This is one of my advice columns that may be hard to swallow for some. And for that, I’m sorry. But just because a pill may be bitter, doesn’t mean it isn’t good for you.
And the advice is this: Don’t hit your kids. Ever.
Also, no yelling. Seriously - No yelling.
We’ve raised our children in a non-hitting, non-yelling environment. We’ve never laid a hand on them in anger or frustration. No spankings, no smacks to the head, no twists of the arm or hard squeezes to the hand. We’ve also never yelled at them, no matter how much they yell at us, no matter how terrible their behavior. We’ve only spoken to them softly and with care and respect.
What are the results? Well, my kids aren’t perfect, but I’d put ‘em up against anybody else’s kids, in any competition based on friendship, politeness, respect, support, or understanding. They are well-mannered, well-adjusted, and wonderful to bring to a restaurant (even if they hate the food and the dress clothes we make them wear). When they make mistakes, they acknowledge them immediately. They don’t hide things from us (at least, not to my knowledge), they don’t disrespect us, they are never intentionally disobedient.
I’m not trying to brag, and I realize that I’m coming across that way. My intent here is to show you, constant reader, that you can raise great kids without spankings or upbraidings. If you don’t believe me, give it a test yourself. For one week, don’t hit or yell at your kid, no matter what. Tell them you’re going to take the week off, and ask for their cooperation. See what they do. If, at the end of the week, they’ve completely taken advantage of the situation, I’ll eat my hat. But if the week goes by with harmony and a lack of stress, I know a good recipe for Chapeau Cordon Bleu. 
Thoughts?
[tags]parenting, kids, spanking, hitting, hurting, yelling, respect[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by spaunsglo, under a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved
16 responses so far ↓
thordora // Apr 16, 2007 at 6:48 am
I’ll try it-my two year old is driving me absolutely nuts, and the knee jerk reactions are NOT helping. Rationally I know this is how I should be behaving, but man, when faced with the 2 year old from hell which reared it head suddenly, logic goes out the window.
Chris // Apr 16, 2007 at 8:04 am
I never hit or yelled at my daughter, until my son was born. Now, I find my stress level pretty high a lot of the time and that makes it difficult to “count to ten” or whatever and keep from reacting. So I find myself yelling a lot these days and I hate myself for it. I’m quick to explain to my daughter, who’s almost four and gets the brunt of my yelling, that my behavior isn’t okay and I’m sorry. She’s quick to tell me to “settle down” and that my yelling hurts her feelings.
Despite that, both my kids are gentle, social creatures. My daughter is notably empathetic and tolerant. My son is one and understands being gentle with our cats and though he is going through a hitting phase, it’s a playful kind of hitting.
While I agree that gentle guidance is a parenting
“best practice,” I also know that for many parents, it’s a challenge to live up to our ideals, especially when we’re sleep deprived, constantly multi-tasking (and seemingly never doing any one thing well), and parenting in relative isolation. Also, I know for myself and other parents I know personally, that having grown up in a family where respect and gentleness were not the parenting norm leaves us with a knowledge gap. What, exactly, do you do instead of yell? In times of stress especially, I find myself channeling one of my parents and yelling. I don’t have a model in my primitive mind for dealing with this stuff differently. It takes a lot of discipline, a lot of “talking to myself about how a good parent would react” for me to not react. What I want to know is how do other parents overcome their lack of positive parenting role models?
Anyway, despite my yelling, my kids are terrifically sweet, compassionate, and well-mannered. I’d put them head-t0-head with yours anytime, Stu!
Stu Mark // Apr 16, 2007 at 8:23 am
Thordora,
Not yelling requires great internal discipline, granted. And a two year-old can try anyone’s patience. But even yelling is violent, especially to a child. It’s similar to explosions in its effect on a child’s psyche.
And remember, communicate. The next time your little one does something yell-worthy, take a breath, and then explain to them that, while you love them, what they did causes you to want to yell. Tell them you’re not going to yell this time, that you are going to try a different way. Do it for the week, see what happens.
Another concept is the squirt-gun. Get a water pistol or a garden mister. When you feel like the only way to get their attention is to yell, mist them in the face. It works, and it’s just water.
Hang in there, you can do it.
Stu Mark // Apr 16, 2007 at 8:31 am
Chris,
I hear you, I sincerely do. And I’m sure your kids would be stiff competition for my kids.
As far as the difficulty of not yelling, yeah, I get that. Especially for me, the choice of not yelling/hitting is a hard choice. But there are other techniques that satisfy the yelling urge without actually yelling. As I wrote to Thordora, try a water pistol.
Or, try working out a signal with your kids: Sit them down when they are behaving properly. Tell them that you love them and you are proud of them, but that sometimes they make you crazy (My sister calls it “The Mommy Monster”). Work out a signal or a code word, so the next time they try your patience, you say the code word. Maybe that will be enough to get them to stop what they are doing and reassess their current behavior. Which is what you want in the first place.
shizzknits // Apr 16, 2007 at 8:58 am
This is the goal in our house, too: no hitting and no yelling. I was raised by an abusive mother who did plenty of both and have always sworn that I would not hit or yell at my small ones.
