Yelling…Revisited
Linda wrote a great post about that crappy feeling you get when you yell at your kids during those dark parenting moments of lost patience. I’ve seen entries written before about Losing It That One Time and I know the pain but I always feel guilty because those moments where I sometimes yell at my kids? Shamefully more often that That One Time.
I wrote once about being a yeller and how shameful it feels. I discussed it from the perspective of doing it MUCH more often than the one time Linda mentioned. I got a lot of feedback from other guilt-stricken yellers on that entry. I felt less shameful knowing a lot of other parents deal with the same guilt and I felt strength knowing others were working to get rid of that instinctive response too.
The funny thing is? When I wrote that entry? I didn’t mention the origin of yelling in my life. I didn’t because my Dad was a yeller and he read my blog and I never EVER wanted my Dad to feel inadequate in the parenting department because I worshiped him. But I guess I can be honest now: My Dad Was A Yeller. I mean…that man could YELL. He never spanked me (he told a story about spanking me once as a kid to make a point at a family event but he felt bad about it but I have no memory of it) but when I did something wrong…he would YELL. He would yell in a way I’ve never seen any other person yell at their kids…EVER. MrZ always struggled to believe that as my Dad seemed so mellow…but once in a blue moon he would catch a glimpse and say, “Maybe I could see him being a yeller.” To which I would say, “THAT WAS NOTHING.”
And oh, man, as the kid on the receiving end? There were so many times I wished he would spank me.
Yes…I hated being yelled at so much I often wished my Dad spanked me instead. Yet…somehow? I became The One Who Yells. As each year goes by I feel like I depend on that technique less and less…but I find it so odd and almost disappointing that the trait I hated the most in my father…is the one I picked up so unconsciously. I mean…when my kids cry because they’re getting yelled at? I FEEL THEIR PAIN. But in that moment? I guess I forget.
Like I said…it is fading as an instinct. And I still believe there is great power in Raising Your Voice at the appropriate time. NikkiZ is bad about tuning me out when I’m getting on to her but if I raise my voice to get her attention? Her eyes get glued to mine again. But the yelling? At least the way I tend to do it at my moments of Parental Weakness? Pointless. It just upsets the kid (and maybe even scares them…I know it scared me) to the point where all they’re thinking about is wishing you’d STOP YELLING. I know that, because that’s what I thought when Dad yelled at me. So why I depend on it sometimes with my own kids…is one of the many points of positive proof that sometimes I just suck at this whole Mom thing.
Let’s revisit the topic, shall we? Are you a yeller? Were your parents yellers? Did you hate it as much as I did because I had friends who could totally tune their parents out, a skill I would have paid for if it would have been available.
Seriously? Who could yell at those faces?
My dad was a yeller. And in turn, I’m a yeller. my mom hardly yelled, but when I did something REALLY bad? She’d yell. And it got my attention, and I didn’t do it again. But when it was my dad? Oh boy did it scare me to the point of tears. To the point where I almost ran away a few times. It got worse as I got older for whatever reason – and I wasn’t a bad kid. In turn, I yell at the drop of a hat. I don’t have any kids yet, so I’m working on curbing this habit now, while I still can. But ugh, do I hate it. =(
Seriously, how could you ever yell at those angels?!?!
I am a yeller, at least with my nephews, and I’m guessing with my own children I would be as well. Sometimes it’s the only way to get through. My parents weren’t big yellers – maybe dad more than mom. To this day, getting yelled at causes instant tears. And not because of some traumatic childhood yelling, just because I hate doing things that disappoint others.
I come from a family of yellers too. I always knew I was loved, quite well, but we yelled. Everything.
Now, I yell at my two kids. And I hate it, but it’s such a painfully ingrained aspect of my being that it’s pretty difficult to just, well, stop. My husband is SO not a yeller…(they’re Southern so his family just bless-your-hearted their way through arguments), but even he’s not immune. Poor guy.
My mom was a yeller, and this week when my husband is out of town and my preschooler has decided to do everything in his power to irritate me, I’ve become a yeller. Everyday. And I hate it. Just this morning there was an epic battle over putting on clothes, and my son sat in the hallway for 7 min. naked, crying that he didn’t know how to put on his clothes. (He does, he’s been doing it for a long time), and I finally just yelled, alot, until he got dressed all while sniffling away. I look back now and feel terrible, but I was so angry, frustrated, and my patience was gone. I do keep blaming this on being 6.5 months pregnant with twins, but man is it something I don’t want to hang on too.
My Mom was a yeller AND a door slammer. I have become my Mother. I hate yelling at my daughter and I hate it that she flinches when I get close to her when I am mad because I HAVE NEVER struck her, yet she flinches as if I am about to hit her. But then I realize she is flinching because I am a yeller and she is preparing herself for the up close screaming. I hate it. I want to stop doing it but how do you get their attention. My daughter is 6 and I swear she can not hear me until my voice reaches the level that makes all the dogs in the neighborhood bark.
