On Yelling
NYT has a piece on an alleged trend toward increased parental yelling. Michelle Cottle pokes some holes in the thesis and offers a bold defense of yelling at your kids. I’ve got no kids and the article has no evidence, so I won’t offer any thoughts on yelling’s efficacy as a parenting technique. This, however, jumped out at me:
“It’s not kind,” said Ms. Klein in Oregon. “When I’m done I feel awful.”
I’m a bit of a recovering rage addict myself. So to state the obviously, anytime you find yourself repeatedly engaging in a pattern of behavior that you know perfectly well ends up with you feeling awful, that’s a good time to reconsider what you’re doing. People who don’t have this problem can react with incredulity—everyone gets mad sometimes, what’s the harm? Well, if there’s no harm then there’s no harm, just like most people drink sometimes and it doesn’t control our lives. But even though Ari Gold’s a funny character, you don’t actually want to act like that. If yelling at your kids sometimes when they act up works for you, then great. But if you’re spending a lot of time feeling awful then you should look into advice about how to stop.
13 Responses to “On Yelling”
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October 23rd, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Yelling can be effective when kids are doing something that puts them in imminent risk of harm. Other than that, I doubt it has any long-lasting negative pyschological effects (though who really can say?) but I generally don’t yell at my daughter because yelling feels very emotional and illogical and of course we want her to communicate with us using words and reason and not to do things like throw tantrums – which is hardly going to work if we aren’t doing it ourselves.
That said, I highly doubt there is any increased trend toward yelling – more likely, there is increased guilt about yelling because there is a lot more guilt generally that goes along with being a parent.
I generally very much disagree with Matt that how you feel after doing something should control whether or not you do it, especially w/r/t parenting. I feel awful when I punish my daughter in some way or rigidly enforce something, but it has to be done.
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:49 pm
As a parent and teacher, I personally think yelling is useless (except for the imminent danger bit). Kids focus on the anger and don’t hear a word you say.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:12 pm
I can stop when the little fuckers start doing what I tell ‘em to do. The FIRST time.
… Srsly, yelling is dumb. Consequences are how to discipline, not yelling.
Tho it’s true that teens need to learn that being a dick can have the consequence that people yell at you. Wouldn’t want someone to have to leave home to discover that awful truth.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
That might not necessarily be a bad thing. I can’t imagine that kids are very good at understanding the logic of what you’re explaining to them, but they’re probably very good at understanding, “ah. Doing X makes my parent angry with me.” Housetraining a dog works the same way.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Say it once. If that doesn’t work most of the time, the parent likely has a problem with self-discipline or an abnormal child. I find it helpful to have house rules that everyone is expected to abide by, and not to get into unnecessary control battles.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Musike prudently mixed with gumnasia is the only way to bring up harmonious children. Everyone knows that.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:55 pm
I would just back up what Matt is saying. As I understand it, he is certainly not saying that we should allow transitory discomfort to dominate our choices. The point as I understand it is that if you find yourself engaging in patterns that leave you feeling crap then look at those patterns and see if there isn’t a more intelligent way.
Never mind yelling, I and my peers were all, very occasionally walloped. My dad did it once too often and, for exactly the reason Matt said (and not because of anything we did or said), resolved not to do it again and he never regretted his resolution.
On the other hand my mum and other mothers held the wooden spoon in reserve (it was a matriarchal set up). We respected it, and, as far as I know, nobody had any problems and it all worked out fine.
I would venture that if it is done cleanly, then yelling might be the best response to a situation (it depends upon the individual, of course). Well motivated and clean (say, stopping your child stepping off the kerb under a bus), it shouldn’t leave you feeling crap afterwards.
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
I don’t have any children but I LOVE displaying my rage every once in a while. It does wonders for my emotional stability.
As Lloyd Braun said: Serenity now, Insanity later.
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:38 pm
If I have a teenager who ever participates in high school restroom oral sex orgies, then I suspect I will do quite a lot of screaming my head off. And rightly so.
Young people need to be taught that righteous anger is the right response to serious wrongdoing.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I may be overreaching. My okole covered, Hector’s post reminds me of a LOT of sanctimonious comments on BBS’ back in the day… lads I *knew* to be in their mid/late teens would preach on lifestyle issues of which they had little or no practical experience. Fortunately, they couldn’t vote, and I wouldn’t have any problems if they wanted to make beef in front of my wife’s ob-gyn.
That said, Hector’s right. My personal experience has been that it’s helpful to save the glowering and James Earl Jones vocals for the initial, short expression of extreme displeasure of baaaaad activities. Having established my alpha male cred, a calm discussion can then profitably ensue.
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:08 pm
If I have a teenager who ever participates in high school restroom oral sex orgies, then I suspect I will do quite a lot of screaming my head off. And rightly so.
Of course I agree. Righteous anger is a very appropriate lesson for teenage children who are learning the lessons of adulthood. The article’s focus, though, was on very young children. I’m not sure anyone makes it through the teenage years without yelling.
Oh, and as for high school orgies, Hector, I promise, when you have a 2 1/2 year old daughter, it will be utterly impossible for you to even think of such things.
October 24th, 2009 at 12:21 am
Kids teach you to yell. “Go brush your teeth” in a normal voice is ignored. In a YELLING voice gets a response. I make sure that they understand this. I tell them “When you ignore me talking in a normal voice and listen to me when I’m yelling you are teaching me to yell.”
Everyone, kids included need to know where their boundaries are. I really would like to know how kids are to be shown boundaries if you can’t even express displeasure at bad behavior?
October 24th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Extraordinary (or not, I suppose). Matt may have saved his fingers–he was talking about the states of mind around a compulsive pattern, yet everybody has focused without exception (as far as I can tell) on what is going on outside.
I guess I have also had to look at and work with these patterns, but it does seem to underline our modern lack of self-awareness.