Reasons not to yell or scream

Following on from my last post this is an issue still at front of mind for me. So to remind us (me) why it isn't a good technique to yell.

1. It is going to allow children to think that it is acceptable behavior.

2. If a crisis situation arises and you yell at you child to stop them from being in danger that won't respond because they are too used to hearing you yell.

3. Think about your poor neighbours listening to your family have regular conversations about where the clean socks can be found.

4. How do you come across when you are yelling, is this the type of person you wish to be remembered as?
5. Yelling can be quite ineffective compared to a soft voice. My teaching days taught me that if you whispered to a student the whole classroom would go silent in order to hear what you were saying.

Well these are all excellent reasons to stop screaming, the best reason would have to be for me though is the fact that i am Christ's ambassador on this earth and this was not the way Jesus acted. If I am living my life trying to become Christ-like then I should stop, think about the level of my voice, the tone I am about to use and most importantly the words about to come out.

AHHHHHHH- STOP SCREAMING!

My idea for this blog this year is that it will my parenting issues, realisations and general stuff about my life as a mum and my other blog will stick to more general issues although being a SAHM (see now I have labelled myself after 3 years)alot of my issues are parenting ones.
Anyhow as you can see from the title it has only taken me three whole years well really 29 years to realise that it is not a good idea to yell back at your child for yelling.

You know what I am talking about, sadly I guess I have been one of those mums you see in the shopping centres that have the child running around being generally noisy, Princess doesn't screaming horribly (unless its a meltdown) but she does sing at the top of her voice but rather than quietly telling her to quieten down I am the mum who will say in a rather LOUD voice "YoU nEeD tO bE qUiEt". But you know what it is even worse at home. I will hear my Princess yelling at her Sweet sister or squealing in a pitch almost only heard by dogs, and what I should do is get up and move in a close proximity to her and tell her in a gentle voice that she should speak in hushed tones. But, you know what's coming, from the other side of the house I will yell out "QUIT THAT SCREAMING..."

Very effective parenting, what is sad is that I have always known this to be a bad idea, I even understand that Princess has learnt this darling trait through her banshee like mother but it some how didn't go in.

What really is funny is that I was listening to a children's cd just this morning and it is talking about all of 'mum's' lovely characteristics and one of them was "She only whispers and never yells" and I thought that's not my girls' mum.

And so ladies and gentlemen I have decided that this
is something that must change, unless I want Sweetness to also learn this delightful trait, and that I need to re-calibrate my way of responding- wish me luck.

For future reference

There are times when I think 'I must remember to teach my Princess that when she is older. These things are a bit complex for a three year old mind but I think about how important it is to teach life lessons to my young ones.
For example: Advertising- I feel I need to talk to my daughters about the tricks of the ad agencies. We were listening to a song the other day and I thought 'when I hear this song it makes me feel sad. I must remember to talk to Princess about how music can effect the way we feel'.

Or another example is the way shop entice you to buy they products by the way they present their products. I remember walking into a petrol station having to buy my petrol and first I had to walk pass the magazine rack, then an ice-cream display (when on a hot day how easy would it be just to simply reach in and grab one without losing my place in the line) and then there is the ultimate test- all the chocolates and lollies. If I find this difficult to walk pass all these things how difficult in turn is it for a three year old to understand when all of these things are put WITHIN her reach then why can't she have them.

Life is full of trials and tests, I just pray that I can help to prepare my girls for these.

Life at 3

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/life/

This is a very interesting series. I remember catching it when the life at 1 was first done. It follows 11 kiddies and their families discussing different issues. I remember watching the stress issue for the 1 year old. Last night they spoke about childhood obesity and its factors.
They were:
1. Genetics- obviously if mum and/or dad are over weight then there is a great chance that a child could be challenged with this trait.

2. The socio-economic area which the child lives. This was for different factors, availability to healthy food, safe environment to play outside, what peers would be eating and doing.

3. The influence of the father. It mentions that even though mum might be an excellent example of getting plenty of exercise it is dad that is a major influence.


