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

I trained as a PE teacher. We were taught to command a class to keep them safe, and to be sure of having the attention we required. Not nasty, not abusive but setting out a standard of expected behaviour. It always worked for me. Consistency and voice control are crucial, screaming achieves nothing.

Mines not one yet but I can already tell I'm going to have to work hard to not too easily be shouty

I think a lot of us have learnt to shout when stressed. Me included. And I’m actually a hands on, loving parent who tries my best to spend lots of quality time with my dcs.
I don’t shout in public but in private, yes.
It’s not because I’m putting on a front, it’s just that I’m not really stressed. The things that cause me stress is things like kids mucking about when they’re meant to be doing something including getting ready to go out.

I imagine it’s like that for a lot of people.

It's possible to parent with calm authority and consistency

you've got to be trolling

I don't think so, clearly ssneks.

Mine are adults now, but they've told me that they knew they had really taken it to the wire if I started shouting at them.
They were in tears of laughter recalling some of the times that I shouted at them as kids.
Apparently I was affectionately known as mad dog mum due to being all bark and no bite. 😂

‘Why do I have to ask you 15x to put on your shoes?’

See, I think that's a real kick in the teeth that speaks to something lacking in a child. It's too desperate a statement over something so trivial. "Put your shoes on" at a greater volume is more clear cut and less emotionally intense.

@Baguetteaboutit

What a load of nonsense.

It's not a choice between shouting at kids or "emotionally intensive drama lama antics" as you seem to think.

It's possible to parent with calm authority and consistency.

Christ I’m the most attachment parenting, fluffy, child led blah blah parent but if you’d have walked past me once or twice you would have heard me snap as in your last two examples.

Why? Well once I was trying to get my toddler in the car for the umpteenth time and it was either snap at him or fall on the floor crying. My other son was seriously ill in hospital and I wanted to get back to him. Other times I’ve not had such good reason but my goodness we are only human.

My point being you can’t judge on snapshots. Hitting of course is different but if you show me someone who has never shouted at their kids I’ll show you a liar

I was in a chemist yesterday, waiting for my prescription. Mother with three children in there. Child one sat on chair being very good, although in truth she looked spaced out. Child two was busy upsetting all the counter displays, pressing buttons on card machine, getting in everyone’s way. Child three was busy escaping into pharmacists prep area, three times had to be dragged out. Mother was frankly useless, all the kids got was a drawled “don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t do that” Tone of voice made no impression whatsoever ever. Rather sadly it ended badly for the well behaved little girl.....child two slammed exit door on her fingers as Mother was trying yet again to haul child three out of drugs area. The sigh of relief when they left, both from staff and other customers was deafening. A pathetic example of parental supervision.

You're not your. Again, my less privileged background showing....

There's shouting, shouting and ranting.

I've heard occasional foul-mouthed, disproportionate tirades that were uncalled for. Sadly I haven't intervened as the risk of escalating the situation for the child or ending up in a fracas is too high. When it's a random stranger in public, there's not much you can do other than hope they are on the radar with nursery/ school/ SS.

Shouting for attention in an urgent situation or when previous methods haven't worked, fair enough.

Somewhere in the middle is the final straw where a parent ends up snappier than is ideal because of a string of petty, aggravating incidents building up. The supermarket is the perfect environment for these and yes, I'm guilty of having done it. I'm trying to get a job done, and trying to not get in the way of others and my DCs have a totally different agenda, and not in a mood for more persuasive methods, nor are alternatives like 2 mins of time out appropriate like they would be at home. Alternatively I could let them be feral hellbeasts either by tactically ignoring or by some ineffective gentle simpering at them, but I don't think that's particularly sociable either. It turns out we've been dealing with undiagnosed ASD for years. Not that knowing is a magic solution, but at least I now know why amongst the maze of snsory input, reasoning doesn't tend to work with one of my DCs in that environment and they play off eachother.

What really matters is the follow-up. Does the child understand what the problem behaviour was. Is there a need for a further consequence. Is there forgiveness and moving on. Festering resentment, a lack of understanding and a sense of injustice are more damaging than the actual shouting.

@Oneborneverydecade, of course your right . I wouldn't really know, I'm an ASDA shopper. I find they have the best acoustics for yelling at my pain in the arse kids.

You get judged for shouting, you get judged if your children are misbehaving. You get judged for blocking up the space. You get judged if they make too much noise. Or if they're using screens in public. Once I got told off because my kid had the "wrong shoes" on. Once because I hadn't cut his sandwich into enough pieces. But yeah, mostly it's disciplining the kids that I get told off for, mostly by old men. These men are such child care experts!

I want to not care what random strangers think, and motherhood keeps throwing up opportunities to practice. That's why mothers end up the best kind of people. We're so lucky.

A quick command is better than the pathetic pleading routine you see employed to cajole child into being good.

Which, I suppose, is at least preferable to the other tactic where a parent engages in the endless explanations about why a child's behaviour them feel so terribly sad and disappointed.

Yes, I think a short shout is preferable to all the emotionally intensive drama lama antics of the supposedly kind parent that ultimately leaves a child emotionally bewildered and anxious.

Hi OP. Wondering if you have any children past the adorable baby stage yet?

Unfortunately no matter what we do parents are always judged

They’re not adults, they’re children though. If my OH had deliberately dilly dallied for the umpteenth time, I would have given him a snippy comment.
Your teaching your children social norms too. People will get annoyed if you piss about.

I never imagined I’d be shouty or snappy wit my kids. I was naive. Kids can be so annoying and ridiculous, anyone who says they wouldn’t shout or talk in a snappy way to their kids is totally unrealistic.

I very rarely raise my voice. But I am human and sometimes I do. If that makes me a bad parent then fair enough.

I agree OP. Teachers manage behaviour of a whole class without shouting

It’s not acceptable to shout at another adult or physically hurt them yet so many think it’s ok to do so with children. Children who cannot remove themselves from the situation.

Have you had kids OP?

I think sadly people are busy, stressed and over-threshold much of the time. Shouting is a hallmark of feeling overwhelmed. Not everyone can behave in a measured, rational way 24/7.

YANBU-In comparison with other countries I visit regularly the UK is shocking. Everyone snaps now and again, but it really isn't acceptable to make a habit of shouting at your family members, whatever their ages. If you yell at your DC on a regular basis something is badly wrong, and screeching will only make it worse.

Children need to be taught how to behave like decent people, but the reality of life is that parents don't always have the time to explain why they need to get in the car for the 64th time in the last 10 minutes. Everyone at some point in life needs to do what they're told, or there are concequences. Children will push boundaries because that's part of growing up, and sometimes a firmer line is needed as they've learned that actually, there's no concequences to not doing what you're told, just a conversation. That gets dangerous when it comes to things like roads and touching things that can cause a child harm.
My DD is 16 now, and she still says now that she knew she'd really gone too far if I shouted. It was a concequence of her behaviour. My job to teach her what's acceptable and what's not.
I do see parents grabbing at children, calling them names, telling them they're useless etc and I think that's bad parenting - shouting as a concequence of not doing as they're told isn't always.