Gentleness: Does it work?
Adele Cornish, BSW
Ever find yourself tempted to let rip verbally at someone in your blended family?
Have you given into that temptation?
If you’re nodding yes then you and I share something in common. We think that by ‘ripping in’ they’ll change their attitude or behavior right? The thing about ripping in is that it seldom effects a long-term change in someone else AND can sabotage our relationship with them. So is there another way?
Well you could try the opposite approach. I have and to be honest, it takes self control and I don’t always get it right. This approach can be summed up in one word; gentleness.
Here are a couple of descriptions of it from thefreedictionary.com:
1. Considerate or kindly in disposition; amiable and tender.
2. Not harsh or severe; mild and soft
Gentleness is a trait that gets a lot of bad press. It’s often perceived as a weakness but it’s actually controlled strength. You can be bossy and demanding to get your own way or, use gentle words to make your point. But does it work?
What’s your experience of using this approach?
Do people respect a gentle word or is a harsh one more effective? Please place your feedback below.
Warm regards
Adele Cornish
p.s. Thanks for contributing to this blog. It’s great to both learn from and support each other!
p.p.s. For more indepth advice on blended family struggles please click here
A harsh word is no good. When my partner raises his voice or gets mean I stop listening. At that point I do not care what he has to say whether it’s relevant or not–I’m not paying attention. Gentle words work with me. I listen, take his feelings into consideration, and make the appropriate changes–willingly. 🙂
when I yell as you say no-one listens and you just feel like a crazy person afterwards…..they also wonder “what’s up with her” instead of thinking they may have caused the reaction….better to be quiet and remove yourself like a “grownup” and let them know quietly you are annoyed or angry!
Wow this one is a bit of a touchy topic for me. My husband was and at times still is harsh and authoritarian. This had us all living in fear, especially my bio kids…with much prayer and patience he is finally softening up a bit. Mind you the scares are taking a bit longer to heal.
I on the other hand have always been too soft and gentle. I became hostile towards my 15 yr old stepson due to the gentle approach not working at all..he walked all over me and treated me like scum. (sadly hubby enabled this child to have way too much power) In the end to protect myself I put up walls and acted as if the child wasn’t there. When he was rude and awful I gave him back the same treatment…in my heart of hearts I knew it was wrong and it went against everything I believe in..the whole situation caused me so much anxiety and stress that I had a breakdown and ended up in a pshyc hospital.
Sadly no ammount of councelling helped this boy and 4 months ago I made hubby choose…’send the child back to his mother’s or I pack up and leave’…I had a duty of care to my children who had both suffered from my step sons behaviour.(I know that hubby can now see how much his son’s dreadful treatment of me and my bio kids affected us)
I think that in some situations nothing we try helps and we just need to come to a place of peace and assurance that we tried our very best and move on with our lives.
Life has started to calm down and we are slowly healing.
Gentleness always for me. I feel it’s more effective at communicating your feelings about a situation both with hubby and daughter. Only occasionally if gentle is being ignored frustration leads to letting rip but on the whole it is definitely a healthier way of communicating.Hubby used to let rip a bit, but is learning that daughter and I respond much more positively to gentle!
For a few years since we were married, I was very, very gentle and as they say, was walking on eggshells around my husband’s 20 something daughter, who was constantly creating problems. One day, I reach my limit and I let it all out. I thought that my husband will divorce me and his daughter will never speak to me again after my outburst. I personally immediately felt so much better, I felt I have cleared the air at least for myself and it was worth it. I wasn’t swearing or abusive, I just shouted all the things which were causing me so much grief.
To my amazement, my husband I think heard my degree of pain for the first time and realized my difficulties.
His daughter came to stay with us two months later and was nice and more considerate then ever before. So maybe sometimes and especially with older children is good to show some strong emotion as long as one doesn’t swear at them or says mean things. Again, it all depends on the person we dealing with and whether we can control the degree of our anger.
