Page 45 - How Changing Your Anger Can Help You Be a Better Parent book

Tanya certainly realized that yelling at Nicole was adding stress to their relationship - there was
some resentment growing between her and Nicole. She wanted to stay close to her daughter,
especially as she was experiencing many physical and emotional changes.

In my discussions with Tanya, we discussed how with a healthier anger response, she could
actually be able to hold Nicole accountable for her responsibilities, while feeling better and closer
to her daughter.
Tanya realized that yelling was not changing Nicole’s behavior. Tanya and I talked a lot about
how she could respond in different ways, with different communication styles, different verbal
patterns in response to Nicole’s distracted behavior.

There was actually more to work on than that.
In the heat of that angry moment with Nicole, Tanya had to get herself into a much calmer state
first, to be able to think clearly and respond in a way that’s more effective instead of just yelling.

Do you tend to yell at your children when you're angry and your patience runs out?

Put your clothes away, get off the computer, come down for dinner, take the dog out, stop hitting
your sister.

Yelling is an emotional release, not an effective parenting strategy.

Also consider how your physical appearance changes when you’re yelling, and how it impacts
your child’s sense of safety with you.

It can look and feel very scary to your child to see you get out of control.

When you get angry, your physical appearance, facial features, tone of voice, and other non-
verbal body language changes and that can look scary to a child.

Depending upon their age and stage of development, those memories of angry moments with you
- the memories of your facial gestures, and physical presentation will impact your relationship with
your child.

So, your child gets emotionally dysregulated which then causes you to become emotionally
dysregulated (angry). The reason your child is behaving the way they are is because they need
something.

A strategy to change your child’s behavior that will hold them more accountable is to help them
be more respectful, more agreeable to get along better with you, siblings and their peers.

Yelling at your child when you’re angry may get short term compliance or other behavior changes,
but consider your child is probably complying out of fear.

At the very least, that immediate behavioral compliance stops the yelling.

But it won’t necessarily help your child grow and develop with long term lasting change in
behavior.

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