I love the requests that come from you --the viewers. And this one comes up a lot.
"Dr. Paul, how do I stop being a yelling parent?" Yelling is typically a result of
frustration. Think about it. When do you yell? When you're feeling frustrated. Because
something didn't meet with your expectations, you wanted things to go a
certain way and they went another way, instead. You know, welcome to earth. That's
kind of what happens on this planet. It also brings up an important realization
when we're dealing with the yelling. And that is that there are some things we
control and other things that we don't. We have to get really clear about that.
Because if we don't control something but we expect it to happen a certain way,
that's a surefire recipe for frustration. And we're going to end up blowing our top.
So, here's my psychologist advice: Take care of yourself. This is the number 1
rule of parenting. And I can't emphasize this too much. You have to take care of
number 1. If you're not taking care of you, who do you expect to do that for you?
Your kids? Well, that's kind of sick and wrong on so many levels. Let's not put
that kind of a burden on our little ones. You need to be okay because you're okay. and
then you can show up for your kids in a more powerful way without the yelling. So,
when I say self-care, I'm talking about several different layers. Your sleep for
example. You want to get plenty of sleep. Exercise. So important. And I know, I get
it. It's hard to do as a busy parent. If you've got young children (especially)
it's hard to do. That doesn't make it any less important. So, handle the
considerations. Whatever you need to do. I still remember this mom
that I worked with --Tracy. Tracy in her early 30s had 4 little kids. Her
husband was working 70-80 hours a week. And she didn't get to see him very much.
So, she's pretty much on her own. She started to become depressed. Big surprise,
really. I mean that's a recipe for it. I knew because of my experience in
psychology and what I've read in the research. I knew that she needed to start
moving her body. Exercising, getting the blood pumping. A little cardiovascular
workout. I mentioned it to her. And poor Tracy. I mean she had already mentioned
it to herself many times. "I need to start exercising. Oh, I know I'm I need to get
out and and get moving." But she was having a hard time getting
herself to actually do it. There's a lot that she had on her plate.
As we discussed the importance of the exercise and she realized, "You know what?
I have to start doing this." The next thing that came up: "What am I going to do
with my kids while I'm exercising?" It's a pretty good question. Make sure that it's
a question, okay? Not a statement disguised as a question. "What am I
going to do with my kids while I'm exercising!?"
See, how that's just an exasperated statement. It's not even a question.
Turn it back into a question. "What am I going to do with my kids while I'm
exercising?" Okay. Good question. Babysitter, perhaps? Oh, but that's going to
cost money? "How am I going to pay for a babysitter?" Again, pretty good question.
Make sure it's a question, not a statement disguised as a question. How
are you going to pay for a babysitter? In Tracy's case, remember hubby's work in 70-
80 hours a week? Let's use some of the money hubby's bringing home to pay for a
babysitter so Tracy can take care of herself. Now, this might bring up, "Well,
that's just... What about my husband? He's not going to agree with that." Okay, we'll
handle that too. Whatever the considerations are, let's handle them.
Because you got to take care of you. I get reminded of this every time I get on
a plane and they tell me, "Oh, put your own oxygen mask
on first if we ever have a problem. You know, they're going to drop down from the
ceiling attractive little rubber band. Put it on your face." Put your own mask on
first before you help somebody else. It's the same thing with parenting. You got to
be in good shape as a parent in order to show up for your kids. If you're out cold
in the aisle you're just in the way. And part of the problem. So, take this
seriously. Let's go back to something that I mentioned early on. Some things
you control, other things you don't. Let's pay attention to that because the more
you focus on what you control, the less frustration you're going to feel. And the
less frustration you feel, the less likely you are to yell. Honestly, if
you're just focusing on what you control, what reason would you even have to yell?
There isn't one. This is a really crucial factor. Let me share an example with you
about what I mean here. Noah is a father of 3 teenagers and he was getting so
frustrated and upset with them he found himself constantly yelling at these kids.
