I know many really good parents. All of them confess to yelling at their kids at some point. All of them regret it to some degree. It feels out of control and inappropriate. Yelling at your kids makes you feel ashamed. We want to be better than that. Since we know we don't want to be that and we do it anyway we feel like
we've failed every time it happens. Arguably there are moments that's
true.
I yelled a lot more back when Ian was deployed and I was doing everything alone and under great stress. I wrote about it on Babble when I was blogging there, and got a lot of interesting feedback, mostly from other moms who were relieved to know they weren't alone.
However, my kids are now 12, 10, and 7, and I want to share something I've learned about the yelling: Your kids train you to do it. Most of the time we do it because it works and that's that. We don't yell because we are out of control, we yell because it's efficient.
How do I know? Because yelling only works with one of my children.
There is no point in ever yelling at Quinn. There are moments I want to, but it never helps. We have dubbed Quinn "He who shall not be rushed" because at whatever pace he's doing something is the pace at which it's going to happen. The other choice is for it to be slower. If he is slowly and deliberately looking for his shoes and you yell at him, he will either burst into tears and everything simply stops, or, more likely, his passive aggressive wiring kicks in and he moves more slowly. I've tried to hurry him up, and he gets this determined look on his face with flickers of humiliation and resentment running across it, and just keeps at what he's doing the way he's doing it. So if we are in a hurry do we yell at Quinn? No we do not.
It is equally pointless to yell at Mona. It might hurry her up, but she will definitely cry, which at some point slows things down, so it's useless. Mona freaks out if she's merely in the crossfire of any yelling, so on occasion we yell at her that we are not yelling at her, which is about the dumbest thing ever, but we're human and these things happen. She is utterly destroyed at the thought that she may have disappointed us, so yelling is so over the top and out of proportion to anything Mona might do that we don't do it.
Now, Aden.... Let us speak of Aden, who I will wager is more typical of the average child. Aden needs to be told to do things again and again. And again. And then those things still don't happen. She's a wonderful and capable girl, and if you ask her to do something that interests her then by all means it will get done and done well. But loading the dishwasher does not interest her. Nor does picking up the !@$%*#!$ laundry off her floor. We have very few rules in our house, and even those are barely rules and more like good ideas, so when she doesn't do the couple of things we ask of her it gets annoying.
Because I could be Mary Poppins and lead her with a game and a song and have a wonderful bonding moment of mother-daughter love and fun over picking up her clothes, but I can't do that EVERY TIME. That's ridiculous. At some point she has to have respect enough for my time to simply do what I ask when I ask.
So the other day after asking her nicely five times over as many hours to pick up her laundry so we could get it in the wash and it wasn't done I looked at her and said, "Do I actually have to yell for this to happen?" She looked at me sadly and nodded. I sighed, and said, "Please don't make me do that. It hurts me to yell at you and ruins my day." A little of the laundry got picked up. I didn't have the energy to yell about the rest of it, but I may this weekend.
It's an interesting thing to know that the yelling isn't quite the loss of control that it feels like. If it were, it would be indiscriminate, and it isn't. In our house we sometimes yell at Aden because it works. (And occasionally at the dog, which doesn't really, but sometimes just UGH stupid dog.) But if I were really a maniac I would be yelling at Quinn and Mona, too, and then everything would grind to a weepy halt and we would never get anywhere.
Still, even with Aden I'd like to avoid it whether it works or not. I find the biggest factor for me for curbing the yelling is getting a break. When I work long days, and the time I get with my kids is limited, my patience for everything about them is increased to a point where I am more likely to just overlook a lot of issues and just hold them close. The Mary Poppins song and dance routine is easier to muster when all I crave is time with my kids. Other days when all I have with them is time, and I feel like I've been reduced to a maid and a cook, then my fuse gets shorter.
