Shouting at children would only make them more likely to misbehave! ; But isn't there more?

An add on to my friend's post.

This was a part of a friend’s post on Linkedin, and here below is the link to it.

The original post on Linkedin.

So I came across this post by my friend the other day and I'm really glad we're having such conversations around parenting.

But I feel it does lack nuance and hence want to add to it.

The post talks about how shouting may actually make matters worse since the child's misbehaviour may come from the child themselves being dysregulated, and therefore one's yelling would only make matters worse. The post also goes on to imply that in fact this could actively become the reason why they misbehave, which I feel does hold truth.

But from my own personal experience and I'm sure a lot many others who've dealt with kids may agree that yelling could make kids compliant quite reliably enough for it to be a long term strategy to keep kids compliant, in fact this was the very approach used by my parents and that which was used by the parents of many a friend belonging to my own and previous generations.

So are we to treat this is just another strategy with a good chance of being reliable?

My answer is a solid no.

My reason is not that this approach could make children rebellious but rather cause that even when it does make children compliant it does it through dysregulating the child and pushing them into a fight or flight response, essentially by inducing fear in them.

And it is for this very reason that I'm against it.

They may not be fully capable of critical thought and emotional regulation, and these are supposed to be reasons for their being treated with care rather than being controlled using fear.

Essentially when we shout we're using abuse or are abusing them to teach them that we would abuse them whenever they're out of line and would continue to until atleast until they get back in line.

The rebelliousness or misbehaviour talked about in the post develops when the abuse becomes too much for the child to take in and finally reaches a point where can take no more.

Now the implications of shouting or yelling at a child must be clear to quite a few, but honestly there's something even worse that may not necessarily register as abusive as in the case of yelling or spanking and that is when shame is used to keep children in line. But I would prefer to address the same in a different post.

To conclude, it is no easy business to parent, but regardless children need and deserve to be treated with respect and consideration for their feelings and this is the bare minimum that one could for them!

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