Studies Find Yelling At Children As Harmful As Hitting Them

[Gabriela]

Might as well hit them then.

[CatherineM]

Our new son actually likes it when I yell. I'm fairly unflappable, and tend to try to make him feel better when he does something bad. He's pretty hard on himself. One afternoon I was yelling at his roommate and he said he loved hearing me yell. His mom always yelled at him, so that's another reason I don't do it.

[Jaime]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323623304579055302147114522.html?KEYWORDS=study+says+yelling+is+as+hurtful+as+hitting

 

I am very inclined to agree. If my parents yell at me, I'm not inspired to do better next time or never do that thing again, I just feel bad about myself and wish the yelling would stop. I can get the same message (And actually RECEIVE it) without them having to yell at me. Yelling is not a disciplinary thing. Some might say "But the military is all about discipline, and they yell at their recruits!". This is true. However, those people should note that when officers in the military yell, they are not yelling for disciplinary reasons, they are yelling to get them to handle stressful situations better (Because being yelled at is incredibly stressful). It has nothing (At least in theory) to do with discipline, from what I understand.

 

One of the things I've always promised myself is that if I'm ever a parent, I will never yell at my wife or my children at all costs, and that I will always do my best to calm down and explain myself calmly. Thankfully, I don't ever yell and I'm not an angry person, but I still do occasionally get angry, and it will be something to remember if I ever am angered.

 

does this mean I can go back to hitting?  It was so much more efficient!!

[PhuturePriest]

does this mean I can go back to hitting?  It was so much more efficient!!

 

Knock yourself out -- or, knock your son out, rather.

[Basilisa Marie]

Hey FP, I think you might have been better off just talking about how your parents yelling at you makes you feel, and stopping before you made judgments about what parents should do in situations where yelling feels appropriate. That way, I think this might have gone more like a conversation where people listen to each other's different perspectives, instead of people feeling like someone with zero clue about what it's like to be a parent (I count myself in that category, too, btw) trying to tell parents how they're supposed to act. 

 

I know I grew up with a parent who would yell a lot. It was pretty terrible, and made me feel pretty terrible, and I was a kid who behaved herself.  I hated it, and it took me until being away at college to finally come to terms with it.  I can understand why parents yell, that part's obvious to me, and I definitely don't think yelling makes you a bad parent. I know I'm going to yell at my kids - I don't want to, but I know I will, that's just the kind of person I am.  I think, though, what's more important than whether or not you yell is what you do after you yell at them.  I never got any kind of "resolution" after yelling, people very rarely apologized for overreacting, and (especially when I was older) it would have been nice to have a rational conversation with my parents after the fact about what went wrong and how it made them feel.  

[PhuturePriest]

Hey FP, I think you might have been better off just talking about how your parents yelling at you makes you feel, and stopping before you made judgments about what parents should do in situations where yelling feels appropriate. That way, I think this might have gone more like a conversation where people listen to each other's different perspectives, instead of people feeling like someone with zero clue about what it's like to be a parent (I count myself in that category, too, btw) trying to tell parents how they're supposed to act. 

 

I know I grew up with a parent who would yell a lot. It was pretty terrible, and made me feel pretty terrible, and I was a kid who behaved herself.  I hated it, and it took me until being away at college to finally come to terms with it.  I can understand why parents yell, that part's obvious to me, and I definitely don't think yelling makes you a bad parent. I know I'm going to yell at my kids - I don't want to, but I know I will, that's just the kind of person I am.  I think, though, what's more important than whether or not you yell is what you do after you yell at them.  I never got any kind of "resolution" after yelling, people very rarely apologized for overreacting, and (especially when I was older) it would have been nice to have a rational conversation with my parents after the fact about what went wrong and how it made them feel.  

 

Thanks. I just took the link very personally (As others took what I said personally), so I wasn't quite thinking clearly and all that I learned in the past two years kind of flew out the window. :P

 

But I appreciate your perspective. I definitely always feel terrible when they yell at me, and I feel as if there are more effective things they could do, like trying to make me feel better about myself. For instance, I'm always hinting with them at school, saying stuff like "I got a perfect score on my physical science test today!". But whenever I do that, they don't really give much of a reaction, and their response only lasts a few seconds with a "That's great." or something like that. But, by the same token, if I did bad on my physical science test, they would tell me in length that I need to study harder and tell me that laziness gets me nowhere. I'm a really optimistic positive person. I feed off optimism and positivity, not negativity. When I told them I was thinking about civil engineering, my mom said "You'll fail, because there's a lot of math in it." (Even though I'm good at math, I just can't figure it out if I'm learning it from a book. I'm a hands-on learner). That kind of negativity really puts me down and makes me think a lot less of myself.

