Shouting is the new spanking

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I know we have many parents of small children here at SP and when I saw this article I instantly thought about all of you (us).

My take on this is that the social scientists have taken away spanking and punishment which are probably the only effective way to control children. Now we spend all of our time worrying about their self-esteem and even stupider trying to treat them like adults. IMO children are not adults, cannot be reasoned with like adults, and we as parents shouldn't be surprised when these techniques fail. This eventually drives parents to beyond the point of insanity and then the yelling and screaming commences.

For disclosure purposes, Mrs. Snook totally falls into this category. She is a screamer and a yeller and teen Snook has reached the stage where he doesn't even hear her. Myself, I'm not a screamer, but when I do, I get everyone's attention.

Spoiler

By HILARY STOUT
Published: October 21, 2009

JACKIE KLEIN is a devoted mother of two little boys in the suburbs of Portland, Ore. She spends hours ferrying them to soccer and Cub Scouts. She reads child-development books. She can emulate one of those pitch-perfect calm maternal tones to warn, “You’re making bad choices” when, say, someone doesn’t want to brush his teeth.

That is 90 percent of the time. Then there is the other 10 percent, when, she admits, “I have become totally frustrated and lost control of myself.”

It can happen during weeks and weeks and weeks of no camp in the summer, or at the end of a long day at home — just as adult peace is within her grasp — when the 7- or 9-year-old won’t go to sleep.

And then she yells.

“This is ridiculous! I’ve been doing things all day for you!”

Many in today’s pregnancy-flaunting, soccer-cheering, organic-snack-proffering generation of parents would never spank their children. We congratulate our toddlers for blowing their nose (“Good job!”), we friend our teenagers (literally and virtually), we spend hours teaching our elementary-school offspring how to understand their feelings. But, incongruously and with regularity, this is a generation that yells.

“I’ve worked with thousands of parents and I can tell you, without question, that screaming is the new spanking,” said Amy McCready, the founder of Positive Parenting Solutions, which teaches parenting skills in classes, individual coaching sessions and an online course. “This is so the issue right now. As parents understand that it’s not socially acceptable to spank children, they are at a loss for what they can do. They resort to reminding, nagging, timeout, counting 1-2-3 and quickly realize that those strategies don’t work to change behavior. In the absence of tools that really work, they feel frustrated and angry and raise their voice. They feel guilty afterward, and the whole cycle begins again.”

Amy Wilson, a writer and actress in Manhattan, used to give up shopping for Lent. That was before she had children, now ages 6, 5 and 2. This year she gave up yelling. Or tried to. “It didn’t really work,” she said, “but I definitely yelled less.”

Ms. Wilson has written a humorous autobiographical book about parenting, to be published next year, called “When Did I Get Like This?” An entire chapter is devoted to her personal efforts to curtail her yelling.

A ONE-WOMAN show, “Mother Load,” which she wrote and performed Off Broadway and will take on tour for the second time next year, opens with a yelling scene that draws laughs and includes the line “I have had it with looking for puppy” in a high-decibel lament that rings true to anyone who has searched for a favorite stuffed animal for the seventh time in a day.

Familial screamers have long been a beloved part of American pop culture, from the Costanzas of “Seinfeld” back to the Goldbergs of radio and early television, but they didn’t yell at small children. And though previous generations of parents may have yelled in real life — Dr. Spock called shouting “inevitable from time to time” — this generation of parents seems to be uniquely troubled by their own outbursts.

“My name is Francesca Castagnoli and I am a screamer,” began a post on Motherblogger.net earlier this year. “Admitting I’m a mom that screams, shouts and loses it in front her kids feels like I’m revealing a dark family secret.”

“It’s not kind,” said Ms. Klein in Oregon. “When I’m done I feel awful.”

To research their book “Mommy Guilt: Learn to Worry Less, Focus on What Matters Most, and Raise Happier Kids,” the three authors, Devra Renner, Aviva Pflock and Julie Bort, commissioned a survey of 1,300 parents across the country to determine sources of parental guilt. Two-thirds of respondents named yelling — not working or spanking or missing a school event — as their biggest guilt inducer.

