How can you convince your partner to parent gently for the sake of your child’s well-being?

You can’t.

We cannot change other people. They’re just not within our control. And if all the energy you are expending extending invitations for learning and opportunities for practice have not generated movement, perhaps it’s time to set that burden down.

Facing the gap between the life you imagined for your child and the life your child has can feel like painful grief. But like all grief, we must feel it to move through it.

Accepting your partner exactly as they are will open a new path forward. But accepting a person is not the same as accepting all their behavior. Rather than trying to change your partner, you can collaborate with your co-parent, establishing whatever boundaries are needed to hold space for everyone’s well-being, while going all in on the substantial parts that are fully yours.

1. Discuss your personal experiences.

There is so much insight to be gleaned from reflecting on our lived experiences. And when we share vulnerably with each other as co-parents, we powerfully enhance the connection and collaboration between us.

What felt good to receive in your childhood? What did your parent do that led you to feel seen, understood, adored, and valued? What kind of support from your parent fostered meaningful learning and growth within you? What created a sense of safety for you to feel, try, fail, rest, and thrive? What felt nourishing to your body, mind, and soul?

What felt bad to receive in your childhood? What was hurtful? What was ineffective? What fostered disconnection and distrust? What armored up an adapted version of yourself that you’re still working to deconstruct?

Parents, experiences, and childhoods are not all bad or all good. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and, not black and white, but gray. No one’s upbringing was 100% perfect or 100% imperfect. It’s in the nuances that we can glean the most wisdom. We must be brave enough to acknowledge and learn from the instances of sweetness and success within even a traumatic cumulative and the spaces for growth within even the most lovely pictures. If significant resistance shows up when attempting to crack the hardened shell of your childhood narrative, then seek the support of a therapist to help you break through.

What styles of connection and specific behaviors within relationships feel nourishing to you now (a workplace boss, conflict with a neighbor, a beloved friendship, etc.)? What kind of feedback helps you to learn and grow? What kind of treatment by others helps you to thrive?

Gentle parenting is actually just human connection, so it is incredibly valuable to confront your experiences within adulthood too. How you want to be treated today informs how you want to treat your children (children are human too).

From these conversations, you can select the starting ingredients for a shared recipe for co-parenting—both what you want to include and exclude.

2. Establish parenting boundaries.

Coming out of conversations around lived experiences, you’re usually ripe for establishing parenting boundaries (boundaries for yourselves, not for your children). You can think of it like identifying the lowest common denominators between you. In other words, you keep negotiating until you reach a minimum standard of treatment for your children on which you both agree. And there is always a point of intersection to be found if you go low enough. You need to find that common ground so you can build up from there.

For example: No hitting children ever. That is a non-negotiable parenting boundary my husband and I both agreed to before we had children and I suggest your family adopts it as well.

Another that we developed over time that has proven highly advantageous: If one of us dysregulates, the other taps us out and takes over. If we become dysregulated, that is a red flag showing that we need to tend our own needs before we can address our child’s. The moment we lose our shit, we become the problem, instead of the problem being the problem. It can feel hard to disengage when our protector has taken over, but we never regret following through on this agreement.

Boundaries are incredibly powerful to understand and are often misunderstood, so I recommend going deeper into this topic than we have space for here (you can dive in with an entire chapter on boundaries in the Sage Mothering course or dip your toe into this podcast episode on boundaries). As an essential primer, a boundary is something that is 100% within your control. So as an example, I could not hold a boundary that my partner cannot yell, but I could hold a boundary that I do not leave my child or myself in a conversation with someone who is yelling (because I can remove myself and my child).

3. Set parenting goals.

After we know where we don’t want to go, we need to decide where we do want to go. Our parenting journey needs a direction. I’m not talking about getting attached to any specific outcomes for your children, but setting intentions for how you hope your child feels upon reaching adulthood.

What kind of relationship do you hope to enjoy with your child as they launch into adulthood? What inner resources do you feel drawn to impart? Do you wish for them to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled? Are your parenting behaviors today in alignment with that desired result?

How we treat our children when they depend on us for their survival determines how they will treat us once they no longer do. When we’re struggling in survival mode, we can get stuck looking down at our feet with each step. But we need to look up.

Aligning our dreams with our partner in this way is a positive and motivating strategy for co-parenting well.

4. Allow your partner to have their own relationship with their child.

Once you have drawn the edges of the map, you can feel safer to let go and allow your partner to have their own relationship with their child. We must recognize that how our partner shows up is outside of our control, therefore it is not our responsible and not ours to own. Your partner will parent differently than you would choose for them—but you don’t get to choose. You are two different people, who get to show up in two different ways, creating two completely different relationships with the same child.

Just like we must do the work of acknowledging that our child is not an extension of us but a wholly autonomous individual in connection with us, parents are differentiated beings with differing needs, perspectives, preferences, and strengths. This diversity can be so much more of a value add than the inauthentic agreement of a “united front” ever could be.

5. Take ownership for your relationship with your child.

While we have no control over our partner, we can influence them through our example. But this is a byproduct, not the point. Parenting as a manipulative conversation tactic is not a path to a rewarding destination.

Instead, focus on all that is yours to own—everything fully within your control. Grab hold of your relationship with your child with both hands. Go all in on growing into the best version of yourself so you can show up as the parent you needed and the parent your child needs.