I am not a yeller. My parents weren’t yellers.
I think my husband may turn out to be a yeller, but our kid is only 11 months old, so it’s hard to tell at this point. Both his parents were yellers.
My mom didn’t yell all the time but when she did, she was an ugly yeller. Like angry and top of her lungs and kind of vibrating with stopping herself from doing more than yelling. I hated it but outwardly didn’t react much which sent her into a whole other orbit of pissed off. (Apparently, reacting like my father, who she divorced, wasn’t the right button to push.)
I am now a yeller. Every night I go to bed promising myself I will be a better mom tomorrow – often because I yelled at my toddler for something she was doing that was very toddler-like. It obviously isn’t working or yelling once about not pushing her sister down would end the behavior instead of doing it over and over again.
I’ve been paying attention to my behavior and I noticed that on the weekends my husband and I switch roles. Suddenly because I have help instead of being home alone with the kids all day, I am pretty calm and able to react appropriately to the kids behavior. My husband who is calm and patient all week becomes something of a yeller by Sunday evening because the kids are hopping on his last nerve. I hear my week night self in him on Sunday night and it reinforces my conviction to do better this week.
It is funny because I know my mom yelled and she would weld a wooden spoon threatening to spank us with it which I do not think she ever actually did – however I can remember her yelling at the bottom of the stairs holding the wooden spoon.
My dad did not really yell but if he was mad I knew it.
With all of that said, I do not remember much about how I was disciplined. Is that weird? The more I think about it and I think about it a lot it was mostly passive aggressive forms of punishment. The silent treatment and angry looks and some times screaming and yelling.
Which is how I am to my kids and like you I remember HATING this as a kid and I would hide and was scared to tell my parents anything for fear of how they would react. And yet I forget and what sucks even more is my husband is a yeller too. UGH.
My baby’s only 6 months, so I’m not sure how I’ll be at disciplining him. But, if it’s like my dad disciplined me, then it’ll be scary … with quietness. That man could lower his voice and talk to me about how “disappointed” he was, and I’d be in tears in an instant. I remember wishing he’d yell or spank me instead … so, don’t feel too bad. I guess the punishment is greener on the other side, or something like that.
My Mom was a yeller. And now I’m a yeller. As an adult, I’ve kidded her about her horrible yelling, but now I do it too and it sucks.
The worst thing about my Mom’s yelling? You never knew when it was over. You might think it was over, but you could never be sure because she might come back through that door with, “AND ANOTHER THING . . .” There was always another thing.
Yeah my parents were HUGE yellers. HUGE. And scary. Even into my early 20s I was scared of my dad when he would yell but as he got older, he completely mellowed out. Now no one believes he was a yeller because he’s so calm. That’s NOT quite how I remember it. My mom usually didn’t yell, she was more cutting and mean in her comments, which hurt more than yelling. I find sometimes I have a short fuse like my dad so I’m trying to keep that under control.
Ooooh boy, I’m a yeller. And I feel terrible about it. When it happens and my boy cries, I cry. My temper gets the best of me and I yell. I hate it. I don’t remember my mom being a yeller but my dad might have been. Sometimes it seems like it’s the only thing that works even though I know it doesn’t.
Like “Anon” above, my mom was a yeller who would chase you down when she thought of more stuff to yell about. She would also slap herself on the thigh — which was so much scarier than if she’d actually spanked me, which she did very rarely. She used spanking (with the open palm of the hand, on the behind or on the wrist) as a disciplinary technique, according to a philosophy. Yelling was what she did when she lost it and was reacting out of anger instead of trying to be instructive. It was terrifying.
I am a yeller. My mother was/is a yeller and my father was a hitter.
I’m with you on the guilt thing. I try (and succeed, more often) to keep my cool when the children are being…children. Once in a while, though, I have just had enough already, and I lose it. Immediately, the guilt consumes me and I want to turn the clock back and handle it differently.
One day, I hope to forget how to yell.
Oh, boy, I’m a yeller, BIG TIME. I don’t know if it came from my parents (I’ve blocked out much of that) but at least some of it probably did.
But seeing other people say they yell isn’t making me feel any better
I really need to stop, I need to be doing something different, because it is NOT working.
Those kiddos are adorable!!
OK, I grew up in a house of yellers out of necessity. We had a large home and instead of walking to tell someone something my parents would yell it to them. (Not complaining about the large home- stay with me.) The problem is, if you start the conversation with yelling, then you get mad, there is only a higher decibel of yelling available at your vocal tips and it gets ugly from there. I have vowed NOT to do that and to get my excersize by walking up and down the stinking stairs 82 times a day. Danggit. I may be bitter when I get there, but I’m not yelling!