“What blew us away about that is that the one thing you really have ultimate control over is the tone of your voice,” said Ms. Pflock, a child development specialist.

Parental yelling today may be partly a releasing of stress for multitasking, overachieving adults, parenting experts say.

“Yelling is done when parents feel irritable and anxious,” said Harold S. Koplewicz, the founder of the New York University Child Study Center. “It can be as simple as ‘I’m overwhelmed, I’m running late for work, I had a fight with my wife, I have a project due — and my son left his homework upstairs.’ ”

Numerous studies exist on the effect of corporal punishment on children. A new one came out just last month. Led by a researcher at Duke University’s Center for Child and Family Policy, the study concluded that spanking children when they are very young (1-year-old) can slow their intellectual development and lead to aggressive behavior as they grow older. But there is far less data on the more common habit of shouting and screaming in families.

One study that did take a look at the topic — a paper on the “psychological aggression by American parents” published in the Journal of Marriage and Family in 2003 — found that parental yelling was a near-universal occurrence. Of 991 families interviewed, in 88 percent of them a parent acknowledged shouting, screaming or yelling at the kids at least once (though it didn’t specify how many did it more often) in the previous year.

“We are so accustomed to this that we just think parents get carried away and that it’s not harmful,” said one of the study’s lead authors, Murray A. Straus, a sociologist who is a director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. “But it affects a child. If someone yelled at you at work, you’d find that pretty jarring. We don’t apply that standard to children.”

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Psychologists and psychiatrists generally say yelling should be avoided. It’s at best ineffective (the more you do it the more the child tunes it out) and at worse damaging to a child’s sense of well-being and self-esteem.

“It isn’t the yelling per se that’s going to make a difference, it’s how the yelling is interpreted,” said Ronald P. Rohner, director of the Ronald and Nancy Rohner Center for the Study of Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection at the University of Connecticut. If a parent is simply loud, he says, the effect is minimal. But if the tone connotes anger, insult or sarcasm, it can be perceived as a sign of rejection.

Professor Rohner noted that while spanking is considered taboo by the major medical and psychological associations, there are still some religious and conservative groups who support it as an effective disciplinary tool, believing that the Bible explicitly allows it.

But, he said, “There is no group of Americans that advocate yelling as a parenting style.”

“My bottom-line recommendation is don’t yell,” he said. “It is a risk factor for a family.”

Easier said than done. Strategies to stop yelling abound. Ms. Klein said she has a friend who gives herself a timeout by going into another room when she feels a scream coming on.

Experts suggest figuring out ways to prevent situations that make you most prone to yell. If forgotten homework sends you into the stratosphere, make sure the children have their books and notebooks packed and waiting by the door before they go to bed. If you’re stressed and hungry after a long day at the office, make sure you grab something to eat in the kitchen before you tackle, say, a brewing disagreement over Legos.

Still, there are those moments.

“I’d like to think that most of the time we have a good interaction based on reason,” Lena Merrill said of her 4-year-old daughter, whom she has never spanked. But then there are the times when “she’s done something like poured milk on the floor or ripped a page out of a book,” Ms. Merrill said. “I just lose it.”

Usually, she says, she shouts something like, “Why did you do that? Why would you do that?”

“It’s phrased like a question to make her think, but the tone scares her,” Ms. Merrill said.

Still, Ms. Merrill, a travel consultant in Rutherford, N.J., finds that the threat of yelling can be a convenient stick, much the way the threat of a spanking was in her childhood. Even her husband has taken to using it to encourage good behavior, she said, issuing the warning:

“Don’t make mommy mad.”

 

I agree that children aren't adults but they'd sure like to think so and therefore mimic adult behaviour and if their dad spanks them, they learn in an effective way that violence is a proper solution for world's problem and continue to take that on to school and where ever. Then again I don't have childern so what would I know about raising kids.

Social scientists have a tendency to base their findings upon statistical data, which may or may not be incorrectly measured and applied. If shouting and spanking give bad consequences and behavioural disturbances more than other types of punishment then they obviously should be avoided.

Other than that I don't have much to contribute, beating and spanking children is illegal in Finland and the country has yet to descend into complete chaos so I'm quite certain that kids can be raised pretty well without violent measures.

