Kelly Medina Enos, 34, a certified gentle parenting coach from York, shares her approach to parenting, which emphasizes empathy and understanding over forceful discipline.
She stopped making her five-year-old son, George, apologize, believing it to be disingenuous. Instead, she teaches him to reflect on situations and communicate his feelings.
Kelly, who adopted gentle parenting after struggling with George’s behavior at 18 months, now avoids forced isolation, opting for a “calm down corner” instead.
She also uses baby sign language with her daughter, Ariella, to help her communicate.
Kelly believes gentle parenting is about seeking connection, setting boundaries, and teaching children to process emotions without shame.
She stopped making her five-year-old son, George, apologize, believing it to be disingenuous. Instead, she teaches him to reflect on situations and communicate his feelings.
Kelly, who adopted gentle parenting after struggling with George’s behavior at 18 months, now avoids forced isolation, opting for a “calm down corner” instead.
She also uses baby sign language with her daughter, Ariella, to help her communicate.
Kelly believes gentle parenting is about seeking connection, setting boundaries, and teaching children to process emotions without shame.
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FunTranscript
00:00I feel like there's this misconception that when you are doing gentle parenting,
00:04authoritative parenting, that your child gets away with a lot of things, there's no discipline,
00:07there's no boundaries, there's nothing that teaches them a certain type of behavior.
00:12Now, there absolutely is, but it has to be developmentally correct. So you can't expect,
00:17as you wouldn't, a six-month-old to be walking. You can't expect a two-year-old to be listening
00:22to every single thing that you're saying. Their brain's not fully functioning. You can't expect
00:27a two-year-old to never have a tantrum. You can't expect a four, five, six, seven-year-old to never
00:30have a tantrum or have big feelings and express those big feelings in what you perceive as maybe
00:35a negative way.
01:05George had already had quite a high sugar morning with the Colin Caterpillar cake. He'd also had
01:13like quite a sugary cereal before his second breakfast. I don't need to justify myself,
01:17but my guy asked for an ice cream and I said, not today. Obviously, he was pretty pissed off
01:24about this. Now, as he's talking and talking, I can feel myself becoming more triggered.
01:30So I was like, now's not a good time for me to speak. I had to obviously get George in the car.
01:35I had to get Ariella in the car. I validated his feelings the entire time. But as I say,
01:39the tone in which he was speaking to me and the way in which he was speaking to me was rude,
01:43was disrespectful, and was not the way I want him to speak to me or to anybody else. But in this
01:48instance, it is all about connection. It is all about just getting him back to his regulated,
01:56logical thinking brain and out of his survival brain. So all I said literally in the car was
02:01when he kept repeating, please can I have one? Please can I have one? I said, not today.
02:04I can see that's making you frustrated and angry. I totally got that and I totally understand.
02:09And then about 15 minutes after we got home, I was feeding Ariella. He was completely regulated.
02:15I was completely regulated. And I thought, now is a good time to have a discussion.
02:20Is that all right if we have a little chat about what happened at the shop?
02:23Mommy's going to talk, all right? And then you can talk about what you want to talk about,
02:26all right? You asked me, mommy, can I have an ice cream? All right? I said, no.
02:32Understandably, you are going to be upset and frustrated that mommy has said no
02:37to you having an ice cream. And I understand that. All right? When mommy says no to something,
02:44you are more than welcome to be frustrated and be upset about that. But what you are not okay to do
02:50is speak to me disrespectfully. It's not kind.
02:52No, to me.
02:59Okay.
03:06That's the end of it, is it? That's all you wanted to share on it?
03:10Did you think the way you were speaking to mommy was okay?