To think it’s socially acceptable in Britain to shout at children?

I think a lot of different things have been lumped together here under the term 'shouting'
That! I didn't shout to my kids for the sake of shouting, I wouldn't have shouted for them to move out of the way of someone, but I did feel empowered to shout when they were misbehaving and ignoring my kind reminders. It often was the only time they really paid attention.

I'm on the other side of the coin. I'm amazed at the number of parents who see their kids misbehaving, and instead of telling them off raising their voice, use that pitiful tone saying 'darling, that wasn't very nice was it, please don't do it again' and when they do do it again, keep adopting that same time of voice, which the kids clearly have worked out to be quite funny.

I also agree that it is the opposite and kids are shouted out more in other countries, but again, once they haven't clearly misbehaved.

There is a massive spectrum. Clearly people swearing and being abusivd to their kids is a problem but sometimes children just don’t listen and the only thing that makes them listening is a raised voice. Quite frankly if a child is about to cause themselves harm, I think a raised voice is far better than a convoluted explanation about how cars are dangerous etc. Sometimes you just need them to stop immediately,

Do you have kids OP? Have you never shouted even once?

Thank God you don't live in other countries. We are very tame parents compared to some....

I’m not as good a parent as I thought I’d be. I do shout sometimes. God they drive me crazy tripping me up when my arms are full of stuff and I’ve loads of jobs to do and we’re already late leaving. I’m always measured and polite to my DH because he doesn’t do the things my kids do. But I’m definitely overwhelmed at certain points in the day/week.

I do try to do better and there’s a lot of love and kind words most of the time. But definitely OP you could catch me at bad moments and think I’m a jerk to my kids.

@Sssneks yes I agree :(

Yes I know what you mean. It’s really sad. I practice gentle parenting though I do lose my temper occasionally, but the norm of being so rude and impatient to your precious kids is really sad. I know it’s not everyone of course

Some of these examples are awful, but would they have been any better delivered at a lower volume? No, they wouldn't, the content would still be the same. It's not the act of shouting itself that's the issue with these examples, it's what's being said, the intention behind them to hurt - and that I agree, is totally wrong.
There's a big difference between shouting "Stop!" To a child that's about to do something despite being asked 75 times not to, and shouting "For fucks sake you little shit I said no, fucking come here and stop being so useless!"
The second sentence is horrible no matter what volume it's delivered at.

I spent time in France this summer and was shocked by how much more physical parents are and openly in public. I think we are actually pretty tame here in the uk

I think it's socially acceptable for people to shout full stop. Unfortunately.

Yanbu. British culture gets very weird around kids. Seems like childrens’ feelings are always the least important thing compared to the presumed opinions of strangers or whatever. I never see kids treated as rudely in other countries as I do in Britain. I hate that it’s this way, I used to like my culture a lot more before I became a mum.

Nobody has justified abusive language, more the exasperated end of shouting when other methods have failed.

Working in secondary classrooms, sometimes it was necessary to raise my voice. Less is more, so I might shout "SIT DOWN" and follow with a quieter "thank you" because I then have the attention. With a really lively class to settle, the best method was to pull up a chair, sit at the front and appear to disconnect, in a meditative way. No battle for attention which would cause them to settle. I'm not sure how well that would transfer to a child playing up in a car park/ supermarket aisle etc...

I think what's making me really uncomfortable reading this thread is how much all of thesr justifications sound exactly like the way people used to justify hitting children in the past.

"Oh but it's a last resort when nothing else has worked"
"Kids need to learn discipline/boundaries/etc"
"Parents who don't hit their kids are at risk of raising little brats"
"you don't know what it's like to have a difficult child"

I mean, it's basically the same rhetoric all over this thread. It makes me really uneasy.

I think a lot of different things have been lumped together here under the term 'shouting'.

There is a huge difference between someone who shouts abusive language in anger at their children at the drop of a hat on a regular basis - and someone who occasionally shouts at their children when they are really out of line after other attempts at discipline haven't worked.

I've shouted at my son on occasion, but never abusive or belittling comments - only when he has really got out of line or been very rude.

