Some time ago I was at the park with some moms and their kids. Everything was going fine, until all the kids lost their minds at the same time. You know how it goes, one kid starts acting out and everyone else follows suit. The mother of the instigator of the bunch started yelling at her kids to stop, and *shockingly* they completely ignored her. Again and again she kept shouting, telling them to stop, throwing out empty threats of taking away desserts and to leave the park early. It was painful to watch, honestly.
My husband and I became “instant parents” when our two, then foster toddlers, moved into our already cramped townhouse. Parenting was new territory for us, and as you can imagine, we were flooded with (sometimes unwanted!) parenting advice. “Start them on a schedule” “Use positive reinforcement” “Don’t yell at them, kids don’t respond to yelling” While most of this advice was helpful, some I thought was silly. No yelling? If someone doesn’t listen, isn’t most people’s instinct to raise their voice to get their attention? I sure thought so!
Yelling started to be part of my norm, and it’s probably a minor miracle our neighbors didn’t say anything about it, given our close proximity. And much like the kids at the park, my kids completely stopped listening as well. Discipline didn’t phase them in the slightest if I was shouting. After yelling for them to get in time out, they just went back to doing what I was yelling at them to stop doing in the first place! Something had to change, and I realized I was the problem.
I turned to a friend whose parenting style I admired for advice. Her response was convicting. Just stop yelling, she said. What? That’s ridiculous. Yelling at my kids from afar just added to their background noise and made it difficult for them to focus on what I was saying. My wise friend advised going eye level with them and speaking in an almost whisper, capturing and keeping their attention. (Scary whisper style, you know) And then it hit me, maybe this COULD work.
Right then, I vowed to work on reducing my yelling, and eventually get to a point where it wouldn’t be part of my parenting toolkit. After a small period of adjustment, it really started to work! I felt my stress level reduced and saw better baseline behavior from my kids overall. I was very skeptical not yelling would help the dynamic in my house, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I’m vowing to continue this streak of reducing my yelling, and eventually reserving it only for emergency-type situations where I need my kids’ attention immediately.
