I had a neighbour that always wake up the whole neighbourhood with her yelling, “Victor shey you’ll not….” “Yejide oya come and…..” She’ll bark orders to her 3 children, to her if you don’t yell at them, they won’t do as they’re told but it’s funny these children are so used to her “bark” that they aren’t affected anymore. They just ignore her and keep doing what they are doing.
Yelling and being firm are not two different terms but most parents don’t know this, in order to be firm you don’t have to yell, firmness means there’s authority in your voice which prompts your children to act and do so without contending with you.
Ask yourself, when you yell, does it produce the desired result? When your children are accustomed to hearing you yell, they’ll just tune out the sound of your voice and stop caring what you’re saying. My belief is, children do less when you yell at them. When I was a kid, when you yell at me, it makes me want to cover my ears and hide until you stop blowing the trumpet.
Why then do parents yell when it’s counterproductive?
There are expectations parents have of their children and when they don’t meet those expectations, it annoys them, causing them to yell believing that this will help the kids behave well. Your parents probably yelled at you and thus you’ve come to believe that yelling is the right way to get your kids to be well-behaved.
But ask yourself this: If yelling works, why do you have to yell more than once before your kids do what you want them to do?
When you yell at children, they feel the need to revolt and be uncooperative. Children can’t always behave perfectly, it’s by misbehaving and disobeying that they get to learn since you’ll have to set them right.
When young children act up, it doesn’t make them bad,
- Make sure they feel guilty about what they did and do not always punish them for every of their wrong acts unless they really over-did it.
- Set limits, rules and when they go against the rule let them know what’ll follow next, but careful, punishment should be rare so when you do punish them, it will be a big deal.
- Show love, understanding and empathy to your children, this is really important.
What do you teach your children when you yell?
We have to change our outlook towards our children’s behaviour, your kid can’t wake up in the morning with the intention of annoying you and behaving badly, your children aren’t irritants and so you shouldn’t act like you’re fighting them.
See your children as humans who only need to be understood and they’ll be well-behaved, not aliens sent from another planet to make your life miserable and at such should be punished and controlled.
The only thing yelling does is teach your children to “tune out the sound of your voice” and the parents way of reacting is to yell more and then punishment follows.
Instead of yelling, speak in a firm tone of voice and then calm down to see if your request will be granted.
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