What yelling does:
It implies a removal of responsibility for emotions--like, I'm so mad at you I yell, thus upsetting you (even more) and bringing you anxiety. You are now carrying my angst. It's still my fault, and while I may feel better it's like I just vomited on you. And now I have to clean you up, and try to convince you I won't vomit on you again. And when you wind up in the future, you'll probably expect me to do it again, thus adding extra anxiety to your trip-out session.
We do it best if we can model for them how to do it themselves, no? So if we yell, we are showing them how to "do it" when they feel frustrated, etc. Is that what the child needs in his environment? Sometimes it seems, depending on environment, they do need the ability to yell. Most times though, we don't want them doing this.
What I try to do with DD (and really, I'm not at all a yeller, but my kid is three, and you know...) is say "whoa, I'm getting very frustrated. So frustrated I feel like yelling and I really don't want to! What might I do instead?" This gives her a chance to shake out of it and try some compassion. Seriously. It works for us. But then again, dd thinks that my no-nonsense voice (rarely used) is "mean", so she's all about avoiding that.
Also, given the age, I expect a few freak out sessions now and again. I understand them. She knows I "get it", she knows I'm there to help when it's calm-down time. She knows I'll remind her that she is a fantastic smart sweet friendly problem-solving kid, and I won't remind her that she's a little maniac sometimes.
Another thing I've done before is said "ooooh, a delicious tantrum! I must get this on film--it's so big!" mostly because I was about out of ideas. This has been no attempt at anything humiliating, and while she really, really, does not like being filmed at her worst, it's been pretty amazing that weeks later when I'm uploading video clips and whatnot, she's occasionally seen these (old ones) and can articulate exactly what she was mad about at the time and is able to problem solve the difficulty with me pretty logically.
It implies a removal of responsibility for emotions--like, I'm so mad at you I yell, thus upsetting you (even more) and bringing you anxiety. You are now carrying my angst. It's still my fault, and while I may feel better it's like I just vomited on you. And now I have to clean you up, and try to convince you I won't vomit on you again. And when you wind up in the future, you'll probably expect me to do it again, thus adding extra anxiety to your trip-out session.
We do it best if we can model for them how to do it themselves, no? So if we yell, we are showing them how to "do it" when they feel frustrated, etc. Is that what the child needs in his environment? Sometimes it seems, depending on environment, they do need the ability to yell. Most times though, we don't want them doing this.
What I try to do with DD (and really, I'm not at all a yeller, but my kid is three, and you know...) is say "whoa, I'm getting very frustrated. So frustrated I feel like yelling and I really don't want to! What might I do instead?" This gives her a chance to shake out of it and try some compassion. Seriously. It works for us. But then again, dd thinks that my no-nonsense voice (rarely used) is "mean", so she's all about avoiding that.
Also, given the age, I expect a few freak out sessions now and again. I understand them. She knows I "get it", she knows I'm there to help when it's calm-down time. She knows I'll remind her that she is a fantastic smart sweet friendly problem-solving kid, and I won't remind her that she's a little maniac sometimes.
Another thing I've done before is said "ooooh, a delicious tantrum! I must get this on film--it's so big!" mostly because I was about out of ideas. This has been no attempt at anything humiliating, and while she really, really, does not like being filmed at her worst, it's been pretty amazing that weeks later when I'm uploading video clips and whatnot, she's occasionally seen these (old ones) and can articulate exactly what she was mad about at the time and is able to problem solve the difficulty with me pretty logically.