I agree, so hard to do. I try to remember this verse. “There is one who speaks rashly, like a piercing sword; but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Proverbs 12:18
Karen sums everything up for me. I am in a dark place with my partners son who left our house because he didnt like me and vice versa. Now his own mum has thrown him out and he is now back with us and i dont feel i can start all this over again but i love my partner andd he loves me but the argunents have bbecome so bitter annd i feel a real hoirrible person for asking him to put his son in his own flat as he does not want to live by house rules. I fear for my mental health too but also feel guilty a mean
Hi, From my experience, neither work, and both work, the person listening is ready, willing and able ad wants to. My personal experience is with my partner and my step daughter, a positive approach did nothing, getting angry made it uncomfortable, and they responded to how they felt. Ultimately, 6 years, and she approaching teen years, it was felt like grade school when we were all together, splitting was the only thing to do.
We had alot going for us, but couldn’t maintain intimacy two adults must have for such an endeavor. I am still deeply saddened at the loss and wished these practices had transformed us.
I don’t have bio kids. I have a step kid w/ my ex husband.. but he is 18 and I raised him with his daddy.. I loved him so much I’m still his mama.. the sd with my husband now has been a nightmare since day 1.. she was 1-1/2 when we got together and it was never good.. now she lives with us.. ugh. and neither work for me. she is now 16 and I just feed her and we pretty much ignore each other. My hubby has to let it rip to get her attention most times.. ugh.. she has no desire to communicate with anyone .. but she has her mother she can go to so I let her.
This is an interesting topic for me. I had worked with kids for 25 years before becoming a step-parent, and certainly believe that being kind works better than being angry, and that boundaries are most effective when delivered with kindness.
At the same time, I grew up with a dad who yelled when angry, and have a hard time entirely controlling that tendency, at least when very stressed.
I have two stepdaughters who have a mom with borderline personality disorder. She engages in behavior attempting to alienate the kids from their dad, and also is prone to extreme drama and upset (she has threatened to kill us, is extremely angry and even violent with people in her life in front of the kids). So the kids transition to our home with some intense behaviors. They are not very difficult kids, but SD11 can be prone to lying, throwing big temper-tantrums, hitting her little sister, etc.
The first year when I would occasionally yell, I would feel horribly guilty. Now I am 4.5 years into this relationship, and have been seeing a child psychologist and working on my way of parenting for about 3 years. Also, this last year was very stressful–we were involved in lengthy custody litigation that involved false accusations of sexual abuse against my DH’s mom, lots of crazy allegations that fortunately could not be farther from the truth. But VERY stressful.
During this year, I could not help but be pushed over that edge at times. My deep commitment is to be gentle to those around me. But with kids who have few boundaries at their mom’s, setting firm boundaries is also important. And the truth is that sometimes I cannot be present to the intensity of injustice and meanness without some anger.
And through working with my T and talking to other parents, I have discovered that dealing with difficult emotions with kids is a very important thing, particularly kids who are being exposed to totally inappropriate ways of dealing with similar emotions with a mentally ill parent.
I have the idea that it is best to just not be angry, or not to share that with others when angry. But for these kids, they seem to want a reality check. Is what is happening okay? My approach as a parent or teacher of kids has always been not to make something wrong, but to help a child to understand cause and effect.
Here is what I do when I am angry. First, I say, “I am angry right now.” I let the child know that I love them even though I am angry. I let them know that my anger is not their fault, that it is one way of reacting to what they have done. It does not mean they are bad. But they DO have an ability to influence me, by acting with kindness or hurtfulness. I do not always get angry at meanness, but if I am feeling sensitive or stressed out, I am more likely to react with anger.
I always apologize if I yell, or if I overreact and get very angry over something small. I always let them know that I would prefer to be a person who could set boundaries without anger, but that is something I am working on learning.
I notice that if I can do this without anger, the interaction goes smoother–last night, SD11 was kicked over her sister’s project, then was rude to me when I asked her to work it out with her sister, and I just calmly let her know that I wanted to enjoy the living room with people who were treating each other in a loving and respectful way, and that it was okay if she wanted to be grumpy and not listen or pay attention to others’ needs, but I would like her to spend some time alone if she wanted to do that, in a private place like her room. She said, “No, no, no!” and I asked her if she wanted to have a do-over, and she accepted and tried out apologizing to her sister and offering to help repair the damage. Then she came over and sat on my lap and we read our books together.
On the one hand, this worked well. On the other, I see SD11 learning so much from how I handle my anger–whether I do it “right” or “wrong.” When I mess up and apologize, I see her able to model that with her sister and friends–“I am sorry I treated you poorly. I was angry. I love you.”
