Yelling at kids may be as damaging as spanking them, study says

[Shade_Jon]

IFF the parents generally express love to their children, and if they are careful to convey that it is not the child but the behavior that is being castigated, then why is instilling a sense of shame over doing a shameful thing a Bad Thing?

This article is missing context: what was the child doing when he was yelled at, and how and in what context was the child yelled at? If the child is doing something shameful - such as punching a smaller child, waving a knife around, being cruel or unfair, or something - then you WANT that child to develop a sense of morality, i.e. shame at doing something shameful.

The other comments are talking about parents who yell egregiously at their children, without context, about situations that didn’t really deserve shame, and in a manner that makes the child feel shameful about himself, rather than about his behavior. Of course, that’s bad.

This is one study (one study means nothing), and it studied parents who were “yelling, cursing and using insults”! That is not an argument against yelling at your children; it’s an argument against blowing off anger at your child instead of mindful parenting.

[relawson]

Thank you.

Saved me the time of writing the same

[technogeekagain]

For what it’s worth, my memory of being a kid was that a “potch in tuchus” (a single sharp slap to the backside) was almost precisely equivalent to a shouted admonition – it didn’t hurt much physically but hurt my dignity, and since my parents didn’t resort to it frequently it was more a signal that “I really have had it with this; knock it off right now and if you really think I was wrong we can talk about it later”.

I’ve never had to spank a kid – one luxury of being single is that you can hand them back to their parents when they’re being brats. I have once had to tell a kid “I know your parents don’t believe in spankings, but I do; when I tell you politely to stop, please do so.”