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Does Peaceful Parenting Work?

Whenever I speak to people about peaceful parenting I’m often asked, “does peaceful parenting work?”. It’s a fair question. As parents we are bombarded with advice, hints, tips, must do things and things to avoid from the moment we announce a pregnancy. It takes time and mental energy to sift through the noise and decide how we want to parent our children.

If you’re on any social media platform these days you’ll see people sharing their well-meant advice and some of the strategies being suggested can take a lot of effort to implement. Often parents then feel disappointed when they don’t get the results they thought they would.

So it’s fair that Peaceful Parenting can come under some scrutiny. Parents want to know before they invest time, energy and money into what might feel like yet another parenting fad… does it actually work?

But First…

Let’s address something straight away though: peaceful parenting is not a parenting fad. Peaceful parenting is a well-researched approach to parenting backed up by science and, yes, results.

There’s also a huge difference in seeking coaching from a professional versus taking advice from a someone on Instagram who isn’t showing you their bigger picture because they want to sell you something via an affiliate link. Can you tell this annoys me a bit?! A blog post for another time perhaps…

So How Does Peaceful Parenting Work?

Peaceful parenting works because when we parent peacefully we are consistently respecting and honouring our children’s emotions, whilst providing them with clear boundaries.

We all benefit from knowing where we stand. Imagine working for a boss that expected a different standard of work each day. Some days they don’t mind what you do, and other days you face disciplinary action for not achieving enough. It would be stressful, right? Especially if you had no idea what kind of day you were going to be facing. It’s like this for our children if we parenting them consistently and it can contribute to what we then interpret as bad behaviour.

If we listen to our children, work with them and respect them, our whole family benefits. Everyone wants to feel loved, secure and safe. Peaceful parenting offers this in abundance to our children.

Give It Time!

Let’s all be realistic here, peaceful parenting isn’t a quick overnight fix. We can’t decide overnight that we are going to parent peacefully and then watch all of our family’s stress melt away, sorry!

Think of it this way, if you decide to run a marathon, you don’t leap out of bed and run a marathon. You need to train. You probably need to tweak your diet, buy running shoes, slowly build up how long and far your can run for. It takes time, energy and effort to train for a marathon and changing your parenting style is likely to take time, energy and effort too.

I say this time and time again, but you also have to allow for the fact that you probably weren’t raised this way yourself. You will find yourself saying something just as your parents did, often without meaning to. We tend to behave in a way we have seen modelled, so if you have moments of not feeling peaceful and losing your temper, for example, give yourself a break. You haven’t failed, you just need more practise.

When Peaceful Parenting Doesn’t Work

There are times when peaceful parenting doesn’t appear to be working. Parents can then feel as though they have been wasting their time, but that isn’t the case at all. Most of the time it boils down to consistency.

It is hard for us to create new habits and new ways of thinking and that’s exactly what peaceful parenting is. If you weren’t raised this way you’re learning a whole new skill set and problem-solving approach. It stands to reason that sometimes you won’t be 100% successful straight away and you’ll slip back into old habits.

Children are often parented by more than one parent, and in blended families there can be multiple parents involved in raising a family. Consistency across all of these adults is key.

It’s not peaceful parenting that isn’t working for families, it’s just that more support is needed in applying the tools of peaceful parenting consistently.

Want To Know More?

If this article has got you thinking about how peaceful parenting could work for your family, I’d love to hear from you!

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Victoria Maus

Victoria Maus is parenting coach and writer from the UK based in Wellington, New Zealand. Victoria is a certified Peaceful Parent Instructor, qualified primary school teacher and former home-educator. She is married to Andy and mum to their two daughters.

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