I think learning HOW to handle when we mess up is as important as being gentle most of the time. A key part of parenting is messing up. But you can’t do not on purpose. It is the fact that we have a commitment to gentleness, that the kids see us sometimes fail, acknowledge our mistake, their feelings and how we affect them, and that we then try again–not swim in guilt or ask their forgiveness or try to manipulate them to see us as nice when we are not.
I would like to be an only gentle person. But I am not sure that if I was, I would be as useful to these kids at this time in their lives, kids who have a role model who is not fair or nice or reasonable sometimes (a mentally ill mom).
So to answer your questions in a few words: I experience that gentleness tends to make for an easier interaction between the kids and I, and coupled with good boundaries, better results in terms of the kids doing what I want and me being happy. At the same time, my anger and the way I deal with that seems to result in a deeper level of trust following such times, and more learning on the kids’ part about how to apologize, work toward resolution of conflict. So my experience is that both are critical to a trusting relationship and to the kids and my ability to learn how to move through anger. I think my felt and stated commitment to being gentle, even when I fail, is what makes the anger part useful, so just abandoning trying gentleness when I can would not yield the value of the anger.
I do not think anger is necessary or critical for us to learn to work together; but I think that for those of us for whom anger is a part of our parenting, it can have value when we come to our anger and kids with love and respect and gentleness.
I do not think there are any absolutes with this.
I grew up being a very polite, mild-mannered person. I started working with this girl who was AWFUL to me for weeks and weeks and weeks. One day she was telling another worker that I’d caused a big problem in the store–and she was really distorting the situation and she was talking about me so I could hear the entire thing.
I walked straight up to her and her colleague and I stated that what she was saying was not true. I did not swear or loose control, but I was mad–and I was not particularly gentle. I called her on her ickiness.
After that day, she was 20 times nicer to me. When I finally left, she was kind of apologetic about the way she was when I first got there.
I have also been able to calm an irrate person down by talking to them gently.
On the other hand, I have had the experience of me being honest but firm–and people reacting like I’m being “soooooo mean.” There have been so many things I thought were okay to ask of my SS or say to my SS–and my SS genuinely interprets this as being very mean or bossy. He is good at convincing DH that we are being “too mean” –when really the expectation is quite appropriate.
This is particularly frustrating when I’m trying to be strong and firm about a safety rule that I really need him to respect. Sometimes I think he’s been given the impression by my DH (and/or BM and our counselor) that we need SS’s permission to give SS a rule.
I feel like my DH and even the counselor want me to ask my SS’s permission before I give him a rule or ask him to do something. They don’t say that explicity, but they really seem to think that we can always get SS to like or agree to an expectation and if he gets upset, something must be wrong.
They are sure that if there are problems “Smom must not have been gentle enough.” While I’m sure this is true some of the time, it also sounds like a way of putting an unhappy kid in charge of the house.
This can have negative consequences for the child as well as the family.
For example, I was taking SS biking in a foreign city, and I was the only adult. I tried to go through the safety rules–the most important being: “please stay on the right-hand side of the bike lane.” And “you need to stay on the right-hand side of the bike lane.” And finally –BAM! He gets hit by another biker and scrapes his knee. When I tried to remind him to stay on the right-hand side of the bike lane so he wouldn’t get hit again, he was furious with me for even thinking that it wasn’t the other guy’s fault. Twenty minutes later, I looked back and he was happily riding in the left-hand lane. When I stopped to ask him directly and firmly to please ride on the right–he got really mad at me.
I did not yell, I did not curse, and I tried from the beginning to be clear. But it pained me deeply that I could not keep my SS safe because I could not find a way to make him take my safety rules seriously.
I did not rent bikes with him again because I’m sure his dad was hoping he would return from such excursions in one piece.
I think some of this comes from people consistently bending rules and bending expectations in an attempt to be “nice” or “I’m the best at being gentle” instead of a solid, responsible adult.
I think that gentleness can occassionally work miracles. But it doesn’t always work miracles and I do not think it should be a person’s only tool to the exclusion of other tools.
I do not advocate harshness. But I think there is a middle ground called firmness.
My problem is that both my SS and DH seem to operate in a world in which everthing is either one extreme or the other. It is either very gentle or it is “too harsh”.