I will say, though, that even at those times I try to remind myself of one of Aden's wiser moments. Ian was deployed the first time, she was four, Mona was two, I was pregnant with Quinn, and I was at my wit's end with the mess of toys on the floor. I found myself flailing my arms around and barking about how my whole life was consumed with nothing but picking things up, that all she did was play and all I did was clean. Aden smiled up at me sympathetically, surrounded by toys, and said, "Why don't you come play, too?" That kind of stopped me dead in my tracks.
This same smart and sweet little girl, however, apparently prefers at times to be yelled at. I don't quite get it, and I'd be happier if things were different and I never yelled, but I no longer feel as if I've failed when I do.
Because we train each other, parents and children. It's not a one way street. But some days it is a noisy one.
You are a brilliant woman, Kory. I loathe yelling at the girls. They both ask me not to. I try hard not to. In fact, I'll say to Ellie, "If you do that one more time I'm going to yell" because she dislikes it so much. Have you ever tried yelling when you *weren't* frustrated beyond all bearing?
ReplyDeleteI don't yell much at Ellie. As for Lil, she's like Quinn and Aden combined. She won't do something and won't do something and what she does do is so slow it KILLS me. UGH! Talk about wanting to scream your head off...Oy.
My sister tells me she wants to be like Mother Bear on the cartoon "Little Bear" because she's so calm and patient and never yells. I tell HER it's because Little Bear doesn't act like real kids. It's easy to be patient when your child is nigh on perfect. ;o)
I know, the yelling just makes you feel cruel and stupid, doesn't it? But when I stepped back and realized most of the time it was neither it was interesting. Seeing it more realistically also helps to cut back on it somehow.
DeleteThe cartoon parents who impress me are Caillou's. Their patience is truly fictional.
We try to avoid Caillou whenever possible because of how very Caillou he is (make sense?). You are certainly right about his parents--how they tolerate his whining and such with such patience is truly fictional indeed. :oP
DeleteI would like to see someone take Caillou cartoons and edit Caillou himself out of them, because there is nothing wrong with anything else in the program. There was a series of Garfield comics where someone removed Garfield and they were so much funnier because the other characters just seemed delusional. (But my sense of humor may be skewed.)
DeleteWhen I was a kid, I had a second-hand ham radio my dad picked up. I used to tune into all different kinds of shortwave stations. The radio had a knob on it labeled "RF Gain," which basically adjusted the sensetivity of the radio to signals. If you turned it all the way up, you received all the static and interference from every imaginable source, and you couldn't listen to actual stations very well. If you turned it all the way down, you didn't receive anything at all. The trick was to find some sweet spot where the antennae was able to pick up reasonably strong signals yet filter out all the interference. Hang on, this does relate to the post.
ReplyDeleteNate is like a radio with a broken RF gain knob. When I broadcast some instruction, either the transmission is too week (it gets lost in the static and he doesn't hear it) or it's too strong (he cries and basically crumbles because his feelings are hurt). There's no sweet spot where he just pays attention and receives the message. He's only seven, so it's probably not abnormal. But his life (and ours) would be easier if we could just count on him getting a normal signal every once in a while.
M
I love your analogy.
DeleteIt's a never ending challenge learning how to communicate with your kids--or anyone, really. I had a talk with Mona tonight where I explained to her that a parent's most important role (beyond love) is being a teacher. She was surprised by that, but at least listened to me about why yelling didn't help in that role. (She actually told me I should have yelled at her tonight and I disagreed, so it was interesting to sort out with her why.)
Anyway, at least they, and we, evolve. I'm grateful that Mona will talk to me now and try to find words for why she's upset, which is a vast improvement over a few years ago where she wouldn't say anything and we could only guess and the causes of her distress. And I've gotten better at drawing her out and making her feel more comfortable with talking to me. It will be interesting as Nate grows to see if he starts developing signals somewhere on that spectrum and you get better at adjusting the knob to find them.