It's an approach that has worked for us. If I went full gentle parent 24/7 he'd be a nightmare. I find that about once a year or so he goes through a phase of boundary testing and occasionally during that time gets so bad that we need to shout. Believe me, I never shout as a first resort, we go through all the stages of reasoning, calm authority and so on, that just doesn't always work.

I also think that every child is different. Some respond really well to gentle parenting, some like my son are a mixture, and others need a very firm hand. Even within sibling groups, children respond best to different forms of parenting. Trying to establish rigid rules for how every child should be parented is just dooming some parents to fail.

I try and practice gentle parenting but in reality I am so much more shouty than I ever expected to be as a parent.

Chronic sleep deprivation hugely effects how well I function from day to day and how much patience I have. Add to the mix my child is 'spirited ' and will push the boundaries at any opportunity.

OP you are not wrong. It really upsets me to hear the nasty way some people talk to their DC. And yes it may well have been a horrible day and little Johnny may have been asked 20 million times to stop swinging on his little sister's pushchair handles, but there's no excuse for leaning down into his face and shouting "Stop fucking doing that you little shit" (recent example outside a supermarket)

Other things I have been sad to overhear/see
Yanking at a child's arm or pinching them between neck and shoulder
"You always have to ruin everything, don't you?"
Child falls over and get what looks like a painful scrape - "That's your fault for not doing as you're told"
"STOP FUCKING TOUCHING THINGS OR YOU'RE GROUNDED"
"Your mum/dad was a shit/liar/thief and so are you"
"You're fucking stressing me out. One day you'll come home and find I've hanged myself because I can't cope with your shit any more"

It makes my heart hurt. My DS was a victim of abuse like this from his birth parents and it has had a huge effect on his self esteem and continues to do so well into his 20s.

A PP said - sorry I can't scroll back or I'll lose my post - do we think mental health issues have increased because children are shouted at but not beaten as they were 100 years ago? No, of course not. Mental health issues are probably lower than they have been for centuries - we're just much, much more aware of them now, much more likely to seek help and diagnosis.

Some people talk to their kids like they're shit and then act surprised when their kids behave like shit. That's not the odd telling off or losing it in a hard day, it's routine meanness.

I only had one child to raise so admit that's easier. I didn't yell at her or bully her. I tried to teach her to be a decent human and treat others with respect. It worked.

To all those posters who think it's ok to shout at children, would you be happy if school staff spoke to your children in the same way?

Well to be fair ds doesn't tell them to 'F Off,You Bh', so you know, not quite the same.

Anyway I am the parent that you all love to judge, but have you ever tried to get help for a child with autism? We have had virtually every door slammed in our face. We are eventually getting some support, and it has taken them months to realise that standard 'positive parenting' doesn't work at all. I got a very sour face when I said I shouted, at the next team meeting I had written a letter (I was at work) that if he was my partner he would be facing charges (physical and verbal abuse) Suddenly they realised that we weren't making it all up.

Further sessions with him have shown that he is lacking in emotional empathy, so he just doesn't get when he has pushed it too far.

Anyway I probably am the one you love to judge, but don't worry I hate and judge myself enough, so a little more by someone else won't make much of a difference.

I once saw a little girl aged about 3 dancing and singing whilst her mother chatted to some friends. The bairn was singing "I'm going to the dentist, I'm going to the dentist". The mother suddenly shouted "Will you fucking shut up? What's so fucking good about going to the fucking dentist anyway?". She shouldn't have had kids.

I can’t imagine shouting at my children. Why would I?

It makes me so sad when I see others doing this. It’s clear they have lost control or aren’t coping. Or perhaps some have normalised that this is how to do discipline.

But then I didn’t grow up in a British family so perhaps this is why my perception and parenting are different.

@Instagrump

This is a complete strawman argument.

A lot of people in this thread are acting as though it's a choice between shouting at kids or being completely ineffectual as parents and raising tiny monsters. It makes me wonder how these posters navigate their way through life.

You can be authoritative without screaming and you can be respected without being feared.

As the t shirt says... if you hear me shouting at my children, you can guarantee I've asked them nicely 8 times already..

I also imagine that indulged little Tarquin and Hugo everyone keeps mentioning are considerably less likely to end up with violent or sociopathic tendencies than the kid whose parents shouted at him that he was useless the length and breadth of the high street every Saturday.