How To Stop Yelling At Your Child

By Kenda - June, 16th 2014

Have you found yourself yelling more often than usual? Not every mom and dad has this issue, but if you do, it can be a real problem. Yelling at children can make them feel awful about themselves, but it also makes you feel bad about yourself. There are things you can do to keep yourself from yelling at your kids.

1. Time Out
You may have heard this method before, but giving yourself a time out is more than brilliant. You need time away from the kids so you can chill and get your thoughts together. Pick a place in which your time out will be. I’d suggest making sure you are serious about your time outs as you are the children’s.

2. Reward Yourself
Reward charts are a two way street. You may feel down these days because you have been yelling more than usual. Set up a reward chart for yourself. Every time you go a day without yelling, give yourself a sticker. When you get ten stickers, you get a major reward, what will you choose?

3. Find Out Why
There are many reasons why people yell at their kids. A lot of times it’s the only way we know how to respond to them. Also, it’s the way we were raised. Our moms and dads yelled at us, so it’s the natural way we respond to our children as well. Finding out why you yell is one way to help get rid of the monster for good. Once you find out your “why” you can move towards the goals of “stopping.”

4. Talk to Your Kids
I bet the minute you look at your kids’ sweet faces and ask them how it makes them feel when you yell, you will have a hard time yelling ever again. Getting yelled at makes a person feel low. Can you remember the last time you got yelled at as an adult? Well, kids feel ten times worse when we yell at them. After all, we’re supposed to be the people they look up to and the people they feel most comforted by.

5. Challenge Yourself
If you have a spouse or a friend who also struggles with the yelling aspect of parenting, then ask them to join in on the challenge. You are now aware that you yell at your children and now it’s time do something about it. By having a challenge with someone else, you will be held accountable. There is nothing worse than looking your accountability partner in the eye and telling them you failed. (Of course, there will be times you fail, but you won’t like how it makes you feel). After you experience this type of failure, you will want to do better. This isn’t to make you feel like a low person, it’s to help you become a better person for your kids.

Will you ever yell at your kids again? Maybe. There are moms and dads who have stopped yelling and never went back. There are other moms and dads who have trouble with outbursts. The most important take away from this lesson is to remember that children are still kids. They need these years to grow up and develop into adults. We’re not helping their case by yelling at them and bringing them down.

Good luck on your journey to be a yell free parent. I’d love to hear your progress in the weeks to come. Please check in by leaving a comment below.