How parents confuse gentle parenting with permissive parenting: Child therapist reveals important details

Parents’ parenting approach has changed over the years. More and more parents are now trying gentle parenting for their kids. However, what parents don’t realise is that oftentimes they mix gentle parenting with permissive parenting.

This is something that parents struggle with when it comes to parenting without even realising it. Child therapist Jaclyn shared her take on the same.She shared her personal story on how she mixed gentle parenting with permissive parenting. She said, “I did gentle parenting for years… or so I thought I did. I validated every emotion, processed feelings extensively, explained every boundary, compromised on things, and avoided harsh punishments.

I thought I was doing it right. Then my kids got older, and I started seeing the results in real time.”She further said, “One kid became anxious about everything (even choosing a snack), insecure in their abilities, entitled (everything’s up for debate), and emotionally dysregulated (outbursts constantly). The other kid became ‘too easy’ (people-pleasing), suppressed real feelings, absorbed everyone’s emotions, and withdrew (I thought it was just ‘being a teenager’… it wasn’t).

I cried a lot. I had tried SO hard to do everything right… to do things different from what I had growing up.

”Later, she shared, “Here’s what I realized: I wasn’t actually doing gentle parenting. I had slipped into permissive parenting without realizing it. (A lot of parents do this. There’s no shame or guilt allowed here; parenting is HARD.) The things I thought were ‘gentle’ were actually permissive: validating for 20 minutes = over-processing, explaining too many boundaries = making everything negotiable, and compromising too much = no real limits.

I had high warmth and little structure, and I didn’t realize it at the time. It created anxious, entitled, people-pleasing kids.”Sharing her take on gentle parenting, she said, “So I shifted to authoritative parenting high warmth (connection, validation, empathy) and high structure (clear boundaries, consistent limits, natural consequences). This IS research-backed. And the shift? Faster than I expected.

Not overnight but soon I saw less anxiety over decisions, more confidence trying new things, less negotiating and entitlement, and better regulation.

I put everything I know, learned, and implemented into The Breaking Cycles Method. It includes healing yourself, understanding your child’s brain development and emotional capacity, age-appropriate scripts, boundaries, and more. You can grab it at the top of my page.”