And you know what? It wasn't even helping. He didn't want to see himself as a
Yeller. Noah is a good man. And normally, he's pretty sane. You talk to anybody who
knows him at work and they're like, "Oh, yeah.
Noah's really cool." You talked to his kids and they're like, "That dude is a
freak. He is totally blowing a gasket every time he talks to us." So, Noah
wanted to fix. This the thing that he had missed... This came up in one of our
parenting coaching groups. Noah realized that he was focusing on a whole bunch of
stuff that he had no control over. Like their attitude for example. Or their
appearance or the way they handled their friends. These are all things that Noah
was getting frustrated about. But notice, he doesn't control those things. His
teenagers do. They're the ones who are making those decisions that he's finding
so disagreeable. And his focus on that was causing
to feel frustrated and that's why he was yelling. In our group, it came up that you
can spend half the time. Honestly, probably a quarter of the time. What if
you spent a quarter of the time that you're spending yelling at your kids
instead thinking about something that you control. This was huge for Noah. It was
like the lights went on. ♫ Ooh ♪ And he had this breakthrough where he started
thinking. Now, incidentally, I want to slip this into think, not fight. This is what
we're inviting our kids to do. This is important for parents to do as well. And
when Noah stopped to think. He came up with a couple of really brilliant
solutions to his problem. One example that Noah shared in our group last week.
He said, "My son was refusing to cut his hair." Okay? Now, this hair was getting all
long and scraggly. Honestly, that's probably something you don't want to
fight a lot of battles over. Because it's not that big of a deal. But this had
become more of an issue. And Noah had been yelling at his son about the hair
with no observable results other than everybody's getting frustrated and upset
with each other. Not a lot of peace going on in the home. So, when he turned on his
brain and started thinking, what Noah realized is that he does control the
internet. I don't mean he's the king of the Internet. I mean he controls access
to the Internet within his home. You know what I meant. When he started focusing on
what he controlled, he came up with two or three ideas of how he could control
that in a way that might help the conversation with his son. So, he simply
when everybody was sleeping, he simply turned it off. You can do that. Do you
think his son's going to notice? Oh, yeah. He's going to notice because his son was
very fond of using the Internet. He also turned off one of the movie streaming
channels that was connected to their TV. ♪ Oh ♫ See, the lights start going on for
Noah is he starts to focus on what he can control. He simply took control over
those things and then he had a whole different conversation with his son. And
he didn't have to yell. This is the beautiful thing. Play it out in your mind.
This is how he reported it in our group. Son wakes up. What does he want to do? Get
on the internet. Hops on the computer. Wait a minute,
something's not working. He notices. This is good because that's going to trigger
the thinking. He goes to dad. "Dad what's up with the Internet?"
Dad simply says, "What do you mean, son?" Son says, "Well, it's not working. I can't get
on to my game." "Oh, yeah. I turned it off last night. I figured we could save a
little bit of money doing that. And it's not fair for me to argue with you about
things that I want you to do. And so, I'm going to stop yelling at you for those
things. Tell you what, I'd be happy to provide internet for you if or when you
make certain choices." And in this case he wanted him to cut his hair he wanted to
clean up a little bit. Get his room cleaned. Reasonable things that he's
asking him to do. But he had been yelling at him before.
Well, that wasn't working. And dad wasn't enjoying it either. So, when he took this
other approach, suddenly, he's got some leverage. He doesn't even have to yell.
Why? Because he's focusing on something he controls. That's the key right there,
people. And the other powerful thing that we learned from Noah's story: Think
not fight. Think not fight. You spend more time thinking than fighting. And if you
get tempted to fight with your kids or to yell at them, pause and think. You got
a brilliant mind. You're going to come up with some great stuff if you'll do that.
I mentioned the coaching groups. We've got some really great resources we've
put together. You're going to start with a discovery call. Jump on that free call
with me or member of our Live On Purpose certified
team to have a specific private conversation with you. You can click on
the link down below DrPaulJenkins.com/breakthrough call. We
look forward to having that conversation.