Mom Of 3 Lets Her Kids Sleep & Eat Whatever And Whenever They Want With ‘Gentle’ Parenting Approach

Jul 10, 2023

One Rochdale, England, mother caused waves with a talk show audience when she promoted a less traditional approach to parenting, admitting to putting her own children to bed close to twelve the night before they were due to arrive for taping.

Nic Bescoby, a mother of three, appeared on Good Morning Britain in February 2020 to promote her “gentle” approach to parenting, which entailed letting her children take control of the decision-making. The family traveled to London for the appearance. As a supporter of gentle parenting, this meant Bescoby allowed her children to pick their bedtime. 

In later speaking with the hosts, Bescoby used this instance as an example of how she implemented gentle parenting. She admitted, "I didn't see the point in making (them) feel anxious about going to sleep." The little ones thus drifted off around midnight. 

Miraculously, 8-year-old George and 7-year-old Ellie, despite the early hour, managed to join their mother in the GMB studio the next morning. While this doesn't necessarily prove Bescoby's theory, it does suggest that maybe kids are more intuitive to their needs than they're given credit. 

Bescoby explained to the GMB hosts that, to her, it's about a mutual respect. She lets the children decide what they want to do within certain boundaries. She clarified, "it's not just about letting them do whatever they want. There's guidance. We do some hard table time where we'll come together at the table, and we set a limit." One of those limits was perhaps a hot-button issue for all parents these days: screen time. 

As Nic Bescoby revealed on the show, her children got to decide: when to go to bed, what and when to eat, and what to study each day. They were home-schooled instead of attending regular school.

According to Kidspot, Bescoby said, “My kids go to bed late. They wake up late. And that’s OK. I’m a night owl, too!” The mom added, “‘Bed time’ can occur anytime between 9 pm and 1 am.”

While she spoke to the hosts about this extremely non-traditional approach to raising her children, Bescoby explained:

"We realized we value freedom and the children do too. The more control we give them over their lives the happier they are."

When people accused her of being a lazy parent, she responded in depth and further explained how being a gentle parent required far more work than being a traditional disciplinarian parent. Instead of just getting angry and punishing the child, a gentle parent needs to take a step back, regain control of her own emotions, and think of a totally different approach to addressing the child's behavior. This requires more time, finesse, and patience than perhaps is usually doled out when telling a fussy toddler to eat their veggies. 

Kate Garraway, one of the hosts of Good Morning Britain, asked Bescoby about setting boundaries and admitted that to her, this style of parenting sounds like a "recipe for chaos." Understandably, anyone who has tried to be calm and reasonable when facing a grade-five temper tantrum might see this kid-glove approach as overly simplified. 

Undeterred, Bescoby replied earnestly and said, "It's not about saying yes you can have all the things you want. Rather than getting into a battle of wills with them, it's letting them come to the conclusion themselves."

In traditional parenting, parents use rewards and punishments to guide their children's behavior. This more mainstream method establishes the parent as the expert who makes the rules. Generally, the child has little control and little say. 

In gentle parenting, parents don't use either rewards or punishments. They instead give the children choices of commands and rules. With the goal being "to raise confident, independent and happy children through empathy, respect and understanding, and setting healthy boundaries."

Gentle parents try to achieve this by tweaking everyday parent-child interactions, like turning chores into games. That way, the children can freely choose to participate or not. Similarly, instead of actively trying to stop their children from acting out, parents listen to them, emphasizing communication rather than mere reaction. 

For example, instead of expressing displeasure and yelling about a child's bad behavior, a parent would rather explain how their child's behavior made them feel, hopefully establishing a correlation between that behavior and their reaction. 

The idea is that the child is given more of an opportunity to understand what went wrong rather than just being told they did something bad. Sometimes this translates a curt demand like “put your shoes on" into a more mindful phrase like "you don't want to put your shoes on?"

This more hands-on, individualized style of parenting has gained popularity in recent years. However, critics of this approach question the success of discussing shoelaces with a toddler when everyone's already late to school. While it may not be the right approach for every family, it clearly works for Nic Bescoby and her bunch. 

What do you think about gentle parenting? Do you believe it's a good idea or not? Let us know, and be sure to discuss this story with your friends and family to see what they have to say.