What is positive parenting (or gentle parenting) — and how did it make its way to France?
Positive parenting — known in France as parentalité positive or parentalité bienveillante — originated in English-speaking countries, primarily the United States and Australia, and began arriving in France in the 1990s. At its core, it places the child's needs and emotional experience at the center of every parenting decision, replacing punishment and authority with empathy, explanation, and emotional validation.
The approach gained serious traction in France not through academic channels but through social media. Influencers, parenting advisors, and authors promoted it directly to exhausted parents looking for alternatives to the more traditional, authority-driven French model. Among the most prominent voices was Isabelle Filliozat, whose book on positive parenting sold half a million copies in France — a striking figure that signals just how wide an audience these ideas reached.
France's adoption of positive parenting is also inseparable from a broader legal shift: in 2019, the country passed the Anti-Spanking Law, which formally prohibits both physical and psychological violence against children. That legislative change reflected a cultural moment already underway — and created fertile ground for gentler approaches to discipline to take hold. You can follow the full episode discussion on The Daily on Listenly.
"Parents were essentially abandoned by adults with exclusively empathic attitude — and for Goldman and her allies, that is exactly why it is time to go back to a more disciplinary form of education."
— Madeline Schwartz, Reporter, The New York Times
About Madeline Schwartz
Madeline Schwartz is a reporter for The New York Times, based in Paris. Her authority on the French gentle parenting debate is not purely professional — it is biographical. Born to an American mother and a French father who separated when she was a baby, Schwartz spent her childhood moving between New York and Paris, attending school in both cities and absorbing two very different cultures of childhood and discipline firsthand.
That dual upbringing positions her as an unusually credible voice on a debate that sits precisely at the intersection of French and American parenting philosophies. Where most observers approach this subject from one cultural vantage point, Schwartz has lived both — and brings that layered personal experience directly to her reporting. Her deep familiarity with figures central to the debate, including psychologist Caroline Goldman, author Isabelle Filliozat, and the intellectual legacy of child psychoanalyst Françoise Dolto, reflects sustained journalistic engagement with the subject rather than parachute coverage.
See also
Bringing Up Bébé was published in 2012 by Pamela Druckerman, an American journalist who moved to France and had three children there. The book became a major bestseller in the United States, offering American parents a window into French parenting methods and their results.
Traditional French parenting is highly rule-bound, centered on integrating children into adult society through firm boundaries. Children are expected to eat what adults eat, observe adult rhythms, and adapt to social norms from a very young age.