Yelling at Your Child is Emotionally Abusive

My mom was a yeller. And on rare occasions, she was a screamer. But she wasn't always that way. From the age of zero to five, my mother never so much as raised her voice to me. Probably because she never needed to. I was a fairly quiet child, pensive even. I was social, polite, demure and friendly. Life took a dramatic turn when my bouncing baby brother arrived my first month of kindergarden. Unlike me, Brian was a handful. And as he grew, he sought trouble wherever he could find it, which needless to say, created a great deal of tension in the household. My brother and I, like most siblings, began to squabble over little things, and overnight, I watched my mom become the in-house police officer. It was discovered some time later that my brother had ADD, and though my mom stopped using yelling as a form of discipline for my brother, she continued with me, and well into my adolescence and adulthood!

I was a pretty decent teen. I had good grades, I wasn't allowed out enough to have a curfew, so my parents knew where I was at all times, and I was very respectful. I was not a confrontational person by nature, so I had a really difficult time coping with my mother yelling in my face. As I aged, I started to manifest symptoms of stress. I got a stomach ulcer when I was in the tenth grade, and my hair started to thin. In the eleventh grade, I was hospitalized for my ulcer. At night, I suffered from sleep deprivation and during the day, I didn't want to be home.

I had been suffering in silence for years, and even to this day, my mother and I have never been able to reconcile with her yelling issue. Parents think that if they yell something, change will happen immediately. Children who are yelled at are more likely to display acts of aggression. By yelling in a child's face, you make them feel smile and insignificant, which in turn, makes them feel bullied. Children come home to feel safe and secure, not to be bullied in their own home. Parents need to learn alternate ways to get the message across. Losing your cool every now and then is perfectly normal, but yelling at your children on the regular is emotionally abusive.