I’m a ‘gentle parent’ — I won’t make my kid say sorry because it’s ‘disingenuous’

A ‘gentle parent’ says she doesn’t force her five-year-old son to say sorry as it is “disingenuous” – and says it’s taught him to “hold empathy” and communicate his feelings.

Kelly Medina Enos, 34, turned to gentle parenting when she was struggling with her son, George, then 18 months old, hitting her.

The mom turned to TikTok to share her worries and a stranger recommended she looked into gentle parenting – a style that focuses on empathy, respect, and understanding.

Kelly found it “ridiculous” at first but after researching she started to try it out – dropping “don’t” from her vocabulary and telling George what she’d like him to do instead.

She also stopped forcing him to apologize and instead guided George to step back and look at what’s happened in a situation.

Kelly doesn’t force any isolation – such as the ‘naughty step’ or ‘time out’ – but will offer ‘calm down corner’ as an option if he wants to some alone.

She is now mom to a daughter, Ariella, 14 months old, and has started to gentle parent her too – teaching her baby sign language so she can communicate if she wants more food or drink.

Kelly, a certified gentle parenting coach, from York, North Yorkshire, said: “I don’t force my child to say sorry.

“A child doesn’t develop empathy until they are around 11 years old.

“Expecting a child to have empathy is a learnt skill.

“If we say ‘go and say sorry’ – if say they snatched a toy – it’s forced.

“You find you haven’t allowed child to step back. Instead say – ‘what’s happened here? ‘How do you think that person is feeling?’ ‘What can we say?’

“Otherwise it’s disingenuous.

“It’s not that we don’t want them to say sorry but there is a difference between telling them what to do.

“We still guide them through.

“We teach our children how to be better next time.”

Kelly was struggling with George when he was 18 months old and says she had “no parenting style”.

She said: “He started to smack me and hit me.

“I thought ‘what do I do?’”

Kelly posted on her TikTok account and a stranger commented asking if she’d looked into gentle parenting.

She said: “The videos I saw at fist I thought surely it’s just talking gently.

“I thought it was a bit ridiculous.”

But Kelly felt “so lost” and wanted to “try anything” to help her and researched into the type of parenting further.

She started with trying to switch up her vocabulary.

She said: “Climbing was a huge thing for me. George was climbing on everything. I was saying ‘get down’ but that didn’t seem to land at all.

“I started saying ‘feet on the floor please’. I was astonished at the difference by changing the way I was speaking to him instead of telling him what I don’t want.

“I started to remove the word ‘don’t’. I still had discipline.

“I told him what I would like him to do.”

She now uses phrases such as “hands off” as much as she can instead of “don’t touch” or “no”.

Kelly also learnt to stop forcing George to say sorry and says it’s helped with his understanding of empathy despite his young age.

She said: “He does hold empathy and he’s incredible at communicating his feelings.

“He can come home in huge frustration and I hold him and he crumbles.

“He’ll say he’s had a bad day and offloads.

“If I hadn’t allowed him to feel and put him in his room, the naughty step or time out would he have opened up to me?”

Kelly doesn’t use “forced isolation” with her kids.

She said: “With forced isolation the child often becomes more of a people pleaser or rebels.

“They learn they have no voice and their feelings don’t matter.

“In time out a child is told to ‘sit and think about what you’ve done’. The child is not thinking how they could have dealt with that better.

“They learn ‘I need to take away my feelings of frustration and anger and then I’m deemed lovable’.

“We will stay away from forced isolation but we do a calm down corner which I offer to George.

“I’ll ask him ‘would you like some time in the calm down corner?’

“It’s got books and a breathe board – it’s a non-sensory nook.

“It’s an option.”

Through her own parenting journey Kelly decided to become a parenting coach and qualified in September 2024.

As part of her course she had to do a lot of self-work which really helped her look at why she was becoming frustrated at certain behaviors George presented.

She said: “I really struggled because of the way I was raised – there was a lot of shouting.

“It was distilled in me.

“I shouted quite often.

“I worked out I was expecting quite a lot of George.

“I said out loud ‘why does he act like such a child?’

“He used to pull out all the baby wipes.

“I remember the frustration.

“With Ariella I just think ‘put them back’.”

Kelly has started gentle parenting with Ariella already by teaching her baby sign language so she can communicate.

She said: “We started on baby sign language with her.

“It’s to alleviate that frustration.

“Ariella can communicate when she wants more food.

“After every single meal she’ll ask for more.

“How would our relationship be if you don’t know how to communicate if she wants more food?”

Kelly says gentle parents often get confused with permissive parenting – where parents seek peace, avoid boundary control and allow the child to be in control.

She says she’s not a “perfect parent” but will still place boundaries with her children.

She said: “Nobody never shouts.

“No one gets it right all day everyday.

“Gentle parenting is when we seek connection even when correcting a child.

“We allow space for bigger emotions and give them root lessons without blaming and shaming.

“People say it’s an easy way out – it’s probably the hardest form of parenting.

“I wish people would give it a change before they make a snap judgement.”