Don't punish your kids if you want them to grow up resilient, child psychologist says. Here's why
Mona Delahooke doesn't love the phrase "gentle parenting."
Especially because her book, "Brain-Body Parenting: How to Stop Managing Behavior and Start Raising Joyful, Resilient Kids," is often lumped into the same category as gentle parenting literature.
"The word 'gentle' is triggering," she says. "That's why I don't use it. People think it means never saying 'no,' but this isn't the case."
In her book, Delahooke, who is a child psychologist, tackles a more "granular" child-rearing method called "responsive parenting."
"The new paradigm is building resilience in human beings," she says.
"Relational neuroscience research is clear that what nurtures that [resilience] is responsive parenting."
How is responsive parenting different from gentle parenting?
"Gentle parenting is not well-defined," Delahooke says. "It's not defined in the research. It's a very catch-all term."
All gentle parenting means, she says, is parenting that is less authoritative than what most people associate with "traditional parenting."
"What it really stands for is a parenting style that's different from a generation ago," she says.
Responsive parenting, though, is something Delahooke and others in her field have defined.
"Responsive parenting is about meeting the child where they are and soothing them when their nervous system is in distress," she says.
How does responsive parenting work?
Delahooke's book challenges the assumption that kids act up for negative attention, to get something they want, or for no reason at all.
That assumption, she says, "leads to consequences" when you're practicing traditional parenting.
"My approach questions that and says that actually children [behave] well when they can, and when they can't there is a reason," she says.
"We believe that children want to please their parents."
A child having a meltdown in a store because they aren't being bought the snack they want is not intending to be ungrateful or difficult.
They just haven't developed the emotional tools to deal with being let down.
"They haven't gotten the circuitry of self-regulation built yet," she says. "The ability to accept disappointment and unpredictability and talk yourself down, that's a very long developmental process that most children don't have until they are older."
And traditional parenting doesn't really consider this.
"Traditional parenting is agnostic of social-emotional development," she says.
But a young child or toddler having what Delahooke calls a "body-up reaction" is actually quite normal.
Ultimately, for example, the child will not be getting the snack. In traditional parenting, though, they are yelled at or are administered a punishment with little acknowledgment of their feelings.
"Not only do you get mad at them, you blame them for being rude or you assign a motive that is negative to a very normal process of a child seeing something at the store and wanting to get it," she says.
In responsive parenting, you acknowledge how they are feeling and validate that disappointment.
"You have to teach a child to regulate," she says. "You build self-regulation through relationships of safety and trust."
Does science support this method?
Approaching your child's tantrum with empathy instead of judgment can affect their brain chemistry in a positive way.
"When disappointment is compassionately witnessed and you are emotionally soothing, the child's brain and body stress response is reduced," Delahooke says.
"An adult's caring presence changes the way a child's body and brain responds to stress. It reduces the stress hormones."
How does this help develop a resilient child?
When you allow a child to figure out how to handle unpleasant emotions by themselves, you're increasing their ability to be flexible.
If you don't let them struggle when they are having a tough time, they "won't develop resilience," Delahooke says.
"If you're never flexing, you'll never learn to be flexible," she says.
"You need the ability to flex through change and the unexpected, which could be anything from finding out you have to leave the park to discovering that you didn't get your favorite teacher in school to getting the wrong color cup. Every moment of the day is an opportunity to be flexible."
Delahooke has witnessed "better relationships and a higher level of well-being of young adults who are parented in this way," she says.
"There is a beautiful aspect of preventing future mental health challenges through this kind of responsive parenting."
Sign up now: Get smarter about your money and career with our weekly newsletter