The no-hit rule is a family rule and so far the adults haven’t broken it. The kids do on occasion, but they are 2 and 4.5yrs old so what do you expect? LOL But I think they do pretty good for such little people.
There were times around the birth of DS2 that I was thisclose to laying a hand on my then-2.5yr old DS1. I know I did a lot of sleep-deprived, short tempered yelling. All that was put in perspective when DS1 turned to me one day and said “mommy, your mean voice makes me mad”. AAAH!
Since we’ve *really* tried to cut down on the yelling. And honestly? I’ve found that my kids respond better to me if I can keep at least my voice calm and even. I pretend I’m channeling Ceasar Millan (the dog whisperer guy): “think calm and assertive energy!”.
Most of the time it works….sometimes I’m too tired or harried to keep my voice down. But I’ve been known to apologize to my kids for yelling and they have even apologized to me for yelling at me! So maybe it’s working after all.
And the water pistol thing….seriously??? Because that’s what I used to teach our cat to stay off the counters….not so sure about using it on the kids.
Sue // Apr 16, 2007 at 9:02 am
Nice blog! Although I may not always agree with the posts, they are interesting and good discussions to have.
Stu Mark // Apr 16, 2007 at 9:17 am
shizzknits,
First, great handle!
Second, yeah, water pistols. We’re a truly non-violent house, so we don’t allow actual water pistols - instead, we use garden misters. And we don’t need to do that anymore, as our kids are more mature now. But when they were little, it worked, totally got their attention and stopped the behavior cold. Well, temporarily. But it was always enough time to talk to them gently, to convince them to calm down or whatever.
Stu Mark // Apr 16, 2007 at 9:19 am
Sue,
Thanks for the sweet compliment, very lovely of you to say. We at GNMP don’t seek agreement, just good discussion. So your words are warmly received.
Thordora // Apr 16, 2007 at 9:37 am
OOOH! I’ll try the water pistol, but honestly, that never worked on the cat.
My youngest is in a phase where talking to her doesn’t quite work-not yet. She also seems to have forgotten that we cut the cord over 2 years ago, and is attached to me whenever I’m around, making it hard to do simple things like eat. It’s a phase, and for me, it’s magnified by mental illness.
But this is a good wake up for me to return to my non yelling stage, and to remind my husband to do the same. We’re a yell-y family, so it can be hard to tone it down.
Chris // Apr 16, 2007 at 10:32 am
Thordora–I’m trying to type with my 15-month-old hanging off my breast…where he seems to always be! I understand how important physical bonding at this age is to developing long term emotional attachment, but that doesn’t diminish how physically and psychically exhausting it can be.
Stu, Ha! We did the garden mister technique with our cats and now all we have to do is making a hissing “spray bottle” noise and the cats get off the kitchen counter, off the stair tread I need to step on, out of the basket of clean laundry (well, sometimes), etc. At first I balked at the idea, but I think with our toddler it might be worth a try. Though, my cats have an aversion to water the children don’t have. In fact, the more I think about it, the more this almost sounds like a Playful Parenting technique (www.playfulparenting.com). I like it because it would be me something physical to do, providing a safe release for anger that might even make him giggle & put me in a lighter mood.
I also just talked with my daughter about our new code word that will help her know when I feel like yelling and what she can do (stop, look at me, and listen) to help me feel less like yelling. I’m signing up for a week of no yelling.
Thordora // Apr 16, 2007 at 11:43 am
Chris, I didn’t breastfeed, and I’m kinda glad I couldn’t, or I would NEVER get her off me.
I’m gonna try the code word as well. Can’t hurt to try…
Erica Douglas // Apr 16, 2007 at 1:19 pm
That’s all great, what can I do with a 14 month old that doesn’t want to lie down and go to sleep aaaaaahhhh!
Misty // Apr 16, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Stu,
You’re so so brave. I am in total agreement with you and I spoke up about my feelings on this back when Assemblymember Sally Leiber was brave about the whole subject.
On a ModernMom bulletin board in Feb I voiced my opinion and was promptly basically told I would burn in hell for not spanking my child because I was not following the commandments of the Bible….all I could do was laugh, it was the epitome of irony.
We don’t hit, we don’t yell. As much as I would like to sometimes, especially with a two year-old. Yesterday in the store was one such day. We like to call it going into “robot mode” when we feel ourselves losing control…seems to help. Along with chanting over and over in my head “don’t say anything, don’t say anything, don’t say anything”
In case anyone is interested in the post that damned me to hell, I’ve put it up over on http://www.mommykind.blogspot.com
Thanks Stu…for being so brave!
tanyetta // Apr 17, 2007 at 5:15 pm
how old are your kids? i’m curious to know.
Stu Mark // Apr 17, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Misty,
Wow, really, thanks. A wonderful comment to read. I never thought about it as a courage thing, but I understand what you’re saying. Yeah, there are folks who are not pleased with my parenting methods. At least, not until they try them. Then they come back and apologize. They say, “Of course you should spank your children,” like it’s the only parenting method in the world. And the only thing I can do is write my column and take my chances. So, sincerely, thanks for the compliment.
Stu Mark // Apr 17, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Tanyetta,
My little ones are 11 and 15 now, but they’ve been raised with non-violence. Do you have little ones? How old are they.
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