Not sure if this would make a difference for the laundry situation, but we have Paul do his own laundry (he'll be 9 this summer) and he has for a couple years. We'll often help him carry it downstairs or get it started, sometimes help fold and put away, but he knows his laundry is his responsibility. Sometimes he gets a reminder that his frog hamper is full and it might be good to do laundry, but if he gets up to get dressed and realizes he doesn't have any underwear left, we can talk about whether he realized he was taking the last pair when he got dressed the day before, or noticed when he only had 2 shirts left or something, and it helps him to plan better for the next time. It's been long enough that it's no longer "my fault" when he doesn't have enough shirts to wear.
ReplyDeleteIt also makes him more grateful on the occasions when I just decide to do his laundry, or finish the rest of the steps after he put it in the washer.
That's something we've kind of toyed with on and off, actually. Aden's been in charge of washing her own bedding for years, and will help us with the laundry in general when we ask. I think the reason it's never seemed practical is we have a laundry chute instead of a hamper. For Aden to do just her laundry we'd have to get her a hamper and her own basket and it's just less cluttered and easier to toss things down the chute all together. But my husband is in charge of laundry, not me, so it's his call as to what works best for him.
DeleteThere is a new French parenting book (I know! another one) called Zen parent. I've only read an article about it, but the idea helped me being more positive with my four girls. It encourages us to use the frontal part of our brain instead of the reptilian, yelling one. How? by realizing that when your child really irritates you, it is because he is displaying an anti-value. Now, list 5 positive aspect of this anti-value while using the frontal part of your brain, and in theory you'll step away from yelling. Example: you value efficiency. Your child takes too long to get ready in the morning and it irritates you. His anti-value allows him to enjoy life, etc. (not that I can come up with 4 more).
ReplyDeleteI hit publish too fast - I've always liked your perspective on parenting and I don't think an article will have a lasting effect on me, but it both amused me and made me think. For the time being I've given up with getting clothes off the floor, I used to give my girls 1 hour for the pick up and anything left counted as 1 push-up. They didn't mind the push-ups.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-value thing is interesting, but sounds like a fancy way of counting to ten to calm down. It makes me feel like writing an article suggesting you stop and find at least three relevant quotes from The Simpsons before yelling at your kids, because at least that might make you laugh, and sense of humor is greatest saving grace I know of. (I often think of Bart at the "Edutainment" show saying he didn't think it was physically possible but "this both sucks and blows." A lot of parenting both sucks and blows.)
DeletePush ups! Works out well in its own way that they didn't mind the push ups. Nice.
"Your kids train you to do it" - thank you for this! More than once I've felt that "the kids made me do it" because they've ignored the polite requests, the increasingly annoyed requests, and then only responded to the yelled order, but then that's what abusers say, right? That it was the victim's fault? This post makes me feel a whole lot better! :)
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like blaming the victim, but sometimes, darn it, I may be the victim! Reminds me of this weird dynamic between my two younger kids where Quinn repeatedly does something stubborn and annoying until Mona can't take it anymore and gets loud about it, then everyone jumps all over her for being mean to her brother. She told me it drives her crazy because he never gets blamed for his part of it because hers is the only reaction people see. Doesn't change the fact that he was wrong too, and his bad behavior doesn't always get corrected because it goes unnoticed. I'm not sure the yelling isn't as bad as the disrespect of ignoring my requests repeatedly when kids are old enough to know better. And I usually explain after the fact that my yelling is indicative of either fear (shouting to stop a kid from being injured) or my feelings being hurt (part of the frustration of being ignored). Still not good, but also understandable. And human. (I am way too human.)
DeleteI am not a fan of yelling because I hate it when other people yell. I hate it. It makes me anxious beyond measure.
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't mean I never yell. I do. But I am very nearly always sorry I did.
You are a good parent because you are so mindful of what you do. It's hard to never yell - we are, after all, only human! Good post.
ReplyDeleteI'm a litte late to respond to this, but great post. Obviously as I've mentioned, I feel very guilty about my yelling at my kids, especially since they're so little and I only rarely remember my parents yelling at me. But it's not like I progress right into yelling (unless someone's in danger)- you're right, they sort of provoke me into it. Thanks for the perspective. :)
ReplyDelete-Lisa