This article was written in collaboration with Marion Cuerq, French children’s rights specialist, speaker, author and trainer.
We want to parent more gently, to do things differently. We promise ourselves we won’t repeat certain phrases. We read, research, look for answers. And yet, when things go sideways — when exhaustion builds up, when limits are tested for the tenth time in an hour, or when there’s no one to hand over to — something in us resurfaces, almost automatically. A reaction, a tone, a phrase we recognise. It’s not a lack of willpower. It runs much deeper than that. Marion Cuerq, French children’s rights specialist and author of Une Enfance en Nord, illuminates the unexamined sociocultural foundations that underpin the way we see children — and therefore the way we behave with them. She answers our questions to help us understand why raising children without yelling or punishing can be so hard.
Key takeaways
- Gentle parenting is hard because of culture, not willpower. The way we parent is shaped by norms we absorbed as children, often without realising.
- The “suspicion filter” reads children’s behaviour as defiance or manipulation. It’s rooted in hierarchy and control, and it’s passed down through generations.
- The “trust filter” sees children as full individuals with rights. Their needs, emotions and limits deserve respect, and the relationship becomes calmer.
- Gentle parenting still has limits. It means setting boundaries without yelling, threats or punishment.
- You don’t need to be a perfect parent. Becoming aware of your own filter and taking care of the relationship matter more than getting it right every time.
Why is gentle parenting so hard? The weight of our parenting culture
Parenting is shaped by culture, not just personal will
The way we parent doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s shaped by the culture we grew up in, the social norms around us, and the way we were treated as children ourselves.
“These inherited patterns are powerful precisely because they’re invisible,” explains Marion Cuerq. We don’t choose them. We absorb them — without even realising it.
That’s why changing the way we parent isn’t simply a matter of learning new techniques or methods. It requires becoming aware of what we carry within us.
When the suspicion filter shapes how we see children
What is the trust filter?
The trust filter that Marion Cuerq describes is the opposite framework. It belongs to a different cultural context — one in which children are seen from the outset as full individuals, rights-holders, whose needs, emotions and limits deserve to be respected.
Marion Cuerq uses Sweden as a mirror to illustrate this: there, children have been culturally understood as full rights-bearing individuals for several decades.
“In Sweden, because children are seen as rights-holders rather than problem-bearers, the relationship is de-hierarchised. Children are treated as full individuals — because everyone unconsciously carries a cultural awareness of children’s rights,” Marion Cuerq explains.
The result is a parent-child relationship that is structurally calmer — not because Swedish children are different, but because society holds different expectations of them, and of the adults who raise them.
The child as a problem vs the child as a rights-holder
Through the suspicion filter, a child’s behaviour is read as an unprovoked challenge — something done against the adult. Refusing to give Nan a kiss becomes rudeness. A meltdown in the supermarket becomes manipulation. A repeated “no” becomes a direct challenge to authority.
“This filter isn’t the result of bad intentions on the part of parents — it’s the product of an inheritance,” Marion Cuerq explains. And like any inheritance, it gets passed on without having been chosen.
How does the suspicion filter show up day to day?
According to Marion Cuerq, the suspicion filter shows up in the unconscious habits of everyday life: in the tone we take when a child refuses, in the shame we feel when they cry in public, in the pressure to make them “behave” in social situations. It also exists in collective narratives: in the comments we receive, in what people around us expect, in media representations of childhood.
Its impact is threefold:
- on the parent-child relationship, which becomes loaded with tension and guilt;
- on who carries the responsibility for the relationship — which should always rest with the parent, but which the suspicion filter shifts onto the child;
- on the child as an individual, whose self-esteem and ability to relate to others are seriously at risk of being undermined.
How to shift to the trust filter?
Getting down to a child’s level: a posture, not a method
Getting down to a child’s level isn’t a technique to apply, Marion Cuerq tells us. It means looking at the world from the child’s position — to understand what they’re experiencing — rather than interpreting their behaviour from the position of an adult who expects to be obeyed, who observes and judges through the suspicion filter.
