there is zero discipline but didn’t say anything as to not rock the boat,” she said. “Until I saw gentle parenting in action and was appalled.”
The situation deteriorated quickly. “During the first two days of their stay, her daughter drew on my walls with [a] crayon. And her son pulled up flowers I had recently planted in my garden bed and threw a rock at my car parked in the driveway,” she recounted. “To top it all off, they both kept constantly pulling my golden retriever’s hair and hitting my dog in the face.”
This woman expected there to be consequences for her niece and nephew’s behavior, but to her surprise, there weren’t.
“In every instance, I was expecting my sister or her husband to discipline the kids. They never did. So I did. Or, at least, I tried,” she said. “Just me telling her kids to stop, or scolding them in the slightest made my sister lose her mind. She told me it's not my place to discipline them.”
However, the sister didn’t do any disciplining of her own. “All she did in every instance was ask them, ‘What kind of feelings are you having that made you do that?’ And that was it,” she stated.
Things got so bad that the woman asked her sister and her family to leave their house and stay elsewhere.
Gentle parenting really falls somewhere in between what the two sisters were trying to do.
According to Cleveland Clinic, “The goal of gentle parenting is to raise confident, independent and happy children through empathy, respect and understanding, and setting healthy boundaries.”
Gentle parenting does differ from other parenting styles. “Instead of focusing on punishment and reward, gentle parenting focuses on improving a child’s self-awareness and understanding of their own behavior,” they said.
It seems like this woman’s sister made a valiant attempt at gentle parenting but wasn’t quite making it. Her focus on the children’s feelings was important and valid, but it was not the only piece of the puzzle.
Gentle parenting also does not mean never disciplining your children. It just means you help them to understand what they did instead of automatically punishing them.
The sisters' relationship has been torn apart over their differing beliefs on discipline.
In an update to her original post, the woman said that her sister had somehow found the post and had blocked her number. She wrote a heartfelt letter to her on Reddit explaining that she loved her, but her children had crossed a line.
Now, it remains to be seen whether they can repair their relationship.
This might just be one of those instances where the two women agree to disagree and stay at a hotel when visiting.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news, and human interest topics.