So even if I’m fairly certain I’m being appropriate in trying to teach an 11-year-old boy to ride in the right bike lane instead of the left, he thinks I was being very harsh. He really seemed to want to go to war over the fact that the accident was 100% the other guy’s fault–even when I had repeatedly seen him in the left lane prior to the incident.
That is a problem, and in the end it has a negative impact on my SS’s well-being.
Gentleness is a great tool–but life is too complicated for it to be the only tool.
My husband and I have been married for 6 1/2yrs. I have a 21y/o and a 28y/o, both daughters. He has a 21y/o daughter, now living with my husbands parents and a 17y/o son, living with us. Both of his and 1 of mine lived with us since we married. His 2 have ALWAYS been dismissive and disrespectful to me. When trying to talk to my husband, no matter what approach I use, he blocks me out or makes excuses for any and everything they do. Until your spouse is ready to take responsibility for his children, any way you approach the matter it’s wrong. This has driven a huge wedge between he and I. I pray that years of damage of him not requiring respect for his wife in our home can be repaired.
I appreciate the concept and I know from experience that it can be very effective. However, with my three step-daughters, they view my gentleness as being weak and a pushover. For three and a half years after my husband and I were married, I did everything I could to be kind, gentle, considerate, genererous, etc. It’s in my nature (as a child, my own mother cared for the disabled in our home, and I learned that kindness and gentleness is the language children respond to best). My step-daughters treated me as though I didn’t exist. I washed and folded their clothes, made meals, dishes, and never asked them to lift a finger because my husband didn’t want to upset them. (Their own mother acts as maid for them at their other home). At times my husband asked them to say hi and thank you to me. Outside of those times, they never acknowledged that I was alive. It has been a deeply painful tragic situation. I believe some children will respond to gentleness over time. However, some, as in the case of my step daughters, who I believe are simply spoiled and entitlement minded will never respond to my gentleness. They are now 15,17 and 18. Their father and I have been together 9 years. My children have been on the receiving end of their selfish behavior and have tried to be good to them as well. I have learned much, experienced deep rejection and feel great loss. My husband usually handled the situatin very poorly in that he has been very uneven in his treatment of my children and his own. He continually makes excuses for his daughters and I have felt myself becoming very distant from him. Sometimes I wonder how I arrived at this place. It is the love of my own children that keep me sane and moving forward each day.
Gentleness works fine with me because as the potential to ‘rip into’ the individual causing any friction I remember more often then not to ‘hold my tongue’ ‘speak in love’ and think of the consequences of my responses.
I am am not a saint but it has taken daily scipture reading, mentoring under other blended families and using these types of resources to apply the proper response to an improper situation. Be it my partner,kids,grandparents,friends and everybody/anybody else making themselves a part of the blended family household (invited or not) I must remember to please God first in ding that I will receive peace of mind overall from the situation at that time.
It is not an easy walk when you have so many individuals and complications but again I say use all resources available to you and keep the love that started this family intact always.You will be tested by satan and society but nothing will conquer what God is blessing.
Before I go off on a long winded post, I think the idea of Gentle words making a point depends much on the receiving person understanding the importance of the desired change.
I can see a little bit of me and my wife in Karen D’s post, at least some of the personalities she talks about but somewhat reversed. In my situation, I am more authoritarian and strict than my wife, but I’m the step parent. At the same time, I feel she is too lenient with her biochildren, a 15 yo boy and 17 yo girl, both with anxiety, ADHD and mood disorders. I have two adult sons that do not live at home, but they were very different (easy) to raise, than my step kids. As a type A personality kind of guy, it becomes very frustrating when I see my step kids disrespect or manipulate my wife. She is very loving with a lot of patience, although she can reach a breaking point. At times, I think kindness and understanding with kids becomes ineffective, and they just need a good swift kick in the posterior (rhetorically speaking). We can all lose our temper, some quicker than others. Think of a boiling pot of water. There is going to be steam. That steam needs to escape rather it’s let out slowly, or explodes violently. The real question is, how do you control how much heat exists, and how to you control the release of steam? Our family “steam” dynamics revolve around parenting and discipline. When disagreement builds between my wife and I over parenting or discipline, she tends to retreat and refuses to support my desire, while I tend to get louder and more animate. For us, the best solution is when both parties agree to sit down and discuss the issue and listen to each other. And most importantly are willing to support the others desire.