Sometimes, I yell. Despite what some may think, it doesn’t make me a bad mom. It doesn’t make you a bad mom, either. It means we’re human. It means were working the hardest job in the world and despite our every effort to do it semi-perfectly, we are not perfect. Yelling is one of the parenting disciplines that comes with the most guilt and angst. We worry about the damage we’re causing to their little spirits and if they’ll remember the yelling over everything else. We worry that the reason they yell so much is because they may be following our lead. It’s a treacherous circle.
I would never, ever, condone yelling but I do think that yelling is one of those parenting disciplines that should sometimes come with a few asterisks*. Here are my 4…
When they are in legit danger.
You know the scenarios that fall into this category. Your 3-year-old gets away from you in a crowded parking lot. Your toddler runs towards the deep-end of the pool without a life-vest. There have been no swimming lessons and your holding a baby, so you yell to get their attention. When they get caught up in their own little world and are on the verge of hurting themselves, we step in with whatever will snap them out of it. Sometimes, that means yelling.
When they are in danger of hurting someone else.
That’s another awful irony of motherhood, we aren’t just working to protect our own kids but we have to look out for others during those unpredictable toddler years. My 22-month-old doesn’t know that pushing someone who is sitting at the top of the slide at the playground is a no-no, he just wants it to be his turn. So, we watch them like hawks and intervene if they put someone else in danger.
When they will not allow you to be heard
That sounds selfish and self-consuming, right, but I’m not in the business of beating around the bush. Sometimes, we need to be heard. We need our children to hear us over the yelling and screaming of witching hour, in the car when everyone is fighting, or just after bath time when the chaos is at an all-time high. When we need to be heard and they won’t allow it, we yell. For the sake of teaching the hard lessons, sometimes we have to be firm.
When nothing else has worked.
Yelling is just like any other parenting method that we’re sometimes ashamed to say we use. Bribery, the empty threat, yelling. They all fall into that category of parenting methods that simply sit in our back pocket until really, really necessary. Yelling is never the go-to, it’s never the first resort, it’s the last. Sometimes, nothing works. You’ve tried your ‘nice’ voice and your ‘sort of nice voice’ and even your ‘raised voice’ and nothing is clicking. You’ve tried speaking at their level and making them look at your face so maybe they’ll understand just how serious you are. Nope, today, they just don’t care. So we yell. To get their attention, to make them understand that there are certain things they just cannot do and sometimes, when they won’t listen, we have to use our least favorite voice of all.
The difference in yelling versus bribery or the empty threat is the guilt you feel afterwards. Damn, mom guilt. I make no apologies for ever bribing my kids or threatening to send them to bed at 3PM but I do sometimes make apologies for yelling. When the yelling comes as the first resort and not the last, I will apologize. It’s a funny thing, right? We can’t really blame our children for the yelling because ultimately we have the ability to control our reactions to their behavior. It’s not their fault we flipped our sh*t, it’s ours. So, we have the guilt for ever yelling in the first place and then to make it right, we sometimes apologize. Damn. This mom gig is just full of ego-boosters, isn’t it? The guilt isn’t enough. Then we have to apologize and teach the real lesson hidden beneath the surface: We’re human and we make mistakes.
I’m not giving anyone, including myself, a pass for yelling when caught in the situations above. What I am doing is making it known that if you yell at your children on occasion, you’ll get no judgement from me. I’ve been there. There have been times I’ve lost my temper for way less than the sometimes justifiable reasons I’ve listed. When the yelling is over and every is calm, we more than pay the price for the mistake we’ve made. Our kids will be OK, despite what Google may tell you. People always say how resilient children are, thank god, right? Well, as their mothers, we taught them to be that way because we’re resilient too. We may torture ourselves with guilt over yelling but we get up the next day and we try again. We try to do better. And THAT, that is one of the most amazing lessons we could ever teach our children and it’s totally unspoken. That you always have a chance to right your wrongs, you can always get better and always do better. And they’ll notice. Because as we know…they notice everything.
Mommy Diatribes
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