How did you stop shouting?

[lannook]

If you have done it - how? What made you change your behaviour? I am stressed at the moment, moving house etc etc but it has to stop and I do not know how. Children are 3 and 2 so I need to change before I spoil things

I haven't found a cure, but I do find it helps if I just shout their name to get their attention. Once I have that, then I can talk to them, without shouting. In my 'shouty' moments, I find that I'm shouting a whole message, most of which probably gets lost along the way, particularly if they haven't given me their attention when I start!

I find it helps me to stop shouting if I imagine I'm being watched. Would I be happy with how I'm behaving if someone could see me?

My sister shouts 'Sweeties' or 'Chocolate'. Never fails. I'm a banshee different case & am trying very hard to control my shouting.

Ive started catching myself early and then changing what Im about to say "DD COME BACK DOWN HERE NOW LOOK AT THE STATE OF THE LIVING ROOM WHY DO I ALWAYS HAVE TO REMIND YOU NAG NAG NAG I NEED A CUDDLE RIGHT NOW! She grins, and comes back, I take a few seconds to turn tone/volume down and choose my words better, we have a cuddle and I tell her what I need to happen in a calm but firm way.

I like it mousey I'm going to try that!

Oh mousey, that's good. I am so fed up at being a shouty miserable mummy, but DD (3) is doing my fecking head in at the moment :(

I am definately in the shouty miserable mummy category at the moment, DS (also 3yrs) is driving me nuts - I can see our lovely relationship disolving before my eyes but I'm at the stage where the not listening / deliberate misbaving / agression / back chat is really driving a wedge between us and I cant see the wood for the trees. I know Im the adult and I should know better etc etc but man alive I cant wait til he starts pre school in Sept . I just want my sweet 18mth old back, even the slightly trying 2yr old would be nice about now.

kiwi, I hear you. I wonder if life would be a little easier for me if I didn't have 10mo DS...poor DD has to compete for attention. And DS is "allowed" to get away with so much that DD can't do - messing around at the table, making noise, banging stuff - I find I'm constantly telling her off :(

Warn you tho - maybe this was going to happen anyway, but DD is 3.3, started preschool a couple of months ago, 2 sessions a week. And she has become a right little madam! Finding her own personality, talking back, tantrumming, I am getting shoutier by the day

I was actually wondering today if I have "anger issues" as I get so cross with her. As you say, I am the adult, she is only a child, I should know better and not let it get to me but after telling her again and again and again not to do something, only for her to carry on regardless, I get furious. I'm not worried I'lll hit her or anything, but I really want to learn how to not be so angry and not shout so much :(

Completely with you ZenGarden. Remember, if an adult drove you that mad, you'd be able to walk away, but we can't walk away from our kids, or not for long anyway. I found myself very cantankerous yesterday because I had too many jobs to do that needed us to be places at specific times, so will try and avoid that again.

DS1 (nearly 4) gets stars for good listening (and general good behaviour) which I draw in a little book. When he gets to 7 (a odd number, but he came up with the phrase "7 star listener") he gets a sweet or bit of chocolate. It's not a runaway success but it helps. I feel I'm reinforcing good behaviour and it does give a bit of extra leverage.

Also have 19 mo DS2 so same problem about the little one being able to get away with stuff DS1 would get told off for. I try to tell DS2 off - gently, and without expectation of result - just to be fair.

I like your suggestion Mousey and will deploy that!

I have 3 ds and 2 dd and age 14 to 1 and i feel like all i do is shout and nag all day and night and tbh it gets me nowhere its stressful i am wondering if i need happy pills ? to enable me to keep calm and carry on i strive for perfection and fall very short of it which makes me worse im okay when its me and the baby but when the older four come home its awful

Love the suggestion mousey might try that tomorrow. DD has been evil incarnate today and I'm ashamed to say I smacked (she picked up a toolkit and smashed the dog across the face with it [hshock] - despite being told to leave the toolkit alone, do not touch it, don't you dare pick that up, if you hit White Dog with it you'll get a smack....)

