Yelling at your kids can have several adverse effects on their mental health and growth. You should never yell at your kids, and even if you do, you should instantly take some precautionary measures to lessen the mental harm. You must realize that you too were once a kid and did naïve stuff.
Kids are still in their preliminary learning phase and they are bound to make mistakes. It is also important to understand that kids can often turn you mad, but they do that just to grab your attention and love.
Here are certain rules that you can follow to ensure that you do not yell at your kids and that their mental health is not affected in a negative manner.
Stop Yelling at Your Kids: Expert Tips to Improve Your Parenting
1. Listen to Your Kids
The first and foremost thing that you can do to ensure that you do not yell at your kids is to listen to them intently. You should make sure that you know the full story behind their actions. In certain cases, it is possible that your kid did something unexpected just because he/she was scared. If you yell at your kid under these circumstances, the chances are that you are weakening the bond between you and him/her.
Careful listening is the first ground rule for good parenting that every parent must follow.
2. Be a kid occasionally
Kids can be intimated around you if you are not paying enough attention to them or if you are always engaged in work. It will be not long before your kid will no longer be a foot tall and start hiding things from you. A good way to bond with your kids is to engage in stupid and playful activities with them occasionally.
By doing this, you will make sure that you see the world from your kids’ perspective once in a while. This can also help you relax and de-stress from your work for a while.
3. Take a time-out
If you find yourself in a situation where you can no longer handle the anger and are on the verge of yelling at your kid, you need to take a time-out. Ask your partner or your neighbor to babysit your kid while you take a stroll through the fresh air of the park. Go out for a movie once in a while and enjoy yourself.
If you are stressed and bring home the worries from your work, you have a higher tendency to yell at the kids even for minor mischief that you could have ignored.
4. Remember to breathe and let go
If you cannot invite someone over to babysit your kid, and he/she is driving you crazy, you should remember basic breathing techniques to calm yourself down. You should realize that yelling at your kid will eventually make your job harder and also affect your kid in a possibly irreversible negative way.
Just remember to take a deep breath and drink cool water to calm yourself down if ever you find yourself in a difficult situation with your kid.
Some of the other great ways to ensure that you do not yell at your kids are to share your troubles with friends/family, listen to good music, and write for a while. Make sure that you understand that you love your kids and do not want to spoil your relationship with them over something negligible.
