Everyone shouts at their kids sometimes.  It's almost impossible never to shout but every time we do, we are damaging our relationship with them.  There are lots of things we can do to repair the relationship but if your natural response, the response your child anticipates, is to shout first, repair later, then you are setting your child up to do the same.  Parenting is 80% modelling after all.

So why do we shout at our kids?

Chances are, we were shouted at as kids.  It is a learned behaviour.  It is also a response to threat.  When we are scared we are sent into a state of ‘fight, flight, freeze or fawn.’  If you go into ‘fight mode’ you are likely to lash out.  

Often we are responding to triggers as opposed to the current issue.  We are either already stressed and the current issue/behaviour is the ‘last straw,’ or, we are being reminded of a past experience that caused us pain previously.

Ok, so that's why we shout, How do we stop?

The solution is simple, yet very difficult (but not impossible) to implement.  We need to regulate.  Self regulation is perhaps the most important parenting tool we have.  We can’t control anyone but ourselves.

Self regulation means noticing the feelings and sensations in your body.  By becoming conscious of your emotions, your brain can integrate the message and decide what to do.  You are then able to respond instead of react.  

You take the responsibility to calm yourself down rather than indulging in your own tantrum.  You choose to act like the responsible, kind grown up you want to be.

To do this you need to monitor your own mood and take action to give yourself whatever it is you need to maintain emotional equilibrium.  This could mean taking yourself to the toilet to splash cold water on your face and spend a few minutes taking some deep breaths and grounding yourself.  This also means working through intense emotions as they arise (or as soon as possible afterwards).  Noticing how they feel in your body, experiencing them, and watching them pass.  They always pass (more quickly if we’re not suppressing them), and once they’ve been felt, they have no need to resurface.  

The brain science bit:

Many of our responses are automatic.  We hear our baby crying and we pick him up.  We see a red light and we hit the brakes when we’re driving.  Some responses are universal and hardwired.  Some are very individualised and come from childhood experiences.  For example, we might respond to a particular song with a sense of love, excitement, sadness, closeness, anger, hurt, disgust, embarrassment etc. 

These are called automatic neural associations.  They can be simple or complex and are created by neurons in the brain that all fire together in a learned pattern.  You may have heard the phrase ‘Neurons that fire together, wire together.’ And that is absolutely true.  The nervous system wires itself for efficiency by creating a predictable chain reaction of quick physical and emotional responses to any repeated experience.   Thankfully there is such a thing as neuroplasticity, which means that we can use this system of wiring neural pathways, by consistently firing different pathways and effectively re-wire our brain for calm.  

So if we can learn to regulate ourselves and stop ourselves from the automatic reaction of shouting, take a breath, refocus on what is important here (maybe by using a mantra), and then respond with empathy, and do this consistently, this will become our automatic response.  

Top tips for self regulation:

Take a moment now to list what things bring you a sense of calm.  I’ll wait......

1

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Make sure you are incorporating at least one of these into your day every day.  For me, my non-negotiables are daily meditation of around 5 minutes (I have ADHD and I’m still working on this!), daily exercise (this is sometimes just dancing with the kids around the kitchen or my daily bike commute and sometimes something much more vigourous), a hot shower and regular food and drink.

It is also helpful to develop some mantras to re-frame your perspective in difficult moments when you can't access your rational brain.

Some examples could be:

‘It’s not an emergency’

‘My child is acting like a child because she is a child’

‘All behaviour is communication’

‘This is hard, I am a good parent doing my best, he is a good child doing his best’

‘He is a good child, having a hard time’

Stick these up on post-it notes around your house in places where you often get dysregulated (front door, kitchen, kids bedrooms, bathroom… ok everywhere!)  This will remind you to use them.  Once you have got used to using them it will become a habit and you will likely no longer need them.

Breathing and grounding yourself is also really helpful.  You have to practise this when you're regulated (which is why meditation is so helpful) but once your brain knows what it feels like to get calm, and be calm, and be present; it's much easier to get there when you really need to.  It truly is a practice. 

And they say practice makes perfect….. and it doesn’t.  But it does make you much much better.  You won’t get this right 100% of the time.  But if you can get it right even 10% more of the time than you are now, then you are making a 10% improvement on your childs ability to regulate.  And the more improvements you make, the easier it will get.

I’ll be completely honest here.  I didn’t believe this was possible for me when I was first introduced to peaceful parenting. I have always been quick to anger, emotional, and have ADHD which predisposes me to being reactive, impulsive and sensitive.  It took me years to get to where I am now but I can honestly say that I very rarely shout at my kids now.  It IS possible.  If I can do it, YOU definitely can.  For more on this, take a look at my ‘Parenting with ADHD’ blog post.