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In this solo episode, Jess shares her reflections on a recent conversation she had. The conversation was about whether or not children should hear the word "no" and how parents who follow "this new wave of gentle parenting" are no longer the leaders in their homes.
In the episode, Jess shares her thoughts on this view and tackles a common misconception about gentle parenting - that it's too permissive and doesn't allow for setting boundaries. She explains the crucial differences between permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative parenting styles, emphasizing that effective discipline combines warmth with firm boundaries.
Jess shares her expert knowledge and advice on:
* Why it's important and loving to say "no" to children
* How to be a calm leader for kids during challenging moments
* How setting boundaries helps kids learn to navigate disappointment
* How setting boundaries teaches kids to question authority appropriately
With relatable examples and research-backed information, this episode provides valuable guidance for parents seeking to strike the right balance between empathy and structure.
Jess mentions an episode with her friend Josh, and you can listen to that episode here. [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/as-a-skeptic-husband-i-couldnt-see-the-value-in/id1740816838?i=1000669677881]
If you want to learn more about the different parenting styles Jess talks about in the episode, check out this blog post [https://nurturedfirst.com/which-parenting-style-is-the-best/]. You'll also find the research Jess refers to referenced at the end of the blog.
Get 10% OFF parenting courses and kids' printable activities at Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/] using the code ROBOTUNICORN.
We'd love to hear from you! Have questions you want us to answer on Robot Unicorn? Send us an email: podcast@robotunicorn.net.
Learn more about the Solving Bedtime Battles course here [https://nurturedfirst.com/courses/solving-bedtime-battles/].
Credits:
Editing by The Pod Cabin [https://thepodcabin.com/]
Artwork by Wallflower Studio [https://www.wallflowerstudio.co/]
Production by Nurtured First [https://nurturedfirst.com/]
Join me, Jess VanderWier, a registered psychotherapist, mom of three, and founder of Nurtured First, along with my husband Scott, as we dive deep into the stories of our friends, favourite celebrities, and influential figures.
In each episode, we skip the small talk and dive into vulnerable and honest conversations about topics like cycle breaking, trauma, race, mental health, parenting, sex, religion, postpartum, healing, and loss.
We are glad you are here.
PS: The name Robot Unicorn comes from our daughter. When we asked her what we should name the podcast, she confidently came up with this name because she loves robots, and she loves unicorns, so why not? There was something about the playfulness of the name, the confidence in her voice, and the fact that it represents that you can love two things at once that just felt right.
Welcome to Robot Unicorn.
It's just me today, just Jess.
Scott is still recovering from not feeling the best as was our entire family was not feeling the best for the last couple weeks.
So just me today and I'm really excited to talk to you.
I have something that's been on my heart.
a conversation that I had with someone a couple months ago that's been sitting with me and I've been waiting for an opportunity just to kind of share my thoughts with you.
So a person I know found out that we have a parenting podcast and found out that it was one of the top parenting podcasts.
And they came up to me and they said, Jess, what would you say?
Do you think that children should hear the word no?
And the question was asked to me in such a way that they thought I was gonna say no, that I didn't think that children should hear the word no.
And my response was, of course.
Of course children should hear the word no.
To me, that's not really a question.
That's not the type of parenting that I teach.
And the person said, Yeah, but don't you think
that this new kind of wave of gentle parenting is telling parents that they don't need to be the authority in their home and they don't ever need to tell their children no.
and that children are kind of acting like their best friends and don't you think that it's all a bit wishy-washy?
And she said, I personally feel like
parents are no longer the leader in their home.
They don't think that they should ever say no to their children.
And don't you think that's a problem?
Person came at me obviously having a lot of heat in their body and feeling very strongly on this topic
And as someone who is very open to always hearing feedback, and as someone who talks to a lot of people who don't necessarily agree
That is the type of feedback I get the most often from people who are skeptical of this type of parenting.
They often think that gentle parenting, and if you listen to this podcast
You know what's gotten I think of that phrase, we don't love it, because it insinuates to a lot of people that it's passive or it's permissive.
And so today I wanted to talk to you about some of the reflections I've been having on that conversation I had with that person.
Because actually Scott was there for that conversation and I ended up walking away just feeling like it wasn't gonna go anywhere
and I wanted to think about it more.
Scott and I are very different in the fact that he's like pretty good on his toes.
Like what I mean is
if someone comes at him and they're really angry and upset about something, he's pretty good at handling that and thinking in the moment.
Whereas you know me, I'm reflective.
I like to have some time and space to think about it and then I like to come up with my answer
I don't like to feel forced to share an answer or a thought or an opinion in the moment when I haven't quite had time to reflect on how I feel yet.
So Scott and I just have two kind of differing ways of handling that.
So he was there for that discussion.
He ended up handling it.
And if you want, once he comes back on, once he feels better, he can kind of share his perspective.
But I've been reflecting a lot on my own feelings around that because that's the number one skepticism I hear from people.
So I want to talk about the difference between permissive parenting
and authoritative parenting, which is the type of parenting that we teach here.
So permissive parenting, there's a lot of literature on this.
These parenting styles are not new.
Permissive parenting is when we have high levels of warmth, often.
We don't always have high levels of warmth, but high levels of warmth towards our kids.
And so that might look like
You're validating feelings, like you're really good at validating feelings.
You're really good at allowing your children's emotions.
You might be very good at listening to your children.
And you may have a really difficult time.
Setting boundaries with children, having rules and expectations for your children, saying no, helping your children navigate disappointment.
And I will say that often in the parents that I'm supporting, a lot of people might have a tendency towards the permissive side.
And I say that with so much grace because
That also would be me.
I really have to think about having my boundaries in place.
Because of my personality, I am someone who is incredibly empathetic.
Often to the point where I can put myself right in my child's shoes, and it can be hard for me to want to set a boundary for them
I also have some people pleasing tendencies, so it can be easy for me to slip into people pleaser mode with my children where I don't want to be the bad guy or feel like the bad guy.
I don't want to make them disappointed in me, so then it can be hard to set those boundaries.
And I think a lot of people who are in that permissive parenting, like kind of stuck in that
have those people please your tendencies.
They truly want what's best for their kids.
And because of all of that, and they might be very empathetic, it might be very hard to hold a boundary
I think a lot of parents also who fall into more of that permissive parenting probably come from really harsh parents themselves.
And so you may have been raised with parents
Who were very hard on you, who spanked you, who sent you away from them, who ridiculed you and teased you, and you don't want that for your kid.
And so it can be really hard to find that balance between boundaries that are loving and firm and being a leader in your home and
being permissive and allowing the feelings and being okay with all of that side of gentle parenting or whatever you want to call it.
Or having a really hard time with the boundary holding side.
So I just want to say that is I do see some, not all, but I do see some people kind of slip into a bit more of that permissive side.
And so why don't I give you an example?
You have a child who wants to watch one more TV show.
And you've already set the boundary, you've set the expectation.
Hey, you know what?
We're gonna watch one episode of Paw Patrol and then we're gonna turn it off
And then one episode of Pop Patrol's almost done and your child's like, but mommy, I really want more.
I really want to watch more.
I don't want to turn it off.
And you see how and you know how upset your child's gonna be now when you turn it off.
You know that a meltdown's gonna come.
And in order to avoid that meltdown, avoid the big feelings
And keep your child happy.
You go against what your expectation is that you place and you say, you know what, no, no, no, it's fine.
It's fine.
You really, you really want more paw patrol.
It's fine
Right.
And it's one thing if that's once in a while, hey, I do it too.
Once in a while, I don't feel like dealing with a meltdown and I'll just say to my kids, you know what, fine, go ahead, watch one more
But if that is your consistent parenting approach, that as soon as your child might have a big feeling, you give in to whatever demand that they have.
That is not the type of parenting that we're talking about here.
Let me give you another example of a more permissive approach.
Your child is hitting another child, maybe one of your own kids, with a toy.
you say to them, Oh, I know it's really hard, bud, and like you're having a hard day, but I can't let you hit with that toy.
Your child hears you and then they keep hitting with the toy and you just keep saying, Oh, I can't let you hit.
I can't let you hit
But you're not stepping in, taking the toy out of their hand and saying, I won't let you have this toy.
You're hitting with it.
You can't be safe with it.
We're gonna take a break.
Right.
So there's two different approaches there.
There's being passive and almost waiting for your child to follow your instruction.
And there's taking control, stepping in, and being the leader.
So I think it's really important that we clarify the difference between being permissive and the style of parenting effective discipline that we talk about here.
Because there is this picture painted in a lot of people who are very skeptical of this type of parenting who say, well, it's all passive.
We let our kids run the show.
We let our kids be the leader in the home.
And I would argue that that is not true.
That is permissive parenting when we let our kids run the show and be the leader of the home.
What our role is, is to be the leader, but to stay curious about what's going on for our kids.
Right?
And so now
Let's look on the complete flip side, right?
So we have permissive parenting over here where we're very high on warmth a lot of the time and we're very low on control, rules, expectations, holding boundaries
That's very low.
Okay, so now let's go to the other side.
Authoritarian parenting.
