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Patch Parenting: 10 Ways to Stop Yelling at Your Kids

Raising kids is tough, Patch is here to help. This article begins a weekly series we're calling "Patch Parenting." Each week we will share tips and information that will help you navigate the rough parenting waters until it's smooth sailing!

Calm Parenting—most of us aspire to it, desire it, and even promise ourselves we’re going to do it—but it’s so difficult to sustain. We know how important it is to parent from our principles rather than from our fears, but despite our best intentions we lose it and end up yelling at those we love the most — our kids.

And why? Actually for good reason. We often blame our kids for our outbursts and convince ourselves that it's because they don’t listen, are disrespectful, sassy, or misbehave. It's important to understand that these are just our triggers—actions, behavior or events that push our buttons and often make us react without thinking. Added to that, we parents have strong feelings when it comes to parenting; they can run the gamut from fear, to sadness, to helplessness, and more. Parenting is a very personal experience and our feelings can easily get in our way of logic and wise reasoning. After all, we're only human!

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What will this change in your path require?

  1. Educate the logical, thoughtful part of your brain. Read articles (like the ones found on Empowering Parents) that teach and remind you why it is important to stay calm and not lose your cool with your children. Stop, pause, and think before responding, always.
  2. You can't "make" others act a certain way so you can feel okay. Keep in mind that we have a tendency to want others to think and act the way we want them to think and act when we get anxious, particularly our children. This is called the “herding” instinct; it makes us feel calmer when others act in ways that fit our needs. When we can’t get others to “be” the way we need them to be, we get more anxious and start shouting at them in our attempt to "herd" them. Know that this is a natural tendency that occurs in all of us, and prepare for it to happen when you get triggered. Stop, pause and recognize that you can’t yell your way to calm or get calm through someone else. Find ways to soothe yourself through calming music, quiet walks, and self-care. The truth is, yelling at others and jumping on their back will only cause more stress.
  3. Know your triggers. Recognize your triggers. Pay attention to which of your child’s behaviors gets the heat rising in you. Check your body signals that indicates your heat rising. Are your shoulders tense? Throat tight? Are your words defensive? See if there is a pattern. Write all of this down.
  4. Ask yourself why these behaviors upset you so much. Write your thoughts down. Look to your past and look to your fears of the future. What does it trigger from your past? What fears does it trigger of the future? Ask yourself if your child’s behavior make you feel unsure of myself? Helpless? Out of control? Scared? Overwhelmed? Why? What can you do about these feelings? Are they rational or irrational? Write down what can you do to help soothe yourself when you feel any of these triggered emotions.
  5. Know what's at stake. Remind yourself that angry interactions can often negatively impact your influence with your child. Influence will only come from a child wanting to be led by you. Use your compassionate friend that sits on your shoulder to help you calm down the deep emotions that get triggered. You will want to settle these emotions within yourself so they don’t spill outside of yourself onto others.
  6. Have realistic expectations: Keep your expectations of yourself and parenting realistic and reasonable. Give yourself permission to be imperfect and recognize the inevitability of being inadequate at the job of parenting. If you have difficulty reminding yourself, speak to the compassionate friend that sits on your shoulder. She can remind you of these truths and help you keep a perspective. Also get support from friends and family that love you.
  7. Heal your wounds. Heal the wounds of your past by learning your family history or seeking out professional help. Finish the unfinished business of the past so it does not repeat itself in the present. Get your adult relationships and personal life in order so you don’t rely on your kids to fill the void. Look at it this way: if you need this from your kids, your sense of worth will be up to them. You will be vulnerable to them and therefore easily triggered.
  8. Avoid power struggles. Be careful not get hooked in to a pattern of negative interactions with your child when you get triggered. Don’t react to her reactivity and get caught in a battle of wills. Hold on to yourself and your realistic expectations of yourself and your child. Stay focused on your child’s strengths instead.
  9. Stop futurizing. If you are a big worrier, you probably carry lots of scary mental images of your kid’s outcome in your head. Images of disaster, what will happen if they venture out by themselves, failure, catastrophes befalling them. Some part of you probably falsely believes that if you worry  and "futurize" you will prevent these things from happening. Not true. Try and overdose your mind with visions of happy, safe outcomes for your children. When these negative images get in your head, replace them with an opposite image. Work on this. Do the same thing with negative thoughts that pop into your head; replace them with an opposite, more realistic thought.
  10. Release your stress through exercise. Try walking, yoga, prayer, meditation. Practice mindfulness. Relax your body when you feel yourself tensing your shoulders. Take deep breaths and close your eyes. Notice your breath without changing it. Acknowledge all thoughts that come into your head and then return to your breathing.  Don’t judge yourself — just notice your mind has wandered and bring it back to focus. Do this 15 minutes a day and you will notice more calm.

Our kids’ behaviors can trigger unhealed wounds in us. We don’t like the feeling their actions and words  brings up in us sometimes, and we don’t know how to soothe our wounds, so we blame, yell, scream, and criticize the person who triggered it in us. Blame helps us momentarily to feel calmer but resolves nothing. 

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So next time you are triggered, pause before reacting, lower your heat by gaining perspective, then decide the best way to respond to your child. Spend time in the LOGIC OFFICE. Think about how to approach your child so that she will learn something from her misbehavior, but that your relationship will remain intact. For example, if you are triggered by disrespect, then once you have calmed yourself down you might discuss with her why disrespect is not acceptable and what she can expect to happen when she acts that way again.

Calm Parenting does not have to be a far off dream, but it does require serious commitment and practice. Parenting is serious business, and because we love our children, parenting becomes a very emotional experience which triggers our deepest and most vulnerable emotions. Be kind to yourself on this journey.

About Debbie Pincus, MS, LMHC

Debbie Pincus has been in private practice for over 25 years and a parent and marriage coach for the past 15 years. She works with individuals, parents, children/adolescents, families and couples.  Her offices are located in Larchmont, NY, Manhattan and Greenwich, CT. 

Debbie founded the Relationship Center in 1991. The Center offers parenting groups and one-to-one parent coaching, seminars and workshops as well as couples counseling, individual therapy, relationship counseling, in-home consulting, family therapy and counseling for children and adolescents.

For more information, visit EmpoweringParents.com. or call (914) 834-4965. 

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