The Harmful Effects of Yelling
Studies have consistently shown that normative spanking, that is, spanking as a regular means of discipline, has long term negative effects including lower IQs, adverse reactions to peers and adults and, as counter-intuitive as it may seem, less positive obedience to the parents and more likely fear and anxiety (nih.gov, 2011). What can parents use that can express their frustration and anger but doesn't involve hitting their children? I will get back to the core of that question but some parents have responded, "but I only yell at them." It seems that yelling affects children in ways similar to corporal punishment.
My website is about creating a healthy environment in order to have children who grow up happy and healthy and therefore it is important to understand that a loud, yelling, angry environment is not healthy for children. Let's examine how it is unhealthy according to experts and recent research.
Environment
Evidence suggests there is a co-morbidity between the toxic environment of children being yelled at as a normative means of discipline and a toxic environment in general (poverty, interpersonal conflicts, food insecurity). A family who struggles financially may be a tense atmosphere, add to that the stress of children and it is easy to see where a parent may lose their cool and yell at their children. But the important thing to note is that the external environment is a vital contributor to using yelling as a means of disciplining your child. Therefore, it is important to maintain a calm exterior when disciplining your children even in the face of stress, frustration and anger. Children's lives are filled with contributing, supportive factors and toxic, corrosive factors. Yelling is a corrosive factor. It eats away at the child's spirit, self esteem, feeling of autonomy and control and creates a negative environment. As a former elementary school teacher, I can tell you that it also affects every other environment in which the child moves.
Parents/Adults/Teachers
Whether a parent, teacher or just an adult, emotionally, anger is a secondary emotion. That means that we have an emotion, say, frustration after telling your 3 year old to stop playing with his cup of milk and then *sploosh* all over the dining room floor. Frustration sets in and you may want to strike out but you said you'd never spank your children so you yell at him for not doing what he was told and now you have a mess to clean up. It's been so many times and you feel frustration - but frustration can externalize as anger. So you raise your voice and the adrenaline that's built up, gets vented into your voice and you scream. Now follow the stress...the child's brain goes into fear mode and the brain releases cortisol. Increased cortisol, when released all the time, becomes the default level. In other words, the child can become desensitized to the voice level and they no longer respond like a child who doesn't get yelled at all the time. There is also evidence that random yelling has worsened negative effects than if the child is yelled at all day, every day. Once the increased cortisol has become "normatized" - research shows it is less harmful, but still harmful. But that desensitization means it doesn't affect them normally anymore. So to get through to them, a parent has to ratchet up the force. You can see the problem. In environments where force can't be used, like a classroom, or shouldn't be used, like with peers; it becomes necessary because the child doesn't respond to normal level cues like the other kids who don't get screamed at regularly. Don't scream at your kids. It creates an environment where loud, negative and critical becomes the norm and sets a foundation of shame, fear and low self esteem.
The Kids
When other authors do the work for me - I love it! So, ChildWelfare.gov has put together a handout/pamphlet outlining the details of what trauma does to a child, especially long term, chronic trauma. Regularly yelling, cursing, and criticizing our children leads to a traumatic condition and thus, trauma. If you are a screamer, yeller, name caller, or smacker, ask yourself if these symptoms describe your middle schooler, or maybe even younger than that if it is the default discipline for your home.
1. Is your child unable to control their emotions and does he or she have frequent outbursts?
2. Are they quiet and submissive?
3. Do they have difficulties learning in school?
4. Do they have difficulties getting along with siblings or classmates?
5. Do they have unusual eating or sleeping behaviors?
6. Do they attempt to provoke fights or solicit sexual experiences?
7. Do they act socially or emotionally inappropriate for their age?
8. Are they unresponsive to affection?
Not all of these would necessarily relate to children who are yelled at; it's the criteria for children who may have suffered trauma. Nevertheless, these are characteristic of children who experience trauma and constantly yelling and criticizing children has become defined as trauma.
Alternatives
I like to look at things logically and this will be no different, although the elements are very emotional. I want to begin though by saying that not yelling at your children is on you as the parent/teacher/adult - I am not going to provide guidance about how to make children do what you tell them to - just the opposite, I will give you practical, research-based best practice whether you are a parent/teacher/or just adult.
I mentioned that anger is a secondary emotion spurred by some other emotion like frustration for example. so a first step might be to learn how to identify your emotions. That is a far greater conversation and another article but it is important to learn how to identify your emotions, feel them and be able to modify them for the good of yourself and those around you. In the case of your children, their futures and the futures of their children are influenced. This ability has been coined, "emotional intelligence" and although it doesn't have any valid & reliable measures - the definition is a measure in itself, "emotional intelligence is the ability to notice, identify, and label the emotions of oneself and of others and respond appropriately." So if you're frustrated with your child and scream at them, chances are your emotional intelligence is low. If you are frustrated with your child and recognize the anger you are feeling but notice the emotional state of your child and temper your response with something that is appropriate for a 3 year old for example, your emotional intelligence would be high. Identifying your emotional state is key; but not the only key.
The next important factor is guiding the child. He may have done something to frustrate you and you have decided the child needs some kind of correction or guidance. Time-out and taking away playthings or privileges are two ways to respond but re-direction is probably the best. It isn't punitive but the child understands they did something they weren't supposed to do and they are given or offered something else to do that takes them away from the undesirable behavior. But that takes understanding yourself and having patience.
Finally, a personal note. I yell. I can even be scary. Always have been. When I was a 20 year old football assistant coach, the head coach told me that he heard me yelling at the players on the field during a game and thought I was being paid to do so. I yell because I have run out of other alternatives. I strongly resist spanking but I have learned more and more about the negative, harmful and long term effects of yelling at my sons. Therefore, I am trying things to lessen the harm:
1. Defer to my wife when I sense that I am reaching my limit. I try to cool off when my 3 year old gets to screaming like a velociraptor but it still strikes me to the core. I try to keep monitoring my stress level and walk away when I've reached my breaking point. It works if you have someone there with you but if you don't, there are other ideas.
2. Modify your body works. Those times when my wife isn't around so I can defer to her, I close my eyes and take a deep breath [yup, in through your nose, out through your mouth, yoga style - it works!] and just take a split second - it really does just take a second for you to disrupt your anger cycle from your first emotion to anger. In that second, I have begun trying something else.
3. Put physical reminders not to yell around your environment. This last one I will give you is a little less scientific and more behavior modification (not of the children but of yourself, remember, choosing to yell isn't my child's problem, it's mine. They are just being 3 or 7 years old). In the morning, I write, in ink, just above my thumb, "patience" and "love talk". I know. Hippy. But it has worked for the several days I have been doing it. When I was a student teacher, learning about literacy development in young children, I learned about "environmental print." That's the idea that a teacher would use the print around children everyday to teach literacy skills like reading - but they also PUT print around the room. For example, you could just put the Unifix cubes in a cubby or you could put them in the cubby with a label associated with them. Also, put words that we say but may not recognize so I had, "wall", "door" and so on. So, I decided that a way to remind myself of what I already know but maybe don't use - put the word somewhere. On my hand it went.
In conclusion, yelling is harmful to our little ones. In truth, yelling is harsh in any environment. It might have something to do with needing to be heard and feeling like other people are not listening or not hearing what we are saying (or doing what we are saying) and yelling seems our only option. But it is harmful and violent. There is also evidence that we parent like we were parented so you can see the long term effects it can have on the present and the future. There is also an element of losing control. I always like to think, "would I yell at another adult if they didn't do what I said?" Of course not. Or, maybe probably not. And if I would, that's a problem.
References
https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/brain_development.pdf#page=5&view=Effects of maltreatment on brain development
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2719514/
My website is about creating a healthy environment in order to have children who grow up happy and healthy and therefore it is important to understand that a loud, yelling, angry environment is not healthy for children. Let's examine how it is unhealthy according to experts and recent research.
Environment
Evidence suggests there is a co-morbidity between the toxic environment of children being yelled at as a normative means of discipline and a toxic environment in general (poverty, interpersonal conflicts, food insecurity). A family who struggles financially may be a tense atmosphere, add to that the stress of children and it is easy to see where a parent may lose their cool and yell at their children. But the important thing to note is that the external environment is a vital contributor to using yelling as a means of disciplining your child. Therefore, it is important to maintain a calm exterior when disciplining your children even in the face of stress, frustration and anger. Children's lives are filled with contributing, supportive factors and toxic, corrosive factors. Yelling is a corrosive factor. It eats away at the child's spirit, self esteem, feeling of autonomy and control and creates a negative environment. As a former elementary school teacher, I can tell you that it also affects every other environment in which the child moves.
Parents/Adults/Teachers
Whether a parent, teacher or just an adult, emotionally, anger is a secondary emotion. That means that we have an emotion, say, frustration after telling your 3 year old to stop playing with his cup of milk and then *sploosh* all over the dining room floor. Frustration sets in and you may want to strike out but you said you'd never spank your children so you yell at him for not doing what he was told and now you have a mess to clean up. It's been so many times and you feel frustration - but frustration can externalize as anger. So you raise your voice and the adrenaline that's built up, gets vented into your voice and you scream. Now follow the stress...the child's brain goes into fear mode and the brain releases cortisol. Increased cortisol, when released all the time, becomes the default level. In other words, the child can become desensitized to the voice level and they no longer respond like a child who doesn't get yelled at all the time. There is also evidence that random yelling has worsened negative effects than if the child is yelled at all day, every day. Once the increased cortisol has become "normatized" - research shows it is less harmful, but still harmful. But that desensitization means it doesn't affect them normally anymore. So to get through to them, a parent has to ratchet up the force. You can see the problem. In environments where force can't be used, like a classroom, or shouldn't be used, like with peers; it becomes necessary because the child doesn't respond to normal level cues like the other kids who don't get screamed at regularly. Don't scream at your kids. It creates an environment where loud, negative and critical becomes the norm and sets a foundation of shame, fear and low self esteem.
The Kids
When other authors do the work for me - I love it! So, ChildWelfare.gov has put together a handout/pamphlet outlining the details of what trauma does to a child, especially long term, chronic trauma. Regularly yelling, cursing, and criticizing our children leads to a traumatic condition and thus, trauma. If you are a screamer, yeller, name caller, or smacker, ask yourself if these symptoms describe your middle schooler, or maybe even younger than that if it is the default discipline for your home.
1. Is your child unable to control their emotions and does he or she have frequent outbursts?
2. Are they quiet and submissive?
3. Do they have difficulties learning in school?
4. Do they have difficulties getting along with siblings or classmates?
5. Do they have unusual eating or sleeping behaviors?
6. Do they attempt to provoke fights or solicit sexual experiences?
7. Do they act socially or emotionally inappropriate for their age?
8. Are they unresponsive to affection?
Not all of these would necessarily relate to children who are yelled at; it's the criteria for children who may have suffered trauma. Nevertheless, these are characteristic of children who experience trauma and constantly yelling and criticizing children has become defined as trauma.
Alternatives
I like to look at things logically and this will be no different, although the elements are very emotional. I want to begin though by saying that not yelling at your children is on you as the parent/teacher/adult - I am not going to provide guidance about how to make children do what you tell them to - just the opposite, I will give you practical, research-based best practice whether you are a parent/teacher/or just adult.
I mentioned that anger is a secondary emotion spurred by some other emotion like frustration for example. so a first step might be to learn how to identify your emotions. That is a far greater conversation and another article but it is important to learn how to identify your emotions, feel them and be able to modify them for the good of yourself and those around you. In the case of your children, their futures and the futures of their children are influenced. This ability has been coined, "emotional intelligence" and although it doesn't have any valid & reliable measures - the definition is a measure in itself, "emotional intelligence is the ability to notice, identify, and label the emotions of oneself and of others and respond appropriately." So if you're frustrated with your child and scream at them, chances are your emotional intelligence is low. If you are frustrated with your child and recognize the anger you are feeling but notice the emotional state of your child and temper your response with something that is appropriate for a 3 year old for example, your emotional intelligence would be high. Identifying your emotional state is key; but not the only key.
The next important factor is guiding the child. He may have done something to frustrate you and you have decided the child needs some kind of correction or guidance. Time-out and taking away playthings or privileges are two ways to respond but re-direction is probably the best. It isn't punitive but the child understands they did something they weren't supposed to do and they are given or offered something else to do that takes them away from the undesirable behavior. But that takes understanding yourself and having patience.
Finally, a personal note. I yell. I can even be scary. Always have been. When I was a 20 year old football assistant coach, the head coach told me that he heard me yelling at the players on the field during a game and thought I was being paid to do so. I yell because I have run out of other alternatives. I strongly resist spanking but I have learned more and more about the negative, harmful and long term effects of yelling at my sons. Therefore, I am trying things to lessen the harm:
1. Defer to my wife when I sense that I am reaching my limit. I try to cool off when my 3 year old gets to screaming like a velociraptor but it still strikes me to the core. I try to keep monitoring my stress level and walk away when I've reached my breaking point. It works if you have someone there with you but if you don't, there are other ideas.
2. Modify your body works. Those times when my wife isn't around so I can defer to her, I close my eyes and take a deep breath [yup, in through your nose, out through your mouth, yoga style - it works!] and just take a split second - it really does just take a second for you to disrupt your anger cycle from your first emotion to anger. In that second, I have begun trying something else.
3. Put physical reminders not to yell around your environment. This last one I will give you is a little less scientific and more behavior modification (not of the children but of yourself, remember, choosing to yell isn't my child's problem, it's mine. They are just being 3 or 7 years old). In the morning, I write, in ink, just above my thumb, "patience" and "love talk". I know. Hippy. But it has worked for the several days I have been doing it. When I was a student teacher, learning about literacy development in young children, I learned about "environmental print." That's the idea that a teacher would use the print around children everyday to teach literacy skills like reading - but they also PUT print around the room. For example, you could just put the Unifix cubes in a cubby or you could put them in the cubby with a label associated with them. Also, put words that we say but may not recognize so I had, "wall", "door" and so on. So, I decided that a way to remind myself of what I already know but maybe don't use - put the word somewhere. On my hand it went.
In conclusion, yelling is harmful to our little ones. In truth, yelling is harsh in any environment. It might have something to do with needing to be heard and feeling like other people are not listening or not hearing what we are saying (or doing what we are saying) and yelling seems our only option. But it is harmful and violent. There is also evidence that we parent like we were parented so you can see the long term effects it can have on the present and the future. There is also an element of losing control. I always like to think, "would I yell at another adult if they didn't do what I said?" Of course not. Or, maybe probably not. And if I would, that's a problem.
References
https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/brain_development.pdf#page=5&view=Effects of maltreatment on brain development
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2719514/