The one next week is about behaviour, which I look forward to. It sounds terrible but sometimes I need to know that my three year old behaviour is acceptable, no, maybe I should aim higher and hope that her behaviour is considered well behaved (fingers crossed). It is funny that in most social circles we always try to 'out do' others stories. If your child is good for doing abc then my child one ups it by doing xyz. But it happens the same with bad behaviour, I think in this case we look for the sympathy vote, who has the most embarrassing, naughty tantrum throwing toddler. Of course I (like most parents) feel like my child could win both.

Anyway enjoy the show or at least the website.

A new day

Some days we are going to do alot worse than good. Some days we are going to fail as parents. We are going to end the day feeling why was I given charge of this/these beautiful child/ren when all I do is going to fail them. Sometimes we might punish them before understanding the whole situation or we may not hold them to the behaviour standard that we have set and their behaviour has then got out of control. There is so many things we can do to 'mess up' our precious little ones, we are responsible for such a great yet difficult task in bringing up our children with love, discipline and wisdom and when we know we have failed at the end of one day what can we do?

We have a decision to make.
Do we throw up our hands and say 'I' just can't do this'?
Do we think 'I'm too tired to keep this up, I'll just stop them doing the bad stuff and let them get away with the rest'?
Do we say to ourselves 'I'll just make sure I love them and God will look after the rest'?
Or do we let go of the past (be it a day, or the whole of our lives) and go forth and love our children, discipline our children and teach them all about God and the wisdom He has.
Do we remind ourselves that God was the one who blessed us with these children and He would never give us a challenge that we couldn't handle.

When you have a bad day, when you are feeling down or worst a failure.
Remember tomorrow is a New Day:)

Who doesn't like

I haven't written in a while as I have been getting ready for my "baby's" birthday.
And the one thing I wanted to share was how nice it is to do special things for our children. For me I really wanted to start a new tradition in our family. It was that my husband bring our daughter pink flowers for her birthday. It is something that can be done each year and as she grows up it would be something that would come to mean something more and more. Unfortunately the florist was shut by the time hubby left work but Lord willing it will be something to keep in mind for next year.

I got this idea from a book which talked alot about having family traditions. Some families take a Christmas portrait, others take a bike ride on a Saturday afternoon, others go camping at Easter. It is really something that your children can look back upon and remember these things as special times in their lives. Establishing family traditions can also be establishing our legacy. Something that can be pasted down from children to grandchildren.

I encourage you to think about making traditions for your family. It doesn't have to be done often, maybe just a yearly occurrence. It doesn't matter what age your children are, if they are too young it is something you can tell them that you did when they are older. If they are older it can be a way of re-connecting with them. They may not want to give up their time but maybe it can be a tradition of sending them a text message at the start of the week telling them that you hope they have a great week.

Now is a great time to create traditions and begin new legacies.

Couch Time

I have tried to find a good definition of this online. But I was unhappy with many of the explanations as they were either very against the Ezzos or it was just explaining how wonderful it is but without an explanation.
Here is a simplistic explanation.
The objective of Couch Time is for your child/children to see the important of their parents marriage. It is also an opportunity for parents to spend some quality time together.
The Ezzos mention that couch time is done when the father gets home from work but in honesty this just wouldn't work for us as when Gorgeous Husband gets home from work he is ready for dinner as it is late and not long after that it is time for the girls bed. We figure that getting some couch time on the nights he is early or on the weekends is good because we can only do our best.
Some may wonder why not just have this time once the children have gone to bed but it is important for your children to witness that mum has put aside her work and Dad has put aside his work and that they are going to spend time with each other.
Some regulations that Ezzo puts on couch time is that
1. It is not time to discuss bad things that children have done through the day- children are in earshot and they don't need to think it is the time of day where mum and dad get together to complain about them.
2. Children are meant to be able to be/play by themselves and not interrupt this special time, except in an emergency.


3. Do not discuss topics that is going to cause a great deal of conflict.



The Ezzo put an importance on couch time because they also feel it is important that children do not grow up in a child focused family. Children are a part of the family not the focus of it. Children that grow up in child focused families have trouble coping in the adult world when employers, friends and teachers do not act like they are the 'cleverest boy in the whole wide world'.