Rooted Mama Podcast
Episode 41: How to Stop Yelling at your Children
Welcome to another episode of the Rooted Mama Podcast. Today we’re going to talk about how to stop yelling at your children. Now let’s get into the episode.
I want to start out by sharing some of my thoughts on this. I am not the type of parent who thinks you should just never yell at your kids. I think practically speaking, there are circumstances where yelling is warranted, especially with safety situations and things like that. I don’t want to approach this from the kind of guilt and shame perspective of, oh my gosh, you yell at your children, you’re a terrible parent, how dare you. I don’t think that’s effective or practical.
However, if you find that you’re constantly yelling at your kids and your kids won’t listen to you unless you yell at them, then this episode is for you. This is really for the parents who struggle to effectively motivate their children to listen without using words. So if you find that you consistently have to yell at your children to get their attention and get them to listen, that can lead to a really dysfunctional cycle. And so this episode, I want to show you how to put a stop to that and get out of that cycle.
In reality, most of parenting is about consistency. Our kids very much so rely on us to really facilitate their whole world. And if we’re doing that in an incoherent way, we’re not going to be able to get them to listen. If we’re doing that in an inconsistent or an erratic manner, that can be really stressful and challenging for our kids. And so one of the ways that we can show up for our kids and have that consistency is teaching our children how to obey and how to listen. This is not an authoritarian type belief system, but there are some elements in here that I think are really important.
If you want to start to effectively discipline your children, you have to be consistent. They have to know that when you say something, you mean it and you’re going to follow through. If you are one where you’ll yell and you’ll say empty threats that you don’t really mean, that really takes away your credibility when it comes to your kids. Because my kids know, like, when I say something, I mean it and I’m going to follow through on what I say. So I have to be really mindful of if I’m going to say something or bring it up, I better be at a spot where I can fully commit to whatever that decision is.
Discerning What is Motivating for your Kids
A lot of parents don’t realize that you really have to discern what is going to help motivate your children. Ideally, your kids will be in a spot where they’ll want to do the right thing and you can have a discussion about it and they will willingly choose to alter their behavior. At the beginning, that may not work as well. So my goal with my kids is for them to understand what’s expected of them and why they have to follow through on those things. And how they’re supposed to behave. And it’s not a guilt or shame thing. It’s really kind of a character issue at that point of I want to teach my kids how to be responsible, respectful human beings who are able to understand what they need to do to regulate themselves and take care of things. Now, that is the end goal. That is not where they’re at now. And that is completely normal and healthy. And I don’t expect my kids to be able to do all those things for themselves now. Are we getting to that point? Yes. Especially with my older kids. There’s several things that I’m really trying to pinpoint and hone in on and focus on. Because I’m like, you guys only have a couple more years at home and you’re going to be on your own and you’re going to be making adult choices. And so I need to get you ready for that as quickly as possible.
This can be really challenging. What works for one child does not work for another child. I have one kid who, if I look at him the wrong way, he’s in like a puddle of tears. Or I have another kid that like I could yell at him for anything. Or I could yell at him for an hour and wouldn’t face him, wouldn’t bother him at all. So you really have to tailor the consequence to the child. And so it very much so comes down to a system of privileges and consequences. And we want to make sure in our parenting that we’re not parenting in a vindictive or a vengeful type way. We really want to be very clear with our kids of this is what happened. This is what you did incorrectly. This is what I need you to do differently.
We don’t want to parent out of emotions or volatility. We really want to be in a space where we’re calm and we can explain to our kids like this is what happened. This is how you didn’t listen. And this is where we need to go from here. I found that as a parent, if I am getting really upset or frustrated, I will actually wait to give my kids their consequence because I don’t want to deliver a consequence that’s too harsh just because I’m upset. I really want to determine.
Does the time fit the crime, so to speak, for this behavior that they did? Is this an appropriate consequence to give them and also making sure they’re really clear on why? I think it’s also important to note as a parent that there are situations where, yes, kids deliberately disobey. There are also situations where maybe you didn’t explain it well or maybe the communication was not what it needed to be in the conversation. And so I very much so will take that into account. When I’m giving a consequence because we really want to do everything that we can as parents to set our kids up for success. And so we have to be really mindful of how we’re contributing to the problem.
