Today, we're here to share with you 5 psychological effects
of yelling at kids. And the last one is going to surprise you a little.
It's so interesting to me as a psychologist to see where we're going
in the research and the literature about yelling. -Right. -Some researchers are
suggesting that yelling is just as psychologically damaging to a
child as physical abuse. I'm not sure if that's
completely true but I see why that finding
is there. Yelling tends to traumatize children. And one of the most
traumatizing experiences for a child is to feel unloved.
-Yeah. -That's why we keep reiterating on this channel what's your job as a
parent? To love them... -No matter what... -And even if.
-Yeah. -Yes. They don't feel loved when we're yelling at them. And so, I can see
the connection for the research that goes there. I've
also seen that some of these researchers are giving a caveat or a little
disclaimer that most parents do
yell. -Oh, yes definitely. -I mean we lose our cool, right?
You've had the experience where you get up and it's a new day.
And "I'm going to do it right today", right? Just like I promised myself yesterday
that I would. And then the kids wake up and
everything goes south real fast, right? -Or you're coming at it
tired. Because what parent isn't tired a lot of the times. -Whatever the factors
are, we find ourselves in this position all the time where we end up yelling
out of frustration. And you know it used to be, Vicki. Back in the day,
the emphasis was on things like spanking, physical punishment, corporal punishment.
And most of that is now considered to be abusive.
And the professionals are very outspoken on this. You know, you should not do that.
Well, I think that leaves parents in a frustrating position "Well, what do I do
then?" -Right. -And in that frustration when they
become depleted or overwhelmed or so frustrated with the situation. They
end up yelling. -Right. -And that's why it's so common. Let
me add one more caveat before we go on to our next point. And
that is it's okay to yell.
When that's the best thing to do. I'm talking about times when it is
physically dangerous to the child. They're running
out into the street, you've got to get their attention and it has to be
carried to them above all of the noise. Yell.
There's a fire in the house, yell. -Right. -Get your kid's attention. There's a
reason why we have this capability. For most intents and purposes, yelling is
not the most appropriate approach to a child or to
discipline. But I wanted to give that caveat because
sometimes you need to. -That leads us perfectly into the next
point. And that is chronic yelling causes parent deafness.
And you know you just said that there are times when maybe raising our voice
is really important for a number of reasons generally to make
our child aware of a dangerous situation. -It's a safety concern. -If you are yelling
all the time... And I've seen this you know as a mom.
When you're chronically yelling, your child learns to just tune you out.
It's kind of a basic safety mechanism that our body has. It's like, "Boy, that's a
threat that's just constantly going but it's not really a
threat. So, I'm just tuning it out." -Right. -So, Vicki, when you said
parent deafness, you don't mean the parent goes deaf? -No, the kid's go deaf
to the parents. Right. -And you'll know that this is happening
when you have that experience of "My kids won't even listen to me."
-"Well, they wait until i get to a certain level." -Right.
And why is that? You think about it. It's not the yelling.
It's that the yelling is a signal that there's something else that's going
to happen if i don't pay attention right now.
But chronic yelling becomes... I like the way that you put this earlier.
It's almost a defense mechanism that the child develops.
It's a chronic state of threat. They want to
remove themselves from that threat so they just simply turn
down the volume. They tune you out and they don't even hear you.
When our kids become deaf to our voice, it doesn't matter what we're saying.
-Right. -Because it's just blah, blah, blah to them. Our words are garbage.
A lot of what we do in our parent coaching for example is helping parents
to turn their words from garbage into gold.
