I’m a gentle parent who tried the tough love approach – it worked ...Middle East

“At last!”, my mother texted last week, including the signature Boomer extra space before her punctuation. Her brief message was sent alongside an article about a new parenting trend: FAFO, or “F**k Around and Find Out”. For my Boomer mum, FAFO is a welcome return to common sense parenting after the domination of the gentle variety in recent years, a scourge my mum associates with millennials’ perceived over-sensitivity. According to her it is laughable to try to empathise with a toddler’s refusal to eat broccoli or put on their coat before they go outside: “Just tell the little bugger to get on with it!”. 

My mum is not alone. This backlash to gentle parenting – a child-led, permissive and punishment-free approach – has long been brewing. Its detractors argue it fails to teach children resilience, boundaries and life’s most important truth: you can’t always have things your way. The result, critics believe, is an entitled and anxious child. Gentle parenting advocates on the other hand say – when done right – it gives a child secure attachment, trust in their caregiver, and better ability to manage their emotions.

FAFO – which suggests that the child “f**cks around and finds out”, not the parent – is ultimately tough love, letting children learn the hard way that their actions have consequences. If, for example, they won’t wear a coat in winter, send them off without one. They’ll soon change their mind after a day of being cold – or so the theory goes. (FAFO founders are yet to meet my son).

It is more aligned to the parent-raising styles of the 1980s and 1990s; less intensive, more hands-off for the parent, and far less paranoid that every angry yell or cross word to your child might build a mental health Jenga that will inevitably come tumbling down when they become an adult and require years of therapy to unpick.

Before I’d heard this acronym, I had witnessed FAFO parenting in full swing. Meeting friends in a park on a bitterly cold January day, I noticed their six-year-old was without gloves. Pretty soon, his hands were red raw with the cold. When he tried to slip them into his dad’s pockets, his father refused, explaining to me that their son had lost countless pairs of gloves and was too careless with his belongings. “He has to learn!” he said cheerily. For the hour or so we were outside, it made me uncomfortable. The little boy looked pained but I guess that was the point.

It’s tempting to see the rise of FAFO as a wider movement away from Millennial so-called “snowflake” ways of doing things. On the global political stage, after the US arrest/kidnap of Nicolas Maduro, the former Venezuelan president, the US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, said Maduro had “f**cked around, and found out”. The old adage that grown ups are back in charge. Is it a coincidence that America’s government is adopting parenting speak? Or a wider acceptance of a more totalitarian era, even over our toddlers?

Regardless of the slightly worrying wider context, I took my mother’s texts as a fairly unveiled suggestion that I should give it a go with my son – her grandson. At first, the suggestion felt pretty kamikaze. After all, at just three years old (he recently had his birthday), my son’s not that long past the stage of putting anything he finds in his mouth, or trying to scale the bookshelf.

And yet, I understood why my mum had not-so-subtly dropped the hint. All my partner needs to do is ask my son once, maybe twice, and a task is always completed. I, on the other hand, am ignored until I yell, bribe or beg. It was time to FAFO.

Monday

I start the week ready to hold firm and wait for the f**king around to begin. I don’t have to wait long. It begins with a nursery trip to a local museum on an exceptionally cold day. I beg my son to wear his hat, but even when I stuff it over his ears, he immediately rips it off. Fine, I say. But – remembering the red-raw cold hands in the park – I sneak it into his bag as a compromise (with myself, not him), hoping one of the nursery staff will have better luck.

When a group photo was sent a few hours later, he was the only child without a hat. Like millions of parents posting their FAFO parenting experiences on TikTok, mine was now also recorded on camera –  just without a hashtag to explain my parental neglect. The following day is also very cold, and he still refuses his hat. No immediate lessons learned, but no real harm caused either.  (There’s no way of proving the earache he contracted later in the week was related.) Not going to war over the hat definitely resulted in a calmer start for the day, all around.  

Wednesday

Next came one particular FAFO battle I had been dreading. My son has long been a very tricky eater, something I suspect is more to do with power and control than taste or texture. This has meant we’ve probably not set enough – possibly any – boundaries.

Yet in the last six months, things have been looking up. He is eating a greater quantity and variety of foods. Not only does this bring us more relief, it gives us the leeway to be a bit tougher. And so when he tells me mid-tea that he’s no longer hungry and wants to get down from the table, I refrain from my usual frantic efforts to provide a buffet to keep him seated.

