Yelling Less

When it comes to mom-yelling we hold these truths to be self-evident: never yelling is not possible; less yelling is desirable.  Let’s be real: there are times when every parent’s got to yell. Here’s how Lisa Belkin put it in The New York Times: When all else fails, a few claps of oral thunder certainly show that Mom or Dad has had it, that humans can be pushed just so far, and this is what it looks like when you’ve pushed them too much. But although we might agree that a little bit of hollering has its place, we’d both like to do less yelling in our homes, due to two other unavoidable parenting truths: • The more you yell, the more you have to yell. • The more you yell, the more your kids will yell. In this episode, we discuss what we yell about, and then what to do about it. There’s usually an easier solution to what you’re yelling about than yelling, or at least a quieter one. Parenting expert Carolyn Dalgiesh, author of The Sensory Child Gets Organized, calls it a “workaround for the source of tension.” In Amy’s house, for example, an extra set of toothbrushes in the downstairs bathroom cut the morning yelling by half. And sometimes we have to face the fact that parenting without yelling takes a little more effort than parenting with. As Margaret’s sister-in-law likes to say, Really saying ‘no’ means getting off the couch. Here’s some links to other takes on the topic we discuss in this episode: Amy Wilson for Redbook: Could You Go a Week Without Yelling at Your Kids? (spoiler alert: I could not) Hilary Stout for The New York Times: For Some Parents, Shouting is the New Spanking Sue Shellenbarger for the Wall Street Journal: Talking to Your Kids After You Yell   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices