YELLING to children!

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Hoosier_Daddy said:
Me from kitchen window
“Don’t step on my tomato plants please!”

Me from my living room
“Shut the door! I’m not air conditioning the whole neighborhood!”

Me from the drivers seat
“Buckle up!”

Me from 3 minutes ago… “hoosier jr, stop jumping off the couch over your sister!”

Me at a soccer game with kids.

“Look out it’s coming right at your face!”
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When you’re outside and somebody’s across the yard, that’s shouting, not yelling as such.

When you’re in the house and someone has the door open or is jumping over their sister, there’s no reason to “shout”. When indoors, use your “indoor voice”. If you can’t be bothered to walk over to the source of disturbance, then that’s on you. Personally, apart from things that absolutely needed my attention in the moment, I’d pause my current activity to address the issue.

I’m also not certain I take stock in the ethical POV of someone whose profile name is “Hooiser Daddy” and lists themselves as “Still Catholic…”
 
Tantum_ergo said:
I also have found that what comes across as ‘yelling’ to one person is often not heard as yelling by the person who is supposedly the ‘yeller’.

Parent, in firm tones, “I told you to make sure you made your bed this morning. You didn’t. Go make it now before you go out to your friend’s house.”

Teen, weeping, "why are you yelling at me? It’s just a stupid old bed! Tiffany is expecting me now and you’re making me late, so rude!

or
Teen, yelling at sister, “Get your hands away from my dresser you piece of trash, stop effing with my things, I’ll slap your face off.”

Parent, rushing to door, “What is all this yelling going on?”

Teen, blankly, “Who’s yelling?”
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That’s my life…are you spying on me?
 
MJDorry said:
[SIGN][/SIGN]

I don’t think it’s ever acceptable. Yelling always come from a place of anger, and anger is not ordered toward instruction. Ask yourself, and then answer your question, honestly: When I yell, am I acting from a place of dispassionate intent to instruct? Or is there always a genuine emotional element to it? And if I were to employ a well-thought-through strategy for correcting a behavior, would I at that point, even be able to conjure up yelling?

I think the reality is that yelling is not a strategy that people can use in rearing their kids because it’s not a strategy at all. It is the absence of a strategy. Yelling is an animal action, designed precisely for situations in which there is no other strategy, such as scaring off aggressors. In the context of anger your child’s wrongs, I suspect it approaches wrath with a near-deadly closeness.
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When a child is disobeying you or is ignoring you, it is natural to get angry and either yell at the child or give them a smack on the backside. It usually gets their attention and also a change in their behavior.
Unless your 5 yr. old is a college grad…they will not respond to your “dispassionate intent to instruct.”
 
Thanks Hoosier Daddy for the clarification. I think what you describe might be what I’d classify as shouting, which may be not a big deal, something that gets the point across but then everybody can move on. Probably what I think of as yelling of a sort that’s more negative is what might be termed a harangue or tirade. That’s when it starts to cross over into verbal abuse - or when meanspiritedness occurs - insults and that sort of thing. Or public humiliation or acting crazy so your kid wants to crawl into a hole because you’re an embarrassment to be around.
 
I think yelling rises to verbal abuse when it’s purpose is to threaten or menace the child, or make the child feel stupid or inadequate. Other than that, I don’t think it’s abusive, but tends to become ineffective when used too often.
 
Yelling is best used in emergencies. Frequently used, it loses effectiveness including in emergencies. Anyone that has to yell all the time does so because they can’t “control” their child any other way. When this fails they sometimes will resort to physical measures. After a while, even these fail. Once again, physical measures should only be used in rare occasions if at all.

I have worked with not only autistic kids, but kids with emotional behavior disorder. Parents who scream at their kids and get really physical, end up with dangerous and or damaged children, who then become dangerous and or damaged adults.

If you can’t get your point across with talking, then you may need to re-examine your parenting skills. I know of parents that were just great at raising their kids. I rarely if ever heard them yell, and yet they were very effective. My mother would actually drop her voice when she was really mad. Something like a hiss…:eek: She did use some yelling with my little sister though as I recall!
 
