Tag: shouting at your kids

If Momma ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy…so the saying goes from my childhood. It was true then and it’s true today. When you’re stressed out, tired, hungry, frustrated, your patience is at a minimum and when your child does something, anything that gets the best of you, what do you do?

Well, if you’re like most parents out there today, you scream. That’s according to a New York Times article just out.

Screaming has become the new spanking. Instead of resorting to hitting our children, parents today yell. And they yell a lot. It’s more socially acceptable than spanking your kid, at least in public. And even though Dr. Spock says that shouting was “inevitable from time to time,” it leads to parental guilt. Who needs more of that?

You can blame yelling on all sorts of factors today like multitasking, lack of time, squeezing in quality time, well, a whole host of things that are daily occurrances for most families.

One way to look at it is like this – if you got yelled at at work, it would be very disturbing. So why is it okay to yell at our kids? I don’t know. I just know it happens.

As a child of a yeller (who isn’t, right?) it can be scary to be yelled at but I’ll tell you, it’s REALLY effective, though I’ve read that mental health professionals say that’s it is ineffective. It’s not – if it didn’t work, why would so many parents continue to do it?

These professionals also warn that it can be damaging to a child’s sense of well being and self-esteem. I’ll attest to that. It does take its toll in a big way. I mean, I still flinch at the thought of making my yelling parent angry. And I’m 38.

The thing is, parenting is hard. It’s quite possibly the hardest thing one will do. Parenting is non-stop and you don’t get to take a break when you are at your wits end. You are still a parent. If your child decides to act up when you are down and out, well, then, sometimes you lose it. Will yelling ultimately affect our children? Yes. Then again, everything we do will affect them in some way.

My advice – start saving for their therapy fund now.

photo credit: joshuahoffmanphoto