Okay, this is the parenting style that a lot of you might have been raised with.
This style of parenting, we see a very high level of control, of rules, of expectations, and of harsh discipline often, and lower levels of warmth.
Okay, so what we see in this style of parenting is sure parents might act as though they are the leader in the home.
But it comes at, you know, do as I say, not what I do.
The second a child misbehaves, we're yelling at them, we're getting angry at them.
We have rules in place that are unrealistic
based on your child's development, right?
Like my toddler has to sit for forty minutes at the dinner as we sit and eat dinner as a family.
Okay?
That's unrealistic.
That's an expectation that's not fair to a toddler because they can't meet it and they will never meet it.
And then an authoritarian parent might say, okay, well, you keep getting up at the dinner table, you're not listening to me, now you have to go to your room and sit there till the family finishes dinner
Right?
Very high on control, very high on rules and expectations, but we're not keeping in mind necessarily
what's actually an appropriate and realistic expectation rule or boundary.
We also see like on that side of things that we are often harsh with the kids, harsher punishments might take place
We see much less of the validating feelings often.
Parents who tend to lean more towards the harsher side have a very difficult time validating feelings.
And this again might be because you were raised that way
I think a lot of parents that are more authoritarian have never learned how to validate a feeling.
We talked about that in the episode with our friend Josh.
If you haven't listened to that one, make sure you do.
But in the episode with Josh, we talk about how when he was first validating his son's feelings, he's like, it felt so weird because no one has ever validated me like that and I've never spoken like this before in my life, right?
So
We see a lot of parents on that authoritarian side who struggle to validate feelings, struggle to kind of have that empathy for their kids, and have a lot of rules and structure in their home
Okay, so we have these two kind of polar opposite sides.
This permissive where it's high, high, high warmth, low control, and authoritarian where it's high high high control, low warmth.
So what we're coming in at in our effective style of discipline that's been shown in the research.
This is not new research.
This has been around for a long time.
is high warmth and high control.
And what I mean by high control is we have a parent who's willing to be a leader in their home.
They're able to set rules and expectations in their home.
They're able to hold boundaries, and they do so with the warmth and with the understanding of what is developmentally appropriate for my child
Why is my child struggling so much?
They can still do that piece where they walk in their child's shoes and and they can understand why they might be having such a hard day.
Effective discipline comes when we can be a leader.
Hey friends, so at pickup last week our daughter asked Scott a truly kind of tricky question in front of her younger siblings.
Scott was telling me that when he heard a question like this, he used to panic, but this time he had a plan and he
We said to our daughter, thank you for asking.
Let's talk tonight when we've got privacy.
And that's a line that he learned straight from our new body safety and consent course at Nurture First.
So this new body safety and consent course is taught by me.
Jess, if you listen to this podcast, you know me.
I'm a child therapist and a mom of three, and I have taught body safety and consent education for years
This course takes all my years of experience teaching this education and gives you calm, age-appropriate language for body parts, consent, and boundaries.
You'll learn how to teach your kids that no means no, you'll learn how to teach them to read facial cues, you'll talk about safe and unfortunate.
safe touch and you'll even teach them about their uh oh feeling.
There's guidance inside this course for the real life stuff like tickling that goes too far and even the difference between a secret and a surprise
We made this course at Nurtured First because research shows that body safety education helps kids speak up sooner and we want that for our family, for Scott and I, but also for you.
So check the course out at nurturedfirst.
com slash body safety and to save 10% use
Use the code RobotUnicorn.
And just full disclosure here, we are the creators of this course and we're so proud of it.
I like to think about this example.
So Scott and I recently went to Portugal and we went there for our tenth anniversary
It was an incredible trip, except for one thing that I really didn't like.
We went on a boat ride on the ocean.
Not that big of a boat.
We were on a boat.
And we're heading to these islands.
We were gonna explore these islands for the day, beautiful islands.
And we get on the boat, and I realize that I haven't been on a boat in a very long time, and I forgot
how afraid I actually am of being on boats.
Okay?
So we get on a boat and it's supposed to be a 20-minute ride into the ocean, no big deal.
What I didn't realize is that we were going on open waters and it was a wavy, windy, rainy day.
So we're sitting on this boat and it is just up and down, up and down, and I already am a bit of an anxious person to begin with.
I truly believe in my head like this is it for me.
And my anxious thoughts were spiraling.
Like I was like, this is it.
Like
The w what are we on?
We're on some small boat in the middle of the ocean.
I don't see land anywhere.
It's so wavy and people are kind of going back and forth the whole boat
Like people are falling over if they're walking and in my head I'm like this is not good and I can just think of my kids and I was stressing out and I felt like I was about to have a panic attack.
