Gentle Parenting

My daughter has a little girl in her school who can't talk and has to be fed through a feeding tube.  Long story short my daughter loves this girl and helps her in school (she goes to a small Montessori school).

I met her nurse (the lady that helps her during school) and she told me how much she liked Makenna and what a big help she was with this little girl.  She also said something that struck me, "You can tell the families that practice gentle parenting."

It is something I have been thinking a lot about since then.

Gentle parenting, what does that mean exactly?

For us I think it means that we love our kiddos to pieces and take every opportunity to tell them so.  We remind them that we love them but we also show them by spending time with them and doing things with them and being around them.

I'll just say it - I don't believe spanking gets at the heart of an issue.  I didn't tell you what you should or shouldn't do.  I won't tell you that.

I will say that, for us, corpral punishment is something that is a VERY last resort and it is rarely used and I am looking at phasing it out completely.

I will say that I can't stand people that use the "spare the rod spoil the child" Proverb as an excuse to just beat their kids.

I make mistakes.  I yell too much.  I get annoyed and angry and selfish.

“We need days of failure because they help humble us, and through them we can see how God's grace is poured out on the humble.”
― Elyse Fitzpatrick, Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus 

But I am practicing giving more grace each day to my kiddos.

And I am trying to be worthy to be told that I practice gentle parenting.  I hope I do.

It doesn't mean I let my kids run wild without discipline.  But discipline doesn't have to be in the form of physical punishment and I don't believe I'm going against the Bible when I choose not to use it.

I don't believe we can give too much grace.  God never ceases to give us grace.

“The gospel frees us from demanding our own way, because nothing we desire to obtain is worth sinning against such love and kindness.”
― Elyse Fitzpatrick, Because He Loves Me: How Christ Transforms Our Daily Life