Sustainable Parenting | Raising Confident Kids with Positive Parenting Strategies

127. Gentle Parenting's Missing Link: The Secret to Calm and Cooperative Kids

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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Tired of repeating yourself 14 times a day, only to explode when your kids don’t listen? You’re not alone. In this episode, Flora McCormick, founder of Sustainable Parenting, shares the #1 tool most gentle parents overlook—and why it’s the secret to parenting without yelling and finding calm in the chaos.

After listening, you’ll discover:

  • Why inconsistency fuels tantrums, testing, and power struggles.
  • How predictability calms your child’s nervous system (and yours).
  • Simple scripts and routines that blend kind and firm parenting.

If you’ve been searching for positive parenting strategies and want a roadmap to calm, confident parenting, this episode will help you create more cooperation, connection, and peace at home.

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✨ Download the FREE pdf. on getting kids to listen, for strategies that take you out of the "gentle mom - monster mom" cycle, with effective positive parenting strategies.

✨ Sign up for an upcoming LIVE ONLINE workshop with Flora, or purchase a past replay: https://sustainableparenting.com/workshop where you get 30 min. of learning and 30 min. of LIVE Q & A time, with replays sent afterwards.

✨ Buy a 3 session Coaching Bundle (saving you $100) - for THREE 30-min sessions 1:1 with ME, where we get right to the heart of your challenges, and give you small, powerful shifts that make a huge difference fast.

Speaker 1:

Hey friend, ever feel like you've tried every parenting tool out there Empathy, connection, emotion, coaching but your kid is still pushing the limits, having meltdowns, not listening. You're not alone. In today's episode, I'll share the one tool that I see a lot of gentle parents getting wrong and why it's the missing piece for calm, cooperative kids. I'm Flora McCormick, licensed therapist, parenting coach and early childhood mental health consultant, with almost 20 years experience helping families like yours to get out of the slog of daily challenges, battles with each other over who's being too soft and who's being too harsh, into the space of calm, confident parenting that brings ease and cooperation. Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time, and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective and, for that reason, finally feel sustainable. Welcome.

Speaker 1:

Today's episode was inspired by a recent parent that I worked with, who also left a review. She said Flora was a game changer for our family. We initially sought help for our four-year-old sleep, but the most valuable outcome was learning to be a unified team as parents sleep. But the most valuable outcome was learning to be a unified team as parents. Before, my husband and I were frustrated and inconsistent, flora was incredible at getting us on the same page. She didn't just give us a plan, she empowered us to communicate and create a consistent method. We both believed in. Her compassionate and practical guidance led to immediate results and a much more peaceful home. We highly recommend her to any parents who need help working together as a team. Friend, if you'd like to leave a review to share how sustainable parenting has been impacting your life, I would be so grateful. It helps others to know what's possible in their families too, and you can do so easily by scrolling to the bottom of all episodes, clicking on that fifth star and leaving a comment. Also, be sure you subscribe to the podcast so that you regularly get the downloads each week and don't miss a single tool and strategy to be parenting with more kindness and firmness at the same time. So parenting finally feels sustainable.

Speaker 1:

Many gentle parents are missing this mark and ending up with partners going the opposite direction with a lot of authoritarian parenting styles that are also usually missing this mark, and that's why behavior isn't changing. With all of the efforts in the world around compassion, with all of the efforts in the world around compassion, validating feelings and supporting her child, it was not changing this nighttime battle cycle. Right before she got a hold of me, they had had a battle of two plus hours of the child screaming, debating, bargaining, begging. One more drink, mom, one more hug, mom, please, please, please, come lay next to me. And then, when she didn't get what she wanted, in protest banging on the door of her sister, who is a one-year-old, waking her up, causing such a scene, causing so much anger and frustration that the parents were not only battling with her but started battling with each other over one being more gentle, one being more harsh, and all the frustration of neither approach moving the dial forward or changing this behavior so that everyone could just get to sleep. If this is you, friend, if you've experienced that with sleep, this is for you. Or repeating yourself 14 times a day and one of you is trying to explain why the child needs to do something different, the other is being more harsh, this is for you. Or maybe you've been having moments of being super challenged with emotions by your child. And when they don't get the banana. Just right. It's been broken in half and they wanted it to be whole. They wanted to be able to walk through the door before you and these moments lead to the child melting down and one of you trying to support verbally and coaching them and trying to listen to their feelings, but it continuing to escalate and the other may be getting harsh and then both of you battling. This is for you. Or if you're someone who is frustrated that your child keeps doing very mischievous behavior that you have talked to them about and you don't understand why they keep doing it, even when you give a very rational, sensitive conversation or a more harsh you got to do this differently conversation, this is for you. Many gentle parents are missing this mark and ending up with partners going the opposite direction with a lot of authoritarian parenting styles that are also usually missing this mark, and that's why behavior isn't changing. Here's what is being misinterpreted. There's a misunderstanding about gentle parenting, so let's back up.

Speaker 1:

Gentle parenting is based on attachment parenting. Many people are familiar with the five attachment pillars, but if you aren't, let me explain them. First of all, they are to feel safety. The second is to feel attunement that my caregiver aligns and can match me in what I'm feeling. The third is to feel comfort. The fourth is to feel delight and the fifth is to feel supported in the unique self that you are. Now a lot of attachment parenting that I see in practice ends up being focused on the last four attunement, soothing, delight and a support of the unique self. Delight and a support of the unique self these are absolutely so important and the client was absolutely doing all of the things supporting these aspects in her child. But the first one is one that is often misunderstood Safety, safety.

Speaker 1:

What is safety? I think it's easy to think. First, emotional safety is that you're not yelled at, you're not called names, and absolutely that is true. But do you know what else is an equally important part of emotional safety? Predictability and consistency is a key element of predictability. This is the most underrated aspect of secure attachment.

Speaker 1:

Often when I end up in a conversation with a gentle parent, first of all, they often interpret that gentle means being endlessly flexible. Now, I know you don't usually go into it thinking that. Or if you were to have someone ask you like, what are your values about gentle parenting? You wouldn't say, well, I just want to be flexible, but that's what it can end up being in practice. You think that, because it is important to be emotionally responsive and supportive of their unique self and helping to give them comfort, that it's also your job to be flexible to their emotional needs in every moment and responsive to each emotion in a way that kind of trumps all else.

Speaker 1:

So that's part two of what I think a lot of people get wrong in gentle parenting is thinking that emotion trumps all else. That if the child is showing some upset about our boundary, that means there's something wrong with the boundary. That if they are starting to cry when we have said that we're going to have this kind of boundary if they're getting out of their bed again, or that we're going to have this kind of boundary if they're getting out of their bed again, or that we are going to have this kind of boundary if they're screaming in our face, if they show upset, that we have to attend to that upset over all else. But, friend, that flexibility unfortunately often leads to us not having as much predictability. And then, when we're lacking that predictability because we set a boundary, but then we're backing up and focusing on feelings and going a different direction to the child that actually feels like chaos.

Speaker 1:

Kids thrive when the adults around them provide both warmth and structure. Hear that again both warmth and structure. And what that involves, then, is shifting from thinking that the top things about our role as a gentle parent are to support emotionally and validate and soothe, and remembering one of the most underrepresented concepts in attachment science, which is the value of predictability and consistency in offering the child a sense of emotional safety. Predictability and consistency gives the child a sense of emotional safety. Brain science tells us that the child's developing brain craves patterns, predictable patterns. It calms their nervous system. Our children also crave predictability to develop trust. You know this in your adult life when someone is more predictable, you trust them more.

