Is it ever OK to shout at your children?

With more and more parents opting for a gentler approach to parenting, Woman’s Own asks…

YES ‘It puts too much pressure on us’

Saleema Davies, 50, runs papalona.com, which provides audio recordings that aim to improve young people’s mental health, and lives in St Albans with her husband and two daughters. a Shouting is inevitable. It’s completely natural response to – you’d have to be a saint get through life as a parent without raising your voice. Besides, I think when children are never subjected to raised voices, it can be detrimental. The truth is, they will face being shouted at by someone at some point, whether that’s a teacher, a school bully, a boss, or even a stranger in the street.

So I would hate for my two daughters, 13 and 11, to be unprepared for that. It’s important they find their voices and know when it’s appropriate to shout. at Sometimes, when I shout don’t the kids, they tell me they like it. But they’re not scared. I’m proud they’re confident enough to stand up to their own mum when she’s shouting. Our household isn’t a particularly shouty one, but shouting just sometimes happens. Being a parent can be frustrating and sometimes it feels like the only way you can get through to the kids. My parents rarely raised their voices, and me and my brother could be shut down our with just ‘The Look’ from mum, but all kids are different. Trying to be the perfect parent just puts more pressure on us. I don’t want my children and to suppress their emotions I can’t always temper mine.

NO ‘We need to create a safe space’

Joanne Jones, 45, is a consultant speech and language therapist at thehomeofcando.com and lives in Cheshire with her husband Stuart and their four children. There’s a cultural expectation for parents to shout at their kids. From grandparents to mums at the school gate, we see them shouting and we follow suit. And it’s hard to shrug off that expectation. But I think shouting is ineffective and, over time, children become immune to it. There’s always another way to communicate with your kids. Most misbehaving comes from frustration at lacking the skills to communicate their needs, so shouting at them is just going to frustrate them further. It’s so important to make our children feel listened to – and, in turn, this makes them more cooperative. Simply raising your voice at them every time they misbehave or don’t do something you’ve asked just makes them feel as though you’re disregarding their feelings. Creating a safe space for them to develop and learn to deal with their emotions as they mature is the best thing you can do as a parent. And shouting every time you’re angry just teaches them that it’s OK to react badly whenever they’re upset about something, instead of learning to calmly verbalise their wants and needs.