[havok579257]

Thanks. I just took the link very personally (As others took what I said personally), so I wasn't quite thinking clearly and all that I learned in the past two years kind of flew out the window. :P

 

But I appreciate your perspective. I definitely always feel terrible when they yell at me, and I feel as if there are more effective things they could do, like trying to make me feel better about myself. For instance, I'm always hinting with them at school, saying stuff like "I got a perfect score on my physical science test today!". But whenever I do that, they don't really give much of a reaction, and their response only lasts a few seconds with a "That's great." or something like that. But, by the same token, if I did bad on my physical science test, they would tell me in length that I need to study harder and tell me that laziness gets me nowhere. I'm a really optimistic positive person. I feed off optimism and positivity, not negativity. When I told them I was thinking about civil engineering, my mom said "You'll fail, because there's a lot of math in it." (Even though I'm good at math, I just can't figure it out if I'm learning it from a book. I'm a hands-on learner). That kind of negativity really puts me down and makes me think a lot less of myself.

 

 

My advice is don't hint at stuff but instead come out and tell them all this you said here.  If you want something to change you have to do something about it.  So tell your parents how your feeling and what not.  Its better to address the situation now instead of resenting later in life.

[Slappo]

You think Our Lady never made a mistake raising Jesus ? Really? She was human you know. Not every mistake a parent makes with their kids is a sin.
 

 

Of course she never made mistakes! I mean come on it's not like her and Joseph ever left Jesus in the temple and hit the road! ;-)

[ardillacid]

she and Joseph

[PhuturePriest]

Of course she never made mistakes! I mean come on it's not like her and Joseph ever left Jesus in the temple and hit the road! ;-)

 

That wasn't a mistake. That was Jesus in his rebellious phase.

[Basilisa Marie]

That wasn't a mistake. That was Jesus in his rebellious phase.

 

No, it was a mistake.  She mistakenly assumed Jesus was with Joseph and the men, and Joseph mistakenly thought that Jesus was with Mary and the women and children.  Jesus was about the age where it would have been reasonable for him to tag along with either group.  Could Mary have double checked? Sure she could have.  But she didn't, and it was a mistake. 

 

Jesus's brain was dumping "separate from parents" hormones (i.e. "rebelliousness") into is system, so he didn't think about what his parents would want or expect of him, and made the mistake of thinking that it would be obvious to them where he was.  Should he have told them where he was? In hindsight, yeah, but he didn't, and it was a mistake. 

 

Everyone in the story made mistakes. :) Doesn't make the mistakes sins.  A sin would be Jesus staying behind because his parents had told him he couldn't stay in the temple any longer and he decided to do it anyway. Or if Mary had told Joseph that she was taking Jesus with her, but then decided to let Jesus stay at the temple in order to make Joseph worried or look incapable of managing his house in front of everyone. 

Edited September 9, 2013 by Basilisa Marie

[PhuturePriest]

No, it was a mistake.  She mistakenly assumed Jesus was with Joseph and the men, and Joseph mistakenly thought that Jesus was with Mary and the women and children.  Jesus was about the age where it would have been reasonable for him to tag along with either group.  Could Mary have double checked? Sure she could have.  But she didn't, and it was a mistake. 

 

Jesus's brain was dumping "separate from parents" hormones (i.e. "rebelliousness") into is system, so he didn't think about what his parents would want or expect of him, and made the mistake of thinking that it would be obvious to them where he was.  Should he have told them where he was? In hindsight, yeah, but he didn't, and it was a mistake. 

 

Everyone in the story made mistakes. :) Doesn't make the mistakes sins.  A sin would be Jesus staying behind because his parents had told him he couldn't stay in the temple any longer and he decided to do it anyway. Or if Mary had told Joseph that she was taking Jesus with her, but then decided to let Jesus stay at the temple in order to make Joseph worried or look incapable of managing his house in front of everyone. 

 

I was actually being sarcastic, but nice explanation! :P

 

I always liked that story, because when I was one or two my sister had either her first confession or communion, and we went to a different town to do it. Afterwards, they left me at the Church because there were two cars, and each car thought I was in the other car. Thankfully Father eventually found me and drove me over. :P

[ardillacid]

I'm sure you were 'accidentally' left behind :|