Instead, I calmly tell him that if he gets down, there’d be nothing else to eat later. He gets down gleefully and 10 minutes later, asks for a snack. When I say no, the whining starts, before a full-on meltdown: “Pleeeeeaaaase, Mummy! I’m hungry!” I hold firm. For now. Consequences.

After bathtime, he takes my hand and tries another route. “I’m hungry, mummy”, he says in not much more of a whisper, with full display Disney-eyes. That was enough. He sits on his bed, munching on pistachios as I read him a story. He’s as content as a purring cat, and I feel alleviated of the guilt of sending a child to bed hungry, something, nonsensically, the millennial in me equates to sending a child down a coalmine. It’s a FAFO fail and it does absolutely nothing to dispel my son’s belief that snacks are never far that away, or that his mother is a pushover – two extremely unhelpful lessons. In the cosy glow of his bedroom light, I know I’m only setting myself up for an even harder ride the next time I try to stay firm.  

Thursday

As the week progresses, I decide that I need to toughen up. There was no point in conducting the experiment if there was nothing for my son to “find out”. Other than that he gets to decline my requests – wear a hat, finish your dinner – and then still have whatever he wants later on.

I wait for the next opportunity to put this to the test, feeling mean in advance, like he was walking into a trap I had set. I was watching in the bushes, rifle ready to fire.

Saturday

When my son inevitably refuses to leave the park, I decide this is my moment. Instead of enduring the humiliating ritual of pleading or resorting to bribery, I simply pick up the pace and walk briskly towards the car, yelling “BYE!”. I do everything I can to resist turning around, as I strain to listen for his voice or footsteps. After a few seconds of stunned silence, it comes: “MUMMMYYYYYYY!! WAAAIIIITTT FOR MEEEEEEE!!!” 

Now he is sobbing his little heart out and running for his life, like I was leaving him behind forever. My heart is breaking in that moment, and we’re both overstimulated. And yet, we are also leaving the park in time for tea. This time he did screw around and find out, but so did I.

For me, this was a step too far. I don’t want to have to subject my son to emotional devastation just for him to leave a sandpit. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice how efficient the technique was. It was like realising I had a very effective, but very dangerous, weapon, and I decided it would be pulled out only in the most necessary of circumstances.

My review

By the end of the week, I’m not exactly converted, but I do get it. Especially with older kids who can understand you won’t leave them in the park forever. Lessons do need to be learned, and sometimes children behave in a way that leaves you with very few options other than to be firm.

Most importantly, the exercise reminded me of the parenting golden rule, the one I know I can be too soft about: kids need boundaries.

When my son was one, he had a remarkable childminder for six months (before she retired). A small 60-something woman who loved him like a grandchild, Karen had boundaries made of fine Italian marble. I’m pretty sure her wizardry over children to get them to behave/eat/sleep while making them feel safe and loved came from a FAFO place – just without the emotional explosions.

Karen always made it crystal clear that children need to learn, and that they only learn with consequences. She let every child know where her boundaries were, and she did it fairly, firmly and with kindness. Without conceding on those boundaries.

I realise I don’t want the theatrics of TikTok’s FAFO (I’m not sure who feels comfortable sharing a video of their child in distress online, but I have little doubt that a dramatic fallout helps the number of views). I’m also not sure how often I could inflict a punishment on my child that felt closer to cruel than constructive. Punishment and consequences definitely have a place, but they need to be administered in a way that feels fair.

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But I do want the predictability and no-nonsense approach of my son’s former childminder. FAFO feels like a trend; setting boundaries and sticking to them is a lesson more parents like me need, just as much as our children do.

The week exposed that I was much softer than I’d realised. Succumbing to his demands in the short-term does nothing to help him become the resilient and unspoiled person I want him to be in the long-term, and not being able to set firmer boundaries may make me feel more comfortable, but ultimately shortchanges him.

Put that way, I can’t help but view my parenting as a bit selfish. It’s easier to give in to his demands than do the hard work of enduring the pushback. My mum was right – it’s time I got a bit tougher for the both of us.

Hence then, the article about i m a gentle parent who tried the tough love approach it worked was published today ( Thursday 05/02/2026 - 09:06 AM ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.

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