Hellobee Boards

Could you give a specific example?
My DD is only 2.5 so I haven't really gotten to the yelling/discipline part of parenting yet.

But what comes to mind are the few times that DD has run away from me (in the front yard too close to the street). I've yelled "STOP!" Loudly and Angrily. Then I get down on her level, take a deep breathe and tell her to "look at me"
Then I calmly and firmly say whatever I need to.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is I yell them important part "STOP!" to get her attention. then the next few seconds allow me to calm down and speak reasonably.

However, I don't know if this will work in the future with an older child

@irene: when my kids are being like this I just ignore them and repeat things like if you want to scream do it in your room. Or I’ll say I don’t understand screaming you can talk to me nicely and then ignore them until they calm down

@irene: ok huh I guess I just “choose” to not let it bother me. Like I literally am just in my head like it’s fine keep doing my thing fake smile deep breaths be zen the whole thing. So I just try really hard to channel all of that. Like you know what your triggers are so today after school be prepared for it and choose to not let it bother you.

Have you ever done therapy? I’m sure a professional could give more coherent advice then that

DS is 6 and what has been working lately for both DH and I with him is when either he's in trouble or one of us is getting frustrated is to walk away for a minute or two to calm down and then connect with DS and talk about what he did wrong or what was frustrating us.

For example last night DS was outside playing and came in crying, I was upstairs with the baby. He wouldn't talk to DH and tell him what was wrong. Usually DH would just get mad and yell. Instead he sent DS up to his room to calm down and this gave him a couple minutes to calm down. After a few minutes he called DS down and they talked about what was going on and DH also told DS how what he was doing frustrated him and he couldn't help him when all he was doing was crying and not talking (he wasn't hurt, just upset and not talking).

I was really impressed with this as usually DH just loses it and yells.

I employ something like what your husband does and somehow it just works.. trust me I am a yeller/swearer and b!tch in my real life.. and I have ZERO patience for things.. Honestly I was worried when I had kids that I'd be a ragey, yelley, mean mommy. Somehow though I have the utmost patience for my kids and I think it's bc I just always tell myself they are KIDS, they don't know any better and when they do the things that make me ragey it's usually them just exploring their world or trying to learn something new... ie: throwing their yogurt all over the floor or dumping a bowl full of crackers onto the floor and then stomping on them.. ugh.. normally I'd be screaming but I tell myself they are learning and testing things out...

And sometimes I do yell or get snappy.. usually when we are rushing.. that's my hot temper time. If I do get yelley or snappy I just remind myself once I've cooled down and I make myself apologize to them. I admit I am wrong and I explain why I did it and what I should do instead. Kind of turn it into a learning time for all of us.

Don't be so hard on yourself. Some people just yell. DH does.....

ETA: when DD does get an attitude with me, you know like she's 15 already and she gets that tone... or the eyeroll.. honestly I just laugh and then she usually laughs too.. situation defused. Or i'll say "woah little miss sass a frass" or something to make her laugh and then we are ok...

if she's yelling at me I tell her that it's not nice and to please use a nice voice. If she doesn't then i'll sometimes jokingly YELL back but not in anger more in a funny/look this isn't necessary way and then again the situation is usually defused.

If she's really out of her mind screaming/crying then we tell her to take some deep breaths to calm down so we can talk....

@irene: basically therapy, a lot of therapy. Until I could figure out what was actually triggering me to lose my temper (it’s not just that they are not listening - that’s annoying on its own but there’s always something behind it), I had absolutely no space to take a deep breath or walk away or whatever.

Echoing others that therapy (particularly CBT) would be useful. Ultimately it's a self-regulation problem and when you're in a "hot" state (emotions running high, tired, frustrated, hungry, etc), it becomes really hard to have a "cool" even-tempered response, especially if that's not your typical response pattern.

I do think some parenting books (like 1-2-3 magic mentioned above) have good "scripts" for these situations. I really enjoyed the books "Ignore It!" and "How to talk so (little) kids will listen" for ideas/scripts for responses in these sorts of situations. So until you can get with a therapist and start really working on these general response patterns, I think those might be helpful to give you ideas for what you can do instead of screaming.

One self-regulation strategy that is pretty effective that may work for you is something called implementation intentions. The basic idea is that you spend some time thinking about how you'll respond before the situation arises (when you are in a "cool" state) and come up with an "if-then" plan. So it might be something like "IF my son yells at me and I feel frustrated, THEN I will tell him I need a minute and leave the room (or insert whatever response is desired)." And you do this repeatedly until the response behavior is so associated with the cue (ie your kid yelling) that it starts to become your dominant response pattern. It takes practice but it's shown to be very effective, especially in the area of emotion regulation (which is what you seem to say you struggle with).

Finally, while it's true that some people are naturally "better" at this kind of emotion regulation, it's not just a predetermined "I'm good at it or not, and I can't change" thing. The fact that you recognize these behavior patterns aren't good and you want to change them is a good first step!

(Disclaimer: not a therapist, but I study self-regulation.)

I haven't read the responses, but have you tried to meditate? When I remember, I take a few minutes to do so before leaving my bedroom and dealing with the morning rush. I've found that if I start the morning off yelling then it really snowballs into the rest of the day. And there's no worse feeling than sending your kids off to school in a bad mood so I hate starting the morning off with yelling!

