Hot Topic (10/22): Screaming is the new spanking . . . is this okay?
From NYTimes.com:
For Some Parents, Shouting Is the New Spanking
JACKIE KLEIN is a devoted mother of two little boys in the suburbs of Portland, Ore. She spends hours ferrying them to soccer and Cub Scouts. She reads child-development books. She can emulate one of those pitch-perfect calm maternal tones to warn, “You’re making bad choices” when, say, someone doesn’t want to brush his teeth.
That is 90 percent of the time. Then there is the other 10 percent, when, she admits, “I have become totally frustrated and lost control of myself.”
It can happen during weeks and weeks and weeks of no camp in the summer, or at the end of a long day at home — just as adult peace is within her grasp — when the 7- or 9-year-old won’t go to sleep.
And then she yells.
“This is ridiculous! I’ve been doing things all day for you!”
Many in today’s pregnancy-flaunting, soccer-cheering, organic-snack-proffering generation of parents would never spank their children. We congratulate our toddlers for blowing their nose (“Good job!”), we friend our teenagers (literally and virtually), we spend hours teaching our elementary-school offspring how to understand their feelings. But, incongruously and with regularity, this is a generation that yells.
“I’ve worked with thousands of parents and I can tell you, without question, that screaming is the new spanking,” said Amy McCready, the founder of Positive Parenting Solutions, which teaches parenting skills in classes, individual coaching sessions and an online course. “This is so the issue right now. As parents understand that it’s not socially acceptable to spank children, they are at a loss for what they can do. They resort to reminding, nagging, timeout, counting 1-2-3 and quickly realize that those strategies don’t work to change behavior. In the absence of tools that really work, they feel frustrated and angry and raise their voice. They feel guilty afterward, and the whole cycle begins again.”. . .
. . . One study that did take a look at the topic — a paper on the “psychological aggression by American parents” published in the Journal of Marriage and Family in 2003 — found that parental yelling was a near-universal occurrence. Of 991 families interviewed, in 88 percent of them a parent acknowledged shouting, screaming or yelling at the kids at least once (though it didn’t specify how many did it more often) in the previous year.
“We are so accustomed to this that we just think parents get carried away and that it’s not harmful,” said one of the study’s lead authors, Murray A. Straus, a sociologist who is a director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. “But it effects a child. If someone yelled at you at work, you’d find that pretty jarring. We don’t apply that standard to children.”
Psychologists and psychiatrists generally say yelling should be avoided. It’s at best ineffective (the more you do it the more the child tunes it out) and at worse damaging to a child’s sense of well-being and self-esteem.
“It isn’t the yelling per se that’s going to make a difference, it’s how the yelling is interpreted,” said Ronald P. Rohner, director of the Ronald and Nancy Rohner Center for the Study of Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection at the University of Connecticut. If a parent is simply loud, he says, the effect is minimal. But if the tone connotes anger, insult or sarcasm, it can be perceived as a sign of rejection.
Professor Rohner noted that while spanking is considered taboo by the major medical and psychological associations, there are still some religious and conservative groups who support it as an effective disciplinary tool, believing that the Bible explicitly allows it.
But, he said, “There is no group of Americans that advocate yelling as a parenting style.”
“My bottom-line recommendation is don’t yell,” he said. “It is a risk factor for a family.”
* * *
Is screaming better than spanking?
Which do you think is worse for children?
Do you think spanking is an effective discipline method? If not, what else do you do? Does your strategy include yelling?
I'm not a yeller (and I've never spanked my child, for the record). Of course, my daughter is only sixteen months old, so yelling isn't exactly appropriate at this age anyway. Once she's older, I'm sure there will be times when I'll lose my calm and yell.
I sort of think the article is making a mountain out of a molehill. This:
"Of 991 families interviewed, in 88 percent of them a parent acknowledged shouting, screaming or yelling at the kids at least once (though it didn’t specify how many did it more often) in the previous year."
doesn't exactly fill me with dread for the future of our children. Sure, there are better ways to handle things than yelling, but I don't think a parent losing it and yelling occasionally is something we all need to be concerned about. Anger is a normal part of human nature, and yelling once in awhile is just a way of letting the kid know, "Hey, you've pushed me too far."
Some parents yell way too much, of course. But overall, I don't see it as a huge societal problem.
Yes i do, sometimes and I'm not proud of it. I just lose my temper. I am always resolving not to yell, but it doesn't usually work out. I do not like it that the article seems to sort of blow a raspberry at parents who choose not to spank saying na na you are a yeller. I seriously doubt that parents who spank do not yell at their kids.
Heather
Proud to be a Witchy Momma
~ The witches fly Across the sky, The owls go, "Who? Who? Who?" The black cats yowl and green ghosts howl, "Scary Halloween to you!" ~
I use shouting as a teaching tool with my son(and daughter too on occasion) as odd as that might sound. Sometimes when they scream I will raise my voice and say do you like for me to talk to you in this manner. It always brings their levels down. Other times I go for the opposite (if they are very upset) and talk so low they have to calm down just to hear me. Shouting doesn't work if they are highly upset and the low voice does not work when they are not. My son has very sensative hearing so I really can't use what most would call screaming.
Spanking has never worked for my son and has never been required on my daughter. I have never fully understood the correlation as to why spanking is punishment and I was spanked as a child.
My mother was known in the neighborhood as 'THE SCREAMER' because they could hear her yelling at us from blocks away!
Now, she didn't just yell, she also beat the shit out of us, but she yelled while she did it.
To this day, when I hear her yell at my sister's kids (she has guardianship of them because my sister passed away), I have flashbacks of being beat with belts and my mother all up in my face screaming at me.
I don't think yelling does anything to tell you the truth- except maybe turn the screamers anger outward to be projected on the victim, making THEM feel better. I still think it's just as abusive as spanking...
I am afraid I scream all the time. My daughter is an expert at saying mommy, mommy, mommy, 1000 xs. She also likes to play the, what cup on the floor? game- when it's right in front of her (she inherited that from daddy). I know it's wrong but............... It doesn't even phase her , she laughs and says , mommy your so silly and goes on about her business, LOL!.
Spanking has absolutely no effect on her. She says you hurt me mommy- now kiss the boo boo. Time out is the most effective for us. She hates it and I give her till 3- if she continues she goes to time out.
Luc and Emily my reason for breathing!' About 35 and over with small children:This group is for Mommies wanting to make new friends with other People are asking me about the race problem.... I know of no race problem. The great problem that confronts the American people to-day is a national problem -- whether this great nation of ours is great enough to live up to its own convictions, carry out its own declaration of independence, and execute the provisions of its own constitution. (1893)Fredrick Douglass
Everything has to be age appropriate. Everyone's kid is different, and will push the limits at different times, and will respond to various disciplines differently. I did spank my kids....probably only a handful of times at the most. Usually a glare did the trick, or pointing my finger at my son without saying anything. As they grew big, I'd give them the vulcan neck sqeeze. I don't agree with screaming in any situation. It shows you're totally out of control, it gets your own self worked up into a frenzy, and you may say things you should never say that are very hurtful to a child. It's equal to the cold shoulder even.
Quoting Dylansmom32509:
Screaming is not better then spanking. I actually believe its worse then spanking because its more psychological pain. I got spanked as a kid and I cant remember that I just know it happened but the one time my mom really yelled at me it stuck in my head forever.
A firm word or a raised voice is all it takes to get my children to pay attention MOST of the time. I actually yell more at their dad than them (LOL -- I am working on that) and they dissove into a puddle of tears, and I'm not even yelling at them! It makes me feel SO bad.
However, I don't spank. Will not. Been really tempted to. Broke a couple of times, really regret it.
My mom used to beat the crap out of me when she'd get mad, so in my mind, I'd rather yell. I never want to look at my kids the way she used to look at me while she was coming at me.
All you need to do is roll your window down at a stop light. You will soon hear someone yelling at their kids. Or go to a soccer game, you can bet at least a half dozen parents screaming at their kids. The best is the grocery store, even I have raised my voice in their. I am fairly certain children lose all self control upon entering a grocery store.
My mom is Italian, I am Italian, our family is Italian. Screaming is like talking with our hands- it just happens. I do not scream at my kids the same way my mom did with me, but I do yell. Yes I think it is better than spanking. This article already mentioned various other methods that can fail- are we supposed to just say and do nothing? I do not spank and when all else fails I yell.
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on Oct. 22, 2009 at 1:18 AM