CB_Catholic said:
I come from a loud Italian family. After I got married, my mother and I were having a “discussion” about something in rather loud tones, My mother-in-law was horrified and began to chide me for yelling and disrespecting my mother. My mother looked at her and said “Who’s yelling? This is normal for us. She’s not disrespecting me.” But I never talked loudly to my MIL. She would have considered it extremely rude.

Outside of the loud Italian family situations, I normally don’t yell, but I do find myself talking louder if I can’t get my point across.

People need to take cultural differences into consideration before criticizing all yelling. Sometimes it’s just the way they talk, and I had a child psychology professor tell the class that in these family cultural situations, studies have found very little harm done to the children.
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chuckles My uncle (by marriage) was also Italian just like that and so was his family. (My gosh, put them together and they were boisterous!). I remember when my aunt started to date him, my family was slow to accept him, because of the yelling/loud/ passionate ways. They just didn’t understand this was his culture. My family is very quiet but once we got to know him better, we understood better and we loved him and his Italian ways…even miss it. (He has since passed).

It very much can be a culture thing. I remember when I first met him, taking his loud outbursts in fear because I was not used to it. I thought he was going to hit me or something, because in my house decibels like that meant someone was getting spanked, but it was just expression to him. He really was a great guy, loud and all.
 
3DOCTORS said:
Thanks Hoosier Daddy for the clarification. I think what you describe might be what I’d classify as shouting, which may be not a big deal, something that gets the point across but then everybody can move on. Probably what I think of as yelling of a sort that’s more negative is what might be termed a harangue or tirade. That’s when it starts to cross over into verbal abuse - or when meanspiritedness occurs - insults and that sort of thing. Or public humiliation or acting crazy so your kid wants to crawl into a hole because you’re an embarrassment to be around.
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I think as pianistclare said there may be some cultural issues and language issues. For the sake of the discussion yelling and shouting are synonyms. You won’t nuance your way out with semantics. One reason I think these threads are dumber than a sack of hair is because nothing is realistic.

If one thinks yelling at or to children is verbal abuse they either never have had children, never were children or possibly never even met a child.
Sigh…
It’s completely insane that these days we must clarify logical statements. But of course violent language, publically shaming (real shaming not just the offender feels bad others saw or heard) and namecalling is all off limits. So is irrational and “out of control” yelling.
The other option is people like to play perfect in the internet. They become outraged at a topic and make themselves look better by decrying the behavior and demonizing it with emotional word triggers, invoking words like “racism” “nazi” and “abuse”
If a parent says they don’t yell at or to a child they need to go to confession for either neglect of parental responsibility or lying.

Heck I spend a lot of time yelling, and I mean yelling, at other people’s kids. I get paid for it and parents encourage it. They also yell at me sometimes too. Do people on CAF not have children in sports!? In coaching, yelling is tantamount. If you think yelling “come on Brian get your head in the game!” Or yelling “don’t quit! Five more reps!!!” Is abuse then I don’t know what to say. Yelling is motivational for behavior not just in childhood. In life you can get yelled at by bosses, coaches, spouses, midwives, police, superiors in the military. If you make a five million dollar mistake at work and your boss yells at you well… good!
Heck, one priest around here yelled at an entire parish for voting for trump last November. Was it abuse? No, was it sinful? No. Was it stupid? Yes.

Yelling at children. (Gasp).
These threads are comical sometimes.
 
truetofaith said:
When a child is disobeying you or is ignoring you, it is natural to get angry and either yell at the child or give them a smack on the backside. It usually gets their attention and also a change in their behavior.
Unless your 5 yr. old is a college grad…they will not respond to your “dispassionate intent to instruct.”
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I mean, you could try something else, like hang them upside down by their toes until they pass out. Actually, you probably shouldn’t do that. I’m just saying there are alternatives. Like video games. When you’re getting whooped, you’ve really got two ways of dealing with it: yell into your mic, which won’t do anything, or git good.
 
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