Can you imagine creating a scenario with your kids
where you say something in a kind, calm, loving voice and your kids snap to
attention. They're like "What? Mom's talking,
everybody!" -Wouldn't that be nice. -Some of you are
thinking, "Yeah, that never happens and it never will." It can. As you
turn your words from garbage into gold, they start to listen to what you're
saying because now we're putting some validity behind what we're saying. It's
not just noise out the mouth. Which kind of leads us into the next
point. I think yelling has almost as much of a negative effect
on the parent as it does on the child. -Yeah. When you're chronically yelling, it
really... I think most of the parents I've talked
to, it damages their self-confidence. And they don't feel like they have
control. They feel guilt and
shame about what the way that they're showing up for their kids and
communicating to their kids. And so, it can be psychologically damaging to the
child because they go deaf to your words and it can be
psychologically damaging to the parent because it causes
all kinds of self-doubt, lack of self-confidence, self-loathing
sometimes, guilt. -Guilt, shame. -All that. -Enough with the
guilt and shame already. -Yeah. -But you're right, Vicki. I have seen
this so often and you have validated this for us. You
as viewers have responded to us with this that you
you don't feel good as a parent when you find
yourself doing that. -Another issue with yelling is that it
kind of is modeling how you handle conflict and
that's what your child is going to learn to handle conflict the same way. So,
yellers often have children who are yellers,
right? And it doesn't make a lot of sense. I remember a time this is
back to my parenting 101, some of the best times, right? -How do you think we
learned all this? -I had some children in the back seat and
they were hitting each other. And I remember reaching back and kind of
grabbing kind of slapping at their hands. "Stop hitting each other." And I thought, "Oh,
yeah. So, I'm telling them to stop hitting each other by kind of slapping their own
hands away from each other", right? It doesn't make sense. -Screaming at your
children to be quiet. -Or yelling at your kids to stop
yelling. It doesn't work very well. You're modeling
how to handle frustration. Remember that yelling is
it's just a symptom of what you're already feeling,
right? You don't yell if you're feeling happy and calm and
listen to it. It's because you're frustrated or you're tired or whatever.
So, you're modeling that this is how you should handle life,
is by going around and yelling at people. And that is
not going to serve you or your child well in most life situations. -You
probably already know this. -Right. -And we're not
sharing these psychological effects of yelling to increase your
guilt or shame. In fact, we're on your team. And
we've been there. -Right. -We know how that feels. Let's bring
this around to the last effect of yelling and that
is that it creates for you an opportunity.
A learning opportunity. -Because let's be real.
You're going to yell on occasion, right?
And and that's what we want to do is get to the point that you have enough
resources and enough tools in your belt that it doesn't
happen all the time. But when it does, use it as a learning opportunity.
It's going to happen to you, it's going to happen to your kids. What can you
learn from it? There are some great strategies that
we'll talk about a lot on our channel and in our other
resources. But it gives you a chance to model apologies. It gives you a chance to
do-overs, right? One of my favorite things.
It gives you a chance to show that people make mistakes and we can learn
from it. That it doesn't change our worth by making a mistake. -The
fact that you're here with us right now watching this video to
this point of the video shows that you are a concerned,
benevolent, loving parent. Let that sink in for a minute. You're a
good parent. I know that you're doing some yelling.
Welcome to earth. We're all doing that. There are some obvious effects
that are maladaptive that we want to stay away from
from the yelling. So, we'll give you some resources. We're here, we're on your team.
We're going to support and help you. Let's use it as a
learning opportunity. Be grateful that you have those
opportunities to learn. Because as you do so, what was it that
Maya Angelou said about this? Do the best that you know how to do.
-And when you know better, do better. -Yes. As you know better, do better. That was
it. I love that. And that's what you're going to
do. That's what we're gonna help you to do.
So, let's be aware of the effects but enough with the guilt and shame already.
We'll use it as a learning opportunity and move forward.
You know, Vicki? As we're going through this video is remembering we did a
5-day challenge. Do you remember that? -Yes. -On how to stop yelling.
We've got that over at Live On Purpose Central.
You can find it here on YouTube as well. You probably didn't know about
everything else that's available at Live On Purpose Central where we have the
Parenting Power-Up, we have live discussion groups. You can
get into my open office hours and ask me anything that you want.
go.liveonpurposecentral.com. There's a link in the description. Come
check it out.