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‘Gentle parenting’ is a delusion — and now there’s proof

For years now, American parents have been marinating in a single, soothing cultural message: If you are gentler, more collaborative, less authoritative, your children will feel closer to you.

We’ve been warned repeatedly that structure risks rupture, that firm rules damage attachment, and that saying “no” too decisively can fracture the bonds we try so desperately to preserve.

Offering freedom and numerous choices, we’re promised, will bring us better relationships with our kids than previous, stricter generations had with their own children. 

An entire industry of Instagram therapists and parenting influencers has grown up around this idea, selling a version of “gentle parenting” that often slides quietly from warmth into boundary avoidance, from empathy into endless negotiation.

New survey data from the Institute for Family Studies should give that consensus serious pause.

Researchers asked parents a disarmingly simple question: “How hard is parenting?”

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They then examined how different household rules and structures correlated with reported relationship quality between parents and children. 

The results cut directly against the “gentle” narrative.

The teenagers surveyed reported stronger........

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