Do you 'shout' at your children

[cantdecideforanother]

Just following on from a conversation with friends last night.

Do you shout at your children. Myself and DH don't really shout at dc (aged 7 and 10). I use other strategies and have never felt like I needed to shout and don't think it works but frilly I was made to feel like because I don't shout that I don't discipline them.

The wide eyed 'I don't know what it achieves?'
IRL most people shout sometimes because they lose their temper and they do that because they're not saints. They might be a great parent 95% of the time.
And raising voice IS shouting surely?

When I had 1... Never.

When I had 2... Occasionally.

Now there are 3 (with less than 3 years between eldest and youngest)... Yes.

My patience has depreciated exponentially with each child and I almost certainly wasn't supposed to have 3 (but that's a different story).

I am irritated a lot. There is always someone asking for something or crying or doing something they shouldn't or making that God awful whining sound. And don't even get me started on the constant mess and tidying the same shit up over and over again.

I don't generally shout at them to do things... Normally it is a shout out in frustration and then I attempt to level to tell them more calmly. But they definitely register my grumpiness.

I do apologise. And I hope to feck this gets easier in a couple of years.

If anyone has 3 kids this close together and doesn't shout then please please tell me how you maintain your composure.

This is me

@santibaby

Yes it’s much of a muchness. It’s like when people think teachers don’t shout. Well my definition must be different then because I don’t know of one single teacher who doesn’t raise their voice from time to time. That is basically shouting.

Ha - of course rasing your voice is shouting!! It's fine to use a raised & stern voice with kids who are pushing their luck. It's not helpful for kids to believe that no matter how they behave people won't become irritated/angry.

Obviously screaming and shouting uncontrollably and relentlessly in a way that terrifies a child isn't ok.

This is also me. However I’m concerned it sends the signal that I totally agree with all the awful things DS says to me and am meekly complying. He could harangue a paper bag at the moment. I do respond almost all the time without shouting, but he says such cruel things.

No. I guess I'm lucky in that my kids have always been really well behaved. They've never had any problems getting out the door to school for instance, even now as teens they get up and are gone by 7:20 with no need for me to cajole them.

My dd went to a new friends house recently and came home saying how she wasn't going there again as the mom and teen ds were screaming at each other and it made her feel really uncomfortable and her friend just rolled her eyes said that's normal here, ignore it. She came home wide eyed like wtf did I just witness.

Yes I do. But generally just one or two words shouted eg DD1's name, or "stop!", "careful!". It's generally in relation to DD1 (3.5) not being careful or being rough with DD2 (8 months).

My mum used to stand over us and berate us, really properly shouting for ages, and I don't do that. I do it as an immediate attention grab.

@santibaby Yes, and normally said by someone who has only 1 child!!!!

Yes. Occasionally if they’re going glacial pace to leave the house.

Raising my voice to get their attention in a risky situation eg shouting NO if they're about to do something that's going to hurt them, yes. I think that's a normal reaction from everyone tbh. You see danger, yell out and rush over.

Actually shouting at them - A few times when they were younger, through frustration at my inability to manage a situation if I'm being honest (they are both autistic). I realised that if I shouted at them, I was failing them and I made a really big effort to not do it because it wasn't helpful at all. It just escalated the situation.

Same eldest is Autistic and thinks I scream at him, so that will probably be his memory of me.

No I don’t but it takes superhuman levels of self control at times.

I raise my voice and am quite firm with my 2 year old when he does something like hitting or biting. Sometimes I'll raise my voice if he is if ignoring me or is being very disobedient. Unfortunately, it feels like the only thing that works and gets the point home which is hard as I'm naturally quite soft spoken and patient. He then cuddles up to me and goes 'iyyya, sorry'! He knows exactly what he is doing...!

I did this morning after (I counted) the 15th time of asking my 6 year old to get dressed. We were late. I was stressed. I feel bad about it now.

I raise my voice on occasion. I don't hold with all the "Oh honnneeeeeeee" tiptoeing around your kids stuff - it sounds so false.

Depends what you mean.

I do shout things like "Right, that's enough!" or "Put that down!" if I need them to stop that second.

But I don't then keep shouting while I tell them off. I would just have a stern voice.

I think there's a huge difference between angrily and unpleasantly berating a child for a long time in order to intimidate them and yelling, "NAME! Put your bloody shoes on now!!! I've only asked you a million times already and we needed to leave 10 minutes ago". The latter, while not gold-standard parenting, is unlikely to result in long-term trauma and is usually greeted by "OK, OK, no need to shout!' from the sullen and self-righteous offender.

No

I am surprised at the people who say they don't shout, have never shouted & never felt the need to shout.

How can you not have felt the need to shout?! It's fucking exhausting. They play up, they take 4 hours to leave the house, they fight you at every corner, they are absolutely infuriating at times. Perhaps that's because I have a 2 and a 5 year old.

I wish I didn't shout but I would be a liar if I said otherwise. I'm not shouting every day or anything but sometimes I get so frustrated and it is the only thing that makes them listen.

I try very hard not to and sometimes I scream in my head or give the middle finger to the back of their heads. That makes me feel better.

As someone else said - the guilt after it is pretty horrific though!

I think it's natural to sometimes shout. Kids can be doing something dangerous or being total pains in the arse.

I have a neighbour who shrieks at her children fairly regularly, in a suprise to nobody her children also now believe shrieking is an effective way to communicate.

I'm certainly not perfect, but why would I shout if it's not needed. My dc have always responded better to other strategies rather than shouting. You should try it

This!!

We wouldn't shout at work, at colleagues or in a supermarket so why is it okay to shout at our children?

Because you can't report them to management, refuse to work with them, sack them, find another job, walk away from them or go LC/NC.

A lot of the strategies we'd use for dealing with unrelated, difficult people aren't available when it comes to our children. If a colleague refused to eat their dinner and wanted five ice creams instead, I'd shrug my shoulders and let them get on with it.