By Amy McCreedy – Positive Parenting
I get it. You don’t want to yell at your kids. I’ve been a parenting educator for 15+ years and have never met a parent who felt like yelling was a good strategy. The only reason parents yell is because they are pushed to the brink and don’t have more effective tools to use. We know from recent studies that yelling can have the same detrimental effects on a child as spanking—including increased anxiety, depression, stress, and other emotional disorders. And while yelling can be useful in some situations, if it is our default discipline strategy, we will fail to experience the long-term behavioral changes we hope to see in our children.
Why isn’t Yelling a Good Long-Term Strategy? Parenting is a marathon—or more like 18 marathons strung together. When considering different discipline strategies, it’s vital we remember the end-game. Sure, we’d like our son to walk through the candy aisle without throwing a tantrum. And we’d like our daughter to not wage war at the dinner table over the highly-controversial green vegetable. The problem is, when we focus on those short-term issues, we have potential to create negative long-term effects.
