How to stop yelling at your kids?
A lot of us yell at our kids when we shout or yell, we release our anger, so what does the other person feel? Fear? Anger? Upset? Remorse? If you can’t control your anger, you cannot expect your child to do so either, they are studying from you. If you lose control and shout or yell or beat them, you fail to connect with your child. Without connection, you cannot make your kids good kids, independent kids, happy kids. You cannot make them the way you want them to be.
If you understand Malayalam, here is a video on this topic
Dr. Laura Markham, book Calm parents have 3 main ideas.
- Regulate yourself
- Foster connection
- Coaching not controlling
First about Regulating yourself, because by doing that, you can stop yelling at your kids. It’s very tough. But you will have to do it or at least start trying it to raise good children. This will help you stay calm at those high tension moments. All of us are hard-wired to respond to negative emotions in one of 3 ways: fight, flight or freeze. But this moment is actually not an emergency! Just think of it as is breaking a glass an emergency? is beating your dog an emergency? is spilling water on the floor an emergency? No…. How we react to these moments sets a stage for our relationship with our child. It also builds up eventually to how our child regulates his emotions.
Instead of flight, flight or freeze, studies have repeatedly shown that parents who are calm and respond to negative moments with a warm, respectful attitude, and connect with their children and then coach them setting limits supportively raise terrific kids and later terrific adults. So the next time when there is a confrontation between you and your child, start with just one thing – be mindful of your emotions that means paying attention to what you are feeling without acting on it
Research shows that expressing anger while angry actually makes one, more angry. You feel relieved at that second, but after you burst out, you will feel upset and remorse, especially if you beat your child. It also makes the other person, kid hurt, angry or afraid and causes a rift in the relationship. You might not notice it then, but it is there. So what can you do?
When angry, wait before disciplining. But, how? how do you shift from angry to peace? It’s not like changing gears, right?
Here is how you should do it:
- Make a firm decision that you will from now onwards deal with your child’s behavior calmly. Commit to it. Say it aloud so that you can hear yourself. Say it several times. Visualize it!
Now when the situation arises, Stop Drop & Breathe. When you find that you are going to lose your temper, stop talking, step away from the situation. Take a deep breath 10 times, splash your face with cold water or use your own mantra. Dr. Laura suggests “I choose love”
What is your mantra? Comment below?
It’s ok to do this in front of your child. You are actually teaching them how to control and manage anger to them. Now, start the interaction process. Think over the situation that made you upset in the first place. Remember that there is a different version of every incident. Your child would be upset too. Maybe he is showing you how upset he is. Children are allowed to have feelings and emotions. Now it’s time to control your own feelings. Your child needs you to witness the outpouring of her emotions & let her understand that she is loveable despite the yucky situations and emotions. Your child CANNOT learn until she is calm, keep that in mind.
So in the meantime, tolerate the emotion without taking action. Realize that expressing feelings is good for your child & she is young and learning. Once she feels the emotions, it’s going to evaporate. If your child ’s emotions were repressed, it will burst out another day, so let her feel it when you are ready for it. Parenting is really hard work, it’s not easy. If you find depleted, exhausted tired resentful depleted with more and more negative feelings about your child if you find it difficult to calm yourself and yell very often, its time to nurture yourself. Make it a habit to concentrate on yourself many times a day. Your health, your nutrition, your sleep, your medicines. Find support from your husband, wife, parents or friends. If you take good care of yourself, you will be able to take good care of your child
Wondering how your kids will learn if you don’t raise your voice? When shouted upon, they go into fight or flight mode. Together with that, their learning centers shut down. They might comply then, but they are not learning anything in the long run. Their misbehavior is actually crying out for help!! They have big feelings which they do not know how to express. They don’t know how to articulate verbally, they can not understand this feeling either.
Our job is to set limits supportively and coach them. We want our child to follow our guidance because we know they love us, they don’t want to disappoint us. Not because you scare them.
This brings us to the second idea of the book, fostering connections
I will make a video on that topic too. It has such valuable info that will transform your relationship with your child.
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The same book is available on Kindle.
