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Yeah, right.
I'd love to be able to say I have never raised my voice to earsplitting levels, or never had a tantrum to match a toddler tantrum that drove me to scream back at a screaming child. Even my kids still laugh retelling the story about how when they were teeny tiny (ages 2, 4 and 6), they got me good one April Fool's morning; my 4-year-old son yelled from the table into the kitchen: "Mommy, B spilled the milk again!" They knew I'd lose it, and at least they dissolved into giggles yelling "April Fool's" when I didn't fail to disappoint.
That's why I have to agree with Hilary Stout's New York Times article that says shouting is the new spanking, for some parents, which basically calls out my entire parenting generation for sparing the rod but not our vocal chords:
Many in today's pregnancy-flaunting, soccer-cheering, organic-snack-proffering generation of parents would never spank their children....(W)e spend hours teaching our elementary-school offspring about their feelings. But, incongruously and with regularity, this is a generation that yells.
For parents who have made the thought-filled decision not to spank, there comes a time--often--when timeouts, calm entreaties to "use your words," and counting frontwards and backwards from one to three or ten to one just don't cut it. We're human. We lose it. We yell.
But it always feels awful for everyone involved, the kids, us.
Numerous studies reveal the ill effects of corporal punishment on children, but there aren't a ton of studies yet to parse the effects of yelling at children, the article notes. There is one, however, a 2003 study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, in which 88 percent of parents admitted shouting, screaming, or yelling at their kids at least once in the past year. Researchers may not know the full extent of the effects of yelling, and I imagine there are so many variables involved when assessing how shouting can affect a child's self-esteem. But the study's lead author, Murray A. Straus of the University of New Hampshire, says this: "If someone yelled at you at work, you'd find that pretty jarring. We don't apply that standard to children." Another researcher says being loud is one thing, but if your shouted words are tinged with anger, sarcasm, and/or insults, kids can take that as a sure sign of rejection, too.
The answer, clearly, is not to spank or shout. But how does even the best-intentioned parent pull off a lifetime of peaceful pronouncements and punishments with our kids? My parents never shouted, but they did spank. Not a lot, but enough for me to know I needed to do what they told me to do. I also never felt free to "talk back" and discuss my feelings with them at a young age, something I hope my kids feel free to do. They sure seem to!
Do you shout more than you ever thought you would? How do you discipline your kids without losing it?
