How often do you yell at your kids? Or...

[Anonymous]

How do you get your kids to listen without having to raise your voice? I have a 6 and 5 y o. They don’t listen to me or DH unless we raise our voice. They really just ignore us. Sometime they think it is funny. It could something as simple as « stop jumping on the sofa » or « stop scratching the floor » or « put your shoes on ». They just ignore us. Threatening don’t seem to work. I hate yelling but it seems like that is the only thing that gets their attention . We need help.

TIA

[Anonymous]

Read Parenting Without Power Struggles.

[Anonymous]

I used to yell all the time. It’s how my dad parented. I went to therapy, read some parenting books, realized my job stress was making me yell (when what I really wanted to do was yell at my boss and quit, so I quit and found a better job), and I got my anxiety in check. Now I don’t yell very often, almost never.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to yell all the time. It’s how my dad parented. I went to therapy, read some parenting books, realized my job stress was making me yell (when what I really wanted to do was yell at my boss and quit, so I quit and found a better job), and I got my anxiety in check. Now I don’t yell very often, almost never.

So how do you deal when kids don’t listen?

[Anonymous]

All the d$%@ing time

[Anonymous]

I speak sharply about once a day. I may raise the volume slightly but it’s more a tone thing. I don’t yell.

[Anonymous]

hourly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to yell all the time. It’s how my dad parented. I went to therapy, read some parenting books, realized my job stress was making me yell (when what I really wanted to do was yell at my boss and quit, so I quit and found a better job), and I got my anxiety in check. Now I don’t yell very often, almost never.

So how do you deal when kids don’t listen?

Yelling and not listening are a vicious cycle. As you tone down the yelling, they listen more.

In the meanwhile: repeating the same thing a couple times (in exactly the same tone and words each time. Telling them to 'stop' something is ineffective; giving a positive direction to do a different thing works better). Naming logical consequences and following through. Allowing natural consequences to occur.

PEP is great for this.

[Anonymous]

I don’t yell, I give consequences. Unfortunately those consequences are screen-related :-/ Trying to work on diversifying.

I have a 4yo who gets 5 min of TV in the morning and 30 minutes after dinner. So if he is being really slow in the morning I tell him calmly he won’t get TV unless he speeds up. Same with bath and dinner in the evening (we do bath before dinner). I do, however, try to build free time/breaks into his routine. I’m also not on the phone or thinking about work when I’m with him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to yell all the time. It’s how my dad parented. I went to therapy, read some parenting books, realized my job stress was making me yell (when what I really wanted to do was yell at my boss and quit, so I quit and found a better job), and I got my anxiety in check. Now I don’t yell very often, almost never.

So how do you deal when kids don’t listen?

I yell more than I want to, but it’s probably the least effective way to change behavior.

Some other things:
- Explain: “When you jump on the sofa, it destroys the padding, and over time the sofa doesn’t look as nice and isn’t as comfortable to sit on. You can’t jump on the sofa.”
- Give other options: “No acting like monkeys in the family room. Take it outside or down to the basement.”
- Give consequences: “If you jump on the sofa, you lose the privilege to watch TV the rest of the day.”

[Anonymous]

I consider raising your voice and yelling two different things. Raising your voice just gets their attention. Yelling would be louder and longer. I really made an effort not to hit the yelling (or screaming) stage. I realized it was showing my loss of control not helping the kids behave.

[Anonymous]

When I want them to listen I bend down to their level and speak more quietly.

Nothing is guaranteed to work perfectly in the moment. But overall you can encourage better behavior from using a lot of positivity and showing respect for your kids. Limits have natural consequences enforced without shame and with kindness.

It's hard to think of natural consequences for a lot of things, especially when they're young, but an easy one is not taking turns with a toy. If they don't take turns with a toy and I have told them that we need to be fair and that means taking turns and if they don't take turns, the toy will be taken away for a while, I just calmly ask for the toy (sometimes I do have to grab it out of their hands) and put it away. I empathize with their disappointment and sadness.

My natural parenting style would be a pendulum between emotionally volatile and permissive. But I have trained myself to be calm and then tolerate their disappointment and repeated asking to bend the limits.

[Anonymous]

1-2-3 Magic.

Do a count down, that gives them notification they need to modify behavior. If they don't, then they get a consequence. The book uses a time out. I used loss of TV.


Coupled with high praise when they do what they are supposed to. "Thanks, Becca, for putting your shoes on so quickly. You just made it easier for us all to get to the store".

[Anonymous]

They are conditioned now to your yelling. They don’t need to react until that part happens. It is hard as the parent. I think consistency, giving choices (cleaning up very soon - if their concept of time is lose or say 2min- do you want to start with the legos or the blocks?) no choice but to clean upC it gives an element of control and identifies a place to start. Be consistent and present. When we say, please set the table. If you say it, keep doing your other stuff, forget abd come back 10 min later and yell- they know this routine and wait for the yell bc they can delay longer.

I commend you OP for recognizing it - this stuff id hard. You are in the trenches! You can do it. And you’ll be happier from it. I used to yell. Big game changer for me and my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to yell all the time. It’s how my dad parented. I went to therapy, read some parenting books, realized my job stress was making me yell (when what I really wanted to do was yell at my boss and quit, so I quit and found a better job), and I got my anxiety in check. Now I don’t yell very often, almost never.

So how do you deal when kids don’t listen?

their

NP here. You have to realize two things:

1) what you're doing now isn't working, so as frustrating as it is that you can't get them to do what you ask, you need to come up with a different tactic even if it doesn't immediately give you the results you want.

2) at the end of the day, the only thing parents can definitely control is how many happy childhood memories their kids have. Kids absolutely need limits, but the overarching goal should not be molding your kids into people who always do what is asked of them because that *and* giving your kids a happy childhood just cannot happen. Your kids are actual real people who will naturally want to make their own choices regardless of what we want, so dealing with them "not listening" is a fundamental part of letting kids grow up. More than anything else, they always need to know that you love them. Neither expecting them to always comply nor letting them do whatever they want communicates love. Basically, parenting isn't about what you need, it's about what your kids need.