As a parent of both a teenager and a young baby, I can tell you from personal experience that children will drive you to the brink of insanity.
The naughty step has long been a parenting tactic either used to teach children ‘a lesson’, or to find a moment to calm down in the wake of a meltdown (both child and adult).
However, in recent years, the naughty step has become less popular – particularly amongst a newer generation of parents, like myself, who prefer the method of ‘gentle parenting’.
Whilst the phrase often makes old school disciplinarians cringe, gentle parenting isn’t simply about letting your child run wild. As defined by Very Well Family, gentle parenting is “an evidence-based approach to raising happy, confident children. This parenting style is composed of four main elements—empathy, respect, understanding, and boundaries—and focuses on fostering the qualities you want in your child by being compassionate and enforcing consistent boundaries. Unlike some more lenient parenting methods, gentle parenting encourages age-appropriate discipline that teaches valuable life lessons.
“Those who practice gentle parenting encourage working together as a family to teach their children to express their feelings, but in a socially acceptable, age-appropriate manner.”
As time goes on, we leave behind more and more unsavoury parenting practices, from ‘going to bed without supper’ to spanking, and now French educational charity Stop VEO has launched a campaign for the Council of Europe to stop recommending use of the naughty step (or sending children to any form of isolation space) to parents.
Supporters of the campaign said:
“Putting a child in the corner might give adults the impression they are being obeyed. It’s useless. The child won’t have understood what they have done [wrong]. It is a measure of exclusion”, says Agnès Florin, professor of child psychology at the University of Nantes.
“If you want the child to calm down, stay with them.” [If necessary, the measure could be employed for] “the exclusion of the parent, which we think is preferable”, says Christine Schuhl, author of books on parenting.
Whilst the French government passed legislation outlawing smacking and other “violent physical, verbal or psychological” punishments in 2019, it will be interesting to see the response to this new campaign in France, where children are often reprimanded more strictly than in other countries – a premise which is noted in the book Bringing Up Bebe”, authored by Pamela Druckerman.
Specialist PR agency
We serve clients who want support from public relations professionals who can assist them with their communication programmes. Our work includes PR strategy, media liaison, writing, marketing, brochure and web design.
Our clients want support from people who will be proactive in their approach and who have their clients’ interests at the heart of what they do.
Based in Surrey, we serve clients from around globe looking for a positive impact to their communication activity.