And so some things I always try to keep in mind with my kids when I ask them to do stuff. One, did they know how to do it? Is this something they’ve done before and they’ve done successfully? If it’s something new, maybe I need to sit down and do it with them. Maybe I need to be available and willing to answer questions. Maybe I need to make sure I’m really clear on the steps they need to take to do this project or the sequencing that needs to be done. Or the when and the why and the timing of what they need to get done and why.
When you’re setting up this system, it can be really challenging to start to regulate yourself and regulate your own emotions. But as a parent, that really is one of the most powerful gifts you can give your children is your own emotional regulation. If you are reactive and volatile. And your mood is constantly up and down, that’s really going to have a negative impact on your children. And so that really has to be priority number one if you want to get out of this cycle of yelling all the time at your kids.
I would actually sit down and make a list of age-appropriate privileges and age-appropriate consequences. I’m a big believer in as kids get older, they should have more and more privileges. And some of those privileges will need to be earned, whereas other privileges should just happen automatically as they age.
An example of this, two of my kids are driving now. They do not have the privilege right now to just go wherever they want whenever they want. That is a privilege they will have eventually. But right now, they need to work on their communication and their accountability and their honesty. And so that has limited some of their privileges at that point. But they did get several privileges when they turned 16 that they have and will continue to have. Because they’re getting older and they need to learn certain skills in a timely fashion. And if you don’t give them more and more privileges as they get older, they’re not going to learn how to manage those freedoms effectively. And then when they leave your home, they’re going to experience a lot of dysregulation because they were never given an opportunity to manage those things on a smaller scale.
The reason you have to have very clear age-appropriate privileges is that you need leverage to be able to discipline your children and teach them age-appropriate things. If they have no privileges, and they get to just do whatever they want whenever they want, you are much more limited in the discipline options that you can employ. I would encourage you to sit down and write out a list of privileges and consequences for each of your child. And this is going to take some experimentation because what motivates one child will not motivate another.
And so you have to learn what are your low-value targets, your middle-value targets, and your high-value targets when it comes to consequences. You want to save the high-value targets for the behavior that’s the most serious. You don’t want to waste all your ammo on something small and then recognize you don’t have any ammo left. So let me give you some examples of the privileges my kids have to maybe give you some ideas of what to write down and what to start with. So my older kids, their privileges include, and my older kids are 16, 16, 15, and 13.
Just to give you an idea. And there is some differences between the older three and the 13-year-old as well. But some of the privileges they have are they’re allowed to go to our neighbor’s house without me going with them. We live on a back road. It has gravel. There’s not a lot of traffic. I have no concerns with them going to the neighbors by themselves. So they go to the neighbors by themselves. They have a phone. They have music that they can listen to. We use what’s called a Mighty. I like that because it’s less screen time for them. They have a weekly movie night. They get to stay up late. And they get to pick a movie to watch. They also have video game time. And they have a later bedtime compared to my younger kids. And so those are all privileges that they’ve gotten incrementally as they’ve gotten older. And as they get older, they gradually get more say and control over like their music selection or the movies they watch or things like that as well.
For my younger kids, I have a 7-year-old and a 4-year-old. Their privileges include going to neighbors, listening to music. They have video game time. And they have their toys and things like that. So a consequence I use pretty frequently is taking away video game time because, one, I don’t love them having lots of screen time anyway. And so in my mind, that’s kind of a win-win situation. It’s also something that most of my kids generally value and enjoy. So it’s something I can use pretty effectively for a smaller behavior that, yes, needs corrected but doesn’t necessarily need a big consequence. I also sometimes will give grace. If the child is able to course-correct in the moment or is willing to come have a conversation with me about the behavior and what they did wrong and what they need to do next time, I won’t necessarily take away the consequence.
But if they’re demonstrating understanding of what they did wrong and they’re also taking ownership and taking personal responsibility for it, I want to reward that type of behavior. And so sometimes I’ll cut the consequence in half if I feel like they’re really demonstrating ownership of whatever happened. So one of the consequences I use fairly often is I will say, I will take away video game time.
Now, most of my kids have 30 minutes of video game time every day like six days a week. And so if it’s a minor thing, I will take away 10 minutes of video game time. And I have a board that I put it on to help myself remember. Otherwise, I will forget because that’s a big thing. If you give them a consequence, you need to have a system in place to make sure that that consequence happens. And you need to communicate with your kids this is why you’re having that consequence.
