Of course, as parents, we all yell at one point or another. Some of us yell a lot and others try their best not to yell at all.
However, do we ever stop to think about what all of this yelling is doing to our children? We all know many people who try to say getting onto or yelling at your kids makes them more aggressive, more nervous, and well more everything except happy. Is that true? Well, you see yes and no. Yelling is unavoidable sometimes. Running on no sleep with a bratty youngster is a recipe for losing your shit from time to time.
Good news for that one is that if you don’t yell or scold all the time just when it is necessary you’re most likely not going to damage your kid too bad. That again being under the assumption that you aren’t full out verbally abusing your kid or kids. The only downside to this is the parents who are yelling maybe a little more so than they should are setting themselves up for lots of arguments and backtalk in the future. Especially when their children reach those teen years.
You see, when we raise our voices to our children they just freeze or prepare for the damage to come (that being if you are a parent who spanks.) They don’t really listen to what is going on. Younger children often end up crying their eyes out while older ones glaze over and shut down. Not a word gets through. The power we have as parents over our children is terrifying.
To our children, we are the only thing keeping them alive. We feed then, shelter them, love them, and so much more. They trust us and we are frightening them. If you’ve ever seen a child being yelled at you know it is quite obvious they are terrified. No, I am not saying we should never yell, I am just saying we should only yell when it is necessary.
We should maintain that trust with our children and they shouldn’t be afraid of us. It is okay to yell when there is some sort of immediate danger or say your two kids are physically fighting. Yell to warn, speak to explain. For more on this please check out Dr. Laura Markham’s book Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting.