Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. In today's video, I'm going to talk to you about how
I parent without yelling and how I get my kids to actually listen without yelling at
them. This is a topic I feel quite passionate about. I get a lot of questions on this channel
about how I am a calm parents or how I discipline the kids. So, I thought that this would be
a good video topic, hopefully give you some tips and ideas. Obviously I'm not an expert.
I am literally just a mom of three. My eldest is only eight years old, so I'm sure I have
a lot more tests to come in the world of parenting as they get older. But these are things that
I've done up until now. And I'm not saying that I'm a perfect parent. I have yelled at
my kids in the past. They seem to know how to push me to the very brink, but I am mindful
of it and these are things that I do to not yell at my kids. I hope you really enjoy this
video. There are various different reasons why we
might yell at our children. But I think for some of us, we yell at our kids just because
when we were growing up, we were yelled at. And now that we have kids of our own, we think
that that's how you speak to kids. And that is completely wrong in my opinion. I grew
up with a parent who would yell, who would fly off the handle, who would be very unpredictable.
And on the other side, I had a parent that wouldn't yell, that was calm, that have respect
for me and that would talk to me. And ultimately, I know who I had more respect for as a child
and the type of parent that I would like to be. So, yes, I hope you like these tips.
My first tip is to work on your serious voice instead of yelling at your children. As soon
as we yell at our kids, it immediately puts them on edge and it almost gives them permission
to yell back at us and also can teach them that it's acceptable to yell at people when
they're angry. Obviously you don't want them going to nursery and just starting to yell
at people. So, instead of doing that, try and have a serious voice. I actually found
this quite difficult because naturally I have quite a high voice and I'm quite a smiley
person. But if they do something wrong and you talk to them in a serious, calm voice
and talk to them about why they did it, it can be really effective.
My next tip is to react calmly to your children and to put yourself in time-out if you need
to. If you've had a very stressful day and you feel like you're about to blow, why not
take yourself away from the situation? As long as they're safe, you could go to the
bathroom, breathe, count to 20. Just take a minute. And in my experience, this freaks
the kids out more than anything. They're like, "Oh my gosh. What's Mom doing?" But you can
be very calm. Or a really good example is when you're driving
and you're trying to concentrate on the road, but the kids are fighting. They're asking
for snacks, they're asking for a song on the radio. He looked out his window. You know
how it is. Rather than shouting and yelling, because that is so tempting in a car, if you
can, pull over, turn to them and say, "We're not carrying on with this journey until you
stop fighting." And that is a very calm way to deal with the situation, but we're just
not going to move. We're not going to go to this party or play date or wherever you're
off to until you stop. So, you're making a massive statement, but you're not having to
yell and shout and scream at the kids, which then you feel guilty about anyway. They get
upset. It's just a terrible mess. My next tip is to set boundaries for your
kids. I'm sure that most parents will know that kids absolutely need clear boundaries
to feel safe and that there need to be consequences if they push the boundaries or if they don't
follow the rules. And when I'm disciplining my kids at this young age, I always think
to myself, "I'm actually doing it for them when they're older or when they're teenagers."
If I don't follow through on punishments and things that I say are going to happen while
they're this age, then when they're older and I tell them to be in at 11:00 PM at night,
they might just think to themselves, "Well, do you know what? Mom never actually does
what she says. Mom never follows through on punishments. I'm not going to come in at 11:00
PM." So, I feel like it's so important to get those
small things right now so that you have the respect later on in life as well. And if you
don't want to nag your kids all the time, I've talked about it before, but we love using
chore charts in this house. I've made a whole video about it, so I'll link that down below.
But I found that I was nagging the kids all the time to do their chores and then I would
nag and nag and nag and then yell. Whereas when they have chores that they need to do
on a chore chart, it's just their responsibility. So, if they ask me if they can have the iPad
or if they can watch a TV show, I'm just like, "Have you done your chores?" It's not me.
It's not coming from me. It's like, "You have a job to do on your chore chart, so if you've
done that, yes, of course you can. But if you haven't, then you haven't." So, I found
that that's actually really helped me to not nag them.
