Want to stop yelling at your kids? Here’s why parents yell, why it doesn’t work in the long term, and 3 steps to help you have more self-control.
Why Parents Yell
The truth is- Parents don’t enjoy yelling. But they also don’t enjoy their child’s misbehavior, they only know they want it to stop.
Parents yell for 3 main reasons, they
- want the child to comply NOW, not later,
- feel insignificant and powerless to handle the situation, and
- lack skills to do anything else.
And in the short term, yelling is very effective at addressing the above concerns.
When we yell, the behavior stops!
And so our brain goes on believing that it worked and that we found a smart way of dealing with the behavior. This illusion lets us believe we have the power to make our children behave the way we want with the snap of our fingers (and our raised voice).
I’m going to teach you why yelling doesn’t work in the long term, and three steps you can use to stop yelling at your kids.
Why Yelling Doesn’t Work
Why do our children comply quickly when we yell?
It is simply because they are behaving out of fear. Fear of you- your anger, your loud words, and your threats.
We don’t want our children to behave out of fear. As parents, our goal should be to have our kids behave because it makes them happy and it feels good.
We want children who will grow up into teenagers and adults who can make correct choices for themselves and do not need to be motivated by fear.
This is what being a proactive and intentional parent looks like. You’re thinking about the long term, you’re thinking about how being negative to your children now, has a powerful cumulative effect.
The use of manipulation, force, coercion, and yelling is going to backfire when your child grows up. Teenagers and young adults who are yelled at as kids will seek to escape, avoid, and when they get old enough, they go out and counter-coerce… they seek to get even.
Is this the long-term relationship you want with your children? Of course not.
3 Steps to Stop Yelling and Have More Self-Control
To me, one of the most powerful words in parenting is the word AND.
AND is powerful because it bonds, it glues, and it connects.
You AND me.
It brings your child to the same side of the table so that you can look at the problem together as a team.
We can use the word AND to remind us that we will be working WITH our child.
AND is also a three-step acronym to stay safe, calm, and cognitively responsive.
1. Accept your emotions
The task of parenthood is to learn how to accept emotions as symptoms of need and welcome those messages because of what they teach you. Sometimes the hardest emotions to respectfully receive are our own.
2. Navigate how you feel
Being mindful of our thoughts and practicing the skill of flexible thinking allows new solutions to present themselves. “What if she’s just tired?” “Maybe this is just what being 3 is all about.” When we can see things from their perspective, it’s much easier to summon our adult wisdom and respond in a loving way.
3. Decide deliberately how to respond
A parent who reacts to childhood behavior feels powerless to the whim of every emotional scene. But when we learn how to observe and respond calmly we’re able to use adult wisdom to map out the desired path, calling in the future that we want while fostering a connection with our child.
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If you want to learn more about your power as a parent, check out these other resources: