How I Stopped Yelling at My Kids
Yes, really. Part 1 of ? (Multiple Parts, soon to be a course)
I used to lose my shit all the time - like, out of control scream at my kiddos. And then I would feel so guilty, ashamed and helpless. I didn’t WANT TO keep doing it - but it really seemed like I couldn’t help it.
These days, one of my proudest accomplishments is that I no longer lose my shit on my kids. Genuinely. (I really really try to not make false claims or promises - probably why my marketing skills feel so impotent lol.)
How did this change? I’ve thought about it and I’ve made a list. I hope my list helps you, but it may not. Caveats: I’m sure there’s plenty of subtle variables and factors I’ve not tuned into and have left out. It’s quite possible that some of my success is just timing and luck.
ONE: Assess Circumstances
What IS true is that during my “worst” yelling phase I was a single mom, completely alone in the house with two kids both under the age of 4, trying to caretake my kids 24/7, run a business, and deal with the stress and pressure of COVID. So, admittedly, I was in a bit of a no-win situation - the stress was too much.
When my kids went back to school, and I had more access to critical resources like alone time to recharge and rebalance, that was a BIG part of feeling less yell-y.
A key part here is taking a radically honest look at how under-resourced and over-committed you might be. There’s no way to “superhuman” your way out of this. Something has to give. Ask for help. Say no to things you can say no to without feeling bad. Let the house go a bit.
Get more aggressive around resourcing yourself (really go after it! I know, easier said than done in this culture but still) - with more supportive relationships, sleep, time, mutual aid, self-compassion, grace - these are all resources that are just as - if not more - important than money.
The Root Cause:
It turns out there was a pattern happening that I was unaware of: I did not want to “harm” my kids by setting boundaries. Said another way, I did not feel like I had the skills to set boundaries in a way that wouldn’t be harmful, so I just didn’t set boundaries at all - this is a common pitfall when “permissive parenting” goes wrong.
I was already shaming myself for *not* being able to meet so many of their needs - so I ignored my system when it threw up red flags around its own limits, preferences, and needs.
Like so many parents - mothers in particular - I was chronically white-knuckling calm, ignoring/shaming/repressing my own internal distress, and over-giving because I felt like I had no choice. If I *didn’t* over-give, I was a “bad/neglectful” mother. Sound familiar?
However, this created some internal dissonance that I was not conscious of: essentially I was “overcommitting” myself, setting myself up for failure, and then losing composure when I (naturally) felt overwhelmed and under-resourced.
So the cycle was:
~ System indicates it needs a boundary (eg, it has a limit it has reached)
~ Feel incapable of setting boundary, override system, bulldoze forward
~ Depleted system is unreliable and fragile
~ The slightest thing sets me into total dysregulation
~ I yell
~ I feel horrible
~ This only makes me feel MORE obliged to ignore my boundaries and over-give, to “make up” for the yelling
~ Rinse and repeat
TWO: Be Cringe
Lean into the cringe. Basically, the first step was to begin to be ok with acknowledging my need for a boundary AND setting the boundary with my kids, even while feeling inept at doing this in a non-harming way.
Eventually I learned to set the boundary very early on, while I still had a lot of regulation and space for enforcing it gently and calmly. In the beginning though, I was setting the boundary after it had already be tested or crossed, so I was activated, defensive, and grouchy. And - I STILL had to do it.
THREE: Liberate + Validate the Yelling
I worked with a mentor who is an expert in “unshaming.” He helped me get over how ashamed and guilty I was feeling for the yelling - these uncomfortable feelings were ironically getting discharged onto my kids as MORE YELLING since I was so uncomfortable with having them.
I really, really didn’t want any evidence that I was a “bad mom.” (Spoiler alert, part of my work was unshaming the patriarchal oppressive archetype of the “bad mom.”)
This mentor essentially played the role of a seasoned authority I could trust. So when he told me to LEAN INTO the yelling and the snapping, I couldn’t believe it. I felt trepidatious, but I was so desperate and I felt very stuck - so I was open to “drastic measures.”
So I gave myself permission to yell. To snap. It was helpful to imagine and model myself after animal moms. I imagined a jaguar mom napping in the sun, and when her babies came to bother her, she would unabashedly growl at them till they left her alone.
I also made sure I was watching my languaging. When I yelled, I made sure it was either just NOISES of frustration OR if I was using words, the words were “clean.”
What do I mean by that? I made sure I wasn’t name-calling or labeling or blaming or shaming my kids.
Furthermore, I made sure I was either using declarative language (as objective and descriptive as possible) and/or just speaking about *my own* feelings, needs, limits, and preferences, without making my kids responsible for them.
(For lots more detail + instruction on using “clean” communication, my Compassionate Communication Course is only 1 hr and $8.)
Examples:
Unclean: “You are so frustrating!!! Why are you doing this?!”
Clean: “ I feel so frustrated! I need some space!”
Unclean: “How can you be so lazy?! I work so hard and this is how you are?!”
Clean: “I hate messes and I’ve reached my limit with cleaning up! I am not cleaning anymore! I’m distressed!”
Unclean: “You made me lose my shit, you ungrateful airhead!”
Clean: “I am about to lose my shit! My system can’t take more and needs to discharge!”
I also made sure to tell my kids, pretty much verbatim these important things, on repeat, every time I yelled/snapped:
~ Being mad is ok. Humans get to feel mad sometimes. You can be mad when you need to be too. (We get to access the full spectrum of emotions, even the “scary” ones.)
~ Even if it sounds and looks scary, I won’t hurt you and it’s not your fault I’m mad.
~ You get to have whatever experience you have around me being mad, and it might not be easy. I’ll be with you when I can.
~ It is not your job to “fix” my being mad. It doesn’t need fixing. I just need to feel it for a bit, and then it’s my job - not yours - to figure out possible solutions.
~ I will always love you and you will always have access to the things you love. I promise to not threaten you with punishments, and I promise nothing you do can make me love you less or treat you differently.
~ You can always expect repair, reassurance, and check-ins from me after there’s been some rupture, like me getting mad.
Interestingly, once I unshamed my yelling and my boundaries - essentially unshamed MYSELF and my right to exist as a human being, not as a perfect mother - and gave myself explicit permission to yell, I found I was doing a LOT less full-on losing my shit and a lot more “snapping” - using a “biting” or “warning” tone - but not going over the falls, so to speak.
I still had a lot of doubts - was I now going to be the “snappy/grouchy” mom forever? Would my child be ok with my “bites”? The only thing that made me keep moving forward was my total trust in my mentor and his medicine.
Ultimately, this approach yielded something very interesting. While my new “jaguar mom” self bloomed and fruited for a time, ultimately getting it out of my system in a permitted way totally deactivated it - after some time I could sense the charge had gone out of it and I was now just perpetuating an outdated pattern that I could release.
It felt like I had truly, sustainably metabolized the yelling, and integrated the part of myself that needed boundaries honored. When they no longer needed to yell to assert a boundary, they stopped yelling.
This reminded me a little bit of part of my eating disorder healing journey - it was only after more than a YEAR of letting myself eat what I wanted without shaming myself that my relationship with food rebalanced - but it did so in a very honest and sustainable way. I genuinely felt healed and all the “charge” went out of food - it was nothing short of a miracle.
I have found that the “only way out is through” and “it’s not ok to go until it’s ok to stay” approaches, while deeply uncomfortable, are truly effective and wise adages.
I now use unshaming approaches (with great effect) with all my clients!
TBC with PART FOUR: Awareness of my own Nervous System
I’m a parenting, relationship, and neurodivergence coach with anti-capitalist, mystical values and accessible pricing.