 

Spanking works, but conditionally. First off, spaking a 1-year-old is just stupid. Until 1.) you can talk to the child and make sure they know why they're being punished and 2.) their bodies are developed enough that you aren't risking any damage by a simple spanking, spanking is an absolute no-go. Beyond that, spanking should only be done by a calm, cool-headed parent. If you spank when you're angry, you will harm your child, sooner or later. Unfortunately, it's easier to say "Don't do it" than it is to say "Do it right", and Americans (even the intellecual and professional crowds) have jumped on that bandwagon in all areas, including child-rearing.

Shouting, on the other hand, is a whole different process. All humans recieve massive amounts of social input through verbal communication (even if you don't know the language, you can tell a lot by how they're speaking). Physical contact and pain are much less likely to be linked to social input (and thus to impact social factors like self-esteem or behavior). On top of that, people don't yell when they're calm. They yell when they're angry, which means you are attacking your child out of anger instead of inflicting discipline and punishment.

That being said, both spanking and verbal criticism (preferably at conversation-level) are both just two of a large set of disciplinary tools a parent should use. Find what works for a child and use that. For me, it was spanking (and I didn't turn violent). For my brother, it was time out (he was actally far more violent growing up than I was).

 

Maybe for those who have to resort to it. Do you spank your children often, NOG? I have never had to spank any of mine in the seven years I have been a dad.

 

I havent seen any real world improvements in children's behaviour, ethics, motivation, discipline or drive for self improvement that has led to have any faith whatsoever in "modern" parenting. All I see is spoiled brats who now know that they have complete power over there schools and parents.

My kid is getting spanked when he/she is naughty. If the behaviour warrants it. Yes, I dont agree with yelling, because it isnt backed up with anything. You yell, and then what? The child realizes yelling does nothing to them, they just have to ignore it. You yell some more, who cares? You smack them once - they know not to do it again.

The thing is, life is harsh. Its unbelievably harsh, and unless you have the tools to cope, you will fail. I believe that confidence and discipline are two very important tools, and I dont believe that I can teach those to my children by being soft and letting them get whatever they want. Its like cheating in a computer game - its instant gratification, sure, but then you get bored of it quickly. So it is with life. I'm not saying I will definitely spank 100% of the time. Or that I will abuse my children. I'm saying I will spank where necessary.

 

And on what do you base this assumption? I got spanked occasionally when I was younger and I didn't grow up thinking violence was the answer to anything. Going by their stories, my parents got spanked significantly more when they were young and it was more common among the general populace back then too, and neither them nor their generation grew up believing violence to be a proper solution to the world's problems.

What you're saying is a gross oversimplification. To me, a spanking is a red glowing neon sign telling a kid what the limits to his behaviour are. I'm curious how these psychologists raise their kids. These advices to how to raise your kids sometimes remind me of how some parents never tell their kids off for anything, giving in to their every whim, afraid that anything they say to curb their kids behaviour will somehow damage them.

 

Im going to see how this thread plays out before I make my opinion

 

I have never had to resort to hitting my kids to get them to listen to me. Both of my girls have won awards in school for best behavior among their peers (and are A students) and they are pretty good at home. My son is only 1, so I will have to see if my "no spanking" policy works with him as it does with my others. Only time will tell, since I've heard that boys can be more difficult when they are younger, while girls become more difficult as they get older.

However, sometimes my girls are punished, and for instance, they lose TV or video game rights for a period of time if they do something they know they should not; grounding them is the worst punishment they receive, and they just hate not being able to play with their friends for a day or two, so it really gets their attention. I have no problems with them in school and their teachers claim they are well-behaved and their grades are fine.

I generally tend to agree with this idea about violence being a learned behavior, but at the same time all situations and children are different so it's difficult to generalize. But you are right, having children of your own helps you learn to be a parent, while those with the most and worst advice, usually don't have children of their own. In some ways, learning to be a parent is an on-the-job skill.

 

That is a very important point indeed.

