I come from a shouty family, my children are driving me mad. Can I break the cycle before I break my voice box?

[HectorsHouse]

my family background is flare up / calm down and I rather enjoyed it - very passionate and loving

but I'd like to stop being so shouty (particularly around periods)

hello lurker

didn't mean to put this in products .. maybe there's a product I could buy though

Oh dear...me too. I shout when I am cross and really do turn into my mother

we have lots of passion here too

poor dp has three grown women to contend with, three out of four weeks are hell for him poor love

I think I shouted more sunday and monday than i have done in my 6 years of motherhood (okay, slight exageration).
Anyway, I was a bit upset with myself last night and decided I needed to change my ways (the children are just being children really and it's me that is tired and stressed and not handling it well).
Anyway, today we started a bit of a competition to see who had the best hearing . We took it in turns to call each other as quietly as possible and see how softly you could go with the other person still being able to hear.
It seems to have had the desired effect as the noise level today has been the lowest it's been all holidays. Long may it continue although i might have to think up some other games/competitions tomorrow to keep their interest going.

I am mostly reasonably calm but then suddenly lose it in a straw that broke the camel's back kind of way and BELLOW at ds. Not dd, she's too young and never drives me to it, because she's younger.

What about singing whenever you feel like shouting? It might take them aback enough to stop doing whatever you don't want them to do.

Or, sometimes, when my children are driving me mad with "I want" I say "I WANT a huge house in the countryside with roses around the door and a pool in the garden and a butler and a hideaway in the garden. I want to fly first class to New York and stay at a swanky hotel and drink bellinis, etc (you get the idea!)" That's stopped 4yo dd in her tracks recently.

What makes you shout? How old are they?

I have similar background to you Hectors and enjoy a good shouting match quite frankly. I am very shouty with ds1 tho and hate myself for it. I notice though that it's completely me that's the problem - when I'm feeling fine from when I get up it doesn't matter how bad the day is or how badly behaved ds1 is, I don't lose my temper. I find the homepathic remedy pulsatilla has helped, as well as taking a decent women's supplement (wellwoman) so I'm not terribly bad with the pms anymore. Also, when I used to do yoga in the mornings it made a huge difference - unfortunately ds2 is waking me at 6 so I'm not inclined to get up at 5.30 for yoga!
I have come to realise that I'm really harming ds1 with my outbursts and he's also very bad at handling his temper (he's nearly 4) cos I'm such a bad example. I don't think there are any special techniques, just trying to become calmer less stressed person in general.

oh I like the pill-popping solution

we do the quiet voices

it is really true that it is connected with me and not with kids' behaviour. They can do the same thing at other times of my 'cycle' and I just ignore or laugh it off