And Scott noticed how I was feeling.
And he comes and he sits right next to me and he goes, Jess, look at the captain.
Does he look worried?
And I look up and I see the captain at the very front of the boat.
And he goes, Does he look worried at all?
And the captain's just smiling away.
driving the boat, like no, he doesn't look worried.
He said, okay, keep your eye on the captain the whole time.
And so long as the captain doesn't look worried, then I'm not worried about the boat either.
And that's what I did.
And so for the next, whatever, 20 minutes of the boat ride, I stared at that captain and I watched him navigate the sea, the waters going up and down.
And I just watched him.
And as he had the smile and that calm look on m his face, I knew I was going to be okay.
And I let him steer me to that island and to safety.
And that's what we want to be for our children.
We want to be that captain.
We don't want to join in their chaos.
I didn't need the captain sitting next to me being like, Yeah, it is really wavy, and just leaving it there.
That would have stressed me out more.
I didn't need the captain joining into my anxiety attack.
That would have made things way worse
What I needed to do is to look up at him and know that he's got this covered and that I am okay
And that's what our children need from us.
When they're having a tantrum or they're having a really difficult time, even with their behavior, they need to look to us to be the one to steer them back to safety.
And I think that's truly what this authoritative or effective discipline does for our kids.
We need to be the leader.
And part of that is yes, we do need to say no to our kids.
When our children are asking for things, they don't have the ability yet to know that it's too much or that it's not going to be safe for them or that
No, they can't have more screens right now, or they can't have more candy right now, or they can't go to their friend's house every single night of the week, or they can't stay up past nine o'clock because they're not going to feel good tomorrow
It's their job to ask us for the world because they don't yet know the consequences for these things.
It's our job to be the captain.
of their ship and to help them know when something is a no and when something is a yes and then to help them deal with the feelings that come up after that
For example, your child wants to stay up late every night.
They always want to stay up late.
You know that leads to meltdowns.
That leads to them having a bad day tomorrow
They don't know that.
They're controlled by their impulses.
They know that it maybe it'll be fun and they can watch another movie if they stay up late.
They need you to act as that calm and caring captain, you know, of their boat
And say, you know what?
No, hon, you gotta go to bed on time tonight because I know you're gonna feel better tomorrow if you have a good night of sleep.
I'm gonna help you do that
And your child cries and they protest and the seas inside of their body feel so stormy and everything feels wild.
But they look to you and you're calm
and you're confident in your expectation and you help them navigate those stormy seas.
That's what effective discipline does
So we're not telling our children just to do something because we said so or because they have to or because we're the boss.
We can explain to them why we have a rule in place.
And something that I've always said is if you don't have a reason why you have the rule in place, then does that rule really need to be in place?
Right?
We have some parents.
I can also be this parent who just have a lot of rules and they don't always make sense.
So it's okay for your child to question your rules and it's okay for you to ask yourself, do I really need to have this rule or
Am I just putting this in place because I feel like it?
You know, so ask yourself that.
But it's okay for you to say no to your kids sometimes.
It's okay for you to have boundaries in place.
And your child actually feels safer for it.
I remember talking to someone recently and they were supporting a little guy and he was in foster care and he just had had
this really tough day and she said she could see the little boy at school and he was he was testing her, he was doing something he wasn't supposed to do.
And she was like it was like he was pleading with me, like, someone please set a boundary for me.
You know, please help me feel safe.
Please set this boundary for me.
And our children really do need it, even if they protest and they cry.
And so our job is to set those boundaries, to help them understand and navigate the world.
by setting realistic boundaries with them and then helping them feel the feelings that come up.
That's the difference between also being a parent who just sets boundaries and just has rules
We also help our child navigate the feelings that come up once you set those boundaries.
So I can say no to my child to no screens.
And I know that they're not gonna learn how to deal with disappointment or navigate that feeling unless I also coach them on how to deal with the feeling that you don't get more screens right now.
And that's really tough.
Right.
So then that validation piece comes in and we say, yeah, I know.
It's really hard.
You really wanted to watch more screens.
I get it.
Sometimes being disappointed feels really tough
And we can help our children learn how to be disappointed, which is a skill that's going to help them through the rest of their lives.
And back to the original point I was making when the person was coming at me basically saying, you know
you're being permissive and kids don't know rules and expectations.
I disagree.
I think that those of us who are raising our children in this way with effective discipline that's high on warmth and high on boundaries.
We are teaching our children so many skills that are going to help them in the long term.
I think about this family that I worked with.
So the child was 16 and they came to me and they said, Jess
our discipline's not working.
And I said, Okay, tell me about it.
What have you been doing to discipline your child?
And then they said, Well, when she was younger we would give her spankings when she didn't listen, like only on rare occasions, but we would give her spankings.
We would send her to timeout and we would take away her iPad.
They said, okay, so what's going on now?
Well, she's a teenager, she's still having challenging behavior.
but we can't spank her anymore.
If we tell her to go to her room for a timeout, she won't go.
And we took away the iPad and she just found it
And again, that was an example to me of the harsh discipline that we have on the side of just being really high on rules and harsh discipline, but not actually giving
children, this daughter, this child, this teenager now, never learned any skills to cope with her feelings.
She only learned that her parents had a lot of rules.
And that strategy backfired when she was big enough to be like, no
You can't take my iPad away.
I know where you hit it.
You're at work.
I'm gonna go find it and use it.
You wanna send me the timeout?
That's not gonna work.
You can't force me.
I'm 16.
I'm not going to timeout
So we want to use discipline that's going to work not only when our children are young, but this style of discipline that's high on warmth and high on boundaries.
is also going to help you when your child's a teenager.
And they can learn to trust your leadership, right?
Just like I trusted that captain because I knew he was skilled and I knew he's done this many times before
and I knew that he had the best intentions for the boat in mind and he wasn't gonna try and topple us over.
We want our children to be able to trust us in that same way and look to us for leadership as they become teens and even into their adult years
So again to answer the question, do you believe it's okay to say no to your children?
Of course.
Of course.
It's important
our children require us to be the ones to set the boundaries in the home and to say no sometimes and to help them then navigate the disappointment that comes with it
And the other question the person had said is like, don't you think it's annoying though to always have to explain to your children and help them with their feelings?
She told me she kind of thinks it's annoying and sometimes kids should just listen to their parents.
I would say that's one perspective to have, that it's annoying to have to have long conversations with our children and
actually explain to them why rules and boundaries are in place.
But I personally think what a gift that we have to teach our children that it's okay to ask a question about a boundary.
I want that for my kids.
I don't want my kids to just see any person in a position of authority and think to themselves, oh, because they're older than me, I have to listen to them.
I don't want that for them.
I personally, when I was a teenager, had people that were my bosses or in a position of authority that abused that position of authority and were not to be trusted.
And I would never want my children to think that just because someone is older than them and in a position of authority, it means that they have to listen to everything they say.
So what I do as a parent models that I don't want my children just listening to what everyone in authority has to say, right?
I want my children to say, well, why?
Why can't I watch more screens
Why can't I go to my friend's house every night of the week?
Why can't I do X, Y, or Z?
And I want to be able to explain to them why.
And let them know that they can trust my leadership because I'm not here just to make rules to make their life suck.
I want to help them
and guide them and keep them safe.
And through that they'll be able to learn to trust my leadership and they'll also be able to learn that when someone has a rule in place or someone tells them to do something and they're in a position of authority
and it doesn't feel right to them, that it's okay for them to question that as well.
Anyway, I feel like that's a whole other episode, maybe a whole other rant.
Once again, I didn't have Scott here to question me and throw in the skeptic questions.
So if you have any of them
I would love to hear them and also I apologize for the lack of humor in this episode because once again I don't have Scott here adding in
the little quips, you know, that we've grown to know and love from him.
But I hope that if you have been skeptical or you wonder to yourself, is the style of parenting permissive?
that this will help you know that it's not, that strict can be loving, boundaries are loving, saying no is loving.
And that has to be done in a way that models a child's development and what's appropriate for them.
and always, always, always, always has your child's best interest at heart.
If you're setting a boundary and it doesn't have your child's best interest at heart and it's not there to keep them safe.
I want you to question that for yourself too.
Why is this boundary here?
Is it to make me feel safe?
Is it to make me feel comfortable?
Is it so that I don't feel my own triggers?
Because then that's stuff that we have to work through.
That's our own stuff
Right?
Our boundaries are put in place to protect our children, to help love them, to help them thrive and grow up to be the best versions of themselves.
So thank you.
Thank you for listening to my TED talk.
No, I'm just kidding.
But thank you for listening and I hope that you found this valuable.
If you did
please send me a message or an email.
I would love to chit-chat with you more and I just really appreciate you.
What an honor to be here with you.
Thank you so much.
Hey friends, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
We are glad that you are here.
If you enjoyed today's episode and found it interesting, we'd really appreciate it if you'd leave a rating and a review.
Scott and I actually sit down together and read them all.
A five-star rating helps us share our podcast and get these important messages out there.
Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to talk to you again next time.