We all know that spanking is frowned upon. Spank your child in public, or give them one swat too many in the privacy of your own home, and you may find yourself in trouble with the authorities. So out of frustration of not being able to chastise children parents have turned to yelling.
Apparently yelling, is the new spanking. People are frowning upon that too. Apparently when spanking used to hurt children’s bottoms, yelling “hurts their hearts”.
Just like with spanking, I do understand that there is a line where parents can go too far and cross over to abuse. However, I think people have gone to far in parenting parents who are trying to parent their kids.
I’m sorry, but there is only so much talking that you can do with a five year old who has their heart set on eating all of the cookies when no one is looking. There is only so much reasoning you can do with siblings who like to torment each other. Sometimes a spanking, or raised voice in necessary.
Do I yell? Yeah. On any given day you might hear me holler “you do you” when one child is trying to tell the other what to do. You will definitely hear me yell, “it is not four O’clock, turn that TV off”. The fact that I have to yell it daily should help you understand my frustration. Another favorite yell of mine is “clean that dirty room, I think something bit me!”
I can’t see how any of the above demonstrations of parental frustration is damaging to my children’s hearts. Heck, I don’t even think they hear me half the time, hence the raised voice.
I do understand how yelling can damage a child though. It is not how loud the parent gets, but what they say that hurts. Allow me to demonstrate.
Bad: I am sick and tired of you.
Not so bad: I am tired of you ignoring me when I tell you to do something.
Bad: You will never amount to anything in life.
Not so bad: How are you going to amount to anything if you flunk out of school?
Bad: You are a stupid kid! How could you to that?
Not so bad: That was a dumb thing to do! What where you thinking?
I hope you see my point.
So do you yell at your kids? What do you say that might get you in trouble with the yelling police.
~If you liked this you should also read my other posts at the home blog, the homeschooling blog, the parents blog, and the frugal blog. You can read my recent posts here.
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