I also really like the three strikes and you're out rule. If we're ever at a play date or
out at a party and one of my children misbehaves, maybe they don't share a toy, instead of just
shouting, "You share," you can actually go up to them and say, "Listen, you've got three
strikes. You've just had one strike because you didn't share that toy. But if you do it
again twice, we're going to have to go." And you can just be really calm about it. And
if they, this is the hardest bit, if they do the three strikes, you have to follow through.
You have to be willing to collect all your things, leave all your mommy friends and go
to teach them a lesson just so that they know that you are serious.
My next tip is to think about your kid's feelings before you yell at them. If you can, just
think it's actually really difficult to be a little kid. They've got all these huge emotions
and they don't really understand them yet and they're just trying to make sense of all
of this. So, if you can, talk to them about a situation. That can really help. Maybe even
give them a hug. It's not that you want to reward any bad behavior, but there might be
something behind why they're acting the way that they have. They might be really embarrassed.
It's also worth saying, you need to think about have their basic needs been met that
day? Are they tired? Are they hungry? Are they coming down with something? I mean, sometimes
I make excuses for my kids, yes. But there might be another reason. And if you were just
to yell at them, it might be the wrong thing to do.
And on that note, another tip is to talk to your kids. As mine are getting older, I'm
finding it so much easier to reason with my kids. For example, the other day I asked my
eldest to do his homework and he was like, "No, don't want to do it." And I was like,
"Oh, okay, come and have a chat with me." Rather than just yelling at him, "You'll do
it because I said so," I was like, "Come and talk to me." And even though he was eye-rolling,
I was like, "Look, what's going to happen if you don't do your homework?" And he was
like, "Well, I'm not going to get a prize at the end of the term." Because basically,
he has to do all his homework and then they get a badge at the end of the term.
So, I was like, "Okay, and how's it going to make you feel when you don't get called
up in assembly and you don't get your badge? You're one of the few that just hasn't done
their homework." And he was like, "It's going to make me feel bad." And I was like, "Yeah,
so do you want to do your homework or do you want to have that feeling?" And he was like,
"Okay, I'll do my homework." But just by talking to him about why I'm actually asking him to
do his homework just made him understand it and just, yeah, stopped me from yelling and
made him do it. Another tip is to think about if there are
particular times in the day when you're more likely to yell. It might be when you're getting
everyone out of the house in the morning or maybe in the car or maybe at dinner time when
everyone is tired and getting really hungry. Think about if those are when you yell and
then anything you can do to make those times less stressful. Maybe get everything ready
the night before so that the mornings are smoother. Maybe use your slow cooker more,
so that dinner is just always ready for when everyone's starving. Just doing little things
like that can just help as well. And if you do yell at your children, I mean
we've probably all done it, but if you do, then you can own up to it and apologize. Maybe
when things have calmed down, you could say to your children, "I'm sorry Mommy yelled.
It was because of this, but it was the wrong thing to do and I'm so sorry. I'm going to
try not to do it in the future," because then you're just teaching your children that that's
not really how we talk to each other and that's not how you want them to talk to people. And
I think with this whole video, all I'm trying to say is that we should speak to our children
with respect. I saw a quote that said that the voice that
we speak to our children with becomes their inner voice. So, you want it to be this really
positive and encouraging voice. And I just think we wouldn't speak to our colleagues
or our friends or people just in the streets sometimes the way that people speak to their
children. So, we should just respect them because we actually love them more than anyone
and they're just people like us. And although we're trying to teach them and raise them,
we can do it with love and respect. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. I hope that's
not too cheesy, but I just know from personal experience growing up with my stepdad was
very wanting power and always shouting and yelling. I never forget. He had this real
thing about rinsing plates before you put them in the dishwasher. And if they weren't
rinsed enough, he'd freak out. And I remember once, I didn't rinse a plate
and he just took out of the dishwasher and was like, "You didn't rinse this plate," and
just smashed it against a wall. And that never made me think ... I never had more respect
for him. He never got more power from it. If anything, I just thought he was a complete
idiot. I guess, I don't know where I'm going with this, but I just think they're the most
important people to us, so we should just talk to them with respect. Anyway, I hope
you enjoyed this video. Thank you so much for watching. I know I went off on a few tangents,
but I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what you think in the comments and I'll see you
in my next one. Bye, guys.