Every day at the moment (DD is almost 3 and DC2 is due on 24th) is a constant argument. Today I've been hit, the dogs have been hit and sat on, DH's been hit and the answer to everything has been 'No, shut up' or 'I don't waaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnt toooooooooooooooooo' in That Whinging Tone that must surely be used for torturing prisoners in Guantanamo (not that the US gets up to that sort of thing of course ahem ahem ) >>sigh

I realised a few months ago that I just dont shout anymore. It wasnt a concious thing my dd's are 2 & 3 also. I find they take more notice of a firm voice when u crouch down to their level rather than shouting. I remember when I was a child if my parents shouted at me I heard the noice but not the words IYKWIM x

noise* even

When DS says "Mummy don't shout!" I always try to say sorry and talk properly. I think it's good that he feels able to pick me up on it. Also I have noticed since this if he is shouting and I ask him not to, he does. And he listens a lot more if I do talk nicely, and I notice a lot more if he is shouting at me that I don't WANT to do what he is asking, even if it's a reasonable request, if I'm being shouted at. I can only imagine he feels the same. So I try to remember that.

I think in short don't be afraid to apologise, or stop halfway, never react to a "Stop shouting mummy" with a "Don't make me shout then!" or "Stop doing X then!" - if you don't want to shout, then accept that you have messed up if you do. But equally don't brood on it, just apologise as soon as you notice yourself doing it and move on. Slowly you just start catching yourself earlier until it becomes second nature not to shout.

I do always end up shouting in certain situations though - like if DS was about to do something dangerous. And I'm completely rubbish if woken up early and tend to bark everything.

A week later almost and I have shouted again! I am tired and it is raining so we are in the house. I feel the 3yr DD "mithering" me - I have so much to do - we move on Wednesday and she was yawning so I suggested we all go upstairs for them to sleep and takes some books up - younger DD wants one of the books so bashes older one in the face. i then just shouted - I am sometimes so fed up of the noise, the constant negotiation, feeling it is a battle.

Now sat in front of postman pat for me to calm down.

A lot of my frustration is not being able to get anything done - I have a lot to do at the minute and everything has to be left until they are in bed. You cannot put all life on hold and play with children all day - how do you get the balance between doing everyday things and playing with them so they don't feel they are getting none of your attention?

I've been shouty mummy today too. I've not had my morning cuppa (DH very helpfully drank the last of the milk before I got up), my hip has gone so I can't walk and 'D'D is battering the dogs with a xylophone. I've got hoovering to do upstairs, but while I was doing it she snuck downstairs, found a pair of scissors and gave the dog a haircut. I stay calm, ask her nicely to stop it and she tells me 'No, shut up, stop shouting!'

At which point the pain in my hip wins over my restraint and I just launch into 'You want shouting? I'll show you shouting!'

How the crap am I going to cope when DC2 arrives in less than 2 weeks? >>crying

I admit it, I can be horribly shouty and short tempered. I'm constantly trying to be less so, sometimes I do better than others.

lannook, it is so hard trying to get anything done. I can sometimes get a few jobs done very slowly with "help" or manage to grab 5 mins here and there by setting them up playing something. I have to be in the same room, so has to be planned carefully. DS is allowed some TV time whilst DD naps if I really need to get stuff done.

I have to say, in light of the stress you're under I think you're being hard on yourself. Shouting twice with a week in-between is not so very terrible. Yes it would be great if we were all perfect and never ever shouted, but this isn't day in day out damaging stuff IMO. Do you have any friends or family you could do a daytime babysitting swap with? I don't have any family support locally, so a couple of friends and I take it in turns to look after each others children for a couple of hours. It's amazing how much I can manage to get done with a straight bash at it.