We have to draw a line between spanking and child abuse. Spanking is merely a simple way to convey a simple message to a child; i.e. what you did is wrong. It's the message that counts, not the beating itself. Even a single tap can be enough to convey such a message.

My parents used to spank me when I was little and I did something that was wrong. They made sure that I'd understand that what I did was wrong of course but to be honest I already knew that. In fact as far as I was concerned, in most cases the disapproval in my father's eyes was enough to make me feel bad about my mistakes.

Children need rules and limitations. That's a simple fact but it has to be stated. I've seen parents who treated their children as equals and were not acting as adults. Children need their parents to be the ones in charge. When you talk to a mother who confesses that she can't enter her 12 years old daughter's room or open her daughter's bag to have a look at her child's homework notebook, you start to wonder if the mother didn't make a mistake when she regarded her daughter's right to privacy to be more important than supervising her homework (and I'm not talking about the internet, watching TV late at night and stuff like that).

My father once told me that children are like saplings growing into trees and that like any plant they need a stake, a support to grow harmoniously. This metaphor seems pretty apt as far as parenting is concerned.

I'm not a parent yet (nor am I in any rush to become one) but I have some experience with teaching and I know that screaming is not a valid option. It may work when you use it once but it won't work twice. Simple body language and facial expression can be much more effective than shouting. Of course teenagers are an entirely different breed and things get even more complicated because they're at a turning point where they're not adults yet but think that they aren't children anymore (which depending on their maturity can be open to discussion).

Let's put it that way, when you scream you make it clear that you're losing control or that you're running out of patience and kids see that they're getting to you. It may even get to the point where they see that as a game. Playing games is what children do and they are usually very good at it (and certainly better than grown ups).

I've seen parents screaming in supermarkets or on trains at their kids who in turn would throw a tantrum. I'm not saying that it is easy to be a parent, because it's not. What I'm saying is that there has to be some other way to convey disapproval without necessarily making scenes. It even gets to the point where kids are actually hitting their parents. That may look cute when three year olds do it but you can't help thinking that they might actually grow up to actually hit their parents (and that happens).

Is screaming the new spanking? According to this article it is. Is screaming better than spanking? I don't think so. IMO it's as violent if not even more (spanking doesn't mean that you have to lose control whereas it is a prerequisite for screaming). Once you rely on screaming too often it loses any efficiency it may have had in the first place because it's become a routine.

I'm convinced no parent enjoy spanking their children nor screaming at them. The real problem is finding a way to communicate with children without treating them as equals or as adults because children are not adults yet and it is unreasonable to expect them to act like adults. That doesn't mean you have to infantilize them. What is needed is to explain the rules of the game that is life and have them play by the rules.

Like I said I'm not a parent yet but I've given this some thought and I hope to be able one day to face this challenge (and it is a challenge) and be a good parent. That is no easy task and my respect goes to those of you who have kids and have to deal with this issue everyday.

 

Why don't you ask some kids and see which they think is worse? In fact, kids learn to scream themselves because it is a learned behavior as well. Did your parents ever scream at each other? Are you married? Do ever yell at your wife or GF when you fight? Does that person yell back in return? Verbal confrontation is a norm in our society, almost everywhere. It's almost impossible to avoid. I used to work with the public, and I can tell you that customers yell, rant and scream all the time when they don't get their way. Hang out at a "customer service" desk for a period of time and see how bad it can be. I try not to yell at my kids, and I'm often successful in keeping myself in check. But I have my "stern voice" that I use to let my girls know that I mean what I'm saying. It's not screaming, but the change in tone helps gets their attention.

 

Having no children, no, I haven't ever spanked them. Short of a time machine, it would be kind of hard.

I do plan to include it among my tools when I do have them, though.

As for learned behavior, screaming both is and isn't. It's natural in certain situations, but the way kids (and often parents) use it today, it's learned. Violence, on the other hand, is not learned. Violence, whether directed at inanimate object or other children, has been observed at very early ages, even in families where violence is non-existent. Violence is a natural reaction, which makes perfect sense when you consider how violent nature is.

 

Yes, if you are a moose. Nature is not the model we use in a civilized society.

