- Seth Meyers said his kids think it’s funny when he “drops the hammer.”
- The father-of-three said he tried gentle parenting and got “no results”.
- Gentle parenting is a parenting method that emphasizes communication over punishment.
Seth Meyers tried gentle parenting and found it didn’t work for him.
In an interview on NBC’s Today on Monday, the “Late Night” host said his kids aren’t afraid of him.
Meyers, 50, said he used to fear his father, who was a “drop-the-hammer” father. But he said when he drops the hammer, his kids think it’s funny.
He recalled an incident when he was frustrated with his child and they said, “Look, my dad is going to lose it. It’s funny.”
“I think they know, they say, ‘It’s a different era,'” Meyers said, adding that his children “walk around like they have diplomatic immunity.”
Meyers has two sons, Ashe, 8, and Axel, 5, and a daughter, Addie, 2, with his wife, Alexi Ashe.
When asked about his thoughts on gentle parenting, Meyers said, “I’m just not getting results from my gentle parenting.” His children, however, love him, he said: “They would give high marks.”
On one occasion, his wife told his son there was a “strike,” he recalled. “I’m like, ‘You got a strike?’ He says, ‘Yeah, I think it’s strike five?'”
“They are good children”, concluded the comedian. “I’m probably not a great parent.”
A representative for Meyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
How gentle parenting works
Unlike the traditional approach of authoritarian parenting, where parents punish a child for misbehavior, gentle parenting emphasizes sensitivity and understanding of the child’s feelings.
As Chrissy Horton, a former preschool teacher, previously wrote for BI, gentle parenting “focuses more on the need or issue in which their behavior is rooted, rather than ignoring their perspective.”
The parenting style took off on TikTok last year, with parents sharing their method of correcting a child by communicating with them rationally instead of punishing or disciplining them. The hashtag #gentleparenting currently has 7.5 billion views on TikTok.
The parenting style has received its fair share of criticism. In July, Christine Carrig, who runs a preschool, wrote for BI that she noticed how following soft parenting scripts could reduce parents’ engagement with their children.
“I worry that some parents are buying into the idea that they can optimize the parent-child relationship by becoming less of their authentic selves and more of an ‘ideal’ parent that has been urgently given to them by an expert, style whose interaction can vary enormously from parents,” she wrote.
Hannah Nwoko, a millennial mother, previously told BI that gentle parenting left her feeling like she was “stepping on eggshells”.
“The pressure to be the perfect and patient parent was wearing me down,” Nwoko said.
Lauren Salles Gumpert, a speech therapist and mother, stopped gentle parenting after it became emotionally draining. “I want my girls to see me as a whole person and I don’t want to resent them for allowing myself to become their emotional (or physical) punching bag,” she wrote.
Others say there are ways to make gentle parenting work.
Mary Benedetti, a social worker and psychotherapist in Toronto, said gentle parenting works when parents set ground rules for what constitutes acceptable behavior. “Clear, polite but firm restrictions are needed,” she told BI.
Amber Adrian, a parent and former teacher, said she sets expectations for behavior early on and advises parents that while not all misbehavior warrants punishment, it should be handled appropriately.
Ultimately, Adrian said building a strong relationship with your child is the most important.
“Good relationships can withstand the tension and conflict that occurs when children do not meet expectations because there is a foundation of trust and unconditional love,” she wrote.