My dad was a yeller, the same kind you describe in your father. I mean, a YELLER. To this day, my sister and I can’t even see anyone ELSE getting yelled at without the tears starting up. My fiance is constantly frustrated because whenever his volume goes up a tick, I immediately respond with “don’t YELL at me!!”
We don’t have kids yet. He probably won’t be a yeller – he’s more of a jaw-clenched walk-awayer. I don’t tend to yell when I get angry. I get *loud* sometimes when I’m making a point, but in the same way I do when I’m excited. When I’m angry, I whip out my expansive vocabulary and ability to talk unbelievably fast until I have verbally beaten someone into a corner. I hope I don’t make my kids feel as terrible as I know I am capable of making someone feel, but I think it’s one of those things where, right now, I can say “I won’t do this” and “I won’t do that” until I’m blue in the face, but I won’t know the truth until a kid is testing the end of my patience.
My mom was a big time yeller. My dad, not so much. I was a big time yeller in my first marriage. YELLER I say…got married 2nd time and had a kid who is almost 10 now and I am not a yeller any more. I saw myself in her eyes when she was little and I remembered how bad yelling made me feel growing up. I got good at looking like I tuned it all out but my soul still heard every word.
I wish I could say how I just stopped but I did. I want to yell but I stop myself and realize what I am wanting to yell about is not that important–sort of a don’t sweat the small stuff thingy. Now when she wrecks the car at 17 and does things to drive me crazy on purpose…the yeller might come back!
OMG yes. I have a tendency to yell. When my patience is GONE. But my mom was a yeller. My sister is a yeller. And I was a teacher once upon a time. So I don’t really yell–but I do project my voice very very far. And it gets my kid’s attention lickety split. It doesn’t happen often, and I always have that lovely mommy guilt later.
we call my dad (and his sister) the S.S. Parent: Stand and Scream. my dad has gotten MUCH better in recent years, but up until i was about 15, he would just. go. postal. i know they both get it from my grama, who from what my mom says (my grama died before i was born so i don’t really know firsthand) would just ERUPT with no notice. she’d be sitting in the living room having a conversation and my grampa would do something to torque her a little and she’d just go “GENE!” at the top. of. her. lungs. my mom said every time she was around when it happened, she’d jump about a mile. i can imagine.
my mom, on the other hand, is the parent who will ignore your ass until you have made it up to them.
i’m kind of hoping i fall somewhere in the middle.
My parents were both yellers and hitters, too, and I find that I resort to both of these at times when I’m frustrated. Luke and I don’t spank as a rule, but there have been several times where I’ve banged my fists on crib railings in response to a screaming baby who won’t stay asleep. I’m not proud of it. But I can remember being younger and hitting my own siblings when I was baby-sitting and they were acting out. I wasn’t always a great sister to them. But I want to be a better parent and set the example that you don’t need violence to get your point across.
Thanks for being brave and talking about this topic.
I came to work today thinking about the yelling I do and how it just has to stop. It will be VERY hard for me. I come from a long line of yellers! Yesterday I was at my neighbors house and my mom said “is my daughters house ever to loud for you?” and I almost died when my neighbor responded “generally I think your daughter is a loud person always. We stay in the back of the house and usually cannot hear her but this past weekend I almost came to ask her if she was okay since she kept yelling to her kids that she had already told them how sick she was and could they just PULEASSSEEE behave since she is JUST SO SICK!!” So yeah needless to say I realize how terrible I treated my kids this past weekend when I had a fever and also that my yelling has to stop. It is a TERRIBLE trait that honestly sickens me to my stomach! My kids deserve so much more than a mom yelling all the time since they are awesome kids. Good to know I am not the only mom dealing with and feeling bad for this!
I was raised around yellers. My dad says he’s not one and although it wasn’t often he yelled at me, he yelled, often. My dad was married 4 times and to say the least, I witnessed lots of things i shouldn’t have.
My son is 2 and special needs and sometimes I yell. I hate it. It makes me feel really bad about myself because I never wanted to become that person. I feel even worse because I know my yelling does nothing and he doesn’t understand. Even knowing there are other moms out there that yell doesn’t comfort me because I always feel my situations different. And you never see mommy blogs with special needs kids blogging about that.
I’m working on it though. That’s all I can do. I’ve never been good at dealing with my anger because of how I was raised… but I’m trying.
As a little kid I can’t really remember who did what, we were pretty free range. As I got older my mum became a yeller and I would yell back and all would be right with the world within minutes of the yelling. Dad on the other hand would calmly sit down and explain just how disappointed he was with me and my behaviour. Even as a 6 year old I can remember the crushing wounds caused by just a few quietly spoken words. I swing between the 2 not knowing which is more damaging to the kids, probably neither on its own but I am sure my own brand of erratic messes with their heads. I do try to warn them that a melt down is imminent and so far that seems to be working.