And violence is a learned behavior:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/11/001106061128.htm

I think this goes straight to Morgoroth's point:

http://actagainstviolence.apa.org/violprevent/index.html

 

I find having to raise my voice really annoying because I have quite a temper and I hate getting riled up. Fortunately I never had to work in the conditions you describe. Over here people screaming on the market place are quite common but customers who are yelling really get bad looks from everyone.

People screaming when partying or getting drunk in a bar or watching a football game (soccer if you insist) are another matter entirely.

If someone screams at someone else, the person who is getting yelled at will probably reciprocate and the tension will increase ten fold. So in any case it doesn't make for a good environment.

I'm sure you achieve more with a change of tone than you would if you were screaming.

Interesting links. The problem is that nobody lives in a cocoon. Children will learn a lot from their peers as well.

If violence means some violent and antisocial behaviour like carrying weapons, bullying and other marks of juvenile delinquency then I'd have to agree that it is learned. But if you consider violence more broadly as something akin to agressivity and impulsivity then it is part of human nature (by looking at siblings you may find that some of them are just more aggressive than the others and they probably shared the same upbringing). Left to their own devices children can have rather violent games (and sometimes these can lead to tragic consequences).

Nevertheless, even if we assume that violence is part of human nature, controlling your violent impulses is still a normal and necessary step in civilized society.

 

This discussion again? How is it that so many people think it is perfectly ok to use physical force and violence to get a point across to their children (or other's children) but not to adults? Or maybe we should reintroduce the husbands right to spank his wife? Are people so weak that they can't enforce discipline and rules without resorting to physical violence against their child?

We have even begun to stop beating our dogs in "educational" purposes as research shows that there are better ways but we should still use physical pain as a deterrent for our children?

 

If physical force is involved then it is child abuse. We're talking about parents here, not just any adult, not even teachers (any teacher who slaps a child will get prosecuted if parents press charges and that is the law).

Many use force to make their points with other adults (and I'm not talking about the Force Mr Obi Wan ). If you start shouting at someone (like in the situations Chandos posted above) then you are using force if the person you are shouting at is either physically weaker (or lacks self confidence) or in a position which doesn't allow for any shouting back then that is a form of bullying.

If you equate child beating with spouse abuse then I agree with you. I don't have the numbers but even now many spouses get beaten (I use the word spouse because it happens to some husbands) and it doesn't happen only in backward countries or with uneducated people (I've heard about people with PhDs beating their wives).

The point is spanking (without use of force) is not (and should not be) tantamount to child beating or child abuse.

It is not about pain and I'd certainly not compare children to animals. Whether you're breaking horses or taming lions the most important factor is for the animal to know that you're the one in control. Would you train a child like you would train a dog? I doubt it. Besides there are animals who are just bad and can't be trained and others who are trained for certain specific uses. My grandfather was a customs officer, when he was on patrol his dog was a weapon like his gun and when he wasn't on patrol nobody was allowed to touch his gun or his dog at any time. He had a whip but he didn't have to use it because the dog was trained by him and saw him as its master.

That's not the way it works with kids. Although we could agree that training an animal and raising a child both involve trust, respect, confidence and establishing a rapport, a connection, in the end it is not the same. Your children don't belong to you and all a parent can do is help their children realize their full potential as individuals and human beings.

Society has laws and penalties for those who break them; you're not doing your child a favour if you teach him or her that there are no consequences to his or her actions.

If pain and physical force are involved then that is child abuse or even torture. If you know of anyone torturing their children then I'd suggest contacting social services.

 

As Caradhas pointed out, I think we're talking about two different kinds of violence. The existence of violence is a part of human nature. Solving problems with violence, reacting to stress with violence, finding violence fun and acceptable, are all learned applications of violence. That being said, I don't think disciplining a child with spanking will teach any of them unless the parent is doing everything wrong (i.e. spanking when angry, stressed, and enjoying it ).

