{"id":26538,"date":"2015-01-27T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2015-01-27T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=26538"},"modified":"2015-01-23T12:35:31","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T20:35:31","slug":"hey-parents-heres-a-radical-idea-dont-yell-at-your-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/hey-parents-heres-a-radical-idea-dont-yell-at-your-kids-0127154","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Parents, Here’s a Radical Idea: Don’t Yell at Your Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ChildrenAs the new year rolls on, I keep thinking about the idea of radical change. My first idea has to do with losing my temper with\u00c2\u00a0my kids. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a radical thought: What if I just stopped?<\/p>\n

The reason I blow up\u00c2\u00a0is because I think it will have the effect I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m looking for. I think the kids will realize I mean business and stop doing whatever they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bugging me. They will\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand they should\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtake me seriously and be frightened into submission, because sometimes kids just need to follow their parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rules without backtalk or questioning<\/a>. And that idea isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t inherently wrong.<\/p>\n

Except that it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work.<\/p>\n

The way I remember it, when my dad yelled, my sisters and I hopped to it. His word was law, we respected it, and if he was mad, we feared him and obeyed. But my kids don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t respond that way. As soon as I get mad, they turn angry, fearful, and hurt. They either yell back and throw stuff, do what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m asking them to do while sobbing theatrically, or run to their room and slam the door.<\/p>\n

\n\t

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Maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m misremembering my childhood and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not true (although it seems that most of my peers agree) that kids used to blindly respect their parents. Or maybe we parent so differently<\/a> today that we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnor do we want\u00e2\u20ac\u201dour kids to fear us. Perhaps it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just me and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve spoiled my kids, who wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know obedience if it was an app on their i-gadgets. But whatever the case, losing my temper\u00c2\u00a0isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cutting it for me. And a lot of the time, my kids don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really deserve my anger<\/a>. They aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t snorting coke or burning the house down, actions that warrant rage. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just being lazy, not listening well, or misbehaving\u00e2\u20ac\u201dactions that call for consistent, clear rules and discipline rather than inchoate fury.<\/p>\n

So, what if I stopped?<\/p>\n

If the value I want to teach my kids is that my husband and I have rules that are there to keep them safe and healthy, and there are times when they need to follow our rules respectfully, then what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the best way to teach that value? Is it by me acting out of control and nasty? Or is there a better way? Well, sure. Pretty much every parenting book out there will tell you that the best practice is to set rules, communicate them clearly, and have reasonable consequences for failing to comply. Research shows over and over that anger and putdowns (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What is wrong with you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you ever listen?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You little brat!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) make our kids feel low self-esteem<\/a> and therefore more likely to act out, or make them rebellious against us and therefore more likely to act out.<\/p>\n

The next time I feel like yelling, instead I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to take a deep breath, walk away if necessary, regroup, and then state what I want to happen. I might even ask my daughter what she wants in the circumstance. For instance, my oldest has trouble turning off the TV. Sometimes, to be honest, I get lax on the TV-watching rules and let her go on too long, and by the time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m ready for her to stop watching, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in full TV-junkie phase, watching glassy-eyed and seemingly unable to tear herself away. If, instead of demanding in increasingly loud tones that she step away from the remote, I can catch her attention and get her involved in the process, it works better. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like you to get off the TV now and I know that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard for you. How should we handle it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d She generally answers with something unreasonable\u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Let me watch until the end of this movie\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut at least then I can counter with another idea and we can meet in the middle. I usually get close to what I want, while at the same time she feels more respected and more involved in the decision.<\/p>\n

I have to admit, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard for me to imagine declaring that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll never blow up\u00c2\u00a0and following through on it. It feels, well, radical. We want to be able to be the final word in our own homes. We want to be able to lose it sometimes. To a certain extent, we want to be feared. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s OK to not always be that perfect, reasonable, calm-headed person the parenting books describe. Instead of shooting for perfection, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just going to commit to giving this new, no-explosions\u00c2\u00a0regime a shot. It seems like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to feel good for everyone. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll report back as to whether my house declines into anarchy, or whether the most recent parenting intelligence turns out to be true\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat clarity and collaboration produce kids who (mostly) listen, are (often) respectful, and (usually) feel good about themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When our children misbehave, it can be tempting to yell in hopes of gaining their attention and compliance. But are we doing more harm than good?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542],"tags":[31,21,421,51,25],"class_list":["post-26538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-articles","tag-psychotherapy-practice","tag-child-and-adolescent-issues","tag-oppositional-defiant-behavior-in-children-teens","tag-healthy-parenting","tag-psychotherapy-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}