I used to be really bad at this myself, and I second the recommendations of books others put up there. It's definitely helped me shift and be calmer, and DS acts up less as a result. Another practical tip that helped is I started apologizing if I lost my cool and yelled loudly. I think the act of telling him I was sorry for it helped me in the future to keep from doing it.

Another recommendation for therapy. I have had a lot of anxiety for the last few years and I’ve done CBT twice, most recently ending this past December. I never realized how much my anxiety (about seemingly unrelated things) was linked to me yelling, but was definitely affecting it. I have been much calmer for the past 6 months and don’t let the little things get to me as much. Occasionally, I do still yell, but now it’s more of an end of my rope situation when my kid has disobeyed after multiple warnings. Also, I totally agree with @Andrea: about meditation/mindfulness. I try to do short (2 minute) mindful breathing exercises twice a day and it really helps.

Yes, this is me. I hate that I lose my temper and end up screaming, but I find it happening more and more often, usually in the mornings as we're trying to get out the door. I have tried to recognize what is causing it (typically it's that we're running late) and try to set us up for success, but it doesn't always happen. The other trigger is when they DON'T LISTEN. Drives me completely bananas. TV is another trigger so I have to severely limit their time on it, or not allow it at all....

@SproutBee: Thanks for the book reco - adding it to my list. It's funny, I'm the opposite with my kids. My older one triggers me SO quickly. My little one can pretty much get away with anything and I'm un-phased. I feel terrible that this is my mindset with them, and I KNOW it's not fair. I need to figure out a way to shift my thinking.....

@irene: Your dinner table frustrations are totally me and 4 YO DS... he is constantly on the go and it's so hard to get him to sit still. DH can use a stern voice and get results, but I feel like I have to yell to get him to listen at all.
Last night DH was like... you need to stop yelling, it's not working, try something else... it was kind of an epiphany for me, because it's NOT working.
I am trying to ask him to look at me, and respond 'yes mom' and so far that works better but we're only on day 1, lol.
This morning DS wanted a 'game' (kids you tube) and I said he had to be 100% ready first.. he ended up not being ready in time so it was his own consequence, and he actually forgot all about it once it was time to leave.

For your dinner example, I would take the dinner away after several warnings. I think my kids tend to fool around when they’re not really that hungry anyway. So I say dinner is over and it’s time to shower. They will rarely say that they are hungry later on so maybe your son is already full? And in general, perhaps your son needs more consequences for misbehaving rather than just hearing you yell?

okay so first of all I am right in your shoes because I am a hot head by my very nature and having a tantrum is my weakness in life. My experience is that anticipating triggers is the most important thing for me. my biggest trigger is getting overwhelmed so the goal for me is to avoid experiences of overwhelm as much as I possibly can. for example yesterday I was trying to move a water table full of water from the driveway to the grass and my son wanted to talk to me about whether or not a tornado was going to hit our house. sounds bizarre I know but he is obsessed with natural disasters and calamities right now and we live in an area of the country that frequently gets tornadoes in the spring. I was trying to entertain these questions and move the water table and I dropped the part of the water table and the big toy on the top of the water table flew up and hit me right in the head. I ended up screaming at my son I do not want to talk about tornadoes right now! of course I felt bad afterwards but the truth is that I should have either told him before I started doing the work that I did not want to talk while I was doing the work or I should have gotten done with the tornado conversation. at the time my husband was working late and I was trying to do something to keep them entertained before bed. Anyway it is always some sort of combination of environmental factors that gets me emotional. So for me the biggest thing is to take care of those external factors as much as possible first. Of course you can't always control your external factors so I think that the second step is trying to walk away from the situation if it's safe to do so. right now with my younger son my biggest flashpoint is getting him in the car. so once I get him in the car sometimes I will just take that 10-minute drive to be totally quiet. no music etc and I will explicitly tell my boys that I don't want to talk right now. By the time we get to our destination I'm usually feeling much better. Another thing I try to do is to make my screaming about me. So for example use I statements even when screaming! and I have actually heard my kids follow me on this. They will scream things like "I am really upset right now!" no screaming is not the solution, but it's baby steps right? I also try to have a very flat and accepting attitude when my kids scream. That way even if we do have an episode we resolved it fairly quickly. Most of the time they are willing to extend this grace to me as well. I also agree with other posters that having hard consequences that you already have lined up for bad behavior is a way to give you a sense of control that doesn't require raising your voice. I think is also really helpful for me to acknowledge that as other posters have said it does me no good to scream because all it does is create a power struggle and then whatever the original issue was gets lost in all of the drama. So if I have an issue it is better for me to come up with some sort of solution or consequence and implement that instead of letting it go in the moment and then whenever it comes up again, getting angry. Or I can just accept that he's too immature or too young for the issue to get any better and then it does not have the same power over me. I don't know what your kids situation is but my kids are approaching the end of their school year and I can tell they're absolutely worn out. It is making bedtime miserable and it is making getting up in the morning miserable. I am truly looking forward to everyone having a little bit of a break from school schedule and extracurriculars. a lot of my flashpoints have to do with scheduling getting out the door etcetera and I do have to acknowledge that I exacerbate these problems by keeping us over scheduled!