It's entirely possible to love your parents and to want to avoid the mistakes they made raising you.

Adults who look back on their early lives and think they were misunderstood,

punished too much or supported too little might think there has to be a better way.

So many 21st century moms and dads hoping to be better at child rearing than their own parents are embracing the philosophy known as gentle parenting.

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. Whereas old school parenting tried to teach appropriate behavior using rewards and punishments, gentle parenting seeks to be less transactional, encouraging adults to prioritize empathy, respect, and understanding for their children with natural consequences rather than arbitrary punitive measures.

The idea is that children raised this way will develop into empathetic, respectful,

understanding people themselves, learning to regulate their own emotions and behavior

and recognize appropriate social boundaries.

But some families find that committing to exclusively gentle methods of correcting

and guiding children can prove very, very rough on adults. Monica Corcoran-Harell has experienced

this firsthand. She's a journalist and screenwriter who covers culture and relationships,

and she is mother to a gently parented teenager.

Her recent article for The Cut is titled, Because I Said So, Please, My Greatest Fear is

Pushing My Daughter Away. Maybe I went too far to keep her close. Monica, welcome to think.

Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. And I just want to say, I don't know how many rewards I received from my old school parents, but lots of punishment.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I can relate. What does gentle parenting look like day to day?

That's an interesting question, and it causes a lot of confusion, which I mentioned in my article.

But in essence, gentle parenting is being incredibly empathetic towards your child, indulging big feelings.

Let's say your kid doesn't want to leave the playground.

Instead of saying it's time to go, you kneel down in front of her and say, we have to go. She doesn't want to leave the playground. Instead of saying it's time to go, you kneel down in front of her and say,

we have to go.

She doesn't want to go.

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