Now, if it’s something like maybe they call their sibling a name or maybe they hit each other or something like that, I will sometimes have them do the other siblings chore or do something nice for that sibling. That seems to generally be a motivating factor for the kids as well. Some other consequences I’ll use is taking away their phones. If it’s something more extreme, I’ll take away the older kids driving privileges or their weekly movie night. They can lose any of those. Privileges for any number of things. But I try to make it really clear. These types of behaviors warrant these consequences. Whereas bigger behaviors like lying or stealing or or deliberately disobeying and not getting your work done. Those are going to result in much more significant consequences like rounding loss of privileges for several days in a row to maybe even longer periods of time.
So kids need to know that they can depend on you. And they need to know what’s expected of them. And why it’s expected of them as well. I expect my kids to do chores and I expect them to do a good job. And so for me, it’s always kind of a fine line of I don’t want to nitpick my children, but I also want them to do it with excellence. I will try to give very clear feedback and be very detail oriented in how I explain what I want done and why I want it done that way. We also have a really cool chore rotation that our kids go through. And that’s really useful because they all have days that they get a day off from doing chores and they don’t have to do it. And then they all have days where they are helping and in the mix of things and doing those chores and responsibilities. And all of my kids help with chores. We have chores that they’re assigned that they get paid for. We also have chores that they do just because they live here and they consume food and participate in the family. And so having those responsibilities is a really great way to help your kids grow and mature and learn how to be independent.
So I would say number one, the key to all of this is really your own mental health and your ability to effectively emotionally regulate yourself. Once you have that down, then you can start to teach your kids how to regulate their own emotions as well. And so doing that requires that you set up a system of effective privileges and consequences to teach your kids how to behave and what they can and can’t do and how they can or cannot treat the people around them as well. And this really sets the foundation for me. I think it’s important that you set up a system where you can do this for your whole household. So if this is totally new to you and you haven’t done any of this yet, sit down, make a list of privileges, make a list of consequences, and then I would honestly go meet with your partner or your spouse and talk to them and go, okay, here’s a way we can set up a system to actually have more stability and consistency in our home. Because you don’t want to just go into this blind.
If your kids struggle to believe you and take you at your word, you’re going to have to go in prepared and ready to do this. In a consistent manner. You need to be able to hold firm with your boundaries while also adjusting for things that are valuable to you. We have to remember that the goal of consequences is to learn and it’s to teach our child. It’s not to shame our kids. It’s not to belittle them. It’s to teach them. This is what you need to do next time. And I personally have struggled with shame for a long time.
And so I know for a long time, I really relied heavily on shame based parenting. And honestly, it was terrible for me and it was terrible for the kids. Because ironically, growing up for me, being shamed would have motivated me to change. But I don’t necessarily think I’m like most people. Because with my kids, they don’t give two hoots. They don’t care. The shame based thing doesn’t work for them at all.
And I think for most kids, shame based parenting doesn’t really work. Shame doesn’t really allow for space to grow and mature and work on things. Shame just makes you feel terrible about yourself. So shifting into a mindset of asking honest questions will help to make decisions about how to address problems.
Setting up Your Childs Enviroment
Additionally if you are constantly yelling at your children essentially what happens is your kids become addicted to the yelling and that might sound crazy but it’s not. Brains do this all the time. Brains get addicted to certain environments and they actually come to expect that environment in order to feel like things are stable. So even if something is unhealthy, it doesn’t matter the brain still wants things to be the same and so your kids will learn, “oh, I only have to listen to mom or dad when they yell at me.” And so when you stop yelling there’s gonna be a period of change where the kids are gonna be like, “I don’t have to listen to you,” you’re not yelling and so you’re gonna have to prove to your children that you mean it and you’re gonna follow through. When you’re tempted to go back and yell, you really have to shift back into what is my goal here? what is my objective? I need to take personal responsibility for my part in this whole situation and really shift to the dynamic of how we’re doing things as a family. Are you yelling because you’re tired or are you Yelling because you’re overwhelmed? If we take ownership of our part we can begin to shift the dynamics within our households.
If you are loving what you hear right now and would like to talk with me one-on-one, I am taking coaching clients right now and teaching how to shift into a headspace of effective communication. If you have any questions, just send me an email at info@shelbyleppin.com. I’ll see you guys in the next episode.