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

[backdoormadness]

Since I’ve noticed how disgusting some parents talk/shout/disrespect their children I see it everywhere.

-the neighbours who for six months of the year I can hear them yelling at their kids in the garden (their garden is about 10x15m). Most ironically the dad yelling at them as they were playing too loudly (it wasn’t the kids disturbing my peace).

-when I said excuse me to a lady in a shop who turned around to her child “get out of the way” (it was her trolley in the way). I’m sure if it was he Oh she would have said “babe, you’re in the way”.

• the toddler who was happily dillidalling walking in an empty car park as she was watching a huge flock of birds in the sky “I’ve had enough of you, get in the car NOW, I TOLD YOU TO MOVE”. Just imagine if it was her OH talking to her like that, everyone else in my party would have flinched but as it was to a child it’s somewhat acceptable?

These last two have been in the last week.

I wish it was more acceptable to challenge this kind of ‘parenting’, or at least for it not to be seen as normal.

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.

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...

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.

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

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

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.

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

@Sssneks yes I agree :(

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.

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

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

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,

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.

Wonder what would happen if people spoke to adult loved onss the same way?

It is crazy to judge parenting on a single factor. Some parents are more shouty, some less so. Some children are more compliant and some less so.

You could see shouting as a fail as ‘perfect’ parents have better tools for behaviour management. On the other hand, the ‘shouty’ parent may have spent more actual time chatting and playing with their children and just be at the end of their tether....

Swearing at children and calling them names is unacceptable but shouting...,I definitely do it sometimes and would never judge others for it.

And, to put a couple of myths to bed, teachers definitely DO shout at children, often as they are tired/stressed but some even use the (rate) shout as a behaviour management tool (there have been threads on this subject in the past). And, as for British people being worse than elsewhere, many countries have far more rigid controls on behaviour (especially in schools) and you just don’t see so much challenging behaviour from children. I don’t know if this is better or worse but definitely different.

I once shouted at my 16 year old ds so hard, my throat felt ripped. He had done something awful which showed lack of respect for me and his home, and betrayed my trust. And he cried, which didnt make me think I shouldn't have shouted.
It made me think " good,you little fucker".

And as for ‘you wouldn’t shout at an adult so why at a child?’, the vast majority of adults would never block a street by fighting with their brother or go into a tat shop having been told and explained 100 times why it is a waste of money and you are in a rush anyway. They have already learned compromise and acceptable behaviour.

I expect you see a lot of shouting in prisons where adults are still, effectively, behaving like children.

Parenting is tough. If children know they are loved and parents take time to bring them up and educate them, they are doing a good job.

You would all have probably judged me pretty harshly the other day. My son who has ASD, attacks his younger sibling constantly and when he has melt downs breaks anything in his path had been really full on all week. He ripped up the last picture I had of my dad, attacked me for protecting his younger sibling and broke a door. We were walking to my car to go to school/work and he wouldn't stop grabbing at me and as much as I hate the fact I did it I snapped and shouted "get the fuck off of me". It made absolutely no difference but did make a neighbour pull a judgy face at me. Obviously I said I was wrong to snap etc but that was me losing it after years of this.

Forgot to say most of the time it's very rare I shout other than to get myself heard over the three of them then I talk normally to them. I'm more of a discussion type than a shouter and before anyone says "but you wouldn't have done it to an adult" I would have lost it alot worse with an adult.

Hmm. Perhaps you could explain to my two teen DD's that they should also not shout at me. Because 99% of the shouting that the neighbours hear emanating from our house is them shouting at each other or at me. The other 1% is me when I finally lose my rag and get annoyed and shout back. Which does happen. Because I'm a human being...

My DC go to a v middle class school. Parents are a self confessed shouty bunch. If my partner drove me as insane as my dc can then I'd either be up on a murder charge or have left him so it's not really a comparison

You’re so right OP. I’ve noticed this too and I think it’s vile that adults speak to children so disrespectfully.

I discovered glaring at mine in a certain way made them know they’d hit the limit. They would behave at that point.

Interestingly the same glare works on some of the children I work with when they know they are about to push a boundary (ie take a toy, hit someone else etc).

I don’t shout as I don’t really need to. Not that I’m smug, just because we are past the toddler phase of wandering into roads and absolute frustration etc and they’re pretty good now. When they were younger I probably shouted a few times when we were for example trying to leave the house on time in the morning and other methods of cajoling them hadn’t worked. Then they did listen as it was a shock to them for me to raise my voice. Nobody is scarred by it. As adults I expect they’ll get shouted at by others a few times in their lives. And some families are just generally louder than others. Every instruction is shouted and that’s how they communicate but the children are clearly loved and cared for. Aggression and swearing is different.

What a judgy load of crap. I've lived abroard and experienced plenty of other cultures. Guess what, most of them smack their kids, even if not in public. So seeing as that's socially unacceptable here (and wrong, obvs) shouting is what we've got.