Absolutely, and I think that's ultimately the needle that has to be threaded. It's not "well, you said a mean thing, and you need to make it better, suck it up", but it's also not "wow, it must feel uncomfortable having your friend not want to play with you any more because of what you said, that's a really big feeling... let's go shopping", but rather "I can see how hard it is having made a mistake like this and saying something in the moment that you didn't actually mean and now regret. I think you should take some time to think about it and then make a plan for how you're going to apologize to your friend. I'm happy to talk through that and help you with it if you like, just let me know."

The issue is that the integrated approach ultimately still requires the child to confront and process the feeling, which can mean some discomfort and accountability— a gap that is unacceptable to the more extreme wing of "gentle" parenting.

And obviously my toy example here is on easy mode because it's an external conflict (with a friend) rather than the much more common case where the conflict itself is between child and parent, and the parent is simultaneously trying to provide a thoughtful response to the child's emotions while also insisting that they do their homework, chores, go to bed on time, get off screens, have a shower, whatever it is.