While most people think of this work as parenting strategies to be learned, it’s just as much about healing our stuff—getting our own baggage out of the way and learning how to love ourselves well. Gentle parenting is actually the work we do on ourselves to feel and live peacefully and in alignment with our values. And your partner is not standing in the way of that work—it’s right there for the taking.

The Sage Mothering course provides the roadmap for this growth journey.

6. Defer to the primary parent.

The parent who dedicates the most time, energy, and labor to parenting the child is the majority stakeholder.

For example, if your child is experiencing some challenges around eating and you are the one feeding them all their meals, meeting regularly with the occupational therapist, and reading all the books on supporting children through this issue, then you get 51% of the decision-making power.

In a perfect world, the parenting would be shared equitably. But even within an overall equitable split, efficiency usually dictates ownership for different pieces of the shared life. If one parent fully owns healthcare and one parent fully owns extra curricular activities, then each parent would get 51% of decision-making power within their respectful sphere of ownership.

It can be helpful to hold this ownership with an open palm instead of a clenched fist. We do well to maintain flexibility within our roles. Needs evolve over time. Partnerships can shift. Passions can ebb and flow. One partner might be the primary parent one year and the other partner the next. My husband might take full ownership (and in turn get primary decision making power) over the dog one year and that could be mine the next. My invitation is to simplify by bringing clarity to ownership in each season of life.

As a non-parenting example, my husband and I both renovate our home together. He has developed a skillset for drywalling, so he is the one who does that work. I get to render opinions and preferences. I get to point out things I’m noticing or potential problems I foresee. I get to make suggestions. I might carry drywall into the house and pick up mud from the store. But he gets 51% of the drywall vote because he’s the one learning about it and doing it. It’s easy for me to supervise as an armchair expert, but unless I am willing to take as much responsibility as he is, I ultimately defer to him. I know that I am always welcome to step more into that role (he would be happy to step back from drywall if I developed a sudden passion for it). But unless and until I do, he’s the drywall majority stakeholder.

7. Plan for recurring challenges.

Most of the challenges you will experience with your child will be recurring. Our children show us who they are and what they are capable of in each season of life. Believe them. When we accept and expect the challenging behavior that shows up in the gap between a need and a skill, we can prepare and plan for them.

It can be tremendously helpful to expressly state out loud, what is. As co-parents, we can be safe witnesses for the expression of the current reality, curating a shared understanding of the facts and collaborating around a consistent response that is workable and sustainable.

If you own the context surrounding the challenge, it might sound like stating the observable details of what is happening, hypothesizing as to the unmet need at play, and declaring a potential way of addressing that need more efficiently to try (an experiment, to observe the results and make adjustments). Then share what support would look like from your partner in implementing this plan. Collaborate together until you reach a point of mutual workability.

This allows you to front load the co-parenting decision-making when there is no stress, as opposed to getting triggered and reactive in the moment, working against each other as your separate nervous systems fight for survival. It’s okay to disagree, but it’s more productive to do it in peace times.

8. Disagree respectfully.

Not only is it okay to disagree, it’s actually better for children to have parents who role model how to disagree well. So shift the goal from always agreeing with your partner (which is insincere and destined to fail), to disagreeing from a place of love and respect.

“Hm, I can see how you got there, but I have some different thoughts about that. Can we talk about it together and then see where we land?”

“I’m noticing the tension in your body and the intensity in your voice, so let’s take a pause. When you’re ready, we can come back to this—it’s not an emergency and I know we’ll find a good way forward together.”

9. Center the human instead of the philosophy.

I am a practitioner of gentle parenting, not out of a dogmatic allegiance to an identity-based community of belonging or a set of externally prescribed tenets, but because when I center the work of curating peaceful connection and human thriving, I am in alignment with this approach.

You have my permission (as a person with letters after her name—so it’s official), to center the needs of your people instead of centering alignment with a philosophy (even one you hold dear to your heart). The strategies and tools within gentle parenting are offers, not mandates. It’s less about objective or universal best practices and more about best practices for your unique child and family as it exists in this place and time.

So when you and your partner do disagree, you need not fight for the honor of an entire movement. Let the decision-making metric be what serves both your family’s short-term needs and long-term intentions, in alignment with your values. Gentle parenting can be a wonderfully supportive resource to draw from, but it doesn’t require your fealty.

10. Find your people.

We are each a reflection of the people we surround ourselves with. When I set an intention to learn and grow in a particular direction, I connect with others moving through the same journey. Especially if your partner is reinforcing a way being in connection with children that does not resonate with you, add into your sphere of influence what you hope to emulate. If there doesn’t happen to be a rich gentle parenting community in your own backyard to tap into, you’re welcome to join us inside the Sage Family Village. Reach out and find your people.

Letting go of the pressure to convert your partner is not giving up the role of being your child’s steadfast advocate. Resigning from your conversion efforts frees up so much space within yourself, your partnership, and your family for you to instead engage in efforts that are effective at meaningfully increasing the peace with your child and your home. We’re setting down everything that is not within your controls so you get both your hands on all that is.

If you feel called to gentle parenting, then grow yourself into the best damn gentle parent that your child could ever hope for. That is enough.