Speaker 1:

And third of all, consistency is important because it affects behavior. They are hardwired to sometimes try very inappropriate behaviors to see if it gets their needs met and if we take the bait because that involves some sense of them crying or being emotional and we are not seeing that for what it is, which is just an emotional upset, an emotional sense that it is hard to face this boundary. We're missing the mark If we can't see that difference like wait, they're protesting because they need me to hold a clear container that clearly says, with warmth and structure, that yep, this is the boundary. If I miss that, that's what they're looking for, I get really lost and I end up going down roads that are ineffective. So how does this play out?

Speaker 1:

Let's say you are the person that has had your child not listening, when you have repeated yourself 14 times and you're frustrated and you're trying to just rationalize with them the opposite in clarity and consistency, that you're missing. That's important, for attachment is to just say I love you too much to keep arguing with you about this. I love you too much, and so let me just be clear If a toy is left out overnight, it's going to be scooped up and put on pause for two days. That's it. I'm just going to follow through on that because I love you too much to keep battling in conversation with you about this. That clarity and then the follow through is going to provide your child so much of a sense of trust, of clarity, of decreasing their anxiety, decreasing their upsets about battles, of cleaning things up, because you have been clear If you are the parent who has had frustration that the child gets so emotional over the tiniest little things an opportunity for clarity and consistency and predictability would be to set a boundary with yourself.

Speaker 1:

I'm not going to keep telling you you have to stop crying, you have to quit getting so emotional about this. I am going to make a plan. You know what, in a moment like this, I know that your brain is just offline and I'm going to give you space or a silent hug. If you want more about that, check out my episode on the process I call reset, episode 37, how to help a child. Reset instead of timeout. Friend, this is so important that you make an agreement of how you're going to offer either a silent hug or space to calm down. It doesn't have to be punitive, but that clarity gives you the space to then be predictable, not getting to the edge of your rope where you flip out on them, not overly explaining yourself for 20 minutes, 45 minutes, two plus hours where it just keeps derailing.

Speaker 1:

And if you're the parent who has the kid that's been mischievous and just seems to like intentionally do things that are hurtful to others or property and nothing you say has gotten through to them. The top missing piece is that clarity, that consistency, that predictability. I'm not going to overly explain myself. I'm not going to lose it and yell at you. I am going to follow through in some way that we agree upon. You know what that really took a lot of energy from the family, from that building, from the situation. We are going to pay back the energy to that person, place or thing. We are going to pay back the energy to that person, place or thing in a tangible way.

Speaker 1:

And if you want more on that topic, I recommend rolling it all the way back to episode six, one of my very first launched episodes.

Speaker 1:

Episode six do this one thing for more respect from your child, and that involves them actually taking seriously the lessons you've given about why it's not okay to be doing these intentionally hurtful or mischievous things to people, places or things.

Speaker 1:

And, friend, if you're looking for more support, please check out the options in the description of this episode, which include the chance to have my free PDF on getting kids to listen and the link to one-on-one sessions with me If you would like to dive into this in a personalized, individualized way for you and your specific, amazing, unique child and your specific, unique, amazing self.

Speaker 1:

So, in conclusion, what most people interpret as gentle and gentle parenting is often missing one crucial part of attachment, which is consistency and predictability.

Speaker 1:

So I want you today to think about rewiring your brain, to focus on the need for that clarity, that consistency, that predictability and that's not about punishment, but it's about being clear and predictable, whatever outcomes you've been missing, to be able to have a little bit more firmness and follow through. That's likely affecting your overall goals of attachment more than you realize and affecting your overall goals of creating a child who is calm and cooperative more than you realize. So this week, I invite you to focus on clear routines, predictable follow through and doing so with a tone of kindness and firmness at the same time. So, friend, if you are ready to make some shifts today, I empower you to reframe how valuable consistency and predictability are for your child's wellbeing. And please be sure to be joining us again next week, because we're going to talk about the top three things that easily get kids out of the house quickly into the car, with calm and confidence, and the kids having easy cooperation. See you next time.