“This concept, fully embedded in the Swedish language, can only exist when we place ourselves in the child’s perspective — and it’s the trust filter that activates it.”
In practice, this shifts the relationship profoundly: we move from reaction to understanding, from correction to connection. And it has visible effects on the child as a person — on their self-esteem, and on their ability to identify and respect others’ limits, because their own limits have been respected.
Is the trust filter a call for perfect parenting?
No — let’s take the pressure off here. The aim of becoming aware of how we see children, and of the suspicion at the root of that view, is not to produce flawless parents. The perfect parent doesn’t exist, because we are human. The aim is to understand that our behaviours, interpretations and reactions are not the product of chance: they result from a cultural inheritance. And we might have seen the same situations in a fundamentally different way, had we grown up somewhere else.
“The issue isn’t the child’s behaviour — it’s first and foremost the adult’s gaze. And that means we have a great deal of power to change the texture of our relationships with children,” Marion Cuerq explains.
Your child doesn’t need a perfect parent. They need a parent who tries to understand — and who takes care of the relationship, even in the difficult moments.
FAQ: your questions answered
Does gentle parenting mean raising children without limits?
No. Limits are necessary — they don’t harm children. What’s problematic is the confusion between limits and punishment, deeply embedded in certain parenting cultures, which Marion Cuerq describes as a punishment culture, itself a product of the suspicion filter. Raising children without punishment means setting limits without undermining the child’s integrity. It means explaining rather than imposing.
In the long run, children raised in a culture of relationship — the product of the trust filter — internalise others’ limits not out of fear of consequences, but because they have learned to care about others’ integrity.
What is gentle parenting?
Gentle parenting is an approach built on empathy, respect and connection: parents still set clear limits, but without yelling, threats or punishment. In Marion Cuerq’s terms, it means looking at your child through the trust filter, seeing their behaviour as communication and your child as a full person with rights, needs and emotions.
Can you change the way you parent if you were raised in a different model?
Yes, according to Marion Cuerq, there is real room for manoeuvre — but it’s work that goes beyond individual willpower alone. Our parenting inheritance is also a collective narrative, passed on through media, those around us, and institutions. Becoming aware, getting informed, sometimes beginning therapeutic work (your GP can refer you to a psychologist): these are all meaningful steps forward. We don’t deconstruct such a weighty cultural inheritance in a matter of weeks. But we can do our best to adopt a child-level posture and nurture the relationship. And that already changes a great deal.
What do you do when you set limits and your child acts as if nothing was said?
The first thing to do, according to Marion Cuerq, is to place the responsibility for the relationship where it belongs: with the adult. Through the suspicion filter, we tend to put that responsibility onto the child’s shoulders — which generates guilt and undermines their self-esteem. The adult is responsible for taking care of the relationship, in all circumstances. That means opening up a dialogue, welcoming the child’s emotions, and seeing them as a subject — not an object to be corrected.
How do you avoid feeling guilty when you reach your own limits?
We have the right to express our emotions — including frustration or anger — in a measured way. What matters is verbalising them without transferring responsibility onto the child. Naming what you’re feeling (“I’m exhausted right now, I need a break”) is very different from making them carry the weight of the situation. And handing over to someone else, when that’s possible, isn’t a failure — it’s also a way of taking care of the parent-child relationship. If you often feel overwhelmed, you don’t have to cope alone: talk to your GP or healthcare professional, or call the PANDA National Helpline on 1300 726 306.
How do you respond when grandparents or family don’t respect your parenting choices?
Ideally — though this isn’t always straightforward depending on the context — without reducing the child to an object, even in the name of protecting them. Marion Cuerq advises against the response “it’s my child, I’ll do as I see fit.” This formulation, however understandable in the moment, positions the child as an object of parenting rather than a rights-bearing subject. A different generation grew up with different codes, different norms, in a different social context. Explaining your approach, setting limits calmly, and pointing out that parenting evolves alongside society: this is often more effective than a direct confrontation, Marion Cuerq concludes.
