Do you know what happens when you yell at a small child in anger? It creates a physical reaction that is similar to if you were to hit or spank them. Angry adult voices are scary for young children, and if it happens often enough, it can lead to behavior problems as well as anxiety and low self-esteem. In this article I’m going to give you the tools you need to learn how to stop yelling at your toddler today!
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How to Stop Yelling at Your Toddler – First Things First
Being a parent can be hard, especially if you find yourself having trouble controlling your emotions. I’m going to help you to understand why you react the way you do. And I’m going to help you learn how to use some effective methods with your toddlers that don’t involve any yelling at all. The first thing I want you to understand, if you are going to learn how to stop yelling at your toddler is that your kids are not to blame at all for your yelling.
Let that sink in for a minute. It’s not their fault that you’re yelling. If you really want to learn about parenting toddlers without yelling, you have to accept this basic fact. As long as you continue to believe that your kids are making you yell because of their actions, the harder it’s going to be for you to stop yelling at them.
You need to take 100% responsibility for the yelling, no matter what your kids do. You do not have to yell at them. And that’s what you’re here to learn, right? So you have to start by accepting this basic fact.
Understanding Parental Triggers
The next thing that I want you to let sink in is that a lot of the things that really trigger you as a parent are things that actually come from your own childhood. You probably don’t remember, but deep in your subconscious, those memories are stored and they cause you to react to things that your children do.
Maybe you were yelled at or punished for doing something similar as a child. Maybe your parents didn’t allow you to do something that your kids are now doing. Those stored memories can really influence your reactions, whether you realize it or not.
How to Stop Yelling at Your Toddler – Managing Expectations
Another thing that you need to accept is that your expectations may not be reasonable. A child is not a mini adult and a toddler’s brain does not work the same way that an adult’s brain does. Far from it. What seems perfectly logical to us may not make any sense to your toddler at all. You may have to repeat the same lessons over and over again before your toddler understands what is expected of them.
And even then, they’re probably still going to do it because their brains are developing. Their reactions and emotional outbursts might seem totally crazy, but most likely they are completely appropriate based on your child’s stage of development.
Stress and Anxiety
Another reason parents tend to yell at their toddlers is because of stress, anxiety and overstimulation. These are all things that are, for the most part, under your control, but you do have to actually deal with them.
Leave extra time for things so that you aren’t rushing around. Try not to pack too much into one day. Go to bed early, even if you’d rather stay up late and binge watch TV. Don’t overschedule yourself if you feel that your anxiety and stress is not under control. Go see a doctor. It may mean that you need some medication to get through a difficult period and give yourself a break if you need it to deal with the overstimulation.
Trust me, it is far better for your children to be sat in front of the TV for a little while while you take a break for yourself than it is for them to be yelled at.
How to Parent Your Child Without Yelling
Okay, so now hopefully you understand a little bit about what causes you to yell at your toddler. Now let’s talk about how to parent them without yelling.
What are some effective discipline techniques that you can use for your toddlers? Probably the most obvious thing that can make toddlers difficult for their parents to manage is if they are hungry or if they have not had enough sleep. It sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how many times your toddler’s seemingly difficult behavior is really just a result of them being hungry or tired. So if your toddler seems to be acting out, make sure to check these two things first.
Plan ahead so that they aren’t missing their meal times or nap times. This can really wreak havoc, and it’s the last thing that you want to do if you’re already struggling with how to stop yelling at your toddler.
Now, if these two basic things are taken care of, but your toddler is still doing things that make you feel like you want to yell, here are some things that you can do. These are some things that really do help with toddler behavior and really all kids. And they don’t involve time outs or any other form of punishment. I teach respectful parenting, which means that we don’t use any of those types of methods. But don’t worry, this isn’t going to result in undisciplined, entitled brats.
If you want to learn more about respectful parenting, you can start with this article here: https://eschooled.com/respectful-parenting-what-it-is-and-how-to-practice-it/
Focusing on Connection
So the first thing I want you to know is that if you want your toddler to cooperate with you, you need to make connection a priority. In fact, besides the basic needs that you need to provide for your children, connection is probably the most important thing that you need to do as a parent.
There are countless ways to connect with your toddler on a daily basis. Read with them. Play with them. Take a walk together. Just be silly. Cuddle on the couch and watch a TV show or a movie together. Eat meals together. It really doesn’t matter as long as you are just making it a priority to connect with your child.
The more you focus on really connecting with your toddler, the less problems that you’re going to have. And if your child is acting out, this is really the first thing to try. Because children often act out when they require more connection.
How to Stop Yelling at Your Toddler – Discipline Methods
Now, if you want your toddler to do something or stop doing something, there are a couple things that you can try.
Number one is try to always get down to their level when you’re talking to them. You know, kneel down on the ground so that you are at eye level with your toddler. This may sound silly, but it really does make a difference. For a toddler, it can be really scary for an adult to be looming over them, giving commands, so just get down on the ground and calmly explain what you want your child to do.
And don’t forget to manage your own expectations. This is a small child that we’re talking about.
Related – Controlling Your Anger as a Parent
Another thing is that parents will often shout orders from wherever they happen to be rather than getting up and going over to their child. I understand that sometimes you have to such as if you’re in the middle of making dinner and your toddler is trying to climb up on the TV cabinet.
But whenever possible, just get up and go over to your child. If they’re doing something, they shouldn’t be. Just calmly stop them. You definitely can’t do this by shouting across the room. Just go over to your child so that you can calmly talk to them face to face.
Setting Empathic Limits
As for getting your toddlers to listen and behave and follow the rules, the best way to do this is by setting limits with empathy. Basically this just means setting the boundaries that you want your toddler to learn to live within and then calmly enforcing them. So, for example, let’s say that you don’t want your toddler to throw things in the house. Set the rule. But remember your expectations even when you’ve explained to them that it’s not allowed.
Your toddler is likely to still throw things in the house. So you have to be vigilant so that you can enforce your limit. If you see your toddler about to throw something or if they’re already throwing things, just go over and stop them. It’s easy with toddlers, right? You can just pick them up and remove them or take the object away.
Remember, we’re not punishing. We’re just calmly enforcing the limit. You don’t need to punish them by putting them in a timeout for throwing because you’ve already asked them to stop ten times and they weren’t listening. You should stop them the first time and then hold that boundary. That’s really all you need to do. No punishment is necessary. And here’s where the empathy part comes in.
More on Setting Limits With Empathy
Chances are they aren’t going to like that limit. They may cry or scream or have a tantrum. Remember, none of this is bad behavior. You really, really need to take that in. Your toddler reacting to your limit is not misbehavior. You need to allow them to have their feelings about it as long as they aren’t being destructive. Your job as the adult is to remain calm and empathize.
You can say, “I know you want to throw that, but the rule that we have is that we don’t throw things in the house.” Explain to them how something might break. Let them know that the next time you go outside to play, they can throw a ball. If they’re really upset, you can just sit there and wait for them to work through their emotions.
You don’t need to make it better or fix it. You set the limit and then you calmly enforce it. But without yelling and without punishing them. I promise, no matter how bad the tantrum may be, if you remain calm, it will eventually pass. And each time you do that, you’re teaching your toddler that you, as the adult, will set and enforce the limits calmly and that they are allowed to disagree.
But it’s not going to change the limit that you set. So you never want to shut them down or tell them to stop crying or anything like that. But that’s for another article.
I really hope this helped you understand more about how to stop yelling at your toddler. The more you practice, the easier it gets. And if your kids have been acting out a lot because of your frequent yelling, over time, you’re going to see improvements in their behavior as they’re exposed to less yelling.
