Parenting is not an easy feat to pull off, but there are several ways to go about it, so that might help you if you end up being a mom or a dad. Or not. It depends.
But one thing is certain: being a gentle parent does not mean that you’re not preparing your kid for a “tough” world. In fact, that is exactly what you as a parent ought to do to prep them for things to come.
And one mother has come out with a story exemplifying just that.
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Meet N'tima Preusser, a wellness coach and mother who who uses her TikTok channel to educate folks on all things health, adulting and parenting
Image credits: ntimapreusser
Meet N'tima Preusser, a holistic wellness coach, personal trainer, mindset specialist, and mother who uses her TikTok channel to educate folks on all things health, adulting and parenting.
In one of her more recent videos, she tackled the topic of gentle parenting, and what it actually means in the “tough world”. Specifically, she shared a story of how a teacher yelled at her daughter and how the daughter handled it, having never experienced aggressive rhetoric at home.
In one of her videos, she tackled the topic of how "gently parented" kids could ever manage to survive in a "tough world"
Image credits: ntimapreusser
To explain it, she used a story of how her daughter got yelled at by a teacher who was in a foul mood
Image credits: ntimapreusser
The story goes that N’tima noticed a picture her daughter drew—it was of her crying. When asked about it, the daughter explained how one of the teachers at school started yelling at her during recess. She suspected that the teacher was having a rough day and simply took it out on her.
This in turn made the daughter angry. And she felt that way until quiet time came along and she drew the picture, this way channeling the anger and calming down.
What happened right here is the kid, having been raised “gently”, tackled a “tough world” problem, and did it like a champ. “My child did not crumble when she was faced with disrespect. Instead, she was able to recognize this isn’t what I deserve. And this doesn’t have much to do with me,” elaborated N’tima.
Image credits: ntimapreusser
In other words, she identified the situation and her feelings, and managed to process them in a healthy way, thus calming down.
“Not only are they going to survive the big tough world, they’re going to thrive because they’re not going to have to spend the majority of their adulthood healing from their childhood,” concluded N’tima.
N'tima told Bored Panda in an interview that the teacher who yelled at her daughter eventually apologized—while she did not speak to the teacher directly, her daughter's homeroom teacher did, and passed on the apologies on her behalf.
In contrast, the “tough world” approach would have ended up forcing the kid to hide her anger, as it’s an emotion that’s traditionally considered socially harmful and hence should be avoided at all costs by bottling it up.
After being yelled at, N'tima's kid identified the emotions and channeled them into a drawing, thus dealing with it in a healthy way
“Not only are they going to survive the big tough world, they’re going to thrive because they’re not going to have to spend the majority of their adulthood healing from their childhood"
Image credits: ntimapreusser
"Gentle Parenting falls under the umbrella of Authoritative Parenting. It’s called many things; gentle, respectful, conscious, holistic, etc.," elaborated N'tima. "This style of parenting values High Accountability, with High Acceptance. It focuses on discipline (to guide and to teach through logical or related consequences) instead of punishment (making a child pay for undesirable behavior), with the end goal of giving a child tools to emotional regulate, deescalate and be given alternative and appropriate behaviors to replace the undesirable behaviors with."
"This parenting style has high acceptance for all emotions while having an understanding of age appropriate behaviors—while also having high accountability for children’s choices. The end goal, ultimately, is to prioritize the child-parent relationship. Remove the power struggles. Model emotional intelligence. And raise kids who don’t have to heal from their childhood in adulthood."
The video managed to get over 2.1M views on TikTok
N'tima also explained that another teacher talked to the teacher who yelled at her daughter about the issue
Besides, the tough world demands that you be aggressive and stand your ground, and that being gentle is not the way too go, too “weak”. But is that the proper way? N’tima’s story begs to differ.
And people couldn’t agree more. The video went viral soon after its posting, garnering over 2.1 million views with nearly 460,000 likes and thousands of comments and shares.
In the comments, folks pointed out just how mature and equipped N’tima’s daughter really is, despite being much younger, to deal with “real world” struggles and challenges. Many expressed how much they would have benefited from being taught to manage emotions and identify when someone else is having a bad day.
Many agreed that the kid is extremely smart on an emotional level—actually more than most adults
We asked N'tima where did this "tough world" concept come from in the first place, and she explained it as a product of prior generations: "[They] believed the only way to create tough children was to make life tough. There is this misconception that tough means rigid, hard, and shatters when it hits the floor. But real 'toughness' is malleable, soft, adaptive, and resilient."
She continued: "Gentle Parenting is not about allowing kids to walk all over you and having no rules. (This is actually called Permissive Parenting, that falls under the Neglectful umbrella.)"
"Its about teaching intrinsic motivation (instead of fear based motivation) to be respectful, generous, kind adult humans who know how to emotionally regulate and set boundaries. Gentle Parenting gives them a safe space to be authentically themselves. These skills are taught consistently, so they can handle all that life hands to them instead of being chronically reactive and harmful and having a nervous system that needs healing."
According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children, kids with higher emotional intelligence are better at paying attention and being more engaged in a school setting, tend to have more positive relationships, and can, needless to say, empathize on a higher level. So, a win all around.
And a lack of skill in managing emotion might lead the kid to be more prone to anger and pessimism, have trouble accepting criticism, expressing themselves and be oblivious to emotional cues in others.
Now, gentle parenting has its challenges. N'tima highlighted that putting down one's ego and the need to be "right" all the time, prioritizing the relationship that the parent has with the kids, and healing from one's own childhoods in the midst of it all are tough. But no impossible. And there is a tangible result to be taken from this, one that benefits more than just your kid or your family in general.
Be sure to check out N’tima’s video and TikTok channel to learn more, but before you go, tell us what you think about this in the comment section below!