How to Stop Yelling at Your Kids

I never knew myself to be a loud person or a yeller… at least not until I had kids. I have since become a screaming banshee. I hear myself sometimes and it is very disturbing, not to mention unhealthy for my mental well-being.  Yet I swear the things these kids get up to from the time they wake up in the morning is enough to drive a person insane. Just the other night, I left my four year old in her room after she came out the shower for just a few minutes, I came back up stairs and there she was all the powder on the floor, yelling “look mom a snow angel” as she waved her arms lying buck-naked on the floor. Needless to say I failed to see the humour and lost it.  

And that is the problem. I needed to find a way to control my reactions and avoid the knee-jerk response, which is to yell. When we yell, it trains kids not to listen to us until we raise our voice and it trains them to yell at their sibling/s and us. If your child doesn’t seem afraid of your anger it means they probably have seen too much of it and developed defences against it. Yelling at them guarantees that they’ll have an “attitude” by the time they’re ten, developing into mother child screaming matches by the time they are teenagers.

Learning to control our emotions and not take it out on our children requires us to be conscious and to patiently parent ourselves. Dr. Laura of Aha! Parenting offers some useful ways how to do this.

1.     Realise that your primary job as a parent is to manage your own emotions…because kids learn behaviours from us.

2.     Make a commitment to your family that you’ll use a respectful tone. Tell your kids you are learning and will make mistakes from time to time but you will get better at it.

3.     Keep in mind kids will be kids. They need to push limits, experiment with power so they can learn to use it responsibly and like humans they don’t like to be controlled.

4.     Stop gathering “kindling”…all the things that have stock piled into you having a bad day. Take responsibility for your mood and do what it takes to make you feel better so you don’t take it out on your kids.

5.     Offer empathy when you child expresses any emotion. Feeling understood keeps kids from spiralling out of control with their upsets.

6.     See things from your child’s perspective, even when setting limits. Kids are more receptive and cooperative to us setting limits when they feel understood and that we are on their side.

7.     STOP. When you feel yourself getting angry. Keep quiet and breathe deeply. Do not take any action or make any decisions. If you are already yelling, stop in mid-sentence. Turn away and shake it off. Don’t take action till you are calm.

8.     Take a parent time-out.  Remove yourself from the situation. Under the anger is, fear and sadness and disappointment. Just breathe. Let the tears come if and once you let yourself feel what's under the anger--without taking action--the anger will just melt away.

9.     Find your own wisdom. From this calmer place, imagine there's an angel on your shoulder that sees things objectively and wants what's best for everyone in the situation. This is your own personal parenting coach. What does she say? What can you do to set things on a better path?

10.  Take positive action from this calmer place. This might mean that you try a do-over. It might mean you apologize. It might mean you get your cranky child laughing, and if that doesn't work, support her through a good cry so that you can all have a better day. It might mean you blow off the dishes and just snuggle under the covers with your kids and a pile of books until everyone feels better. Just take one step toward helping everyone feel, and do, better -- including you.

11.  Get more sleep. This may sound banal but getting sufficient rest puts you in a more receptive frame of mind to deal with issues calmly. In other words you are not easily agitated.

According to Dr. Laura this is hard and requires a lot of self-control. You will mess up many a time, Just don’t give up because the benefits are tremendous.

The light at the end of the tunnel?  It works. It will get easier and easier to stop yelling. Soon it will be months since you yelled at anyone. Your kids will also transform, you will see them working hard at controlling themselves. You will also see them listen when you haven’t raised your voice.

I am throwing out a challenge to all moms. Let us attempt today, armed with the information shared to go a day for starters without yelling and extending the time period for longer. We could monitor the triggers and our response to them by keeping a journal. This way would you could figure out ways to respond differently.