You reason on the basis that children and adults should be treated the same. One of the points in this whole discussion is that that doesn't make sense. You can reason with adults where you can't reason with children. And if the adults don't listen to reason? Fines (taking away allowance), going before a judge (a stern talking to), jail (time out/grounded), and the only good reason violence isn't officially in the system is because we all recognize that courts can make mistakes and find an innocent person guilty. While it is technically possible for a parent to find an innocent child guilty (and we all know it has happened once or twice, I'm sure), it's far less likely. In fact, if we coul apply it with certainty, a beating would probably be better for the gov't (cheaper) and more effective as a deterant (immediate response, not dependant on philosophical punishments like removal from society, and none of the lasting long-term problems jail introduces).

This is the sentement I have a problem with. Pain and physical force can be excelent motivators to not do something again. As I said above, they have to be applied properly (we aren't talking about beating them to a bloody pulp, but just enough of a spanking so the skin stings a little). To mimic Morgoroth a bit, spankings have been a part of western culture for centuries at least and we have yet to descend into complete chaos so I'm quite certain that kids can be raised pretty well with violent measures.

 

All I know is that children need both disciplline and love. The modern social scientists seem to go after every tool in a parent's repetoire in an effort to label it as "abuse". News Flash: Kids are gonna want to do things that are either dangerous or wrong. It is the responsibility of the parent's to teach them self-control and exercise external control over the child until the kid learns that self control. The modern effort to remove disciploine from children's lives results in some really effed up kids. And a lot of wasted resources in both families and societies.

 

So spanking is not violence? Spanking does not cause physical pain? Then what is the purpose of it? I repeat my point, if you can't control your children without using physical violence (no matter how "loving") then you must be doing something horribly wrong.

 

No, I do not believe that spanking is violence. It is a behavioral tool. I'll use Teen Snook as an example. When he was two year old Snook he was fascinated with the street and running into it to get Mommy all flustered was a great form of entertainment for him. It doesn't matter what tone you use to discuss things with a two year old, it doesn't matter how many times you put them in a timeout, or ground them, or takeaway television, etc., two year olds do not have the cognitive abilities to have rationale discussions about the dangers of running into the street. Especially when they find it fun and a quick way to get mom to play with them and run after them and pick them up. That all ended the day that Mom had had enough and after she scooped him back into the yard she grabbed each hand and gave each hand a whack. He didn't like it at all and cried like you can't even imagine. She was really mad, and rebuffed his first few attempts to make up with her. After they made up she told him in no uncertain terms that she would do it again if he ever ran out into the street again. He never did it again, until he was old enough and mature enough to be in the street. In total Teen Snook has only been spanked maybe five times. All five times it was for egregious things that involved doing things that were dangerous and he needed to know that that behavior would not be tolerated under any circumstance. Now at 13 he is a very well behaved teen and enjoys many freedoms that his friends do not because their parents do not have the trust in their children that we do in him. While I do not believe this is solely because we whacked him when he needed it, it all has to do with the fact that we have spent an inordinate amount of our raising him teaching him to be responsible and well behaved. Anyone who knows him or us would never put us in the category of "must be doing something horribly wrong"

 

Then I'll repeat mine: it is not about inflicting pain.

It is not about "controlling" children but about educating them and that is not the same thing at all.

The old saying goes like this "spare the rod spoil the child" and it holds a truth. Not that you should beat your kids but that if you don't educate them and teach them discipline they are bound to get into trouble because they won't understand why teachers and later on employers don't give them some slack.

If you teach your kid that there are consequences then the rebuke will be enough.

For instance a cousin of mine has a daughter who when she was 2 used to make a mess playing with her food. All it took was a gentle tap on the hand and a serious look to make her understand that it shouldn't be done. The little girl cried but I can assure you the tap wasn't painful. Crying in that case was both a defence mechanism and a way to get some attention perhaps even consolation (which would completely invalidate the reproof by the way).

Would it have been better to lecture the two year old on the fact that you don't play with food? Hard to explain that according to some religions it is a sin (go and explain the notion of sin to a two year old, I bet it would be more traumatic than a spanking) or that some people around the world are actually starving and dying because they can't get enough food while others are gorging themselves (ditto).

Or would it have been better to let her play with her food because it certainly ooked like it was fun and because she was just expressing herself and the last thing you want to do is to stifle her creativity?

Nobody in their right minds would wilfully inflict pain on their own flesh and blood.