How I (Mostly) Stopped Yelling At My Kids

In July of 2014, I decided I was going to change the way I was parenting my kids and stop yelling.

Or at least cut way back on it.

It didn’t help to improve my kids’ behavior or attitudes, I was not leading by example, it created a more chaotic home, and I just felt crappy about myself afterward.

If you want to cut back on the amount of yelling you are doing at your house, here is how I made significant changes in the yelling department.

First, I made the declaration that I was done yelling.

I wrote this one after I made it through one day without yelling.

After I made it through two days, I wrote this one.

When I made it to one week, I wrote this.

I wrote this one after I made it to two weeks.

Then one month.

Six weeks.

Two months!

And then I wrote this one yesterday.

There are quite a few specific strategies in those posts, so if you want to stop yelling at your kids but aren’t sure where to begin, I’d read those.

Now here is my latest observation.

The morning sets your tone for the rest of the day, right?

How often have you posted on Facebook something along the lines of,

“My kid missed the bus and I was late for work and then I couldn’t find my phone and then my computer had a virus and it’s only 10 a.m. and …”

When you have a shitty start to the day, it’s hard to rally.

Or imagine if you walked into work and within thirty minutes of getting there, your boss just totally went off on you.

That’s no fun.

That 7:30 to 8:30 morning hour is one of my prime, high-stress times of day.

And with a high level of stress comes a high level of wanting to yell at the kids.

So I’ve been focusing on my mornings.

They are by no means always running smoothly.

But the mornings that do run smoothly all have something in common.

Here are the five things that I’ve done that have helped me:

1) Make lunches the night before.

I don’t even have to do this.

Last year I did a little training and now, my kids all make their own lunches.

It’s a well-oiled machine at this point, and there is no rushing around that morning getting this done.

2) Pick out clothing the night before.

Some of the kids don’t care what they wear to school.

But Number 5 is very conscious about her outfits.

After a couple mornings where I pretty much threatened to set all of her clothing on fire last year, I make sure that everyone knows what they are going to wear before they go to bed.

3) Find shoes and socks.

We have an issue with socks and shoes going missing.

Last year I was probably spending at least 30 minutes a week looking for shoes and socks.

It really pissed me off, especially if that made us late for school.

4) I pick my battles.

I really don’t care what the kids wear to school.

If they look like they are dressed for mismatch day and that’s not happening for another month, it’s no big deal.

I will tell them they need to change if they are underdressed or overdressed or if their clothes are dirty or they somehow manage to find that pair of pants with the hole in them that I keep throwing in the garbage and they keep digging out.

Other than that, if they aren’t going to freeze to death or die of heat exhaustion, they are good to go.

Fighting over outfits is just not worth it for me.

5) I set boundaries for myself.

This has been huge.

I used to write a blog post every morning.

It had to be finished before the kids went to school.

At all costs.

I have no idea why I decided this.

But the result was that I was often scrambling to finish writing at 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning.

The kids needed help and I was not giving it to them.

And I’d be yelling at them to leave me alone so I could finish.

And then I’d be yelling at them because they’d get into some sort of shenanigans since I was ignoring them.

So now, no matter what I’m doing, I stop at 7:00.

Even if I oversleep and didn’t get to whatever that thing was that I wanted to get to.

7:00 -8:30 is devoted to just the kids.

When I stick to that, everything runs pretty smoothly.

Your 5 things might be different.

But if you can pinpoint the things that are constantly causing you to want to strangle your kids in the morning, and you do something to set up a different system, I bet you’ll see a change.

Sure, it’s hard work being disciplined about all that.

There are some days here when all my five things don’t happen.

I’m exhausted at the end of the day.

Getting all that stuff together is pretty much the last thing I want to do. It can be really easy to say screw it, and leave it until the morning.

And in those moments, when I just want to tell the kids to let it go and wait until tomorrow, I do my best to remind myself how that will effect not only me, but them too.

And that’s where the no yelling is having a ripple effect.

Because in setting myself up to not yell, something else has happened.

I’ve become a little bit more organized.

I haven’t been late to school yet, which, for me, is a miracle.

Ultimately, I am giving my kids a much more calm start to their day.

And that makes me feel really good.

Which is a way better feeling than the one I had when I was screaming at them to hurry up and get in the f&%$ing car.

So yeah.

Not yelling might be really hard.

But for me, it’s also really worth it.

Because it’s not nearly as hard as yelling, rushing, scrambling, sweating, screaming, and panicking.

If you are finding yourself yelling in the mornings, it isn’t your kids who need to change what they are doing.

It’s you.