By Daniella GrayShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberA mom is working to reverse 10 years of gentle parenting after seeing the long-term effects on her children.
Jaclyn Williams (@breakingcycles.co) shared a reel on Instagram describing the approach she’d practiced for a decade—validating emotions, explaining boundaries in detail, compromising often, avoiding punishments—as something she thought fit the modern “gentle” model.
But as her children grew older, she began noticing patterns that didn’t align with the calm, confident emotional development she expected.
The realization arrived through a slow accumulation of red flags, which surfaced after a cross-country move uprooted her family.
Williams was carrying guilt about the transition and found herself easing up on rules and joining her kids emotionally rather than helping them regulate.
One child grew increasingly anxious, suddenly unable to order food at restaurants or handle small decisions; the other became quiet, withdrawn and overly attuned to others’ feelings.
Outbursts, school refusal and heightened emotional sensitivity followed—symptoms she now recognizes as signs her children were looking for stability she wasn’t consistently providing.
"I felt like I was protecting them or really just letting them feel all their feelings but what ended up happening was they were looking at me to help them regulate and for safety and security, not join them in their feels,” Williams told Newsweek. “My kids were longing for the safety, security and structure—a leader so to say.”
She traced part of her early parenting style to her own upbringing with grandparents who struggled to express warmth or acceptance.
“Every time I tried to connect or share ideas or whatnot, I was immediately met with negativity, dismissiveness and feeling like I was less than worthy,” Williams said. “When I had my own kids, I never wanted them to feel that way.”
She wanted her children to feel seen and valued, not controlled, but in her effort to maintain openness, she eventually blurred the lines that distinguish gentle from permissive parenting.
Parenting experts say this pattern is more common than parents realize. Aja Chavez, vice president of Adolescent Services at Mission Prep/AMFM Healthcare and an EMDR-trained therapist, told Newsweek that many families lean too far into emotional validation while letting boundaries erode.
“A lot of moms and dads are trying so hard not to repeat the harsh or dismissive parenting they grew up with that they accidentally swing to the opposite extreme,” she explained.
Children, Chavez said, thrive when warmth is paired with structure. Without that balance, kids can become indecisive, anxious or overly eager to please—behaviors that mirror what Williams saw emerging in her own home.
For Williams, the turning point came with the realization that what she thought was gentleness had morphed into boundary-less parenting.
Validation had become lengthy processing, explanations had turned everything into a negotiation and compromises had eliminated clear expectations. The structure her children needed wasn’t there.
Her shift toward authoritative parenting—an approach characterized by high warmth and high structure—began gradually.
She started holding firmer boundaries, resisting the urge to rescue her children emotionally and allowing natural consequences to play out.
Her kids’ response was unexpected. “They embraced it and really started to thrive and actually didn't even push back when I started setting firmer boundaries and not rescuing them so much,” she said. “They've blossomed so much, it's been beyond what I could have imagined.”
Chavez said that response is typical: “Kids want clarity. When you mix warmth with consistent structure, their nervous system relaxes. They feel safe again. The anxiety settles, the entitlement fades, the people-pleasing loosens its grip and you start to see this more confident, grounded version of your child.”
For other parents who may find themselves in the same position, Williams emphasized the importance of self-compassion.
She encouraged them to expect periods of imbalance—times when stress, life changes or exhaustion temporarily pull them toward permissiveness or rigidity. What matters most, she said, is being aware enough to recalibrate when something isn’t working.
“Parenting and life is such a rollercoaster,” she said. “Sometimes you're going to be a rockstar and have it all together and then other times you're going to want to crawl under your blankets and eat a lot of ice cream and cry your eyes out.”
“Being able to reflect and adjust is the biggest thing you can do for yourself and your kids,” she continued. “They love the heck out of you, they see you trying, and one day they're going to look back or you're going to share what was going on with you, and they're going to be so proud of you.”
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