No Timeouts.No Limits.Total Chaos.

My misguided adventures in gentle parenting

- BY KAYLA HUSZAR

IT STARTED THE WAY IT ALWAYS DID: “Can we just look?”My four-year-old son and I were in a toy store near our home in Regina.

It was the summer of 2019, and I was pregnant, exhausted and overwhelmed, trying to keep a thousand tabs open in my brain: groceries, laundry, walking the dog, scheduling doctor’s appointments. If I’m being honest, I hoped browsing in the store would buy a few moments of peace during yet another hot, chaotic day.

So I said yes, he could look, temporarily indulging in the fiction that we could browse and walk out empty-handed. Moments after stepping inside, I realized I'd made a tactical error. Sure enough, my son was soon dragging me to a specific aisle, where he grabbed a box containing a plastic dinosaur with sound effects and fins and a retractable tail—a must-have for our growing collection of reptilian toys. The price tag? Nearly $50 for something that would collect dust in the toy bin in a month. “I really, really want this,” he said, eyes wide, voice pleading. I knew if I said no, a fight was inevitable. He asked again, almost desperate. I opened my mouth.

This is where the gentle-parenting approach I'd spent four years practising was supposed to come into play. Gentle parenting is all about empathy and emotional support, and it comes with scripts and steps. So I dutifully followed them, in spite of my fatigue and my suspicion that my son was going to have a meltdown regardless. I narrated his feelings back to him so he felt heard (“I know you really want this toy”). I gave him a hug and suggested an alternative (“Do you want me to take a photo of it for your wish list?”). I used nonjudgmental language.