Trina, you poor thing. It must be really difficult being very heavily pregnant, sore and tired. Do you think it might be helpful to keep DD away from the dogs whilst she's still so little and prone to bashing/giving them haircuts? When DS was small we kept the dogs in the kitchen behind a stairgate. It gave them a safe haven and me one less thing to worry about.

DS was still very non-compliant at times when he was in his 2's and 3's...still can be sometimes and he's 5. It's only now that I have DD that I realise my expectations of him were unrealistic when he was so little...they still can be tbh. One trick I use is to imagine that he's someone else's child, would my expectations of them be the same? This sometimes helps me gain a bit of perspective. Is DD maybe acting up a bit more because she's anxious about the new baby? Don't panic about life once DC2 arrives, friends who had babies with smaller age gaps than mine said that they found it easier dealing with a new baby and DC1 than being heavily pregnant and having to do so.

Sometimes, I will realise what I am doing and turn it in to a comedy rant. "If you don't come down here now, I will chop off your head and stuff it with all of the things you have left lying around in the kitchen and then feed it to the guniea pigs". This passes for humour in our house (which may say something about us as a whole).

I've TRIED keeping her separate, but she's determined. And when mummy's paralysed not much fun to play with there's nothing she wants to do more. We have a stairgate across the kitchen: but it's to keep the dogs OUT as they're thieving bastards so and so's and will be up on the worksurface within seconds of being shut in there. I tried to keep her upstairs (while I was hoovering) but the stairgate isn't particularly tight and DD can open it :(

I don't think she's anxious about the baby, I don't think she really appreciates what it entails. As regards the dogs, they get snappy and we can explain calmly til we're blue in the face 'don't do that they don't like, they will bite you, you're hurting them' - makes not the blindest bit of difference. She'll poke and poke and poke until - surprise surprise - she gets bitten and wails and then comes to us expecting sympathy.

You say you don't think she appreciates what having a new baby in the house entails. In which case i think you need to apply the same logic to her interactions with the dogs. She's 2, it's not fair on her or the dogs to allow her to torment them. In doing so she's also stressing you out. I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that you make life easy for all of you and find somewhere (doesn't have to be the kitchen, I only used this as an example) the dogs and your DD can be safe and separate from each other.

We don't have anywhere, this is part of the problem. There's the hallway, kitchen and living room downstairs, and two bedrooms and the bathroom upstairs. Dogs live in the hallway, kitchen is gated to keep them out (door shut in the night as they can clear the gate if determined. Living room door will shut but obviously she's fully capable of opening it. I can't shut the dogs upstairs as they're too destructive. I can't keep her upstairs as she can open the stairgate. The only vaguely possible solution is to keep the dogs in the garden: but that doesn't work if it's raining, and I'd need to keep them crated anyway as one of them's an escape artist who will be found several gardens away!

Can't even crate them in the house, as she just opens the crate, forces the dogs out and shuts herself in!

Could be the only workable solution though...

I'm being a very shouty mummy at the moment and I hate it. I went back to work full time two weeks ago so DS (3.8) is back at nursery full time and it's been stressful on us all. He's really not being very good at listening and it really winds me up.
Anyway, one thing I've found to be effective is instead of getting loud, get quiet. Crouch down and use a quiet, calm (but as menacing as you can!) voice to explain what's going to happen and what is not going to happen.
To be honest, it's about as effective as shouting is (ie. not very, at the moment ) but at least I feel like I'm modelling better behaviour for DS by talking to him properly rather than yelling.
I also stopped a full on yelling match by laughing at him as he was pulling a very comedy pouting face with his bottom lip sticking out. I just said "DS, you look ridiculous!" and laughed and he joined in. Situation diffused! Could easily have gone the other way though...

Sounds like a good plan Trina...I'm tempted to go and buy one for DS too . Last suggestion before I naff off and leave you al

Oops, joys of having big fingers and an iphone!...
Was going to say naff off and leave you alone...padlock on the crate? Obviously only for times you can't supervise/intercept.